my issue is that there're lots of people who want change, yet at the same time, people are so afraid of it that they get their pants in a bunch over even hearing the word "change". it's a mindset we really need to tackle before any change can actually be made.

Is it 2014 again somehow or have we literally come full circle again?

@Sherlock Holmes I suppose that I understand the pro's and con's of laying low. It's certainly more preferable and inspires (haha, this sounds dumb, but it's true) a sense of awe and seriousness when you do appear to make your presence known. Not that that works on everyone, but for newer members or members that treat this forum very seriously, it might. But I suppose that there also needs to be a trade off. You can't have a team full of moderators that are low key, busy or inactive, and then maintain that and expect it to work. You guys made a right step with Mag Lev I think. But you need a few more Mag Lev's in terms of activity. And I also feel like you need someone that is more willing to take a hardline and put his foot down every once in a while. But I can't be too sure. To be honest, you guys have become kind of a meme in terms of how much we can depend on you, and that's not really in the positive way. I'm sure you would like to turn that around and become known for dependability.

Your explanation to the capacity of what moderators can do explains a lot, I think. It isn't an excuse for why most moderators are so inactive, but it excuses why nothing ever seems to change on this website. But it seems that like before it leads me back to the same point. Why wasn't this communicated to us properly? It seems like if we were made more aware of these type of limitations, it'd have prevented a lot of headache. Failure to communicate is still failure.

It also begins to explain perhaps why the community is failing. Changes cannot be made without Mahz, who isn't here. But these changes are required to fix, fundamentally, the guild. I take it you agree with me on that, at least.

I guess your priorities make sense, to me, somewhat. But I have to say I don't like how you guys characterize yourself as janitors. This removes the burden of interaction with the community and as a result alienates you from us (even more than you already have). Whether or not interaction and engaging the community is part of your 'job description' seems irrelevant to me. You are a moderator not because you get paid, you are a moderator because (I presume) you enjoy the community and/or have connections to it somehow. To me that means you also need to take that extra step of being and remaining a part of the community. And that doesn't mean every moderator needs to be an active engaging member, but I'd say it at least means that the staff consists of some people that are actually involved in the community and are aware of whatever is happening inside the community. Again, ivory tower. Previous answers by other mods have only reinforced the idea to me that there is an ivory tower.

Disclosing what you guys do or not isn't really something I care about. I'm not looking for a message every time you move a thread or ban someone. But a statement regarding what you just described as to moderator priorities is definitely something I'd consider worthwhile mentioning.

But in the end all of that still comes down to Mahz' absence being kind of a stick in the wheel. And that sucks because it's an issue that I feel could be easily alleviated had he taken the precaution to foresee this situation and anticipate it and share some power with someone else (you, for example) that made running the guild easier while he was absent. At the moment RPG sounds like a monarchy without a monarch.

Is there any communication at all with Mahz? I know I saw him in the discord once, and Hank mentioned he had to check his skype, and mahz mentioned that he didn't use skype anymore (something like that). Seems to indicate that there's not a whole lot if any contact with Mahz. Seems.. really inefficient and stupid.

<Snipped quote by Buddha>

UGH

I won't go into it here because this isn't the thread for it but...

UGHHHH that bothers me.

Anyway I've said my piece I'll keep an eye on things if I have anything to add.

I'm the wrong one to bark at because I'd be perfectly fine with mature adult content in public alá bluemoonRP. The implications are that this would remove ads, and I am not really a fan of that system anyway because it ties us down a lot in terms of content in my experience.

How about the thought of donations? I heard that someone said that they did not work the first time around. Why was that? And are you guys (the mods) will be thinking about reviving donations. Because, I am willing to donate money every month if it means saving this site.

Why?

...As in why should you participate in the community at large? I don't think I should have to explain why that would at least be preferred...since people already brought it up. But for starters it would solve your "why does no one PM me?" problem.

I think I just have a clear divide of people explaining "mods that want to do there job" = bad. So therefore the opposite is better thing, completely do not understand why that's a thing...

No all moderators don't have to babysit...but I think a lot of this stuff is being taken personally. And hopefully no one is trying to be personal.

But hell here's a legit suggestion that could solve nearly 99% of problems...

