151 replies to this topic

[Eddy01741]

I now wonder how many times I myself have been discussed....

Once again, paranoia is getting the best of me.

[Wizard]

It can do only if you let it.

[Ion Cannon!]

WarMenace, on 1 Sep 2008, 1:08, said:

Insomniac!, on 31 Aug 2008, 17:51, said:

The community leader would also keep tabs on what is happening with the community and try to stimulate it. Although I am not sure how. One point nem brought up was the time needed to get an FTP for his mod, maybe this could be another job the community leader could do, to cut back on the time taken for an FTP to be granted.

@WarMenace. We don't want to rule anything, will you please either read what we are writing about properly or not post..

Where in this topic did I say you were going to rule anything? I didn't say that, all I said was that whole "Temporary Leadership" thread really ain't needed if they had only asked the admins about the staff and all, I wasn't talking about any thing "governmental".

What I said had nothing to do with the temporary leadership thread. Will you please either read what I am writing about properly or not post..

Point taken on the trust thing wizard, and I had completely forgotten that FTP needed admin rights. Although ghost mentioned the community leader being able to see the staff forums my perception of the community leader was just that they would communicate with staff and monitor the community / try and kick-start it. This could be achieved without the need to view the staff forum if there really is no member both the members and the moderating team trust.

[Eddy01741]

Why don't we just make this even simpler. If the community leaders were to have good relations with current staffers/mods/admins as well as normal members, and have access to the private parts of the forum, then simply make on eof the more active gold members a community leader, simple enough? Most of them have pretty good relations with the members and the moderating team (well, at least the admins in my view), and they know what goes on behind the scenes already since gold members have access to all parts of the forum.

[E.V.E.]

Quote

and they know what goes on behind the scenes already since gold members have access to all parts of the forum.

Uhm, that is not true.

They only have access to some Mods, but no Gold Member has Access to the Moderating Forums.
- E.V.E.

[Ion Cannon!]

Eddy01741, on 1 Sep 2008, 1:19, said:

Why don't we just make this even simpler. If the community leaders were to have good relations with current staffers/mods/admins as well as normal members, and have access to the private parts of the forum, then simply make on eof the more active gold members a community leader, simple enough? Most of them have pretty good relations with the members and the moderating team (well, at least the admins in my view), and they know what goes on behind the scenes already since gold members have access to all parts of the forum.

Common misconception, I can see exactly the same things you can Eddy. The only way I know anymore than you is by talking to the the moderating team.

Edited by Insomniac!, 01 September 2008 - 00:24.

[Eddy01741]

Oh... so I was wrongly informed/have bad memory (likely the latter), back in the olden days when the first of the "old guard" (as i like to call it) became gold members (Ion cannon adn Deathstrike were the first that I remember), I remember it being said that htey had access to all parts of the forum, but had no moderating power over them.

Well, still, if the gold members have more access than your normal member, and have had experience being part of the moderating team, they are still prime nominees for being community leaders.

Edited by Eddy01741, 01 September 2008 - 00:25.

[RaiDK]

Anyone wanna explain why my 'Everyone is the same person' thread got deleted?

[WarMenace]

RaiDK, on 31 Aug 2008, 19:24, said:

Anyone wanna explain why my 'Everyone is the same person' thread got deleted?

Uh, it's not deleted. .

But back on topic: Gold Members IIRC, has no power over the forums, but they got the title because they contributed something useful to the forums. So I think they are not that much different than any ordinary member.

EDIT: Missed a word.

Edited by WarMenace, 01 September 2008 - 00:28.

[Wizard]

The idea of a community leader is, I feel possible, however, the areas that they have access to will probably not be open for much discussion and with that brings a great many problems.

Perhaps, for the immediate future you can consider this "under discussion"?

[Eddy01741]

WarMenace, on 31 Aug 2008, 20:27, said:

RaiDK, on 31 Aug 2008, 19:24, said:

Anyone wanna explain why my 'Everyone is the same person' thread got deleted?

