Vexx

No ip match from what I can tell though, @Magoofy, please give us your steadID32 or just any link to your steam profile really.

Yeah lets just keep it for now, until we find an alternative to playpoints.

I don't necessarily understand why people are pushing for a permanent ban on this guy over a bit of BM in chat. It doesn't even look like what he said was actually directed at anyone, and simply general opinions on "furries" themselves. The kids like 14 or 15 and it's really obvious he just wants attention. I agree with Elcark, 1 week is plenty enough for something like this.

I don't necessarily understand why people are pushing for a permanent ban on this guy over a bit of BM in chat. It doesn't even look like what he said was actually directed at anyone, and simply general opinions on "furries" themselves. The kids like 14 or 15 and it's really obvious he just wants attention. I agree with Elcark, 1 week is plenty enough for something like this.

I don't necessarily understand why people are pushing for a permanent ban on this guy over a bit of BM in chat. It doesn't even look like what he said was actually directed at anyone, and simply general opinions on "furries" themselves. The kids like 14 or 15 and it's really obvious he just wants attention. I agree with Elcark, 1 week is plenty enough for something like this.

I don't necessarily understand why people are pushing for a permanent ban on this guy over a bit of BM in chat. It doesn't even look like what he said was actually directed at anyone, and simply general opinions on "furries" themselves. The kids like 14 or 15 and it's really obvious he just wants attention. I agree with Elcark, 1 week is plenty enough for something like this.

I don't necessarily understand why people are pushing for a permanent ban on this guy over a bit of BM in chat. It doesn't even look like what he said was actually directed at anyone, and simply general opinions on "furries" themselves. The kids like 14 or 15 and it's really obvious he just wants attention. I agree with Elcark, 1 week is plenty enough for something like this.

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.

Phew, this is going to be a long one.
 

Admin isn't necessarily all that special of a role. It is quite literally just a moderator that is trusted more. The only difference between moderator and admin is a the title, a few commands, and the ability to permanent ban. Nothing else. I can see why it may mean a lot to others, there really is no reason to feel disappointed for not being admin in my opinion, it's only a title.
 

The probationary moderator role is used for users who we are overall unsure of giving full moderator, usually because we don't know how they'll handle the position or if they can use their powers properly. Probationary moderator is a way for a user to get their foot in the door, but also allows us to see how they are as a staff member. While I usually dislike giving previous staff members probationary moderator, certain actions a user has done in the past can lead to us speculating if they're still able to handle powers as well, which is why they may be put into probationary moderator. The only difference between probationary moderator and normal moderator is just a few "fun" commands, they still get access to kick, ban, gag, silence, mute, and slay. Probationary moderators are still treated as full moderators, and usually go to full within 1-2 promo/demos.
 

When it comes to mod/admin, it usually is just a majority for those promotions, unless one of us is very strongly against a user getting promoted for whatever reason. When it comes to DM+ promotions I believe everyone has to agree, as it is a user we will be working with for a while. We do take the word of other staff members into account, if we got a lot of people saying "hey, this user should be promoted" we'll take a look and see if they should.
 

I cannot agree with this. Personal opinions and bias against a user should be kept to ones self as it can lead to some pretty bad decision making. Personally when I make a decision on staff members, I keep my personal bias from interfering with if I think they're a good staff member or not. While I do believe some opinions do belong in making decisions on who should be staff, like a persons past experiences with a user, it should only be taken with a small grain of salt.
 

I myself have tried to stray away from this kind of decision making, but unfortunately if I do not know a person I cannot make a good decision on them. Hardly ever do I see a user trying to contact me or other users trying to contact me about someone else. The most I see anymore is someone mentioning in the promo/demo that "Oh someone suggested that a user should be promoted" which is fine and all, but I cannot personally give a good opinion on who that user is if I have no experience with them. While I can blame some of this on myself, since there are just some servers I do not personally like playing on, I do wish people would make more of an effort to come talk to me.
 

