02-26-2021, 06:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-26-2021, 06:28 PM by La Flama Blanca. Edited 1 time in total.
Edit Reason: shoutout to kneegee
)
Point 1: Lack of Admins
Point 1.1: Co-Owner Position
I believe an ideal system would be a co-owner, accompanied by 2-3 admins.
The co-owner position would have additional abilities - the most important of which would include the power to promote and demote on the server. This would solve the issue of delays in the granting or revoking of staff and donor positions that we have seen in this occurring.
Point 1.2: Additional Admins
I agree that we should have additional TTT admins as well. With additional admins, there are other people you can go to with concerns or comments as needed. This allows for more responsiveness.
Additional admins allow for a higher level of connectedness with the player base as well. As Jax noted, when the higher staff are more familiar with the player base of the server it allows for better administrative calls to be made when it comes to staff applications, suggestions, bans, etc. With just one admin, this becomes less feasible. That one admin can get caught up with work, life, or other events that may temporarily limit their ability to stay connected with the server. We have seen this with our current admin, through no fault of their own. But with multiple admins, when one admin becomes unable to stay as connected, the other admins will still be able to maintain that connection between the player base and upper staff.
Additional admins can also be helpful in other regards. The role of the admin is not simply a server-side position. Admins also deal with rule changes, adjustments to the staff guidelines, staff applications, bans/unbans, responding to suggestion threads, etc. While each admin would still need to be responsive to these threads or concerns in the form of voting, being able to split the responsibilities among multiple admins would help to “lighten the load.” With regard to proposed rule changes, a vote would be held between the admins on deciding whether a change is needed. Then, one admin would be responsible for drafting up that rule change proposal. The next time a rule change is proposed, a different admin would step up. This would speed things up and make the role less burdensome.
Having previously served as the sole admin of one of the more-frequented servers in the community (Prophunt), I can attest to the fact that having one admin is less than ideal. It’s unfair both to the admin in that it leads to an unfair and stressful burden, and it’s unfair to the community for the reasons previously stated.
When asked, the well-respected and long-serving former admin, Gabe, stated that the traits that make for a good admin are “someone who has creativity, can make objective decision making, adaptable, perhaps motivation knows how to properly interact with people and address issues, then all the basic things too.”
I myself also posted some traits that I believe should be present in evaluating a future admin on another thread.
We have people in our staff team that meet these criteria points. I have already hinted at who I think in our current staff team would make for good additional admins. My list includes the individuals that Jax stated.
Point 2: Bad Staff
Point 2.1: Continued Training Requirements for Existing Staff
Consistency is a problem and I think it is something that could be addressed by additional training, both for current staff members and new staff members.
In most states, lawyers are required to take continuing legal education classes (CLE) in order to maintain their licenses to practice law. CLE ensures that practicing lawyers are aware of the current and most advanced thinking relevant to their particular field, which is especially important when there are shifts in common practice or law changes. CLE requirements help ensure that lawyers remain capable to adequately represent their clients. Without such requirements, the clients suffer.
Tying back to point 1, expanding training to include current staff members would be aided by having additional admins. Additional admins to write up the google docs or slides that will be used to present the information, additional admins to discover how different staff members are currently using their staff discretion, and additional admins to take the time and hop into a voice chat to lead a training session with current staff members.
Point 2.2: Committee System Adjustments
At present, I believe the committee system is a good system of decision-making. If additional admins are added, then perhaps the role of committees can be shrunk to an extent. With additional admins, I believe committees could become less relevant for staff applications. TTT has historically sought the opinion of staff members on staff applications through means other than the forums. The other servers do not follow this system. With regard to bans and unbans, I think committee involvement should remain high. Perhaps I am biased, but I appreciate the fact that I recently joined the ban/unban committee. I think it is useful to have more voices involved on bans since they can have significant impacts, especially when they involve regulars.
Point 2.3: Increase the Ability to Demote or Remove Staff
Our current system only allows Dink to both promote and demote staff members. As I already noted in point 1.1, this is not ideal. There is a need for someone more active to be able to promote and demote staff members (and donors) in order to avoid harmful delays.
But tying into my idea on continuing training requirements at Point 2.1, there needs to be an increased ability for the admins and potential co-owner to demote or remove staff members. The bar for removing or demoting staff members is currently extremely high, with Dink being very reluctant to do so. And based on past events, there is some explanation for such reluctance. On its face, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can prevent staff members from losing their positions based on personal slights or rash decisions from being made.
The high bar for demotion, however, is problematic for other reasons. We have an enormous list of inactive staff members. Of the more than 50 people on our inactive staff list, 15 are moderators and retain the ability to ban people. We want our staff members to actually know what is going on with the server - which is why I suggested the continuing training requirements at Point 2.1. There is nothing stopping these inactive staff from just popping up again out of nowhere and staffing essentially however they want.
