[TheRuffKnight]

I will take a moment to clear the air for anyone who might think otherwise or some such, despite the timing this is not a post specifically created as a critique towards the treatment of one particular member. I should admit that it may look shady / like such, but I have no relation to that particular incident, tie to the particular player, or other such. I have even defended that judgement.

This is not about that. This is about things that have been said long before that ban. Long before the ban before it. I am aware that the community is not usually forward with the GM team, but it sometimes makes itself feel so distant that it is overall just harder to approach. Outside of some groups you're probably not going to talk to them.

I only have been able to express enough confidence to talk to them through being part of those groups at some point, and without that I don't think I'd have been given any reason to feel comfortable doing so. I don't think that's entirely either the community or the GM team's fault. I think both sides can take steps to remedy this.

But to find a way to make things better, I think this post was needed.

Hi, yes. Ruff here. I'll probably edit this post at some point once I've got more free time (working on homework right now). I'd like to contribute to the conversation, but... !

I feel the necessity to seriously iterate that the timing of this post is nothing more than coincidental in regards to a certain little funk I posted on not so long ago; one which I'm sure has possibly been tooted about between some folks or others by now, for better or for worse. However, to postulate that Appo's vocalization has anything to do with that whole matter (or anything beyond what he's explicitly talking about), I feel, is a disservice to what Appo's trying to do here. They're trying to be productive and create a panel of discussion to build on things for the community. All well meaning. That is, if anyone is actually assuming that. I don't know. I'm just a dog. Going back to eat my homework, now.

[Lewdcifer]

I was rather close to remaining silent in regards to the topic, but I am compelled to contribute, since it is touching on a rather important part of the game: Game Administrators. I will be touching a few matters in my post, in hopes that it will serve as some form of feedback for the GM team and contribute to the discussion itself.

I will agree that, currently, GMs have a... lack of presence/representation, mostly caused by inactivity. But you also have to understand two points, especially given they have been mentioned in the original post:

• One, GMs are people with lives that Dev trusts, and demanding that they set aside important things for the sake of the game is not so feasible, which leads us to the second point.
  
• The GM team is voluntary, NOT something they are paid for.
  

I feel these are two very important points to keep in mind at all times during this thread.
Another thing I would like to touch on is not overloading the GMs with responsibilities. Sure, more from them would be nice, but given these two points... yeah.
However, if Dev wants to recruit more GMs, then by all means, go ahead. But as a player, the one and only thing I request is that you be very careful of your picks and communicate with your current GM team about that matter.

.

Now, in regards to transparency. I understand the demand for transparency, especially given I have already talked to Dev about this before through other mediums; but there is yet another important point here -- GMs need some space to work with. There are some administrative actions we simply should not know of, but it probably can be addressed in an individual basis with the corresponding GM.
Knowing what a GM is doing at all times is counterproductive; not being certain if they are looking over your shoulder is important as a motivator to not break the rules or do something they should not.

Additionally, I believe it is been mentioned before that Dev created a GM log (not accessible to the public, mind you) which allows him to know what a GM is doing. In the past, Dev did not have a clear idea of what all they were doing, but this log alone allows him to keep tabs on that stuff.

I do think that, if we knew just a little bit more, perhaps it would not hurt anyone; but I believe steps have already been taken in that direction before (read: Applications subforum).

.

In regards to bans, and other administrative measures, it is important to note that the GMs work mostly off of what a player provides to them. If you do not report stuff, then it simply will not get noticed. It is a compromise with the players, who should reach out to them, tell them what's up, and provide them with evidence to work with so you do not end up sending them to war without a weapon.
As for evidence, I do not feel a GM has to (or should) provide evidence for their actions to the public. Dev trusts them for a reason. They should reserve the right to respond, as it is not an obligation. To add to this, players should also have the right to anonymity, and depending on how evidence is handled, it can end up being counter intuitive.

.

As an addendum section; I agree with most of what MaksimumFire/Kit said. I have had little issues with the GM team and the system they work with, but I definitely agree it could stand to be reworked in a few areas, and touched up here and there.

[Balor]

I was rather close to remaining silent in regards to the topic, but I am compelled to contribute, since it is touching on a rather important part of the game: Game Administrators. I will be touching a few matters in my post, in hopes that it will serve as some form of feedback for the GM team and contribute to the discussion itself.

