[Salty]

ABSTRACT

Overall, the two issues that I am addressing in this thread are “selective staffing” and the moderation bot. I decided to put the abstract (commonly referred to as the TL/DR segment) at the beginning of the thread so that way you don’t have to scroll all the way to the bottom! What inspired me to make this thread were the results that unloaded from both of Shaye's discord unban threads. 

If you want to see what my overall opinion of these two things are without going through the specifics, scroll down to "CONCLUDING REMARKS." 

ISSUE #1: “SELECTIVE STAFFING”

On the discord feedback form that Kaptain provided, one of the things that I said was a big issue in the community was an inconsistency amongst HOW staff members are delivering punishments. There are those who have done a very good job of giving verbal warnings in chat, and then there are some who seem to never say anything but do all the strikes (in theory of course, this segues into another issue I have with the discord; more details later). There is a rule and punishment guideline thread, but something that is missing is an explanative document showcasing HOW staff should handle situations as they arise; I couldn’t find a file for these on the PH DR or Murder rule pages, but the TTT one has a Staff guideline and “scenario” fill out for staff apps that see if you know how to appropriately respond to the situation. I think Discord should have that same type of form set up so the staff committee can look at what a potential staff candidate would do in certain situations and steer them the right way if what they put is different from what is expected of them.  

Something that Jammin said on Shaye’s unban thread (https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/sho...413&page=2) that rubbed me the wrong way was what he considered to be “selective staffing.” What I think the problem is that people on the staff team might potentially be ignoring when their friends say things such as that, but if someone they don’t like says it, they would administer the punishment without a single hesitation. I do not have any proof of this of course, so this is mere speculation.  
Regardless of whether this is a thing or not, the best solution in my opinion is to instill expectations for the discord staff team (but in more detail than Avi’s thread here: https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/sho...?tid=11562). Why should they more detailed? That’s easy: that way, we have documentation that can be used to help keep members of the discord staff team accountable and help the Discord Staff team understand what is expected of them. I know that my knowledge of how the Discord staffing is very outdated, as I was a member of the team back in the Summer of 2020, but I was always told “just use common sense when moderating the channels.” This typically is good advice, but the problem is that you’re dealing with 6 different perspectives of what is considered “common sense” and that can lead to potential issues for the team.


 

ISSUE TWO: THE MODERATION BOT

Now, on the matter of the moderation bot. This is something that has always been a pet peeve of mine with it, but I finally have the gall to say it professionally:
 
THERE SHOULD BE TRANSPARENCY ON WHO ADMINISTERS A WARN/BAN THAT REGULAR MEMBERS CAN ACCESS AND SEE.
 
When Shaye was banned here [what the fuck (dinklebergsgmod.com)], the bot did not inform of a reason. Yes, I understand that it was due to an automatic softban that was administered after reaching the threshold; however, we members should be able to see who administered the warn. There is no secrecy behind who uses commands on someone in any of the servers, so I do not understand why the discord is different. The staff members need to be able to be held accountable if they are not doing their job properly by more than 5 other people who are staffing the discord with them.
Someone might say “Well, Shaye might have the bot blocked, that’s why she didn’t get the message.”  I can counter this argument easily; when I received a softban after harassing a member of the community back in 2021, I was not sent a DM from the moderation bot saying that; I just simply did not see the Dink’s Gmod discord anymore, and that is something I’m not entirely sure is intended or if it is a mistake/bug.
 

CONCLUDING REMARKS

I think that a LOT of the challenges discord staff face right now (i.e. being called abusive, etc.) can be fixed by having an updated “expectations” thread that goes into further detail as to how to professionally handle situations that may arise (i.e. not throwing the power hammer around and abusing commands [not that anyone is doing this, at least not that I’m aware of] but instead professionally defusing the situation) and adding transparency of WHO is giving the strikes/bans to again, hold the staff accountable for their actions. This may not be a job, but as staff, you are a leader and influence others whether you think you do or not. Just like any other SUCCESSFUL leadership team, the Discord staff need to be able to be held accountable.
These are my opinions on the matter; if you disagree with me, feel free to. I do not think my way is the only way that’s right, I just simply wanted to give input and see if others agreed with how I feel about the state of things.

