[Femboy Gragle]

I bring a message from a spirit known as Rits.

"I can semi agree with mob mentality happening. However, the "Mob mentality" towards the admins for this situation is reasonable. Considering its from the highest majority of all the staff and the rest of the community. Im not friends with laced, dong, wild. Im not following anyone. If you want to call us a mob for calling out the shit decisions of the admins, go for it. I know right from wrong and the others resigning are the same. We shouldnt have to sit here and tell the ADMINS how to do their jobs. Them banning us with such little evidence, some evidence not even being shown or sent to us is so unprofessional and just downright shit. On a side note, Remember my ban request for Proper targetting and harassing me? Remember how I was attacked for it when I posted ALL my evidence. You tell me, it was moved to archive and never responded to again. Then I was banned for "racism" towards lycan. Thanks admins, way to solve toxicity. "

[reed1103]

I love this community, and I don’t want it to shut down, especially like this

[Nicol Bolas]

The deal with some long time and mostly active members being banned without proper warning is dumb by itself, but I agree that the communication between admins and the community is a pile of horseshit. What lift said about the admin rotation seems like an actual good idea, so things stay “fresh” in the higher up ranks. We also just need more admins in general. There are only 2 of them, only one of which is active when it comes to server time.

Here are my suggestions:

-Offer those banned who were active and caused minimal actual problems a free and immediate unban, or at least a reduction to a week or 2.

-Remove sponsorship for staff apps, as a lot of staff members resigned and we need more to restore “order”.

-Consider allowing admin apps, since there are only 2 and the community could use a few more.

-Increase punishment for GENUINE TOXCICITY, not just someone’s opinion that contradicts someone else’s opinions/ideas.

I've chosen to remain fairly silent about this entire thing. Drama isn't really my thing. But of all things said, this is probably one of the most level-headed and honestly smart things to consider. This is one of the first communities I've joined in Gmod, and I don't want it to fall apart because of some mistakes. Everyone is human, we make mistakes. There is no need to hate people for mistakes. The mob mentality needs to stop, communication needs to increase. There's no reason for drama. We're all equally dumb humans. Toxicity is not the direction we need to take. This is all I will say about this rather large issue.

People seem to think one side or another is right. Well, from someone mostly on the sidelines: Both sides of the community have made mistakes. But that's the real issue, there are multiple "sides". We need to be one community, not a fragmented community fostering hate for each other. I care about every single person in this community, and I don't want it to fall apart because of mistakes.

[^aethy]

[matt_st3 (Strongrule)]

It isn’t quite as simple as calling it mob mentality or that all the admins lost their mind. There some truth to both depending how you look at it.
Sure the community is in an uproar over it, but I wouldn’t call this a mob mentality. For one, there are those that will agree wholly, tho most likely only partially, with the decision but do not speak up because 1) they never do or 2) the side against spoke first and they don’t like confrontation or 3) they are afraid of personal backlash. And so on with the personal reasons. On the other end, many that oppose this decision disagree with the magnitude of the punishment for either all or certain individuals. Each has done something to a different degree, and only imo one or two could deserve a community ban. Hell a lot had nothing to do with PH as far as I’m concerned, and since we’re allowing inactive admins to decide I doubt they contacted Kenny. Could be wrong. And many who are voicing anti-admin opinions have had said opinions long before this decision. To them this is yet another reason.
Admin-staff-community communication has always been a struggle, and most of the current admin+ are not doing anything to fix that. But just as I won’t say everyone in the community is one hive mind, neither are the admins. Perhaps some were opposed. I get the distinct feeling this was a push from a couple to the rest and the timing seems either acted on too late or too early. I’m leaning early, with the distinct lack of evidence to punishment ratio. Much of this could have been prevented with earlier actions or a proper punishment, eg demote, temp bans, or forum/discord bans.
Honestly, dink is too inactive to hold some immediate clean house and not have it train wreck the community. It’s a shame because some out of touch ones need to go if they think they are voice of the community. I can’t speak for PH but I will say I think Gabe is the only one actively trying to engage on a community level from TTT. In fact, there are actually 3 admins and the co owner is an admin with backdoor access, so if anyone thinks there are less then that’s a testament to how inactive some are. The number of staff members capable, active enough, and that want to be admins... almost nonexistent at this point.
I’m waiting to see what the response will be. Obviously more needs to be addressed than simply this ban issue.

