People don't care that you have been inflexible so much as you've revealed a broader issue: Your mods, on a whole, do not know how to mod, and are unable to effectively mod because of this. You also don't know the value in transparency.
To give a quick lowdown:
Transparency: The outing of mod actions and player concerns in full. This needs to be done whenever possible, especially when players distrust you. This proves to players you're willing to sit down and tell them the truth, instead of skirting around it. By screening the comments at first, you actually went anti-transparency: you forced people to get answers on their own, got to pick your battles without judgement, and inversed the complaint you made about players. In an open environment, you locked off all people from discussing the problem with you as a group. You, as a mod team, however, are not one entity, as you've consistently proven. This means that any players who did respond could pretty much be ganged up on, in a group of 4 to 1, and that strongly discouraged players from talking to you honestly or publicly. Transparency is important to encourage trust in mods and an open conversational environment where people feel free and unsuppressed. You threw both of these concepts in the trash with this post, trying to skirt around actually stating anything that meant anything, and initially screening the comments in a way that made people felt cut off from each other in a way they didn't like. -20 points.
Depersonalization: At every turn, your mod team smells of taking complaints and concerns as personal attacks, allowing things to go on because you're personally friends with players (such as the questions about the AC issue), and overall just letting personal issues get in the direct way of being mods. It's prevalent with the warning and threats, the mistreatment of those with valid concerns, and overall just being willing to do whatever you can "get away with", since one-on-one chatter means people can't out your misbehavior on Wankgate without you potentially outing and banning them. This behavior, aka behavior that makes people feel unsafe talking to you and implies directly you're willing to be rude so long as nobody else knows or cares (IE, the way Blue handled Fran was airing out dirty laundry in public, but nobody minded because they wanted Fran gone, at the time), only educates us on your failings.
Bonus points: You are people, yes, and you have feelings, yes. But do you know what? An apology doesn't contain pointing fingers. An apology doesn't contain "I'm sorry, but these guys did...!". I wouldn't call this an apology by any means. Especially not with the subtle, unclear way you phrased your redirection, throwing blame and pretending that anyone held any stake in pretending ganging up on a mod was permissible. Like was stated, Olga was perfectly capable of stepping out of the spotlight to go talk with other mods; the players involved repeatedly insisted there was no rush, and said that the other mods made them uncomfortable, which you do: Mini is unapproachable and consistently overblown, and Blue has a habit of airing out dirty laundry in the open, making it unsafe to talk to her for risk of angering her. Especially for Batty, who was already taking Fran's position as a wank target on wankgate despite not doing anything worthwhile: many people suspected Blue's boldness was because of wg's support. This might be true or not, but it's a reasonable reason for Batty to have been uncomfortable with the other two mods talking to them directly. The assumption this wasn't true, a lie, or otherwise an excuse to gang up on Olga makes me believe that Mini was involved in that suggestion: She constantly appears to believe the players are scum and liars who are willing to say whatever to get their way. -40 points.
Aggression: This is part of the previously mentioned problem with Mini, and that problem is that, in general, players feel they are at risk of attack when approaching you or otherwise are being actively ASSUMED to be godmoding, powerplaying dicks who will sink the game whenever things go south. Most of this comes from changes and decisions and wordings that I personally associate with Mini, and the ban threats are no different: overall, it feels to me that the person who needs to be suspended, if not asked to step down, would be Mini, for her aggressive behavior, silencing and bullying actions, and in general poor conduct.
For the record, actively attacking players or thinking they'll game the system if you give them even a slice of slack... is rude, and players will notice. This is the major concern you completely overlooked, and for that, -60 points.
So, in result, the total is 0 points out of 100.
You guys need to lower the aggressiveness and approach this professionally rather than outright attacking players. You need to be able to recognize what times you need to put on your professional face, step back, and say "I'm going to go talk with the other mods." You need to be able to recognize what times you treat players like powergaming dirt, and stop.
My personal suggestions: - Don't try and solve the original incident, but rather what the incident's become. Act transparently, and show us we can trust you. In case it wasn't obvious, a lot of people, sans those that are already on bad terms with Mini, are actually legitimately afraid to air out their concerns. Some people are hoping a duplicate game happens just because they can't trust you guys, and that says a lot about how people feel about you all and why. - Suspend or remove Mini from being a mod. The wank has pulled up more than enough reasons about why she shouldn't be in power, and many people feel extremely unsafe because of how Mini acts and is. (This is mostly why socks are prevalent here.) - Overall, understand that, even though this is a hobby, you need to treat this like you are a professional with a reputation to uphold, not by bullying and silencing, but by failing to provide any reason for your reputation to sink. I think you should take on an explicit PR mod or otherwise someone who is skilled at talking with others and being patient.
Also, talking to Anduin: Nobody thinks you've done anything in a long time. Are you going to step down, or could you be transparent and explain what you've done recently? If you haven't done anything, I would step down and provide your spot to someone else; there is strong wank about you, and if you aren't doing anything helpful for the mod team beyond favoritism towards your friend, then I think you should willingly let yourself be replaced, or you're at the risk of causing StE's reputation to sink further into the mud or otherwise letting it risk being replaced with a clone game and die.
no subject
People don't care that you have been inflexible so much as you've revealed a broader issue: Your mods, on a whole, do not know how to mod, and are unable to effectively mod because of this. You also don't know the value in transparency.
