[bunniey]

honestly
why are we pretending it's a big deal

the promotion issue has never been an admin issue, it has always been a dink issue as he's the one with that power, not admins, more admins don't fix that, it's something every staff member is used to by now and is more of a meme than a problem at any given moment, there's almost always someone at least semi-available to do quick things if someone doesn't have their role yet, that's more of a staff communication issue at that point, shit happens. that's not to say more admins aren't need it, but presenting it as an issue that needs resolved immediately or people will grow discontent is funny, everyone is always just as discontent as every other day but right now they have a cause they can blame

staff inconsistency will never go away because there will always be something new and slightly different that requires a judgement call, honestly players need to relax, if they do something that gets punished and someone else did something similar and didn't, more than likely it's because them doing it impacted someone's enjoyment of the game more than the other instance, as that's what it typically /really/ comes down to

there isn't an actual disconnect between staff and players, that's something i've heard from certain groups in the playerbase ever since i started coming on and it's just not a thing, even before i was staff, the people just like to spread that around to discredit staffing decisions at every turn, ultimately they're more often than not in the wrong because they're doing whatever thing they know they shouldn't be, and get in trouble for it, waaah

a post just like this is made quarterly, no one has brought in fresh ideas or shone light on a new issue with them, and nothing will get solved, because ultimately some group of people will always have something to complain about, and when that group complains enough, it makes everyone think there's an issue, and then everyone is complaining about a non-issue

[JesseTheUndeadCowboy]

honestly
why are we pretending it's a big deal

the promotion issue has never been an admin issue, it has always been a dink issue as he's the one with that power, not admins, more admins don't fix that, it's something every staff member is used to by now and is more of a meme than a problem at any given moment, there's almost always someone at least semi-available to do quick things if someone doesn't have their role yet, that's more of a staff communication issue at that point, shit happens. that's not to say more admins aren't need it, but presenting it as an issue that needs resolved immediately or people will grow discontent is funny, everyone is always just as discontent as every other day but right now they have a cause they can blame

staff inconsistency will never go away because there will always be something new and slightly different that requires a judgement call, honestly players need to relax, if they do something that gets punished and someone else did something similar and didn't, more than likely it's because them doing it impacted someone's enjoyment of the game more than the other instance, as that's what it typically /really/ comes down to

there isn't an actual disconnect between staff and players, that's something i've heard from certain groups in the playerbase ever since i started coming on and it's just not a thing, even before i was staff, the people just like to spread that around to discredit staffing decisions at every turn, ultimately they're more often than not in the wrong because they're doing whatever thing they know they shouldn't be, and get in trouble for it, waaah

a post just like this is made quarterly, no one has brought in fresh ideas or shone light on a new issue with them, and nothing will get solved, because ultimately some group of people will always have something to complain about, and when that group complains enough, it makes everyone think there's an issue, and then everyone is complaining about a non-issue

The problem is it take things forever to get done around here and something needs to changed. Others have stated this time and time again and the cycle repeats itself until something is finally done about the way things are handled regarding changes to the server. Heck, even some former admins have sort of admitted that as shown in this thread.

[White Owl]

One: You can't blame Nicol because everyone is shoving all the work down his throat because he is the only one actually handling shit behind the scenes for the most part. That is a problem because that shouldn't just be handled by one person. The lack of admins is not because there isn't enough qualified people, it's the shit system put in place. They way virtual games work is you generally gravitate towards people who are more friendly towards you, share the same ideas, or actively try and conversate with you. So when there is a total of 30+ players on the server and you only gravitate towards a small number of people, and they hold no position in the community, no matter how much work you do it'll never show. This practically forces you to kiss the ass of members who you know have a "duty" or feel like they do anyway to comment on your application (which will be the decided factor). This is due to the "good ole boy" system that most communities (including this one) have in place, it makes progression of the server impossible. Why is this? Because the people that still have power want to keep that power and don't want to risk adding new people to mess up what they call the "balance of power". This is fairly easy to understand because it also occurs in real life. This happens due to an original good system in place over worked by an influx of newer players and the system just simply can't keep up. Therefore the system has to cling to whatever it knows best or whatever works in their favor.

