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Hey look, it's another reply you probably won't read, but I feel it's necessary. But it isn't some "mystical, magical, special role". If anything it's basically "Veteran Moderator". Someone who's more than trusted enough to handle the extra responsibilities as well as being a trusted source of information for not only players but for Moderators who may not feel as confident in their authoritative abilities. Plus, becoming Admin is basically stepping down the importance ladder. Let me explain, the ladder goes like so: Randoms/regulars/members > Mods > Admins > DM > DLs. Why? Because members/randoms/regulars are the most important part of the servers. They make up like 95% of our population. Without them servers would be barren. Next are Mods, these guys basically work for the former. They make sure they enforce rules to keep the servers enjoyable for everyone and keeping the non-staff player base happy. Admins help out Mods and Players by enforcing rules, but by also teaching and helping newer Mods (and maybe even old) to be better at their job. DMs are next, these guys help to choose who gets promoted, basically who they think would be the best choice to keep the player base happy and on the servers, as well as the aforementioned duties. Finally, there's DLs. They do all of the above, but also make sure the servers have the maps, plugins, and settings the community wants to keep people on the servers. TLDR: The "higher" you get on the ladder, the more you have to humble yourself because you basically get more bosses and more people who depend on you. I'm gonna stop you there. No, it isn't. It's to make sure the candidate is able to handle the job, not only in a responsibility way, but in various personal ways. For example: I've been a Mod 3 times, Admin once, and DM once, if I reapplied for staff right now I'd probably get Probationary Mod for the sole reason that my work requires a weird schedule so activity is tough for me. Would I care? No, because even I know that's something I'd have to work on and improve. While I agree this is an issue, and staff should be versed in all servers, some may feel like they're not as experienced with a certain server's rules to enforce them (or they don't like the gamemode). It was like that with me and Jailbreak. I didn't feel like I knew the rules as well, so I'd ask someone who was more knowledgeable in that area to take care of it, you know, to do the job correctly. Also, I don't feel it's just server based, but more uhh, clique based. There are cliques within the TF2 div, I know, shocking right? Point is, these people may not be groups who regular one server but stick with just their buddies. Anything their friends do is totally fine, but if someone outside of their group does the same thing, then oh boy, here comes the member protest/abuse report. This goes hand in hand with the previous topic. While I feel, yes, witnesses are important, especially since Staff can't see everything, just someone saying they saw something happen doesn't make it true. Allow me to give a ridiculous exaggeration to prove my point. A group of buddies in the TF2 div don't like a player. He's a big meanie and they don't like that kind of thing. 5 come forward and say "Admin ____ abused! 5 of us saw it!" and bam, guy gets in trouble and buddy group removes their nemesis from the ranks. Though that's a far reach, this could happen by "just taking their word for it" Another thing is, you're telling me, that 15 people saw this happen, and none of them took a screenshot or could type "record demo" in console? Ehhh... To be honest, letting people condemn someone without evidence promotes sucky, bandwagony mentality... Agreed. We're all humans here (as far as we know..), so treat each other like one. Again, agreed. But this whole thread was made due to you not getting your much anticipated promotion. Was the promotion anticipated because you wanted to serve the community more, or because you wanted a higher rank? If you enjoy serving your community, you'd be content with Mod, since you still get to enforce rules and (try to be) somewhat of a role model for others. This is coming from someone who's been Mod 3 times, and all 3 times was happy to make the servers I could call my TF2 home a little bit of a better place with what little I could. For the most part, I agreed with you until I read this: It was then I decided to go back, read everything again, and make a response here. You've said like 8 times that this is a volunteer job, which it is, so how thankful of a job did you think this would be? Whether you like it or not, this is a volunteer job which requires a lot of work, energy, and dedication (well, at least if you want to do it right). Plus the fact you said you wouldn't try to justify anything you said or even "bother" responding, and that's an awful mentality to have. "You proved me wrong, but I'm still right and I don't have to prove it, I'm right!", which sounds pretty immature... If you truly felt there was a huge amount of bias against you then, you know... Talk to the Higher ups, find out why they may not feel you're ready for promotion or why you aren't promoted yet, and if the reason is "Ehh, I just don't like you". Then work to change their mind and prove them wrong. If you felt it was more extreme than that, then contact someone even higher than them, tell them you feel biased against by DL ___ or DM ____. And final note: You coulda posted all of this without stepping down, or by talking to the higher ups to bring these points to their attention. They'll listen, they aren't gonna bite. Worded the way it is, your post sounds more like the ramblings of a disgruntled employee rather than a concerned community member, but do whatever you feel is necessary. If you ever decide to come back, you're always welcome.

