as an ex tr mod imma share some of my experiences, im only talking about the tr community here and will try to keep it short as much as possible.

a dit :

Players will accuse staff members of not doing their job right and then staff members will say "deal with it" in a polite way

this happens a lot, everyday you see a new thread or a post from different people about mods not doing their job properly or not doing anything at all and all they get as a response is either 'we dont need to be on our public accounts all the time' or 'we also have a life outside', even ' we are volunteers ', yeah like who cares all of us have a life and its not that we use it as an argument all the time, just as said above this is a polite way to say 'deal with it' and in the end nothing is done, what i've seen the last few years -as a normal player- is the same loop, noone does a thing, they dont even want to spend time here, or help, all -most of them- wants is the 'moderator' tag, nothing much, the worse thing is there were/are some mods that got the private mod status because they dont want the responsibility but wanna keep the powers, and its kinda sad, i believe thats what makes the tr server a 'not playable' one, it should be easy, if you cant/dont wanna do it, then leave, noone is forced afaik, as i said everyone has a life but this should be seen as a responsibility, being away for months and then randomly appearing is kinda meh. people have the right to complain.

you can not talk to them, most of the time they wont even answer, wont even listen, you wont be able to private message them, ask something or even discuss, none of them are an option, UNLESS you are a friend, thats where we get to this part.

the moment we tried to talk to one of the 'active' mods we got insulted, it doesnt matter if you are muted/banned/perm banned or even BoS, the staff team should be an example to all the community, they shouldnt be making fun or insulting or calling you 'things', banning from everywhere to avoid doesnt solve a thing, -if you want proof i got proof-

a dit :

It might be a slight exaggeration but we're at a point where if you aren't friends with a staff member, you cannot even get into any teams because they'll most likely tell a story about you and then everyone immediately says no to your application.

this has been happening, i know staff members that didnt even do a thing but -you know the word- also know some players who tried to make the community better but never got the chance to be in a team because certain staff members disliked something about them, not even related. what mods say about the applications is 'some of the bans/mutes/whatever a person got in the past can be ignored if needed'. yeah 'if needed' but you know thats another way to legally hire someone you couldnt before, i guess its only 'needed' if they are a friend otherwise you wouldnt 'ignore' a hack ban or being a part of a ban team for years should not be something that can be ignored, but what can you do about it, its nothing, cant blame the admins here because there is no ccm and admins wouldnt say no to a person that the team agreed to hire, but at the same time this means they can hire anyone they want, no matter the behaviour -unless they are really damaging the community-, the sanctions or the time effort they can put, and this is what the people complains about the most. because its not really hard to fake it and act nice once you got the powers.

a dit :

On the other hand, some people get banned, but this time, it is an unfair sanction placed on the player. If you are one of those players, you must know the struggle of trying to contact a mod just to be told that you should contact someone else... and when you do, that person says "I saw you hacking, you aren't getting unbanned"

this is also another thing, its really rare when you see a ban being removed, most of the time banned players get the same answer, 'i saw you hacking' or 'i saw you insulting' and its case closed. i guess they dont wanna spend 5 of their 10 mins - that they spent in game per day - helping a person and fixing en error/removing an unfair ban. i even saw someone got banned for votebanning in front of me where they didnt even do a single vote but only be in the room, because a friend told them that they were the ones banning and mods didnt even wanna check, they were told that they were in the room and had votebanning sanctions in their ban history, and the staff wouldnt even listen to a word we said

a dit :

I know this, because I saw those moderators process from zero to a public staff, and for most of them, their behavior immediately change once they are promoted. They are no longer part of the players, they are part of something far more superior. This is how it is for a lot of them. They won't tell this to you, because as Peanut specified, most of it only happen internally.

what ediz said here explains it all, and its one of the things that players keeps saying the most, you know just like auron says 'those with power use that power', this is all about it. btw i didnt get fired or anything, its just i have seen how corrupted this can get, firsthand. i like the game, the admins the community, everyone that wanna help or do something good... yeah i kept it short tysm.

