[matt_st3 (Strongrule)]

Addition: I've been thinking on this for too long now, and have changed and edited many parts. At this point, this is about all I can say without getting into too much detail on specific issues. This has turned into part rant part guide. This is not intended to be any kind of real guide, but rather informative overall. Perhaps with several issues coming to a head, and with more to come, this read may be helpful for perspective going forward. 

This rant is brought to you by my aggravation of how staffing is handled nowadays. It was an issue we tried to work on in that past and is completely preventable, but because there's nearly no enforced structure things are slipping. Mods are becoming a constant source of shitposting, discord moderation actually got worse after introducing a system, and most of the good staff are constantly burnt out. I cant really blame the admins as much anymore since the ones that try get little to no feedback from staff and the community just bites the hand if they don't like it instead of discussing problems. Granted, some problems are being discussed but most of that is gameplay. Everyone has some complaint about the staff team, usually the lack of presence and apathy from several, so fuck it here's a constructive rant I made. It explains my thoughts on how things should be run, and sheds light to members and staff alike on what should be expected. I'm even gonna color it since some of you animals are obsessed with that. 
This is not all encompassing by any means, but will strive to address heading of issues in staffing for both PH and TTT.

Breakdown by position of responsibilities and expectations

Player-base (guest to regular)
Shoot each other. How and when depends on what game you're playing, but you are responsible for knowing the rules of the server. 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thread-TTT-Rules 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...ules--6815

For those of you who want to become staff or just want to understand what to expect, read below. I'll provide several links as I go of useful material and guides. 

Discord staff
This is an offshoot rant before I go any further. Discord is hell now. You can *almost* have a conversation without some idiot spamming the clown emote and/or completely derailing the conversation for some meme. Entire sections are ignored because staff muted them (Hello? You're a discord mod??) and the general mods say its not their problem since discord mod is a thing. That was not the point of giving some staff advanced commands, because in essence that means two (I'm not double counting Avi) staff plus the admins are the only ones doing it. I don't know if that stems from mods feeling like they shouldn't anymore or just straight apathy. I have several personal guesses depending on the staff member. Staff were never really required to staff this, but it should be expected especially from mods.
Overall, Discord mods should not have any used thread on ignore, except the bot threads because that'll get old. The staff should be easily reachable so I have no idea why the roll isn't pingable. I mean come on, its the one role in DISCORD that should have that turned on. I don't care if you're not on all the time, but there should be a reasonable expectation that you can get on and actually do the job. Its a specialized position, use it, the discord is going to hell from lack of effort. And for the love of dink, add more staff to this list please. 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...ng-Discord

Donor
Rule #0 - Donors. Are. Not. Staff.
If you don't believe that rule, stare at it until it becomes a way of life. I see way too many donors overstepping their bounds on a daily basis, and even had one argue with me that "donors are technically staff" when staff are offline. No. Not. If a staff member wants your help when they are online, or you think they need help, ask. I never minded anyone who could do it correctly, but some staff don't want donors stepping on them. Be reasonable with this. In TTT with split dead chat there are solid cases where a donor can help. In PH donors are more common and a little to excited to staff at times, but many are actually good at it. Don't forget rule 0. If you want to staff, just apply. If you feel like you'll get rejected, maybe you shouldn't be staffing with donor powers, maybe that's your issue. There are no expectations to staff. Follow these guides on what is expected of you. 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Forum-Donors
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...h-Ghosters

From here out I'm going to take a page from PH to explain that each position has a role and set of expectations, and that those are cumulative. I am also going to lay out general expectations of staffing that do not apply to the server. 