Two: Personally every single staff member I've seen except for one person (which I won't name) has been amazing. Everyone tries their best, they try to get on when someone reports something or asks them to, and lastly they try to be as fair as possible. However when you have such a shortage of staff and also such a loosely structured system, this forces individual staff members to create their own system they see fit. Why is this? Because there is no guidance, there is no supervision, and there is no community feedback for the most part. Lastly for number two, I haven't seen anyone "worshipping" Burb so I'm not really sure why you added that in. Burb's name doesn't even come up in anyone's mouth unless we can hear her talking in the server. Her name is not really significant not even 5%, so I'm not really sure why that is here. If anything adding her name to this thread will gravitate MORE people to her that she doesn't want or expect. You also have to understand that we are on a virtual game and some of the men and women here are weird as fuck. Some of these people rarely leave their homes nor knows what it's like to kiss a girl/dude goodbye after hanging out. They can't grasp the understanding of how society works because they can't even hold someone's hand without their blood pressure spiking to nearly a level where they will pass out. I think we can all agree that if you get on TTT right now, you can spot about 10 of these types of people.

Three: No cap we need more staff, and the staff that is here already needs to step up to the plate or break it off. Staff needs to start acting like community members, making sure we are all having a good time, and understanding our concerns and fixing said issues. Not just pushing it aside and waiting until we all start commenting on a thread to change something that is obviously wrong.

[jax]

honestly
why are we pretending it's a big deal

the promotion issue has never been an admin issue, it has always been a dink issue as he's the one with that power, not admins, more admins don't fix that, it's something every staff member is used to by now and is more of a meme than a problem at any given moment, there's almost always someone at least semi-available to do quick things if someone doesn't have their role yet, that's more of a staff communication issue at that point, shit happens. that's not to say more admins aren't need it, but presenting it as an issue that needs resolved immediately or people will grow discontent is funny, everyone is always just as discontent as every other day but right now they have a cause they can blame

staff inconsistency will never go away because there will always be something new and slightly different that requires a judgement call, honestly players need to relax, if they do something that gets punished and someone else did something similar and didn't, more than likely it's because them doing it impacted someone's enjoyment of the game more than the other instance, as that's what it typically /really/ comes down to

there isn't an actual disconnect between staff and players, that's something i've heard from certain groups in the playerbase ever since i started coming on and it's just not a thing, even before i was staff, the people just like to spread that around to discredit staffing decisions at every turn, ultimately they're more often than not in the wrong because they're doing whatever thing they know they shouldn't be, and get in trouble for it, waaah

a post just like this is made quarterly, no one has brought in fresh ideas or shone light on a new issue with them, and nothing will get solved, because ultimately some group of people will always have something to complain about, and when that group complains enough, it makes everyone think there's an issue, and then everyone is complaining about a non-issue

>there’s no disconnect between staff and players
> a post like this is made quarterly 

really makes you think

[Battons]

This is the same exact threads that were made when I was banned and all it really did was pressure a lot of our great staff to leave. Without dinklebergs consent there is nothing we can ultimately do. I can't implement changes to the server without going through him and nicol. Trying to make this a bigger issue is what leads to a larger disconnect between staff and players. Everything ends eventually but we on the staff team are just trying to make the best of a situation which is largely out of our control. Stop misbehaving and we stop punishing, but that won't change either.

[thunderwalrusinnthebar]

I kind of forget the tranny situation. Imo if you use it towards another player as an insult you should be warned for it. Next time I play I will look into it and see if I need to remove warns. If im in the wrong there Im in the wrong and I am sorry about that. I've been taking a break because honestly I've just been really focused on working on myself and that has not left a lot of time for games, but I will try to jump on in the next couple days and discuss it with other staff members.

