An open letter to the staff team

Recently there seems to have been a spate of negative sentiment regarding some of the staff team’s recent actions. I won't go on a huge rant about VKL’s denial, since, well, VKL is VKL. However, the result seems to have caused some anger amongst the community. So this is an open letter to the staff team—a plea, if you will, for answers.

First off: How much input does the community really have in determining the status of applications? While VKL received numerous upvotes, the application was still denied. Denial of a candidate who the community highly values has become a trend. Although in VKL’s case this denial was justifiable due to his rude comebacks to commenters, I feel that there should be more of an effort to explain the rationale behind decisions. Having already been staff before, I can confirm that there are closed-door discussions on both suggestions and applications. Therefore, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to ask for a bit more transparency there.

For example, an application denial might look like this: “Denied. While you've shown great improvement over the last few months, we don't feel as if you're quite ready to handle the responsibility of being a helper. Your last ban for duping on 9/29 indicates that you wouldn't hesitate to jump at the chance to abuse power for your own benefit, and we can't condone that kind of behavior on the team. If you keep your record clean and continue to help people in shout, we'd love to see you apply in the future!”

It doesn't really take that much effort to write a quick summary of the discussion, does it? Now don't get me wrong—sometimes denials are written this way. But other times, the applicant is left completely in the dark as to where they need to improve.

Now as I mentioned earlier, I won't really argue that denial, as I personally think the staff team made the correct call. However, after the denial, a few threads and comments have been removed by the staff team. Ideally, there's room for dialogue. Though oftentimes these threads can get tricky to moderate, neither deleting entire threads at a time nor removing comments critical of the team is the correct way about this. As we can see, these deletions have led to situations such as an unidentified member (it's not Lordusan by the way, Courtney) writing in the ban appeal section. This “us-and-them” attitude between the high staff team and the player base cannot continue, and I'd like to see that addressed, either in this thread or elsewhere.

So in short, please stop deleting threads and removing “anti-staff” comments. They really just stir up bad feelings and inflame tensions even more.

Finally, on a completely different note: ban appeals. While I agree that some members may be toxic and don't necessarily deserve a second chance on the server right away, I'm not sure denying ban appeals with a message like “Denied. You are not welcome on the server again” is productive. When people see that, they're unlikely to give up on the server and walk away. Rather, they'll ban evade, troll the server with alts, and create a nuisance. Therefore I propose leaving the door open—something like “If you don't ban evade for 2 months, we’ll let you back onto the forums. Then if you contribute on the forums, we'll let you back on, but you better not cause trouble.”

And finally, a message to the community: don't treat members of the staff team like crap. They spend a lot of time ensuring that Meep stays up and running, and none of this would be possible without their efforts. We can't go “$&@! THE STAFF TEAM CORRUPT HATE DOWN BAD REVOLUTION,” because that stirs up emotions on their part, and makes them more resistant to change. So as the cliché goes, kill ‘em with kindness (but firmness).

 

staff teams loss, not mine xd

 

I believe the community does have an input to a certain degree. When I look at applicants the first thing I look at is how the community views them for instance when I was demoted a plenty of people questioned the decision where others may agree with the teams choice but I highly believe I was only accepted to the staff team again because I had a decent amount of players backing me and I have not changed since I started, I still focus on having fun with the community and do say how I feel about certain topics not being bothered about the consequences because I do not care much about my reputation. So I take into account the communities votes when making a decision for an application but I also have my own vote, if I do not trust a player I most certainly will let them know but that does not mean I can not work along side them so my personal vote can clash with the communities but if everyone has faith in someone I am more than happy to give them a chance.

When it comes to helper applications being denied prematurely it should not happen unless the applicant requests it. If it gets to the situation where people are personally attacking one another and blatantly being a prick for the sake of it the comments should be deleted. But at that same point we will have those exact players targeting staff members saying ''everything I said was true why are you supressing it'' ect ect. I believe the application was denied right away since it turned into an absolute mess and we most certainly would not accept a player that treats everyone opinion poorly. Don't get me wrong he replied in a way he shouldn't of but I thought it would be a great idea to give him a week to see what a staff member deals with on a day to day basis, it would have been quite interesting for myself and I bet I would have had a good laugh.

I agree with you it does not take much time to put in effort to help a player understand what they may need to improve on to have a better chance with their next application. I shall use a reply I made to a lad when I made an application, while making the reply I had been asked by staff ''are you still denying it'' I responded with ''yeah just give me a minute.''

Thank you for being eager to become a staff member, unfortunately your application has been denied.
On this note please do not be hasty to leave Meepcraft or re apply, you are a valuable person to Meep community. I believe if you stick around and gain more server knowledge you will become a great candidate for the helper position. If you plan on creating another application in the future between now and than I highly recommend looking at the accepted application to help inprove the structure of your own. It would really benefit you to look over the rules and try out all aspects of Meepcraft to further improve on what you know about Meep. If you have any further questions I will be more than happy to answer them!

With that message I left it is the last sentence that mattered the most, he did contact me on forums and we had quite the conversation about things to improve on to which I hope he does apply again in the future. I will get the staff members to go the extra step in order to help an applicant with what we believe they need to improve on.