Uh, it's not deleted. .

But back on topic: Gold Members IIRC, has no power over the forums, but they got the title because they contributed something useful to the forums. So I think they are not that much different than any ordinary member.

EDIT: Missed a word.

Gold members are retired members of the moderating team. Nothing more than that.

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

Eddy01741, on 1 Sep 2008, 1:31, said:

WarMenace, on 31 Aug 2008, 20:27, said:

RaiDK, on 31 Aug 2008, 19:24, said:

Anyone wanna explain why my 'Everyone is the same person' thread got deleted?

Uh, it's not deleted. .

But back on topic: Gold Members IIRC, has no power over the forums, but they got the title because they contributed something useful to the forums. So I think they are not that much different than any ordinary member.

EDIT: Missed a word.

Gold members are retired members of the moderating team. Nothing more than that.

Not all are. Gold members are just people have contributed something (big) to the forums.

Edited by Bob, 01 September 2008 - 00:32.

[Overdose]

Not exactly. Gold members are people who contributed much to the community and it's mods. This also includes service as a moderating team member.

Edit: Bob beat me to it.

Edited by Overdose, 01 September 2008 - 00:33.

[Hobbesy]

I can name the plotters and the person who handed over the log, but I won't. (Anyone who asks will be in a group convo with a mod.)

[Eddy01741]

Huh? To name a few off the top of my head:
Ion Cannon, Moderator
Rayburn, Staffer
Waris, Staffer
Nuker/Nooka, Staffer
Deathstrike, Admin (well,b ack in the day he was called a co-admin with Hunter, but Codecat was just an admin, so it made no sense)
Jordan, Moderator

Anybody else?

EDIT: Since people posted before me, I was replying to Bob. Please direct me to somebody who wasn't in a position of power when turned into a gold member.

Edited by Eddy01741, 01 September 2008 - 00:34.

[Ion Cannon!]

That sounds good to me Wizard.

All gold members were former members of the moderating team apart from Tankmaster and JnEngland, they do server stuff IIRC.

[WarMenace]

Eddy01741, on 31 Aug 2008, 19:31, said:

WarMenace, on 31 Aug 2008, 20:27, said:

RaiDK, on 31 Aug 2008, 19:24, said:

Anyone wanna explain why my 'Everyone is the same person' thread got deleted?

Uh, it's not deleted. .

But back on topic: Gold Members IIRC, has no power over the forums, but they got the title because they contributed something useful to the forums. So I think they are not that much different than any ordinary member.

EDIT: Missed a word.

Gold members are retired members of the moderating team. Nothing more than that.

EDIT: Dang you people type too fast. But Bob is right I think.

Ok, but if a community leader is possible, and does happen, what would they do? I mean will they act as a sub-staff or something like that?

Edited by WarMenace, 01 September 2008 - 00:34.

[Eddy01741]

No, you were right in the end actually....

And the idea of the community leader is to have access to all parts of the forum, and to talk to staff and to the members, bridging the obvious gap between them. They will have no power over the forum, they will simply be... like mediators in a debate.

AHHH, everybody is typing too fast, thanks to Ion for pointing out the non moderating team gold members, but honestly, I don't think i've ever seen them on this forum... ever....

Edited by Eddy01741, 01 September 2008 - 00:36.

[WarMenace]

Eddy01741, on 31 Aug 2008, 19:35, said:

No, you were right in the end actually....

And the idea of the community leader is to have access to all parts of the forum, and to talk to staff and to the members, bridging the obvious gap between them. They will have no power over the forum, they will simply be... like mediators in a debate.

AHHH, everybody is typing too fast, thanks to Ion for pointing out the non moderating team gold members, but honestly, I don't think i've ever seen them on this forum... ever....

Insomniac just posted before you, and he is one. .

So anyway, the community leader is just simply a "peace maker"?