I will agree that, currently, GMs have a... lack of presence/representation, mostly caused by inactivity. But you also have to understand two points, especially given they have been mentioned in the original post:

• One, GMs are people with lives that Dev trusts, and demanding that they set aside important things for the sake of the game is not so feasible, which leads us to the second point.
  
• The GM team is voluntary, NOT something they are paid for.
  

I feel these are two very important points to keep in mind at all times during this thread.
Another thing I would like to touch on is not overloading the GMs with responsibilities. Sure, more from them would be nice, but given these two points... yeah.
However, if Dev wants to recruit more GMs, then by all means, go ahead. But as a player, the one and only thing I request is that you be very careful of your picks and communicate with your current GM team about that matter.

.

Now, in regards to transparency. I understand the demand for transparency, especially given I have already talked to Dev about this before through other mediums; but there is yet another important point here -- GMs need some space to work with. There are some administrative actions we simply should not know of, but it probably can be addressed in an individual basis with the corresponding GM.
Knowing what a GM is doing at all times is counterproductive; not being certain if they are looking over your shoulder is important as a motivator to not break the rules or do something they should not.

Additionally, I believe it is been mentioned before that Dev created a GM log (not accessible to the public, mind you) which allows him to know what a GM is doing. In the past, Dev did not have a clear idea of what all they were doing, but this log alone allows him to keep tabs on that stuff.

I do think that, if we knew just a little bit more, perhaps it would not hurt anyone; but I believe steps have already been taken in that direction before (read: Applications subforum).

.

In regards to bans, and other administrative measures, it is important to note that the GMs work mostly off of what a player provides to them. If you do not report stuff, then it simply will not get noticed. It is a compromise with the players, who should reach out to them, tell them what's up, and provide them with evidence to work with so you do not end up sending them to war without a weapon.
As for evidence, I do not feel a GM has to (or should) provide evidence for their actions to the public. Dev trusts them for a reason. They should reserve the right to respond, as it is not an obligation. To add to this, players should also have the right to anonymity, and depending on how evidence is handled, it can end up being counter intuitive.

.

As an addendum section; I agree with most of what MaksimumFire/Kit said. I have had little issues with the GM team and the system they work with, but I definitely agree it could stand to be reworked in a few areas, and touched up here and there.

While I agree anonymity should be a choice. What I am suggesting is common place amongst other communities. It is common practice for reports to be both public if the reporter chooses, or private.

Also again my statement was not to the public. It was "If the person who is accused or banned requests it, they should be allowed to see the evidence proving they did wrong." As if it was something they've done in game, then it is more than reasonable for their actions to be documented.

Also the suggestion for players being able to log their chat, does not just go away because GM's are able to log their own posts. In fact it makes the job of a GM easier.

While yes many have not had issue with the GM's, this again is not a criticism of them, but of the system they are working around and how it actively leaves these points of contention in the community. I disagree with most of Maksim's post because they seem to miss the points made. Which are.

- Make the system easier for reports to be made.
- Make it easier for Players to gather evidence separate from screenshots and having a GM dig through logs.
- Clear paper trails shared with those banned, with anonymity if requested. But clear nonetheless, leaving no room for interpretation by those accused.
- Enforce faster responses, which with cleaner infrastructure would happen organically.


The suggestions at hand are no less valid, and again. No less common among communities RP or not. And many of the suggestions at hand ask MORE from the community than it does of the GM's. However I can understand why change is opposed considering how much of the status quo would be shaken.

[Maksimum_Fire]

@drezdin
The reason more is typically demanded of the community is because in multiple documented cases the community has worked *against* GMs regarding important topics, and a lack of reporting of inter-player disputes before they escalate is rampant.

To make matters worse, players have been harassed in the past for reporting bad behavior, and this sort of thing will continue.  Making logs open access invites aggressive reaction from those affected by the ban to inflict harassment on those responsible for reporting them.  Anonymity doesn't work so well if logs(the paper trail) are being shared as it won't be hard for an accused to simply check back their own logs or simply recent memory.  It's not hard at all to triangulate and target a reporting individual from this situation.

Thirdly, with the combination of enforced rapid response from the GM team *and* allowing for plenty of opinionated weigh-in is a hefty responsibility that is taxing on the time of a GM and would, in turn, obstruct them from focusing on more important tasks.