Create a sub-forum for literally ONE of the forum's. Off topic/spam. It's where 99% percent of problems take place and hell seemingly where the spam-bots most often go to. If you don't want any of the responsibility to look through things, then give someone else whose active that specific job to do so...

<Snipped quote by Grimhildr>
Is it 2014 again somehow or have we literally come full circle again?

yes, i get the point, a similar thread was made in the past.

@Sherlock Holmes I suppose that I understand the pro's and con's of laying low. It's certainly more preferable and inspires (haha, this sounds dumb, but it's true) a sense of awe and seriousness when you do appear to make your presence known. Not that that works on everyone, but for newer members or members that treat this forum very seriously, it might. But I suppose that there also needs to be a trade off. You can't have a team full of moderators that are low key, busy or inactive, and then maintain that and expect it to work. You guys made a right step with Mag Lev I think. But you need a few more Mag Lev's in terms of activity. And I also feel like you need someone that is more willing to take a hardline and put his foot down every once in a while. But I can't be too sure. To be honest, you guys have become kind of a meme in terms of how much we can depend on you, and that's not really in the positive way. I'm sure you would like to turn that around and become known for dependability.

Your explanation to the capacity of what moderators can do explains a lot, I think. It isn't an excuse for why most moderators are so inactive, but it excuses why nothing ever seems to change on this website. But it seems that like before it leads me back to the same point. Why wasn't this communicated to us properly? It seems like if we were made more aware of these type of limitations, it'd have prevented a lot of headache. Failure to communicate is still failure.

It also begins to explain perhaps why the community is failing. Changes cannot be made without Mahz, who isn't here. But these changes are required to fix, fundamentally, the guild. I take it you agree with me on that, at least.

I guess your priorities make sense, to me, somewhat. But I have to say I don't like how you guys characterize yourself as janitors. This removes the burden of interaction with the community and as a result alienates you from us (even more than you already have). Whether or not interaction and engaging the community is part of your 'job description' seems irrelevant to me. You are a moderator not because you get paid, you are a moderator because (I presume) you enjoy the community and/or have connections to it somehow. To me that means you also need to take that extra step of being and remaining a part of the community. And that doesn't mean every moderator needs to be an active engaging member, but I'd say it at least means that the staff consists of some people that are actually involved in the community and are aware of whatever is happening inside the community. Again, ivory tower. Previous answers by other mods have only reinforced the idea to me that there is an ivory tower.

Disclosing what you guys do or not isn't really something I care about. I'm not looking for a message every time you move a thread or ban someone. But a statement regarding what you just described as to moderator priorities is definitely something I'd consider worthwhile mentioning.

But in the end all of that still comes down to Mahz' absence being kind of a stick in the wheel. And that sucks because it's an issue that I feel could be easily alleviated had he taken the precaution to foresee this situation and anticipate it and share some power with someone else (you, for example) that made running the guild easier while he was absent. At the moment RPG sounds like a monarchy without a monarch.

Is there any communication at all with Mahz? I know I saw him in the discord once, and Hank mentioned he had to check his skype, and mahz mentioned that he didn't use skype anymore (something like that). Seems to indicate that there's not a whole lot if any contact with Mahz. Seems.. really inefficient and stupid.

I can agree with the majority of this. (More or less.)

I have Mahz as a Facebook friend, but he doesn't seem to be on there often either. That's really my only link. Usually, Hank is the one that seems to be able to get ahold of Mahz with any regularity. If I need Mahz, I typically go through Hank. (#truestory)

@Sherlock Holmes then that leaves us at an impasse here. I'll pretend I believe that when Mahz returns he can at least use this thread as a measure of what is important to the community perhaps. But the realist in me knows that this thread will be left to gather dust and never read by Mahz if we abandon it now. So I'd rather continue to discuss grievances even if we know ahead of time that they can't be fixed now. Or ever.

<Snipped quote by Rica>

I'm the wrong one to bark at because I'd be perfectly fine with mature adult content in public alá bluemoonRP. The implications are that this would remove ads, and I am not really a fan of that system anyway because it ties us down a lot in terms of content in my experience.

Ahhh what bothers me is more on the social end, rather than site rules. Hence why "not the thread for it" . :P

This is not the time or place for a long rant on the implications of all that stuff and I'm respecting the thread's subject matter.