[CommanderJB]

Right folks, time for my two cents. Brace yourselves;
(1) Point of the strike
The strike was intended to demonstrate to members who thought otherwise that yes, the staff was necessary (not all, in fact very few of you may have thought otherwise; but some did, witness topics in the SYD), and that more to the point the staff were in fact doing their jobs well. I think everyone now understands precisely the point of having staff, and more to the point what happens when they do not fulfil their obligations to this forum, and what it looks like in comparison the normal running of E-Studios. Also, the strike was (as far as I understand at any rate, given that it was formulated before my addition to the team) partly an act of frustration; to Ghostrider specifically, there have been copious amounts of staff-bashing - and again I reiterate that I am not painting all members with the same brush here, I am merely stating that it has happened - and the staff naturally wished to react to this in a way that would make entirely clear that we don't appreciate it. Just because staff are by their very positions open to more criticism than members doesn't mean that they automatically deserve more; in the words of the rules, you show us your respect, and we'll show you ours.
(2) Post editing.
I am a little confused here; staff edits to posts leave a message stating who edited it just as member edits do, and no matter what your opinions of the staff, I know for a fact that none of us did this. As I see it, it almost seems like the quoted post may have been edited (which is of course merely an issue of typing over it in the reply box), and the original post edited in response; this is probably a mistaken impression, and feel free to debunk it, but again the staff had no point in doing this as it specifically creates mistrust and barriers, the exact thing we try to avoid.
(3) Moderation requests
During the copious amounts of spam that came pouring out of every section of the forum over the past 48-odd hours, members attacked other members, there was little to no productive discussion, and some members naturally became aggravated at others and sent me at least requests for moderation. These requests went unanswered for two reasons; first, the strike was complete, meaning no moderation of any sort save removal of shock images (in a small sidetrack, I think it says a good deal for everyone that no such content found its way here, and I would like to thank you all for that). Any such efforts to respond to this contact or specifically act on it would have undermined the whole enterprise, the guidelines for the strike were clear on this, and so the option was simply non-existent from the start. However, the other part of my reasoning was this; despite continual trumpets of 'freedom of speech', asking to remove someone's viewpoint which does not agree with yours, accusations and denying them a chance to speak is not consistent with the stated aims of the 'peaceful revolution'.
(4) Moderation failures
No team is perfect. The staff have occasionally failed to respond to the wishes of the community and there is no way around this fact. Also handling of certain situations hasn't always been the way to defuse them. This is entirely natural and to expect a total dearth of any sort of (note from your point of view) less-than-desirable actions from the staff is about as likely as the expectation that you will in the coming week be able to buy a plate of cheese from the moon. Nevertheless, just as much as nothing's ever perfect, by the same token there's always room for improvement, and I plan to take action on several suggestions currently brewing in my mind which I hope will provide an efficient and trust-building point of contact between moderators and members, and a faster way to resolve issues like those which triggered this in the future.
I also have some points about old staff members, but I won't discuss them here.

Finally, I'd like to say this; I'm sorry for leaving the forums to this. I truly am. The strike was, as always, an imperfect solution to an imperfect situation, and while I was willing to respect the decision of the moderating team on its necessity that doesn't mean I have to be any happier about seeing what I saw happen to the forums. I strongly, strongly hope that the membership of this forum, staff included, can separate their issues from one another, recognise exactly what they are, deal with them in turn and through doing so permit trust to again grow on this forum. Don't make yourself completely shut off to anything; listen, respect, and understand.

Edited by CommanderJB, 01 September 2008 - 00:46.

[Eddy01741]

WarMenace, on 31 Aug 2008, 20:38, said:

Eddy01741, on 31 Aug 2008, 19:35, said:

No, you were right in the end actually....

And the idea of the community leader is to have access to all parts of the forum, and to talk to staff and to the members, bridging the obvious gap between them. They will have no power over the forum, they will simply be... like mediators in a debate.