If a staff member has been inactive for more than three months (or whatever might be deemed appropriate), they should have their rank removed in-game and elsewhere. If they wish to have it restored, they should retain the ability to petition the admins for such a rank restoral. However, they should be required to go through some form of training once again before having their ranks restored.
Point 3: Ignoring the Community
Point 3.1: Increased Involvement of the Community and Non-Staff
Jax, you are correct. The community should have more involvement than they have been given thus far. Garry’s Mod is a game that is more than 15 years old at this point and many servers have come and gone over that period of time. Our TTT server is quite unique in that it has lasted more than seven years. But its continued presence should be taken for granted. This server exists solely because players choose to spend their time on it. Without our players, we would be saying farewell to Dink’s TTT. But our staff community has far too often marginalized the voices of the non-staff players and made decisions without considering the community consequences.
With regard to the spray thread, I will apologize for not giving a more serious response. My post was joking, but I did intend for it to reflect my concern that sprays would be NSFW. In the future, I will try to remember to add on serious commentary alongside any jokes I might make on such threads.
Point 3.2: New Rank
Jax, I like the idea of the new rank. I think this is something that could, and should, definitely be implemented.
The way I see it working is that we allow for a rotating group of respected and regular players to be granted this new rank. This group would consist of some of our former staff, longtime players, and players that have been known for trying to make the community a better place - the people bringing forth ban requests or pinging on-call staff on the Discord. Hell, it might even be useful to bring in the voice of some of our traditional “troublemakers” for the sake of getting some diversity of opinion.
We would then invite these individuals to join our staff Discord server, only allowing them to see two or three specified channels which will then be used to gather community involvement.
I think that this group should be rotating as well, sort of like the UN Security Council which has 5 permanent members and 10 rotating members. That way we aren’t always hearing from the same people.
Point 3.3: Treatment of Regulars
I have also been disappointed with regard to the treatment of some of our TTT regulars. I believe that when problems do arise on the server, there are generally two types - malicious and non-malicious. Malicious activities are those that are meant to hurt server gameplay or intentionally upset people. Non-malicious activities are just people having fun, though that fun may have unintended consequences that may or may not be harmful.
I’m not entirely familiar with the circumstances regarding Ernie’s ban, but I do know he was known for “shitposting” in the incorrect channels on the Discord server. I would describe this as a non-malicious activity. A couple of minion gifs aren’t hurting anyone. A simple click and they are deleted if need be. No harm, no foul. I dealt with Ernie by simply placing the “PH Chat Restricted” and “Murder Chat Restricted” roles on him so he wouldn’t be able to disrupt those channels, which are sometimes needed for transmitting important information to the staff. That solved the problem. Now if someone leaves the Discord and returns simply to get out of those roles so they can shitpost in those channels, then there is a problem. Again, I’m not familiar enough with the ban to know if this was the case, or what actually led to the ban.
I have disagreed with all of the recent teaming bans, which is why I posted a thread to gather feedback for a new teaming rule. I disagreed with Stupiddy’s ban and was especially upset because I had bumped the teaming rule thread mere hours before she ended up getting banned. I even sent Stupiddy a filled-out unban request that she could just copy and paste into the forums for a basically guaranteed unban. She chose not to take advantage of that and the ban was justified based on the current staff guidelines on teaming. With regard to Crab, this was not a first-time offense, but a permanent ban is still a ridiculous punishment. If the teaming rules had been adjusted, this wouldn’t have been the result. The situation here was again one that I would describe as non-malicious.
That being said, there are still going to be some expectations for behavior on the server that simply being a regular will not excuse. Some regulars feel that it is appropriate to use slurs in the chat, engage in harassing behavior, or (intentionally) queue earrape. These are malicious activities. They are done to annoy both the staff members or the rest of the server for the amusement of the person doing the activity and, perhaps, some of their friends on the server. There are several regular players that frequently engage in these activities on the server and should be punished accordingly. I would say that we already make a number of exceptions for certain regulars that engage in malicious activities, with some players have 20+ warnings for things like using slurs with no punishments.
Jax, I appreciate you taking these concerns to the forums. I’d also like to thank kneegee for creating a thread on adding additional admins in the suggestions subforum, which I merged into this one for the sake of having a unified conversation in one place.
Point 1.1: Co-Owner Position
I believe an ideal system would be a co-owner, accompanied by 2-3 admins.
The co-owner position would have additional abilities - the most important of which would include the power to promote and demote on the server. This would solve the issue of delays in the granting or revoking of staff and donor positions that we have seen in this occurring.
- On one recent donor abuse thread, a donor ended up having to be temp-banned because of delays in having them demoted to supporter. This isn't ideal but it was the only option to prevent them from continuing to abuse their powers against other players.
