[Nicol Bolas]

out of all the things that could cause drama this is the tamest shit man I logged on to the forums for nothing

[jax]

The problem wasn't that you raised an issue with me being promoted. The problem was you did it with a snarky comment that offered no feedback or constructive criticism or evidence that would raise questions about my position whatsoever. You left that comment solely to be petty and we're not going to allow that kind of garbage anymore, from anyone.

I didn't read any of the other replies but I would just like to point out this is in stark contrast what you said in your moderation application. (Continued below picture)



I don't know if saying "yikes" really constitutes "toxicity" - at worst it petty. I have no stake in this, I don't have a previously relationship to you. I don't dislike you and I don't like you - we rarely interact. However, an honest observation is that you tend to cherry pick "idealogies" when they benefit you. During your staff app you claimed the "It's okay not to be professional as long as you're not downright toxic" because subscribing to that idea at the time justified how you spoke to people in that app. Now it seems like you're adopting the "We're not allowing that garbage anymore, by anyone" idea because it justifies how you handled the comment. Not to mention Battons isn't staff anymore, I don't think he is really under any commitment to maintain professionality.

Not an attack, because I personally don't care about you as a person getting the role. (I do have a qualm with Gabe's process though, which I will go over later in an edit)

EDIT:

As much as it's a fucking meme at this point, I do find it weird that there was literally no "transparency" with your promotion. There was no process, no application, no community input whatsoever. I don't think Gabe being Web Admin really makes a difference either. There is a standard within the community that all people go through an application process, even Admins, before being admitted to staff. The fact that you were just promoted is lame. To reiterate, nothing against you as a person, but critiquing the actual process and how we got here. The forums are a community-wide resource, they are one of the uniting factors that all servers share. They are where important announcements are made, where people are banned/unbanned, and where community input is most valued. For those reasons alone, given the intrinsic nature of the forums, your promotion should have been through an application process. Regardless of the justification that Gabe gave on his post for your promotion, this screams favortism. 

Anyways, don't care that much to continue this monstrosity of a thesis.

[Dildo Shwaggins]

-snip-

This is definitely in the direction of my thoughts. On one hand, certain people are still controversial enough that trust may be eroded no matter what has happened since an original controversy. But there’s a matter of it’s not realistic to disallow anyone with “strings attached” from being involved in running it as well. Which is why deletion should only be considered in severe cases IMO. The community can determine if a criticism (or praise for that matter) is valid to the position in consideration or if the person needs to get over themselves.

[tiefling lesbian]

I agree that it is a little weird, but I also want to state that if Laced were to put a web mod app onto the forums, I'm pretty sure everyone would know how it would end.

It ended that way regardless
If it's already known that someone is controversial then that's all the more reason their promotion should not be done privately without community input and announced spontaneously, otherwise this kind of backlash is inevitable

[Gabe]

-snip-

Going to respond to some of your points. 

"Laced is not someone who should be able to silence opposition":
As I said before, he discussed it beforehand with me and specifically said he wanted to make sure it was not a rash decision on his part. I would never let him or anyone else delete posts, moderate, or intimidate someone on the forums just to silence their opponents. This is not what happened here. I explained in my initial reply here why that is not the case here and never will be. 

"Obviously I have no "hard" evidence for this since I'm never allowed in his private channels, nor would I ever want to be in a place so blatantly toxic. But the signs are there and they are obvious."
Respectfully, I think this is just making this is just making assumptions based on preconceived views and opinions. The same assumptions and preconceived view and opinions could be applied to every "dink's splinter" discord, private channels, etc. That doesn't make it true in the slightest. 

"This is clearly a favor for a friend and nothing more."
I have addressed this already in my first reply. if you have any more questions, feel free to ask. I want to be as transparent as possible.

"Laced is responsible for the majority of shitposting and opinion blocking that he has no place moderating it now."
For the latter part of "opinion blocking", as someone who was intimately involved with the "Addressing Toxicity," that a lot of people detested and other thing regarding opinion blocking, I know this issue more than a lot of people in the community I think. I'm not trying to sound self-righteous, it's just that I've garnered a lot of time as both TTT and Web Admin to see that issue. I don't think anyone denies that he has some not-so-good parts of his past in this community that can rightfully erode some trust, but people can change and grow up. I understand people can have a hard time believing people can genuinely try to grow up and change, but it's certainly possible. I already explained in my initial post why I picked Laced and thought he deserved an opportunity to prove himself again. He's shown signs of improvement and I wanted to give him a chance to prove that. That takes time. I think with time people will see how he's changed himself for the better and be a good addition to the web team. 

