[Necro]

I'd just like to pop in and say thank you all again, the greater feedback has been interesting to say the least. I'm going to do my best to remain impartial. The first I wish to address is the idea pitched earlier by J to have this thread be a Nexus point. While I wholesomely agree with that is the mindset presented earlier that any random person can just come in and grossly abuse, one suggestion I never heard come up to rectify this is putting the link to the actual members lounge that is account locked

No one has yet addressed the tools I suggested where active moderation could still take place in which Google Forms has built in filters and safeguards to prohibit spam. Surveymonkey actually records IP addresses for active moderations that can easily take anonymity completely one sided and still get the unrestrained response that comes when people believe they are "invisible". This isn't a hard concept as our opinions come out more comfortably and open the more we perceive we are hidden. The anonymity part is to get open, honest answer that still carry that truthful weight. Power of perception is pretty neat, right? Almost.

I have had good friends and members who are either at their upper limits or have just gone over it due to a variety of circumstances I have no permission to go into any further detail aside from it's not black and white. Do I have a clue what that means, not even the slightest, but as Cocoa pointed how staff need thick skin to do reviews and deal with the individual in an appropriate manner; members need to have that just to deal with their peers and I can scroll through months of conversations related to these that show me exactly that people are afraid to go to staff. Those not on the team any longer cited suffering the same problem any of member faces.

Obviously something is not right and needs to be addressed. How so also depends on the delicacy or boldness such a deep rooted issue there is. I have cited this multiple times so I'm not going to be a broken record there. A small touch on the people leaving (omg Necro where don't you have insidious knowledge?) Most those are from byproducts this suggestion made. Inciting needless aggression and oppression, tacking on what I intend along with their built-up experience have led them to come to a decision and I only questioned till I get an answer of it was their clear of thought actions and not a reaction. I hope it i return things be Good standing

[Mint]

After the VC chat last night with several staff members present, and especially after hearing the thoughts of both Cocoa, Tact, and J, I can confidently say I am put more at ease, though am honestly still hesitant.

I absolutely hate that people have actually left over this, or are considering leaving. Yoshi convinced me to take down my appeal to archive my characters. I did that, though admittedly with hesitation.

I want to believe that over time everything will work out. There have been many valid points made on both sides of the argument by both members and staff, and I believe that is crucial.

I am in agreement that something had to be done, though I also understand these things take time. I mentioned it last night, and I'll say again that staff can't fix things they don't know are an issue. You do not read minds. The tension is clearly there, but you have your own lives and responsibilities that do not always allow you to hear every little conversation going around on site.

As for Necro's point and coming from someone with a background in cyber security, IP address is still a concern as they can quite easily be masked. They also made a valid point that it could potentially be used for harassment and false claims.

I understand now why an anonymous survey may not be the answer we are looking for, but perhaps it has become the spark to further discussion to find that answer.

If anything, perhaps it has, in its own way, "broken the ice" of the conversation. Maybe that will help even on its own.

As Cocoa said to DM your 'favorite staff member' I have done this on several occasions to express my interest to Yoshiko (calling you out, sorry), but there are several staff members that I do genuinely like and appreciate. This isn't really a permanent solution though. I could come to Yoshiko about every troubling problem (report or mention worthy), but all that does is pile more and more on their plate. Then, where is their outlet? Where can they vent or take a break?

I want to openly apologize to anyone that I've hurt or made uncomfortable with my words or actions here. I truly am sad to see that some people are leaving the site, despite my feelings for them. At the end of the day, they are a part of that 'team' as well.

Either way, I'd like to see what you guys (staff) are able to come up with...I want to give the site a chance to work through the knots. I hope others that have submitted appeals to archive their characters follow that as well.

[Inuzuka Tsume]

I just wanna hereby support Necro's and Mint's words specially tho all others because this words represent how I feel about STAFF as well. I sincerely hope we can improve our community and it's environment ^^.

[cocoa]

Thank you all for your continued feedback.

I want to say that as a community, we don't come to the point of people fearing approaching staff in a vacuum. There are things we as staff can do to make ourselves more approachable and help to bridge this gap, but there are community-oriented solutions as well.