Thank you for your time,

Salty

[reina]

we members should be able to see who administered the warn

I strongly disagree with this. When Shaye was banned, multiple people assumed it was Foxka and dm'd him to complain about it-- and he wasn't even the one who warned her. If a staff member were to be required to have their name on the strike, the only thing that would lead to would be harassment. Anonymity is the only thing keeping staff from being even more biased than they may already be.

[Damien]

we members should be able to see who administered the warn

I strongly disagree with this. When Shaye was banned, multiple people assumed it was Foxka and dm'd him to complain about it-- and he wasn't even the one who warned her. If a staff member were to be required to have their name on the strike, the only thing that would lead to would be harassment. Anonymity is the only thing keeping staff from being even more biased than they may already be.

If staff members have biases towards any community members they should not be staff.  I agree that we should be able to see who gave warn considering that transparency is not shown or given to the community (Not even just a discord issue).

[Salty]

I strongly disagree with this. When Shaye was banned, multiple people assumed it was Foxka and dm'd him to complain about it-- and he wasn't even the one who warned her. If a staff member were to be required to have their name on the strike, the only thing that would lead to would be harassment. Anonymity is the only thing keeping staff from being even more biased than they may already be.

That's a really good point Reina, I respect where you're coming from.

 I would say that the same kind of harassment occurs when individuals issue out gags/mutes on server; however, it's less annoying because you can easily either tab out of the game or just turn their volume down clientside: with discord, it's a different story as even if you mute the conversation, you still have the notification of a message being sent to you. 
If I'm not mistaken, you can have settings set up to where only your friends can DM you, and only certain people can send you friend requests via the Privacy and Safety settings. 

 I do think that asking staff members to do that would probably be a little ridiculous but that is something that you can do to counteract that; also, when you say that staff would be more biased, do you mean that they'd refrain from punishing people they're friends with or who are popular in the server even moreso than it might already be an issue? I think that's what you're saying but I want to double check.

[reina]

we members should be able to see who administered the warn

I strongly disagree with this. When Shaye was banned, multiple people assumed it was Foxka and dm'd him to complain about it-- and he wasn't even the one who warned her. If a staff member were to be required to have their name on the strike, the only thing that would lead to would be harassment. Anonymity is the only thing keeping staff from being even more biased than they may already be.

If staff members have biases towards any community members they should not be staff.  I agree that we should be able to see who gave warn considering that transparency is not shown or given to the community (Not even just a discord issue).

They're human. If someone's having a bad day and they don't feel like getting berated by their friends because their name is on a strike, then they'll probably let something slide. What matters is that their admin can see they were the one who issued the punishment. If it was given unfairly, it can be appealed and the admin will be able to see if this is a common occurrence between the moderator/helper and member. The only reason I can imagine wanting a name is to confront someone.

[voidzz]

Something that Jammin said on Shaye’s unban thread (https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/sho...413&page=2) that rubbed me the wrong way was what he considered to be “selective staffing.” What I think the problem is that people on the staff team might potentially be ignoring when their friends say things such as that, but if someone they don’t like says it, they would administer the punishment without a single hesitation. I do not have any proof of this of course, so this is mere speculation.  

I usually don't care too much about posts regarding discord, but salty made a GREAT post here, very well written (the whole thing). I do agree with both sides though, I do believe jammin that there is shortage of staff helpers on discord, but at the same time I agree with the speculation of selective staffing, almost anybody would believe that it exists.

Lets get the bunch out of the way, discord should include more descriptive stuff and how to deal with situations, pretty easy fix, something jammin or kaptain could easily fix, not a big deal in the end it's just proof that hey we should've had more here.

One thing that I believe should definitely be changed, members of the community (or even at least the person that was warned) SHOULD be able to see who warned them. In every server, whether you're gagged, muted, banned, there is transparency as to what happened and who did it. I talked to brian forever ago about the status of the forums, what's the point of ban requests etc when we can just provide proof to staff. He responded with a very well written thing "Transparency", then went on to say something along the lines as with ban requests, we have transparency for the player who is banned and it shows who did the banning etc, provides a reference point. If forums, and all the servers show who perpetrates an action on somebody, why shouldn't discord? Sure, we can claim the person will be harassed, but at the end of the day staff need to be able to deal with it. It's unfortunate Foxka got harassed for something he didn't do, granted nobody should be harassed, but if there were transparency it couldve been avoided, and rather than speculate people could reach out to the person directly. Regardless of personal feelings and discomfort, staff take a role knowing that their names will be on things across all the servers and forums, should be no different for discord.

