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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At the time she did not trust any member of the mod team would treat her fairly and wanted witnesses to ensure the mods she contacted would act reasonably, and she also wanted the pressure of having witnesses to keep herself from saying something she'd regret.

You know, I agree that the mods pretty much fucked the dog in every possible area here, but this was stupid, and it was triply stupid that Batty brought in someone who isn't even in the game. The plurk got leaked to the public at large anyway, and that could have happened even without extra uninvolved witnesses, so the excuse of needing you there as witnesses to prove something is obviously ridiculous -- the screencaps did a better job of proving what happened than your word would anyway. And I don't even feel like the second reason needs to be addressed. Batty is an adult and she needs to be accountable for her own actions just like the mods do. If she's incapable of handling discussions without having a posse of people to hold her hand, she's not mature enough to be in this game, period.

Basically, bottom line is that the mods handled this horribly, but you guys (and Batty in particular) aren't exactly smelling like roses here, and to be honest while I appreciate that you had the balls to apologize, I'd like to see other people involved do the same, Batty in particular. The way I see it, the mods made an initial fuckup by being inflexible, you guys overreacted to that fuckup, and the mods in turn overreacted to your overreaction. Are the mods probably more at fault? Sure, and they also have more responsibility by virtue of being mods, but the fact remains that the situation probably could have been resolved quietly had there not been the overreaction on your parts. The mods would have still fucked up part one, but it wouldn't have exploded into an incident which has frankly killed (maybe temporarily, maybe not) the game's OOC atmosphere for everyone, including completely uninvolved parties like myself.

On the one hand I'd almost be glad it managed to escalate to this level, purely because seeing the full extent to which this mod team is apparently capable of overreacting is an eye-opener that could have potentially happened further down the road with another misstep anyway, and might as well be nipped on the bud now. But on the other hand you guys' and Batty's conduct has been far from stellar either. Input from everyone in the party in the open where it can he openly discussed would be good to have, and I am particularly interested in what Batty's say might be in all of this.

Either way, you should all try to consider these factors in the future before bringing friends into private plurks for moral support again.

The plurk got leaked to the public at large anyway, and that could have happened even without extra uninvolved witnesses

I'm not sure whether your complaint is that Batty should not have included witnesses at all or whether only the ex-player specifically should not have been included. Could you please clarify?

I think the only people who should have been in the plurk were people directly involved in the incident. I know for a fact that the person not in the game wouldn't qualify, because that's obvious. I don't know enough about the plots in question or the discussion before that plurk to know who would and would not be directly involved.

I will say this much: 'moral support' is not sufficient justification for someone to be included in a discussion plurk of a matter like that. Neither is the desire to have witnesses. This is the internet, and even if it had literally only been Batty by herself with the mods in that plurk, she would have had hard evidence of any misconduct on the part of the mods, because the discussion is text on a page that can be pastebinned or screencapped -- which is exactly what ended up happening anyway.

I will concede that including an ex-player may not have been the best choice, when current players' voices hold more weight.

However, I respectfully disagree that Batty should have handled that plurk alone. She already had reason to suspect that this game's authority figures would not treat her fairly, and was in fact bringing that very concern to an authority figure about another authority figure. She did not feel safe being alone in a mod space at that time, and we felt that was a legitimate concern.

In that situation, it is perfectly natural to want witnesses to the conversation. Witnesses are used as a way to hold all parties involved accountable for their actions. This happens in real life all the time, and I see no reason why RP should be treated differently.

First of all, as I said: in real life, witnesses are sometimes used to corroborate a story. That isn't needed in a plurk, because hard evidence can be easily obtained through a screencap or pastebin. Everything that is said is recorded by definition because it's being written down.

Second of all, you weren't acting as witnesses. If you were witnesses, you would have been silent during the discussion, and then maybe after it happened you would have offered your view on what happened. You and the other 'witnesses' were not watching silently. You were actively participating in the discussion, and at least one of you (apparently the person not in the game) was getting pointlessly aggressive.

And finally: Batty is an adult, and this was, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively minor disagreement about a plot in an RP game. The idea that she is not capable of 'handling' a discussion of that nature or that she does not 'feel safe' is ridiculous. A requirement of being a player in an RP game is having the emotional maturity to deal with problems in a way that does not needlessly escalate a situation. I don't really think any rational observer can look at what happened and argue that bringing in 'witnesses' did not escalate the situation. To be honest, had I been a mod in that situation, I would have been pretty annoyed myself to have been bitched at by someone who isn't even in the game. Did Olga overreact horribly? Obviously, but she wouldn't have had anything to overreact to in the first place if Batty had just put on her big girl panties and realized that she was not actually 'unsafe' going in alone in a discussion about RP games on the internet. If the discussion had still gone sour and Olga rudely blew her off, she could have taken screencaps of the plurk and made them public -- you know, exactly like what ended up actually happening anyway.

And look, obviously everyone slips up and makes stupid decisions sometimes, and that's fine. It was a tense situation. And I would absolutely accept Batty or anyone else saying, it was a tense situation due to the initial mod misconduct and the choices made were not ideal or something of that nature. But if you're arguing that bringing those people in was actually the optimal choice after all, that is frankly pretty worrying, and does not bode well for future conflicts you all may be involved in.

So which mod are you friends with? Because you have honestly had poor reading comprehension in a lot of this and have seemed intent on making this out to be about Batty being a bad person, which is distracting from the larger issues.

Also, the fact that you are devaluing a person's being uncomfortable with mods who have shown, repeatedly, to be bad at this is kind of gross and implying it's immaturity is beyond disgusting.