I understand your concerns about staff deleting an anonymous persons appeals that are not actual appeals but threads targeting particular staff members. I am having a complete laugh over it and hope one pops up about me because I believe they can not change anything by these ban appeals. At the same time however I am really disheartened that they go on to publicly shame someone, I don't care how much someone leaves a bad taste in your mouth at least have the set to own up about being the keyboard warrior. There is also people having drama between each other to which they complain about the other person but have not talked to each other in a half decent manner. I have extended my hand to one side offering them a chance to be heard so only time shall tell and that goes for you mister mysterious with the ban appeals.

You may have your views and opinion but I do not see a ''us and them'' attitude because for myself I do things with the community and if there is a voice that can't reach the staff team I provide it. You don't know how many times I have hassled the team about jobs and infected (shout out to my Aussies) but at the end of the day I feel that I am the same as the common player with or without this Supermod rank I am just another person playing this videogame. When people have something to say to me I am always happy to talk about it whether it is a problem on Meepcraft, something you enjoy or you just want to tell me what you think of me good or bad I am glad to talk on Discord.

I would like to talk to these people on discord to address their beliefs, if they are reasonable I will tell them straight to the staff team and if they dislike them so much you will see a Supreme oKling again. If they are just going to bash a single person and create accusations at least have your identity revealed or tell the player what you believe yourself, if it is something constructive like this I am fine with it. Being an outright prick to someone I could not care less what the decision is to delete it, quit acting like a hard unit over the internet and talk to them on Discord where they can actually listen to your words.

I agree with this point it is quite rude to say someone is never welcome again, I rather use the phrase it will be quite some time before you are considered being accepted due to the reasons ___ ___ ___ because they might go the extra mile and put effort into acting better after a few months. But at the same time if it is a person that contributes nothing to the community positively I really don't care if they never play Meep again.

If anyone wants to treat me like crap for how I do things on the video games staff team talk to me on discord, I've already had a few and they are great.


If you ever want to talk about this more mate I love having a chat on Discord so I will be more than glad to arrange a time.

 

Thank you for the open letter

 

Nice letter, I feel that I can relate to this message.

 

still is relevant

 

#staffcomplaints
#itsnothard

 

ok thanks

 

"Open" letter. Not a "closed" letter. It's kind of moot if only the 3 people in high staff can see it.

 

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

are you okay or...

there's a number of reasons why the staff only consider their votes when choosing fellow staff.

1. the non-staff have nothing to lose

when staff vote, they have to vote virtuously and in a way that reflects the good of the server. a non staff can literally vote for whatever they want it won't matter because they aren't being held to any standard and they dont have to set an example. if a staff members votes for a toxic staff application, they are jeopardizing the server. they need to keep the server's best interests in mind, and not their own personal bias, which is what generally happens when non-staff vote, unless your name is courtney responding to vkl's application.

2. non staff are biased, and are allowed to be since no one cares how they vote. but staff can't be biased since they have superiors who hold them to certain standards

3. why would you respect the opinion of someone who isn't in staff to choose who is ready to be in staff?

its a perspective issue

4. the community is mostly made up of 12 year olds who don't understand how a functional collective works and doesn't have the proper tools to see the impact of their choices

 

Don't want to spend too much time on this but,

1) The community does not really have a place in moderation. Only in times of very clear abuse of powers in a ban or the anger of the community of a certain rule in the rules section sparks resentment should the community to voice their opinion on the matter of moderation.

2) If someone is denied, if it be ban appeal or application, the approach is to reach out and figure out why it was denied. Usually a sentence or two if given why it was denied. That desire to go into depth and detail is actually something that people look for and determining if someone genuinely wants to be unbanned. Its a huge factor that goes into staff personally sticking up for people.

3) Its Vkl.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 28, 2016, Original Post Date: Dec 28, 2016 ---

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

 

i mean they are supposed to

but

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

So I talked to @KlutchDecals on teamspeak, and he addressed some of my concerns.

Most importantly, there's a lack of communication between the community and the high staff team. While the intention of these threads isn't to bash the staff team in any way, they can often become a salt-fest and an anti-staff circlejerk (yes I reddit, deal with it). Obviously if everyone is yelling "you suck because xyz, you suck because sdkldufhad, you suck because..." staff is going to be less receptive to actual constructive criticism. So I implore you guys to keep everything civil so we can actually have discussions without them being locked.

Although I value being able to see other peoples' opinions on whatever matter we're discussing, Klutch is always available on TS or whatever, and he's very willing to talk about your concerns. Try it--it's always good to see your opponent's perspective.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 28, 2016, Original Post Date: Dec 28, 2016 ---

thanks for answering. first of all it wasn't a rhetorical question at all--it was actually a legit question that i was curious to have answered.

I'm definitely not saying that everyone should be able to choose their own staff members, because that would obviously be a ****show and result in someone like 2013 vkl becoming admin which obviously nobody wants. but on the other hand, there's then no need to create an illusion of choice and input. if we're allowed to +1 or -1 an application, but ultimately the community has no input, then what is the purpose of commenting on an application?

 

+1

What if the superiors are biased?

9 year olds*

 

I blame the economy

 

please if you don't have anything constructive to add to the discussion just don't post.