[dong]

I think seeing who did what punishment is a good idea if discord was a perfect area, but it is a large cesspool of hot garbage. It would turn harassment from basic speculation into harassment with some merit because you see who punished youn. I think it would only cause more headache. If people are jumping the gun they should be held accountable to some extent, and I believe all of this could be solved by simply revising the rules after the feedback survey thread. I was going to actually talk to Les sometime soon about things that I think could be improved and other junk.

Discord would be a lot more simple if people on both sides just put all differences aside and stop having it out for each other. The hate that they receive most of the time isn’t even warranted and that’s why no one wants to apply. You’ll keep having to deal with these same staff members that select groups don’t like because they make it hard for anyone wanting to staff that place. This is a freaking video game lol just have fun without being douchebags.

[Foxka]

Also if you think you can do it better then by all means apply, we definitely need more than 3 of us non-admins to help out discord

[Salty]

Also if you think you can do it better then by all means apply, we definitely need more than 3 of us non-admins to help out discord

I wasn't trying to suggest I could do it better; this was the a more detailed explanation of what I gave in the feedback form.

I intend to apply in the near future, but not because I think I can do it better; I want to make your experience as staffing on the server easier because I know you all receive a lot of shit for no reason. Like Jammin said on the thread, there are 3 of you who aren't admins (or applying to be admin) and are responsible for checking 15 text channels and over 5500 members. That's ridiculous, and I want to help you all out.

[Jammin]

Hey Salty,
First, thanks for your feedback. It is appreciated
I'll definitely read through this more throoughly once i'm sitting down with Les later on to go over the survey results.

I don't want to get too deep into things for now, other than to say that I brought @KaptainLes onboard for a reason - there's a lot of change that needs to happen, and we need, for lack of a better phrase, someone more grounded in reality than I am when it comes to staffing guidelines/etc.

The first thing I will address is my comments on shaye's unban - I said what I said because for both bad comments Shaye brought to our attention, that's the absolute first time any of us saw it. It's just like being tabbed out while playing TTT and some guy mass RDM's - if we are tabbed out, we won't know about it.
And, once we found out about the comments, the comments were deleted and the commenter was punished accordingly (first time offense is a verbal warn, which was issued). Hence, we are back to having 0 unaddressed comments (that I'm aware of). If you want more comments addressed, you can file reports on the Auttaja bot or file them on the "Discord Reports" subforum (the latter is a discrete method). As for making sure more bad messages are addressed in the future, Les and I will work on automating some filters (thanks @HONG for the suggestion) to flag posts for a human review - that's a fantastic idea HONG came up with. 

What I am not going to do is allow a staff shortage to excuse staff misconduct. If I am given evidence of staff misconduct, I will address it. Despite the few numbers of staff, I have received very few reports over this past year of misconduct, only 2-3 of which actually had actionable evidence. If someone is being targeted or suspects they are being targeted by one of my staff members, let me know with a clear, detailed report and I can, and will, act on it (as I did in above instances, including a staff strike and a staff demotion in the past). But, all recent staff actions taken that i've had to review for an appeal are actions taken within our current punishment/rule guidelines. If it's anyone's fault, it's my own, since I authored the guidelines.

Also, i just want to point out that the punisher not being viewable is a fault of the Auttaja bot - there's no way for us to enable that. So frankly, the "not sharing warners" isn't necessarily an intentional policy, but something born out of the limitations of the bot. Reina brings up a good point, and I guarantee you that listing the punisher would bring out the hivemind, but my staff knows that they aren't necessarily guaranteed their privacy when issuing strikes/warns. I'm open to having that information public for the sake of transparancy, but that's going to require a new bot.

Finally, just saying this for now - If anyone has evidence of selective staffing, please share it with me or Les. I beg of you. Or another Admin if you wanna be anonymous. Hell, send me feedback and say it came from an anonymous source. Say it came from the tooth fairy. I don't care who sends it. I say this because there is a large amount of feedback coming from the community about a vague notion of selective staffing, but I've only had one single person come forward with potential evidence of it - evidence that standalone didn't prove much (just that a discord staff member didn't scroll up).
Otherwise, be patient. We are working on improving things, including many of the points about staff expectations/training/etc that Salty brought up. There's a reason I brought help onboard.

Thank you for the feedback!