Alright then, how about this? DM/DL ____ says "I don't see you on servers very often", so the appropriate response is "Oh, well then screw it, I quit"? How about instead you find that higher up in a game on our servers and join it and maybe play with them a bit? You know, show them you're alive? Do this a few times and "I don't see you" becomes "Hey, you're pretty active!" Standing out doesn't mean wearing a lime green Scout set and hitting people with a pan, it means showing a lot of initiative and potential with being staff. When the time comes for promo/demo, staff would be able to say "Hey, you know Mod ____? They do a really good job, they're active, and they're super mature, we should promote them" Ok, I feel I need to squash this attitude, because people keep thinking this is how it works. If one person -1'd her, that doesn't mean she was barred forever from being promoted. That person had a reason to -1 her. Even if all the others +1'd, if the one who -1'd gave a really valid reason why they shouldn't be promoted, then obviously that reason was good enough for the other higher ups to agree or even change their mind. As @Bello said, "majority rules" is fairly flawed. If we had 15 higher ups +1 a guy, but one person -1'd them because they constantly abused, then that -1'er had a good reason for doing so. Hell, the others may not have known that, and that one guys -1 could turn the 15 +1s into -1s. However, one person -1'ing doesn't automatically mean a "no" either. I've seen instances where one higher up would -1, but all the others would +1. If they have a good reason to strongly suggest that player, they could still be promoted. You getting a +1, a -1, and a neutral does not seem like a yes to me. That means only 1 of 3 dentists approve, and don't think you're ready. Like I said before, Probationary Mod is for making sure someone is ready for staff, not to go "Hey, let's throw powers at this guy and see what happens!". They still have to feel you'd be responsible with those powers, as limited as they may be. Final Note: While I don't condone bias against a player, the higher up(s) who -1'd Spooks had a good reason for it. They genuinely thought they weren't ready for the position (again). And from the way she stepped down, they may have been right to do so the whole time. Spooky, huh?

From my understanding, people vouching on member or staff threads is meant to just inform the higher ups that there are people who are willing to vouch (or do the opposite) for you being possibly good enough for the position and give them a heads up on how you are seen in the community. But in the end the decision is almost entirely up to the the higher ups and the vouch is just suggestion which is why it may not seem like it does much.

*Any underlined text is personal opinion* Not what she meant. Pretty good point on the second part, though. I think she was more pissed off that she got probationary moderator for zero reason at all. She did a great job as staff the first time, but she stepped down because personal reasons/TF2 was getting boring. She feels like she was being unfairly treated and rewarded for amount of work she put into the servers. She was given a fairly large amount of recommendations and thinks that they were disregarded completely. She feels like she was pushed aside even though she was doing just as much as the others who were jumping ranks for sucking more higher up chode than she was. Now, I'm only trying to break down a few of her points, I'm trying to leave this as unbiased as possible as an attempt to not cause a shit storm. Hopefully this might better explain what she means, @Goblins : )

This right here. It honestly bothers me how people leave, comeback, and expect their spot back. Let other people have a chance to show what they can do. Also, maybe this is a hint for a staff structure reform? Either that or clean up some (potential) grey areas.

Details very soon!!!

