I'll go ahead say now (more for Nutt's benefit so he can see this, but also to share my general opinion) that I think Nutts is a fine staff member. I haven't seen true dirt on him, only him being around others that have done questionable things. And he also sent me an apology himself a few days ago, which I might add, confused the hell out of me because I had no idea this drama was even going on, and he still wanted to make sure he had never done anything to offend me. That shows he has a conscience, and whatever happens I hope he retains his status if he so chooses.
Of course that's not up to me. But I had to say it.
Perhaps worth noting from my side is that I don't fall into the conspiracy theorist side of the people on 'my side' of this argument. I don't believe that Nutts or any other mod for that matter is doing this to twist their mustache and go 'muaha I shut them up' or something. And although I am critical of the moderators I am also thankful that they are .. doing this job..
at times. The one point I have for that is that if you're gonna use 'real life takes precedence therefore I am online once a day for 2 minutes' as an excuse every day then perhaps reconsider your assignment as a moderator because you clearly do not have the time to be a moderator.
And that goes for all moderators, I respect their 'sacrifice' as they're doing this for free.
I suppose that also means that some moderators might see my discord ban as a 'good thing' for the community. I have faith that there are those who tried to rationalize it to themselves, perhaps with the added explanation of whoever banned me. I am also quite sure that the person who banned me did it out of an emotional decision, not out of a rational one.
I have my issues with Nutts. He's not a good moderator in my eyes, but contrary to the others atleast I have seen him trying which is more important to me than any other qualification because it shows he's a moderator because he wants to help RPG. That, as a matter of fact, makes him decent enough.
The same can not be said, in my eyes, of all other mods. There are few, very few mods, that I think are worthy of approaching nowadays and that is pretty much just limited to Sherlock Holmes despite their seeming inactivity (but don't worry, I am certain that Sherlock is reading this; that is just their style).
There was only a brief period of time where I felt like things were changing. But it seems like that was just smoke and mirrors as we have gone back to the same old, same old. Nothing has really changed. In fact, things have probably gotten worse. Everything shows, to me, that our critiques, that we honestly worked hard for, have not been taken seriously.
As with these things, that's an observation - a feeling if you will - that doesn't necessarily reflect the reality and/or the feelings of the other side. But that doesn't mean it's not real.
I suppose that the core of this bit is that I still believe that the moderators are human. They didn't do this because they believed it'd get them insatiable power in RPG. What's the point of that, even. If it was, then I hope they enjoy waving their baton of authority around a forum with 200 users. I'm sure it's a prize to be proud of.
I have returned the the staffing fold for the guild, the RL commitments that were previosuly destroying my free time have freed up somewhat so after some discussions with Hank, I am taking up my old position as a moderator.
Now I have been absent for the last couple of months so I am still catching up on much of what happened after my resignation but if anyone has any direct questions for me, feel free to ask away either here or in a DM. On a side note, I do run notifications for discord on my phone, so if I don't reply in a reasonable amount of time, feel free to drop me a DM on discord and I'll find it much quicker.
I suppose to give my personal view on moderators on the guild; we're basically the janitors and receptionists of the guild. We're here to clean up a mess when it's reported and help out users when they need something. No privileges or benefits really exist.
Was it not explicitly requested by a good few numbers that this perceived 'function description' would be changed? Perhaps not. I must be mistaken.
@Nytem4re
In regards to your concerns, we are a collection of individuals who try and cooperate together to pass a ruling on events. Some staff may want to be more open, others more closed. But if you have a genuine concern/request, bring it to me and I will pass it on to the mod forum. Or bring it to Hank and he will pass it on.
The process instituted when we first established the moderator positions was that we always made mutual decisions unless it was a situation that demanded an immediate response. I am happy to discuss what that kind of situation is if you want.
I have now, what, asked moderators about things some 10 times. Out of those ten times, I have received an answer maybe 2 times. And I have received a helpful answer only once when I reported an underage user for writing smut/lying about her age to get her banned once and for all.
Sorry, but if you think that bringing it to the mods still instills faith in the moderators I think you are gravely mistaken, and it would serve you well to reconsider that position.
Odin/Buddha: (Discord Only)
Let it be said that Odin is a very passionate member of the forum. He is a man who will fight for justice, someone who will stand their ground against those who abuse power, but his latest actions in Discord led to a ban from the chat. While he did raise a concern about a certain thread the delivery of his concern actively baited another user, mocked the moderators with a passive aggressive tone, and voiced an unreasonable expectation of the staff to address a question that even he himself could have addressed. We are a community and instead of reinforcing that view he took it as an opportunity to attack several others.
