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Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - Printable Version

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Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - Gabe - 01-01-2020

Year Review. Rewind Time

2019, man what a year for Dinks. I thought it was ok, but could’ve been better. We’re not at our stronger point and certainly not at our weakest. We are at an impasse that we need to break. This thread will be long. It is not directed at anyone and is just things in general that have to be addressed. No holds barred. Try to read the whole thread as everything builds on each other. Some things will look out of context and confusing if you don't. Let's keep this thread civil, please. This is going to be my only warning on that. This is meant to engage in a civil discussion. We can disagree with each other but we are absolutely not going to start a war. For me, I've been Admin a little over 365 days. I believe I got it December 25th or 26th last year... can't exactly remember. That's the first thing of 2019 for me. We've had our ups and downs as a community this past year. I'm not going to go knocking at old graves but let's take a look back at some of the good things that has happened this past year. We added a lot of new maps and have tried to weed out bad ones(We still need to do some of that....), few new cool t weapons and pointshop things, we've changed a few rules up for the better that have been unpopular, hitreg is slightly better than it was in 2018 but obviously not by much, this is also a slow working process. 

Player conduct within our TTT community on our Server, Forums, and Discord, to put it bluntly, have been absolutely pathetic this past year. The forums, server, and discord have been dumpster fires at times, more than they should've been. This needed to be addressed and steps to resolving this issue needed to be fixed immediately rather than making a post after post telling people to stop with the toxicity, harassment, come back in circles on suggestions biannually with no solution, etc that get nowhere. This is something that still has to happen in 2020 and we can all work together to achieve that. This is supposed to be a community, not a High School. Some of our players may be in high school, but this is a Garry's Mod Community, not a place for toxicity, harassment, or petty drama. We need people to stop screwing around on the forums when it comes to brigading and derailing important threads, mass-downvoting, and excessive necroing/shitposting. It needs to stop. This was a big issue last year.


Same with discord, we have let somethings slip by that probably shouldn't be overlooked and handled lightly. We are working on improving Discord Moderation as we are a server with over 2,000 and it is very needed sometimes although we want it to be as much fun and enjoyable as possible. As I said before, this is supposed to be a community. As @EpicGuy once told me, Commun is a French word for common. We all have somethings in common. We're all playing this 13/14-year-old mod. That's close to a decade and a half. No one is better than anyone else. You certainly don't have to like everyone. You don't have to like everyone's opinion, but you have to respect people and respect their reasons for holding that opinion. People should be treated the way you would like to be treated. credit to epicguy for essentially saying the same thing a year or so ago...i might've taken a thing or two. sadly still applies

TLDR: So my blunt TLDR message for 2020: I'd like to leave you all with a kind message as 2019 comes to a close and what we should do going into 2020.: Stop the petty drama. Stop the Bullshit. Stop the toxicity/harassment. Just fucking stop. All of us from staff to players. Let's work together to solve issues rather than cause things to spin out of control. Let's start acting like normal people, this server will not continue if it is a wasteland where everyone doesn't start treating people with the respect they would expect others to treat them with. Let's all work together to make Dink's great again going into 2020 :)

To Staff: We've shuffled through rosters of staff throughout the year, like every year. People come and go. Some must, unfortunately, go at times, which is rare. Overall you guys have done a good job. There are a few things we need to work on collectively. Hackers and false bans. This was a major problem this past year... more times than I could count have people been falsely banned for "Hacking/scripting." Sometimes it was just cases of misunderstandings or hard to tell and needed an explanation via an appeal to fully understand. Other times, there were instances of jumping the gun way too early. A lack of evidence was also common. So, to help this, we have introduced an internal prototype system to help make each other make decisions on disputable cases of "hacking" by trying to reach a majority consensus. It isn't perfect, but there is always room for improvement.

Another big thing. 2019 was full of goofing around with moderating commands. At times it was excessive. There were cases of people receiving legitimate bans but the person who banned them would put a silly unrelated reason for the ban that would be hard to understand and decipher. It led to confusion if the person was actually banned or if it was a "joke ban." This has generally stopped and was a short term issue once resolved, which is great. Just simple wording highlighting what they are banned for does it. Another problem is excessively joke banning, joke kicking, slaying, etc. it's ok to joke around once and a while but it has to be done sparingly and not constantly. Especially if it's more than one within a few minutes then it just looks like we're abusing to everyone else. There were a few instances where it seemed like players on the server were confused with what was going on. I understand you guys were together in vcs joking around but the players don't necessarily see that/know that. We've talked about this before, and we hope to see a continued cut back on this from being excessive as we have been since first announced. We are really going to crack down on this starting now. it has to stop. We can't look  like we are running a circus. These are the things I noticed, there may also be other concerns with regards to staff in general. I'm sure some people will comment about that. But these are my two takeaways.


