[WaifuApple]

A completely unbiased person does not exist, yes. For candidates you would essentially look towards people who are able to put up with the people they end up at odds with - essentially those who are willing to put difficulties and differences aside. People are always going to be somewhat swayed in one or the other direction, so it does help for people to have realistic expectations there.

Not everyone would end up agreeing with a GMs admittance, just like not everyone agreed with eventmins (and I know that much since I've seen that). It just matters that people would be willing to accept and give chance to people, even if they're not the person's first, second, or even fifth choice. I'm sure that, despite our opinions of one another as a collective community, there are sure to be people that would fit the bill, if given the chance, even if some people would have to warm up to them.

[Ham]

Even if we find someone unbiased, how are we gonna find someone who doesn't burn out easily when they have to religiously follow this game's everything- especially in a game THIS BIG wether it's community wise, forum wise, updates wise, etc- and let alone a person who doesn't have much Real Life trouble in these trying times of COVID.

You could be thinking 'well unbias and no burn out and avoiding life's pitfalls all needs patience', but it's alot more complex than that. I'll be honest, we need to be patient with our current GMs too; Yea, four months isn't a short amount of time but, finding a good GM could take up to four years, that's like... I dunno, ten times as long? I'm bad at maths.

Mark's suggestion is probably the best, more roles, but not TOO much else the hierarchy will just fall on itself sooner or later. I can't add anything else to this because his post was pretty much perfect imo.

I understand GSM's concerns, sometimes being overly cautious prevents you from putting your leg in a bear trap that'll tear a foot off yea? It's why we humans have a thing called Anxiety. I also understand he was probably livid at the very first post most prominently because he's had not one but two strikes over a singular post he said he'd remove like what.
It's not really derailing the convo, what he said, it was just his opinion and concerns being addressed of events being far too close which is fine, a funne maymay can be integrated into a post every once in a while, if he's spamming it 24/7 then sure I'll say you have a point but eh, it wasn't such a big deal, and he already said he'd remove it before he got busy irl so I really can't help but look at it from his POV. That said I'm not defending the picture but, it is what it is.

Now... correct me if I'm wrong, I'm pretty dumb but, I'm pretty sure no one 'didn't agree with eventmins' as a Concept, everyone liked it as far as I've seen. But the chosen people, I think it's the same issue everyone is talking about here: Inactivity. Again, I don't mean to be offensive here if that's how it's coming off, I just woke up.

Anyways, back to the main topic, I reiterate what I said in my initial post, Players aren't brainlets who sit and watch, Players want change so they do change. If they really want to, they can help with minor stuff with no GM involvement needed- HOWEVER that brings me to the next point I want to present in this TedTalk-

Let's go back to the other issues that aren't Inactivity, for example: New Player wants to get into the game, he doesn't know how to get to know people so they start by putting a smile on someone's face, a joke or the such, now what does Player Y do? 'Not funny didn't laugh, time to report you'.

Like... I get that you want to be immersed in the game, but being serious 24/7 will just leave a perma frown on your face, sometimes it's fine to let a joke slide once or twice- give them a little Nudge in LOOC or DMs sure if they step it out of line. I go back to that one post I wrote in Jupiter's thread- If I or my Character did anything that annoys you or takes you out of the experience, tell me. By God tell me.
Sometimes people just don't know they're making you feel uncomfortable or un-immersed so, communicate, PLEASE.

Lich's reputation could be brought up to counter my point, and I get it, I really do, you're tired. BUT, do you really think hammering it down 'filthy meme lich' every single time a healthy thing? Hell, my first Character, Ben, wasn't even a meme character, I was just making a shitty in-joke once and then one thing led to another to him appearing as a joke to other folk- again, no offense meant here- but it's how the people viewed him, that made him a meme. Remember when I said 'tell me if I ruin your immersion?' well, I remember once a folk who told me my non-meme character's existence ruined the immersion for them, because there are memes made on him. Do I think they're in the wrong? eeeeeh they're paranoid and I get why, kinda, but for god's sake, the community needs a chill pill sometimes.

