Staff Feedback Thread

[firesilver]

I have no real opinion of lemon or the 1st. I'm only writing here to note that his post from 17 hours ago is buried two forum pages ago, and all these negative comments about one side or another from everyone else jumping onto one of two bandwagons doesn't look good (this IS a staff feedback thread right?). Isn't this where we have some green or orange words saying "let's all take a break"?

Yeah this should be about staff changing their approach towards communicating, not just the one example. Especially when "don't be a dick" is the new go to when it comes to sanctions etc.

To begin with, I am always open to improving the staff team however possible, so any suggestions are always welcome. "Communication" is quite a broad word and covers a lot so any specifics would be helpful. In general, I do think Staff/Player communication has room for improvement, however I also understand that in some cases it can be a double edged sword where our input (or restricting other's input) can lead to more problems. As a team our words can be taken as gospel and this can lead to misunderstandings or players feeling like one member's opinion reflects the entire team's perspective when that is not the case.

Speaking specifically to the "Don't be a dick" rule - I'll be the first to admit that I questioned this rule several times as I was not personally a fan of it, and feel like it is too broad of a rule to have which can lead to the sentiment you are feeling now, as in it becoming a "catch all rule" that people may feel is just used as an excuse to punish those who haven't broke a more specific rule that might be more understandable.

In general, after discussing it with various people on the team, it is somewhat of a neccessary evil to have due to the reduced ruleset that was part of the rule changes quite a while ago now. There are instances where players might be causing harm to the server or playerbase (in various ways) that might not fit under a specific ingame rule, and occasionally these might get so egregious that we are forced to take action. These are more rare than usual sanctions given out for ingame rule violations (as they should be) and normally any player sanctioned under this rule means that it has been discussed at length by staff and that it was deemed the most appropriate solution based on the evidence that we reviewed.

The last part of this I want to raise is that the sanctions process is one that I have vehemently tried to review and improve to ensure that we have a streamlined process that treats all players fairly and equally. Every VR that is raised is reviewed on a case by case basis, and goes through a discussion phase all members of the Moderator/Staff team to review the situation and evidence presented, then a vote is held which ultimately decides how the team as a whole feels is best to proceed.