Looking Ahead to 2020: My Ideas for TTT
In the last few months or so, we’ve noticed a some-what decline in our average player count. A lot of our regular players are constantly complaining and playing less. I just think that we genuinely need to change a few things, even if it is a trial period or temporary. it seems that our TTT community is slowly getting smaller and fewer people are approving of the way things are right now.
[Image: db999f26dea0abccf818328e284b9f59.png]
We used to average about 16-20 average per month, we dipped down to 13 and continue on a decline there. But why is that? Obviously school and work play a factor or perhaps lost interest in ttt and gmod as a whole, but there also seem to be reasons related to our server. The server also seems to be getting full less.
[Image: b68e0809a1e8f066df5a3e5c5e06de8e.png]


My Goal for 2020: try to fix up the server, make it for the better, improve the overall atmosphere, and communications/relationships between staff and staff/admins and dink/ and staff and players. Going to be a challenge, but I am up for it if you all are. We have to do this together. For everyone to Dink to the guests on the server. Not cause civil wars between each other.

So, I'm going to start small and make my way up to the bigger issues, but here's a little outline of how it is going to go: maps, t weapons, pointshop, game mechanics, jump pack, lack of communication between staff and players/people being upset that Admins can't doing anything, and lot of the community losing their faith in any staff, which go all the way up to Dinkleberg.

Maps Additions/Removal

This is something we get around to every year so it generally should not be a huge issue. I don't know if it's just me, but people seem to be voting the same 10 maps over and over again. Honestly, I hate that. But that could just be me. Nonetheless, there are some maps that are never played, unpopular, duplicates, or just cause more problems than good.

Our lovely suggestions committee has slowly been combing through the maps on the map suggestions thread. There is a preliminary list of possible things so so far that is not complete. So, here it is. Feel free to give your opinions here if you'd like on either of these lists. This is not officially going to happen yet 

Removal:
  1. Ttt_bank_b3
  2. Ttt_innocentmotel_b6
  3. Ttt_production
  4. Ttt_shocked_a6
  5. Ttt_existential_d
  6. Ttt_terrortrain_2019_b1
  7. [b]ttt_avalon[/b]
  8. [b][b]Ttt_rivercliff[/b][/b]
  9. ttt_borealis
Addition:
    1. ttt_Playing_with_Portals revamped
    2. Ttt_metropolis_v2a Size:5.2MB
    3. ttt_vast (Reed's Map) Size:38.6MB
    4. ttt_Al'sPenthouse Size: 32MB
    5. Ttt_terrorception Size: 15MB
    6. ttt_clue_2018 (Needs a slight exploit fix before it can be added) Size: 29MB
    7. Ttt_community_pool_overhaul Size: 7MB
    8. Ttt_lumbridge Size: 9.8MB
    9. Ttt_marcielsmanor Size: 37.8MB
    10. Ttt_firelinkshrine Size: 68.4MB
    11. Ttt_comancher Size: 22MB
    12. Ttt_moonarbase Size: 18MB
    13. Ttt_hogwarts
T/D Weapons & Pointshop

We've added several new T/D weapons this past year that have actually been pretty good while replacing some old ones. This is also something constantly looked at and trying to improve. So, suggestions are always welcomed. Perhaps we'll see more changes to T/D Weapons this year? On the issue of Spectator DM, both T and Peace sentries messed with that. We added it back recently to see if it was still an issue and it was. This either has to be fixed or it just simply probably won't be added any time soon without a clear alternative or desire. Not a priority either.

Pointshop. The bane of our existence. No longer supported or updated. Always problems. The new stacker thing seems strange and will probably be looked into to see if that can be removed or at least work properly like it's supposed to. It also seems it should be cleaned up on Dink's end with items no longer used or old data.

Game Mechanics/Jump Pack

Hitreg. This has been an issue for years. It might've slightly improved, but nothing significant. I'll save the whole speech on whats wrong with it bc everyone knows why so no updates on this yet, but hopefully something can help improve it this year...

Jump pack. Very controversial thing that has to be we have to tread lightly with. To save room in this post, I'm just going to link what I said on Laced's thread about it. Reading my last response on that thread is probably the best and still applies going into 2020.



