[quote]The only thing I have to say right now is that I agree with the point that incidents that break the Guild's rules (as simple as they are) should definitely be reported to the moderators. We [i]are[/i] active but we often don't see what isn't brought to our attention as the staff is currently comprised of people who work full-time. 

We trust the userbase to self-police most of the time. We're janitors, not police officers. That said, what can't be solved by reprimanding each other and reminding offenders of what the rules are should be PM'd to (one of) us. As it stands, this very rarely happens. I assume this means that my help is practically never needed. If that is not the case, the responsibility lies with the users to involve one of us to render judgement. 

Mahz's continued absence is a result of his current workload and living situation in Mexico. There is nothing that can be done about that.[/quote]

I think just saying 'this is how it is now' isn't actively helping beat the problem. Because even if you are satisfied with the way things work now, I can safely say from the interactions in the (now locked) thread yesterday that in fact a lot of people are dissatisfied with the way moderators are currently going to work. As I mentioned in the other thread, that isn't meant to critique you or your colleagues, because you guys are doing this voluntarily, but I think it's not a fair assessment to say 'people don't PM me, [i]therefore[/i] everything is fine.' 

Because it's the opposite. There's a lot of drama that you are unaware of (because it happens off-site, or not) that trickles over into RPG, noticed or not, and to the receive the response that it's off-site and therefore not important is disheartening and tells me I can do whatever I want off site to harass people into slipping up on RPG. Or perhaps it's a sign to you that says 'people aren't PMing me, but somehow are raising concerns in a discussion thread, perhaps there's a reason people aren't PMing me.' Something such as a lack of trust in moderators to deal with issues according to (what they perceive to be) fair and equal manners. Because I definitely feel like the rules are applied rather arbitrarily and at will. And given the discussion yesterday as well as discussion in my discord server has shown that I am not alone in this. 

And like I said before, again, I respect that you guys are doing this thankless job voluntarily and for free. But moderating is also a commitment and I think it's fair that the playerbase expects you to actually do something then. Working full time is fine and well, and it's a good thing, but I don't think it's an excuse to say that you're not omniscient, because you have 4 staff members for an average of 200 members online during peak hours. I don't know. I don't want to say 'I feel like you should be online and present more' but really, that's what it comes down to. Because 4 staff members should be enough to monitor 200 active members at peak hours. And evidently it's not, as you just stated yourself that you guys aren't aware of what is happening most of the time.

As for Mahz, there is little to say about that. I can't blame him because he's doing this as a service, for free, and that is to be respected. But at the same time it's not really realistic to say his prolonged absence has made it so that RPG is now stagnating. I'm not even sure why veterans hang around RPG anymore, because there are so many broken features that are not fixed, and so many useless features added that do not contribute to the core of RPG.

The arena system comes to mind. A new leaderboard for a dead subforum. Amazing. I see a whole 20 matches have been played to completion. Awesome. Meanwhile I still can't dependably access visitor messages where I left them and someone replied to them. I raised that issue, if we're being generous, when Mahz was still active, and he made a ticket for it, and it remains unfixed to that day. 

So yes, maybe having someone else here who can take a look at code and so on might be useful. Preferably someone drawn from the playerbase ([i]roleplaying is for nerds so it shouldn't be so hard to find a coder, right?[/i])