Jealy a dit :

Error_404 a dit :VoirMasquer

Jealy a dit :VoirMasquer

Error_404 a dit :VoirMasquer

How many more ex-staff members WHO ARE NOT FIRED

I wasn't fired and I disagree with everything you just said. I also don't draw conclusions based on how it was 8 years ago.

It wasn't directed at you. Because there are ex-staff who got fired and get super mad and stuff and say nonsense . I meant the ones who got a horrible treatment from specifically the EN/EN2 staff team and left. I am not saying that all of the EN staff are horrible. I am saying we can categorize them as some who are bad and some who are good. I don't want to point fingers because you can all see the way they respond to applications and deal with arbs so there is that even the arbs have terrible actions in the applications.

Not directed at me? I'm an ex-staff member who wasn't fired, it's literally what you asked for? But I get that I don't suit your agenda so you're not interested in my point of view, sorry about that. I could try to tell you that there are more sides to every story that's been told here, but I know you don't want to listen anyway. Just like I know that other ex-staff members know that their stories can't be disputed in public, which is why they're bringing it up in public to begin with. I'll be the first to admit that being part of the staff team hasn't always been a bed of roses, but the difference between me and some is I would try to solve the issues privately. Says more about them than it does about the remaining staff in my opinion, but hey I know my opinion still won't matter because I'm not jumping on the bandwagon, so why should I even bother.

Similar to what Jealy pretty much just said. Ive been watching this thread and reading on all the 'Staff is bad, Mods favo etc' comments and really wanted to share my experience that. While Ive only been an E2 mod for a short recent while and don't know how things were done x amount of years ago, During my short time as a mod before I left my experience wasn't awful. Sure some ups and downs happened occasionally but I know people will only focus on the things that put staff in a bad light because its what people want to hear.

yo got one thing to say:

just because you get to join the cool staff club doesn't mean you need to become condescending or act as if you are better
than some of us,
so I wish to all staff cuties reading this to have a self ego check occasionally <333 remember what its like 2 be the small citizen

---

Also quick thank you to [Gavin: Please contact this staff member in private if you have a complaint.]

xo xo

King a dit :

Excuse you @Gavin but I haven't brought up any names, there is no reason for you to censor and edit my post!
if you have a problem PM but do not power abuse. I have done nothing against the rules or anything that wasn't similar to
the rest of the posts. wtf?

If you have a complaint against a specific staff member, you should contact them privately (as you mentioned in your post). I left the rest of your post up since it was general, however with the amount of statements you make against this staff member, it was easy to deduce who you were implying in the second half. There's really no reason to discuss the individual in this thread. If you want to discuss your Discord ban or something else, you should reach out to them.

Some players are beginning to use this thread to call out specific staff members that they take issue with, and we will start removing those posts. We don't allow users to insult, slander, or call out other players either. If you have a complaint about someone specific, please send a private message rather than posting it in this thread.

I have had none if any very little interactions with any kind of staff before. My opinion therefore comes from what I am seeing and reading in this thread. While I am seeing staff , ex-staff, and other supporters voicing their concerns about overused and dated complaints; how about what and how these people are voicing these concerns? If you read back on all their posts it will invariably fall in a few categories: A sobstory/apology, events that contradicts a players experience, and the internalized decisions.

First off, it is great to get a response from any kind of staff, that is who the players want to see and hear from. The problem with this is it creates a momentarily pause in the complaints as players come out from the woods to praise them. It is because of this phenomenon that I am inclined to believe that these type of posts serve to slow the cycle of staff complaints until players eventually find something new to complain about.
What I personally would want to see is taking direct responsibility even if the complaint is unfounded or dated. I would want to see how they plan to tackle that complaint and lay out rough goals for everyone to discuss on and give feedback to. Do you really want to see another apology about how staff are volunteers? Or how about another sobstory about why they are falling behind on happenings? These staff posts are just as overused as player posts possibly complaining about favorism or unfair sanctions. Is that not a problem?

Second off, there is staff and ex-staff coming onto the thread to strongly contradict whatever possible player complaints may crop up, this will tie into the third and my biggest concern below.

