[Dildo Shwaggins]

So, I don't dip too much into staff/personal relations in the community but looking at everything here I have my own opinions, take them with a grain of salt, but this is going from when I was once high staff on a few incarnations of the same community's main server. I also don't know everything, so perspectives could change if I was directly involved in such discussions. Anyways, here's an essay on some recent incidents from how I see them.

RussEFarmer was not the most mature for his higher staff position and it showed. Mind you, he did good things too (I think some of the lower staff he brought on to PH are cool from what I've seen on forums), but his general demeanor on the forums and playing TTT were far from exemplary. I'll admit to being a shitposter and doing immature things on the server, but sometimes I feel Russ blurred the lines between serious business and joking around. Which brings me to this conclusion- was his behavior worthy of a demotion? Absolutely. However, I'm personally not on board with a permanent ban. A few weeks to a month? Maybe. A "suspension" of sorts might have done him good, given him time to cool off and improve himself without having to deal with being the only Admin rank on PH. Best of luck in your future endeavors, Russ.

As for the Bantz crew? This most recent incident with the abuse report completely warranted a ban, I think. It's one thing to have an opinion. I'm totally neutral on whether the bottom of Airship should be an exploit. And according to upper staff it is. Mari was enforcing that mandate by upper staff. That thread was not "opinions" and was far from it. That thread was ganging up and quite frankly harassing a staff member doing her job to enforce something that has been decided on by upper staff. You think it shouldn't be an exploit? Great, make a thread about it/try to get a community poll going instead of accusing a lower staff member of abuse and arguing/ganging up on her for enforcing the rules as they stand.

Clearly, both of these incidents show there's a problem. I think this problem is that as a community we have a major problem with discussing controversial topics civilly and getting civil feedback for said things. And the fault lies across the board, not just in staff or non-staff community members. I think staff, particularly on the higher end, needs to do a better job at listening to ideas pitched to the rest of the community and giving civil feedback on whether it's an idea worth discussing further with the community. This goes for things on the server and parts of the rules themselves. As for lower community members, a lot of discussion on topics, particularly the rules, stems from an issue on the server such as an abuse report. Most of the time these happen the one making the report is more often than not very salty, and the entire discussion on the topic starts out with anger and malice towards the staff member when there's a legitimate gray area to address in the rules. This leads to hostility across the board and an unfriendly environment to discuss the deeper issue at hand. So, say you think you're wronged by a potential gray area in the rules. It might be worth placing something in suggestions/support instead of getting angry at that staff member.

Tl;dr This community needs more civility across the board.