As for shitposting, yes he has gotten carried away with that in the past. But that hasn't been a pressing issue for a while. He knows how to control himself and take it seriously. In general, I don't see a majority of harmless shitposting as a massive turn-off, just an annoyance unless it causes other issues such as derailing, harassment, etc. The forums is supposed to be more lenient with shitposting. Again, I think he's genuinely changed.

"oh also caught laced himself streaming drama bingo in staff discord. Way to prove my point that you do not belong in power here! And no, this isn't me leaking staff chat since it has nothing to do with sensitive staffing material not suitable for public information! So don't try that with me ty."
I genuinely don't get what this has to do with anything. I don't see much of an issue of doing something like that, especially if it's in a closed environment that's doing no harm by 

There's too much to reply too, so I'll stop there

My only thought is I wish these spots would be open to applications instead of hand picked. Even if restricted to just staff like how discord did. Mostly likely would have avoided the current displeasure of some about laces spot.

web mod applications would be ideal. The issue is that it's a small team, generally 2-3 web mods at most. So that's why there were never applications. If we're looking to expand the team further in the future, I think an application could be good. Or at least requesting feedback from the community. Given how Web Mod is structured, the team size, and its role, the current system worked well. I'm not opposed to doing applications in the future if the team needs to be bigger, it's just that they might only be "open" during a certain period and not open 24/7/365 like every other application system we got. I think the current system works well.

My only comment is that it is weird that forum promotions happen entirely behind closed doors when every other promotion category is handled publicly

Same comment as above. Not going to reply to every application question.

Battons comment didn’t really add anything to the thread but, there wasn’t any real reason to censor it either. We publicly allow people to mindlessly post positive approval for each other but, we censor mindless disapproval. 

I don’t really get why.

The issue wasn't that it was mindless. Chell said it best. It was the manner it was expressed in. I don't think it added anything meaningful and just came across as a snarky remark. I also specifically said in the thread not to make it about that and if there were any concerns it should be brought to me or and I would've said to make a thread like this. Battons also did not get forum warned for it or any formal punishment, only a response stating why it was removed and the thread was locked. It wasn't intended to be censorship, rather keeping the intent of the initial forum post in tact. 

I probably have more questions than I will ever get answers for, but let's break a few things down.

I'll try to answer as much as I can.

For the original post, yes Battons the forums should 100% be the place for discussions and disagreements because that's where people are usually thrown to anyways when they disagree with something.

I Agreed with this and this I don't think this has changed at all.

As for shutting down threads, that should be a last resort effort. It makes no sense that the forum changes post was locked when no one had commented in 24 hours.

I wouldn't characterize it as it being "shutdown" moreso the thread being open past it's usefulness. There was meaningful feedback for the rule rewording, which was a work in progress when it was initally posted. I kept it open for those reasons. Once we finished the changes, I always intended to close it out and any further feedback, suggestions, etc could be made in seperate threads. After Battons' snarky comment was rightfully removed, it just made sense to close it out then. 

As for the decision to make Laced a Web Mod. I don't care how much you say a person has changed, when you state that past infractions and actions were taken into consideration for this decision, but then solely base this decision on an admin discussion, you forget one key thing, the trust the community has in that person. Looking at a lot of the outlash in this decision, there is a HIGH lack of trust in Laced based on his past and current self. I get that people can grow and change, but looking at a deeper level into Laced's actions on the forums, there is shitposting, arguments, and disrespectful comments (including telling people to "stop being stupid lmfao" on this very thread). How can anyone take this decision seriously?

As I said, it was taken into consideration and discussed. I also went back and did some research of my own in case I was forgetting anything. Anyone that knows me knows that I don't make rash decisions and that I try to do things as thorougly as possible.

Yes, I said in my initial post that I expected there to be some opposition and a lack of trust initially. That is what I'm hoping to build over time. I think some people(this is a general statement) are stuck in the past and can't rationalize that someone can change and grow over time. some think that people should forever be judged on their past and their past actions. I wanted to give Laced an opportunity after all this time to prove that he's changed and this is frankly a good first step in doing that. I've seen that he's changed. Again, I've seen him at his "worst" in this community versus now. He's genuinely tried to better himself and has done that in my eyes.

Some people are stuck in echo chambers, preconcieved views and opinions, and trying to hold onto issues/drama that have already been resolved, addressed, or fixed. The only way forward is to build trust and try to break out of these past bubbles. 

I already addressed the shitposting aspects. For arguments, I've seen them as still being civil. Intent and context matters. If you have any specific recent examples, I'd be glad to see them. He said "i love u guys but stop being stupid lmfao". Which to me comes across as a lighthearted way of saying to stupid, espesically since he knows some of the people that are shitposting. He's still being objective too there. He gave a tame response, all things considered, to this thread. 