So yeah, New Player has bad experience, New Player gets scared he's hated by the community And whoever they were reported to now, New Player leaves depressed.

What this tells me is, in all honesty, most times where you think it's a GM fault, it's sometimes a community's fault. GMs aren't the Guards.... I guess.

There's alot more issues we glossed over that really weigh this game down, I feel like they're worthy of one big Complaint thread- no holds barred, no strikes for letting out your honest opinion like 'ham stinky'.

In any case, sorry for the paragraph that fails to get any point across, someone who understood me and didn't just wake up PLEASE put this in easier to understand text, I'll go awaken my singular braincell with some tea now. Thank you for reading.

[Sarah54321]

I can understand the frustrations behind us trying to push for new GMs, because it feels like things are attempting to be rushed. However I don't think anyone is really trying to rush it that much. It could take as little as a week, it could take as long as a year or more to find more GMs.

As far as GSM's post, I think that it's okay to be upset about his being warned- though I don't think he stated it anywhere public that he'd be removing the post before it was actually taken down. He made a few good points, but it was also sort of aggressively put down, such as calling certain players revolting because of the way they play the game. I think it's best to be as polite as you can, even when trying to be honest. People will get really worked up if someone is being actively aggressive towards people even if it's not directed at them.

As for the comment on 'No one failed to agree to Eventmins', I've posted three Eventmin topics over the years that were shot down by both GMs and Players alike. It only came to pass that they liked the eventmins because they were implemented by Dev and were seen that they could be useful as an active community. People don't know what they want exactly until they have it. I recall that people often just want more of what they have, but sometimes that just gets nowhere.

For the terms of reporting players, it was just disruptive to see butt naked memes and furry pictures in the game. I admit that I'm the one that reported those two players. Even still, it's not like I did so to get them in trouble. It was so they would more likely change their profile and face icons, etc. It showed that they wouldn't even if I had told them or suggested them to, because they argued against the GM even when told to change it.

Now, this isn't exactly what would happen with every player- and I understand it might seem like some people jump the gun. Some of them do, that's true. With Ham's experience, I feel sort of sorry for it. It's very similar to 'one bad apple ruins the bunch' sort of thing. Because of the Stigma against lich players, it's really hard to get your foot in as an actual serious lich. One slip up and bam, people think you're a meme. Don't get discouraged, just try your best to continue working on the character. If people actively bully you over it, just try talking to them first- and if they remain calling you out, ask them to stop or at least get a GM or Moderator or whatever to talk to them. As much as other people's fun are important, so is yours.

It's not really that we're saying 'Oh the GMs aren't active so it's their fault everything's failing'. I don't think anyone's said that as far as I know- I mean sure we've had a few call outs, but those are mostly just specific instances and not an overall 'it's their fault' if you get what I mean? You're right, a lot of the community is at fault here- but that's the same with any community this large. We all have issues and it leaks into the game and forums.

For the idea of a complaint thread- no bars held and such- I think that's just asking for a fire. It might be good in concept, but I've seen what people do to each other when they're angry, see another person talking bad about them, etc. It just becomes a huge argument and it's not exactly healthy even if it lets some people get it off their chest. Complaints like that are best brought to a GM or to one's friends to help it get their chest off first, before it's brought to attention in a more civil, proper manner.

This post is sort of a mess that rambles on a lot, but I thought I should hit most of the points Ham put in just for clarities sake on certain things, as well as my opinions on a few things brought up. The following will be comments about other things.

I think that GMs currently just need more presence. Yes, they work, but they're not in view of the players and it hurts. Transparency, right? Not everything needs to be shown, but it'd be nice to know that GMs are there with us. Eventmins are currently trying to work on something similar to let players know 'Hey! We're doing something!', but it's slow going due to other issues. It's just hard to emphasize how much is going on when we can't share nor know about things, you get me?

For a new GM, I don't think a lack of bias is needed. Yeah, bias is bad for a GM position, but it's important to know that everyone has it, and that things will just get worse if we start piling on the 'You can't be bias, that's bad, stop having feelings' sort of attitude. Just have someone that's capable of putting those biases to the side. For the rest of the issues, I think that having someone on at least three times a week would be more than enough. That way the GMs can segregate what work they do.

