Ask an Admin, v2.

[mickilennial]

Not currently being discussed.

@Ruby

To clarify, you mean this is not currently being discussed by staff, correct?

[Ruby]

<Snipped quote by Ruby>
To clarify, you mean this is not currently being discussed by staff, correct?

@Inkarnate

Correct.

[j8cob]

Perhaps it would be worth discussing with each other in earnest then, lest we get keep up the annual tradition of "thread about bad things going on with the guild and/or its discord".

[NuttsnBolts]

<Snipped quote by Ruby>
To clarify, you mean this is not currently being discussed by staff, correct?

@Inkarnate

Most, if not all topics are raised to staff in one way or another but we haven't had a need to readdress the rules at this point as they seem to cover most topics, and they have been tweaked slightly over the three years to cover some additional aspects, (eg. The "don't plagiarise" was added in later on).

They probably are due for a reevaluation but that's something that we will have to tackle at a later date when we do have time (oddly enough I myself have been busier at work with this virus than many others) but we do have some new staff members and have had quite a few applications too. My thoughts are when we conclude these we could do a reevaluation and clarity cleanup then.

[Ruby]

@j8cob

Sure. Although for what it's worth I looked back a few years and didn't see such a thread. Very possibly I just missed it.

[Lady Absinthia]

@Ruby Thank you for the response, though I meant in general not just pertaining to bans but moving on to the other part. Could you please address the second half of my previous inquiry as it was overlooked and is, to me, the more important part. To refresh I quote:

... as well as bring the community together because it is desperately needed. Please note that this is what the staff could do, not what the members should do. That is another topic entirely.

[Ruby]

@Ruby Thank you for the response, though I meant in general not just pertaining to bans but moving on to the other part. Could you please address the second half of my previous inquiry as it was overlooked and is, to me, the more important part. To refresh I quote:

<Snipped quote>

@Lady Absinthia

We went years without much outcry or disruption at all.

I wasn't being flippant to Jacob. I looked. There wasn't such a thread, although again I could have missed it.

In fact it's been so quiet it was hard for us to justify adding more than one mod to Mahz, or that it was something quickly needed.

We did try a PW. We have tried various channels in Discord. We've tried four or so different people in Guild news. Tried adding another contest mod. We opened up mod selection to general applications; something I still get heat for. It's not like we don't, or haven't been, trying.

[BurningDaisies]

@Lady Absinthia@j8cob

Let's take a trip down the rabbit hole:

If the site staff are having trouble enforcing rules fairly, what can be changed to fix it?

Do you change the rules themselves?

Let's assume 'yes', and continue.

What can the mods do about it?

Well...The way this typically gets solved in real life is by having some 'common law' that is updated slowly over time based on feedback from the community. Except, the rules we have now were created from basically the same process.

It's not a simple problem to solve nor is it a trivial amount of work to review and update the rules. The US has a whole civil court dedicated to exactly this job.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but that people should realize all this tedious work will be done by volunteers and it will take time to implement.

If anyone knows of a better method, I'm happy to go learn about it.

Who decides how the rules should be interpreted?

Normally that would that would be the site staff.
In addition, since Mahz owns the site, he has to abide by any legal regulations too, but we'll leave aside for now.

More troubling is this:
An individual's interpretation of the rules can be different than the staff's interpretation of the rules, and both of those could be different than the LEGAL interpretation.

tl;dr It's complicated.

Also, even if there is a better way to handle it, what does that even look like?

Things that could help:

• Having the site earn more money to fund new projects and contractors
• Improving the UI for staff so managing the site is less time-consuming

Based on previous statements and my own understanding of the situation, the first could be solved technically and/or commercially, but I'm not sure what Mahz's appetite for that is. The second sounds like a technical challenge, but the staff isn't in a position to address it at the moment.

Edit; @Staff, I do not envy you guys at all

[Lady Absinthia]

@Ruby I am a tad confused considering I never once mentioned Jacob so it is odd to me they were mentioned in a response to me. O.o I am asking in general. Not what has been done, but what in your mind could be. I am not speaking about specific people or responses.

