Member
Sky Blue,
Soldat Elf,
Kaithe Dame,
Sillyman59,
Foxy13,
McNephelim,
Shin Ghost Note,
LimeTime966,
BunniesOfDoom,
Dark Cloud
I mean it might offer some solutions to the functional problems of RPG, like the guild shitting itself, but I don't think it offers any solution to the overall problems we face on RPG. Welp. I guess I should take learning Javascript more seriously now. Rip. For those that don't know, if you want to read the guild's source code, it is on github. Here you go. Not sure if this will be super helpful because Mahz has to approve pulls, but yeah. I plan on going back through and rereading this while I practice code.
Hello....im new here.
1) Here's a link to it: (link)
@Buddha Yeah, I wish a lot of guides could get pinned and the tutorial/guide section get moved to the top of the forum. I started here on another account (Afina) - and when I came here I didn't even notice that section until I was here 3 months. When I finally found it, it answered a lot of questions I had to pm people about. (And somethings I didn't even know.)
I still go back there about once a week to look it over just to see what is new. (Have your topic about colors and symbols bookmarked. Seriously don't know what I would do without it. It is used constantly when I am coding my CS/Relation Sheets)
Actually, think I need to update my signature. I keep the etiquette guide there but maybe it is time for an update and add in Gming 101, Gming 201, and the Beginners Guide To Rp. (Which the last one really need some work) - But will have to wait until I finish Gming 301.
The only thing I have to say right now is that I agree with the point that incidents that break the Guild's rules (as simple as they are) should definitely be reported to the moderators. We are active but we often don't see what isn't brought to our attention as the staff is currently comprised of people who work full-time.
We trust the userbase to self-police most of the time. We're janitors, not police officers. That said, what can't be solved by reprimanding each other and reminding offenders of what the rules are should be PM'd to (one of) us. As it stands, this very rarely happens. I assume this means that my help is practically never needed. If that is not the case, the responsibility lies with the users to involve one of us to render judgement.
Mahz's continued absence is a result of his current workload and living situation in Mexico. There is nothing that can be done about that.
@Buddha As far as the Gm thing goes, I wrote a guide to Gming that includes a "keep your RP going" section on it. Gming 101 - Be more than happy to edit the original post to add more to that if anyone has input.
I am far from a point where I think things on this site are ok. The community is on life support (in a lot of respects) and the tools with which we have to moderate by are rudimentary compared to what we used to have. (Pre Guildfall.) At the moment, moderators have very little functional power, aside from banning and warning. That is pretty much all we are capable of, aside from hiding threads or moving them on occasion. We don't have the tools to research users like we once had, we don't have the ability to do temporary bans (unless we physically keep a list of time frames and physically ban/unban people on a case by case basis), we cannot do name changes or any other under the hood changes that most moderators on forums are able to do. People like to point out that the site needs some updates and for things to get finished -- the moderator tool kit is no different.
We'd all like for Mahz to be more active, but the reality is that he is a busy guy and we are not necessarily at the top of his list priority-wise. This is not to admonish him, this is simply a fact. I appreciate all that he has put together on this site and respect the fact that he pays for everything from his pocket out of the goodness of his heart, but I think we can all agree that we'd be blind if we ignored the fact that improvements/updates on the site need to be made. That all said, these are things that the moderators have discussed at length in our own forum -- I know I've personally said that I would like someone to be appointed as an admin to help Mahz and be more accessible on a regular basis. (Even though Contra Fates was spotty in her availability at times, she was at least accessible.) We've also discussed bringing on more moderators, but unless Mahz pops in, this is not within the moderator's toolbox and he would have to make the changes.
(We can discuss things all we want, ultimately the discussion does little unless we can get Mahz on board for some changes. It's the same in these regular threads as it is in the moderator forum -- we only have so much power.)
