[Gabe]

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[quote pid="140288" dateline="1672876037"]
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I messed up the snip but my responses are in black.

What determines the usefulness of a thread? Then why not close all threads after a certain period of time? Your response and what typically happens contradicts one another.

There's no set metric for determining the usefulness of a thread. Threads autolock after a month, so they do close after a certain period of time. Neither me, web mods, or any other admins have typically closed threads unless there was a reason too (i.e. issue was resolved completely such as donor abuse threads, the thread was devolving to the point where locking it was a neccessitiy(but, we have typically reopened them after allowing some time to cool off. Batton's resignation thread is a good example. It was temporarily closed for a quick breather then it was reopened). So I don't typically close threads unless it is neccessary.

As for why that thread was closed specifically, I determined it was not neccessary to be open any longer because I was the one who made the announcement and allowed for it to be open specifically for feedback on the proposed changes that were being worked on. I got feedback from that and implemented it. I also made this category specifically for suggestions, feedback, etc. So any further feedback or suggestions could be made here and they can have their own space for discussion. I hope that helps answer this part.

Clearly the issues with trusting certain people in this community are not fixed.  When there's a repeated cycle of gaining and breaking trust, you can't expect people to forget the past. Hence sayings like forgive but never forget.  Those past actions may have been forgiven, but they will never be forgotten, which is why it's critical to have those actions accounted for when doing a closed off promotion like this. There was no reason given as to why people should trust Laced again, and no amount of staffing can change that.

Yes, there will never be full trust. I don't expect people to forget the past. I haven't and I've said that. I fully recognize the past. My focus is on the "forgive" aspect. Not the forgotten aspect. As I said before, it was accounted for. It was not forgotten or brushed over. I'll refer back to what I said before in previous replies

Anyone can put on a face and pretend to be something they're not, and act completely different when staff aren't watching. I've seen in myself in game, and that's why I feel as strong as I do about what I say. That's why I've always said, community feedback is and will always be vital when making decisions like this. Now you have more broken trust, not just between the community and Laced, but the community and the admin team responsible for this decision.

Sure, that's true. But again, I believe it's genuine. I agree community feedback is important, I've always been a fan of that. I want to say again too that laced is my responsibility. I'll also reiterate that I don't see Web Mod as a traditional "moderator." So I wasn't thinking in terms of "moderator" promotion. It's the only rank that exists within web staff. But yes, it is a community-wide position because the forums incorporate all aspects of the community. I agree community feedback is important, I've always been a fan of that. I do still think we all need to give it time to see how it plays out than making immediate conclusions about how it'll turn out.

You're also missing a keyword in your argument. A person CAN change, doesn't mean they HAVE changed.
In the context of calling people stupid, light hearted or not, that just adds to an already unprofessional feel for the community. Regardless of what the intention behind the comment was and whether you think  it was harmless, a position like that is meant to represent the overall community and should be professional when discussing matters like this with members of the community. This comment comes off as rude and ignoring people's thoughts on the matter, which puts this community and the staff in a bad light.

I think the intent and context of it matter for that comment still. He said he "loves you guys" too so that made it clear to be that it wasn't mean to come across as hostile and more of a lighthearted way of telling people not to shitpost in a rather serious conversation. He was referring to the comments he deleted for shitposting, not that people said substance wise on this thread or people that gave thoughts on the matter. I know people can't see deleted comments, but they were genuine shitposts. I get why that may not be clear, but he said it was referring to the shitpost comments. We shouldn't jump to conclusions for that either in terms of it intending to be rude, ignoring people's thoughts, etc. But going forward I'm sure being mindful of how something comes across can be improved. 

I get the argument of a person can change, but doesn't mean they have. Yes, that is true. But in this case I felt like they have actually shown signs of change and continued gradual improvement and did not/still don't think they will cause any issues that were problematic in the past or 'recent'. 


Since this was missed, I'll ask again:
Since when could someone close out their own ban request without any admin oversight on the thread and archive it (since a Web mod does that but isn't a high enough ttt staff to archive ban requests unless that changed)? Feels like a step was missed in that whole process too.

I'm not sure I know what this is referring to. Could you elaborate? If you're talking about laced commenting on this one, it was his first ban request from 2018. He just wanted(and asked me) if he could comment on it as a quick joke. I didn't see the harm in it because it doesn't show up on recent threads and it clearly says 2018 on it, so I allowed it. But to address the actual question, that would never happen and if it did happen it would be a seriously issue that I would take care of.

[/quote]

dear god i'm just snipping this whole thing

Still not commenting directly on Laced being moderator, but people have posted recent examples of reasonable concerns, it's not just past issues that people are talking about.

Also, the powers currently given to forum moderators are still very relevant to the concerns raised against him.

I've been trying to address concerns where appropriate, I may have missed some. Past = "recent" too. The past can mean yesterday. so I just say past.
I'm not sure I get what you are trying to say in the last part, but yes any staff position makes valid concerns relevant.