HI old friend, CS:GO community servers are pretty dead, it's hard to populate servers that aren't DM or Retake, we are revamping a bunch of stuff over the next few months though :D Hope you've been well

Old enough, good memories and such

The thing is, she did talk to the higherups about it and I personally believe she was very qualified for admin, especially considering that she was admin before. From what I heard, she didn't really get anything to improve on other than things like "you need to stand out more", but why should you stand out? If you're not doing anything to stand out, couldn't that be a good thing since that means there's not really much negative going on? And why does it matter if someone doesn't stand out? If they do their job well, then that should be good enough to get a position. Also the thing about the whole magical position thing is how it feels to her, not how it's actually meant to be. I agree that it's meant to be a position that you earn and that it's for more experienced staff and whatnot, but how I think she's trying to say that that's not how it is

CONGRATULATIONS! Your membership application has been accepted and you are now a member of Xeno Gamers! You can now add the [xG] tag to your in-game name! To begin your membership, familiarize yourself with our rules listed below. This is highly important and knowing these rules will keep you safe from bans! Want to get more involved in the community and qualify for Staff? Here's how! 1. Be active on our Discord server! You can download Discord here, and join us using this link ! 2. Be active on the forums! This is one of the best ways to keep yourself informed on things happening within the community and for your voice to be heard! 3. Be active on our servers! This shows that you're committed to the clan! For a server list, click here. Come check out our staff list to see who is who on the servers, click here. For a list of our server rules and guides, click on the appropriate division: [TF2] [CS:GO] [GMOD] [Minecraft] [Nuclear Dawn] WE HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR STAY! Note: n/a

I never really got the chance to know you well, but I am sad to see you go, and I hope you're happy wherever life takes you in the future, and I truly believe you did a great job as a staff member if that means anything at all coming from me. I'm gonna touch on just a few points made here: With some of the decisions made there isn't actually an announcement made and it's only spread through rumors and that's the only way people figure out about certain changes in the servers, whether that be a slight rule change or where certain boundaries are for spawnkilling in surf.. one person can say one thing, then another person says another thing and then everybody gets confused. Or at least from what I've seen as of late. It's always been a fact that some staff have their niche servers that they play on, and then they rarely play on anything else. But as of late the servers have honestly never felt more divided amongst the staff team or players in general, I've been trying to space myself out from more than just surf lately but even at that there's some staff that I've never even met whether that be from the different times we play, inactivity or whatever it may be. I think a big thing that needs to be worked on is this in specific, so that not only higher ups but the staff team in general gets to know who they're working with better so disagreements don't happen so often, and so it doesn't seem like bias when one person gets a staff position over another person.

I don't know if this is a glitch but my account shows that I have 2 alerts, but when I go to click on alerts, it say that I have no alerts.

You can't just label yourself as Old xG. That title will always and only be held by CS:S.

not like this

Late 2011 early 2012 were the good ol days imo Various reasons that I have posted in all these kinds of threads before, but back then everyone was pretty chill and didn't get incredibly salty over nonsensical shit. We were not a safe space. We had legends among us.

I don't know what period of time you're referring to but I would undoubtedly prefer it to this one.

