Staff resignation. It's controversial like Jerry Springer in '97.

[Kolar]

I don't see the need for this anymore Cylor.

Pure_Luck and all other staff members are not going to take professional criticism from regular and retired players/ex staffers, all of it is thrown away as inexperienced and "newbish" discussion or interpreted as trash talk.

Current staffers are not going to analyze staffs current state; its procedural degradation, rules structure and effectiveness of the whole pool. Backing up the pack is better then offering a real opinion.

A lot of people on here are going to use this thread to post their personal experiences, using those experiences to back up beliefs that staffers are not effective, ban without justification and over all in this thread provide no content to the current topic getting it deleted.

Nothing is going to be done here because no one can move beyond personal junk, on both sides, players and staffers, and neither side can find and take anything said as being something besides a personal attack. If anything the resignations of Rodge and Qan (and now Holy) are going to make another position in staff, a new kind of dean of staff. I think that it may become another useless part of staff because it doesn't change the basic mistrust with the players. It could help though, who knows. Again it is all behind closed doors which we know nothing about and a lot of people could care less to deal with... like the current way it is.

[schope]

Here is my hosted event list (Dyers eve <ER>):

aven 1
battle 1
battleship 1
bigblind 1
black 1
blizzard 1
deathmatch 1
dominate 2
fishies 1
freezetag 2
frwars 1
hunt 1
lights 1
mambobase 1
outpost 1
pocketarmy 1
pods 1
prodem 1
quasi 1
radiohead 1
rocketwarz 1
shrap 1
skatebase 1
smoothbase 1
sprint 3
superbeast 2
teamkill 1
tinyturretz 1
turretwar2 1
turretwarz 1
twisted 1
ufc 1
warped 1
weirdball 1
weirdbase 1
zombies2 1

HEY ! i made that stuff for twdev! dont use it to show yourself of :P

[KJW]

When I was on staff, I used to get onto anyones ass that needed it ... Priitk, Dock> and smods included :chair: .... just ask any of them. I did not care if they liked it or not. B) btw, I quit about 6 months ago too.

I think that is what this whole problem is all about now... no one has the balls to get onto the upper staff members ass when they need it.

Of course, being in staff is a pain in the ass with little or no appreciation. There is just too many people who only want to trash what ever staff does. It's just not worth the effort or the aggravation you get from the TW community. They don't pay enough $ to put up with it and I don't blame anyone who quits. Games are to enjoy and have fun and not be aggravated by some idiot(s).

[Holybird]

KJW i know for a fact i was always on smods ass to get the job done. But even with me doing that some still lacked the responisbility to do it. As well as saying they do not have the clearence to do certain things. It sad to say. The largest problem is the inactivity of most smods. Mostly they sit afk and choose to only answer at certain times, to certain people. And in some cases are just to busy playing to care. I know for a fact that Rodge got on there ass about it yet only to be yelled at over and over again. I can not be certain on qan but as dev im sure he has to.

[Darkmoor]

I don't know about the rest but this thread has been interesting to read apart from those trashing/flaming posts. At least it lasted for 70 replies or so...

As many pointed out, we've quite much seen only one side of the story. But it can't be entirely wrong either. So, now that this was taken public by a few (ex)staffers. It would be nice to read at least even some sort of reply from the people that are questioned here. Otherwise it could just add to the disappointment and dislike.

So try to stay on-topic :-(

[pv=nrt]

waaaahhhh I quite staff becuase they won't listen to me. So I make a public appeal to save the TW community. waaaaahh. Someone give me a kleenex.

News Flash: 90% of what any staffer does could be done by a monkey. the other 10% by a 3rd grader. Losing a certain staff member doesn't mean crap. Remember the uproar and doomsday prophecy from Left_eye being axed!! Now excuse me, I saw another quitting staff thread that I want to post this in.

[Rudy]

Yawn...
I've been on staff for a solid 7 months now, and in that time all kinds of characters have come and gone. These three mods leaving coincidentally at the same time spells no doomsday prophecy, no revolution. If it weren't for Rodge, Qan, and Holy being public figures, the vast majority of us would not have known of these issues. Now all of a sudden, everyone's an expert after three posts!
As long as there's always someone to put up their hand to fill the vacancies, it's all good, all the time. You may think we're idiots, you may reminisce about the "good old days", you may not give a fuck either way. The fact remains that even after you abuse, humiliate, and flame us, we're still going to be here, and we're still going to be doing the best we can with what we can. And if that's not enough for you, you can go get stuffed.