Though, as I can see this is not the right time and a bit too hot of a topic to be able to just be spoken about generally I am taking a step back. Perhaps another time. Well wishes and nope, like another said, do not envy at all. ( Said it once, said it half a dozen times: one could not pay me enough to mod this place lol)

[Ruby]

@Ruby I am a tad confused considering I never once mentioned Jacob so it is odd to me they were mentioned in a response to me. O.o I am asking in general. Not what has been done, but what in your mind could be. I am not speaking about specific people or responses.

Though, as I can see this is not the right time and a bit too hot of a topic to be able to just be spoken about generally I am taking a step back. Perhaps another time. Well wishes and nope, like another said, do not envy at all. ( Said it once, said it half a dozen times: one could not pay me enough to mod this place lol)

@Lady Absinthia

the "bring the community more together" line equaled=Jacob saying there was a yearly cycle of outrage and reaction, in part because I had just gone looking through the forum for it, so, yeah.

I had a conversation earlier tonight where someone said to me, paraphrased, "People don't think site staff listens to them in large part because they don't talk to site staff to begin with."

They asked me about transparency and I told them, again paraphrased, "Literally anyone can DM/PM me. Anyone. I answer everything unless someone is trolling/harassing me. Those may not get answered." So they hit me with that. Someone said on the status bar recently, "Anyone DM me. Wanna chat." I didn't know them at all, you bet I bugged them. Learned a lot and think about them regularly still. I made this thread, anyone can invite me to their Discord server if they want an admin they can ping in their own server...we did the Guild official Discord.

We try. Opening site modship up to anyone who wants to apply, getting voices in the staff rooms not connected to any of us, not nominated by any of us, that's only going to help provide us perspective. We're always trying new ideas on how to bring the community together. Finding ones we can execute can be difficult, but it hasn't kept us from controlling what we can control and trying.

Hope that answer is a bit more of what you were hoping for. If not my apologies. I am officially brain fried for the day.

[Mao Mao]

I don't really want to cause any drama, but is it really a good idea to accept more mods? I'm sure that people on here just want better mods than a few more roaming the site. Also, what are going to do about the mods that haven't been active on here for more than two months?

[mickilennial]

I don't really want to cause any drama, but is it really a good idea to accept more mods? I'm sure that people on here just want better mods than a few more roaming the site. Also, what are going to do about the mods that haven't been active on here for more than two months?

@Mao Mao

AFAIK, they are not accepting new mods. They are filling Byrd Man’s slot since they stepped down.

Additionally, the only staff member who has been publicly inactive is Stark who is fairly active on moderating the facebook group as well as contributing in other capacities. Just because you don’t see someone doing work doesn’t mean work isn’t being done.

[Mao Mao]

Then, shouldn't Stark's position be changed to something like Facebook Group Moderator so there could be another mod position fulfilled? I don't use Facebook anymore so I didn't know that, but they haven't posted over a year and were last seen four months ago on this site. So would it make sense to maximize the position so it doesn't put too much pressure on the mods?

[mickilennial]

Then, shouldn't Stark's position be changed to something like Facebook Group Moderator so there could be another mod position fulfilled? I don't use Facebook anymore so I didn't know that, but they haven't posted over a year and were last seen four months ago on this site. So would it make sense to maximize the position so it doesn't put too much pressure on the mods?

@Mao Mao

Food for Thought -- Just because someone hasn't logged into the site doesn't mean they aren't working in the discord staff room.

At any rate, if we carry on this conversation it's in violation of Ruby's guidelines for this thread so I'm going to cease.

[NuttsnBolts]

@Inkarnate@Mao Mao Just chiming in cause I can answer these a bit.

Currently the only mods are Legend, Poo and Myself with Stark away with her personal life at the moment. Last I spoke to her both her and her partner were quite busy with their workloads, and since they live in New York there's also an added layer of complexity there at the moment. She does look after the FB side of things at the moment, but she is an absolute wealth of knowledge when she has the time to be around.