There is a third type of post I am seeing from staff. It simply deals with how "We will discuss this in private" with the concerned player or simply "The team", or perhaps "There is a lot of things going on internally". And this is what I feel is the biggest and most offending problem. There is no transparency. When there is no transparency, how are we, the players, know how these complains will be handled? We have to trust that the staff can responsibly investigate their own activities and react according to results and procedures.
Think about it, if a staff tells you "We will discuss it with the team" what is stopping them from simply not discussing it with the team? What is stopping them from talking with the team and the discussion goes cold? How about that recent survey thread that collects your feedback on ban appeals? While it seems to be a response to player concerns about unfair bans, it also serves a good tactic to collect complaints into a box that will be put upon a shelf to collect dust while distracting players with a seemingly pro-community move.
I am cynical about this but when there is no transparency and when the decisions of staff is a black box, there is simply no accountability for anyones actions.
I get it, there are rules and there is privacy regarding users and staff. But if those rules are what prevents transparency is it not a good time to reconsider those rules? Where are players and staff at to reconsider the rules while maintaining that privacy?


TL;DR No transparency no accountability

Crestoflight a dit :

as an ex tr mod imma share some of my experiences, im only talking about the tr community here and will try to keep it short as much as possible.

a dit :VoirMasquer

Players will accuse staff members of not doing their job right and then staff members will say "deal with it" in a polite way

this happens a lot, everyday you see a new thread or a post from different people about mods not doing their job properly or not doing anything at all and all they get as a response is either 'we dont need to be on our public accounts all the time' or 'we also have a life outside', even ' we are volunteers ', yeah like who cares all of us have a life and its not that we use it as an argument all the time, just as said above this is a polite way to say 'deal with it' and in the end nothing is done, what i've seen the last few years -as a normal player- is the same loop, noone does a thing, they dont even want to spend time here, or help, all -most of them- wants is the 'moderator' tag, nothing much, the worse thing is there were/are some mods that got the private mod status because they dont want the responsibility but wanna keep the powers, and its kinda sad, i believe thats what makes the tr server a 'not playable' one, it should be easy, if you cant/dont wanna do it, then leave, noone is forced afaik, as i said everyone has a life but this should be seen as a responsibility, being away for months and then randomly appearing is kinda meh. people have the right to complain.

you can not talk to them, most of the time they wont even answer, wont even listen, you wont be able to private message them, ask something or even discuss, none of them are an option, UNLESS you are a friend, thats where we get to this part.

the moment we tried to talk to one of the 'active' mods we got insulted, it doesnt matter if you are muted/banned/perm banned or even BoS, the staff team should be an example to all the community, they shouldnt be making fun or insulting or calling you 'things', banning from everywhere to avoid doesnt solve a thing, -if you want proof i got proof-

a dit :VoirMasquer

It might be a slight exaggeration but we're at a point where if you aren't friends with a staff member, you cannot even get into any teams because they'll most likely tell a story about you and then everyone immediately says no to your application.

this has been happening, i know staff members that didnt even do a thing but -you know the word- also know some players who tried to make the community better but never got the chance to be in a team because certain staff members disliked something about them, not even related. what mods say about the applications is 'some of the bans/mutes/whatever a person got in the past can be ignored if needed'. yeah 'if needed' but you know thats another way to legally hire someone you couldnt before, i guess its only 'needed' if they are a friend otherwise you wouldnt 'ignore' a hack ban or being a part of a ban team for years should not be something that can be ignored, but what can you do about it, its nothing, cant blame the admins here because there is no ccm and admins wouldnt say no to a person that the team agreed to hire, but at the same time this means they can hire anyone they want, no matter the behaviour -unless they are really damaging the community-, the sanctions or the time effort they can put, and this is what the people complains about the most. because its not really hard to fake it and act nice once you got the powers.