In my opinion it comes down to this, lack of communication between staff and players. The fault is on both sides. For me, once the same group of people complain about every little thing you do you become less receptive to their complaints. It's essentially the boy who cried wolf to me and thats my bad. Just because somebody complains about everything does not mean all their complaints are invalid. I think both staff and players need to become less combative and try to work together to have fun. @bryanbrr does a great job at that and should be somebody to look up to for staff members. I think I have a reputation here for being very by the books when it comes to banning and gagging people. Tbh I don't think I should change that. As regulars you should know the rules behind things like slurs. I do not enjoy spending my time on the server warning the same players over and over again for saying slurs and being yelled at for doing so. I would rather just play with you guys and have fun. Its honestly not fun to get on and have like four people say "fuck thunder is on funs over". A rules discussion has to be had, but thats a bit out of our hands. We talk about it all the time as staff members and we do want to refine them, but the rules are as is right now and its on the player to understand and abide by them.

[bunniey]

-snip-

>there’s no disconnect between staff and players
> a post like this is made quarterly 

really makes you think

People like to act like there's some big disconnect because they don't agree with staffing decisions at times. That's all there is to it. Y'know who's most likely to go for and get staff? The people who want the server to be less overwhelmingly chaotic. Y'know who is more likely to say there's a disconnect between the players and staff? The ones who are chaotic. It's a difference in ideals when playing, but many players share the same sentiment as staff, just like some staff share the sentiments of the trolly peeps. It's just a difference in how different people view things. But the staff know pretty much all of what the people think at any given time. They aren't on some other plane of existence.

[JesseTheUndeadCowboy]

-snip-

>there’s no disconnect between staff and players
> a post like this is made quarterly 

really makes you think

But the staff know pretty much all of what the people think at any given time. They aren't on some other plane of existence.

Idk man. Like I get working with what you are given in terms of the rules and stuff, but whenever there is talk of any kind of change. It seems some people think that any sort of change is bad in terms of changing the rules. Again I could be wrong but it just seems like that in my eyes and that is understandable since again people don’t like change sometimes, but it isn’t ideal. Anyway but yeah you are right and people should try to keep the chaos down and people should learn to behave, but I think some things should indeed change at one point.

[Jammin]

I reserve the right to update this as I, too, do not want to write a wall of text all at once.

1. Admins: Unless the present committee system is reworked, as of now we should have at least one more admin on the team. I can give my support to 3 TTT moderators - however one of them is not at present interested in the role. For something this serious, I'm going to name-drop. As such, I feel that @Battons and @bryanbrr would make for good TTT admins. I believe adding both individuals to the admin team would be a good change for the TTT server. However, in lieu of adding more admins (or even if more admins are added). I feel a reworked committee structure would be good, especially for reasons I am going to type in point 3. Im working on some ideas as to what this will look like, and will probably post for community feedback at some point. (I think a stronger committee system done correctly will address concerns that made @dong leave, still making sure that the important issues get final approval from the admin team - especially for high-profile unban requests and rule changes. But situations like the rice cooker unban request currently open could be resolved in a day).
Also please do not bring my name as potential admin candidates at this time, as I do not meet the qualifications. As flattered as I am by several of you brinigng my name up, I've been a moderator for roughly 17.4 hours. Realistic conversations regarding the next admin will not involve me as a candidate.

As far as Co-Owner goes - I don't mind not having one, as I understand why Dink is not comfortable giving out access. However - we need more activity from Dink if this is going to be the case. I'd like to see a committment to be available at a regular/standard frequency for updates - say once every week for role updates, and once every 3 weeks for server updates?
We are going 2 whole months after christmas with christmas maps still in the server - that is frankly a bit embarassing. We didn't get christmas crates this year, because the update never took place. I don't mind having everything done by Dink, but we need something better than what we have now.
Perhaps, a Co-Owner could be given server privledges, but should run all changes made by Dink BEFORE making the changes? That could be a good potential compromise - that way Dink still has full control over the server, but the Co-Owner could implement the changes once Dink gives the OK. I feel Dink has known Nicol long enough, and could trust Nicol with that responsibility, while having the assurance that Nicol would not abuse the privledge as others of yesteryear have. Obviously, Dink is very busy with IRL stuff, as we all are in life. We are all, after all human.
I feel delegating the actual change implementation to Nicol, with Dink still having full approval of every single change, would be a very reasonable compromise. And if there are concerns about Nicol someday going rogue and deleting critical files? Have backups of the server files in some form of git repository. This would ensure the server could simply be reverted back to a point in time when it all worked.

