Demonic goes on a petty, Nazi stylei banning spree!

[Ricko]

I, like most people, do not like this unnecessary and stupid drama that has unfolded...what I will add is that yes, a staffer made a mistake, but then acting out with the 'riot' and spamming etc within a few minutes of said mistake doesn't help the situation at all...how can staff be expected to sort out the initial issue if suddenly there is a 'riot' going on that needs taking care of immediately? Come on people, let's be smart here.

I know I'm only a ZH (and only just appointed a matter of days ago) but I really want to help sort out this issue between players and staff....feel free to let me be anyone's agony aunt (tw related; don't want to know cres' irl girl issues or lack of girl issues) regarding staff relations and I will try to relay it to higher staff within my limits.

What I must say is that if people have an issue with a few staffers, it is those staffers specifically that you have an issue with; not staff as a whole. Having witnessed staff chat and got to know most people on staff over the last few days, most staffers want to help out and have the well being of the zone at the forefront of their minds....whilst this 'riot' was occurring staff chat was lit up with staffers voicing their opinions and trying to find the right solution, but players acting out and rioting and trying to cause issues delayed any possible resolution to be solved.

tl;dr let us (staff)sort this issue out, staff know that changes need to be made to our system and tw in general (hence the recent forum threads by demonic and co). Let us sort out the issues as soon as we can, there is no need to quit the game and ruin the enjoyment of this game for others.

[Jones]

i think 4o should ban kthx for atleast a year so that his troops of rioters would have no leader and doing so would allow staff to have complete control over all the 2000 newbies who will download this game. by the year of 2016 twl would be competitive again and this game would enter a new golden era.

show some balls, get rid of the old people who disrupt gameplay for everyone else and focus on newbies and teamwork as explained by the mission statement on tw.org

[Wazzaaa.nl]

show some balls, get rid of the old people who disrupt gameplay for everyone else and focus on newbies and teamwork as explained by the mission statement on tw.org

awesomeness, jones for staff

[Shaddowknight]

staff makes no effort to maintain good relations with the public and this is the end result

[Vehicle]

I don't really see how the 'riot'ing was disruptive to the game. The first time it was done was right after the server had crashed, there weren't even any bots yet. The second time it was done was in spec chat in pub, anyone playing the game would have had no idea it was even going on. If people would rather spec and read the endless stream of argument rather than actually play the game, maybe that says something about pub itself.

To say we are or were being disruptive is a cop out because, in reality, we really weren't. What I was/am trying to do is not make this about this individual situation but about the culture as a whole. It's broken. In my opinion, even now, something needs to be done to force staff's hand. Can anyone honestly, genuinely say that staff is effective? Not specific players, but staff as a whole. Does anyone actually believe they're doing a good job? I certainly don't.

I respect everyone's opinion in all of this and I'll pull an old Reaganism on you: Is this zone better off now than it was 2 years ago? 5 years? 8 years? Everything can't be blamed on the population decline.

[Zeebu]

I was online while most of this sad chapter has unfolded and here is how I see it. The following is my personal opinion.

A staffer made a bad decision. What should have happened? IMO people should have had enough patience to allow the mistaken to be reversed but instead thought that this should have been addressed within minutes. They were the judge and jury and delivered a decision; this staffer was ‘bad’ and no time was need for discovery into the facts. There was an immediate demand for satisfaction.

This is really where clear thinking about the future of the zone would have really helped, having some consideration for others. Even if you truly believe that the original issue (that a staffer had abused his powers) is some endemic cancer to the TW it still doesn’t excuse disrupting the game for everyone else. If you are so upset and have given up on the zone then leave, there is no justification for pissing on the zone other than satisfying a need for personal revenge.

What this really has been is an excuse to fulfill personal agendas and ‘to make a point’, on both sides of this fence. Is staff abuse some new fucking problem? No, this dumb shit has been going on for at least 12 years; so what justification is there for zone disruption now?

So then we get to the forum post deletions. Another staff mistake. And again, nothing new here. People got all emo because they wanted instant satisfaction. Does ANYONE really think that players who desire empowerment for the wrong reasons and gravitate towards being staff is some recent thing?

So the end result and decisions that were made were to ‘take it out on the zone’ and damage players that have nothing to do with any of the above. ‘Vets’ who feel that they have already gotten what they want from the game over the years felt the need to disrupt the zone in an effort to prove their point. Even if staff was as corrupt as they say, even if it is worse than they say, disrupting the zone for other players can never be justified as an act of ‘civil disobedience’.

I am an old hippie and have experience with civil disobedience. I organized a successful ‘sit-in’ at my school back in 1970 and we got the school to change. But we only asked people who felt the same as us to not go to class as a protest. But we did not try to prevent others from going to class nor did we try to burn down the school. (Admittedly there was some talk…) But the key to our success was that we could justify our stand without disrupting those who did not believe the same as we did.