a dit :VoirMasquer

On the other hand, some people get banned, but this time, it is an unfair sanction placed on the player. If you are one of those players, you must know the struggle of trying to contact a mod just to be told that you should contact someone else... and when you do, that person says "I saw you hacking, you aren't getting unbanned"

this is also another thing, its really rare when you see a ban being removed, most of the time banned players get the same answer, 'i saw you hacking' or 'i saw you insulting' and its case closed. i guess they dont wanna spend 5 of their 10 mins - that they spent in game per day - helping a person and fixing en error/removing an unfair ban. i even saw someone got banned for votebanning in front of me where they didnt even do a single vote but only be in the room, because a friend told them that they were the ones banning and mods didnt even wanna check, they were told that they were in the room and had votebanning sanctions in their ban history, and the staff wouldnt even listen to a word we said

a dit :VoirMasquer

I know this, because I saw those moderators process from zero to a public staff, and for most of them, their behavior immediately change once they are promoted. They are no longer part of the players, they are part of something far more superior. This is how it is for a lot of them. They won't tell this to you, because as Peanut specified, most of it only happen internally.

what ediz said here explains it all, and its one of the things that players keeps saying the most, you know just like auron says 'those with power use that power', this is all about it. btw i didnt get fired or anything, its just i have seen how corrupted this can get, firsthand. i like the game, the admins the community, everyone that wanna help or do something good... yeah i kept it short tysm.

Did you really try to talk to us? Because you are not innocent in this.

If we decide that we are no longer can take care of this server and we have so much going on in our lives, then we can leave in peace. Believe me on this. No one is holding onto their powers in private mod status.

We all are trying our best here and we almost check our forum, discord messages everyday and reply back to those ones that need our help.

Also those things Ediz and you are talking about is long long ago. As an ex mod you should've known better. In TR, we are short of mods and it's getting harder and harder everyday to be active on public account. You know the essential idea of doing it in this case and you also know the community. Those things are not excuses, those are straight facts.

Hello everyone,

Thanks for the replies in this thread so far. As most of you know, I'm currently a NL moderator and usually do not moderate any other communities -- mostly due to language barrier. I agree I haven't been the most available moderator in the past, and some of you have asked for more transparency. I hope with this post to provide some.

Please keep the chat civilized. Constructive feedback is always welcome (you can always send me a PM on the forums, I will answer within 14 days), but insulting left and right will not help you -- and us. Most of these concerns might have been brought forward in the past multiple times (I agree we're quite slow on this), and we apologize for not taking actions sooner. However, I hope it is not yet too late. Let me know if you wish to receive transparency on a regular basis (if wished, we could set this up regularly by posting this in a topic to keep you all informed of the current status of several topics, and inform you of any new topics that may arise).

Mod Statistics

The EN Team currently provides information regarding activity (as can be found here in the tab #Mod Statistics).

Surveys

As found here, we're looking for responses on how to improve ban appeals. Internally, we're also discussing how to handle ban appeals overall -- perhaps by improving customer service? Should we add a bot on Discord that handles these appeals? Meli is actively joining this discussion to see how we can improve ban appeals, as well as responses to several tickets.

Also, we're planning on handling more surveys in the near future (and no, the 'near future' in this case does not mean 'more than xx years'). If you have a topic we'd need to improve on, please do not hesitate to send us a PM.

Support bot

For the newcomers and those who are interested, we're currently developing a Support bot that will answer several commands, with more functionalities in the future. It's still a work in progress, and I'm out for holiday this week, so don't expect it to go live today or tomorrow. However, the bot is (for us) an improvement.

Updating several topics

Several items on the website are fairly outdated, and several staff members are pitching in to update these.

---

a dit :

If we decide that we are no longer can take care of this server and we have so much going on in our lives, then we can leave in peace

Even when i talk to the old staff members i get the same response, tr server is like the current staff teams playground and they run it the way they want, favo goes all the way, btw not that i care, so yeah noone is gonna leave, when someone does its only to rejoin with another undercover account like it happened in the past. Stop insulting the the players and try to listen to them for once, what majority says and what i have seen in the team is the same thing, many years have passed but they keep seeing the same excuses, yeah they are excuses not facts. Trust me people already stopped believing stuff like we are short of mods or its getting harder everyday.

