[bunniey]

So very recently there was a post regarding an issue that many felt rather strong about, whether or not they were vocal about it. It was rather hastily taken down (for three reasons, one of which wasn't relevant, as the was asking for a community discussion on the issue, one of which was being perpetuated by just two people on the long thread, and one of which wasn't true at all). 

This begs the question. Why was the community not aware of this issue, and what other issues are the community unaware of that they should probably know?

Many players know that a staff discord exists, and that that's where all the decisions happen. People don't know just how much goes on in there. Some don't know that they're likely playing together in a voice call at any given time, or that most anything you do that can be perceived as even slightly negative is being recorded and talked about and broken down. That's where the committees come in. Everyone knows the committees are an issue, but the true problem with the committees lies with the extreme bias found within. You're led to believe that most of the issues on the servers are resolved in a formulaic manner to do with staff guidelines. "X happens, Y is the punishment." This is true to an extent, but bias comes into play in a pretty extreme manner.

A major example of this is the unbanning of Aeth0r, and the unbanning of Laced. Aeth0r killed 8 people in a mass RDM session, and didn't make an unban request for nearly 6 months. This issue was heavily debated with a small amount of people calling for him to stay permabanned because he has been given so many chances. Though he had been sincere in his first unban request, it was denied and he submitted another a month later. The first was denied based on some very vocal staff deciding he should stay banned because he's had so many chances. Obviously he got unbanned a month later, but they decided his banning should last nearly six months. Laced, on the other hand, killed 11 people, and has been repeatedly banned throughout his being apart of this community. He made a shitpost unban request just over a month later, which got denied because it was a meme, and then posted one more and it was accepted in just two days, with staff welcoming him back with open arms. He's more liked, especially by staff, as he is friends with a lot of them, so it just happened the second he wanted it to, despite his transgressions being worse, and him having a longer history of toxicity in the community.

Just like the closure of the thread posted earlier, that situation establishes a very clear bias in the staffing team towards certain individuals and against certain actions. There is zero transparency, no one knows who voted, how they voted, or why they voted that way on any manner. No one knows who is for or against closure of any threads, it's just decided without warning sometimes, and with warning other times, that it's become too much. This is where being transparent comes in. Many issues could be resolved by the voting patterns and facts the staff hide away becoming more public. This would erase the constant complaint of a disconnect between the staff team and the playerbase, and would fix the issue of high profile bans always getting a lot of pushback because the staff team tends to hide certain facts (like the teaming ban with GCubed and Rylo) so the community can't come to any of their own conclusions, and it becomes much more sketchy. More transparency would also help when certain threads bringing certain issues to light being closed in a manner that many people agree seems more like the staff is shoving the issue in a closet and locking it, rather than actually considering it resolved.

[lacer]

yeah th si guy said things i agrewe with +1 for unban

[TheUltraFish]

You want transparency? Tell who leaked staff chat then even though you were staff at the time, and the situation got handled, but you waited nearly 5 months to make a public post about it.

[Raider Hanks]

Transparency can only go so far. As Fish said, the leaking that YOU received (even though such an event did need to be displayed) puts hesitancy towards allow non-staff to see staff only things.

What's to prevent staff from being singling out due to their votes? One of the reasons only members of specific committees can see fellow votes is to prevent pressure from the outside.

[bunniey]

You want transparency? Tell who leaked staff chat then even though you were staff at the time, and the situation got handled, but you waited nearly 5 months to make a public post about it.

Not directly talking about that for a reason, as it had a thread that was closed. Gotta stay on topic and all that

[TheUltraFish]

You want transparency? Tell who leaked staff chat then even though you were staff at the time, and the situation got handled, but you waited nearly 5 months to make a public post about it.

Not directly talking about that for a reason, as it had a thread that was closed. Gotta stay on topic and all that

You cannot demand transparency and proper communication between staff with the community with information and data while also refusing to share information and data and pumping out a crap excuse

[bunniey]

You want transparency? Tell who leaked staff chat then even though you were staff at the time, and the situation got handled, but you waited nearly 5 months to make a public post about it.

Not directly talking about that for a reason, as it had a thread that was closed. Gotta stay on topic and all that

You cannot demand transparency and proper communication between staff with the community with information and data while also refusing to share information and data and pumping out a crap excuse.

I didn't post it 5 months ago because I didn't want to be immediately demoted, which would have happened. I'm not doing it now because the staff team will do the same to them, to quash any amount of that transparency. I don't think you're going to pat them on the back or anything.

[ratty]

who leaked the staff chat doe

[Ace1579]

I have a screenshot of Rippe wanting to date Derp a few years back......Don't know who wants to see it but i have it just in case it is required for this conversation

[dero]

This is how we know Rand touched a nerve, and now staff feels vulnerable. They just want to yell about the leak, and not actually address the post itself.