[Avi]

I will say this from my fair share of staffing on other communities.  No matter where you go, there will always be things that people don’t like about a staff system.  There will be issues and drama, and decisions made that people won’t agree with.  Just going and clean housing/demoting upper staff won’t be effective at this point because then you’re left with having to throw people into a position to try and fix things without guidance.  

As I’ve said elsewhere to those that were banned, if they care about wanting to come back, they were given the right to make an appeal to have it decided upon; it’s an effort that needs to be made by both parties to find some common ground and resolve this.  A bunch of threads reiterating the same points won’t get them unbanned any sooner without them taking the time to make an appeal.

It’s truly sad to see staff resigning and regular players leaving in floods because of this, but it’s expected because again, this happens in every community.  But those that do leave, maybe you will find what you are looking for elsewhere.

As for those staying, and the staff that will continue to staff here, I hope we can learn from this and improve the community and how we function.  I do agree there needs to be more transparency and communication between the upper staff, staff, and community; it’s something that’s been thrown around before but could always be better.


For one of the points reed made, I don't think it would hurt to remove sponsorships, but we still need staff that will step in to train the people applying for trusted and those looking to move up in rank as well; if that happens I don't see an issue with removing it for now.

[Avocado Toast]

You know everyone claims the community is ending and its all over. But stuff like this has happened so many times before.
When Dakody/Rippe was banned/demoted, when the entire PH team left, when Mushroomz took 12+ staff and community members with him to make a new server.
Every time it happens everyone thinks its all over. But here we are years and years after all of those things. 90% of the people on the server don't even care about the drama on these forums. Things will be fine in a month.

[§6SEMBER_UNO]

The fact that this keeps happening should tell you there's a problem.

Peace.

[VolfVoss]

The real problem is that some think they can do it better.

If you think you can do it better, build your own community and prove it. 

Start from NOTHING and build a gaming community that surpasses Dinkleberg's, but here's some things you'll need to have before you can even come close:

- Your community/server must survive 3+ years

- Have staff that have been in your community for 2+ years

- Have a set of rules that are strict but lenient enough that the game is still fun.

- Have 4 game modes, 2 of which are active daily with 10+ players.

- You can't recruit players from Dinks to try and populate your server, otherwise you've failed to surpass.

Now if you don't want to go to such extremes as building your own community, then I ask you to be patient with us.

We are all human and are striving to make Dinkleberg's a better place, but it takes time.

There will be MANY mistakes along the way, please give your constructive criticism along the way and voice it through the appropriate channels.

Thank you each and everyone for being a part of Dinkleberg's and if you feel you must go, do so with peace and positive energy towards your future wherever it may lead you.

Edit: changed "everyone thinks" to "some think"

[donkeyskin1]

The real problem is that everyone thinks they can do it better.

If you think you can do it better, build your own community and prove it. 

Start from NOTHING and build a gaming community that surpasses Dinkleberg's, but here's some things you'll need to have before you can even come close:

- Your community/server must survive 3+ years

- Have staff that have been in your community for 2+ years

- Have a set of rules that are strict but lenient enough that the game is still fun.

- Have 4 game modes, 2 of which are active daily with 10+ players.

- You can't recruit players from Dinks to try and populate your server, otherwise you've failed to surpass.

Now if you don't want to go to such extremes as building your own community, then I ask you to be patient with us.

We are all human and are striving to make Dinkleberg's a better place, but it takes time.

There will be MANY mistakes along the way, please give your constructive criticism along the way and voice it through the appropriate channels.

Thank you each and everyone for being a part of Dinkleberg's and if you feel you must go, do so with peace and positive energy towards your future wherever it may lead you.

these so called 'mistakes' have been happening for the last, like, 5 years. and yet hardly anything has changed