Problems with Staff and the overall atmosphere. Internally and Externally.

Man, I genuinely don't know where to start with this. I covered some of it under "year review" regarding hackers and messing around too much, so I'll skip that. So let's start with the elephant in the room.

Lots of Community Members losing faith in the Staff and Dink.

If you've pay attention to the community closely and have been here long enough you know exactly what I am talking about. In blunt terms, it seems the community has started to lose faith in staff. Particularly, the Admins and Dink. Again, I am not going to go knocking and bringing up old ghosts so let's not do that either in the comments.

Admins:

Let's start with one question, what are we? What are we supposed to be? Oh wait, that was two questions, my bad. The answer to the first one is that we are the community leaders along with Dink. We act on guidance given to us by Dinkleberg and overseen directly by him while we oversee Trusted-Mod. For the second one, we are supposed to be part of the central authority of the server. We are supposed to make the minor executive decisions within our power in Dink's absence. So the question is, do we effectively carry out those duties, or are we "so called" Admins. Fun fact, critics would use to call the Monroe Doctrine a "so called" doctrine because it was not effective in carrying out its core duties it was supposed to... nvm I'll go on a long history lesson about that but ik you guys don't like that. Nonetheless,  sometimes we do in fact find ourselves powerless to effectively carry out those supposed responsibilities. We have been called many names because of this. "Useless Elite," "So Called Admins," and "Glorified Mods." 

But do these names translate to reality? The answer is yes, in a sense. People complain to us a lot about some things we just can't fix by ourselves. While do we full access to forums, discord, fixing time, and pointshop, we don't have access to do somethings that would be essential to the "so called" Admin. One big thing, promotions. We accept the apps, promote on forums and discord, but cannot promote in-game. It would make sense if we could if we are able to do everything else.. right? I think it would be less of a hassle for both us, the player, and Dink if we were able to do it all in one swoop instead of having to wait. We would also be able to get into training right away. I did say I wasn't going to knock at old graves but I'm going to knock at one, sorry for being a hypocrite. Last year, Admins were likely going to gain the ability to promote up to Trusted. That did not happen, it might've been because Dink hasn't been able to figure out how to set it up in a way that we couldn't promote higher than that. Obviously actual demotes with his approval would-be off-limits and should be... I'm actually going to talk about that later. But perhaps being able to do Test Mod or even Mod would be nice if we could promote. 

Ik that may sound like me going on a power trip here, but it really isn't. It's just reality to me of what would make sense and I do believe that Admins should gain that power to promote and possibly demote those that have resigned only and strictly to that. Too many times, staff have come back onto the server still with the ranks even though they have resigned ages ago even after we tell Dink they have resigned and need it taken away. There have been past Admins with their ranks still sitting there for months. Thankfully, not many if not any have abused and would they would sometimes still help out while they are on until it was taken away although they are technically not staff. So to those that have resigned and did that, thank you. 

Communication between Admins-Admins and Dinkleberg/Admins

I'm going to tread lightly but meaningful with this one between it honestly isn't the complete worst but it is far from the complete best. There are just going to be my observations. We all have lives, jobs, and stuff to do irl and we all can't communicate 24/7. It's human. Past Admins might know where this is going. We do have a structure to communicate. We have our own channel with all the Admins, Dink, and Juan. DMs are always open. The problem though is that some things we mention to each other either go unnoticed or ignored completely. Accidental? Maybe. in some cases yes. Busy with IRL stuff? Obviously. That happens to all of us, myself too. Others can possibly have perfectly reasonable explanations behind them, but to us it just seems to be unnoticed or ignored because we don't know what is going on with that. My main problem with this is that some of these things are actually important and need a response. Sometimes when we're trying to get a response around things that are concerning and out of our power, we find that we're getting more commentary than any sort of judgment on such concerns.

Donor abuse, for example, we do need some guidance from Dinkleberg on those. One person, we all agreed we wanted to drop to Supporter due to their insane and repeated reckless actions, knowing what they were doing and showed no signs that they were going to stop, but never got any response there on our proposal. This caused a huge delay in us responding to the thread and were limited with options at that point. For example, a staff acting the way they shouldn't be and receiving a legitimate ban for harassing a younger person on the server and possibly ghosting. Given the nature of their rank, we would also need some guidance there on how we should proceed with them being a dtmod and if the behavior continued.