I do agree with you on two main points, though.  And that's 
>make the system easier for reports to be made and 
>make it easier for players to gather evidence.

To sum up, making it simpler for a player to communicate with GMs and report issues.  I think these are good suggestions, and I hope they can be implemented.  The second one already has a solution that's been proposed some time ago that I imagine Dev is already working on- in the form of new chat being loggable.  As is, with old chat saving a log isn't difficult so gathering evidence is plenty easy.  The first one has a couple of methods that it could be gone about, such as anonymous reporting.  But I feel as though reporting to a GM directly is the healthiest way to handle most issues, since it results in a dialogue where the GM can ask questions and investigate.  So while I agree with you it should be easier for people to report, I'd like to see decent suggestions before it can wholeheartedly be considered.

The GMs do investigate cases.  The GMs discuss judgements to ensure they come out fair.  Bans certainly do not come lightly and I think stressing that fact is important.  What we, and the GMs, do not need is a committee of friend pals ready to give an attempt at lawyering every time a ban comes out and harass the person who gave the report in the first place.  Such an environment discourages reporting issues at all and instead encourages, plain and simple, not dealing at all with people you know will cause problems.  Transparency can certainly be a case-by-case basis.

[Noxid]

Bans certainly do not come lightly and I think stressing that fact is important.  What we, and the GMs, do not need is a committee of friend pals ready to give an attempt at lawyering every time a ban comes out and harass the person who gave the report in the first place.  Such an environment discourages reporting issues at all and instead encourages, plain and simple, not dealing at all with people you know will cause problems.  Transparency can certainly be a case-by-case basis.

No one is asking for this. No one is doing this. Reasonable transparency is required so people can have faith that decisions and rulings that have been made are done so fairly.

A big thing that would assist in this is actually giving more tools. Specifically I think there should be some form of server side logging. Currently the GMs have to rely on logs that players may have gathered. This has many issues. You may not have managed to get the log of a situation you wish the report, you may only have part of it, others may submit an edited log, I could go on but I think you get the point. With server side logging GMs would simply have to look up the relevant timestamp to see what actually happened. This also means that no one can deny they have done something. The logs will contain what they did or didn't do, plain as day.

I'm sure you understand this already but just because you've personally had nothing but good interactions doesn't mean everyone has. Personally I've had a report I made on another player's rule breaking ignored for over a year at this point. But I have also had good interactions too. A good system will help alleviate these issues by giving everyone procedures to follow, rather than having to handle everything in DMs and off memory alone.

[Balor]

I won't have my points invalidated by a Strawman Argument. @Kit. Or broad statements deriding my suggestions as less than decent with remarks like "I'd like to see decent suggestions."  I will be frank and curt here from now on.  As such I will outline my points as simply and objectively as possible, so that my reasons for them may not be misunderstood.

- The Option to publicly report, should exist.  This is not a debatable fact, but a standardized practice. If someone is harassed, then those who harassed them should also be banned. This is not a debatable opinion but a matter of fact.
- Logs are indisputably necessary for the player.  Yes we can use Old Chat, however even just allowing us to log text with the more commonly used New Chat, is more than acceptable and should be considered. Mandatory for logs of reports.
- Having spoken to two people who were recently banned, they had received no communication with GM's since last year. One in December, and one in August. Respectably.  A failure to produce logs and evidence of their wrongdoings led those who were banned in an uncertain situation.  Even to the point that one of the people who had reported one of them, felt the process of banning the accused was Messy and disingenuous.
- As such it is why I suggest that logs of wrongdoings be MADE AVAILABLE to the ACCUSED if requested. Not to the public should the public report option not be taken, but to the accused. This is a standard practice, and what is shared should be up to the Discretion of the GM. 
- Almost two weeks to reply to a ban, that you by virtue agree they had all the evidence ready for, is unacceptable for any staff, regardless of the decision.
- GM's are people, but so are the members of the community.  The fact that people feel the need to defend the Staff from reasonable critique is a problem, we have every right to voice our opinions and be given options as to how we police ourselves. We deserve fair and just treatment as much as the GM's do. 

There is clearly a problem, and while I am on usually good terms with members of the Staff, the system is not above criticism, and the points I made are not to attack staff or dehumanize them. But to put forth the idea of reforming the system. There are no committees of friends or lawyers coming after them for a ban. There are no attacks being leveraged against them, and the GM's are not small children in need of protection.