When it comes to recording evidence, it takes a pretty keen eye to know when the right time is. Usually if I'm suspicious against a user or if the user had said one thing out of line already, I go ahead and start recording. While it isn't necessarily the most concrete way of gathering evidence, it works most of the time. The reason why we cannot take the words of others is because of a "bandwagony mentality". All it takes is one user to take something completely out of context, tell their friends, and the next thing you know its a mess. While I've learned from past mistakes as to why you simply should not simply take someones word on a matter, I can see why it may look silly from the outside looking in. Also if someone did say something on the servers that you feel was pretty bad, please remember we do have the rank website which is a great place for gathering evidence.
 

There should be none of this happening in my opinion. I usually try to step back from a situation of another staff member is already handling it, but if its obviously a situation they cannot handle like if there's a group of people causing the problem, I do try to help the staff member out. As for "rubbing ranks in their face" I've not experienced this personally but if I do see it I will talk to the staff member in question. There should be no reason why some staff should be treated differently than any other staff and to do so is just going to make us look bad as a whole, lets try to treat everyone as our equal.
 

When it comes to adding stuff to the servers, I usually only add maps without asking people as seeing peoples first hand experience with a map lets me better see if it should stay or not. When it comes to plugins I do ask around a bit as those can have a bigger effect on game play. While I do believe that peoples personal interests should be taken into account, I also do believe people should realize that everyone has differentiating opinions on maps/plugins/ect. That's why we make forum polls to remove maps/make huge changes to a server, so we can see how everyone feels about those.
 
While I do believe it make seem like we're being unfair or biased at times, I can assure you we try not to be. We're only human, not every decision we make is perfect. There's no way we'll know how some decisions will effect others until it's already made. Sorry you didn't get the promotion you wanted and that you felt treated unfairly but please keep in mind, we try to give everyone a fair chance. I hope I worded this in a way that does not seem aggressive or mean, I'm not the best at choosing the right words sometimes. I do hope you did not blame your fellow staff for any of this, it's not their fault. The only people you should blame is us, the higher ups, for anything you've felt as unfair.

Phew, this is going to be a long one.
 

Admin isn't necessarily all that special of a role. It is quite literally just a moderator that is trusted more. The only difference between moderator and admin is a the title, a few commands, and the ability to permanent ban. Nothing else. I can see why it may mean a lot to others, there really is no reason to feel disappointed for not being admin in my opinion, it's only a title.
 

The probationary moderator role is used for users who we are overall unsure of giving full moderator, usually because we don't know how they'll handle the position or if they can use their powers properly. Probationary moderator is a way for a user to get their foot in the door, but also allows us to see how they are as a staff member. While I usually dislike giving previous staff members probationary moderator, certain actions a user has done in the past can lead to us speculating if they're still able to handle powers as well, which is why they may be put into probationary moderator. The only difference between probationary moderator and normal moderator is just a few "fun" commands, they still get access to kick, ban, gag, silence, mute, and slay. Probationary moderators are still treated as full moderators, and usually go to full within 1-2 promo/demos.
 

When it comes to mod/admin, it usually is just a majority for those promotions, unless one of us is very strongly against a user getting promoted for whatever reason. When it comes to DM+ promotions I believe everyone has to agree, as it is a user we will be working with for a while. We do take the word of other staff members into account, if we got a lot of people saying "hey, this user should be promoted" we'll take a look and see if they should.
 

I cannot agree with this. Personal opinions and bias against a user should be kept to ones self as it can lead to some pretty bad decision making. Personally when I make a decision on staff members, I keep my personal bias from interfering with if I think they're a good staff member or not. While I do believe some opinions do belong in making decisions on who should be staff, like a persons past experiences with a user, it should only be taken with a small grain of salt.
 

I myself have tried to stray away from this kind of decision making, but unfortunately if I do not know a person I cannot make a good decision on them. Hardly ever do I see a user trying to contact me or other users trying to contact me about someone else. The most I see anymore is someone mentioning in the promo/demo that "Oh someone suggested that a user should be promoted" which is fine and all, but I cannot personally give a good opinion on who that user is if I have no experience with them. While I can blame some of this on myself, since there are just some servers I do not personally like playing on, I do wish people would make more of an effort to come talk to me.
 