[Lonestar]

I think this will be my final post because I cannot handle controversial threads like this well (Which is not Apple's problem, it's a me problem).

So I'm just going to tackle what I feel I'd like to see in a new GM if we ever get one, which is essentially a mix of all the good traits that previous or current GMs have/had and I feel it's essential to possess in a position like that. And that I believe other people in this thread have been punching this button once or twice.

Activity - A good GM in my opinion should be active within the game more than anything. You're taking care of a game that isn't yours and it's not exclusive to the main Discord at all. Not to say you have to play everyday, but one-two hours RPing with the players for example would not hurt at all, as well as making sure that your name is thrown there, be it in your OOC page of your profile or not.

It should also be public and not exclusive to secret houses, as you're a public figure and should treat yourself as such. If you're for some reason hiding, then you should be working to fix that, since you have the power to do such.

One of the thing that I've noticed, that may or may not be included to this topic is that alot of people don't report players that have done a bad-bad for a multitude of reasons, some of them being that the player is shy and doesn't know the GMs well, having a feel of being overwhelmed by their position or because they only trust one of them but they might be unavailable currently, or for some other reason. This kind of thing promotes the GM to investigate on their own and that kinda feels unnecessary when the community itself could be helping as well, but it could be a result of a snowball effect. (Disclaimer: There's nothing wrong in being shy. I used to be as well when I started playing this.)

Impartialness - An unbiased individual seems more like a fantasy than reality, correct. But what matters is the attempt of it. No human being will be unbiased forever as one day or another they will sway towards one side, be it because you like X or because you hate Y. And that's fine really, it's just one thing that can't be abused.

Attempting to be neutral and fair when cases that goes from one person versus another is fundamental for this kind of job, akin to a judge but not exactly there. When evidence is provided about someone's behavior, that's where a side should be taken, provided it's valid.

Professionalism - Being responsible, an adult and mature. GM is not a job that's forced on you, it's voluntary, it's thankless, but it's there and it's necessary for the health of the game. And if things get too heavy for you, you can always retire with the famous 'I tried' and no one will look bad at you.

It's a stressful job, since it deals with people directly and misinformation will come from one's mouth whenether you like it or not, and not everyone will treat being involved in something with a happy face. But that's the jist of it and shielding yourself from the problems is part of your self-defense. Treat people the way you wish to be treated, and if you treat them badly?

That's about all I have to say in regards to new blood in the GM team (if we get it), and if the time comes, I hope the choice will be okay. Stay frosty, gamers.

[Balor]

Walrus is pretty constructive so I'll throw my hat in with them. I have two final points however before I exit this thread, two points to be constructive and that are new enough from last thread to be worth vocalizing.

First Point:

Many people however have refuted ban logs, and I can understand why. However in the same breath the ban announcements server side are global in the old chat, and if they worked as intended would likely be so in the new chat since people can't see them there.

People assume that I am asking for extensive logs, and while personally I feel transparency is key.  I am more than content and happy with the server snippets that are already public and global being cataloged either for clarity of use for the banned, or for people to understand /why/.

Second point:

A Newsletter is a concept tossed around perpetually.  Now I understand that the GM's have lives, I don't want them to have to cater to me or be present daily.  I feel like most get to their job in a reasonable time. However I think it's fair to ask for once a month to see at least a few paragraphs of public outreach. It isn't much, it isn't harassment it isn't demanding a great deal of time. I don't think that the GM's are bad people. 

But people don't know them, and I feel like that could be changed and be helpful to everyone involved.  With a newsletter present, than can just tell us how they feel or their goals and ambitions as a moderator will be for the next month, then go do whatever it is you wanna do. Go play Genshin Impact or whatever the cool kids are playing.



I don't feel like these are unreasonable. Or even outside what is already done but not cataloged in a meaningful way. That said I'ma dip out the chat.