Trusted
Any Trusted or member seeking to become staff should already be familiar with the rules. As a Trusted you are learning how to apply those rules to situations in the server that you are newly responsible for. For TTT you are additionally responsible for learning RDM management. For both servers, you are responsible for the chat. You will support other staff members with additional issues, but are not heading them up unless you are alone. The higher staff members should have more training and experience along with the commands to actually handle other issues. You have little to no community level expectations other than ban requests and general keeping of the peace where needed. I don't even care about activity until it comes time to apply, just whether or not you are capable of handling a small amount of responsibility. There are a few guides to staffing and exploit lists that you should be familiar with. 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/For...t-Town--24
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/For...p-Hunt--25
For those wishing to become staff, browse these guides and previous applications as well.
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/For...plications
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/For...plications
And because I'm already linking half of the forums, here are the ban request sections. Members are not responsible for filling these forms, but staff are. 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/For...n-Requests
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/For...n-Requests

Tmod
Any tmod should be familiar with the above guides. This ranks should have a strong understanding of how to apply the rules to chat, rdm for TTT, and some other commands for PH staffing. Tmods should familiarize themselves with all of their commands, as they can now more directly staff the gameplay of the server. Tmods also gain the ability to temporarily ban players, which should not be abused and should be a reserved command. Mods and admins have more experience in this field and should be the ones to do any ban when online,. The access given to tmods allows them to keep players who break the rules repeatedly from coming back until a mod can apply an appropriate ban. Overall tmods do not gain much in the way of community responsibility. Through the committee system they can potentially be on one, but personally I disagree with this as more experience should be needed. 
Because I view tmod as a transitional stage between entering staff and becoming experienced moderators, the following link will be useful for any trusted wishing to become tmod, or and tmod to mod. This is directed at TTT staff ranks, but the general concepts apply to PH as well. 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...RE-POSTING

Moderator
The jump from tmod to moderator should be huge as mods should be held to a higher standard than intermediate staff. Already staff members should be well versed with the rules and well behaved, but moderators are expected to act more professionally while staffing the server or community areas. I do not care what is posted in shitposting or some fooling around when able, such as when there are few players on the server. When the server is full with players is not the time to be joke banning friends or other nonsense. Egging on or watching the discord chat go sideways is equally irresponsible. The staff team more closely resembles a club of friends with commands today more than a dedicated team to staff the server. Yeah, bold claim, reread the title. Much more should be expected from experienced ranks; they are not participation prizes but rather a rank group meant to run the server. Moderators have a fair say in the community between committees and the ability to ban along with the community and staff members looking up to them as public examples of how to act. Moderators contributing to the problems that plague the community should be demoted so that they are out of the spotlight. It is a shame to demote a staff member who can ban, but that is no excuse for allowing a high ranking member to remain if they are a problem. 
As the group with the best balance of necessary powers and activity, mods are responisible for the day to day running of the server. They have the most actively available experience for intermediate staff members to learn from. Mods focus on tougher server rules like hacking, ghosting, and harassment that warrant bans past the gameplay. No staff member should apply if they are not comfortable moderating issues outside of the server defined rules. For TTT, moderators should be active and in a committee 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...ing-System

Admin
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...the-Admins
Not that its what I would have said, as I've been thinking on this piece alone for a week, but it brings up a valid point. Admins typically rotate who is active because a couple are this week, a couple others have hours the next, but with the current setup no admins or above have decent hours. Yes they try to be active on the forums and discord, but even then looking at the activity there its a shadow of what was claimed in the past. A decent chunk of my own time was inactive by that rule. For the most part that wasn't contested, whether people thought the voting/admins in general were still fair and informed while inactive or its just now reaching a head among other issues I cannot say. I can say that the team at the time tried its best to ask what they didn't know, or at times would recuse themselves from votes. Not always as I still voted on a lot myself throughout, and not that it is a defense, but I know the team tried as a whole. Obviously there were still conflicts and individuals acting on their own power, but that's a different discussion. 
The thread touches on a much larger issue. We can't fix their irl problems, but the fact that no admins and maybe 1-2 mods have decent activity has lead to the other problems of the server. Can it be helped? Somewhat, but the effect is cyclical. The job burns out the admins which leads to more and larger issues, which burns them out more...
I don't have a solution, or a civilized rant for this. I have only my personal thoughts on individuals. And since we cant really replace with the current mod pool that's not even a possible solution, even if it were to be considered. The Admins should be responsible enough to know when to rely on other opinions. Not saying one decision was right or wrong, but overall.
Admins are responsible for more than just their server, they are responsible for the community as a whole. While they should be beholden to the community, they also must perform the job as they see fit within the rules they are given. There is little to no guidance here, as they are effectively the highest rank actively engaging the community. There will be mistakes made, and the community should know this on the front end. These mistakes should be addressed, yes, but in a civil manner. Biting at the admins will only make it worse. August was proof and likely partial cause of that decline. How that was handled by both admins and community was a step in the wrong direction. Again I wont go into detail, but we should avoid hive minding on either side for the above issue. It helps no one.