Now I'm going home. See you all soon.

[Jerome Scuggs]

tyler durden would be pissing himself right about

now

but witty fuck-the-system comments aside,

Qan and RR were, in my eyes, the best staffers of this period. They were both very level headed and friendly, and had alot of patience (hey, I'm friends with them both- jerome? staff? friends? no way. Way, these guys are awesome like that.), not to mention they spearheaded alot of development.

No, TW will probably not outwardly feel their loss. But the inner workings will at least be slowed down, for a time. And when TW isn't 90% ship-shape, people bitch.

Alot of people are viewing the impacts wrong. All the staff who are defending the current system, mainly. The people attacking the current system aren't saying that a 'doomsday' will happen, but shit will hit the fan.

Look, this thread is a fucking example! 5 pages of bitching about PL PLUS another thread also citing PL as a reason for a staffer, an important one, leaving...

...And staff does nada. Why? It might be specifically because of this - they're afraid too many firebrands, all these 'revolutionaries' for lack of a better nerd term, will get staff, and promptly leave if they can't get shit done, creating a gap which is then filled by bad staffers, re-initiating the process.

But this is my view- the staff hasn't evolved. It's a bunch of people fron '98 who still wish it was '98. There are many talented people who might seem immature, but still do their jobs well- shit, ZeUs!! anyone? He talks the crazy, but when it's time to do his shit, he does it. I've seen him even manually host ?go base to appease the masses after they bitch about the bots being down, and then talk to me getting wasted and killing hookers.

To be honest, I think the 'system' is too bloated, the 'solutions' too utopian. I'd fucking love a panel of people (Epi, Jason, RR and others come to mind readily) to sit down and review the current workings and re-write it (or even just say axe this guy, promote this guy, voila).

This is my two cents, sorry I couldn't catch this thread- I was in New Mexico.

[qan]

Thanks to those who've added some (constructive) notes to this. I fear might've been a bit too caustic, even for my taste. I freely admitted to Beasty that the tone was definitely more vicious than I actually feel. I really just wanted to get attention shined on the issues at hand, whatever the cost, and it looks like to that end it was successful. I don't think I made my points very lucidly or sensibly, however, and I want to propose something more constructive.

First, to DoCk>, thank you for taking the time to reply (and particularly publicly). It shows real interest and concern. I should also apologize for the extreme nature of the original post, and for bringing what is essentially an internal matter to the external, but I was desperate to grab your attention, as most other attempts from all reports have landed flat, and it seems to be a large enough problem that everyone should be involved in the discussion.

I'm happy to see the designation of Cpt.Guano! as a sort of IG position, though I worry that this is another quick fix that will in the end have very little lasting effect. This is not because I doubt his willingness or ability, but because like almost everything in Trench Wars, it's done in what appears to be such a hasty manner that the planning may be inadequate. If such a system is to be put into place, there needs to be explicit, fine print. And unfortunately, it needs to be boring and detailed, but fortunately, quite exact.

When we spoke a few months ago about clarifying the rules and positions, what I was trying to tell you was, "I see a lot of ambiguity and room for improvement here, and I don't see anything being done about it." It didn't really work the way I'd hoped, though it did renew my faith in changing things when I was already about to give up.

Maybe I should add a little bit of background about myself, as my mind is a little warped by unusual experiences. As a kid I attended a strange school where there were no rules except a lawbook, which could be added to and changed regularly. I served as chairman of the daily meetings, which used Robert's Rules of Order, in which we would discuss recent events, make motions to revise and add laws, handle unusual circumstances, that kind of thing. Later I served as the judicial court clerk -- interpreting the laws and procedures, discussing complaints filed against other classmates in something similar to a trial, and issuing punishments. For those few years I lived and breathed rigid, defined law and procedure. You didn't have to ask the teachers (read: upper staff) how anything was done. You looked it up, because you could. It was all written down, plain as day. Spelled out, no questions asked. If you had a question, you raised it at the meeting, those present deliberated, and boom, you had an answer, either in a clarification or a new law or procedure. This is basically a small-scale government.