- On the staffing side, we have seen people like Jammin that have recently been promoted to moderator remain unable to ban players while on the server. Instead, they still have to go to the forums and post ban requests, delaying the ultimate banning of malfeasants.
- Another problem is that staff that have resigned remain in their positions despite just wanting to play as normal players once again. When you maintain a staff rank, there is an expectation that you will actively staff. It’s hard to simply ignore reports that pile up or people voicing concerns in the admin chat.
Point 1.2: Additional Admins
I agree that we should have additional TTT admins as well. With additional admins, there are other people you can go to with concerns or comments as needed. This allows for more responsiveness.
Additional admins allow for a higher level of connectedness with the player base as well. As Jax noted, when the higher staff are more familiar with the player base of the server it allows for better administrative calls to be made when it comes to staff applications, suggestions, bans, etc. With just one admin, this becomes less feasible. That one admin can get caught up with work, life, or other events that may temporarily limit their ability to stay connected with the server. We have seen this with our current admin, through no fault of their own. But with multiple admins, when one admin becomes unable to stay as connected, the other admins will still be able to maintain that connection between the player base and upper staff.
Additional admins can also be helpful in other regards. The role of the admin is not simply a server-side position. Admins also deal with rule changes, adjustments to the staff guidelines, staff applications, bans/unbans, responding to suggestion threads, etc. While each admin would still need to be responsive to these threads or concerns in the form of voting, being able to split the responsibilities among multiple admins would help to “lighten the load.” With regard to proposed rule changes, a vote would be held between the admins on deciding whether a change is needed. Then, one admin would be responsible for drafting up that rule change proposal. The next time a rule change is proposed, a different admin would step up. This would speed things up and make the role less burdensome.
- I posted a thread that sought to gather feedback on an adjustment to the teaming rule in October of last year, receiving two pages of feedback. I then bumped it in January, after which it received additional commentary and the staff team shortly thereafter even took a vote on whether we thought a new teaming rule was needed. The thread was just bumped again today - at the end of February.
Having previously served as the sole admin of one of the more-frequented servers in the community (Prophunt), I can attest to the fact that having one admin is less than ideal. It’s unfair both to the admin in that it leads to an unfair and stressful burden, and it’s unfair to the community for the reasons previously stated.
When asked, the well-respected and long-serving former admin, Gabe, stated that the traits that make for a good admin are “someone who has creativity, can make objective decision making, adaptable, perhaps motivation knows how to properly interact with people and address issues, then all the basic things too.”
I myself also posted some traits that I believe should be present in evaluating a future admin on another thread.
We have people in our staff team that meet these criteria points. I have already hinted at who I think in our current staff team would make for good additional admins. My list includes the individuals that Jax stated.
Point 2: Bad Staff
Point 2.1: Continued Training Requirements for Existing Staff
Consistency is a problem and I think it is something that could be addressed by additional training, both for current staff members and new staff members.
- I can tell you that I personally never received a speck of training in my years of staffing TTT. I even came back from a year-long break last year as a moderator and was able to use my powers immediately to gag, mute, and even ban people. That’s not ideal.
In most states, lawyers are required to take continuing legal education classes (CLE) in order to maintain their licenses to practice law. CLE ensures that practicing lawyers are aware of the current and most advanced thinking relevant to their particular field, which is especially important when there are shifts in common practice or law changes. CLE requirements help ensure that lawyers remain capable to adequately represent their clients. Without such requirements, the clients suffer.
- I believe my reference to CLE applies to TTT staff. The staff are the lawyers and the players are the clients.
Tying back to point 1, expanding training to include current staff members would be aided by having additional admins. Additional admins to write up the google docs or slides that will be used to present the information, additional admins to discover how different staff members are currently using their staff discretion, and additional admins to take the time and hop into a voice chat to lead a training session with current staff members.
Point 2.2: Committee System Adjustments
At present, I believe the committee system is a good system of decision-making. If additional admins are added, then perhaps the role of committees can be shrunk to an extent. With additional admins, I believe committees could become less relevant for staff applications. TTT has historically sought the opinion of staff members on staff applications through means other than the forums. The other servers do not follow this system. With regard to bans and unbans, I think committee involvement should remain high. Perhaps I am biased, but I appreciate the fact that I recently joined the ban/unban committee. I think it is useful to have more voices involved on bans since they can have significant impacts, especially when they involve regulars.
Point 2.3: Increase the Ability to Demote or Remove Staff
Our current system only allows Dink to both promote and demote staff members. As I already noted in point 1.1, this is not ideal. There is a need for someone more active to be able to promote and demote staff members (and donors) in order to avoid harmful delays.
But tying into my idea on continuing training requirements at Point 2.1, there needs to be an increased ability for the admins and potential co-owner to demote or remove staff members. The bar for removing or demoting staff members is currently extremely high, with Dink being very reluctant to do so. And based on past events, there is some explanation for such reluctance. On its face, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can prevent staff members from losing their positions based on personal slights or rash decisions from being made.