[tiefling lesbian]

snip again

This might get lost in an edit as there have been a few posts since my last reply so I'm just making an additional one to add:
You're asking the community to trust not only Laced to do well as moderator, but also to trust you to hold him accountable should he fail at that. I think this is ultimately the biggest concern in regards to the discussion of bias in the promotion; other than a largely inactive owner, the only person he reports to is the person who promoted him. This is not necessarily to say that that trust is unwarranted or unobtainable, but between the manner in which the promotion was done, the way that certain criticisms are either downplayed or ignored, and the fact that his first act as moderator was to delete criticism of his promotion (warranted or not), it has not been a good start at building the trust you seek.

[voidzz]

Per usual, I’m advocating for transparency within the community, especially when decisions like these are happening. The admins mightve said their part, but what about the rest of us? Gabe, the decision you made appears (I’m not saying it necessarily is) to be one made from personal feelings and your friendship with laced, that is how 99% of the community sees it. To back up others, I think we need public applications for things like these, regardless how people did it in the past. At the end of the day, there was no one to stop you from making YOUR decision, it almost feels like tyranny. It’s sad the way that initial thread was handled along with the closing comment, along with the additional condescending posts from laced that appear as a power trip to most of us. However, knowing some additional things, I’m not surprised by how similar the web team is in terms of personality, especially outside of dinks discord.
I think Avi did a GREAT job at addressing our concerns.

[tiefling lesbian]

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"Past" as in the old old drama. I would not call something as recent as the CSGO tournament the "past" in the same context as drama from years ago.

[Gabe]

snip again

This might get lost in an edit as there have been a few posts since my last reply so I'm just making an additional one to add:
You're asking the community to trust not only Laced to do well as moderator, but also to trust you to hold him accountable should he fail at that. I think this is ultimately the biggest concern in regards to the discussion of bias in the promotion; other than a largely inactive owner, the only person he reports to is the person who promoted him. This is not necessarily to say that that trust is unwarranted or unobtainable, but between the manner in which the promotion was done, the way that certain criticisms are either downplayed or ignored, and the fact that his first act as moderator was to delete criticism of his promotion (warranted or not), it has not been a good start at building the trust you seek.

I don't think it's biased because all Admins are supposed to hold their staff accountable, that's been the norm in this community. I'm the only Web Admin, so yes it falls to me to do that. The others Admins can hold me accountable. I already addressed in a previous reply why the "criticism" was deleted and that he discussed it with me beforehand. See my first post. I'd appreciate it if that was read. I don't want to repeat myself for something I already said. But I am willing to elaborate if people request that. otherwise, I'm just going to refer back to my previous comments and have people read those first if it seems like they haven't (just in general, I'm not calling out anyone specifically with this).

snip

"Past" as in the old old drama. I would not call something as recent as the CSGO tournament the "past" in the same context as drama from years ago.

My apologies. I will say "recent" instead to make that distinction more clear.

[Ckg]

You're lucky you didn't get a warning for it.

I'm not sure where this sudden hatred from you and your group of friends comes from, but it needs to be contained within your circle. I don't care if you like me or not, just keep it away from the forums unless there's been blatant abuse or something else that needs to be addressed.

You were once an Admin of these forums and our TTT server, you of all people should know better than to act like this. 

This thread can stay open because the general topic is one that I think can bear some good fruit, but if it turns into a dogpile thread then it's getting locked.

This is exactly the type of stuff that people are worried about with you. You let power get to your head and go around saying stuff like this.  You are already flaunting/threating to misuse your powers to put someone down.

To bring up history, 6 months of face level good action doesn't erase years of being a dickhead and people obviously still have issues with you because of that.

It's also insane that you say that people having issues with you coming from a, supposed, group of friends somehow makes each and every single one of their grievances invalid.  Just by the 2 parts in bold above show that you do not have the level of maturity required for this position.  You threatened someone you don't agree with and frame it as you being generous. 

Not to mention that is somewhat rich coming from you to talk about a clique when you have one yourself.  You want to talk about a group of friends?  I challenge anyone on the forums to go look and try and find a single difference between what you and Damien do on the forums.  You have formed your own group and are trying to act like you haven't; those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

[tiefling lesbian]

I already addressed in a previous reply why the "criticism" was deleted and that he discussed it with me beforehand. See my first post. I'd appreciate it if that was read. I don't want to repeat myself for something I already said. But I am willing to elaborate if people request that. otherwise, I'm just going to refer back to my previous comments and have people read those first if it seems like they haven't (just in general, I'm not calling out anyone specifically with this).

I read it, I'm not arguing whether deleting it was warranted or not. I'm saying that, regardless of if it was warranted, it was not a good way to build trust, especially given his response afterward.

My apologies. I will say "recent" instead to make that distinction more clear.