When I first joined the site, I never felt particularly afraid of approaching staff. This is because I didn't really engage with the community as much, and I didn't see the things that I sometimes see members say to new members. Things like "my ideas Always get shot down," or perceiving and communicating us as a clique.

Our current moderation team is in many ways more flexible than the team that was here when I first joined. Yet there's still this perception passed down from old members to new ones that we're draconian authorities who hate fun - even if these are jokes, these kind of comments need to stop being made to new site members if we want them to be comfortable and confident approaching us.

We want your criticism and your feedback, we want to know what we can do better, but a consistent negativity is something that exacerbates a problem and erodes staff/member relationships without staff doing anything at all.

We do not value certain site members over others, we want as many people to have fun as possible and we do what we can to try to make ideas work. At the end of the day we'll always seem a little fun-killer because we're trying to maintain rules and maintain balance, but that doesn't mean we dislike you or your ideas personally.

I've had ideas shot down, too. Clans and equipment, etc., that other staff members have told me no on. It happens more backdoors since we can ask each other perspectives and work out how feasible things are before posting since we happen to communicate a lot, but we give each other the Hard No, too. I do not get any more leniency on concepts than anyone else, and I would not favor the feedback of another staff or an "influential" member over the feedback of anyone else.

Obviously staff members need to work on how we present or carry ourselves as well to fix this issue, but I think community-wide there are solutions as well in how people talk about staff to each other.

Bouncing around these conceived notions of how we behave when there's no evidence leads us to this situation where people are afraid to speak up at risk of being banned, even though we've never once banned someone for criticizing us. That's a community-oriented perception, and there's nothing we can do to stop its spread if we're already NOT doing the thing people are afraid we'll do.

We're going to do our best to work on the issues here, as Tact outlined in their very thoughtful response. But we need the community to work on their side, too. We need you to Encourage new members to come to us instead of being nervous, we need you to Not start negative narratives, we need You to come to us with problems. We can help these perceptions together.

My problems with the anonymous survey, namely lack of accountability and follow-up, remain, but I will try looking into survey sites this afternoon anyways.

In the meantime I do think approaching your most trusted staff member is still a relatively sustainable situation. That staff member can bring the concern to the rest of staff relatively anonymously if that is what you prefer and still have the potential to follow up.

[Yoritomo]

I've already had a lot of back and forth in the VC back on Saturday so I'll try to keep things as brief and simple here as I can. I disagree with the general idea of an anonymous submission regardless of how it's done. I also disagree with the idea floated in voice of having a "member advocate" being appointed. Both ideas would be far too easy to be abused. It is my honest belief that either option would devolve into the site becoming a popularity contest with members who don't get along with a particular clique getting anonymously reported either through the anonymous report system or from this member advocate who would likely get voted into the role by whichever clique happens to be the largest.

One of the original sentiments was that the staff are just a clique which shows favoritism to individuals on site and give them preferential treatment. This seems to be where the notion that we'll ban people from the site who truly annoy us. This is despite in almost a nine year run of the site we've had a grand total of nineteen individuals get banned, about two fifths of which were staff being banned for abusing their powers. Even individuals like Cen or Ghost who were part of the group which most blatantly abused their powers did not get banned because they had already left staff and it was their friends who abused staff powers. These people could easily have fallen into the camp of "people who the staff are annoyed with" back then yet low and behold they did not get banned just because of that and are still free to join the site to this day.

I will also take this moment to talk about favoritism as it seems to be one of the words of the day. A lot of people might like to point at the incident from VC the other day as a clear example of favoritism. Of Faire getting in trouble despite Natsu calling her an expletive. Allow me to share the reasoning for this. Faire, mere hours beforehand had told me she intentionally baited Brat into getting banned and if necessary I can provide a screenshot of the exchange. So when I saw Faire stating multiple times that the player should have been stripped of their character I was in the process of telling Faire to stop baiting Natsu, Natsu snapped at her. Both were in the wrong at that point so instead I told them both to drop it and move forward. Natsu took that offer to back out while Faire didn't so Yoshi gave her a temp ban. Even with that I still went to Natsu in her DM's and chewed her out for her reaction, even if it had been a baited one. If it was just me showing favoritism to Natsu, I'd have banned Faire and not given a second thought of Natsu's action. Even after Faire got a temp ban I didn't hold it against her and gave feedback on stuff she was working on with no malice.

