Ruby

Ask an Admin, v2.

@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.

Site Mod Selection

Believe it or not, I've been thinking up ways to make this process more transparent for a while.

So today especially, a day when transparency has been a buzz word, I'm ecstatic to announce we have our list of candidates for site mod. As well as the process on how selection will go down. Normally this would be the end of the announcement, more or less, but I wanted this to be different. This will be the second time we've asked for general interest from the Guild community. No one has to nominate you, no moderator has to know who you are.

Last time I asked a few questions of each candidate, I looked at alts, and post histories. I even bugged Mahz about it, and yes, he got back to me about it very quickly. Still it was a slow process and it took longer than I would have liked, and those who applied last time told me that the process was frustrating because they had no idea what was going on behind the scenes.

This time I want that to change that.

We have 16 candidates. That's the most I've ever heard of for a mod position. Site staff has decided it would be best if we kept that list private. I do not mind if you let it be known that you're on the list if you want, but please understand this is not a popularity contest. If you don't want it known you're on that list...more than fair. Personally I probably wouldn't want people knowing if I was on it. I'm shy, though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(If you want to make sure we put you on there and you sent us a DM/PM before the cut off, please reach out to me or any other site staffer. We're happy to triple check.)

The site mods will assist me in reaching out to each candidate and trying to pick their brain a little bit. To that end we've been thinking up some questions to ask these candidates. What a great way to take advantage of making this process more transparent?

Soooo...if you have a question you think would be good to ask a site mod candidate let us have it. Reply here (if this seems 'locked' someone tell me--there's a bug that bit one of my earlier threads and there's an easy fix but it helps to know), or send a site staffer (admin or site mod) the question in PM/DM. Either way. We may not catch it in the status bar, so at your own risk status bar peeps. (Don't use this ask for assistance as a chance to shitpost/troll us or the candidates please.)

You got until Friday night in the US.

After we get the list of questions finalized site mods and I will begin to survey and evaluate the candidates. (This will likely take the longest amount of time out of the whole process.)

Once that is finalized each site mod and admin will get their chance to give their opinions on each candidate and/or push for a few they liked best for the role. After that we'll vote until a majority is reached. Then we will let that person and announce it.

That is the plan, and the process created for it. I will update this thread on when we're on the next phase of the process.

Ask an Admin, v2.

@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.

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

@Inkarnate

Correct.

Ask an Admin, v2.

Will the rules ever be re-written to be more clear, less vague, and less bad?

Attached to that, the enforcement of the existing rules has been almost completely random and this is largely from the way that its up to interpretation. Off the bat Rule 1 gets violated frequently, but maybe it doesn't because people who make jokes flaming each other excessively or use racial epithets go unpunished about as often as they get punished. The problem isn't really big on the site, but the Discord has the same rules and is run by the same people, and then some, and its way more rampant of an issue there. And Rule 2 was an addition that came entirely from staff mistakes and behavior being brought to public attention so the whole thing comes off as a dishonest rule with very obvious benefits for the staff to keep enforced. And even then its enforcement is almost random too. And Rule 4 is the worst one plainly with a gem like "determining if a ban was fair is a waste of staff's time". That's almost the same as saying that putting any thought into banning people in general is a waste of time.

I get that the rules were rewritten before, you're welcome for that by the way, but the job was done poorly and should be considered a failure. When compared to the old rules you can say, at best, that at least there are now more of them and they are slightly less vague. Simply improving over "be Fonz cool" doesn't really mean the rules are good. Or fair. The rules in sections 1, 2, and 4 all need to be updated and improved significantly and the enforcement of all the rules needs to be done more fairly (which improving the rules to be less vague would improve that front on its own). Someone getting punished for making a joke that breaks the rules one day but someone else not getting punished for making a joke that breaks the same rule the next day is kinda sad. It's almost like there is a caste system where specific people can get away with things that others cannot, seemingly based on their relationship with the staff. Giving biased people the power to ban someone for making an "offensive" joke on their own interpretation, and giving them permission to not even consider if its fair or not to make that ban, creates the environment that everyone is complaining about today. It's not a users problem nearly as much as its a staff/authority problem. Trolls, angry people, and disenfranchised people will always be in the userbase but a punitive system can be fixed.

@j8cob

Not currently being discussed.

Ask an Admin, v2.

Before I open this up again:

Read the OP.

I will be enforcing those standards from here on in this thread.

Ask an Admin, v2.

I am usually bent to keep to myself these days but this is getting a touch out of hand. So, I have a question: what do you believe the mods or admins could do to better give transparency to issues 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.

I am asking this of Ruby alone, not other staff nor other members, so I ask both respectfully to keep their personal thoughts or comments out of it as to not add fuel to an already overly zealous fire. Thank you.

@Lady Absinthia

Transparency on what? Bans? The vast majority happen and no one bats an eye. And I'll talk for long periods of time (recently over an hour not even counting today) about bans and moderation. Come talk to us and we're generally pretty open.

These things happen behind the scenes a lot.

We don't want things to descend into public conflict over those bans. It used to be a Guild blood sport. I've considered a place where we post bans in an anonymous fashion but how easy is it to guess who got banned for what? Then we're dealing with someone claiming harassment because we made their ban public. (It's happened.)

I was transparent about the PW thread getting deleted. When asked, on the status bar.

Or claims of public humiliation.

No. We won't as a general rule publicly discuss bans. But if you really want to know...ask. DMs and PMs are open.

Ask an Admin, v2.

I know I missed one or two but that's all the time I have for now.

I'll respond to any I missed later.

Anything you wanna add? PM me.

Ask an Admin, v2.

<Snipped quote by Ruby>

One last question, then.

In what section of the site do you think would be most appropriate for this? Off-topic, support or RPdiscussion?

@Skullwombat

Off Topic.

Ask an Admin, v2.

<Snipped quote by Ruby>

But it isn't, nothing about those posts was bad faith. Having feefees hurt doesn't qualify something for the label of bad faith. I might have trolled you (no memory of it lol, feel free to provide examples) but even if that is the case, that only seems to show the moderation is taking personal grievances into account for how they run the site which is plainly toxic

@Andreyich

@Jerkchicken

Yes I am and yes it does.