saveyourselves | MOD ANNOUNCEMENT

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MOD ANNOUNCEMENT

As many of you are aware, there has been a recent incident involving ourselves and a few players. We wish to address this matter here.

Firstly, we apologize not only for our delay in speaking on this, but for our own behavior during this. We do take fault for having been too inflexible on the matter which started everything. All of us are to blame for this inflexibility and we all take responsibility for it; not just one mod is fully to blame for anything which happened. The plot the player desired should not have been dealt with in the way that it was. Our reasoning had been that we had not seen evidence that the plot had been set in stone, we had not been given reason why change was necessary to reconcile the plots, and that the details behind this plot/what was needed to occur to bring it to fruition were not brought to us. We offered one compromise, it was not taken, and we should have been more flexible about offering further compromises. We are, again, sorry for that inflexibility on our end.

Secondly, to prevent any risk of this sort of situation ever happening again, we are discussing a frankly overdue new system of accounting for, organizing, and simplifying coordination between planned plots, both meta and player. Details on it will be coming soon.

And thirdly, the mod with the most concerns voiced about her has been issued a warning, and will be taking far less of a stance involving plot-related issues for the time being. We will monitor her behavior to ensure a repeat of this kind of situation does not occur again and, should it, she will be dealt with. In line with those concerns, while she will still be involved in plotting and whatever issues may come to us, the other mods will have far greater a say, and will be considered the figures of authority where directly addressing player concerns and needs is concerned.

However, what we stand firm about is that ganging up on a person while refusing their own comfort is not permissible. The mod in question had become extremely uncomfortable having so many people, including one not in the game, on her all at once while she was not feeling well. This was the reason warnings were issued. We do, however, concede to having been too impulsive in issuing warnings to all involved, and once more, we do apologize to the parties who had been warned without having acted severely enough to warrant a warning. All but one of the warnings has been lifted.

Finally, not all the mods are experienced mods, and even the more experienced mods will acknowledge they can always use some help. So please, we ask that if any of you have any suggestions on how we might improve to come and tell us.

Thank you and, once again, we all apologize for our respective parts in this situation.

Comments to this post are enabled. At request, they have been unscreened. If you have left a screened comment and would like it unscreened, please indicate so! As per the suggestion of Guin, if you would prefer to leave us a screened comment, please do so on the Mod Contact post.

We will make a second post addressing those concerns, resolutions, and invitation of a second round of feedback as soon as we're able.

UPDATE - 5/3:

The StE modteam is currently planning to come together as a group and discuss all the issues brought to them on this post. Linda and Guin will be present while we are all on to continue discussion as a full team in order to ensure that all points and issues are thoroughly addressed.

This discussion will be happening as soon as possible - but coordinating schedules has proven difficult, so please bear with us.

This post will be edited accordingly once the discussion's day and time have been set.

UPDATE - 5/3:

The discussion will begin Sunday, May 4th, 5:00 P.M. CDT/3:00 P.M. PST.

UPDATE - 5/4:

The discussion has begun and is underway; it's proven to be more intensive than anticipated and hasn't yet ended, but will resume tomorrow and continue until concluded.

In the meantime, screencaps of the discussion thus far are posted at Linda's public Plurk; further updates will be made on this post and the linked Plurk, including the date, once set, of the second post.

UPDATE - 5/5:

Discussion has now concluded - we're sorry for having been quiet for so long!

Formal address of the points brought to this post as well as a second OOC post and a mod apps announcement will be coming by the end of tomorrow - Tuesday, 5/6.

- THE STE MODS: Anduin, Blue, Mini, and Olga

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You've still failed to address how the Jake/Snow, apparently a friend of Anduin's, has been sliding by without making AC properly for months with little to no reaction from the mods.

october: http://saveyourselves.dreamwidth.org/119755.html?thread=3275467#cmt3275467 first check they're in is fine, just accepted
november: http://saveyourselves.dreamwidth.org/132199.html?page=1#comments no comment
december: http://saveyourselves.dreamwidth.org/153304.html?thread=4163288#cmt4163288 hiatus, guess they're excused
january: http://saveyourselves.dreamwidth.org/170374.html?page=1#comments no comment
february: http://saveyourselves.dreamwidth.org/188608.html?thread=5215168#cmt5215168 comments but those threads are of a length the mods would have asked anyone else for more threads/made them take a strike
march: http://saveyourselves.dreamwidth.org/197228.html?thread=5525868#cmt5525868 strike"

Don't screen this, I already have a cap of it anyway.

For the record, mods: The proper reaction here isn't to just ban Jake/Snow.

The failing is on your end for enabling this behavior. Explain how it was enabled. Don't just throw him out because you got caught.

(To be clear, though, he should be dropped for failing AC. He shouldn't be banned or otherwise fucked over just because one of you made it so he didn't need AC.)

