[WaifuApple]

Okay, so I have seen a topic like this fluttering by in a few of the social circles of this game, and knowing how the community can be with it's tendancy to keep problems like this to itself, at least until someone makes a push and expresses it exists in the first place, I figured I'd make a thread on this in the hopes that people with thoughts and opinions on this topic will come forth so that we can do as people have hoped to do with other opinion posts - and make the game a better one for everyone.

Now, I would like to express this in the most clear terms to people. I do not think the GMs are bad people, and I do not want this post to turn into a swarm of people slandering them or anything like that. This post solely exists in hopes that we can improve things even further for the community. As such, please be respectful in your thoughts and opinions. We are talking about real, human people here.

That disclaimer aside, though... I'll start with some of my thoughts at current:

- Truth be told, since Walrus stepped down there has been a lack of GMs that truly represent this community properly. It is especially rare that I see a GM actually play the game or interact much with the wider community as of recent. Now, I don't think that anyone needs to dedicate themselves to doing something they don't want to, but I will request: In addition to the current GM team, I believe we need more people representative of the current community. Of course, they still need to be trustworthy so I'm not sure what I'd suggest here.

- I'm noting that people are expressing that there is what seems to be a lack of transparency from the current team. I don't want to start an argument over whether there is or isn't, but a sense of openness is obviously lacking in the eyes of so many people, and as such, I'm sure people would like to see verdicts be made more openly, in a way that allows people to know what has been done wrong, and have chances to dispute it more easily. This extends to more than just the person being punished - the community itself deserves to be in the loop. It makes it hard to dispute things if they're entirely vague.

- It can sometimes feel like the GM team is slow... and that's not really their fault at all. There are four of them, each with different other callings, and they're doing this all for free, so it's kind of a thankless task. This probably ties in loosely with my first point, in that, not only do I think we don't have enough GMs representitive of the community... but that I just don't think we have enough, period. There are times where there are just none around, which can be a critical issue in certain situations. And so, I think we need some new blood to help get the gears working more. (Again, I can't off the top of my head pose suggestions to you, I've identified a problem, not a solution...)

Now, I must once more make clear. I am not calling into question any specific GM's conduct. I am not going to point a finger and say "You should be a GM" or "You shouldn't be a GM". It would be ideal if others strayed away from such singling out if they can, too. I like the GM team, really. You might not. I just think there need to be MORE, taken from the community.

I leave thoughts to anyone else on this matter. Please be civil here, because I'm sure that'll be an important distinction between getting this post heard and just getting it locked for potential toxicity.

[FatherCrixius]

VIVA LA RESISTANCE

[Sarah54321]

I've had a similar talk like this with Dev himself, but I do agree that there should be new blood in the team. I can't say for certain who I think should be picked, but I only hope that if Dev does choose to change his team up a bit, or recruit more, that they can be active and supportive of the playerbase as a whole.

Most of these points are things I can only echo, as they pretty much support what I said before. I'm posting here to support this thread, basically.

[GSM]

This is a really nice satire thread. Really funny joke, guys.

[Balor]

I've been considering writing a post with a list of suggestions to break down what should be done in order to benefit the community as a whole. At the moment the GM team is simultaneously fine, but also fills me with little confidence that they represent us the community overall, and seem more closed off than anything. I agree that the Staff Team are not bad people or terrible. However they are ADMITTEDLY detached from the community.

https://neus-projects.net/forums/showthr...p?tid=6251 This thread went through many of the issues in detail. However to reiterate here with a less aesthetic format.

- The Staff team needs more PUBLIC transparency. Accused and banned players often cite that they've not been spoken to by a GM or received follow up contact over lengthy periods of time. Evidence should be made available to the accused as a mandatory part of the process.
- A public ban report/request sub-forum should be created. With explicit rules and mandatory examples of evidence, from harassment, to breaking of rules, and logs. This would make the job of the Staff Team easier, and ensure that ban requests and reports carry with them more than word of mouth.
- Logging new chat. Right click and log should be implemented pronto. At the moment the greatest enemy of people wishing to log abuse, harassment or rule breaks is a players inability to log things with the pretty new chat in any way other than screenshots. This would essentially allow a player to do 80% of the work for a GM.
- Ban Appeals need to be handled more promptly. Ruffknights recent post summed up my feelings on the matter, and in combination with the fact that an official response was finally offered only two days away from the end of the ban. Is a failure of due process. Whether it was accepted or denied, a clear neglect was shown, and the official rules allowed for it.
- A Newsletter should be made monthly. Allowing us to know who will be active, where the GM teams attentions are, and what they want for the community. I don't need GM's on daily or hourly to handle things. However it would be nice to know how they feel about SL2 in general from time to time. To let us know they still actually care to interact with the public as people.