Byrd's resignation did also open up a position, however I can say that there isn't specifically a set number/limitation of mods that we have to reach. A good example is the number of dedicated Discord Chat mods we have with I believe 6 being the most we had at one time with the current being about 4.

Time will tell and we'll just have to wait and see how it all goes.

[Ruby]

I don't really want to cause any drama, but is it really a good idea to accept more mods? I'm sure that people on here just want better mods than a few more roaming the site. Also, what are going to do about the mods that haven't been active on here for more than two months?

@Mao Mao

I will only add no one seems to know how active our newest mod has been. Which is concerning.

And also: YES WE NEED ANOTHER MOD. WE'RE VOLUNTEERS HOW MUCH TIME AND ENERGY YOU THINK WE HAVE!? I'D LIKE TO RP AGAIN ONE DAY.

ahem. So. Yeah.

[Hank]

Then, shouldn't Stark's position be changed to something like Facebook Group Moderator so there could be another mod position fulfilled?

@Mao Mao

That position doesn't exist. Whenever Mahz is on an extended leave of absence, we cannot change anything structurally about the site -- moderator roles, forums and subforums, systems and features, etc. That's exclusively his domain. Ruby and I have the power to appoint and demote moderators and we exist to have the final say over escalated issues. That's about it. Consider us a maintenance crew. A few people compared us to janitors and that isn't entirely incorrect.

If Mahz had his way, the site would have no rules and the moderators wouldn't have to exist. He prefers for the community to moderate itself. Some people make that impossible, so here we are, out of necessity. But because of that vision, we have no interest in rewriting the rules to be even more specific so that they can be lawyered endlessly. And even if we did, our repeat offenders would still get in trouble just as much as before. They break the rules constantly, no matter how you rewrite them.

I was like that once. Before the Guild was wiped, I was the most infracted person in the Guild's history and the biggest pain in the collective staff's ass for years. But I grew up, realized that I cared more about the site than I cared about being a rebel, and turned my style around. I recognize a lot of my past self in our most persistent troublemakers. Their complaints are worded nicely sometimes and it's dressed up under the guise of 'inconsistent moderation' or 'unclear rules', but it really comes from a place of just wanting to be free to do whatever the hell they want and not liking it when they get banned over it -- and, after years of being a frequently problematic presence, they still expect to be treated like a first-time offender. It's disingeneous and immature and at this point, frankly, tiresome.

That's not to say that there are zero valid points in this thread, or zero honest and sincere people. I understand the request for transparency from some, because our persistent troublemakers make it seem like the issues with moderation are much greater than they are.

But I assure you, the vast majority of the people on this site have no idea about any of it. It (and by this I mean moderation in general) truly, seriously, doesn't affect a lot of people. Most of our users don't need us at all. I've seen people here write that Ruby was unfair to a majority of users, which is a gross exaggeration -- if she's even been unfair to anyone in the first place. Most users are just here to write and chat and have a good time, and they do, and we don't get in the way of that at all. Sometimes people get caught in the crossfire whenever some Guild drama flares up (always owing to the same group of people, mind you) and they try to involve themselves, but that is statistically negligible. If that's happened to you, feel free to talk to me about it.

Whenever our group of troublemakers keeps their noses clean for a while, we can go days or weeks without having to take any staff action. Whenever one of them is banned, they cause an uproar and resort to public outrage. Then things quiet down for a while and rinse and repeat.

"If it smells like shit wherever you go, check under your own shoes."

[Lith]

Whenever our group of troublemakers keeps their noses clean for a while,

@Hank

Rather, there's an organized group of troublemakers here? O_O

Every bit ominous.

Nonetheless, thank you and staff for your hard work.

Obviously many people don't comprehend the struggle to keep internet communities toxicity free.

[Ruby]

Again this is no longer a platform for venting at each other. OP guidelines will be enforced.