Meth Quokka

Looking Back - 5 months have passed, what now?

@Odin if you don't mind me asking, what precise appointments would you point to as cases of nepotism?

Looking Back - 5 months have passed, what now?

It seems the story of my departure and return is somewhat less relevant now but nevertheless i feel it deserves a comment from me. Yes, resigning due to time was the majority reason but not all of the reasoning. There were some personal things that I'm not going to spread across the site because there are some things I like to keep private, as you basically said you understood why previously.

The activity comment; the primary difference between when I resigned and now is that I'm no longer at university and lost a 30-40 hr/week commitment whilst I was working 20-30 hours. The last two weeks got a little rough with work as I stepped into a caretaker manager role and I've had two days off in the last 15 days, one was tied up with some family stuff and the other I rather selfishly spent gaming. However every day I check my discord inbox and the staff channel. Sometimes I'm lax with the site's PM inbox but as I've said before, discord is the best way to reach me because of push notifications.

But I've received 6 reports in the last month, 4 were between the hours of 2-5am which is usually when I'm asleep and the other two I handled in less than 30 minutes. The only guild contacts I've had in my DM box besides that are personal guild conversations.

I said when I returned I wouldn't be trawling through the guild looking for things to do as a mod, I'm here to help users when contacted and to offer my opinion on any moderations issues that arise. If those two things are not desired by a sizeable contingent of the community, I will respect those wishes and step down. However, allow me to be self-indulgent and say I've not seen a single user suggest my return was a negative for the team and if someone does, contact me and I'm happy to discuss it.

Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi - The Orcish Mercenary Saga

Well damn, here I was thinking I was done with roleplaying. Then I saw this and it gave me that fizzle again. I remember having a crack at one or two of these in years gone by.

If I can pump out a character that isn't complete trash, I might just be in.

In Defense Of The Genre [Part II]

@The Spectre
Two parts to this answer.

Firstly the return, a while ago (around or month or two I'd guess) a fair chunk of my time freed up and I mentioned to Hank that if he felt like he wanted me back on the team, I'd be happy to do it. I was then invited by Hank a few days ago to rejoin the team as my perspective on this issue was wanted and I delivered that as I saw best.

As for my own activity, well I finished my masters degree so I'm no longer both studying full time and working full time. Will I be an active role player? I would say unlikely because I felt out of the loop with that a while ago. Will I be active on the forums? If I see a thread that I feel I can positively contribute to and piques my interest then I will be involved in it.

I'll likely be most active on the discord due to accessibility and quicker response times, but unless my work blows up something crazy and starts bleeding 6-7 days a week out of me, all should be well.

In Defense Of The Genre [Part II]

For some reason I'm awake again at 1.30am and deciding responding here is a good idea, so excuse any glaring errors that may exist.

@didgeridont
The first point I'd like to address is the need for private moderator discussion on this topic; as I have previously said we are a collection of individuals that try to make mutual decisions. We have different thoughts, opinions and processes by which we would respond. Therefore a chat were we can openly have our differences and reconcile them before we talk to users. Having an argument between moderators in public would not be a good look. We discuss as a team so we can operate as a team, that is it. No maniacal plans or evil intent behind a private chat, just somewhere we can hash things out.

There was a couple of questions at me from @Odin

1) Regarding the function: I believe so yet in remains in the admin team's hands to change that role function. If they decide champions of virtue for the forum are required then that is what will happen. I left the team during that thread so I cannot comment on the discussions or events that occured after till my reappointment.

2) Bringing it to the mods. As I said before I left use my discord. I run up a fair bit of mobile data keeping push notifications on discord so if you have an urgent issue hit me up. Bear in mind my timezone is a little wonky so that can throw a spanner in the works.

3) Screenshots and trolling. I may be misreading this but I don't think I've done any of those things. My contributions to this thread ahve been to see what I can personally do and to try and keep it civil where needed.

@BingtheWing The major call for civility was after the invoking of Nazi/Facism comparisons. I felt at that stage it needed a course correction as that breaches the realms of civility. May just be my opinion on that though.

@RWBY Spectre See above for my personal reasons for wanting a private discussion on it beforehand. It was part of our founding mod principles 4 years ago when Sherlock, HeySeuss, Lillian and I got together to hash it out. I still stand by moderators only standing out by position rather than being the old school sherriffs of the west.

@pugbutter sorry mate the 10 hour shift at work got the better of me. I'm here for however long I'm awake again if needed.

As for the ignition point, I wasn't on the site at the time, so I have no contribution towards that.

In Defense Of The Genre [Part II]

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@Didgeridont

I'm not here to create parity in the argument, I'm here to try and find a solution. I have no stakes in the argument that is being had.

I will never ban someone for constructive criticism when it's presented in a civil manner, which I'm hoping my actions in this thread are helping promote.

Asking for a little compromise from each side is the best way to find that path IMO. Anyone that knows me from my previous stint as a mod will know I owned up to my mistakes either publicly or privately, depending on the situation.

@Kangaroo
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@j8cob appeal 2

I can understand how you feel that way and accept that there's nothing I can do for your personal situation. However the compromises I'm asking for is how can we mend this rift for the betterment of the community. As I've said before, there are discussions being had between the mod team, we just need to find the appropriate solution that we cna all get behind.

In Defense Of The Genre [Part II]

Can we cut the Nazi references at this stage? The premise of this thread is civil and those kind of comments are nothing close to that.

In Defense Of The Genre [Part II]

I'm happy for this thread to continue as a discussion rather than an argument, which it is threatening to turn into. Once again, I cannot comment on the events that happened because I wasn't there at the time.

However what I will say that intentionally insulting a member of the staff, especially if you're unfamiliar with them is not a great idea. Yes staff make mistakes just like any other user, but that is not an invitation to go open season on them.

To me, mistakes were made on every side and finding a path forward is gonna take some compromises from everyone.

In Defense Of The Genre [Part II]

From what I can see there is no storage centre of screenshots for anything to do with this beyond the publicly available evidence chest, though maybe I just haven't delved deep enough into the lair of evil.

My position on screenshots for the record is that if they demonstrate an intent to break the rules of the site, then yes they should be used as a source of evidence to justify a warning or ban. Therefore I suppose if you felt the screenshot of a private conversation constituted some sort of abuse of power it would be understandable why you did it but don't be surprised if the person involved in the discussion is less than receptive to having private conversations screenshotted.

If that view makes me a hypocrite then you have no idea the meaning of the word.