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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for what it's worth, this PM was sent out last night, not "40 minutes ago". At least according to the plurk linked above. So it wasn't after a post full of people giving advice.

I've been approached personally by the mod in question to discuss a solution, and that means more to me than the apology we received. I believe she was stuck between trying to appease both her fellow mods and the offended players and made a bad call, and I'm sympathetic to that.

But those are my personal feelings and I think yours are just as valid. If you do decide to leave, then I wish you the best!

ETA: Oh, and what the above comment said is true too. That interpretation didn't even occur to me.

We got these PMs before the post went up.

Edited 2014-05-03 04:11 (UTC)

Thank you for info! That... actually makes me feel better than my original thought, which was that that wasn't sent out until sometime within the last couple of hours.

Nope, we got them before this post ever went up!

Clarification: I was the one who took the screenshot, and it was 40 minutes after 9PM last night (May 1st), central time.

As someone who HAS been in the game for a bit but recently just had some IRL problems and is trying to catch up on everything, this is an incredibly detailed and comprehensive post, and I really think the mods should take it to heart. Adding my piece here.

I've spent lots and lots of time thinking about this today. I will try to not beat a dead horse however, or at least give my best go at it.

Full disclosure: Once, I too was a mod. I was a really terrible mod. I made many bad calls, was slack on prompt decisions, my player communication leaved much to be desired, and I steamrolled ahead always believing my decisions were the correct ones. Sometimes they were, but oftentimes they were not. So understand that I say this all only with the hope that it is of some use. Experience is supposed to be a good teacher, so maybe mine can offer something of merit.

I also have never really had any outright bad experiences with the moderators here. Perhaps at times I wish it could be a little more prompt, and oftentimes I wish things felt a little more clear - sometimes the direction of the mecha crew's sub-plot feels a bit out of my grasp - but that is more an indication than anything of how clear it is this game is far too large for only four of you to handle. My experiences are clearly not those of everyone, so it does sadden me to see things have gone down like this.

I see drops, I see hiatuses announced, considered, or just... quietly happening. I've seen no less than three people - named, actual people; not anons - just at a cursory glance who were gung-ho to app here but no longer will be for the foreseeable future. I get the feeling there's many more than that if I dug deep enough, just within comments on my own Plurk timeline. Within a couple of days, this has gone from the game I wanted to drag my friends to and bolster the population of, to help grow and expand the world of. Now? It feels as if trying to convince anyone of doing so would be difficult at best. Not without changes, which I know you are already well aware of.

Because I want to bring more people here. I want to have fun here. As of a couple days ago, literally right before this happened this also became my only game. I love Save the Earth. I love the concept. I love the people. I am more invested in the characters I have here, and the CR they have, than I have been with anything RP related in many, many years.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way - clearly, as this whole post is evidence of - nor am I the only one who wants to help find a means of fixing matters. There's enough people that really do care about this game, their characters, and the world to - I hope - still make this work, even if they do not agree with you guys and your decisions. Either of late, or overall.

There's already a lot of really, really good suggestions here. Many of the things that have come to mind today for me would just be +1-ing those; Linda has them compiled quite nicely, and I hope they do you and all of us some good. So, I'll try to comment on some other things:

I have already talked about my concerns of information dispersal. I will try not to repeat much of that, and I didn't really realize how much it may be a problem overall until I was listening to other people today and understanding it can be actively difficult for anyone to get a good grasp of what's going on sometimes. Or more importantly, how they can do anything with it.

I can't look at them and give anyone an answer to that, either, and I've been here for nearly six months. While I've been more or less fine with how my things have gone - while anything directly I'm concerned about there is better saved for another time and venue - I am starting to see and understand how to some people, the present state of things can seem a little inaccessible as far as getting involved with things in any way that matters goes. Any way that does matter feels like it requires direct, behind-the-scenes discussion with the moderators, and... If there are this many people that are uncomfortable going face-to-face with mods, even if I have not personally felt that same discomfort? That's a problem.

Plot Posts haven't even felt nearly as active of late as they were earlier in the year, either. That feels indicative of something being amiss, in itself.

However, I do have an actual suggestion! It just does not relate directly to the problem at hand, so I will put it in a reply to this comment. It does however relate to concerns that I've seen raised at various points, particularly since Season 2 opened, and that is Application consistency.

