02-26-2021, 04:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-26-2021, 04:36 PM by jax. Edited 2 times in total.)
At the recommendation of @Prince Nicky La Flama Blanca, bringing the recent discussion from the discord to the forums. This post is, at its core a giant lists of complaints, frustrations, recommendations, and hopefully can be used for a discussion between staff members and players. I'll jump right into it. I'll label anything that's my own opinion.
1.) Lack of Admins
For starters, I think many people are frustrated with the current status of the staff team. There seems to be a significant disconnect between normal players and staff members. Specifically, TTT has not had a strong "leader" in months. @"Nicol" is an admin for TTT, and for the most part acts as a 'head' figure for all of Dinkleberg's, yet I do not believe he is active enough (especially on TTT). [Let me make note, this is not his fault necessarily. He has work, real life priorities, etc. On top of that, he is the sole admin currently] On top of that, @"Dinkleberg >:(" is rarely active. [Once again I assume Dink is in the same position as nicol, so the same 'excuse' can be used for him] However, that leaves the TTT community, and really the whole community without leaders. This can lead to the following problems:
- It takes weeks for ban requests / unban requests to go through
- Ranks not given out ie @Jammin (this causes problems, because there were instances where jammin could not ban aimbotters, ddosers, etc)
- Community stagnation
One of the other problems that arises from only having one admin is the fact, and no offense to Nicol, that the admin is disconnected from the player base. It's my belief that an admin should know their player base as it's more conducive to making proper administrative calls (staff applications, suggestions, bans, etc)
Give @Jammin and @bryanbrr admin. We need the admins. They deserve it. They care. They're good staff. We've been without good admins for more than 3 months now.
2.) Bad Staff
This is going to get into, what I imagine, the more controversial territory. I'll try to be objective, but my own bias will be embedded in this. Other's feel free to give your input or disagree. There are members of the staff that, frankly put, are shit. They are just terrible at their jobs. I will not post names, because I want this post to be a discussion, not an attack on individuals. That being said, some of the staff are incredibly: immature, inactive, and inconsistent. The way they treat some players is totally different than how they treat others. It is often joked about, but in all seriousness, there is no reason for some staff members to worship @"Burb" . It comes off as creepy, cringy, and pathetic. It could probably even be considered harassment by the standards of the server. There have been multiple occurrences where rules are not consistent. For example, the situation with @thunderwalrusinnthebar and his approach to the word "tranny". While I personally think Thunder was wrong in this instance, I think it highlights a bigger problem that is not his fault. (Also, I should mention that while this is under the "Bad Staff" section, I don't necessarily think Thunder is a bad staff despite a personal disagreement with him) Consistency. There are far too many instances where the staff are inconsistent with their ruling. Other staff dismissed this as "at the moderator's own discretion" but I believe that this is a just an easy cop out. Some other quick notes:
- The staff team uses a committee system, which @Ethan described on discord to me. On paper, it looks like a pretty good system. However, in practice as it currently stands, I believe it is inefficient because of the aforementioned problem of bad staff. Bad Staff = Bad Decisions
- Former admins like @dong have mentioned that he could not do anything progressive with the community because of the current committee system. He also mentioned a problem with poor staff.
3.) Ignoring The Community
What the hell is the point of +1s and community feedback if it doesn't mean anything? I can already guess that there will be a response that says something along the lines of "We do listen to community feedback!" but that's demonstrably false. An example being @"aethy" s unban request. He can give more input on this more in the replies if he wants. Another example, would be the spray thread. As @JesseTheUndeadCowboy mentioned in the discord, the only person giving legitimate criticism was Russ. Russ was able to pretty much pinpoint why it was a bad idea, but the other staff, as Jesse mentioned, kinda just jerked themselves off with non-answers in a dismissive way. (He said it a lot nicer than that.)
Another big example of this lies with how staff currently treat regulars like Rylo, Ernie, Stuppidy, and Crab. Crab got permabanned for, possibly one of the most BS examples of teaming. Staff will ban people who have been with the community for years, and then pikachu face when the playerbase spams "ASAB" or complains about the staff being trash. #FreeCrab
A possible solution to this would be to introduce a new rank (no in-game powers at all) that members get when they reach a certain time limit, activity, etc (whatever is deemed as a good qualification) that allows them to vote within the committee. Regulars, and people who have dedicated a lot of their time (take Jesse for an example) should have more input than they already do.
Summary
- We need admins.
- There are too many bad staff.
- Stop ignoring regulars.
I will end this with this; I understand that regular players (myself included) can be shitheads. We complain, we troll, etc. I write this post with this self awareness.