They are adults as we are, working with a flawed system that breeds these problems. And while you might not have experienced them. Judging by the responses in this thread?  Enough people have that it merits the attention of those above.

[Dystopia]

So, in regards to the old suggestion thread mentioned that people have necroposted in recently, I'll likely respond there independently of this, though some things I say might have some overlap.

As for this thread, don't worry, nobody takes offense here to my knowledge, and it's perfectly fine to speak up and is encouraged, moreover.

I'm not sure if the other GMs will post or not to accompany mine, but I figured I'd weigh in all the same.


I'll try to respond to as much as I can that's been said here, but definitely let me know if I've missed something/forgotten to comment on something important.

That disclaimer aside, though... I'll start with some of my thoughts at current:

- Truth be told, since Walrus stepped down there has been a lack of GMs that truly represent this community properly. It is especially rare that I see a GM actually play the game or interact much with the wider community as of recent. Now, I don't think that anyone needs to dedicate themselves to doing something they don't want to, but I will request: In addition to the current GM team, I believe we need more people representative of the current community. Of course, they still need to be trustworthy so I'm not sure what I'd suggest here.

- I'm noting that people are expressing that there is what seems to be a lack of transparency from the current team. I don't want to start an argument over whether there is or isn't, but a sense of openness is obviously lacking in the eyes of so many people, and as such, I'm sure people would like to see verdicts be made more openly, in a way that allows people to know what has been done wrong, and have chances to dispute it more easily. This extends to more than just the person being punished - the community itself deserves to be in the loop. It makes it hard to dispute things if they're entirely vague.

- It can sometimes feel like the GM team is slow... and that's not really their fault at all. There are four of them, each with different other callings, and they're doing this all for free, so it's kind of a thankless task. This probably ties in loosely with my first point, in that, not only do I think we don't have enough GMs representitive of the community... but that I just don't think we have enough, period. There are times where there are just none around, which can be a critical issue in certain situations. And so, I think we need some new blood to help get the gears working more. (Again, I can't off the top of my head pose suggestions to you, I've identified a problem, not a solution...)

- I will say, that in my personal case, I'm on and just unseen most of the time. I don't broadcast most of my characters and I don't make myself known too much, but I'm definitely watching more than you'd imagine.

That said, I should probably interact more directly in public places, but my attentions as of late have been focused on something on the backend that I'll touch on later.
While it isn't a requirement for us to engage, it's admittedly something I enjoyed doing more before, and would like to get back to, and goes hand in hand with trying to be approachable.

As for new GMs, I've no problem with more helping hands so long as they're qualified and able to work with the rest of the team without issue.



- I think the applications thread went a long way in regards to general GM team transparency, and helped in that matter.

In terms of bans and unban requests, in most cases, as Ruff mentioned elsewhere, there are clearly given reasons that anyone can see as to why someone was banned when we respond to them. Normally we strive to answer these with clear cut reasons to justify the ban, as anyone can see many examples of there, and strive to be prompt, even though there's a sticky that specifically states that we aren't required to.
 
In many cases, however, throwing every bit of evidence we have up for public perusal would only result in the reporter being lynched or ostracized in some way.
This is especially the case in harassment cases, which are so prevalent here in our relatively small community that it's a wonder anyone comes to us at all.

We've all seen how easy it is for misinformation to worm its' way into people's perceptions and stay there, and unfortunately the truth is that it wouldn't go away even with 100% transparency. If anything, it would persist, and many more people would be targeted just for speaking up.



- I agree, it's often really difficult to get ahold of a specific GM if that's the one you need to talk to because the situation is one that they handled and it wasn't made clear to the rest of us, or the rest of us require their input to move forward with something, to make sure we're all on the same page and in agreement.

I'm sure most players aren't aware because they're not privy to the GM channel, but the four of us discuss everything that comes our way, and in that way we sort of check and balance each other to make sure we're being fair with what we slap down and our conclusions. Dev is also in said channel, and sees everything we say and often joins in on the discussions to keep us in line.

While more GMs might make us more visible to the community, I can't say with certainty that anything would move any faster. Because as mentioned, we have lives and jobs and things that keep us from being active 24/7, and input from even one member might stall some things going forward. Largely, the bigger cases are the ones that suffer from this.
The rest of anything small or minor, we handle individually just fine or with minimal input from the others.