Now, let me also take this moment to make it clear so that you hear it from me and not some rumor that runs rampart or gets twisted out of hand. I vented about a part of me that saw dozens of people at each others throats and wondering if I should just shut the site down or quit and let someone else deal with it. I've had these thoughts probably a hundred plus times over the years, but like I've said before while I may bitch and moan about aspects of being staff or running the site, I'll probably be here until the place is well and truly dead. Whether that death comes a decade further down the road or within the next ten weeks I can't say.

What does make it more likely to be sooner rather than later is four people up and quitting after the thinly veiled critiques against them or individuals like them in the thread. While no names were explicitly mentioned, it doesn't take a great deal of mental faculties to see who's being referred to. What makes this even worse is that I know for a fact at least three of the people involved in this thread are making their own sites to head out for if they didn't get what they wanted which admittedly makes it much more difficult to take some aspects in good faith although I am attempting to do so, but it is difficult when I get DM's from multiple people saying "Hey these folks are trying to recruit for their site."

The largest issue here that I've seen is a failure of open communications. Partially its people not being in the loop of certain decisions being made by staff, people assuming the intentions of others or even to a small extent hiding their intentions in general and a lot of things not properly being recorded or lacking evidence. A great example of this is people having arguments in voice and then coming to the staff when there's little we can do about it and feeling that we only are not doing things because of favoritism when the reality is we have no evidence to go off of. And I'll be entirely up front with saying that I've brought it up to staff as to whether we should remove voice channels or make it so that people can not join by default and voice will only be opened up when a staff feels like sitting in there with them. That way they are present should some argument happen and it can be acted on right away rather than turning into people just attesting to something happened.

Another thing that has been at least mentioned in the voice call the other night was potentially bringing back public announcements of any punishments handed out. We did do this for a certain amount of time, but we did away with it due to the argument it could harm the reputation of the punished when new members join and just see their punishments listed. Instead we went to having a private disciplinary log within the staff board where we kept track of strikes and the like, with any punishments being given out through DM's typically, but if it will alleviate concerns that punishments are actually being given out then we can bring those types of things from a conversation in DM's/PM's to the public domain once again.

As far as I can see, the main fixes for all the main problems are firstly people being more honest to one another, whether that be how someone is treating them, what they want done, their feelings towards other members or staff, etc. Secondly people reevaluating their expectations. Both staff and members need to reevaluate why they're here, what they hope to accomplish, where their priorities should be and what they want from others and yes to an extent whether this is the site for them. Keep in mind, I hate anyone feeling they need to leave the site, but just like as of the latest count five people have recently decided that they're not having enough fun to justify the time being spent here I don't blame them for leaving either and will happily take Necro, Q, Yamato, Sharp or Natsu back should they feel like rejoining. Lastly a lot of us need to remember that this isn't highschool. That we're (mostly) adults with jobs, families or a mountain of other responsibilities that are our lives and be more understanding of one another.

So as a final note, much like Cocoa I ask you all to be open with us. If you can't be open and honest with us about matters it makes it is simply impossible for us to even try to meet the expectations you might have for us and in the end if we disagree with something or make a ruling that is not liked, understand that we're not out to get anyone and are just trying to make what we see as the most logical decision based on the information.

[Uchiha Miroru]

I only have a few minutes but I wanna get a couple thoughts out real quick.

I sincerely appreciate the responses from staff. It does go a long way towards making me, at least, more confident in approaching staff. So that feels like a win to me as is.