1.) Lack of Admins
For starters, I think many people are frustrated with the current status of the staff team. There seems to be a significant disconnect between normal players and staff members. Specifically, TTT has not had a strong "leader" in months. @"Nicol" is an admin for TTT, and for the most part acts as a 'head' figure for all of Dinkleberg's, yet I do not believe he is active enough (especially on TTT). [Let me make note, this is not his fault necessarily. He has work, real life priorities, etc. On top of that, he is the sole admin currently] On top of that, @"Dinkleberg >:(" is rarely active. [Once again I assume Dink is in the same position as nicol, so the same 'excuse' can be used for him] However, that leaves the TTT community, and really the whole community without leaders. This can lead to the following problems:
- It takes weeks for ban requests / unban requests to go through
- Ranks not given out ie @Jammin (this causes problems, because there were instances where jammin could not ban aimbotters, ddosers, etc)
- Community stagnation
- I'll get into this later, but without strong leadership no changes can be implemented. @RussEfarmer brought to my attention in my spray thread, that even there was an agreement to make changes, no one but Dink has access to server files. This is a goodpoint, and just lends itself to possibly giving admins some control of the server / appointing a co-owner (through Dink's personal vetting process). I won't go into more on this because it's Dink's server and if he wants sole control of the files that's on him.
One of the other problems that arises from only having one admin is the fact, and no offense to Nicol, that the admin is disconnected from the player base. It's my belief that an admin should know their player base as it's more conducive to making proper administrative calls (staff applications, suggestions, bans, etc)
Give @Jammin and @bryanbrr admin. We need the admins. They deserve it. They care. They're good staff. We've been without good admins for more than 3 months now.
2.) Bad Staff
This is going to get into, what I imagine, the more controversial territory. I'll try to be objective, but my own bias will be embedded in this. Other's feel free to give your input or disagree. There are members of the staff that, frankly put, are shit. They are just terrible at their jobs. I will not post names, because I want this post to be a discussion, not an attack on individuals. That being said, some of the staff are incredibly: immature, inactive, and inconsistent. The way they treat some players is totally different than how they treat others. It is often joked about, but in all seriousness, there is no reason for some staff members to worship @"Burb" . It comes off as creepy, cringy, and pathetic. It could probably even be considered harassment by the standards of the server. There have been multiple occurrences where rules are not consistent. For example, the situation with @thunderwalrusinnthebar and his approach to the word "tranny". While I personally think Thunder was wrong in this instance, I think it highlights a bigger problem that is not his fault. (Also, I should mention that while this is under the "Bad Staff" section, I don't necessarily think Thunder is a bad staff despite a personal disagreement with him) Consistency. There are far too many instances where the staff are inconsistent with their ruling. Other staff dismissed this as "at the moderator's own discretion" but I believe that this is a just an easy cop out. Some other quick notes:
- The staff team uses a committee system, which @Ethan described on discord to me. On paper, it looks like a pretty good system. However, in practice as it currently stands, I believe it is inefficient because of the aforementioned problem of bad staff. Bad Staff = Bad Decisions
- Former admins like @dong have mentioned that he could not do anything progressive with the community because of the current committee system. He also mentioned a problem with poor staff.
3.) Ignoring The Community
What the hell is the point of +1s and community feedback if it doesn't mean anything? I can already guess that there will be a response that says something along the lines of "We do listen to community feedback!" but that's demonstrably false. An example being @"aethy" s unban request. He can give more input on this more in the replies if he wants. Another example, would be the spray thread. As @JesseTheUndeadCowboy mentioned in the discord, the only person giving legitimate criticism was Russ. Russ was able to pretty much pinpoint why it was a bad idea, but the other staff, as Jesse mentioned, kinda just jerked themselves off with non-answers in a dismissive way. (He said it a lot nicer than that.)
Another big example of this lies with how staff currently treat regulars like Rylo, Ernie, Stuppidy, and Crab. Crab got permabanned for, possibly one of the most BS examples of teaming. Staff will ban people who have been with the community for years, and then pikachu face when the playerbase spams "ASAB" or complains about the staff being trash. #FreeCrab
A possible solution to this would be to introduce a new rank (no in-game powers at all) that members get when they reach a certain time limit, activity, etc (whatever is deemed as a good qualification) that allows them to vote within the committee. Regulars, and people who have dedicated a lot of their time (take Jesse for an example) should have more input than they already do.
Summary
- We need admins.
- There are too many bad staff.
- Stop ignoring regulars.
I will end this with this; I understand that regular players (myself included) can be shitheads. We complain, we troll, etc. I write this post with this self awareness.
![[Image: xdjlve.png]](https://files.catbox.moe/xdjlve.png)