Hey anon. So, this is going to sound completely ridiculous and at this rate, I suppose no one is going to believe me, but I'm going to respond and and apologize anyway.

Here's the thing. I looked this over and I was all ready to respond to this being a huge misconception regarding the number of strikes I have. October, I was new. The hiatus mentioned above is actually for both November and December together, which I had a discussion about. January, I had a strike issued to me privately. February, I commented. March, I had a strike publicly. So honestly, I could understand how it'd look like I've been skating through with no repercussions until March.

HOWEVER, while I was writing this response I was informed that STE has a *two strike system* rather than a three. I cannot even tell you, anons, how fucking mortified I am to have been told that. I seriously and legitimately hadn't realized that. And if that's really the case, then yes I should have been booted last month. And I am completely okay with that happening now, believe me.

I am just so damn sorry that I was going along completely oblivious to this fact and probably went and pissed a lot of people off. I am really sincerely sorry.

If you guys haven't gotten another, more active Snow by then, I'd definitely love to come back and join you guys again later on if allowed. I know I wasn't all over the place to prove it, but I do still love this game to death.

Actually, you would technically have been booted a while ago - "Please note that using a hiatus instead of providing enough activity to AC two months in a row will also result in a strike for that character, present for four months." This is in the hiatus rules, so you should have had a strike for November and December's hiatus, as well as January, so by March you had 3 total strikes or would have had the rules been followed.

Just to clarify for why people might be upset which is in no way your fault.

I stated above that I had to have a discussion about my hiatus, and it was for that exact 2-month hiatus clause. I had to hiatus because I literally *could not* come online at all for a long while. I knew it would probably be until the first week of January and even cited as such from the getgo (here) and nothing was said about it. But even still, yeah, I still had to have a discussion about it.

If you're right though and that's a nonnegotiable thing... well then, fuck. I was even more wrong than I thought.

I'm honestly pretty pissed off about this. Not getting kicked, but not knowing for so long, and I honestly wish it had been brought to my attention sooner. Though at least it happened now and not months later.

I find it really hard to believe that you thought six months of strikes and hiatuses was any way to be a participant in a multiplayer game, extenuating circumstances or not, and the entire thing really does smell like mod favoritism. That's my honest opinion.

But the issue's been dealt with, and frankly, there's been a LOT of "nothing being said" all over this game. What happened happened, I assume you're leaving, and for what it's worth I don't bear a grudge.

If you plan to be active, I'd like to see you back.

Yup, I'm leaving. I'll have you know that does mean something to me, though, and I most certainly don't bear any grudges on my end either.

I made a major mistake.

In Snow/Jake's case, Jax had initially asked in private for a January strike. Then, later, she'd had a hiatus starting in November, was passed with that, but then did have the activity for that first month, avoiding a two-month strike in December.

However, at some point, I had a giant mental lapse and sincerely thought up until a few hours ago that she'd also had activity for January as well. I literally don't have an excuse for this; all I can imagine is that I somehow convinced myself that our conversation about November had happened later and... I really don't know. Come the March AC, I moved the character from the "free June" strike pile to the "free August" one, sincerely believing it was a resolved matter.

Jax would never allow me to give her special treatment above what other players receive. Us being friends has nothing to do with me being a complete moron, and since she'd thought it was three strikes before being booted, nothing was said when she'd asked for another strike and we continued on. This matter is absolutely my fault.

When it comes to the AC though, it has always been lenient; when it says "four threads/characters," that's exactly what it means regardless of thread length as long as there's at least two comments from the character in question (though I've also counted two threads with only one comment as one). Furthermore, if anyone comes to us with something like realizing they took a strike when they actually had the activity, decides to offer enough threads for a month they initially used a hiatus for, asks us about what they can do to stay in the game when they're falling behind, needs to turn in AC late, etc., we've attempted to reach a compromise with them.

Problem is, while some of that has taken place on the AC posts or hiatus pages, in some cases it's also been done over posts in the mod contact or PM/plurk/AIM as well. Obviously now we can see the issues with that and I, personally, apologize a thousand times since I'm the one who's handled it from the very beginning. When we were talking about things last night, even before the full realization of my fuck-up was revealed, the agreement between us mods was this: anything like this does need to have a record of taking place, at or near the time it happens; from now on people will still be required to have a note made somewhere publicly if some sort of problem was resolved with a mod, even if it's just permission to submit activity "late" or what have you.

As further clarification, pretty extensive notes are kept of each AC; in particular (and which I don't believe has ever been mentioned at large), records are kept where a character's threads are sparse during a month, which is where things like asking if there's any more activity for a particular character comes in- so the mistake of marking that in cases where someone actually had a lot of activity (but just happened to pick shorter threads for the AC or something) isn't made. Any time a character is in danger of taking a game-removing strike or is even in danger of a two-hiatus-in-a-row strike, I'll often contact the player to see what's going on, even possibly researching their activity myself before starting a conversation.

