Goonhub
05-28-2021, 07:58 AM
Admin Behavior In Cool Zone
From its inception, this was a space to discuss "heavy topics." Unsurprisingly, this caused friction between incompatible ideologies. Admins both current and former have behaved badly there, from getting into shouting matches, talking disrespectfully to community members, to breaking TOS policy. These issues haven't been ignored, there were internal discussions almost every time. Sometimes they were productive, with admin members agreeing to police themselves more, sometimes staff have chosen to resign over it. Importantly, the perception that these issues are simply ignored is false.
Prejudicial Treatment of Community Members
Over the life of the Cool Zone, certain members have stood out as very vocal, passionate people. They defended their beliefs aggressively, and tended to be involved in the disputes that would require administrative actions. As such, they started to gain reputations. Rats is one of those people, and she's acquired several bans for violating the same rules. This does not excuse the failure on our end to do our due diligence in properly investigating one of those reported violations that ended up being grossly exaggerated. That was a failure on our part, and the ban was reversed shortly after. However, in most circumstances that administrative actions were taken, a clear violation had occurred.
We have deliberated privately on your comments, but exposing the details of the bans because another player has made a complaint would be unfair to Rats. Therefore we are refraining from making that discussion public. She is of course free to appeal her ban or post an admin complaint of her own via the usual means.
Fundamental Flaws in the Administration Structure
While internal discussions would happen over the appropriateness of certain actions, words, and behaviors that current and former admins would take, we've relied on their ability to self police. This hasn't always worked out. It's an issue we are aware of, and while we appreciate the offer of outside help, we feel that it's a matter others who are not currently moderating, coding, and maintaining the game and community should not be handling. Suffice to say that while this is something that was already being worked on, recent events have made it more of a primary focus.
Regards,
The Goonstation admin team.
From its inception, this was a space to discuss "heavy topics." Unsurprisingly, this caused friction between incompatible ideologies. Admins both current and former have behaved badly there, from getting into shouting matches, talking disrespectfully to community members, to breaking TOS policy. These issues haven't been ignored, there were internal discussions almost every time. Sometimes they were productive, with admin members agreeing to police themselves more, sometimes staff have chosen to resign over it. Importantly, the perception that these issues are simply ignored is false.
Prejudicial Treatment of Community Members
Over the life of the Cool Zone, certain members have stood out as very vocal, passionate people. They defended their beliefs aggressively, and tended to be involved in the disputes that would require administrative actions. As such, they started to gain reputations. Rats is one of those people, and she's acquired several bans for violating the same rules. This does not excuse the failure on our end to do our due diligence in properly investigating one of those reported violations that ended up being grossly exaggerated. That was a failure on our part, and the ban was reversed shortly after. However, in most circumstances that administrative actions were taken, a clear violation had occurred.
We have deliberated privately on your comments, but exposing the details of the bans because another player has made a complaint would be unfair to Rats. Therefore we are refraining from making that discussion public. She is of course free to appeal her ban or post an admin complaint of her own via the usual means.
Fundamental Flaws in the Administration Structure
While internal discussions would happen over the appropriateness of certain actions, words, and behaviors that current and former admins would take, we've relied on their ability to self police. This hasn't always worked out. It's an issue we are aware of, and while we appreciate the offer of outside help, we feel that it's a matter others who are not currently moderating, coding, and maintaining the game and community should not be handling. Suffice to say that while this is something that was already being worked on, recent events have made it more of a primary focus.
Regards,
The Goonstation admin team.