[Gabe]

Here's my initial thoughts. I'm not against valid, constructive, and meaningful "anonymous" feedback. The key word is "feedback." I take issue with those that lack context, are based on hearsay, or are made in an accusatory way w/o anything to back it up because that doesn't allow for a meaningful debate surrounding it, bc obviously, that person can't respond or elaborate because it's "anonymous" and no one else will really know what they're talking about. It's just unproductive and takes away from the point of apps, which is to provide meaningful feedback that can be used to help the person applying improve or help other assess their ability to take on the role they are applying for in a fair and respectful way. 

I don't think vague or hostile anonymous comments belong on applications, frankly. Or ones that come off in a accusatory way without any foundation to back it up. If you're going to comment anonymously, I think you should at least provide context or examples along with your comment so that a meaningful discussion can come out of it rather than it come across as hostile or lacking context, whether that is intended or not. Not just saying "this person is more likely to do this because of x, y, z reasons and therefore shouldn't be promoted." If some context or examples(which can still be safeguarded by anonymity).  

I'm all for anonymous comments that are grounded in reality and can fairly be discussed or defended by the person who's applying. Otherwise, I think it's a waste of time that won't bring about anything productive and rather come across as that person being hostile, accusatory, or biased. 

I used to get ***a lot** of anonymous feedback when I was TTT Admin and the way I handled those was I would post them in the admin channel to allow the people who vote on apps(Admins) to discuss it internally, because, ultimately, Admins are the ones that decide and should determine if the feedback has any foundation to it. If it was clearly biased or lacked substance I'd ask them privately to send me context or evidence for that before I consider posting it internally to see if anyone else has heard of it before or get a better idea of what they're talking about. I saw no need to post it on the app itself most of the time unless it was something that could formulate a productive discussion on the substance of the anonymous feedback or something the community should know about. AKA something that could actually be discussed to a meaningful extent.

Being Afraid to Give Feedback
This may be an unpopular take, but if someone is afraid to comment because of losing rep, I frankly think that's on them for caring too much about fake internet points. However, if someone is targeting someone specifically with all their posts or -1ing every +1/-1 on an application or something then that's something I can consider rep bombing and will gladly look into, so I don't want anyone to be afraid to give their opinion bc of rep. Honestly, if that's an issue I might just remove rep again if people take it too seriously or remove it from certain individuals.  This isn't really a  joke about that, if people care too much about rep points and it starts to take away from meaningful contributions to business that happens on the forums then that's an issue.

As for being attacked or unsolicitedly confronted hostilely in a non-civil way about your opinion on a thread, whether it be in a dm or on the thread itself that shouldn't happen. As most of you have seen, I try to keep conversations tame and if needed punish accordingly. If it does happen you should contact me or another Admin and we can look into that and deal with it accordingly. No one should be afraid to comment on the forums because of these reasons. Any type of harassment or targeting of people for their opinion by an individual or a certain group of people isn't tolerated. 

it's 3am so this may be a word salad or some things may not come across right, so probably will make small edits tomorrow

[tiefling lesbian]

mmm salad

I mostly agree with your points overall, but it's less about -rep and more about being treated poorly on the server and in the community in general, which isn't really something that can be reported or meaningfully acted upon by staff most of the time outside of extreme cases. Though I do think rep is a lazy circlejerk function that ultimately doesn't represent anything other than seniority and popularity, but that's a different discussion. It's counterproductive to make users choose between being able to give feedback and not risking the ire of the community. I do agree that anonymous posts should be filtered to be constructive and made in good faith (really this should be all feedback posts, but 1984), but I don't see any legitimate reason why posts that pass that bar should face any further scrutiny or ridicule as far as anonymity goes, and restricting them would only serve to silence voices that might otherwise bring to light problematic behavior in the community*. I don't think the matter of anonymous posts in particular has been a huge issue recently or anything, but it's still just a bad precedent to set for the future.

*Speaking hypothetically, based on Reina's post before she had clarified further.

[reinaberg]

it's less about -rep and more about being treated poorly on the server and in the community in general

the issue with this is when there is a group of people who want to have their cake and eat it too— mass -1ing and actually harassing anyone who goes against their groupthink while also avoiding any accountability by claiming to be victims of that same behavior. the purpose of anonymous posting is defeated if the only people utilizing that anonymity are members of toxic cliques who can’t see the root problem of their behavior and attribute any negative reactions to a “hive mind”.

[LexiFox]

I understand where you are coming from with this sentiment. As someone who posted anonymously before getting staff I understand the fear of back lash from toxic community members as well. 
What I believe could be a compromise, mind you I do not like this idea but will present it anyway
Only active staff being able to post for others and using their digression about if it should be posted/if the claims in the post is valid I would say only mod+ but when it comes to being concerned about harassment you go with who you trust

It may end up preventing disgruntled community members that hold a grudge from lying and spreading falsehoods

[Summer]

Can we move the discussing toxicity thread here too

[voidzz]

i don't necessarily think everything needs to be recorded for each specific incidence though. anonymous posts are fine, if i were to make one though im not gonna go out of my way to clip a staff members hypocrisy just to use it against them in their next app. i do agree things like that should be taken with a grain of salt, however when multiple community members come together to agree on this issue that HAS been seen before, it should be taken serious anonymous or not.

i do believe a good point was made with the rep, hopefully no one cares too much about their rep. but when you come and speak your truthful mind about individuals who happen to be part of a hivemind, you typically see repercussions from their community/group, even if it's not direct actions but rather subconscious behaviors etc. i'm not worried about toxic community members going anonymous to make baseless claims. from the toxic cliques that i know myself, most of them are more than confident to post their thoughts.

i think a big thing to remember is that this anonymous person wanted their opinion seen, admins never (not that i've seen) post opinions from people without them asking to.

[dong]

I feel like most people typically just dm an admin their concerns without wanting them to post on their behalf. If they do want what they said posted it is usually to provide criticism without having to fear a hypothetical targeting scenario. Admins themselves decide whether or not the comments that they will post are appropriate. Up until I resigned this was actually a pretty common thing that we were having to do. I don't think any recent instance was out of fear of a massive rep bomb or anything like that because while those comments may have came across harsh to some there was merit and criticism behind them. They probably just don't want to be targeted if it was known who they are.

[Deadpoolz]

shut up im trying to watch chainsaw man

[reinaberg]

-snip-

a harsh criticism made anonymously for fear of harassment is one thing, but the issue i had with the post is that it seemed like a toxic closed-ended response. there was no room for discussion, as the only options they gave damien were “apologize or deny”. i feel as though allowing this creates an environment where people may attempt to abuse a staff member’s good will in order to play both the victim and the offender, as well as the judge, jury, and executioner. 
if reputation has become this much of an issue again, i believe it should just be removed. if there are people who value it enough to use it in an effort to discourage others from sharing their opinion while also allowing it to keep them from sharing their own, it’s doing more harm than good. 

(general statement, not directed @ one single person) it seems as though it is often forgotten that this is simply a gaming community made up of people who want to have fun. there shouldn’t be politics or harassment and toxicity to this degree, and there’s no need to interact with people you dislike if you aren’t fulfilling some obligation as a staff member. if someone is bothering you, just block them. continuing to interact with them and read their messages is a conscious decision. doing anything that doesn’t positively impact your experience in the long run is completely pointless.

[Birddog6]

what're people on the internet gonna do, punch you through the monitor?