For someone/a group that hammers on 'CONTEXT IS KEY' you certainly are a master at leaving out context. I'm past the praise of 'Odin will do what he believes in' because it's worthless at this point seeing as I've lost my faith in RPG.
Perhaps important to note: the reason I didn't answer the question myself was because I saw the comment a day (maybe two) late because I was on vacation in the United States. I am terribly,
terribly sorry, overlord Nutts and Bolts, for not fulfilling my duty to the crown of Emperor Mahz and his cronies in educating this poor sod on the matters of RP. I should've busted out my phone on slow wi-fi, written up a detailed paragraph or 10 about the finer details of roleplay, and then linked him a hundred guides for the glory of the empire of RPGia.
Fuck off.
If you truly cared about the context you'd also know I wrote about 3 previous comments prior to the last one that were not quite as passive aggressive and more so a critique on the moderators, but those got deleted for some reason as there was clearly a moderator who found the comment 'Gee, I think the moderators could've/should've answered that question' a bit too aggressive for him or herself (we all know who it was :)) and decided they would not tolerate such wrong-think on the server ANY longer.
Perhaps it's the idea that my comments with genuine critique are being ignored in DM's and deleted in public that makes me annoyed with the moderators incompetence.
I think the mod team however fares easier believing that I am simply some loser that enjoys spending his time online on a fucking writing forum coming up with new ways to 'improve' the site just to annoy the moderators. Yes, that's more logical. I have that much time available between trying to become a US citizen, internship with the military and school. Every day I load up my computer and go 'I can spend time preparing REAL TANGIBLE THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT, or I can go make fun of moderators on some website.' It's easier to discredit and therefore seems to me that it has been the preferred choice.
And frankly I have gotten tired of being put away as some retard that is just trolling every time I make a critique or suggestion. Even now, I'm being told that I should have gone out of my way to help this user during my vacation with only my phone, in a channel that was created for the explicit purpose of asking moderators for help. Why? Because it's assumed I was simply trying to start shit. Have it your way, I guess I was simply trying to start shit after all.
From what I can see there is no storage centre of screenshots for anything to do with this beyond the publicly available evidence chest, though maybe I just haven't delved deep enough into the lair of evil.
My position on screenshots for the record is that if they demonstrate an intent to break the rules of the site, then yes they should be used as a source of evidence to justify a warning or ban. Therefore I suppose if you felt the screenshot of a private conversation constituted some sort of abuse of power it would be understandable why you did it but don't be surprised if the person involved in the discussion is less than receptive to having private conversations screenshotted.
If that view makes me a hypocrite then you have no idea the meaning of the word.
I feel like there was never an instance of rules being broken on either side, nor an intent. What was discussed in my chat (I have never even seen the screenshots because Inkarnate never released them and I am sure he realizes that even if he did I and the others would stand by our words) was not against the rules because we merely discussed our opinions on the moderatorship of RPG and RPG as a whole.
The actions of lone people in that (for example, I saw Smiley at some point openly insult Ruby in the old GCS, for which I told him that was a bad thing and a bad idea) should also not really reflect what was said here.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the people at the center of this group have been banned now, i.e. me, j8 and Nyt. I leave out Grím because she operated on her own and never really partook in
our discussion beyond eluding on some information of how Ruby made some inappropriate comments to her in private during her previous time as a moderator, and mimicking what was already said. But she is a young child so I am not sure what to expect otherwise and if anything she's shown more reliable and mature than her peers in age on this site, including Carla and Velvela, who both should've been banned long ago in my opinion (excusing that me and Nutts finally managed to get Velvela banned).
Similarly I don't really take offense at what Inkarnate did and if anything expected it. News of it reached me quickly (the day after as I was sleeping at the time) and there was no real response except for me reminding everyone in the chat that the chat is open, and publicly available to everyone at all times, including people who you might not want reading your comments.
I was met with a firm answer that they didn't care and that they weren't bothered by what Inkarnate did. Again, let that serve as an affirmation that all of us, including Nyt and J8, stand by what they said.
What I personally found somewhat appalling in the behavior in the case you're talking about was the way it happened. That has little to do with the content of the screenshots more over than the fact that Inkarnate was just berating people for backstabbing him just a week ago in private to someone else. If he truly considered us his friends despite our differing opinions, he would've disagreed with us and let us know he'd be taking up concerns with the admin (if even that). Instead, he said nothing and went to the admin with a message where he indirectly asked for something to happen to us. Whether that was his intent or not I don't know. But hypocrisy is something I don't really like.