I have made other errors in the past, such as failing to notice that a thread doesn't quite fit the activity period in particular, or the same thread is being used over multiple months (...and especially, accidentally marking one player's character as passed but then leaving off another, leading to weirdness when the AC reminder goes up). I do try to be incredibly careful. I do look into all of the characters at risk of idling to make sure I haven't missed anything. It's just that doing AC takes something like at a minimum of six hours all together each month, and checking hundreds and hundreds of threads does mean... sometimes I miss something I shouldn't have. I realize now that making sure all of this is accountable should have been a much bigger priority; the other mods have access to the google doc I use for the AC, but that isn't enough when I'm excusing people in private without making note where everyone can see. I was concerned about people's privacy in allowing people to retroactively undo hiatuses/strikes with activity outside of the AC posts, but should have realized that it could look dodgy and found a solution earlier.

Lastly, for what it's worth, I've never considered myself the head mod or anything like that. I was originally taken on by Mal for things like organization and throwing plot ideas around, and really only stepped into more when absolutely necessity. I have had extremely major issues in my life which came to a head last summer, did contribute to the issues with the game around that time, and have more or less lead to often struggling to keep my head above water since. I have never officially been in charge. Ever. To be honest, I've only very recently started picking up the slack again, both in mod work and actually playing in the game.

Maybe I still need a break from the game / RP in general, and have for a while - I'm not sure. Because of all of this going on, compounded with this error coming to light, I may step down as soon as someone can be found willing to do the lists stuff and AC on a regular basis. We may find someone to do that and then have two people. All I can do now is apologize and promise that, to the best of my ability at least, it won't happen again. I love this game dearly and only want to do what is best for it.

I know AC thread length requirements are left vague so as to allow for shorter, but more involved threads to count as activity. But I think we might need to instate a bare minimum on thread lengths that are acceptable. I was under the impression that two comments in a thread from a single character (for a thread totalling 3-4 comments) was too short, and I suspect other players have thought so too. But here it's been stated that two comments in a thread from a single character is acceptable. There is clearly some miscommunication here that needs to be explicitly and officially cleared up, I think.

tl;dr--future accusations of AC dodging/favoritism could probably be lowered or eliminated if we have an explicit lower limit on thread length for AC. This could be considered part of the larger push for more transparency in general.

Speaking as a former member of the game the original head mod was in before Save the Earth was created(for some perspective?), we had a similar AC rule - "three threads of decent length." While I'm definitely aware that STE certainly isn't the same game, the way AC was worded was so incredibly similar I always figured the original intent was to resemble that policy. I know each thread there was expected to be between 6-10 comments, depending on how many comments the player had in some of the other threads submitted so it was a little more forgiving of some threads not moving as fast as others than a hard-and-fast comment count rule.

However the problem with this is that a new mod team becomes removed from the original intention if that was the case. I don't think any of them were in that game and depending on what info on AC they had handed to them when they took over things were bound to run differently. So yeah, some clarification on AC standards as defined by this set of mods, would be good. I kind of like the idea of a little leeway if some of your threads are being tagged slower than others as long as not all your threads are bare minimum length, but there's has to a be a point where a thread is just too short, and two comments definitely seems too low.

Edited 2014-05-03 01:03 (UTC)

I'll be honest: it's hard for me to believe you didn't just quietly let her skate through AC for half a year as a personal favor. A month or two of forgotten checks is one thing, but somehow not noticing that a personal friend and castmate hasn't played by the rules for SIX MONTHS? I could almost understand if it was some obscure LCW, but no, this is someone you would have noticed. I don't know much about you or your buddy, other than the showing I've seen here today and your absence of late, but the whole thing doesn't foster much trust.

I'm sorry for your difficulties IRL, and I'm not saying that to be PA or bitchy. I've been there, and I hope things smooth out for you soon. That said, I agree you need to step down and/or accept new AC mods. You sound overworked and miserable when you describe what goes into AC, and believe me, as a former mod myself, I remember the fun of google spreadsheets and counting the same thread three times over and listening to every excuse under the sun as to why someone doesn't have AC and is entitled to another chance. Either your life is too crazy for you to give this task the attention it needs, you're too disorganized to maintain, or you're lying to cover your ass. In any case, extra helpers for check and balance will ease some of our minds.

e: agreeing with the other sock too: explicit rules for thread length would help tremendously, since it seems your definition of a satisfying thread length isn't the same as mine.

one last edit: I just want to say, it's a little shady that this matter was brought to the mod team in private and nothing whatsoever was done about it until it was brought to light and you guys had to deal with it. Seriously not pleased about this.

Edited 2014-05-03 00:11 (UTC)

i was gonna stay out of this but tbh it's p fucked that you'd spend that much time whining about how hard it is to do ac, then turn around and take a TWO MONTH HIATUS the day it goes up. nj leaving everyone but olga (who hiatused too) out to dry.

not gonna forget your part in all of this jsyk

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