I've been considering writing a post with a list of suggestions to break down what should be done in order to benefit the community as a whole.  At the moment the GM team is simultaneously fine, but also fills me with little confidence that they represent us the community overall, and seem more closed off than anything. I agree that the Staff Team are not bad people or terrible.  However they are ADMITTEDLY detached from the community.

https://neus-projects.net/forums/showthr...p?tid=6251  This thread went through many of the issues in detail.  However to reiterate here with a less aesthetic format.

- The Staff team needs more PUBLIC transparency. Accused and banned players often cite that they've not been spoken to by a GM or received follow up contact over lengthy periods of time. Evidence should be made available to the accused as a mandatory part of the process.
- A public ban report/request sub-forum should be created. With explicit rules and mandatory examples of evidence, from harassment, to breaking of rules, and logs.  This would make the job of the Staff Team easier, and ensure that ban requests and reports carry with them more than word of mouth.
- Logging new chat.  Right click and log should be implemented pronto.  At the moment the greatest enemy of people wishing to log abuse, harassment or rule breaks is a players inability to log things with the pretty new chat in any way other than screenshots.  This would essentially allow a player to do 80% of the work for a GM.
- Ban Appeals need to be handled more promptly.  Ruffknights recent post summed up my feelings on the matter, and in combination with the fact that an official response was finally offered only two days away from the end of the ban. Is a failure of due process. Whether it was accepted or denied, a clear neglect was shown, and the official rules allowed for it.
- A Newsletter should be made monthly. Allowing us to know who will be active, where the GM teams attentions are, and what they want for the community. I don't need GM's on daily or hourly to handle things. However it would be nice to know how they feel about SL2 in general from time to time. To let us know they still actually care to interact with the public as people.


I do not think that the Staff Team needs to be replaced, however I feel the system they work under needs to be reworked. As I can attest with Walrus' departure it very much feels like the only GM who got us as a Community has left, and our relationship with the staff team suffers for it, and the infrastructure put in place. Allows for it all to suffer. Many systems that are put in place at other RP communities not just on Byond but in the RP Sphere in general are not put into place here. 

Leaving the player with a general air of uncertainty when it comes to the people above them.

Again I do not want to call out the character of the GM's and to call for heads.  However I want to point out how the system itself needs to be improved, and how even in Jupiters post has been called to be improved for almost a year now. A restructure would allow for the GM team to do less work, and garner more trust from the community. But right now we have nothing to truly bridge the gap between us.

I'll work on addressing that thread in entirety once I'm done with this one, but I'll go ahead and address your points made here as well.

- As stated above, in most cases handing over evidence to the accused would be 100% correct. In most cases, people are shown or told where they went wrong and evidence used against them is given freely.
Except when it would incriminate another player that's reporting them. Largely, that's harassment cases, but also in other cases where there were only so many witnesses and it's very easy to rule out who reported whom.

- I know most people aren't aware of this fact, but it rings true nonetheless. About 80% of things that go on that shouldn't, aren't reported. Most of the time, things fall through the cracks and we hear about them sometimes in casually talking with players, about how something happened and it wasn't reported because they were afraid of backlash from one party or others around them. Making a public ban report/request sub forum would either not see much use, or the use it would see would be very short-lived because nobody wants to be the whistleblower if they have to walk through their own public trial while they do it.

There's already a rampant issue with people coming to us being discouraged to over and over again due to the responses of the community to whoever was brave enough to speak up. I hear about it all the time and it's very disheartening. Many players have expressed that they don't feel safe reporting problems to us and would rather keep quiet and hope it stops eventually, whatever that problem may be.

- I think logging the new chat system would be very nice. That I wholeheartedly agree with, both for the sake of logs gathered and the aesthetic of it. I tend to keep to all tab and I'm severely missing out on pretty colors all the time, just for the sake of being able to log with ease. It's very unfortunate and I hope it's made possible soon.

That said, even with that ability, I think global/server side logs will also help greatly, which I'm told Dev is working on in the backend so we can easier do our job.
(Still report things, though! It helps us know where to look in said logs when implemented, and gives us a solid date/time stamp to know what to look for)

- In this incident it's largely because we default to allowing the GM that banned said person to respond before the rest of us, and it's my understanding that Chaos had a lot on his plate and couldn't get to it until then. Which is understandable, really. Usually these things are handled by whomever dished out the ban as stated in the sticky, even if we all discuss things in relation to them, which also takes a little time with the bigger cases.