None of the things i or ediz said are long long ago, as an ex mod i sure know, thats why i say its sad to see even after years nothing changes, same people same things, deja vu yes, -looking at you ediz-

King a dit :

Gavin a dit :VoirMasquer

King a dit :VoirMasquer

Excuse you @Gavin but I haven't brought up any names, there is no reason for you to censor and edit my post!
if you have a problem PM but do not power abuse. I have done nothing against the rules or anything that wasn't similar to
the rest of the posts. wtf?

If you have a complaint against a specific staff member, you should contact them privately (as you mentioned in your post). I left the rest of your post up since it was general, however with the amount of statements you make against this staff member, it was easy to deduce who you were implying in the second half. There's really no reason to discuss the individual in this thread. If you want to discuss your Discord ban or something else, you should reach out to them.

Why are you lying though? I never mentioned a specific staff member I referred them as 'to the mod'
never named usernames or gave hints to their. every person refers to the moderators the same way, why are you targeting and lying to your false use of power, please unedit my comment.

Almost everyone agrees that the criticism and feedback should be constructive. Targeting one moderator in a condescending way will help no one. If we want positive and meaningful change, we need to focus our energy on the system and its processes overall. Complaints about individuals should be taken directly to the contact form or to another staff member. There are some valid points brought up in this thread, and these kinds of spats are counterproductive. We've seen positive responses (at least in my opinion) so far in this thread from staff and even one of the administrators, so let's not ruin it with chat like this.

Sharpmuffinz a dit :

Rutabega a dit :VoirMasquer

King a dit :VoirMasquer

Gavin a dit :VoirMasquer

King a dit :VoirMasquer

Excuse you @Gavin but I haven't brought up any names, there is no reason for you to censor and edit my post!
if you have a problem PM but do not power abuse. I have done nothing against the rules or anything that wasn't similar to
the rest of the posts. wtf?

If you have a complaint against a specific staff member, you should contact them privately (as you mentioned in your post). I left the rest of your post up since it was general, however with the amount of statements you make against this staff member, it was easy to deduce who you were implying in the second half. There's really no reason to discuss the individual in this thread. If you want to discuss your Discord ban or something else, you should reach out to them.

Why are you lying though? I never mentioned a specific staff member I referred them as 'to the mod'
never named usernames or gave hints to their. every person refers to the moderators the same way, why are you targeting and lying to your false use of power, please unedit my comment.

Almost everyone agrees that the criticism and feedback should be constructive. Targeting one moderator in a condescending way will help no one. If we want positive and meaningful change, we need to focus our energy on the system and its processes overall. Complaints about individuals should be taken directly to the contact form or to another staff member. There are some valid points brought up in this thread, and these kinds of spats are counterproductive. We've seen positive responses (at least in my opinion) so far in this thread from staff and even one of the administrators, so let's not ruin it with chat like this.

While I agree with you, I made a post targetting a specific moderator solely because admins clearly do not look at contact forms, and I have been in contact with multiple mods about the issue I (along with multiple other players) have tried to communicate with a certain mod. I chose to use this thread because The forum is not very active and this seems like the best way to get my message out.

I've tried contacting the mod who banned me as Lexa mentioned

Lexa a dit :

Did you really try to talk to us? Because you are not innocent in this.

but surprise surprise I was ignored on discord, forums & in-game PMs that shows you how open some of these mods are to discuss their bans even if they were in the wrong some of them won't want to admit it, they forget they're humans who can mess up but then you just start getting so emotional about it and write to admins but your email gets ignored for the 9th time until you get tired and just give up but still won't get anything back, because mods are always right and players are just a bunch of regular mice who hack and get banned but when they're unfairly banned and the mod who banned them doesn't give them a single chance to talk or review the ban it gets to them and when it does there's nothing they can do about it because who are they compared to a "moderator" the game's just in a really bad state

Perhaps moderators could use Acer, Santa, ... to code a pro bot that is a reverse engineering of the clone-player hack. Basically, this bot would record everything from a specific being-watched player (movements, maps, near objects, chat messages, even emotes(?)) and whatnot, then it would generate an unique code that would be executable at any moment. This execution would redo everything recorded from that specific player - thus becoming a proof against or in favor of the player. Not the final solution, but a step towards the solution for all these unproofed punishments.