TW's organization is nearly the exact opposite of this system, or near anarchy. Everything is based mostly on hearsay. Getting a change authorized is about talking by chance to the right person who's spoken to the guy who happened to ?go to the arena where a two people were gossiping about something discussed on smod chat. And then you roll a pair of dice, multiply by the number on the secret decoder ring minus the velocity of a soccer ball in heat, and if it's equal to the number of seeds in a cucumber born under a virgin moon, then you have the green light and you can begin making changes to better TW. Until it gets shot down in post-production by the sysop's cousin you forgot to consort with.

That sounds ridiculous, but sometimes that's how it feels. Here's a couple of big and specific problems I can see:

- There's only mediocre written procedure for staff.
There should never be any ambiguity about how all procedures such as bans, code and event submissions and revisions, answering calls, hosting, etc. are done. There needs to be a place where staff can go for all of this information (not just some, but every detail), and it needs to be regularly updated by an individual who is in charge of doing so. Without such accountability, you're asking for complete ambiguity and anarchy in a supposed "structured" organization.

- There's very little clarification on what responsibilities positions entail.
Who knows by what criteria a Dean recruits staff? Who knows how the PR is supposed to be done? Who knows how official or effective Cpt.Guano's new position is, and how to formally file complaints? I'm not saying one person has to decide all this, either. Just sit down and start hammering it out. Form committees. God knows that some staff could use the feeling of a little more involvement... at the moment half end up floundering without any real purpose. Or at least that's how I felt, and I've always coded and dev'd alongside my staff responsibilities.

- There's almost no accountability for work or activity.
Those that are not keeping up with quotas are rarely warned or relieved of duty. Don't have quotas if they are never upheld; it only generates doubt about other aspects of the organization. There should also be a general idea of what's expected out of smods in order for them to be counted as "doing their jobs." No accountability means they have the option of doing nothing, which is depressing for everyone, but it certainly can happen, as it has now.

What this boils down to is that there's no transparency in any of TW's policies or procedures, and as a result, it pretty much doesn't have any real policies or procedures. If there's no single place to reference all information, then, as some people have made mention of in this thread, doublethink can be applied ala 1984 -- who's to know what's real and what isn't? It's an autocracy, it's despotism, and you're that despot right now. A staffer can't wipe his end without you giving it the go-ahead. That is to say, there's no way to see what the system is, or for that matter improve the ephemeral system, because of two reasons:

1) There is no transparency. Meaning nobody knows what the real rules and policies are. You just have to ask around and get lucky. But you'll always get contradictions on most issues from so many different people, as with the EventBot fiasco -- not my bot, BTW, but I appreciate the apology. I understand it was a misunderstanding inherent to this system. And it will happen again and again if this system is not changed.

2) There is no system in place for changing the system -- a meta-system of sorts. All staff should be able to propose change to be considered by all. Upper staff, meaning essentially autocratic you, would of course always have the ending rule. You have to eliminate the reliance on you as the final go-to if you want everyone to stop getting in a mess about these sorts of things. I know you don't see what the big fuss is about, but that's exactly because you're in your position, where calling all of the final shots works just fine, rather than working in some sort of democratic or even republican/representative form of governing. The larger an organization gets, the more detailed its laws and policies need to be to avoid confusion and the need to refer to specific people for clarification. Eliminate yourself and the smod team as the go-to's, the "teacher may-I's", by clearly expressing all rules and procedures, and implementing a fair system to clarify, change and add new rules and procedures, and you'll have fixed the root of the problem and opened the viaduct of progress. From my experience, this I will guarantee.

How would you do this? I was trying to make the beginnings of proposing this idea to you some time ago, and while you were initially very supportive and positive, you decided it was more your realm. I was an ER at the time, and to begin with didn't feel extremely comfortable making suggestions to you about the matter, so I didn't press the issue. After all, ZHs and ERs are not given much respect on staff, nor much say in anything. This, too, must change in order to bring back TW into its own. I agree that as you say, the game itself has generally stayed the same over the years, and that's part of its beauty. But the administration, the governing, needs to improve dramatically, or else the game itself will suffer.

I was rash in saying that both you and PL should step down (though I think that if one or both aren't interested in fixing this problem, it would be for the best). I have disagreed with a lot of decisions that have been made under a faulty system. Perhaps that's where the bulk of my dissatisfaction lies -- with the system, not the people. But some problems still lie on a personal level:

- You reneged on your promise to Rodge to begin revising the system, showing that it may be hard to trust you. This is why I quit rather than trying to talk it out with you, because I felt there would be some unfair bargaining that you either can't or would not be willing to hold to. You showed that sometimes, when you talk, you make promises you can't or simply won't keep. That's a poor quality. One has to trust a leader to respect him or her, and to believe in the validity of one's efforts.

