Townhall meeting this weekend!

[bubs]

That is a fair point yes

[Flourish]

Hey, FishDance, I'm pretty sure that your post falls under "questions people are asking and want answered before the town hall", so I'm gonna do my best to address everything you said. Your post was a really good diagnosis of some of our largest issues, so it really deserves a thorough response. All of this is my interpretation and perspective on things. You'll probably hear a lot of these points over and over again during the actual town hall!

There seems to be a relatively large divide about the direction which the game is trying to head towards, and there has been for a very long time. Coders have always been empowered to work on passion projects, which in my eyes is definitely a good thing, but leads to a lot of disagreements not just within the community, but even among the wizard/coder/admin groups alone. 

I agree, and this is something that we'll need to work on. Like you mentioned in Discord, it's often just like a free for all, which doesn't really work out. We're hoping to address some of these issues with coder guidelines and additional policies. It's definitely a work-in-progress type thing though, so I don't exactly have anything tangible to offer you at this point. 

Often times things will require "the permission of the wizards," but from personal experience all that really means is messaging one coder/wizard that you know and asking them if you can put a thing in the game, and chances are if you've clout with them they'll make it happen for you.

I don't think most gameplay changes require the permission of the wizards, as they generally deal with more internal and community stuff (from my understanding and limited experience). However, you're right that if you have clout with people, you can make things happen. I'm not sure what we can really do about that, besides maybe being more transparent about the circumstances of new features and such? 

The admin team is so decentralized that the decisions of one wizard can have large overbearing impacts on the game, even if not a single other person on the team has heard of the thing being added.

You're right that there are large disconnects. For instance, I don't actually read anyone else's code; only their commit messages. Sometimes, I won't be aware of a new thing until I see it in the changelog or ingame. As I mentioned earlier, hopefully our new coder guidelines can provide us a bit more structure and accountability. And besides code, since you mentioned wizards; there were multiple instances where I wasn't aware that someone was admin'd until they showed up in the admin Discord channels. Though I was an admin and someone who would most likely work closely with these people, I had no opportunity to provide my thoughts or opinions, as only wizards were aware and had voted on them. I think this is a great example of how things have improved, though; now, all admins initially vote on potential admins (and can also recommend people), and then there's a second wizard vote. This still isn't ideal, in my opinion, but it's a lot better!

While it's perfectly alright, and honestly encouraged to work on all parts of this multifaceted game, it genuinely needs an agreed upon direction that is not just decided by the wizard team, or what the coders feel like making today, or what the players want to play, but a mix of all three. This should be something explicit that isn't too limiting, which details what kind of experience a player is supposed to have playing this game, and how they can expect it to evolce going forward.

I agree.

The feuding of many subgroups within goon management has been more vocal than usual in the recent years, and although censoring of these quarrels means that you only get to hear about it if you're in the loop, that doesn't mean that it's good for the game.

I also agree. While you can't share everything, out of respect for people's privacy and such, it's important to be transparent about what's going on. People care, and we should respect and reciprocate their care. While recent events haven't really impacted the game itself, they've seriously affected the surrounding community. Obviously you gotta be judicious, but often, trying to hide or censor things because you're afraid they might be hurtful just leads to things eventually spilling over and hurting everyone anyways.

Maid's post in the News section of the goon discord talks about three things, Cirr leaving, Zamujasa being removed, (both of which are given plenty of time and verbiage, with little to no detail about what actually happened), and then glosses over the fact that 10, TEN of the pillars of the goon community have left. These are not small names either, Haine, Spyguy, fukken Wonk himself?

You're right that it feels like we glossed over the fact that so many people left in our announcement, but I think the circumstances at least partially excuse that. Everyone was super tired, drained, and empty, and no one had the mental energy to detail everything that had happened. Maid did a really admirable thing by offering to write the announcement. He took our input, and that's what he got. I don't expect anyone to have known how all the admins were feeling, since we did keep things as internal as possible for the longest time, and I'm not saying that this totally justifies the lack of addressing those admins and their departures. That being said, I hope our upcoming town hall will provide an opportunity for us to tell you all more about who left and why. Like Bubs mentioned, often it's their business and not necessarily things they want to announce to everyone, but I want us to be able to tell you as much as possible, and share our perspectives. 