I think it's time to think outside the box instead of just counterattacking players with "you're lying about how we work" and start acting like a team that truly wants to improve, bringing new systems, new rules, new members without the need of relying on our suggestions or ideas. You have tons of brains in there waiting for something to happen. Use them...

With that, I'd like to congratulate Santa#0010, who tried to be the most sincere and transparent possible about future projects. You rock :)

sz as sz

I've read most of these comments and I disagree with your approach to the issue of hiring friends and the repeated denial of allegations that it occurs in the first place. It should at least be acknowledged that it has happened in the past and continues to happen to a degree. You'll see that I'm going to talk more about "persons previously known" than "friends".

The "hiring friends" thing does happen. It can be refuted to an extent, but at the end of the day it is an issue. I am going to address this in a way mostly dissimilar to everyone in the thread, who has been taking a stance of either accusation of refutation. Instead, I will explain the problem with hiring someone you already know in a different sense. This is going to sound massively pretentious and largely inflation of personal opinion, but there is a valuable point to it.

The hiring of staff needs to be a lot more rigorous than before and sadly, that requires more manpower than is currently available. Should the members of staff be more active, it might be doable, but it isn't much more than a pipe dream at this point in time. That is why you are, generally speaking, more likely to be hired or considered above others for the position of staff, particularly moderator, should you be known to the members of staff prior to your application.

It could be said that knowing someone before they even apply is beneficial because of this, but when you already hold positive or negative biases to someone before considering them for a position of power, you are objectively in the wrong. This is based on the very founding notion of a liberal democracy in which almost all of us operate. The whole idea of an application process is to hold oneself, or in this case collectively hold ourselves, behind a veil of ignorance where all previously known information regarding the applicant disappears. That is how you hire someone. You get to know them in the process, not before the process.

My dad worked for years hiring names upon names of fantastic people using this same method. I've been lucky enough for him to talk to me about it and for some of my studies to align with his explanations. When you get to know someone in the process, you are remaining behind the veil of ignorance. You should always consider applicants to the heaviest extent and reveal their positive and negative qualities, their compatibility or incompatibility with what you are trying to achieve. Being able to get on well with the other members of staff falls under this compatibility, but does not come close to the whole of it.

What a moderator, a sentinel or a member of mapcrew is trying to achieve should not have changed one bit. You can tell pretty quickly who is compatible with and ideal for realising what a moderator should be trying to achieve. Those who slack are not compatible with those ideals and frankly, should be fired. There is no point in keeping dead weight and giving superior airs to someone who doesn't care about the job they signed up for and committed to carrying out. Staff know best the type of character I am referring to because there is case after case of this occurring. If you don't care about your job or show considerable inactivity, you should not be a member of staff. If you lack the confidence required to carry out your job, you should not be a member of staff. If you lack the necessary independence to make decisions on your own, you should not be a member of staff.

These are the pitfalls of hiring someone that you already have formed an opinion, or partial opinion about. They are also pitfalls of hiring anyone, to a lesser extent. The aim should be to always, always, always hire the best fit for the job without compromising the veil of ignorance. You should not use a single morsel of previously known information to hire someone for anything. You should also not hesitate to cull the herd of dead weight.

However, staff is massively short handed, communicates poorly and cannot or will not perform investigations and interviews so rigorous as to achieve this. That is why they hire their friends, or people previously known to them. They don't exclusively hire their friends, but it does happen and that much cannot be refuted. It is unfortunate that the serious and necessary reform to the hiring process, among other staff issues, will likely never be seen to because of the lacking resources for realising such reforms.

On the note of inactivity, I think a rehiring process would be ideal. These dormant mods are a bit of a burden, but I think that is being addressed more than before.

Thanks.

EDIT: While one might have friends, or persons with an already formed positive opinion of them among staff members, it is equally likely that they will have enemies, or persons with an already formed negative opinion of them. The latter is far more problematic in the process of hiring and tends to hold quite an immature viewpoint on whether or not a person can change. I can attest to this from personal experience.