[WaifuApple]

I would like to start out by saying that this post is still and always was about the situation with GMs. People probably weren't looking for justifications of why someone acted the way they did, here -- and for sure, saying you'd remove the post doesn't mean anything. Especially when it wasn't told to anyone here. It's not really a defense against any recieved reports.

Moving on to the actual topic at hand, though. I agree with Roland, here. Not doing anything because the community won't fully approve it is not an acceptable way to move forward, and nobody in the community should be content this way. This talk of "but how will X and Y" in regards to finding new members of the staff team usually only serve to raise the bar impossibly high, and make it so that it seems we should never take action or speak out, because the result will never be good enough.

What we need is someone who can set their differences with other people aside to be impartial enough to enforce the rules fairly and at least semi-equally. And as far as their durability for the role goes - it should NOT be a major worry. Judging how people can handle things FOR them is a problem, for start. People can give the job their best shot, carry themselves as far as they can, and if the time comes and they feel the need to step down, another can step up.

It doesn't have to be seen as a revolving door. Even if they don't make it to the end of the game, having those members of staff there in the first place is better than not. No "but will they stay", because having them for even a short time is more than we get if we never have them at all.

And I agree. Now is a good time to talk with GMs and Dev about getting such a system in place. A way for people to apply for the role - or be recruited. Ultimately, to be vetted by GMs and Dev, for obvious reasons. But it would give them an idea of who's up to the task, and allow them to look into the merits of everyone, rather than, perhaps trying to think of a few people from mind but never really being able to consider everyone because some don't quite come to mind at first thought.

Also, I should clarify in regards to my mention of "not agreeing with eventmins" I was meaning "the pick of certain ones" as a generalisation. It was meant to show that, well, the community already doesn't always agree on who gets a certain role - but if someone DOES get into that role, most are at least willing to accept it and warm up to that.

[Shujin]

I think this is a typical case of everyone turning in circles without going anywhere if we try to find the "perfect GM". 

People tend to talk about THE community, but in reality, that term in itself is wrong when applied to SL2s people, I believe. We are a bunch of small communities sharing the same social environment and interaction which by definition is a society. This is important to distinguish because each small community of the collective needs a different kind of representative, which in the end is a GM or in some cases eventmin. People of another community will rarely agree with who YOU trust. Equally, you will feel frustrated when the "other" community gets a representative with the enablement of some sort. This is very human, cause it makes you feel misunderstood and unimportant or makes you fear that bias WILL happen, which can't ever be 100% avoided.

A bit of rambling of the minifight going on here, skipable:

Much like the "Perceived Activity of Admins", can't be judged by people, people will not be able to judge a person who would be able to take care of their needs if they do not have spend extensive time with that person, or atleast perceived them as reliable in some form. This also goes for Eventmins, or RPers. People can call some of them bad simply upon perceiving like a tiny fraction of what they do, hear it by word of mouth and almost always entirely out of context. 

Sometimes its simply a misunderstanding, we are writing most of the time no gestures or mimic to support a jest, People of different educational standards write. While some perceive a text as cold and brash and even an attack, it might just as well be a neutral stance and structured like an essay to emphasize that the matters are important to you. Others do not write essays but write with their heart on their tongue, try to joke in as cynical satire to the situation and again others are just not good at getting their points across without rambling (hi). 

None of these options are bad but its obvious that people usually tend to default to their own way to communicate and quickly misunderstand the intentions of the others text and taint it by their own perception of things which derails the conversation.
And sometimes the truth needs to be said, without covering and hiding behind flowery words. The overall situation of SL2 is ugly. Very, very ugly. We all know that and many people feel strongly about it one way or another without truly knowing what they want, only that things can't stay how they are. It doesn't help that the real world is being absolute bonkers at the moment too, and many have lots of stress that they carry into the community too, to unload one way or another. Some healthy others not so much and pick themselves some targets they can complain about just to have this feeling of unison and distract themselves from real issues and just vent. Many do not even mean it in an absolute 'evil' or 'malicious' way and simply ramble about their current discontent with something, a situation or a person in that moment. I feel most here acted pretty mature though and the past half-year or longer even in which I mostly silently follow the forum/discords shows that we all are more or less on the same page, we need to stop flailing around about everything that we don't like and focus on some of the positives, allow change to happen.