I'm not friends with any of the mods. I have no relationship with them whatsoever, nor do I intend to have any relationship with them, since they seem like wank magnets. I am not distracting from any issues. That the mods fucked up badly and repeatedly has been addressed very well by other people in this post, and I absolutely agree with the complaints that they acted like idiots and that their 'apology' was not actually an apology at all. These issues have been addressed at length. The issue of Batty's behavior, however, has not yet been addressed by anyone else that I can see, and so my intention was to address it.

It is important for the health of the game that everyone who fucked up here understand that they fucked up and endeavor not to fuck up again. This isn't about taking sides or choosing a team or tallying up fuckups and giving a medal to whoever fucked up the least. The mods fucked up, and are currently (rightly) being raked over the coals for it, which will hopefully encourage them to improve. Telling Batty and co. that they also fucked up and asking them to apologize for their conduct does not in any way invalidate the fuckups on the part of the mods.

Being unable to handle a simple discussion without other people acting as cheerleaders is more or less the definition of immaturity. I do not, as you claim, think that Batty is a 'bad person.' I don't really know Batty that well either. I know that in this case, she made a decision which was immature. That doesn't make her a bad person -- it makes her a person who made a mistake. It should be possible to acknowledge that mistake even if you like her very much, and the staunch refusal to do so is worrying.

Frankly, I feel a 2:1 ratio of subordinates to authority figures is perfectly acceptable, and I have modded games before under this assumption and never had any issues with it. But that is my own comfort level and I acknowledge that not everyone may share it.

Perhaps the mods should discuss amongst themselves what player/mod ratio is acceptable to them and include it in the rules, to prevent this sort of situation in the future.

The issue isn't really the ratio or the number of people at all, though. It's involved versus not involved. If there were 15 people who were legitimately involved and one mod, I would say that mod should suck it up and deal with those 15 people. But all 15 of those people need to be actually necessary to the conversation. Bringing in random extraneous people causes more wank, not less.

Yeah, maybe the mods made a mis-step, but the "Moral Support" angle is just flat-out not cool, there were what, 3-4 people on Batty's side, including someone who wasn't even the game, to Olga and (theoretically, since he never actually showed) Anduin. That still means you guys outnumbered the mods you were trying to discuss, and with Batty bringing in so many people to "make sure she didn't say something stupid" or "having witnesses", much less people who were outside the game already as-is, is not cool. You're bringing in someone who cannot be unbiased, and wouldn't know (and has no reason to know) the finer details on either side. It's cheerleading, plain and simple, and even if the mods clearly overreacted to the idea of being ganged up on, that doesn't make what happened cool.

Man I said this wasn't cool like three times in this post

BASICALLY two wrongs don't make a right, etc. Just because the Mods are objectively worse off here doesn't mean that you guys didn't fuck up.

e: Also whoops I called Anduin a dude here, that's my bad. Meant to say she.

Edited 2014-05-02 20:50 (UTC)

Four to two or even four to one isn't that bad. You're making it seem like it was fifteen on one. They acknowledged that Olga wasn't feeling well, and one even outright said, and I quote:

"with Batty's permission i'm stepping in-- feel free to respond to this tomorrow when you're feeling much better."

Not devaluing that Olga made a mistake sticking around, because, really, she did. Mods stand on the worst side of this and I'm not going to say they aren't, but I think you're underestimating a four to two or a four to one convo, Anon. Especially in a decently fast-communicating social media like Plurk, it's very easy to feel like you're being overwhelmed and cornered in that sort of situation. And it's even worse if you're suffering some sort of headache/migraine issue like Olga was at the time.

I consider myself someone to who socializing comes fairly easily, and if I was being talked to like that four to one, I would have bailed in a heartbeat. Olga absolutely should have bailed, yes, but that doesn't make bringing in "moral support" of three other people one who, again, wasn't even involved in the game and absolutely should -not- have been involved in an active discussion with mods right.

Edited 2014-05-02 21:27 (UTC)

Hey. I've been a mod. I am not underestimating how fast plurk and such move. That plurk? Was civil. No one ganged up on anyone. You are coming across as a white knight who is trying to distract and take away from actual discussion by adding to the, "but they started it" bits.

This is not an anoncomm, this is a game discussion. Accusing people of being whiteknights and friends of the mods does not actually add to your arguments in any way, so it's best to avoid doing so.

I'm not coming across as a "white knight". No one looks good in this, and I'm not defending the mods' actions. The ban warnings were fucked up, the fact that there was no compromise from Mini was fucked up. But enough people are already going into that in much better detail than I can.

And I don't think the players started it, for the record. The mods obviously started it with the fact that Mini couldn't resolve her own player plot with Batty's. I am denying none of these things.

However, the way that was went about it was severely disheartening to me. The only reason that plurk remained even somewhat civil is because Linda did most of the talking. And honestly, I don't accept "but Anduin could have shown!" As an excuse. Anduin has been a known non-entity in most plurks for a while now, and no one has seen them do much of... well, anything. Sure, they weren't planning for Anduin to not show and for it to be four people to just Olga, their communication clearly shows that. But they had to known it was going to be a likely possibility.

Olga should have disengaged, but Batty should not have brought that many people into the plurk. Having at least one person to corroborate and back up your points would be seen as logical, but there were enough people in that plurk for Olga to feel cornered, and that's as much Batty's problem for bringing in a whole group to make her feel better as it is on Olga for not letting it sit until she could talk to the other mods at length.

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