When it comes to recording evidence, it takes a pretty keen eye to know when the right time is. Usually if I'm suspicious against a user or if the user had said one thing out of line already, I go ahead and start recording. While it isn't necessarily the most concrete way of gathering evidence, it works most of the time. The reason why we cannot take the words of others is because of a "bandwagony mentality". All it takes is one user to take something completely out of context, tell their friends, and the next thing you know its a mess. While I've learned from past mistakes as to why you simply should not simply take someones word on a matter, I can see why it may look silly from the outside looking in. Also if someone did say something on the servers that you feel was pretty bad, please remember we do have the rank website which is a great place for gathering evidence.
 

There should be none of this happening in my opinion. I usually try to step back from a situation of another staff member is already handling it, but if its obviously a situation they cannot handle like if there's a group of people causing the problem, I do try to help the staff member out. As for "rubbing ranks in their face" I've not experienced this personally but if I do see it I will talk to the staff member in question. There should be no reason why some staff should be treated differently than any other staff and to do so is just going to make us look bad as a whole, lets try to treat everyone as our equal.
 

When it comes to adding stuff to the servers, I usually only add maps without asking people as seeing peoples first hand experience with a map lets me better see if it should stay or not. When it comes to plugins I do ask around a bit as those can have a bigger effect on game play. While I do believe that peoples personal interests should be taken into account, I also do believe people should realize that everyone has differentiating opinions on maps/plugins/ect. That's why we make forum polls to remove maps/make huge changes to a server, so we can see how everyone feels about those.
 
While I do believe it make seem like we're being unfair or biased at times, I can assure you we try not to be. We're only human, not every decision we make is perfect. There's no way we'll know how some decisions will effect others until it's already made. Sorry you didn't get the promotion you wanted and that you felt treated unfairly but please keep in mind, we try to give everyone a fair chance. I hope I worded this in a way that does not seem aggressive or mean, I'm not the best at choosing the right words sometimes. I do hope you did not blame your fellow staff for any of this, it's not their fault. The only people you should blame is us, the higher ups, for anything you've felt as unfair.

I am still going to say no to this. We're not other servers, I want absolutely no form of paying credits to use a basic plugin like RTD. Some players can see this as "Pay2win" and I honestly can too. I personally do not want to gamble my credits to maybe get a good roll, and I doubt anyone else does either.

I was thinking if we added more donator commands to the hub, they would be session based instead of permanent. As for misusing, this is really a nonissue. People do make mistakes, but they will learn whats bad and whats not if you tell them. Only once have I had to remove someones hub noclip, and that was because the user had got it back when it was 10k. Personally, I don't see any reason to add more donator commands to the hub myself. Virr has a very nice "auras" plugin him and lithium have been trying to port over, and hopefully that will turn out working properly.

This would kind of alienate newer players who do not have access to an abundance of credits, and would kinda ruin the entire reason to have the RTD plugin in the first place. RTD is only there for players to have fun with it, having to pay to use that just seems kinda scummy imo.

I know there's no way I could +1 this without looking bias, simply because you are my friend. But I do want to say, you have genuinely changed since you've stepped down. I've seen you stay out of trouble and mostly try to keep to yourself when it comes to drama. I can understand people will probably want to -1 you based on past stuff, but I do hope anyone who does plan on -1'ing you genuinely tries to get to know you. Nobody should judge someone based on things they did half a year ago, during a bad time in their life. The time for drama is passed, lets keep things positive and try to leave actual criticism.

I'm really sorry guys, I just have not been doing a good job and I'm not enjoying the game anymore :(
I just wish I could have done more to help you all out in the servers, but I just.. couldn't bring myself to it, I let other things get in the way of my true goal, which was to turn the server into a marxist countr-, I mean create a safe and caring environment for all.
So I from this point announce my resignation after many hours of hard work I've put into the server, I hope you find some happiness in what I've done.
Again, this is me stepping down,

from minecraft ;)

The difference with those two maps is that they at least have SOMETHING to do with a game. Trainsawlazer is just a meme map, it has nothing to do with games at all.

I was shown this map by a friend of mine who's a map maker. He had told me that there is a lot of walls you can clip into and a lot of clipping issues in general. I'll talk to him again but I'm pretty sure this map is a bit underdeveloped.
 