Seeing someone say "I'll warn you for shitposting" but has a record past of that is almost hypocritical and hard to take serious, and I think that major point was forgotten in all of this.

Again, already addressed. I'll add that the fourms should be more lenitant with shitposting. I've already outlined in my changes thread & in the rules what constitutes shitposting. 

[slater]

-snip-

It ended that way regardless
If it's already known that someone is controversial then that's all the more reason their promotion should not be done privately without community input and announced spontaneously, otherwise this kind of backlash is inevitable

Well, it is still inevitable, but yes, I do agree with wanting an application being put up for web mod. I also understand Gabe’s position where it’s a one man team decision with other admins aiding in the decision. Basically, his response sums it up better.

[frost]

this a lot man

[jax]

As for the decision to make Laced a Web Mod. I don't care how much you say a person has changed, when you state that past infractions and actions were taken into consideration for this decision, but then solely base this decision on an admin discussion, you forget one key thing, the trust the community has in that person. Looking at a lot of the outlash in this decision, there is a HIGH lack of trust in Laced based on his past and current self. I get that people can grow and change, but looking at a deeper level into Laced's actions on the forums, there is shitposting, arguments, and disrespectful comments (including telling people to "stop being stupid lmfao" on this very thread). How can anyone take this decision seriously?

Yes, I said in my initial post that I expected there to be some opposition and a lack of trust initially. That is what I'm hoping to build over time. I think some people(this is a general statement) are stuck in the past and can't rationalize that someone can change and grow over time. some think that people should forever be judged on their past and their past actions. I wanted to give Laced an opportunity after all this time to prove that he's changed and this is frankly a good first step in doing that. I've seen that he's changed. Again, I've seen him at his "worst" in this community versus now. He's genuinely tried to better himself.

Why is Laced afforded the luxury by an admin "hoping to build" that trust over time for him when we keep regular people banned for the same thing? Why isn't someone like Timbo afforded the luxury of building trust again? He has 10 bans, Laced has 28. (This is just used as an example, no need to comment on Timbo specifically).

I wasn't sure before, but this is obviously a "hey you're my friend, so here's moderator" type of decision. I've seen so many people in this thread defending Laced, who I've seen comment things like "You've already been given three chances. Don't come back -1" on unban requests. What makes Laced better than us plebes where he is given special treatment by an admin, in order to build trust again?

A staff position isn't an experiment you can conduct in order to help foster trust. It's a position that's given when that trust already exists. Else, what's the point of having staff applications when all it takes is a current staff member to say "He hasn't established himself as trustful yet, but fuck it give him a position"

[reinaberg]

I think that this thread serves as an example of why discussions regarding applications involving the most drama-oriented area of the community are currently being held between admins. The admins’ discussion regarding Laced becoming web staff was civil and reasonable, with people who each view and associate with Laced in their own unique way. This public discussion has devolved into personal attacks, with too many people with the exact same opinions on each side involved in the argument. Of course, that doesn’t apply to everyone, though, as there have been multiple valid points questioning the decision to make Laced web staff, as well as multiple valid points supporting Laced becoming web staff. 

Rather than questioning his competence, many responses have questioned Laced’s character. Someone saying that they believe he has demonstrated too strong of a bias in the past to perform well as a staff member is valid in voicing that concern. Someone saying that they believe he has demonstrated very unbiased decision-making as a TTT staff member now is also valid in voicing their opinion. Someone who is blindly attacking or defending Laced based on their own distaste or favor towards him as a person is not, in my opinion, effectively communicating their criticisms in a way that adds to the discussion. 

After seeing the results of this decision, I think that creating an open line of communication for community members to privately share their criticisms, concerns, and compliments, may have been a good way to give the opportunity for people to voice their opinions. I do not believe that this thread as a whole was any more effective than Battons’s deleted response at communicating opinions in a constructive way. 

I hope that neither side of the major argument that has happened on this thread comes away from this thinking that they have added to the discussion in a way that should affect the decision, because there were very few reasonable comments in this thread.

[Noire ♜]

I think that this thread serves as an example of why discussions regarding applications involving the most drama-oriented area of the community are currently being held between admins. The admins’ discussion regarding Laced becoming web staff was civil and reasonable, with people who each view and associate with Laced in their own unique way. 

I think that you are right to a point. In all honesty, if this whole thing wasn't regarding a web moderator I feel as though the staff would have a much easier and 'unbiased' time dealing with the situation in the right way. I do however think that public input is insanely important --- especially when discussing key roles within the community. Maybe the next time something like this happens, and if we have more web staff, they can do a lot of the moderating of posts prior to them being made. Similar to how people with high warn %'s get moderated. It's a tough one and I commend the web staff for handling it as well as they have been able to.