- I think this is actually a really great idea. A newsletter might help, and I think we might implement something to that effect soon. As I mentioned above, I've personally had most of my focus and attention being put to a special project that I've been working on, after getting clearance from Dev. I initially didn't want to announce it or spill the beans on what it was, because I thought a surprise might be fun- but in light of this idea, I would be very willing to share some parts of it, teasers or something just to let people know what I'm working on.

I will take a moment to clear the air for anyone who might think otherwise or some such, despite the timing this is not a post specifically created as a critique towards the treatment of one particular member. I should admit that it may look shady / like such, but I have no relation to that particular incident, tie to the particular player, or other such. I have even defended that judgement.

This is not about that. This is about things that have been said long before that ban. Long before the ban before it. I am aware that the community is not usually forward with the GM team, but it sometimes makes itself feel so distant that it is overall just harder to approach. Outside of some groups you're probably not going to talk to them.

I only have been able to express enough confidence to talk to them through being part of those groups at some point, and without that I don't think I'd have been given any reason to feel comfortable doing so. I don't think that's entirely either the community or the GM team's fault. I think both sides can take steps to remedy this.

But to find a way to make things better, I think this post was needed.

On this note, I and I'm sure the rest of us would like to be as approachable as possible for us to help everyone. I'm not in many groups myself, and don't tend to throw my characters at IC groups, but if people would like my involvement in a discord server/group of some kind, I'm open to joining them.

I'm not sure how to be more approachable in that regard, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'll definitely listen.

That said, I'd like to express again that anyone can come to me with a problem, or ask a question, or just to chat if need be. My DMs are always open, as are my PMs on the forums if you'd prefer to use that.

I was rather close to remaining silent in regards to the topic, but I am compelled to contribute, since it is touching on a rather important part of the game: Game Administrators. I will be touching a few matters in my post, in hopes that it will serve as some form of feedback for the GM team and contribute to the discussion itself.

I will agree that, currently, GMs have a... lack of presence/representation, mostly caused by inactivity. But you also have to understand two points, especially given they have been mentioned in the original post:

• One, GMs are people with lives that Dev trusts, and demanding that they set aside important things for the sake of the game is not so feasible, which leads us to the second point.
  
• The GM team is voluntary, NOT something they are paid for.
  

I feel these are two very important points to keep in mind at all times during this thread.
Another thing I would like to touch on is not overloading the GMs with responsibilities. Sure, more from them would be nice, but given these two points... yeah.
However, if Dev wants to recruit more GMs, then by all means, go ahead. But as a player, the one and only thing I request is that you be very careful of your picks and communicate with your current GM team about that matter.

.

Now, in regards to transparency. I understand the demand for transparency, especially given I have already talked to Dev about this before through other mediums; but there is yet another important point here -- GMs need some space to work with. There are some administrative actions we simply should not know of, but it probably can be addressed in an individual basis with the corresponding GM.
Knowing what a GM is doing at all times is counterproductive; not being certain if they are looking over your shoulder is important as a motivator to not break the rules or do something they should not.

Additionally, I believe it is been mentioned before that Dev created a GM log (not accessible to the public, mind you) which allows him to know what a GM is doing. In the past, Dev did not have a clear idea of what all they were doing, but this log alone allows him to keep tabs on that stuff.

I do think that, if we knew just a little bit more, perhaps it would not hurt anyone; but I believe steps have already been taken in that direction before (read: Applications subforum).

.

In regards to bans, and other administrative measures, it is important to note that the GMs work mostly off of what a player provides to them. If you do not report stuff, then it simply will not get noticed. It is a compromise with the players, who should reach out to them, tell them what's up, and provide them with evidence to work with so you do not end up sending them to war without a weapon.
As for evidence, I do not feel a GM has to (or should) provide evidence for their actions to the public. Dev trusts them for a reason. They should reserve the right to respond, as it is not an obligation. To add to this, players should also have the right to anonymity, and depending on how evidence is handled, it can end up being counter intuitive.

.

As an addendum section; I agree with most of what MaksimumFire/Kit said. I have had little issues with the GM team and the system they work with, but I definitely agree it could stand to be reworked in a few areas, and touched up here and there.