- When I mailed you about having serious doubt in TW due to the extreme difficulty in making changes to the system, you didn't reply (and perhaps it got lost -- it does happen). I understand you're very busy, and part of that is because you help pay a lot of the bills by maintaining TWSites. Perhaps that means you're not best suited to be the main governing sysop, but rather the sysop in charge of funding.

[qan]

I hope that in trying to come up with a serious solution to what I see as the major problem with TW today helps lend more credibility to my arguments, and to cement the idea that I am firmly entrenched in the idea of improving the zone. I guess that wasn't exactly self-evident before.

But let me be absolutely clear. Your mention of smod doesn't surprise or intrigue me. What you seem to be saying is that if I had sat by for another few months in complacency and silence, or even spoken to you and allowed you to make empty promises to me, instead of quitting in a quite desperate effort to show you and upper staff that something is seriously wrong with the system, I could have had a shot at ... being part of the problem. At becoming part of this system, and like other smods so embedded in it that I would be forced to operate within its boundaries rather than challenging its fundamental beliefs. A shot at improving absolutely nothing, at watching business occur as usual -- just from a bigger chair.

Well, bigger chairs and fancy titles don't do shit for Trench Wars. Quite frankly I think quitting may have been the best thing I've ever done for the zone. It's at least given a small light to an issue that's been sitting in the dark for far too long.

[Kings]

TW's organization is nearly the exact opposite of this system, or near anarchy. Everything is based mostly on hearsay. Getting a change authorized is about talking by chance to the right person who's spoken to the guy who happened to ?go to the arena where a two people were gossiping about something discussed on smod chat. And then you roll a pair of dice, multiply by the number on the secret decoder ring minus the velocity of a soccer ball in heat, and if it's equal to the number of seeds in a cucumber born under a virgin moon, then you have the green light and you can begin making changes to better TW. Until it gets shot down in post-production by the sysop's cousin you forgot to consort with.

lololol nice exemple. But yeah, all of this seems pretty rationnal.

[fLaReD]

twdev was fun i'll miss ya

[Galleleo]

What you could do, is both in upper staff and lower have a meeting between staff members ever 2 week, or maybe once a month, in wich things are discussed between staff members. Whatever needs to be discussed. Now if you send out an email everytime after this meeting, stating what the meeting was about, and what was said. You can just do this in short, summarizing points. And in that same mail have a plan for what needs to be talked about next meeting, the points of the next meeting. This of course could always be decided later on and send out later. Because of course, not everyone will always be able to attend the meeting, but by knowning what pervious meetings were about and what the next will be, they will know what has happened, what was talked about etc. And they will also know if there is a meeting coming up where they really need to try to be there because something is coming up that they really want to talk about.

Now if you have 1 person in charge of these meetings, he doesn't need to get any extra powers on any other level, just one of the lower staff members taking care of lower staff and one of the upper staff members taking care of upper staff, so you have a president (for lack of a better term atm) who will guide this meetings, and also you will have someone in charge of sending out these mails. Now 1 or 2 being vice-president would be wise, seeing as of course also these persons won't always be able to make it, so you have atleast someone to take over for them. Now you could also have both these person's in charge (one from lower and one from upper staff) be liasons (I think this is how it's called) between both parts of staff, so have those 2 discuss with each other. About either lower staff wanting something or anything doing with, upper staff. Or Upper staff having something to do with lower staff about changing or whatever the subject. This way not every staff member has to be informed about changes etc. and these 2 main person are in charge of passing this information on to other staffers using that mail chain.

[Volcs]

I'm surprised no one has proposed a lockout.

[Pyros]

Rodge was like the best staffer, very strick but a good stafferz. About the rest, some i dont know others are like jason and awesome.

I remember when i asked bosshawk why he never was on staffzors cause he is like ancient on this shit, then he said he had a personal issue with PL. Weird for me to see someone like bosshawk have personal issues with others. Well i dont know PL, but i know bosshawk.

W/e tw staff system/recruitment sucks, ZH's and ER's doesnt wanna help or host, most of them hate helping and hosting they just want to become moderators to act like jason. Anyways...

known cheaters shouldnt be on staff, ever