To give a quick lowdown:
Transparency: The outing of mod actions and player concerns in full. This needs to be done whenever possible, especially when players distrust you. This proves to players you're willing to sit down and tell them the truth, instead of skirting around it. By screening the comments at first, you actually went anti-transparency: you forced people to get answers on their own, got to pick your battles without judgement, and inversed the complaint you made about players. In an open environment, you locked off all people from discussing the problem with you as a group. You, as a mod team, however, are not one entity, as you've consistently proven. This means that any players who did respond could pretty much be ganged up on, in a group of 4 to 1, and that strongly discouraged players from talking to you honestly or publicly. Transparency is important to encourage trust in mods and an open conversational environment where people feel free and unsuppressed. You threw both of these concepts in the trash with this post, trying to skirt around actually stating anything that meant anything, and initially screening the comments in a way that made people felt cut off from each other in a way they didn't like. -20 points.
Depersonalization: At every turn, your mod team smells of taking complaints and concerns as personal attacks, allowing things to go on because you're personally friends with players (such as the questions about the AC issue), and overall just letting personal issues get in the direct way of being mods. It's prevalent with the warning and threats, the mistreatment of those with valid concerns, and overall just being willing to do whatever you can "get away with", since one-on-one chatter means people can't out your misbehavior on Wankgate without you potentially outing and banning them. This behavior, aka behavior that makes people feel unsafe talking to you and implies directly you're willing to be rude so long as nobody else knows or cares (IE, the way Blue handled Fran was airing out dirty laundry in public, but nobody minded because they wanted Fran gone, at the time), only educates us on your failings.
Bonus points: You are people, yes, and you have feelings, yes. But do you know what? An apology doesn't contain pointing fingers. An apology doesn't contain "I'm sorry, but these guys did...!". I wouldn't call this an apology by any means. Especially not with the subtle, unclear way you phrased your redirection, throwing blame and pretending that anyone held any stake in pretending ganging up on a mod was permissible. Like was stated, Olga was perfectly capable of stepping out of the spotlight to go talk with other mods; the players involved repeatedly insisted there was no rush, and said that the other mods made them uncomfortable, which you do: Mini is unapproachable and consistently overblown, and Blue has a habit of airing out dirty laundry in the open, making it unsafe to talk to her for risk of angering her. Especially for Batty, who was already taking Fran's position as a wank target on wankgate despite not doing anything worthwhile: many people suspected Blue's boldness was because of wg's support. This might be true or not, but it's a reasonable reason for Batty to have been uncomfortable with the other two mods talking to them directly. The assumption this wasn't true, a lie, or otherwise an excuse to gang up on Olga makes me believe that Mini was involved in that suggestion: She constantly appears to believe the players are scum and liars who are willing to say whatever to get their way. -40 points.
Aggression: This is part of the previously mentioned problem with Mini, and that problem is that, in general, players feel they are at risk of attack when approaching you or otherwise are being actively ASSUMED to be godmoding, powerplaying dicks who will sink the game whenever things go south. Most of this comes from changes and decisions and wordings that I personally associate with Mini, and the ban threats are no different: overall, it feels to me that the person who needs to be suspended, if not asked to step down, would be Mini, for her aggressive behavior, silencing and bullying actions, and in general poor conduct.
For the record, actively attacking players or thinking they'll game the system if you give them even a slice of slack... is rude, and players will notice. This is the major concern you completely overlooked, and for that, -60 points.
So, in result, the total is 0 points out of 100.
You guys need to lower the aggressiveness and approach this professionally rather than outright attacking players. You need to be able to recognize what times you need to put on your professional face, step back, and say "I'm going to go talk with the other mods." You need to be able to recognize what times you treat players like powergaming dirt, and stop.
My personal suggestions:
- Don't try and solve the original incident, but rather what the incident's become. Act transparently, and show us we can trust you. In case it wasn't obvious, a lot of people, sans those that are already on bad terms with Mini, are actually legitimately afraid to air out their concerns. Some people are hoping a duplicate game happens just because they can't trust you guys, and that says a lot about how people feel about you all and why.
- Suspend or remove Mini from being a mod. The wank has pulled up more than enough reasons about why she shouldn't be in power, and many people feel extremely unsafe because of how Mini acts and is. (This is mostly why socks are prevalent here.)
- Overall, understand that, even though this is a hobby, you need to treat this like you are a professional with a reputation to uphold, not by bullying and silencing, but by failing to provide any reason for your reputation to sink. I think you should take on an explicit PR mod or otherwise someone who is skilled at talking with others and being patient.
Also, talking to Anduin: Nobody thinks you've done anything in a long time. Are you going to step down, or could you be transparent and explain what you've done recently? If you haven't done anything, I would step down and provide your spot to someone else; there is strong wank about you, and if you aren't doing anything helpful for the mod team beyond favoritism towards your friend, then I think you should willingly let yourself be replaced, or you're at the risk of causing StE's reputation to sink further into the mud or otherwise letting it risk being replaced with a clone game and die.