(03-02-2015, 12:52 AM)Marburg Wrote: Ima say my piece...
I agree the staff could do better. Then again, even at their best in the past, the staff could have always done better. What's different now? Honestly, not much. Trust me. I've seen it from both sides for years, & what I have to say will not make some people happy.
Playing for free still has a price attached to it.
First off, This is only a game. Sure, just about everyone will nod in agreement at the slogan, but the reality is, for some of you, it's not. There will always be discontent with the staff...it's just simply a question of who's discontent at any given moment in time. No matter what the staff does, somebody will always disagree. That's just the nature of reality...personally, I'm all for working towards improvement, but who isn't, really?
That said, let me say an inconvenient truth: Disco is not, nor has it ever been a democracy. Any illusions you may hold that it is, drop that insane notion before you drive yourself crazy.
What we have here is a privately owned server that makes its own rules. If you want rights, go talk to the government reps of the country you live in & potentially enjoy those rights when you walk outside your home.
When we play & communicate here, we have rules instead of rights. If you find yourself in disagreement w/ that statement, then, go find another community more to your liking & don't let the doorknob hit your rump on the way out.
Am I saying it's the staff's way or the highway? No. not at all. What I'm saying is, no matter what the staff does, there's ALWAYS going to be a portion of people that disagree. One week, group A has issues while group B & C are fine, while the next week, something happens that irks the hell out of group C that group A totally agrees with while group B says, "what the hell are you guys on about?"
Disco, like any given family, there are things about it & people in it we can't stand, but we're all still members of the same tribe. In a perfect world, we would all be about warm puppies & fluffy clouds to one another, but this is reality & reality has never worked like that before & it's naive to think that it ever will. but to reiterate, Yes, the staff could always do better no matter who complains, because even at their absolute best, it's literally impossible for the staff to make everyone happy no matter what they do...at the same time, it's literally impossible to simply tell people "It's just a game" to those that habitually take it too seriously & expect them to see anything past that.
But make no mistake: It is nothing & never will be anything more than just a game & every ounce of drama milked out of it from even before my time has never been anything more than 1st world trauma-hounding.
It's not only about the decision Mur, it's about certain abuses of power that have done too much as of late.
I am sorry, but Admins aren't above the players in terms of how much they are obliged to follow the rules. Just look on the examples Snak3 gave you out, and you can't even say we're on the same clique of players, in fact I believe we both have a small degree of ooRP grudge against one anther as result of being in opposing factions for so long.
Does it mean that I think he's wrong? Hell no, he's right. I don't think his behavior was flawless, but some admins have behaved in no way any better, and in fact even worse.
You can say it's a tyranny and not a democracy all you like, however I still don't see any one of the admins except for Cannon privately owning this server. They were given responsibility by the community, and if they are not willing to do it in unbiased manner, or at the very least make their best attempt to, they should have their moral to tell them it's time to step down - just like Garret said (which I am in no way supporting, Garret is one of the good functioning admins out there, from what I could tell).
(03-02-2015, 01:08 AM)Pancakes Wrote: It's not only about the decision Mur, it's about certain abuses of power that have done too much as of late.
I am sorry, but Admins aren't above the players in terms of how much they are obliged to follow the rules. Just look on the examples Snak3 gave you out, and you can't even say we're on the same clique of players, in fact I believe we both have a small degree of ooRP grudge against one anther as result of being in opposing factions for so long.
People are either mature or not, its that simple.
And that whole matter with abuse and bias should also be very simple (at least as I see it): A staff member is criticized for abuse ~ Proper evidences are put forward ~ Community and other staff members act accordingly.
One should also make a difference between a plain mistake and an act of abuse because if its the later we talk about, its a no go and the said staff member should step back from their position no matter what happens next, people cannot mature up for one month nor for a year and in many cases nor even for years.
I suppose the big question we are standing at right now is whether or not the rest of the community have any control over what admins are in the team?
Do we have the right to just openly state that hey, perhaps that guy in the green might be a bad idea?
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(03-02-2015, 01:31 AM)sindroms Wrote: I suppose the big question we are standing at right now is whether or not the rest of the community have any control over what admins are in the team?
Do we have the right to just openly state that hey, perhaps that guy in the green might be a bad idea?
As far as accusing is concerned, it shall always be accompanied by facts and facts only.
Accusations should always come with a proof, otherwise its just like "talking to the wind" which is by itself a sign of the accusing side being immature.
If we are to give a more precise example: if a regular player/member has the sufficient proof of a staff member abusing their rights and makes it public, the said staff member's position will of course get jeopardized immediately and therefore will lose the trust and confidence of the community, provided that the evidence is available for everyone to see.
What happens next is not really as relevant as the case itself because the staff is expected to act accordingly to that evidence and if they don't and just ignore it, this will jeopardize the position of all the responsible staff and be a sign of immaturity.
The staff should work as one and act accordingly to the most serious of matters, if not, the whole system will collapse.
The fact that no one seems willing to name any admin as failing at his(or her) duties means one of two things
1. The admin is biased
2. The players are complaining because of their own lack of evidence to prove #1
Taking both of these lines of reasoning at face value I have to conclude that there isn't an issue with the leadership and a select minority of the server is upset that they have been punished for what they believe to be unfair reasoning.
And thinking that playing on this server somehow grants the players any measure of authority over the leadership is laughable.
Taking everything then into consideration
A. Leave
B. Play
There isn't an option available called "Play Democracy" it wouldn't work here, at all, someone has to play dungeon master, might as well be the Admin team; for better or worse.