I like to call the communities of SL2 Dragons. They roar and spit fire all the time, but what they do whats the most unhealthy thing for the game, is that they hoard grudges like dragons do their treasures. As you local Shiva I think we all should simply...

Let it go... Which leads me back on topic. 

So with so many individuals forming different groups who all want a piece of the cake, understandably I am no different, how would we even go about Representatives?

Aside from many valid points that have already been made about structure (mods, for tiny things, isn't a difficult task and many of the community can do that.) What I think is most important on GMs is:
-1.) How mature they are, and able to communicate. Mostly with the already established team.

-2.) A bit diverse group that 'caters' to different communities a bit. Mostly to get more 'insight' and cover more interests.

-3.) The ability/willingness to be as fair and neutral as possible. That everyone has their favorites can't be avoided and if that's a danger in a specific situation, that specific GM has to step back and let others less involved ones take care.

-4.) Having a stable and strong personality, its a thankless job which ultimately will always earn you a more or less bad raputation, the more you show your face. Cause its impossible to always satisfy everyone, always. And people hold onto bad things much longer than good things. I have my personal gripes with Dyst for example, but I can assure you that she certainly isn't working with malicious intent and tries her best to make things right, that she sometimes steps on toes can't really be avoided. She is also just Human. Cut her some slack.

-5)I believe we should give people fair chances to try it out. The current team should decide if they are able to work with them, if they are capable of catering to at least some of the community and do not increase their workload unintentionally. No one starts as the perfect GM.

I agree that a change of structure with minor 'gms' or mods might be more useful in the long run. Let people work themselves into it and choose how much they CAN take care off. In theory the structure already exists unoffically with GMs splitting the work.


Another thing about transperency and the complaint thread. I think an offical open complaint thread shouldn't be a thing ever. It will explode and derail and a hell hole to manage. However, and old big online pen and paper community, I used to be very active in had a "Support" system.
Support-Cos (usally always atleast 2) were a social aspect of the Admin front, that specifically sat down with people that had some gripes with each other, privately only with the people involved. I used to be one of those and they technically function as Arbitrators between groups that had some beef, or were unhappy with a situation. Be in RP or OOC. They were the first instance to sort things out and try to find a concensus everyone was okay with, and only when that failed the actual GMs were taken in.
I know some of the GMs do it, which can be a lot. So maybe some people who specifically cover these things would lessen the load on the current GMs too and it would be transperant enough (for those involved) while avoiding emotional implodes. This also included problems with GMs.

Frankly. Most issues could be solved if we would swallow our pride sometimes and just talk it out, with someone neutral in between. It worked wonders in that game I used to play.

[Skimmy2]

As an old dinosaur who's played SL1 for a good 4-5 years (lost count) and sl2 to infinity. My own personal opinion is that I feel like everyone has been way too reliant upon GMs to solve their RP issues.
The increased mechanics of sl2 also burdening gms with handling non-rp things.

I view the GMs as nothing more than people that Dev trusts to moderate his game, and I personally, throughout my entire playtime, have never thought that I should doubt the legitimacy of any of them, even the few whom are no longer in good standing with Dev/The community. (Though I have only ever interacted with the GMs, in their professional capacity and not as friendly banter. probably less than 30 times in total.)

The assumption that 99% of the playerbase is either too incompetent or "untrustworthy" is an incredibly toxic belief.

As far as what everyone has been discussing within this thread, agreed.
Our community has grown far to large for sempai Knight or Slydria to monitor us miscreants running around the firepit and Inn anymore.

I believe that SL2 requires a few more GMs to lower the burden, any restructuring of internal organization not withstanding.
And a Lore team or at least individuals that Dev trusts and likes to write for the game. (Which from my knowledge, may already exist to a certain extent). Dev currently is SL2's sole Developer, Writer, and probably any dozen other titles under his belt. And while I enjoy his style of writing, having other individuals in charge of writing for him to curate, will help allow him to focus his attention on other areas of the game.