My apathetic 2sc on the whole Admin vs Dev drama (or: Why I'm not even gonna bother)

[aerelm]

So... I tried to make this post as coherent and as forum-friendly as I could, but given the subject matter, that was easier said than done. Pardon my rambling and occasional french throughout the post.

First, a little bit of context for anyone who may be wondering where this whole post is coming from:

I started playing disco back in 2009, then some time through 2013 got dragged into doing dev work on the mod and admin work on the server, then a couple of years later kinda lagged away to other stuff and then rubberbanded right back early this year to try my hand in the whole ship modeling side of the mod. So it'd be safe to say I've dipped my toe in a little bit of pretty much everything around here, which I hope gives me a more objective perspective since in most situations I end up kinda seeing where both sides are coming from and can rarely put the blame on one particular side of any drama around these parts.

Now imagine what a mess it has to be if I sit here and all of a sudden decide to point fingers at both sides instead of just reclining and munching on some popcorn.

The very first thing I noticed when I came back was the compartmentalized circlejerk the devteam had going on. Even though the devteam was fundamentally no different than before, they now each had a "Lead Dev of this and that" hat on and each "team" had completely cut themselves off not only from the community, but rest of the staff as well, even though each "team" (just like any other generation of devs) was essentially just 1 guy shouldering all the work, and a couple more who just pretended to still be around. Before this whole mess, devteam just had 1 chat, with the devs, modelers and the techy admins in it (read: hardly a dozen people, i.e. same as today).

The difference? With just 1 chat, no one was "stepping on someone else's toe", because having discussions and sharing opinions as a team was just how things worked, and even when different people had different opinions, it could be worked out as a team and a middle-ground solution which everyone was ok with could be figured out, rather than whatever this is we have today where all these different "teams" are running around the place trying to mark their territory and assert their dominance like in a wildlife documentary.

Now, I obviously have my nostalgia goggles on and romanticizing a bit. None of the previous generations of neither devs nor admins were in any way perfect or anywhere even close to it, but at the very least they weren't self-destructively dysfunctional. Unfortunately, that's not something that can be said for the current greens and golds.

After I came back and started lurking around a bit, I also started noticing the state that admin team was in. To be fair, I was actually somewhat surprised to see the handful of people left in the greens haven't gone passive (which was usually what happened when it gets cold and green team shrinks in size) and are actually still putting effort in, but the effort they're putting in just happens to be in all the wrong places. Essentially, from where I'm standing, they're just trying to do all the same things that devs are doing wrong - Trying to "make their own game" out of this mod/community.

When there are two sides (or more), each trying to force the mod toward their own "vision" of it, there's of course gonna be a clash of egos, and when that happens on the interwebz where there are no professional standards, it'll of course naturally devolve into an epeen waving contest. But... What good has that ever done to anyone anywhere? So, what good are the current staff hoping to get out of it by so adamantly sticking to this broken cycle they've been on for months?

Let's not kid ourselves, the game is over 15 years old now. Even the mod itself is around a decade old at this point. This place, as much as we all love and enjoy it, is essentially a forgotten mod of a dead game for a community that's barely lasting on lifesupport. Nothing anyone does here matters at all the moment you click that little red X on top right of your browser and go to some other corner of the net, or preferably, Outside™.

So here's a friendly little reality check for all you greens and golds - You're essentially just volunteer janitors for the server and the mod. If you find yourself deriving any validation or superficial sense of selfworth from anything you do here, it means the way you are looking at your role here, is not a healthy one. If you find yourself in dire need of an egoboost, go achieve something real out in the real world, instead of trying to get it out of a long-dead videogame by "proving" you are better than "the other guys"... Those same "other guys" who are actually on the same team as you - They too, are just players like yourself, who've decided to sacrifice some of their free time to keep pushing this mod forward.

As a bystander looking at this whole drama that's been going on for months now, all I'm seeing is just admins and devs going at eachother in a sad pathetic little game of "Who's got the bigger virtual stick", so the few months I've spent back in this place trying to do models has essentially just been a frustrating game of minesweeper for me trying to not trip over people's epeens in a futile attempt to not get sucked into an involuntary egojoust with them, and even though I've tried my best to stay out of the whole feces-flinging contest, I've realized there's no way to not get hit by it when you're in the same room and its flung toward the ceiling fan.

So... I guess this is somewhat of a notice to let the non-green and non-gold among you lovely folk know that I've decided to just completely step out of the room to avoid getting any more shirt on my shirt, and as a result, am not gonna be finishing the few models I had going, because honestly, I don't see the point anymore with the current state of the mod. The people who're supposed to be piloting this ship have butted it into a full-on nosedive, and they're too busy coptering their limp epeens at eachother to even realize what they're doing.

I'll still be lurking around and maybe flying every once in a while, but will look elsewhere for this arguably-productive pastime I had here that filled my evenings.

Good luck (dunno what with, but had to wrap up the post somehow).

[Banned player t202085]

Disband both sides, have community elected admins

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User was banned for: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=202085
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[Chuba]

Disband both sides, have community elected admins

this is a terrible idea. people will just choose their friends which will just result in the same old trash that we have now.

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[Laz]

Pretty much that. Also disbanding the dev team entirely would halt all development.

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[Banned player t202085]

Disband both sides, have community elected admins

this is a terrible idea. people will just choose their friends which will just result in the same old trash that we have now.

yeah but at least then we can blame the community for it instead of one or two people having supreme power

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User was banned for: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=202085
Time left: (Permanent)

[Chuba]

you say that but it doesn't solve anything. blaming community will do as much good as blaming person with supreme power. literally no difference.

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[Durandal]

I'm no longer a moderator, I'm no longer a faction leader, and @aerelm is more qualified for the art position if he wants it/if Cameron will hire him. I'm 110% done with the Justin is an egotistical liar on a power trip trope. All I ever wanted was the server out of Alley's hands. It is.

[Antonio]

I'm 110% done with the Justin is an egotistical liar on a power trip trope.

No you're not. You can pretend in front of the communtiy and lie in their face once again but we both know that's not true.

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SNAC Montage Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Thruster SNAC

[Enkidu]

I'm 110% done with the Justin is an egotistical liar on a power trip trope.

No you're not. You can pretend in front of the communtiy and lie in their face once again but we both know that's not true.

Antonio, you've had a lot of bad crap happen to you. And I'm certainly no moral authority after my attempt to gather information on Xalrok's perspective turned tribalistic.

But maybe we should all get past these entrenched opinions we have of each other. As far as I know you've always tried to do right by the community and do fairly.

Justin mostly can be a bit vision inflexible but he's not any different.


Edit: We should all try to realise that because people want to do something different with the game they're not trying to stop us from enjoying our type of fun.


Having community elected admins would mean the people who lead the biggest factions and are good at memes would become admins. These are not desirable qualities.

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THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
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[Vendetta]

\/endettaS3VYesterday at 11:29 AM
Nah I'm just playing For Honor and not really caring
I said my piece
I think you're all idiots and whatever decision you make, it's too late anyway.

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Currently unable to consistently be present in the Community due to life constraints.

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