Coowner
Idk, exist? I realize this is a specialized role to do a lot of work on the server given by dink, but if the role is to be the equivalent of an admin then the holder should be held to the same expectations. Understandably it is difficult to find a member that dink can trust enough with this kind of access and who actually knows what they are doing, but the member should accept the responsibilities as a whole, or else the position and responsibilities should be modified. 
This position should act both as an admin and a link between the staff team and dink when he is away. The specifics are up to dink, and even I'm not aware of what those expectations actually are. 

Dink
Descend into the masses and be a benevolent god.
But seriously we've talked a little bit. Consider the sectioned positions, it may help alleviate some issues. But something will need to be done, and I don't know exactly what it is. As owner, the server and community aspects are ultimately up to you. 
Also consider getting to know at least the admins 1 on 1. You need to understand and trust anyone you have as admin and communication does wonders to solve issues, whatever they be. Idk, maybe you check discord on nights, or spend a certain time during the weekends to look into server issues. 
There are a few suggestion threads that would be a good start to look at with at least two issues you will need to have a say on that I could find on the forums:
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/For...tions-Help
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...alk-Thread
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...the-Admins
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...nths-later

Promotion and Demotion
A discussion needs to be held about this. I understand certain reservations such as donor tmod positions and not wanting to demote staff you can trust, since that is hard to find, but a middle ground needs to be met in order to keep an active team. 

Promotion is the easiest to start with. Personally I think if PH upped its hours to 100 for trusted they could follow the guidelines I set up for TTT expectations. Community and staff alike should weigh their opinion on an app, and the responsible voting party should consider all aspects yet decide on their own as an individual. 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...RE-POSTING

Demotion is a sensitive topic. Ill start first with what we have already. Demotions in this category should follow the guidelines set by each server. There are strike systems for each, but at the end of the day it all depends on who shouldn't have a position based on their behavior. 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...o-Demotion

Now the fun discussion of demotion based on inactivity. This has been approached many times and quite often about certain individuals how have massive blocks on inactivity over the span years. In some cases, this really isn't a problem. They're inactive, what can they do? Well in the case of an inactive admin, too much. Being an inactive admin already means strain on the server. Other admins have to pick up the slack. Burning out will happen, irl issues will happen, I get these things. Short breaks are ok. I don't know how to define that time, but maybe a couple of months at the most should be reasonable. But when the inactivity is best measured in years? Inexcusable. I wont lay blame here but I have seem admins come out of inactivity to only make issues worse. A mod coming back to different rules with a bad ban or two is already a pretty big issue, but an admin can change rules, vote on things they shouldn't, or even make a decision by themselves that the community will take a the decision of all admins. 
In my opinion, positions above mods should have a system for demotion by time. The mod aspect can be fairly forgiving as we rarely have issues here, but at some point they should have to earn their way back up. I don't suggest demoting past tmod. Not only can we not distinguish donor tmods from the rest very well, which is a valid reason for dink to not demote past this rank, but a tmod can only do temporary damage at worst. I hold the same opinion on Trusted. 
As for admins, the above tirade holds. I understand not wanting to demote those you can trust, but they should be accountable for being inactive for that much time. It causes only friction. Resigned admins often stick around and are likely willing to give advice if needed. For the inactive admins that possess certain skills or interests useful to the server, specific positions can be made. I didn't have time anymore to be a valid admin, which was already debatable at points, so I talked to dink about a potential solution. Now I do support work but I don't hold up the process for TTT. 
This is all ultimately up to dink, but I hope some compromise can be made since I have seen issues that could have been prevented arise from this very topic.