I'm leaving xg for good. This is my only and last formal goodbye. In case you didn't know what happened I'll sum it up. 7 months ago now I took a break from being staff for personal reasons that I chose to keep to myself. Tf2 wasn't fun for me at the time. The drama in xg was unbearable at that point. There were several decisions being made that in my opinion weren't in the best interest of the clan. No I'm not going to go into detail about them because I can't be bothered. I came back roughly a month later 2 weeks after pyro update dropped and it took a lot of time an mulling over to forgive tf2. At this point I was hearing a lot from community members that missed me being staff(not just other staff) and eventually I was convinced to come back to staff. Now since I stepped down quietly I was expecting the process to be easy. It was not. Instead of resuming my position as staff I'm put unfairly into a probationary role solely because of 1 higher up's bias against me. I was being punished for no good reason. I was assured that it's no big deal I'll most likely get admin back as long as I keep staffing well. I got mod quickly and ended up staying mod for the last 5 months. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. In fact multiple times I even considered just giving up entirely, but I decided to stay for the people in the community who actually appreciate what I do. I stayed because the servers liked having me. I don't know what the accused hold up is now and quiet frankly I'm over hearing lies and excuses like I have since I first got staff. From the beginning it was "who the fuck is ms. spooks?" "You need to be more established with the community" "you need to do more." "I never see her online so I can't make a good opinion on her" etc. Now keep in mind since I was considerably new staff at the time it wasn't a big deal. However time started passing by and I've watch many staff (you know who you are) go from member to admin before me, and now they're dms before I've even gotten admin back. I kept asking what am I doing wrong and keep getting the same run around. "Nothing, why?" just to be followed up later with some half attempted accuse "Oh you just need to do more." As time went on that clearly didn't end up being the full truth getting comments like "If you did more you'd already be admin" "You're not entitled to admin" "You're too passive" etc. It's not fair that I do the same amount of work as an admin, spend more time than a majority of the mods, and have been an established community member for 2 years without even a blemish. Now some of you will take this as an outcry because I didn't get a rank that's just slightly better than mod, however my problems run deeper than that. It's not fair that I had to harder than other staff the entirety of my time of being staff. It's not fair that I keep getting pushed aside for other staff who are better at sucking off the higher ups than I am. I'm done playing the charade of "work a little harder" "Do a little more" Because even with the backing of multiple staff and plenty of recommends it clearly doesn't mean jack to you. It's incredibly disrespectful not only to me but other people who have gotten this treatment to string us along like a grunt. I'm not your lackey. I didn't become staff to do your job, and I most certainly don't see anywhere that says I'm supposed to suck you guys off in order to even get looked at. It's beyond hurtful to continue to be punished for things out of my control and more importantly I didn't do. This is my only request of all of you staff. If you're not my friend and you're only friends with me soley because I'm staff. Get the F U C K off my friends list. Get out of my servers. Get out of my life. I have enough garbage I have to deal with in my life and I don't need more fake people around who don't care about my feelings. Stop pretending to care about what I have to say then just doing the same garbage I'm complaining about. I have rooted for and defended most if not a majority of you even if we haven't been the best of friends. I've stood up for you and I tried to be there when you're down. It's funny to me how people forget the people who rooted for them when they get power. I have been mulling over for the last couple days what all I'm going to say when inevitably I say goodbye after being shafted again for no good reason. So I'm going to finish this with a list of what xG should improve on. 1. Staff are volunteers not lackeys This "do more" mentality and backwards logic of having more mods than admins is part of a huge issue that doesn't respect your staff equally. despite all staff volunteering their time and efforts to improve the servers and the community. Treating admin as some mystical, magical, special role that's Juuust out of reach feels really really shitty for all the mods who have to work harder than other staff to prove themselves. 2. Stop using probationary for no reason. This is a punishment role. It's used for staff who don't deserve a full demotion but still want to make things right as staff. Likewise It's used for people who have a dirty history. Stop slinging it around for every person who you don't feel like fits the personality mold even when they've done nothing to deserve it. Stop using it as a compromise because 1 higher up doesn't like the person. It should be used to establish wrong doings not "We just trust you a little less." 3. Majority matters. It's been a huge problem for a while where higher ups have to make unanimous decisions. What this means for all the other staff is that if 1 higher up disagrees despite everyone else agreeing on said thing. It won't go through. The voice of one is too strong in this community specially for higher ups who don't go on servers enough to see what is going on or that just choose to disregard the intent of the community and more importantly the other staff. To fix this, it should be that majority rules. It should be that the community or staff vote count for 1 higher up in of themselves, because giving the people no say is what's going to kill the community. 4. Be transparent. All decisions should be clear, concise, and have good *valid* reasons. It should be your goal to be as unbiased, well informed, and clear as possible. This under the table garbage that's been going on is just sleazy. You don't want your real opinions out there and you don't want to be held accountable which quite frankly is an embarrassment to your role. Be open and honest with your staff and not just string them along with excuses everyone knows are lies. If you make a decision you're accountable to that decision. Don't just keep letting everyone else have to figure it out. 5. Stop only caring about people in your respective group. This is a big clan with large divisions and even in tf2 large sub divisions. Its been an issue for a while that surf staff only favor surf staff and tgh staff only like tgh staff. Unfortunately it has even gone as high as the higherups. Just because you haven't played on the servers (which isn't a good idea anyways) doesn't mean you should give only people in your respective server the special treatment. If you want to be taken seriously you have to take others seriously as well. It's ok to get more information to form your own opinion, but it's not ok to say it's not your problem because it's not your server. 6. Witnesses matter. I'm all for innocent until proven guilty, but some of you take this as an opportunity to ignore issues all together because no tangible evidence. Staff witnesses have just as much say as a normal witness, none. It doesn't matter how many people say a person did an action because without proof you're never going to confront the issue. You make no effort to gather more information. It doesn't help when you expect people to be recording EVERYTHING that goes on, and to be honest if you are wanting people who record everything just to nail one person it's a pretty sucky, bandwagony mentality. 7. Stop treating other staff like dirt. This is to all staff. Stop staffing over each other when someone else has it handled. I'm not talking about you both get on at the same time or accidentally warn at the same time. I'm talking that another staff handled the call, they're already trying to resolve the issue, and you jump in gung hoe and start shafting them. It's not acceptable. Trust the staff members to do their job. Unless you have to make a decision that involves perms only you have as staff it should not be happening that staff are stepping on each others toes. Likewise, Mods are volunteers. Means they donate their time and energy into the servers just like you. Stop talking down to staff who are a lower rank and stop kicking them around because you can. Stop rubbing your rank in their face. They get it. It's not acceptable to disregard another staff as a whole just because they're a lower rank. 8. Share the interest of the community not just yourself. There has been many times where higher ups have made decisions under the table that are looked at negatively by the community or ultimately effected them negatively. Yes we get you like this one plugin idea and the other higher ups are all for it, but when you implement it out of nowhere and it effects the players to the point of complaining about it that's not in the interests of them. Part of making the community a better place is by making it unified, and when you keep making decisions that effect a mass in the community you create division. With all of that in mind I want nothing to do with this community anymore. If you're really my friend you'll accept that. I'm not going to keep getting a run around, doing your jobs, and investing time and energy into a clan who doesn't care about me back. I'm not looking for a debate here. I'm not justifying any of my points. I'm not going to bother responding so don't bother baiting for a response. No I'm not changing my mind. I don't know if I'll ever come back to xg after all that it's put me through. I don't want your excuses so don't bother sending them to me. I may still come on the servers once in a while but you're not going to get much out of me here. Goodbye xg.