2. Bad staff: I feel that the main issues regarding inconstency revolve around vagueness within the ruleset that we have now. I think an update of the rules (for example, as we are currently discussing regarding the Teaming rule) would help resolve some of these inconsistencies.
Example: One of the things that makes me go crazy is the fact that we don't have a list of map-specific reasons to KOS. I know we don't want to clog the MOTD, but this could be cleaned easily by having one line: "Carrying any map-specific item, or performing any map-specific action, that can damage, trap, or harm players." - and have this line hyperlinked to another forum thread which has every single map-specific reasons to KOS on it
Another example: Micspam. Lets set a better standard for it than banning all of it, because that isn't going to be enforced by any reasonable staff. Im not going to issue an awarn for Zekken playing the bonk noise twice in dead chat. This one is tougher to define, as micspam does ruin the experience for several players.
As far as actually bad staff who should be demoted goes, I cannot think of any at the moment who come to mind. If staff are abusing their powers or not handling reports, not doing their job, etc, properly, bring it to a higher-ranked staff member's attention, to Nicol's attention, or file an abuse report. I am struggling to see the perspective of other players here, and would like more context, so I will keep my comments there for now.

Training: yes. we need to up the training regiment we have, especially for former staff coming back to active.

Quick note on inactivity, I like @Gabe's plan: 10 hours of consistent in-game time every 2 weeks == no vote on committees. That's an easy 10-minute check via gametracker. i'd be happy to volunteer to track that myself.

Ah, simping. Its interesting how staff tend to always mute players who harass women, isn't it? here's the thing - it seems like femal players tend to be the target of harassment more than male players. To my perspective, its not the staff who are simping, but the random guests who get riled up every time they hear a female speak. For some reason, random guests simp in a negative fashion, targeting their harassment on female players more often than male players. So do staff mute guests for harassing female players more? Yes - because female players are harassed more often.
As for a solution? I don't know. I don't really have one. Sorry. If someone is being harassed, i'm going to take action.
I do feel some players do fall under this "simp" issue (im not naming any names here), but I feel the community feels it is more of an issue because staff always mute players harassing female players. I just want to issue the reminder - the majority of harassment is directed at female players, thusely the majority of muted harassment is in defense of female players.
I don't feel qualified to say more than this. I don't feel that I fall under the "simp" category (beyond my discord role), but if someone does think I do, I encourage you to DM me details so I can better understand the issue.

3. Ignoring the community
This is one of the more concerning issues to me.
I like the idea of adding community members who have achieved the rank of regular to committees. I think this should be done by having that regular apply in some facet (maybe DM a staff member? doesn't have to be a forum thing) and have the committee vote to add the player or not. I think having regular players having feedback on rule changes, on how testing is going, on development, etc. is vital. I'm not convinced it needs to be a rotating group, as Nicky suggested. Reasonable players added to a committee will not alter its performance. However, some committees need to be held to high standards in terms of which players to add.

How can we improve things? I really like @jax's idea of adding server sprays via some kind of add-on (choosing pre-determined sprays). I feel it was immediately shot down, stomped a mud hole, stone-cold-steve stunner style. While for reasons discussed there the default spray option is asking for trouble, having pre-selected sprays, similar to discord emojis, is a reasonable system. I want to look into that myself to see how this would be possible.

4. What's next?
Where do we go from here? How do we prevent this discussion becoming just another quarterly cycle?
The biggest topic here is leadership, right? take ownership of your idea. You don't need rank role or privledges to do that. Im going to do my part - I have some ideas regarding committees - all ideas that work within the boundaries of power that Admins have now in TTT, that I think would help the staff team run more efficinetly, while allowing for more community feedback.
Maybe someone could look into a good plug-in for pre-selected sprays?
Maybe someone could make some cool images for sprays that are SFW?
Maybe someone should make a draft of a new teaming rule, and ask for the community to +/-1 it? Right now we are posting opinions, but we need someone to actually write up a draft of it.

[jax]

I think everyone’s been posting some good points. A lot of people seem to believe that this won’t change anything, and things will remain the same, but I’m hoping that’s not the case.