This is one thing, personally, I hope that can be improved between us in 2020 to better the community. At the very least from any of us, just a simple "hey I'm not going to be around for a little bit and probably won't respond for a while." From any of us to each other. We're all human. That is understandable. This is really it and can easily be an achievable goal for 2020. This part is obviously meant for Dink and all us Admins collectively, but everyone else should have a right to know too. We all do love Dink and I suspect most of the community does, but this is something among some of the other things I said here that should probably change. Us Admins too need to be better at this. Me included. We all want this community to be the best it can be. This is definitely one. Idk where to fit Juan in this since he has been largely absent in the last few months. 

So in short, our Admin-Admin, Dink-Admin, and Admin-Dink communication is something we should try to work on.


Staff/Player Communication

I'm just going to keep this one short and simple. Sometimes staff and player communication can be scarce and we both need more transparency. We have started to address this. We've introduced "newsletters" whenever something big or something big is about to happen. We are trying to improve that too. So that's a good start, right? Staff to staff communication, that can be a bit scarce too. We try to be as transparent as possible and we expect as much in return. I think this part is generally ok, but there is always room for improvement. Idk what else to say here. Also trying to shorten this thread a bit... sorry.


Losing Faith, but can be recovered

It has become very apparent to me that people are losing faith in the staff. I covered general reasons why people are losing faith in staff earlier in the way somethings are handled. We can all improve. We have a community, but it seems it is a community that is starting to become unhappy overall with the way things are going. So, let's start this new year off strong and all of us try to work together. From Dink all the way to the guests. People do get upset at us Admins for things we can't fix, (see admin section for this). So let's actually try to fix them. So to conclude this long thread, I say a happy new year. Let's make one of our new year's resolutions making Dink's Great Again. If you have skipped all the way to the bottom I'm not going to make a full TLDR because it wouldn't make sense without fully reading it. I'm not hating on anyone here, just making observations that seem to repeat themselves.

I'd like to also hear somethings from you guys about what you thought about the server in 2019 and what you would like to see in 2020. Again, don't go knocking at old graves, threads, and events in-depth and in-depth conversations about those specifics. Those are in the past. This is the future.





RE: Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - Christian - 01-01-2020

Remove Borealis.

Also thank you for the meaningful post Gaybe.

RE: Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - matt_st3 (Strongrule) - 01-01-2020

K

RE: Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - Foxka - 01-01-2020

For 2020 Gabe should be promoted to co-owner and Juan indefinitely removed from admin rank due to his prolonged absence, until he returns from whatever work trip he's been on.

Gabe is, and has been the best admin the server has had, ever. I'm almost a little sad I wasn't able to help him out more, but I also dont deserve that right either lol

RE: Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - cherry (2) - 01-01-2020

haha wow thanks for the long essay and gross title

Well, if I were to be blunt I myself have also just felt pretty down in this server. The lack of communication alone has just been pretty crushing.
I get messaged by people about if anything is going to happen to so and so about something they shouldn't have down with their power. I have nothing to say besides that isn't in our realm to decide demotions like that, especially if they're paid for. All we can really do is warn and ban. I try to communicate with others, but I don't really get anything in return. So when people say admins are useless and that we're glorified mods, I do believe that.

While yes we do have a co-ownership to lessen the workload, I'm pretty sure they're both very busy. So the lack of communication is something I understand. So I do agree that allowing admins to promote would be beneficial. Maybe even possibly demoting if it's an emergency / with the owners approval.

Asides from that, we do try to take the initiative to make the server even slightly better with what ever problems we're having. It's hard though when you lose motivation.

RE: Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - lacer - 01-01-2020

Remove this fucking post right now

RE: Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - matt_st3 (Strongrule) - 01-01-2020