This. This sentence right here. This sentence defines the reason as to why I haven't gotten staff yet. What I am about to say is most likely going to affect my chances now, but I have talked with higher ups. They told me the same thing. One person -1, another +1, another neutral. I guess that automatically means a no right? Well it shouldn't. Just because there is a single -1 shouldn't change the fact of getting declined or not. At least keep the application open for a little bit. (Also this might be a problem happening with me but +1 on staff application doesn't feel like it does anything. If it does, I have 0 chance of getting at least probationary mod because nobody sees my fucking application. A great example is my last application; the one before my most recent. Anyways. Back to your regularly scheduled immediate no staff for sepdick.) My main point here is this: Higher ups need to talk more instead of having an instant decline because one of them doesn't like him/her/helicopter/catboy or doesn't know him/her/helicopter/catboy. Actually use the probationary moderator to see what they can do. If they don't do well, then they don't get full mod and get put back to member. Anyways as for Ms. Spooks herself, I am sorry that shit isn't going right for. It was to suck to be moderator for as long as you have and not get promoted. My biggest hope right now is that I wasn't part of the reason for you leaving. I try my best to be nice to everybody. I just feel like I didn't talk enough with you. I'm sorry for not doing so. Truly I am. I hope that everything works out for you in the future. Thank you for everything you have done for the community <3

Bring rum and bananas.

We're old xG too now ;)

You know it's too long gone when it's only people referencing tf2 about the "good ol days" @Aegean :(

Haven't posted in this thread for like a year, so here you go:

As of now these are a few of my favorite songs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Pt7M0weUI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXouBlC2yP0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlhn6uz1J1k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=htSGJhlal-k;t=0 but my favorite song of all time is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_B9znfZ7Ws