EDIT: So I looked at the map myself, there seems to be no issues with it. Should be fine to add it, I'll try to add it sometime tonight.
 
EDIT2: Finally talked with that map maker. He said "You should've never added it in the first place" and I can see why. After adding it, map had many problems, a lot of spots where you could just straight up walk out of bounds. Red spawn could be easily shot into. Removed the map, sorry!

I was shown this map by a friend of mine who's a map maker. He had told me that there is a lot of walls you can clip into and a lot of clipping issues in general. I'll talk to him again but I'm pretty sure this map is a bit underdeveloped.
 
EDIT: So I looked at the map myself, there seems to be no issues with it. Should be fine to add it, I'll try to add it sometime tonight.
 
EDIT2: Finally talked with that map maker. He said "You should've never added it in the first place" and I can see why. After adding it, map had many problems, a lot of spots where you could just straight up walk out of bounds. Red spawn could be easily shot into. Removed the map, sorry!

I was shown this map by a friend of mine who's a map maker. He had told me that there is a lot of walls you can clip into and a lot of clipping issues in general. I'll talk to him again but I'm pretty sure this map is a bit underdeveloped.
 
EDIT: So I looked at the map myself, there seems to be no issues with it. Should be fine to add it, I'll try to add it sometime tonight.
 
EDIT2: Finally talked with that map maker. He said "You should've never added it in the first place" and I can see why. After adding it, map had many problems, a lot of spots where you could just straight up walk out of bounds. Red spawn could be easily shot into. Removed the map, sorry!

I was shown this map by a friend of mine who's a map maker. He had told me that there is a lot of walls you can clip into and a lot of clipping issues in general. I'll talk to him again but I'm pretty sure this map is a bit underdeveloped.
 
EDIT: So I looked at the map myself, there seems to be no issues with it. Should be fine to add it, I'll try to add it sometime tonight.
 
EDIT2: Finally talked with that map maker. He said "You should've never added it in the first place" and I can see why. After adding it, map had many problems, a lot of spots where you could just straight up walk out of bounds. Red spawn could be easily shot into. Removed the map, sorry!

Two areas of the map are related to gaming, a really small Minecraft part, and a Mario Kart area.

I don't necessarily understand how this is a problem, there are plenty of maps with the spawns "right next to eachother"

Abusing this room is already against the rules, as it allows normal users to exploit the map in a way that is not intended for them.

@Aegean got specific permission from the MassCC owner to use the MassCC map, as long as it is an older version of the map and not their current version.

Two areas of the map are related to gaming, a really small Minecraft part, and a Mario Kart area.

I don't necessarily understand how this is a problem, there are plenty of maps with the spawns "right next to eachother"

Abusing this room is already against the rules, as it allows normal users to exploit the map in a way that is not intended for them.

@Aegean got specific permission from the MassCC owner to use the MassCC map, as long as it is an older version of the map and not their current version.

Two areas of the map are related to gaming, a really small Minecraft part, and a Mario Kart area.

I don't necessarily understand how this is a problem, there are plenty of maps with the spawns "right next to eachother"

Abusing this room is already against the rules, as it allows normal users to exploit the map in a way that is not intended for them.

@Aegean got specific permission from the MassCC owner to use the MassCC map, as long as it is an older version of the map and not their current version.

Two areas of the map are related to gaming, a really small Minecraft part, and a Mario Kart area.

I don't necessarily understand how this is a problem, there are plenty of maps with the spawns "right next to eachother"

Abusing this room is already against the rules, as it allows normal users to exploit the map in a way that is not intended for them.

@Aegean got specific permission from the MassCC owner to use the MassCC map, as long as it is an older version of the map and not their current version.

Two areas of the map are related to gaming, a really small Minecraft part, and a Mario Kart area.

I don't necessarily understand how this is a problem, there are plenty of maps with the spawns "right next to eachother"

Abusing this room is already against the rules, as it allows normal users to exploit the map in a way that is not intended for them.

@Aegean got specific permission from the MassCC owner to use the MassCC map, as long as it is an older version of the map and not their current version.

Map has been updated.
-Closed.