- Unfortunately, yes. If it's not reported, it's unlikely that we'll see it. However, that might not always be the case, and once global/server side logs are added in for us, I'm sure we'll have a far easier time handling things even if people don't report them.


Additionally since I've been writing this, there's been a little bit of hostility thrown about and I'd appreciate it if the proceeding posts don't drift into that kind of tone.
This topic is worthy of debate but it stops being so when we stop being civil to each other, and I ask that everyone please be mindful of that.

[Balor]

With Dystopia's post. I'll be stepping back from the post. The fact the points of the thread were seen by the higher ups and garnered an active response is appreciated. As it means that some consideration will be taken.

All is gucci.

[Slydria]

Alright, I'm going to broadly go over some of the concerns people have from my perspective:


GMs don't represent the community / GMs are not visibly active enough

I can't speak for the other GMs but I do agree that I at least have not active enough, especially lately.

I have my reasons, I'd say it's partly due to me wanting to do other things, partly because I've been doing this for a very long time, too long honestly (between both SL1 and SL2 I've moderated for over 10 years, I'm a bloody dinosaur at this point) and other more personal reasons I'd rather not divulge.

I apologize for that regardless and will make an effort to be more active when I can.


GMs are slow to deal with issues / slow to respond

While I'd say most of the time, this isn't the case. There are definitely exceptions and I think it's a fair assessment.

The reasons can vary, it may be that a situation is complicated and we need to ask multiple people about what happened who may or may not be available. It may be that we've been quite busy and the issue has been left at the wayside. It may be that only one of us really knows what's going on and are waiting on their input.

Excuses aside, situations can rarely slip by and that is entirely on us when it happens.


Lack of transparency / GMs aren't obligated to respond

I can think of a couple of reasons as to why you might not get a response to a ban thread or a report or whatever else, if it's not due to being preoccupied.

In some cases, particularly ones involving player harassment, we may be silent in hopes of protecting them.

Unfortunately, this feels like an increasing issue lately, I have heard stories of people pushed into silence due to fear of retaliation or being ostracized and others outright quitting due to being on the receiving end of harassment.

While historically, we've had a hands off approach to off game behavior, I don't think we can afford to be so idle about it now. Especially when it comes the reported or their friends harassing via messenger over reporting a player, that at the very least should be something actionable.


Another reason may be that we feel what you're trying to bring forth is completely off-base, intellectually dishonest or you are being incredibly rude.

We weren't born yesterday and we don't appreciate our time being wasted on frivolous cases or garbage behavior.

I understand this is not a good metric to outright ignore people but I am not infinitely patient, if you show me overt disrespect or lies, I will refuse to hear you out. Please be honest and respectful when you're putting yourself forth to GMs.


GM team could use some new members

Absolutely. I want more capable members who are willing to stick it out. Let me make no secret of this, if I felt there were several capable GMs who can carry the torch, I would resign and fall back to a more artistic role from now on. 

But as much as I'd like to elect some hopefuls, I don't actually know who is both capable and willing off the top of my head. Sure, part of which probably is due to my own inactivity.


Players / GMs don't have sufficient tools (e.g. insufficient access to game logs, no public outlet for reporting).

Agreed. We straight up do need our own logging tools for SL2. Only being able to make use of player logs is not efficent and is capable of being manipulated purposefully or otherwise to paint an out of context picture.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate those who have been taking records and using them to verify their cases but this has been a big problem for ages.

Thankfully, this is something we have brought up to Dev recently and he does plan on improving them but it may take some time due to how much work he has.

As for the public reporting forum idea, I am concerned it will not be a clean implementation. As mentioned before, I feel harassment is a growing issue and I think this kind of thing would paint a target on people's back; such as people who do report potentially being labelled a snitch and become excluded from groups as a consequence.

[Balor]

I will actually chime in once more, as Dystopia and Slydria have mentioned their concerns about harassment. This is not a GM issue and more so a cultural and community issue that will likely need it's own thread of discussion in the future.

While I have been very critical of a lack of transparency for the GM's. I think that at the same time we need to ensure that our own honesty isn't compromised, and that the culture of SL2 does need to be looked at and remedied. That said I am very appreciative of Slydria and Dystopias post and the insight they've provided.

Hopefully all of this discussion will allow us to move forward as a community and further suggestions will come forth to construct a more communicative, open, and transparent community as a whole.