My point beyond semantics is that there are recent concerns being raised, not just ones from years ago like your previous posts have implied. Your request for trust on his behalf is predicated on him having changed since then, but there are still recent issues people have stated that have been ignored or downplayed (telling someone to kill themself in the CSGO tournament, using staff chat for drama, slurs etc in  his discord). This is not just people being stuck in the past, these are active, unresolved issues that people are stating as reasons they don't trust that he has changed sufficiently, and trying to sweep them under the rug only further damages their ability to trust both him and you.

[dong]

I think "harsh criticism" is something that is warranted depending on the topic of the thread. The constant need to be on defense while downplaying every single thing that goes against an idea is very telling. Everyone who had anything against him is out of a high position of power and now he is virtually untouchable and being treated like a golden child tbh and I'm not even active or care anymore. If anyone else were to do these things I believe that they'd be held to a different standard. All in all this clearly shows that maybe ALL positions for any server should be through application so things like this don't continue to happen.

[Gabe]

I already addressed in a previous reply why the "criticism" was deleted and that he discussed it with me beforehand. See my first post. I'd appreciate it if that was read. I don't want to repeat myself for something I already said. But I am willing to elaborate if people request that. otherwise, I'm just going to refer back to my previous comments and have people read those first if it seems like they haven't (just in general, I'm not calling out anyone specifically with this).

I read it, I'm not arguing whether deleting it was warranted or not. I'm saying that, regardless of if it was warranted, it was not a good way to build trust.

Sure, perhaps on the surface it could have been handled better, I could have done it if I wasn't preoccupied or said to wait until I could get to it. But, as I said before, context and intent matters. We shouldn't be getting strung up on that

My apologies. I will say "recent" instead to make that distinction more clear.

My point beyond semantics is that there are recent concerns being raised, not just ones from years ago like your previous posts have implied. Your request for trust on his behalf is predicated on him having changed since then, but there are still recent issues people have stated that have been ignored or downplayed (telling someone to kill themself in the CSGO tournament, using staff chat for drama, slurs etc in  his discord). This is not just people being stuck in the past, these are active, unresolved issues that people are stating as reasons they don't trust that he has changed sufficiently, and trying to sweep them under the rug only further damages their ability to trust both him and you.

I haven't been ignoring them. I'm trying to be as transparent as I can, there are a lot of comments so I'll miss some or not reply to them fully to get to others.

I feel like the context for most of these "recent" points matters. For the streaming drama in staff discord with a few staff friends, that one I genuinely don't see what the issue is, especially if it's just an observation rather than someone physically being present in the call to know what's happening.
Staff voice channels are the most informal part of the entire staff discord. Nothing serious happens in them for the most part. Streaming old drama is just a fun pastime for most people in the community, I'm sure many people have done that before. I don't get how that impact staffing abilities or shows any concern here. This one i truly see as a non-issue

For the CS:GO Tournament, I don't recall that off the top of my head or know the context behind it. So I haven't touched that one yet.

Using slurs in another private discord is also something I'm not sure I understand how it impacts staffing, judgment, etc. I think it's just grasping at straws. That's my honest answer. I'm sure there are other people in this community, both staff and non-staff alike, slur in areas not related to this community. You can probably search  up slurs in a lot of dink's "splinter discords" and find a whole basket full of slurs from staff members and non-staff members. As long as someone knows the expectations of how to behave in OUR community, know what is allowed and what isn't, knows not to say those slurs, etc I don't think it's a huge deal. We can't control what people do outside of our community with things like that. If we police that, then that truly turns us into a tyranny. It matters how they act and present themselves in our community (i.e our discord, forums, servers). if it involves harassment of other members or something that can extend to our community, that's different. but saying slurs is something I've never really had a concern with unless it directly impacts behavior in our community.

[Summer]

I’ve only read the original topic at hand from Battons, because tldr. Also, as much as I like everyone here, I doubt my input will hold any face value due to my absence of what.. 4 or so years? But as dong said, any promotion needs to be voted on.

Laced has had controversy and bans in his past, and yes those are in the past. But a sudden promotion to web mod is drastic, especially given the past. And there is a clique mentality here on dinks, and with any server. Friends will always look out for friends. Nothing will ever change that, as much as we try. But we should be free to post whatever we should post, whether negative or positive comments on staff apps/unban request/abuse threads, without repercussions or hate. Everything needs to be civil, and yes sometimes shitposted. Just as with the quick promotions to trusted-mod (I dunno role anymore, nor do I care), that should’ve taken some time based off of the resignings and demotions in the past. I’ve even called out previous staff that has resigned and reapplied months later multiple times. I get it, staffing is hard.

Laced, I love you bud. You’ve been a homie, always will be. We went through the toxicity with rits together and made it out alive, but all of us did something wrong back in those days. Nothing changes my mind about this, but nothing changes my opinion on you being a good guy.

This seems like I’ve rambled unrelated, I don’t care tbh. This server will do whatever it wants with inactive owners to hold leadership accountable.