Interactions
Staff interacting with Playerbase
Staff members should be respectful to the playerbase, even when at times they do not reciprocate this. Act responsibly on server with you commands and authority, but otherwise do not forget to still play the game. Often times the server is understaffed by only one or two on at a time, but when not remember to divide the responsibilities to not become overwhelmed.

Playerbase interacting with Staff
Be respectful towards staff and other players. RDM or equivalent issues for PH are part of the game, but issues of ghosting, harassment, settling disputes should not be a part of the community. Circumventing the rules of the game negate the whole point and wastes time for everyone. Outside issues should not be brought into public areas, settle them outside. 

Donor interacting with Staff
Read rule 0. Donors are part of the playerbase but with commands that come with a rank they paid for. Donors have limited ability to help staff, but only if the staff on at the time want it. Donors should remember that they subject to rules on how to behave and should still listen to staff. 

Staff interacting with Staff
Staff members should be respectful towards one another. Failing to do so splits the team, causes arguments, and ultimately leads to good members leaving and bad ones getting kicked out. Disputes happen, but can happen in a civil manner. Causing fights publicly or stirring trouble in the staff discord can quickly lead to a demotion, and should especially when one starts throwing around insults. ITs dumb, but it happens.
In cases on server where staff are disputing how to handle a situation, seek a more experienced staff or come to some agreement. Power struggles, such as gagging and ungagging by different members, should never happen. It is one thing for a mod instructing a new staff member to catch a bad slay, but quite another for two tmods to have a command fight.

-
There's the rant. Please use this thread as a discussion page for anything you would like regarding staffing and changes to the system.

[snak]

+1 for Gabe becoming head admin/COowner, whatever you want to call it. He composes himself well and think would do good in the position, infact, I already consider him to be the acting leader as of right know. This server needs proper direction, and I believe he can be it.

[dong]

no one could’ve phrased this any better. thank you matt. this has been a problem since i was staff a year ago and i’m glad it’s finally getting some light. in order for any progress to be made we honestly need a new co owner. then work on demoting the inactive staff completely out of the ranks (not just one rank down). then move on to removing committees as a whole. hopefully the staff teams numbers will be active and lower than usual, which is fine because it’ll offer more sufficient communication. then hopefully implement a sort of group voting system where everyone has a say and it is all taken into consideration and the application is accepted or denied within reason. you’re also 100% correct with donors acting like they’re staff. i’ve noticed that a lot lately this last month and even a few months ago. just because you paid 15 dollars doesn’t mean you’re above anyone and that you hold some sort of carrot overtop of the server regulars like a rabbit. you’re just a normal player with a few cool commands and a purple tag. again, thank you matt. i went off on a little tangent myself, but that’s everything i can think of. the biggest problem TTT faces right now is the committees are mostly inactive, and that leaves the final say up to the admins (i think) which means according to Dink’s standards in that one higher up staff changes thread, none of them meet the quota. ultimately this is up to Dink and like you said i hope he descends from the heavens and fixes this because i can honestly see a lot of bad coming out if nothing changes

[matt_st3 (Strongrule)]

+1 for Gabe becoming head admin/COowner, whatever you want to call it. He composes himself well and think would do good in the position, infact, I already consider him to be the acting  leader as of right know. This server needs proper direction, and I believe he can be it.