I am not saying that to paint Inkarnate in a bad light because despite his flaws I think he's one of the more capable opponents in this entire debate, even if I think he's wrong on many occasions. Atleast he shows that he wants to do more than just yell at us that we're being babies and that we're committing wrongthink and that we are merely trolls. I was saying it to allude why people are 'upset' with him that he took screenshots (nobody is upset but that's the best word).
Heh. That’s funny given you just likened me to Vidkun Quisling, who supported the Nazi’s. This is how you want to talk to people – likening the moderators to actual fascists who exterminated several members of my family. 
Really?
Why? Why would you ever bring this up in an online argument about online things? Nevermind what I said about you earlier. This was stupid. It has no place here, and it severely damaged the credibility of any arguments you have made in the process of this argument. How can you expect me or anyone else to take you seriously when this is your fallback argument.
<Snipped quote by TheTwistedOne>
I can agree with this. Ultimately, all I want out of all of this is a damned ceasefire and people to just stop. For everyone including myself to stop being involved in this mess and move on. Things to stabilize and be left alone and we all go back to writing collaborative prose.
We can stop when people stop being banned over silly shit. Lol.
'Boo-hoo he said a meanie thing, I'm not gonna approach him in private, I'm just gonna delete his comments and then cry when he criticizes me again'.
Please. You know better.
I think we are all going to go in circles and agree to disagree.
We should all admit our wrongs, and both sides have wrongs because neither is completely innocent. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Swallow your egos, get over yourselves, apologize, and let's make guild enjoyable for everyone.
I was never informed of what I did wrong and I can assure you if there are any faults on my side I stand behind them whole heartedly. The best you'll get is 'I might've been better off doing that differently' but I'll never apologize. Not when I've had to prove for every inch of this way that I'm not just some troll, lmao. That's not gonna happen now or ever.
How is it not possible that this situation, as complex as it may be, can't have a different conclusion than the “opposition” being right? Most have admitted that this is kind of a two to tango escalation.
It takes two to tango, but it's easier to excuse a student for stepping on your toes than to excuse the master dancer who is teaching the class for spinning you around headfirst into a lamp and giving you and your two friends a concussion.
Errors were made on both sides, and I chastised those on 'my' side of this argument for it when I saw it. I even told Grím that what she did was dumb.
But I think the moderators should be held to a higher standard. After all they're the paragons of virtue. Or they're not, in which case they have no authority. :)
<Snipped quote by Kangaroo>
I think those discussions should also be had between the staff and the community. Plainly speaking, it would be disadvantageous for the community to allow the staff to come up with "fixes" to their issues by themselves, because it is in the administration's best interest to let this blow over, to paint everything as a non-issue, and to not have to really change anything. There have been a number of ideas listed here as to how the administration can satiate the needs of the community (I'm not just talking about people perturbed about getting banned or that the staff talked smack about them, but rather about how, moving forward, administrating the site should occur) and I think that the discussion about what can/should be done should take place publicly, to allow for the kind of accountability and transparency people have been asking for.
It is seemingly more and more evident that the replies of staff have been less and less in response to the actual subject of the thread and more about policing the tone/rhetoric of the replies. While I'm happy that the moderators are here to make sure everyone follows the rules, I'd be happier if they focused on the real topic of this discussion: fixing the fundamental problems in how the staff operates.
Haven't we had that discussion thread some months ago? Might be my mistaken eye but some thread like
this would be what you want, right?
Wondrous. We can repeat that process and see nothing come off it once more.
I look forwards to the results.
@RWBY Spectre Last I heard the reason we haven't poked Mahz is because he's sick. The extent of this sickness I do not know but because he was last seen in Mexico I can only assume he has a really bad case of the shits and is AWOL for the duration of it.
That, or it's more serious sickness in which case his absence is to be respected.
But something tells me that he is simply AWOL again. Time will tell.
After reading through this, and other issues that have come over the years, I have placed a suggestion in Mahz's Dev Journal to implement a 3rd party Peer Review Council for Bans/Staff. I believe it would give members of the forum better peace of mind and the staff someone to be held officially accountable to.
Given the time this would take to implement officially I'd rather not. The idea is good but Mahz' work-speed and choice of working articles means that we'd be waiting for months. I'd rather see a more functional and working welcoming party than a message of a new introduction thread being posted in the discord that everyone then merrily ignores.
Or perhaps a better set of bbcodes or even a new writing tool.
Everything on the last page (page nine) is just unworthy of replying too. Respect that Hank is feeling unwell. There are five other mods to answer your questions and critiques,
I expect you will all make use of them. If they do not reply here, then DM them. That's what they requested.
I'd do the same but I'm permabanned on discord because of hurt feelings, so I suppose I'll just instruct my cell of 'guild terrorists' to do it for me.
If I ever return to this website that is.
2x Laugh