I do not think that the Staff Team needs to be replaced, however I feel the system they work under needs to be reworked. As I can attest with Walrus' departure it very much feels like the only GM who got us as a Community has left, and our relationship with the staff team suffers for it, and the infrastructure put in place. Allows for it all to suffer. Many systems that are put in place at other RP communities not just on Byond but in the RP Sphere in general are not put into place here.

Leaving the player with a general air of uncertainty when it comes to the people above them.

Again I do not want to call out the character of the GM's and to call for heads. However I want to point out how the system itself needs to be improved, and how even in Jupiters post has been called to be improved for almost a year now. A restructure would allow for the GM team to do less work, and garner more trust from the community. But right now we have nothing to truly bridge the gap between us.

[Kazzy]

This is a really nice satire thread. Really funny joke, guys.

Fantastic contribution to the topic. I'll take the warning from moderators here and swing. Be helpful or be quiet, this is a serious concern.

[Maksimum_Fire]

Real talk?

I feel like the community(blanket statement, I've had this problem before too) needs to be more forthcoming with GMs.  We're aware of how tough it is to just stake locations/players out or otherwise independently detect issues for GMs, though bless them for how well they can do at that.

And also, does the community deserve to be in the loop?

When the community is loop on why a ban is coming up, it turns into a game of fingerpointing where large swathes of people who either have some bias in the situation (my buddy is involved!) or aren't familiar with why rules need to be consistently enforced jump on people who report incidents in and out of game.

Every time I've worked with the GM team, they've been crystal clear with me and I appreciate them for it; all I had to do was slide into some DMs and have a good chat.  Sure, I don't get to hear the juicy details about whatever new things the GMs are handling, but that's not my business and I'm fine with that.  Forcing an open dialogue on every decision GMs make just makes it more difficult for them to do their job.

TL;DR; in this case, I think it's important that we, as a playerbase, build a better relationship with the GMs from our side, make what we're looking for and wanting known, and report incidents w/out bias- even non-rule-breaking scenarios, if something seems not-so-good, giving a GM a heads up can keep something from spiraling out of control.

A reminder of our failure to communicate:

Firespitters.

EDIT: As a follow up, I do want to mention Drezdin's comment about logging new chat. The fact new chat still isn't loggable means it's essentially mandatory to use old chat if you need to report any incidents on server; This really is a fix that needs to come through soon, I will agree. But I don't think that's necessarily a GM problem.

[Snake]

I should clearly become a GM.

[WaifuApple]

I will take a moment to clear the air for anyone who might think otherwise or some such, despite the timing this is not a post specifically created as a critique towards the treatment of one particular member. I should admit that it may look shady / like such, but I have no relation to that particular incident, tie to the particular player, or other such. I have even defended that judgement.

This is not about that. This is about things that have been said long before that ban. Long before the ban before it. I am aware that the community is not usually forward with the GM team, but it sometimes makes itself feel so distant that it is overall just harder to approach. Outside of some groups you're probably not going to talk to them.

I only have been able to express enough confidence to talk to them through being part of those groups at some point, and without that I don't think I'd have been given any reason to feel comfortable doing so. I don't think that's entirely either the community or the GM team's fault. I think both sides can take steps to remedy this.

But to find a way to make things better, I think this post was needed.

[Balor]

I will take a moment to clear the air for anyone who might think otherwise or some such, despite the timing this is not a post specifically created as a critique towards the treatment of one particular member. I should admit that it may look shady / like such, but I have no relation to that particular incident, tie to the particular player, or other such. I have even defended that judgement.

This is not about that. This is about things that have been said long before that ban. Long before the ban before it. I am aware that the community is not usually forward with the GM team, but it sometimes makes itself feel so distant that it is overall just harder to approach. Outside of some groups you're probably not going to talk to them.

I only have been able to express enough confidence to talk to them through being part of those groups at some point, and without that I don't think I'd have been given any reason to feel comfortable doing so. I don't think that's entirely either the community or the GM team's fault. I think both sides can take steps to remedy this.

But to find a way to make things better, I think this post was needed.

I will also reiterate that this post is not to call out the particular series of events. Rather it is a fresh example of the system failing to work.

Also again I think it's clear that Appo is trying to put out a call to rally, and reform the current state of affairs so that Staff and the Player Base can more openly communicate, and have the means.

In fact my suggestions have asked that tools be given to the Players in order to provide cleaner logs, easier to digest reports, and open OUR dialogue more easily with the GM Team. I feel as though people will misinterpret the intentions here, and Appo is doing this with the best intentions of improving the Community, and Culture of SL2.