A counterpoint, should any admin be a coowner at this point? A discussion has been brought up that no admin is currently active. A coowner has technical responsibility past an admin, and with it more access. So this is a plus assuming the CO is active. In terms of voting, a coowner has the same say.

[Nicol Bolas]

+1 for Gabe becoming head admin/COowner, whatever you want to call it. He composes himself well and think would do good in the position, infact, I already consider him to be the acting  leader as of right know. This server needs proper direction, and I believe he can be it.

A counterpoint, should any admin be a coowner at this point? A discussion has been brought up that no admin is currently active. A coowner has technical responsibility past an admin, and with it more access. So this is a plus assuming the CO is active. In terms of voting, a coowner has the same say.

I mean I suppose, but then who else? As I said in the previous thread, there isn't really anyone who can replace inactive admins besides basically me and that applies to a co-owner as well. This would make sense if we had more than 2-ish active moderators. Rotating staff only works when there are enough staff to warrant such a change.

[matt_st3 (Strongrule)]

Truth. But should the decision be made now? Perhaps over the next month Avi is the most active. Or perhaps, and likely, dink will want to think this over for an extended time. At any given time the community has one admin they see as the most active and influential, but this will switch when the previous resigns or has been inactive enough. Factor this in with their technical knowledge and dink’s trust of the person and you get your admin.
Perhaps a more total overhaul of the rank system is in order with admins burning out at faster rates.
Not knocking Gabe, but I’m playing devils advocate to get thoughts and a discussion flowing

---

We did survive without a CO for a time, and it will take more than one person to fix the current issues after all

[snak]

+1 for Gabe becoming head admin/COowner, whatever you want to call it. He composes himself well and think would do good in the position, infact, I already consider him to be the acting  leader as of right know. This server needs proper direction, and I believe he can be it.

A counterpoint, should any admin be a coowner at this point? A discussion has been brought up that no admin is currently active. A coowner has technical responsibility past an admin, and with it more access. So this is a plus assuming the CO is active. In terms of voting, a coowner has the same say.

Honestly I'm just trying to save the current community I'm apart of from completely falling apart, because, it's about too. I've been part of many great communitys and have seen them go  from great too what you are seeing now, chaos.


I agree, Gabe isen't that active either, but the way he composes and asserts himself on the forums is quite leader like. I can't speak for the owner of the server because, I've never actually even seen/heard/spoken/noticed him.

This thread is nice and all, but there is an elephant in the room and it needs to be addressed, this thread is basically just guidelines, it does not address the current issue, and that issue is ZERO activity from a server owner and ZERO direction. If something doe's  not happen, it's only going to get worse. Trust me, I have seen and been apart of it far too many times...

[matt_st3 (Strongrule)]

+1 for Gabe becoming head admin/COowner, whatever you want to call it. He composes himself well and think would do good in the position, infact, I already consider him to be the acting  leader as of right know. This server needs proper direction, and I believe he can be it.

A counterpoint, should any admin be a coowner at this point? A discussion has been brought up that no admin is currently active. A coowner has technical responsibility past an admin, and with it more access. So this is a plus assuming the CO is active. In terms of voting, a coowner has the same say.

Honestly I'm just trying to save the current community I'm apart of from completely falling apart, because, it's about too. I've been part of many great communitys and have seen them go  from great too what you are seeing now, chaos.


I agree, Gabe isen't that active either, but the way he composes and asserts himself on the forums is quite leader like. I can't speak for the owner of the server because, I've never actually even seen/heard/spoken/noticed him.

This thread is nice and all, but there is an elephant in the room and it needs to be addressed, this thread is basically just guidelines, it does not address the current issue, and that issue is ZERO activity from a server owner and ZERO direction. If something doe's  not happen, it's only going to get worse. Trust me, I have seen and been apart of it far too many times...