Ok so now that I actually read the thread and am not memeing gabe - there is a whole analysis on where problems lie. The core of it is that the “community” and “staff” are not on the same page when it comes to expectations. Bluntly, there is no longer a high standard expected of staff. Probably not even moderate. Staff ban each other and players Willy nilly, whether “joke bans” or just wrong bans. An no I don’t mean just hacking. A lot of staff we get now stems from friends of staff, so yeah they stick around and get along with other members but you get things like this joke ban spree or staff not wanting to hold each other accountable. There are times where it’s just been hive minding.
Response time is a *massive* issue. Be it admin decisions, unbans that go longer than they should, whatever, response time for various reasons has led to older community members leaving and a general tension towards higher staff. I personally have time again; if I had just stayed on as an inactive admin I’d be back. But at this time, I find it hard to imagine being staff again. Apathy has settled in me, so it’s a good thing I didn’t stay. (Insert illegal discussion of inactive admins). These are the problems
Now on the positive, we actually do have some really good old staff that are popping up again lately helping out. Some of these members have a lot of experience with our current issues, make use of them when they offer. Over the year terms with PH and TTT and much better, even though TTT is still superior.
My suggestion: work on the community issues. Discord is a constant dumpster fire, forums jumps around but tbh are a lot more dead than past. (Insert strong opinion on discord mods). Fuck whether or not this gun has 3% higher dps, community shrinking is going to be a bigger problem any day. It’s an old game, I know not to expect balance and frames (tho yeah hitreg is still ass). Corral the discord so people don’t regret still reading it, so that we can actually hold conversations again without constant shitposting. Forums will just reflect community activity so not really a lot that can be improved there? Tho I’m down to look into something if it’s brought up. How we staff server should be straightened up, and how we interact with each other needs some cleaning in general.
Well at this point I’m monologuing so bleh
Slight note: we aren’t going to gain access to promote or demote with all this tension and joke banning and whatnot. At this point I’m with dink on that. Once dink sees things straightened up maybe, but for now I wouldn’t.

RE: Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - lacer - 01-01-2020

Ok since I'm dead on TTT I'll make a non shitposting response

This year, for lack of a better phrase, has been a emotional rollercoaster for myself and everyone who's been here through the year. 

From doing my job as Moderator, to resigning, coming back and getting community banned the day I posted my TMod app, (i'm still hurt, fuck you guys for that) then getting unbanned and reshaping myself to be the toxic troll who's probably on the verge of another ban that I am today, it's been a hell of a ride. Those of you that know me will know that's not even the full story regarding my actions this year. I've done things I regret, and have tried taking actions to right my wrongs. Overall? fuck 2019 worst goddamn year of my life I've had a good run so far. Yeah, my good run included a community ban and a subsequent ban from applying for staff when I was unbanned. In all honesty, I'm glad that ban is still in place, because I would try to come back to the team if it wasn't for that. I don't want that. I think it's a waste of time since the server (and overall community) has essentially turned into a pile of dog shit since I, and many others, have simply stopped caring.

As for the issues talked about in this thread, I think I've made my opinions on them quite clear in other posts. 

Here's to many more years, hopefully better ones than 2019.

RE: Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - cherry (2) - 01-02-2020

(01-01-2020, 11:37 PM)matt_st3 (Strongrule) Wrote: Ok so now that I actually read the thread and am not memeing gabe - there is a whole analysis on where problems lie. The core of it is that the “community” and “staff” are not on the same page when it comes to expectations. Bluntly, there is no longer a high standard expected of staff. Probably not even moderate. Staff ban each other and players Willy nilly, whether “joke bans” or just wrong bans. An no I don’t mean just hacking. A lot of staff we get now stems from friends of staff, so yeah they stick around and get along with other members but you get things like this joke ban spree or staff not wanting to hold each other accountable. There are times where it’s just been hive minding.
Response time is a *massive* issue. Be it admin decisions, unbans that go longer than they should, whatever, response time for various reasons has led to older community members leaving and a general tension towards higher staff. I personally have time again; if I had just stayed on as an inactive admin I’d be back. But at this time, I find it hard to imagine being staff again. Apathy has settled in me, so it’s a good thing I didn’t stay. (Insert illegal discussion of inactive admins). These are the problems
Now on the positive, we actually do have some really good old staff that are popping up again lately helping out. Some of these members have a lot of experience with our current issues, make use of them when they offer. Over the year terms with PH and TTT and much better, even though TTT is still superior.
My suggestion: work on the community issues. Discord is a constant dumpster fire, forums jumps around but tbh are a lot more dead than past. (Insert strong opinion on discord mods). Fuck whether or not this gun has 3% higher dps, community shrinking is going to be a bigger problem any day. It’s an old game, I know not to expect balance and frames (tho yeah hitreg is still ass). Corral the discord so people don’t regret still reading it, so that we can actually hold conversations again without constant shitposting. Forums will just reflect community activity so not really a lot that can be improved there? Tho I’m down to look into something if it’s brought up. How we staff server should be straightened up, and how we interact with each other needs some cleaning in general.
Well at this point I’m monologuing  so bleh
Slight note: we aren’t going to gain access to promote or demote with all this tension and joke banning and whatnot. At this point I’m with dink on that. Once dink sees things straightened up maybe, but for now I wouldn’t.