<Snipped quote by SleepingSilence>

Well this was from the 'Explain the appeal of' Thread when the discussion was firmly on hip hop until you said:

<Snipped quote by SleepingSilence>

Pretty off topic if you ask me, so how much money were you betting again? xD

can you not bring up topics from another thread in a more serious, focused thread like this? thanks.

@Sherlock Holmes then that leaves us at an impasse here. I'll pretend I believe that when Mahz returns he can at least use this thread as a measure of what is important to the community perhaps. But the realist in me knows that this thread will be left to gather dust and never read by Mahz if we abandon it now. So I'd rather continue to discuss grievances even if we know ahead of time that they can't be fixed now. Or ever.

By all means continue discussing. I certainly don't mind active discussions, so long as they don't become shitstorms. (Because then I have to close the thread and that's no fun for anyone.)

Carry on.

Tough, I guess. I've seen the Moderators say, "There's no delay in Moderator response to reported issues that we've seen." And then I've seen nothing significant to argue to the opposite of that. Some people say things aren't getting reported? Not sure how that weight falls on staff. It's not as if they do anything to actively discourage reporting.

You're asking for proof? I mean...I have it... If you really want a PM sent your way? <.<

If nobody wants to take the blame for anything wrong going on...(and granted, it's not anyONE person's fault.) But admit that there's problems...and a lot of the discussion is about how Mahz essentially NEEDS to come back for anything to be solved. I don't know how "and he isn't responsible for literally anything either." I don't know how both statements can be true at the same time...

Not being responded to...and being told "we don't even have enough evidence to warn the person to stop or you will get banned." with harassment...I'm sorry, but that's pretty clear discouragement. Especially when you see who actually gets the ban hammer and it is strangely similar to what you reported.

@Buddha Perhaps then you should make a request of the mods since they are here and active to move this topic to the Suggestions forum and pin it. As well as linking the posts where people are spatting with each other to be deleted from the thread. People need to report more, so let us start here with getting the bickering posts out the topic and this moved to a place and pinned where it will be more likely seen and less likely forgotten in the long run.

@Buddha Perhaps then you should make a request of the mods since they are here and active to move this topic to the Suggestions forum and pin it. As well as linking the posts where people are spatting with each other to be deleted from the thread. People need to report more, so let us start here with getting the bickering posts out the topic and this moved to a place and pinned where it will be more likely seen and less likely forgotten in the long run.

I'll move the topic. It seems like a logical suggestion.

And, as always, please do report problems. When in doubt, do so directly to me -- I'll happily deal with whatever needs doing.

How about the thought of donations? I heard that someone said that they did not work the first time around. Why was that? And are you guys (the mods) will be thinking about reviving donations. Because, I am willing to donate money every month if it means saving this site.

Mahz has explicitly said no on repeated occasions, it is a moot point.

@Buddha Perhaps then you should make a request of the mods since they are here and active to move this topic to the Suggestions forum and pin it. As well as linking the posts where people are spatting with each other to be deleted from the thread. People need to report more, so let us start here with getting the bickering posts out the topic and this moved to a place and pinned where it will be more likely seen and less likely forgotten in the long run.

From what I've heard, Mods can't delete posts...I wouldn't care if things "seen as bickering" on my end would be cleared for the overall benefit of users. (though I again argue that I was explaining the rules.)

But the fact single posts can't be deleted, is another problem that makes it a lot harder for moderators to do their "clean up" that is there only job...Which once again, goes back to why and who could give them the power to do that? And that itself being crucial for progress...

<Snipped quote by Lady Amalthea>

I'll move the topic. It seems like a logical suggestion.

And, as always, please do report problems. When in doubt, do so directly to me -- I'll happily deal with whatever needs doing.

The problem with this is that suggestions/problems never gets read. I specifically posted it where I posted it so it'd get read. But I suppose we have the traction we need.

From what I've heard, Mods can't delete posts...

you need to get a better informant. there're post deletions requested every day.

you need to get a better informant. there're post deletions requested every day.

Actually, Sleeping Silence is correct. Mods can only hide posts so they can only be seen by management staff, they do not have the power to delete posts. This has been confirmed by staff.