(03-02-2015, 01:31 AM)sindroms Wrote: I suppose the big question we are standing at right now is whether or not the rest of the community have any control over what admins are in the team?
Do we have the right to just openly state that hey, perhaps that guy in the green might be a bad idea?
Do we have the right to openly state a guy in green might be a bad idea?
No. none of us have that "right"
What we have instead, is the freedom to express how we feel. If this were a tyranny as Pancakes suggests in the absence of democracy, I'd have personally & unilaterally locked this thread up without a second thought.
Fact of the matter is, the absence of one does not equate to the other.
As I said before, the admins & mods (myself included, obviously) could always improve & it'd be willfully ignorant of us to flat out ignore the feedback...That's not what's happening here.
people gotta vent sometimes, & sometimes we gotta listen.
just remember y'all: listening is a two-way street if any of us expect to be heard in the first place.
first of all, im noticing a trend in the responses that seem to deny that any problem exists. the common link between most (but not all) of them is that they are all known members of a certain faction which has been named in the past and linked to bias perceived by a fair portion of the community. (inb4 i get banned )
i agree with the general sentiment of this thread. there does sometimes seem to be an element of strange, questionable and occasionally outright wrong decisions made by the staff. i dont think there is a lack of confidence in the staff as a whole, but probably more like lack of confidence in some members of staff by different groups. There is room for improvement, like always, but the problems noted by people in this thread have become more... obvious in the past 2-3 months.
Yeah happened to my faction and many factions I've loved over the years. I cant take it personally it just happens here. While not "directly" involved in nasty things ive been victim of changes dictated by the admins and devs here. ive pleaded and begged on many occasions with both powers to have been given vary little in return. But ..really i saw what I was doing. I was freaking out about drama in disco and honest to god... im sad it took so long to learn what everything i did here was truly worth
and its the same amount between you or I and everyone else.
its nothing.
the thing about admin decisions? is they've made it clear when there's an action taken the whole group has to agree if this wasent the case? then that's really unusual. Threads like this can be made in protest sometimes it works sometimes it makes it worse. thats disco.
-Marbug nails my point better then I did. It is how this place runs. But what Id like to preface here is that people aren't treating the vote with your absence sincerely.
Haven't the majority of us played this place to death? The majority of us playing here will never have a true axe to grind against anyone else here.. and if you do THERE'S a serious problem. you need to take hold of why your feeling the way you feel and try not to spray that crap on anyone else cause its ridiculous.
If you want toxic irredeemable evil players in a game go to league of legends. solo que.
you want more masterful criticism of developer efforts? try the star trek online forums. or hell any mmo.
This place is dysfunctional. Its not irredeemable. but it will not "change" for you.. and your ships and goodies are all subject to.. Well. we've seen it all by now haven't we.
Maybe you can cause an attack of conscience in one admin. (wouldn't work on me but then again I am the purest evil you'll never know)
but what is that worth? when the next one to take their place will just assimilate... into he same.... damn... thing..
its hotel California.. the only true damn chance you have is to run like hell. or never leave.
There's always going to be exaggeration, hypersensitivity on public, whether just by naivety or on purpose, and there'll more demands of meeting some personal expectations, requests to adhere to someone's personal ideal, numerous made up obligations nobody ever signed for, et cetera and so forth. Rules, for most of the part, are to provide common grounds, some threshold of sanity. Rules that are applied are practical or impractical, either they work and fulfill intended role or they don't and cause unintended effects, either way not a mean to attain unattainable ideological wishful thinking, like say granting freedom and fairness for everyone and making everyone happy.
Communities built around games, mods, or any other popular cultural element aren't social experiments to attempt at a better society structure than what we're typically dealing with elsewhere. Then there is erroneous notion of online communities and communication being of separate entry from all other activities. But they're not as much different: you playing a game, participating in some discussion online or posting and replying something at bigger social media platforms are not activities within a strictly parallel and independent timeline. Lines and borders have long been blurred away and I reckon they weren't there to begin with, so why some have this naive illusion that somehow, for no reason at all, these online media communities should be drastically different from any non-online? Why would someone think that they'd be devoid of any negative aspects that are seen elsewhere? Just because you can't physically punch an idiot? Most of our forms of expression, be they negative too, will find their way, change and adapt to limitations, means and possibilities offered by method of communication and interaction, because it is simply us adapting ourselves to these capabilities.
So I would say don't treat communities like they owe you to try and meet your ideas and demands. Most likely that's impossible and not practical at all. Suggest changes all you want, but be sure when you're changing tone to a demand. Unless you've got worthwhile bargaining chips that'll be empty noise, food for ridicule and not for thought. Predictable reaction would be to yell 'unfair' at every corner. Shout all you want, preferably elsewhere, but it's just not going to change how things are for communities herein, and disco ain't any exception to the list of many and many, for they merely reflect same properties outside gaming. Gaming, as far as social interaction goes, is no special world because we are not acting drastically different there than everywhere else, except may be relatively few who can indeed have split personality, but I'd consider that a mental disorder, and most certainly never a requirement for others.
No community is purely this or that theoretical structure. Different things could be done and approached differently. Diversifying to be more efficient in finding and accomplishing a solution. Some decisions are better handled by groups, some by large groups, others by much smaller and some are best handled just by a single person.
HuggieSunrise Wrote:its hotel California.. the only true damn chance you have is to run like hell. or never leave.
It ain't just either or, because structure ain't a constant: many variable comprise it, so another viable option is to change things from within by own means. Tinker with them. Make new ones. This other option is why I am still here - it's not enough for me just to play what others have made.