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

[davie]

I cant say that i have read all of this topic cos its 7 pages long ffs, this has obviously created a lot of interest and opinion. However im not here to slag staff off as i know nothing about them.

I have spoken to qan outside the tw environment and he was a genuinely nice guy and wouldnt say a bad thing about anyone....this proves how strongly he felt on the subject and he must of had a firm base to stand on to make all these statments.

With 2 extremely effective people (being Rodge and qan) leaving in such a short time is hopefully a wake up call to staff and co-ordinators to make a drastic improvement before they lose anymore members of staff.

There is an example i would like to bring up here - twd.trenchwars.org. The most recent post (02 jan) is posted over 2 months after the last one. Plus i know that TWL teams are due to be picked very shortly and there is also no information about that on there. I can only remember seeing a zoner every now and then for one day. This doesnt appear to me to be effective communication between staff and players. Its a personal opinion however you decide whether its a valid one.

Last but not least

I hope to see you around tw qan, however if i rarely get to talk to you again, thanks for all your effort you put in for everyone involved in the game, staff and players alike, you are a great person with many great qualities and i know that i will miss you. All the best mate

Dave

[qan]

Well, some of you might be surprised to hear (and then, some might not be) that after a rather public and sudden retirement, I’m returning to staff, and without reluctance. I certainly didn’t expect to be returning, but now I’m quite glad to be doing so.

The main reason for this change of heart is that the climate of the situation has changed dramatically. To TW’s benefit, we’ve been able to engage in some quality debates about how the zone is run, and have set a new precedent in the recognition and possible resolution of a number of serious ongoing problems. I don’t regret the initial decision to quit, because I still believe that along with the resignations of many others, it was necessary to draw attention to the issues, whereas otherwise the impact would not have been nearly as strong. Putting your money where your mouth is, like they say, though I guess in this case one would have to replace “money” with “2d spaceship volunteer job.” But the idea remains the same.

What I do regret is making some fairly biased statements about upper staff that weren’t fully informed or entirely accurate. I didn’t fabricate anything, and yet I was seeing quite heavily just one side of a complex issue.

Pure_Luck by no means deserved to be portrayed as such an unbridled bastard, because in the end, he’s just trying to do his job according to the job description, which currently requires the Dean to essentially hire based on personal bias and intuition. Sure, he’s handled some things in the past in ways that many of us might’ve done differently, but tying him to a stake and lambasting him for it doesn’t do anyone any good. It’s far too easy to point the finger at someone rather than thinking of a solid way to change things. And he showed that he values this kind of discussion regardless of what’s said about him personally by opening it back up after it had been closed. That alone I think shows that he cares about TW quite a bit. And after he took the initiative to strike up a conversation with me after this whole debacle, remaining civil and even friendly despite the rather personal attack I made, I have to say that I have a newfound respect for the man. The bottom line is: I owe you a public apology, P_L. People might give you a lot of crap, and hell, some of them may not be off base some of the time, but in this case, I was. I apologize for the undeserved words.

The important truth here is that upper staff does actually care about the game. It may not appear that way sometimes, especially when one takes a look at those who are inactive, but that’s not a very fair comparison (they’re essentially no longer smods). Generally this idea that upper staff doesn't care is a misconception, partly caused by the lack of transparency in what they do. The existing smods have a hard battle to fight because of some of the choices that have been made regarding the system of administration. Individual people really aren’t to blame for just continuing to operate under a pretty rough system that’s never really been fleshed out. It just means that the initiative hasn’t been great enough to evolve. And there are of course advantages to having things loose and undefined, though I don’t think this completely justifies the way they are at present. So yes, TW’s system is still a bit of a mess as far as organization goes, and it’s taking time for it to improve because there’s no regimented system for making such improvements (currently done mostly as upper staff consensus). But this is something that can change, and it’s worth trying to change it.

As a couple of people rather accurately pointed out, you can’t do a hell of a lot to fix something if you give up on it. I guess I was feeling as though I didn’t really have the option to make a serious change, because generally only smods have that kind of ability. And really, at the present moment this holds some truth. It’s painful to wait around doing nothing while seeing so many problems in the zone (often just small ones) and having no real ability to fix them. A nightmare for a person who can't help but try to fix things… it rips you up to feel that helpless. I wanted to do so much, and being forced to wait in order to do it was not just unpleasant, it was crazy-making. Quitting seemed to be the only reasonable option left.

I finally had the chance to talk to DoCk> about this problem today, and not only did he listen, but was open to the possibility of a system to rectify it. We ended up talking for about 3 hours, and it really sort of blew me away that he was willing to dedicate that kind of time to hearing me out. Again I was pleasantly surprised to find I was wrong about another member of upper staff, another who still really cares about the direction of the zone. Maybe it’s DoCk>’s role as essentially the zone’s trustee, charged first and foremost with keeping it alive in its present state, which means out of necessity being extremely conservative, that made him at first seem unwilling to consider change. Well, after some initial (and natural) reluctance to the idea, we were able to agree on the creation of a new system that may soon become an excellent tool for the improvement of TW. Without going into detail, it'll allow a great deal of freedom for any who have the initiative and desire to improve the zone. That’s why I’m so excited about coming back, because with this I think there’s a lot of hope for the future. So thanks, DoCk> -- I apologize for being so quick to judge.

Looking forward to seeing everybody back in the game, and working with anyone who's interested on making it better.

qan

[Darkmoor]

So this is a joke after all? Must be.

A very expected and unsurprising move. But well, if there are some changes going on, I guess it's a good thing.

[Volcs]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA.. hah...ha.
I didn't even bother reading it but I can pretty well guess what it said.

[crazi]

i vote dock for sysop. hes da shizzle

[Nosey]

goodjob comin back qan, even though ive never seen you in the game.... this robohelp has really gotta be used less, i was a little pissed when i was in ?go base and wanted to use a weasel but couldnt, before visiting here I ?help'd about who took away the weasel and why.. some idiot <ER> sent me a robohelp message about something completely irrelevant, so i ?help'd with "someone that doesnt have to use the bot to tell me this please tell me", once again the same <ER> sent the exact same message, something like a 4 line message telling me how to burst.

[Rudy]

I can't imagine how this happened twice. But it does happen once, often enough. While !telling robo what to say to the last person who used ?help, someone else may lodge a call the split second before that command is sent, essentially sending the automated message to the wrong recipient.
But twice...That's weird.

[Bioture]

but what about rodge?!?!?!

[Rodge_Rabbit]

Rodge has been asked to come back, but still would like changes in the system actually been worked out or have the capability and coorperation to work on it before returning to staff. This hasn't been given to me, and the chance it will is small in my view.
We will see I'm guessing :mellow:

[Bahamut]

Haha you know, you always refer to yourself in a 3rd person. I find it hilarious

[Ikrit]

I can't imagine how this happened twice. But it does happen once, often enough. While !telling robo what to say to the last person who used ?help, someone else may lodge a call the split second before that command is sent, essentially sending the automated message to the wrong recipient.
But twice...That's weird.

that's why the staffer should use !tell <name>:<keyword> instead of just !tell <keyword>. It'll make sure that people get the right message.