I think a LOT of the current problems are stemming from well-meaning lack of transparency. While I understand the urge to try to insulate us from future ostracism for having a standing record of punishments, it also prevents us from seeing when staff acts to protect us and discipline offenses, which leads to the perception that staff is allowing or tacitly permitting abuses. Staff just saying "now now children pls stop", it doesn't actually stop attacks- it's like a schoolyard fight getting broken up with no punishments. The attacked still bear the bruises but don't get to respond, and nothing stops them from attacking again and stopping when asked. That, I think, in conjunction with some of the most frequent offenders being specific staff or ex-staff (I know they've been named but I still feel weird pointing fingers), as it feeds the IMPRESSION of favoritism.

Could we maybe have temporary announcements when someone gets disciplined? It keeps staff accountable for remedying damaging situations, and the messages can just be deleted a few days later after folx can be confident things were addressed. Just a thought.

Anyway back to work. I do feel significantly better.

Actually, one more thought. Please don't hold it against people trying to work on a safe place to land - it's been driven, in what I've seen, from a desire to maintain the community we've all built. When this thread started, the initial responses were worrying (I know you all were holding off to discuss and organize your thoughts, I ain't mad) and people wanted to try to have someplace folx could go if the response we got was "if you don't like it, leave." It really had a lot more to do with not wanting to lose everything and everyone if we weren't heard, and far less to do with getting what anyone wanted beyond that.

[Toff E]

Bouncing around these conceived notions of how we behave when there's no evidence leads us to this situation where people are afraid to speak up at risk of being banned, even though we've never once banned someone for criticizing us. That's a community-oriented perception, and there's nothing we can do to stop its spread if we're already NOT doing the thing people are afraid we'll do.

We're going to do our best to work on the issues here, as Tact outlined in their very thoughtful response. But we need the community to work on their side, too. We need you to Encourage new members to come to us instead of being nervous, we need you to Not start negative narratives, we need You to come to us with problems. We can help these perceptions together.

I have to agree with Cocoa on this, or, at least, the idea that it requires both sides to create a better environment. I will be the first to say I’m just as much the problem as Im not and that goes for everyone here. Someone has one bad experience and they get upset, and that sinks in quick. My issue with saying there has been no evidence of it happening though comes from situations I know about. Situations I know were brought to staff, and then never touched on even privately as "they’ve been talked to on their behavior” and that should go for any and all parties in a situation. Two members at each others throats? They should be talked to, not agreed with or disagreed with, but talked to.

As for where it began, from my perspective:
The one piece of demonstrably bad advice I remember being told in the past and one that even came up here is the line "If you dont like it you can leave.”

That’s not how you find middle ground to problems, it is absolutely a very polite and soft way to say "fuck off then” and I can not count the number of times I have seen that piece of advice echoed in our community. To me that’s part of where this all started. When you want to see change, good idea or not, emotionally charged or not, that line is a deflection and discouragement. That’s the attitude that I genuinely believe caused this rift, and I would personally like to see it stop. Its seen as "worrying too much about mechanics or not focusing on plotting” to make a suggestion. Its "not our place to try and make changes”.

That’s my genuine view of how it started. Comments that for the record dont all spawn from staff, I’ve heard this echoed on many levels.

Again though, this is not about somebody.

To follow on:

I absolutely don’t want to air dirty laundry, even if I absolutely am to those that have seen or been involved to situations related to the above, or dig up shit from the creek that’s been long since washed down the way; but that doesn’t mean situations haven’t happened. I know plenty of staff that have been clued in on situations and did as Tact wrote out as how to deal with them… only to come back empty handed on the matter as to anything even happening. Ive been on the receiving side of that and it makes you feel like shit. I also think its shitty for staff, volunteers or not, to be expected to resolve every squabble like we can’t act like adults. On either side of things, IT SHOULD NOT BE A PUBLIC EXECUTION OR SCOLDING, that is the worst way to facilitate anything and it would only draw more bad blood from others.