Yeah, we realize that. Hence why we started the whole strike thing. I've had to individually warn some people prior to it, but whether it stuck or not is something I'm not sure on. 
The strikes though are yeah, something that will stick. Not sure where the feeling that it's necessary to ban/kick each other started to have fun came into play. I've seen it before, but it's just grown recently.

On the note of hive minding, it's just something hard to escape from my experience in all the servers I've been in. Cliques form in all communities. Silence one and you have another growing already. 

Also in my specific response, I'm more so talking about donor abuses as they were also increasing in the past few months. None of which we were given guidance on. 
At some point so much time had passed we felt our options were very limited. As they're donors, that money is going directly to dinkleberg so just trying to be careful and seeing what we can do to prevent them from charging back with dinkleberg being on board was very pressing.

RE: Dink's Rewind 2019 & my 2020 outlook - matt_st3 (Strongrule) - 01-02-2020

(01-02-2020, 12:01 AM)Hani Wrote:
(01-01-2020, 11:37 PM)matt_st3 (Strongrule) Wrote: Ok so now that I actually read the thread and am not memeing gabe - there is a whole analysis on where problems lie. The core of it is that the “community” and “staff” are not on the same page when it comes to expectations. Bluntly, there is no longer a high standard expected of staff. Probably not even moderate. Staff ban each other and players Willy nilly, whether “joke bans” or just wrong bans. An no I don’t mean just hacking. A lot of staff we get now stems from friends of staff, so yeah they stick around and get along with other members but you get things like this joke ban spree or staff not wanting to hold each other accountable. There are times where it’s just been hive minding.
Response time is a *massive* issue. Be it admin decisions, unbans that go longer than they should, whatever, response time for various reasons has led to older community members leaving and a general tension towards higher staff. I personally have time again; if I had just stayed on as an inactive admin I’d be back. But at this time, I find it hard to imagine being staff again. Apathy has settled in me, so it’s a good thing I didn’t stay. (Insert illegal discussion of inactive admins). These are the problems
Now on the positive, we actually do have some really good old staff that are popping up again lately helping out. Some of these members have a lot of experience with our current issues, make use of them when they offer. Over the year terms with PH and TTT and much better, even though TTT is still superior.
My suggestion: work on the community issues. Discord is a constant dumpster fire, forums jumps around but tbh are a lot more dead than past. (Insert strong opinion on discord mods). Fuck whether or not this gun has 3% higher dps, community shrinking is going to be a bigger problem any day. It’s an old game, I know not to expect balance and frames (tho yeah hitreg is still ass). Corral the discord so people don’t regret still reading it, so that we can actually hold conversations again without constant shitposting. Forums will just reflect community activity so not really a lot that can be improved there? Tho I’m down to look into something if it’s brought up. How we staff server should be straightened up, and how we interact with each other needs some cleaning in general.
Well at this point I’m monologuing  so bleh
Slight note: we aren’t going to gain access to promote or demote with all this tension and joke banning and whatnot. At this point I’m with dink on that. Once dink sees things straightened up maybe, but for now I wouldn’t.

Yeah, we realize that. Hence why we started the whole strike thing. I've had to individually warn some people prior to it, but whether it stuck or not is something I'm not sure on. 
The strikes though are yeah, something that will stick. Not sure where the feeling that it's necessary to ban/kick each other started to have fun came into play. I've seen it before, but it's just grown recently.

On the note of hive minding, it's just something hard to escape from my experience in all the servers I've been in. Cliques form in all communities. Silence one and you have another growing already. 

Also in my specific response, I'm more so talking about donor abuses as they were also increasing in the past few months. None of which we were given guidance on. 
At some point so much time had passed we felt our options were very limited. As they're donors, that money is going directly to dinkleberg so just trying to be careful and seeing what we can do to prevent them from charging back with dinkleberg being on board was very pressing.

I took so long to type that messages that I didn’t see your post. But in general. 

Hive minding will happen, but we have to be careful. A lot of instances that stick out just happen to be staff egging on a discussion how the player wants it to go instead of just leaving it be. But that’s what happens anywhere that everyone gets to say their opinion. 

As to when the joke commands come into play, I do vaguely remember that introduction but since it wasn’t out of malice and more something that got out of hand, I’ll leave the source be. The mindset is more important, take discord for example. If that’s what is expected, then that’s what you get and more. Normalcy of Deviance. It’s a product of ignoring or the absence of clear rules, guidelines, procedures etc and/or not following through with set policies. Happens but needs to be resolved