The current drama is nothing like civil disobedience and stands no chance at changing anything other than fucking over the wrong people. It is very obvious to anyone with an IQ over 75 that instead of using this opportunity to drive positive change, it has been selfishly squandered for all the wrong reasons (on both sides of the fence).
eph

the only instant gratification that should be about is the incorrect ban removed. if anyone became disruptive it was because a staff member made the wrong decision in the first place. first and foremost, get rid of those bans. thats stupid.

i dont think lf would actually post random altnicks out of spite after this. thats just petty. him rebelling against the staffer that caused him strife is extremely understandable though. maybe not exactly the right thing to do, but understandable. there arent a lot of people that seem to feel pity for 4o. those reasons seem to be littered about already.

speaking of 4o. theres the rub where i can understand why no instant satisfaction can happen. its a staff matter. but right now 4o has virtually made certain that any 'new' staffer that comes on board that might be him will be scoured and put under a microscope just waiting to see if its him. waiting to see him put the slightest toe out of line next time. it happens and anyone finds out its the same person, splat. same exact mess over again. maybe not as bad (unless undeserving bans are thrown around again.) still wont be fun though. i dont know what you should do with a staffer that many people dont like, and that seems to have a bit of a track record of being rather reckless with staff powers. thats not up to me. it shouldnt be up to us, thats a staff matter. im just saying our perception of how staff polices itself might be determined on the outcome of this.

so, there are my thoughts on it.

[Ephemeral]

I don't really see how the 'riot'ing was disruptive to the game...

Vehicle,
We will have to disagree about the disruption; having miles of yellow spam while we had new players entering the zone was disruptive and not good for the game IMO. I think it ends up hurting not just staff but the entire zone.

But no argument from me about changing the culture; TW culture has always had its issues. Are you saying that things are somehow different now? That somehow now Staff is populated with more people who are more ‘power drunk’ than ever before? I just don’t see it and in fact it appears to me that Demon is working towards the opposite. As just one example, me. I was asked to join staff last week with zero aspiration for ‘power’. I don’t want any ‘power’ and am happy to stay a ZH forever so that I can assist new players a bit better.

But I concur that for years staffing has been about ‘power’, people who wanted ‘power’ had the staff option to pursue. There is no doubt in my mind that over the years many people who had personal agendas and/or simply got off on the ‘power’ became staff. I am sure that some of these types are still on staff (just like in any given police force you will find some who do it for the empowerment). This isn’t going to change overnight and in fact it can be very difficult to determine if a person has pure motives. Intelligent people can easily hide personal agendas by wrapping them in ‘what is best for the zone’ and short of waiting for a power-abuse pattern to surface there simply is not much you can do.

So if this is the surfacing of one of those patterns how in the world can anyone justify acting the fool and disrupting the zone? And what is good for the goose…. We have to hold the ‘rioters’ motives to the same standard, some of them had their own agendas too.
eph

[Zeebu]

im going to have to disagree with you too there eph. on the rioting aspect. that sort of thing happens allt he time. zone breaks and things would have just gone apeshit for a couple minutes then settled back down... unless someone eggs them on by saying something stupid like 'you all will be silenced for spamming.'

had that not been said this entire issue wouldnt be here. none of it. instead one comment drove this over the edge for no goddamn reason at all.

notice not a damn person is upset at fis for actually breaking the zone. none. no one cares about that part.

[Zeebu]

long story short: staff was the one that needed to be mature in this situation, not the pub full of people doing mildly idiotic things.

you have to see the merit of that, dont you? and dont just blame it on a couple people and call them ring leaders. once again, nothing would have come out of this had they not been egged on by someone trying to shut everyone up for the sake of showing them they could.

[Ephemeral]

Zeebu,
IMO staff made mistakes. It was a mistake to threaten silencing and a mistake to delete the forum posts. Since I am not privy to exactly what transpired in terms of the bans I am withholding my opinion on that. And although I have heard LF’s position on 4o I have never talked to 4o and really don’t even know him. As such I am not going to pass judgment on 4o actions beyond saying that he made mistakes. In retrospect I was on staff chat and could have stepped up and tried to stop what was going down, I regret that I did not. Since I have only been on staff for a few days I have been laying low and showing respect. But I clearly knew at the time that what was happening was not the best way to handle the situation. My bad and I apologize to everyone for not being more proactive.

Please also note that I was not as concerned about the initial rioting as the second. The first one was done in an event with few, if any, new players present and was spontaneous. But the second riot, in pub and with new players present, was over the top bullshit drama and clearly intended to inflict ‘pain’ on the zone. There is no excuse in my mind for this.
eph

[megaman89]

All my bros really quitting? Will lead us into retirement, fuck these persians.

[Bioture]

kthx is like the ron paul of TW. 10/10 would vote for sysop.

edit: Please don't ban me.

[Reckful]

vote bioture
Guy either doc or mafia either way he gonna kill us all

[Zeebu]

the second riot youre talking about was the one that came after the mistakes were made and some punishment already dealt, right?


once again this stems from a staffer doing something wrong and people getting all uppity about it. its like people get angry when something bad happens to them then they have no other way to demand results in a timely manner.

this may not seem fair to staff, but it is what it is. you signed up for a thankless job on the internet.



on somewhat of a side point, where is the list of people who donated money to TW? isnt LF at the very top of that list? THANKS FOR DONATING 1000 DOLLARS! HERES A SHITTY BAN THAT WE ARENT GOING TO TAKE AWAY

[Wazzaaa.nl]

the second riot youre talking about was the one that came after the mistakes were made and some punishment already dealt, right?


once again this stems from a staffer doing something wrong and people getting all uppity about it. its like people get angry when something bad happens to them then they have no other way to demand results in a timely manner.

this may not seem fair to staff, but it is what it is. you signed up for a thankless job on the internet.



on somewhat of a side point, where is the list of people who donated money to TW? isnt LF at the very top of that list? THANKS FOR DONATING 1000 DOLLARS! HERES A SHITTY BAN THAT WE ARENT GOING TO TAKE AWAY

If they would unlift the ban because LF donated this amount of money, wouldn't staff be really corrupt then
great he donated and put in effort and all that but this just isn't the right example