People have expressed that Application standards appear to be inconsistent, and with that in mind I think it would be a good idea for you to go into how you all go about them. I've seen (and gone through!) numerous methods of approaching applications from a Moderator perspective, some much more successful than others.

Are applications a team effort? Are they only reviewed by a certain number of moderators? Do you have a standard set of guidelines for what - precisely - is acceptable and not for any given section? You have one person listed as an "App Mod," but what does that entail? Especially when replies are instead generally handled by Blue or Mini, and sometimes Olga. I normally wouldn't even be asking this, as I generally take that sort of thing on good faith, but enough people have broached it here and elsewhere that it feels worth making a point of inquiring directly.

It's obviously only one concern among many, many others but it is still worth noting and trying to find a solution for, or at least an answer to those wondering at this time. I haven't been subject to any decisions in this regard that would give me reason to think there was an inconsistency, but I'd think you owe it to yourselves and everyone here to be able to alleviate that worry as often as its come up, among the others.

As such, if you do not have a standard guideline available, I'd like to offer a suggestion: City of Ariel has an App Rubric (don't worry, link is SFW) which describes what is acceptable in each category. I do not know how successful that is for them (as I don't go there,) how cleanly they adhere to it, or if even the way its laid out would apply well enough to your situation at hand.

It serves as a good example, however - a concise, quick showing of what is and is not acceptable in every given category. For the unique elements of StE's application, a public guide such as this - or something like it - could prove invaluable towards any time that question comes up. It would allow you to make more certain you are internally consistent in this regard, or if you are questioned in it or need to explain a rejection or revision, it gives you something to point towards.

I point it out simply because I think something which shows your process could go towards mending some bridges, at least as a start, or perhaps help in your own abilities to process things.

At the least, I wanted to offer something because I want nothing more for this game to succeed and to just return to RPing in the place I've come to enjoy, and with the people I've come to love doing so with.

Edited 2014-05-03 07:20 (UTC)

that's just, like, your opinion, man

You're borrowing my lines, man.

homage, the dude

Also, I'm not really clever. Fight me.

If you've seen my movie, you know I'm a pacifist, man. Fighting's not really my thing.

Seriously, though -- and I am trying to be serious here -- feel free to PM me with the in-jokes or whatever. I just, uh, don't want to distract from the problem with my cursing and my in-jokes any more than I already have.

I'll leave the jokes for the moment. I wanted to pay praise to the serious side of your comments, actually.

Posting a little vote in a comment off to the side as well.

Thanks, man -- appreciate it.

There's a fair chance I'll end up in-game sooner or later.

I'm a firm believer that strength in numbers can help determine not only a popular course of action, but a course of action the entire group may turn out to be comfortable with. I can't speak for the the mod-team in particular, given that I'm a mere eggplant in comparison to the rest of the game, but from what I've read in this post and elsewhere, I can't say that there's going to be a clean fix to this, nor should there be. This all seems like a terrible mistake, driven by poor judgement, poor choices of words, different intents and quite a few mistakes in communication. If we aimed for a clean fix, we would cauterize the wound and it would be exceptionally difficult to heal the real issues beneath the surface.

To make a long point short, I have no real original opinions on this matter, but I do support suggestions for the mods to make endeavors towards improving the state of their positions as mods through serious introspection concerning how to address players, accept scrutiny concerning mod performance and juggle how plots are processed. I understand the stress of the word 'time' is immense especially when perhaps a dozen people are talking all at once, but that's why mod-teams aren't solo acts.

Once again, I have nothing new. I'm just here to drop my vote as a player for things to be changed and taken not just seriously, but realistically. We all want everything to be solved tomorrow and immediate changes shouldn't be the only thing we deal with. Whether it's changing the layout of the game's administration or just an inward look at performance and improvement, I just hope it can be done without taking any hard feelings into account. As angry as people can get in arguments and concerning slights in their own direction, I personally want to see if this can be done without letting those hard feelings take a hold of us.

I believe that for games to work, you need cooperation, communication, humility and patience. Adventurers and Dungeon Masters need each other to exist. Anyway, I hope someone can gain something from my incomprehensible nonsense. I think I made a point, but I'm not sure. I just really like this game and would like to continue liking this game and using all the commas in the world.