I can absolutely be stubborn and annoying, and it amazes me still to this day that I was and am able to be forgiven for situations or times that I had stirred the pot, and currently I am trying to not be the one stirring the pot at all. From staff and members! My own stress levels with the site have been out of a pure distraction into drama… its not hard to be forgiving, but it is hard to actually forgive sometimes. I honestly wish this to be over cause I really just wanna live in the way back machine of my few happy memories growing up watching pastel colored ninja wizard cartoons on Disney XD and Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim 100 episode marathon with my older brother. But to get there we all need to forgive past grievance and move forward if that’s going to happen. Don’t like someone? Avoid communication. Is it becoming a problem? Bring it to staffers to facilitate a conversation. Is it becoming a larger problem? Bring it to multiple staff members. I just wanna talk to my friends, which is the vast many of you, and vibe out on some sick ass ninja wizardry and muscle magic.

So can we all just enjoy our time?

[Sharp]

At the end of the day, I feel like I'm getting gaslit by a lot of the responses. I am going to collect some quotes that informed my response to this thread. Feel free to disagree with my logic, but my feelings about it are the same whether I've drawn conclusions or not.

"...this is an endless pit of drama and favoritism allowing others to control or skirt rules that others get reprimanded harshly for, by not one but multiple individuals."
-Necro

"Imagine, though, that you have a member who has time upon time again shown activity, loyalty, a wonderfully pleasant disposition, and has caused no issues. They really want a position, but ...oops... a member is holding that position but they haven't posted in 5 months (and definitely not applicable for general rule 10). Imagine that they are then denied that position. Why?"
-Mint

A discussion about rule 10 had occurred maybe a month prior and it had been established that someone has to be not posting and not reachable. At that time I even mentioned that if we want to talk about activity requirements there should probably be a direct discussion about it. Instead, it was tapped on in the OP and then rolled into this discussion in the responses. If the changes that people are saying need to happen aren't a reference to the "favoritism" and "people not applicable for general rule 10," and this thread was solely about harassment then it shouldn't have segwayed into activity discussion as a point in the first two posts. In politics this is called adding a rider. Now you can look at me and say, "How dare you be against ending name calling," or whatever even though that isn't what I am responding to.

Beyond the discussion in the forum itself, there are people in the chat and voice chat that have gone beyond making suggestions and have gotten into the area of straight up harassment. The current way rule 10 is interpreted means that Natsu is within the requirements, and because people didn't like that they feel the need to make sidebar comments about how inactive they are with things like "haha" emoji and straight up telling them to their face they should lose their characters. Then when they get upset and hit back, people ignored what led to it because it didn't fit the narrative they want to paint that all this retaliation is completely unwarranted.

There have been no direct follow up suggestions or discussions about officially changing the activity requirements and instead the community has decided to take things into their own hands. Even in a good faith argument in support of increasing requirements, coming after people prior to new requirements being officially established (or a change of enforcement) is not the way you do things.

Leaving isn't really about staff at this point. The idea that "slots make plots” and that people are secondary just isn't what a lot of us signed up for. Maybe at a different time I might have held a different opinion as I clung to centrism, but it was the appeal of a longer term experience that I could play at whatever pace I could muster that brought me back. While the rules may never change to undermine that, the prevailing culture certainly does.

There's no need to be upset. People are giving the cool toys back now, so now your Dark Age has ended and you are free to begin your Golden Age. Just be careful not to make hypocrites of yourselves.

Signing out,
Sharp

P.S- While I may have been harsh on this topic, I have no hard feelings. I may have strong opinions but I enjoyed meeting each and every one of you and hope that you can find whatever happiness you are looking for.

[Senju Kazuyuki]

Now I think I have a solution of sorts regarding members wanting to give anonymous feedback but staff wanting to hold members accountable and prevent abuse of such a system. I’m sure some of you have encountered it before, but there’s a discord bot called ticket bot that enables members to open private threads to discuss a topic with staff. The permissions can be edited so that only staff and the member who created it can see these threads, which would enable members to air out concerns to all the staff without other members being able to jump in on the issue. This would also prevent staff dms from being flooded with potential negativity whenever members have a concern. The threads themselves are easily closed by any one of the participants typing a simple /command, making them relatively easy to clean up as well. Personally, I feel like this at least somewhat helps with the feedback. Members can privately speak to staff about issues regarding the site, but since staff can also see their usernames any personal attacks or general abuse of the tickets can be noted and dealt with.

-Kitarial