Priority issues for the moderators are getting more help -- both in a sense of potentially expanding the staff, as well as getting the moderator toolkit up to scratch. If Mahz can't be around, then he needs to share the abilities to make changes by appointing another admin or giving the moderators more power to make changes in his absence. As far as working as a moderator team, we seem to work fairly well together as far as communicating behind the scenes goes -- when there is a problem, it gets handled. Hank is right, however, when he says we're mostly 'janitors'. We sweep up after everyone, sorting out disagreements and whatnot, moving threads, and disposing of the spambots when applicable. Really, that's pretty much our lot day in and day out. It's not fun or glamorous, but a lot of stuff that gets done behind the scenes that regular users don't really see.
Could we be more engaging as moderators? I know I probably could, personally. While it's my preference to lay low, I can understand how that might create a bit of a detached feeling on my part from the regular community members. With the demise of Spam, which was my regular haunt (aside from my RP's), I don't post much outside of the moderator forum these days. I am around the site, but I don't tend to leave much of a trail outside of my moderating duties. I'm far from a perfect example of a moderator in terms of being sociable -- I do my duty and don't do much to grow the community these days. I could definitely work on that. (Part of it's available free time, part of it is a bit of apathy on my part because the community is a shadow of what it once was -- the first part is understandable, the latter part has no excuse.)
As far as appointing new moderators, I don't know that I have a way of improving the system devised, since we don't really appoint them anyhow. Really, it's always just been taking a community temperature and seeing who stands out based on recommendations. It's not a perfect system.
TL;DR -- I'm not as social as I could be, but I do keep up on my moderator duties. Our community needs some attention, both through site updates and community-building activities. We need more staff and the staff that we do have needs more power, so that we can do things in Mahz's absence.
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 think people, myself included, are afraid to take concrete steps toward solving this problem because the moment we do, Mahz and the mods will come back just long enough to put us in our place and remind us of who's boss. Then they'll fuck off again, having impeded our progress toward self-government but then refused to replace our system with their own. Some of us may be banned in the process, too, another large risk in taking any strong actions toward fixing this site."
Seems to me like the first course is figuring out a fallback plan in the event this site isn't viable to sustain by Mahz anymore.
All of this is pointless if we're really that vulnerable.
I would love to see the 18+ and non-18+ separated as well. It would make it easier to have visibility for the non-romance 1x1s, and it would basically be a clear indicator when one entered the 18+ section of "Here be dragons." This is something I feel mods could do without needing coding or tags, but it would be annoying to move all the IntChecks there.
Though this is a new account, I've been on this website for a long time and I've reported several things to mods. Any response that I've gotten takes at least a week, and it's always been "Sorry, doesn't infringe on any of the rules, can't do anything about it." Even if people are being extremely rude and toxic, or even outright harassing others.
[...]
So as a community, we can declare that everyone should be nicer, the community needs to be more open, we need to stop being so negative and hard on the newbies, but realistically that's not going to happen unless there are consequences for people's actions. We can't magically make people nicer or more polite.
Has anyone proposed a separate "Status Bar" for moderators to post in? Just so we know they're all alive. It'd be great to pump out updates and notify people should there be anything happening, whether bug wise or an in general announcement.
Kinda like a 'Sticky' for Statuses.
See, I agree and disagree with this sentiment [of moderator applications being an indicator of bad candidates] at the same time. I’ve actively been on message boards for around eighteen years, so I can attest to certain perspectives around moderation recruitment as I’ve not only been part of that management but also an active witness to several forms of it. People who “want” to be promoted to moderation staff fall into two camps: the first one is to help the site and expand the administration in a cohesive manner, and the other is the one we’ve heard before [with the stories of Guru and others] in that they do it to seek power and to instruct their will on others. If you presume that all people who admit interest or send offers of help are the latter, then you likely miss out on committed and active people who do care about the website.
And if you are looking for the “right fit”, that probably limits your recruitment policies.
Personally, I would suggest looking at RPG’s contemporaries like Iwaku Roleplay and Roleplay Adventures whom actually have moderator application forms that are submitted privately. A system that is very efficient for what they do. Of course, this would require Mahz to be available to give you the freedom to utilize this system as it currently stands you cannot do any changes until he is. But that’s a topic for another matter.