The high bar for demotion, however, is problematic for other reasons. We have an enormous list of inactive staff members. Of the more than 50 people on our inactive staff list, 15 are moderators and retain the ability to ban people. We want our staff members to actually know what is going on with the server - which is why I suggested the continuing training requirements at Point 2.1. There is nothing stopping these inactive staff from just popping up again out of nowhere and staffing essentially however they want.
If a staff member has been inactive for more than three months (or whatever might be deemed appropriate), they should have their rank removed in-game and elsewhere. If they wish to have it restored, they should retain the ability to petition the admins for such a rank restoral. However, they should be required to go through some form of training once again before having their ranks restored.
Point 3: Ignoring the Community
Point 3.1: Increased Involvement of the Community and Non-Staff
Jax, you are correct. The community should have more involvement than they have been given thus far. Garry’s Mod is a game that is more than 15 years old at this point and many servers have come and gone over that period of time. Our TTT server is quite unique in that it has lasted more than seven years. But its continued presence should be taken for granted. This server exists solely because players choose to spend their time on it. Without our players, we would be saying farewell to Dink’s TTT. But our staff community has far too often marginalized the voices of the non-staff players and made decisions without considering the community consequences.
With regard to the spray thread, I will apologize for not giving a more serious response. My post was joking, but I did intend for it to reflect my concern that sprays would be NSFW. In the future, I will try to remember to add on serious commentary alongside any jokes I might make on such threads.
Point 3.2: New Rank
Jax, I like the idea of the new rank. I think this is something that could, and should, definitely be implemented.
The way I see it working is that we allow for a rotating group of respected and regular players to be granted this new rank. This group would consist of some of our former staff, longtime players, and players that have been known for trying to make the community a better place - the people bringing forth ban requests or pinging on-call staff on the Discord. Hell, it might even be useful to bring in the voice of some of our traditional “troublemakers” for the sake of getting some diversity of opinion.
We would then invite these individuals to join our staff Discord server, only allowing them to see two or three specified channels which will then be used to gather community involvement.
I think that this group should be rotating as well, sort of like the UN Security Council which has 5 permanent members and 10 rotating members. That way we aren’t always hearing from the same people.
Point 3.3: Treatment of Regulars
I have also been disappointed with regard to the treatment of some of our TTT regulars. I believe that when problems do arise on the server, there are generally two types - malicious and non-malicious. Malicious activities are those that are meant to hurt server gameplay or intentionally upset people. Non-malicious activities are just people having fun, though that fun may have unintended consequences that may or may not be harmful.
I’m not entirely familiar with the circumstances regarding Ernie’s ban, but I do know he was known for “shitposting” in the incorrect channels on the Discord server. I would describe this as a non-malicious activity. A couple of minion gifs aren’t hurting anyone. A simple click and they are deleted if need be. No harm, no foul. I dealt with Ernie by simply placing the “PH Chat Restricted” and “Murder Chat Restricted” roles on him so he wouldn’t be able to disrupt those channels, which are sometimes needed for transmitting important information to the staff. That solved the problem. Now if someone leaves the Discord and returns simply to get out of those roles so they can shitpost in those channels, then there is a problem. Again, I’m not familiar enough with the ban to know if this was the case, or what actually led to the ban.
I have disagreed with all of the recent teaming bans, which is why I posted a thread to gather feedback for a new teaming rule. I disagreed with Stupiddy’s ban and was especially upset because I had bumped the teaming rule thread mere hours before she ended up getting banned. I even sent Stupiddy a filled-out unban request that she could just copy and paste into the forums for a basically guaranteed unban. She chose not to take advantage of that and the ban was justified based on the current staff guidelines on teaming. With regard to Crab, this was not a first-time offense, but a permanent ban is still a ridiculous punishment. If the teaming rules had been adjusted, this wouldn’t have been the result. The situation here was again one that I would describe as non-malicious.
That being said, there are still going to be some expectations for behavior on the server that simply being a regular will not excuse. Some regulars feel that it is appropriate to use slurs in the chat, engage in harassing behavior, or (intentionally) queue earrape. These are malicious activities. They are done to annoy both the staff members or the rest of the server for the amusement of the person doing the activity and, perhaps, some of their friends on the server. There are several regular players that frequently engage in these activities on the server and should be punished accordingly. I would say that we already make a number of exceptions for certain regulars that engage in malicious activities, with some players have 20+ warnings for things like using slurs with no punishments.
Jax, I appreciate you taking these concerns to the forums. I’d also like to thank kneegee for creating a thread on adding additional admins in the suggestions subforum, which I merged into this one for the sake of having a unified conversation in one place.