Having been in Ariel before, I can vouch that their Application Rubric is a sound one. It can be tougher for characters who are pretty minor, however they are thorough in giving you feedback on what areas need improvement in your application, and they are open to questions.

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

I see what you're saying, but I'd still like to hear confirmation of that (or not, if it happens to be untrue) from the mods.

okay this is going to sound mean but this has to be said

no one cares about your feelings

no one cares about your 'disappointment'

no one cares that she 'wasn't feeling well'

they might care about the fact that Mini, as a person, was uncomfortable, they might care about the fact that you all, as people, are confused and out of your depth on these issues. But this isn't about you as people, this is about you as mods. People in positions of authority over other people do not share their feelings with everyone else, they do they assigned tasks. I don't know any of you personally. For all I know, you could be great people! But I just don't care. You're the mods of the games, not my friends. When I see a mod post, I want to see basic facts outlined in a concise matter, not excuses and a paragraph about feelings. You fucked up. Own up to it, and tell us what steps you are taking to correct it, end of discussion.

That alone would be bad enough, but that 'disappointment' PM is outright inexcusable. You are nobody's parents, you are the mods. You have fostered an atmosphere of condescension, bullying, and playing favorites, and even as you take steps to correct these issues you still revel in them.

At this point I'm not convinced Mini would be enough. The entire mod team needs an overhaul, and badly.

Olga was the uncomfortable one.

Mini was the one who's most likely responsible for the silencing tactic pms.

I'm not sure what it means that you'll make a second post "as soon as you're able", but I really recommend that you decide you're able to do that sooner rather than later. I've talked to a lot of people who are troubled over the radio silence we've gotten from you. Anduin says something about being around more and then the same day announces a two month hiatus. Olga also goes on hiatus. And we hear literally nothing else from the rest of you anywhere. I was trying to withhold a lot of my judgement until your second post, because I honestly want to see how you handle responding to what's been brought to you here, but if it takes much longer my fleeting interest in this game will be gone.

I'm going to save any further opinions I have on the mod team and what needs to happen for now, especially considering they're more radical than most I've seen posted here. I realize you may be busy, but I strongly recommend that you make your second post a top priority because a lot of us (the players) are in limbo with this game right now.

And for the love of god, when you finally do grace us with your presence, don't start the post with an excuse as to why it took so long to hear anything.

Mods, I'm gonna be blunt here, you need to get your act together and give us some indication you're actually working on this instead of just calling hiatuses.

You all have lives outside of this hobby and I understand that, but you're having some serious charges leveled against you right now and the fact that there's been nothing but near-complete silence on the mods' end is extremely disheartening. I've been trying to save most of my judgment for when you respond to this, but hearing nothing from any of you ever since this post went up, except a single response to the AC problem mentioned earlier, is not a look that is in your favor.

It's fine to take the time to look over and discuss the complaints and suggestions issued, and I certainly hope that's the case for this long silence, but considering your track record, you better make it clear that is exactly what you're doing.

People should not have to be looking at a third-party plurk for updates, and we definitely shouldn't be hearing this from someone other than the mods themselves.

The longer you go without answering these concerns, or even giving any indication you're working on answering concerns, the angrier people are going to get.

it needs to be said

as mods you guys are visible af and we watch everything you do

the actions you take and the wording you choose sets the precedents we expect

and rn the precedent seems to be "do whatever the fuck you want, and if anyone calls you out on it, sweep that shit under the rug and threaten them until they stfu"

all the whining and excuses and absences are making you guys look totally unprofessional, especially rn with us forced to get our info third-hand from someone YOU HURT hurt because you're all trying to hide

wrapping my plots up and dropping if any of you seriously think you still deserve to stay on as mods

Edited (typos) 2014-05-04 00:48 (UTC)

keeping this simple

respond somewhere on here, so we can pretend you are reading these posts or you all need to stop being pansies and step down.

being an ostrich about all this isn't doing anything and is pissing us off.

everyone's complaining about a lack of shit going on, so:

http://www.plurk.com/p/jz809q

the last few messages indicate that there'll be a mod discussion tomorrow and that there will be a response after that

even if you missed the new update to the post, here's some context on what's going on and all that

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