AHHH, everybody is typing too fast, thanks to Ion for pointing out the non moderating team gold members, but honestly, I don't think i've ever seen them on this forum... ever....

Insomniac just posted before you, and he is one. .

So anyway, the community leader is just simply a "peace maker"?

Insomniac=Ion Cannon! (the exclamation mark was part of his name), i've just never seen tankmaster or that other guy on this forum, ever...

Meanwhile, I shall read CommanderJB's wall o text, i hope it is as quality as his posts in the warfare tech discussions.

Edited by Eddy01741, 01 September 2008 - 00:45.

[Wizard]

Eddy01741, on 1 Sep 2008, 1:35, said:

And the idea of the community leader is to have access to all parts of the forum, and to talk to staff and to the members, bridging the obvious gap between them. They will have no power over the forum, they will simply be... like mediators in a debate.

As I said above, there may be problems with this. You'll just have to give it a chance to be discussed.

[Eddy01741]

I can see the problems with giving a community leader access to all parts of the forum, since who knows, they might be more friends with the members than the moderating team and might leak stuff out to the members on warning or what's going on behind the scene, etc. So therefore, in your view most likely, the community leader has to be highly trusted by the moderating team, and unfortunately, I don't know anybody that is highly trusted with the moderating team, and the rest of the community. That said, I still think that a community leader would be beneficial to teh community if he/she is selected well (nominated by the moderating team and the regular members).

Anyways, now my reply to the wall o text from CommanderJB.

1. Yes, I get the point of the strike, we all get it. The problem is, you have proved absolutely nothing with the strike because of the ill timing of it. If the strike happened when there wasn't an ongoing war between members and the moderating team, I would guarantee that most the forum would have 1) not noticed the moderating team was not there at all, and 2) have run rather well without the moderating team.

2 and 3, never had a problem with either one of those, so no comment.

4. The point of the strike was to make attention to those in the moderating team that were incapable of regularly performing their duties with excellence. When one of the mods/staffers/admins is not on regularly enough, and carries out his job insufficiently, he/she should be removed and replaced with a new staffer unless they specifically told the rest of the team as to the reasons why they might be performing under par/not on the forums regularly enough (such as going on vacation, stress from RL, etc.)

[WarMenace]

CommanderJB, on 31 Aug 2008, 19:39, said:

Right folks, time for my two cents. Brace yourselves;
(1) Point of the strike
The strike was intended to demonstrate to members who thought otherwise that yes, the staff was necessary (not all, in fact very few of you may have thought otherwise; but some did, witness topics in the SYD), and that more to the point the staff were in fact doing their jobs well. I think everyone now understands precisely the point of having staff, and more to the point what happens when they do not fulfil their obligations to this forum, and what it looks like in comparison the normal running of E-Studios. Also, the strike was (as far as I understand at any rate, given that it was formulated before my addition to the team) partly an act of frustration; to Ghostrider specifically, there have been copious amounts of staff-bashing - and again I reiterate that I am not painting all members with the same brush here, I am merely stating that it has happened - and the staff naturally wished to react to this in a way that would make entirely clear that we don't appreciate it. Just because staff are by their very positions open to more criticism than members doesn't mean that they automatically deserve more; in the words of the rules, you show us your respect, and we'll show you ours.

I get the point of the strike, and yes I know the staff is in control and we have to respect them, some of the staff are the ones that DOES give you respect (not going to name anybody, these are the ones I respect.) but some are just, BLEGH (The ones I, or even most, can't stand). Still, the ones that I can't stand just pretty said "This is MY job, get over it and shut up", while the good ones are like "I'm sorry that this has to happen, but it's my job, I have to follow it".

See the difference?

[Lizzie]

Quote

However, the other part of my reasoning was this; despite continual trumpets of 'freedom of speech', asking to remove someone's viewpoint which does not agree with yours, accusations and denying them a chance to speak is not consistent with the stated aims of the 'peaceful revolution'.

Antagonizing people isn't part of a peaceful revolution either.