That would be a welcome conversation here. I did ask dink to read this

[snak]

+1 for Gabe becoming head admin/COowner, whatever you want to call it. He composes himself well and think would do good in the position, infact, I already consider him to be the acting  leader as of right know. This server needs proper direction, and I believe he can be it.

A counterpoint, should any admin be a coowner at this point? A discussion has been brought up that no admin is currently active. A coowner has technical responsibility past an admin, and with it more access. So this is a plus assuming the CO is active. In terms of voting, a coowner has the same say.

Honestly I'm just trying to save the current community I'm apart of from completely falling apart, because, it's about too. I've been part of many great communitys and have seen them go  from great too what you are seeing now, chaos.


I agree, Gabe isen't that active either, but the way he composes and asserts himself on the forums is quite leader like. I can't speak for the owner of the server because, I've never actually even seen/heard/spoken/noticed him.

This thread is nice and all, but there is an elephant in the room and it needs to be addressed, this thread is basically just guidelines, it does not address the current issue, and that issue is ZERO activity from a server owner and ZERO direction. If something doe's  not happen, it's only going to get worse. Trust me, I have seen and been apart of it far too many times...

That would be a welcome conversation here. I did ask dink to read this

Instead of just reading why doesn't he just come on here and start being a server owner? I'm quite confused, I've only been here about 6 months, so I don't know the situation surrounding his ghostness or if this has been a thing since the server begun. But this is the only successful community I've been apart of where the owner is completely absent. All he has to do is spend 10 minutes a day to say "hi I'm here and I still care about my community" yet I haven't seen him post a thing since I've been here. I get it, if he does not want to be apart of garrys mod in general anymore, then hand leadership and responsiblity to someone that does. But just ghosting the community your apart of and letting it dwindle into fighting is a shitty thing to do.

[VolfVoss]

Discord staff
This is an offshoot rant before I go any further. Discord is hell now. You can *almost* have a conversation without some idiot spamming the clown emote and/or completely derailing the conversation for some meme. Entire sections are ignored because staff muted them (Hello? You're a discord mod??) and the general mods say its not their problem since discord mod is a thing. That was not the point of giving some staff advanced commands, because in essence that means two (I'm not double counting Avi) staff plus the admins are the only ones doing it. I don't know if that stems from mods feeling like they shouldn't anymore or just straight apathy. I have several personal guesses depending on the staff member. Staff were never really required to staff this, but it should be expected especially from mods.
Overall, Discord mods should not have any used thread on ignore, except the bot threads because that'll get old. The staff should be easily reachable so I have no idea why the roll isn't pingable. I mean come on, its the one role in DISCORD that should have that turned on. I don't care if you're not on all the time, but there should be a reasonable expectation that you can get on and actually do the job. Its a specialized position, use it, the discord is going to hell from lack of effort. And for the love of dink, add more staff to this list please. 
https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/Thr...ng-Discord

Considering there's only 2 of us as Discord Moderators it's EXTREMELY difficult to browse through every single section of the discord. Discord Moderators only have these commands: Mute, Kick, Ban. WE have no control over restricting players nor can we give people roles, that is strictly ADMINS along with restricting reactions on peoples messages. 

The Role isn't ping able because the excessive people who like to MEME ping people as it is. 

There's guidelines in the process which I happily look forward to them being released. 

There's so many clicks, groups, or whatever you want to call them on Discord that the moment you Warn someone the group jumps in for the "injustice" of whatever it may be. 

To anyone who complains about being warned for a rule violation, I am not sorry. 

 

I may not always be able to monitor the discord due to gearing up to deploy, but when able I try to put some effort into what's going on.

If you want to help moderate the discord, by all means apply. 

Apply for Discord Moderator if you're willing to be constantly bombarded with DM's how you're being selective or unfair or whatever uneducated excuse people come up with. 

By all means. Join the Discord Moderator Team, where we are still figuring out how to deal with the regular trolls and drama makers.