I really hate how it comes off like people are replaceable and can just be swept under the rug. People that were integral to the community, people that contributed so much to the server, people that I deeply cared about... It's shitty as fuck. I'm trying to do my best because there are people I still care about here, but that doesn't mean I've gotten over those who left or don't mind. 

Goon needs a lot of things. It needs a mission statement that the wizards/coders/admins/players can use to know what direction the game is going to be built in. It probably needs an administrative structural overhaul that makes it easier for people to be on the same page. What it needs more than any of that is a LOT more transparency about admin drama, updates, and general goings-on, because unless you know where to look, the community only ever hears the fallout of these events, and doesn't have any impact at all on them.

I wholeheartedly agree. 

Without trying to be rude, I don't think goon is going to do most, if any of that, and now with almost all of the old guard gone, old-goon is no longer on life support, and is just genuinely dead. Good luck with new-goon, don't ruin it too much, I loved this game once.

What do you mean by life support? What characterizes old Goon verses new Goon? I love this game as much as you did, and I'd appreciate your perspective. 

I guess, ultimately, however disillusioned I may be with both recent events and systemic issues, I still want to try. I hope my response was informative and/or useful! All of these topics and issues (and more!) will be covered in the town hall, but I just wanted to address you directly here, first, because I really appreciated your thoughts and care.

[sartorius]

What measures are being taken to ensure a disgruntled staff member doesn't leak the code again?

Who has said outright that they aren't coming back, and what are their reasons for doing so if they chose to give one?

In future, what will be done differently to ensure that dealings and conduct between the wizards and the rest of the staff remain at least businesslike?

[Tarmunora]

One thing that I mentioned in discord that I'd like to see answered in the townhall: Some policies/guidelines/something for what can/should be done with projects that are/were abandoned/discontinued for one reason or another. I realize that a lot of this will probably end up being case-dependent, but it would at least be good to know what the process for a community member picking up older code.
Specific things that I think should be noted: the future of flock (reskin? remove entirely? continue?), any adventurey-type things that may fall under this (if any), and what channels community coders can go through to get a 'go-ahead' before picking up any of these kinds of projects.

[Maid]

To address the news post i sent out:


There were a few reasons why I didn't include reasons for most of the staff who left. To get it out of the way, I did not mean to gloss over such a huge loss of staff, especially of people who've been here a long time and made huge contributions to both the game and the community. I'm sorry I made it feel that way in the announcement. I was and am continuing to try and give everyone space; The events that led to these departures are full of miscommunications and constant pressure, so it feels right to me at least to let people be. We all need a chance to decompress and process this stuff, both the folks who are currently on staff and those who aren't. I honestly still don't feel especially comfortable speaking on behalf of anyone who has chosen to leave, but we as a team want y'all to feel in the loop as much as possible while still being respectful of all the people who got caught up in the events of the past few weeks.

I'm sincerely sorry if my post added confusion and fear to a situation that already presents plenty of both. We're all still very much feeling this loss, but I know it's fresher to y'all than it is to us. I can promise you that everyone wants this place to be awesome and is working as hard each of us can to make that happen.

[Podrick Equus]

Will the town hall have a set time where it will end?

I presume the post will be archived in discord. Would it be feasible to go over important points and summarize them in a forum post, or a pinned discord message?

One thing that I see some groups do during such events is try to end them on a good note, so if there's any Good News or Announcements that you have planned then that would likely be the time to share them.

[Flourish]

Will the town hall have a set time where it will end?

I presume the post will be archived in discord. Would it be feasible to go over important points and summarize them in a forum post, or a pinned discord message?

No set ending time, at least from what I know. I presume we're just gonna talk until everyone has asked their questions, though that may end up being way too long. So maybe a set time would prove useful. We'll talk about this and let you know the details as Sunday gets closer!

The channel will be archived in Discord, yes. I'm not sure if it would be public facing, but we'll definitely keep a transcript around. And yes, it'd be feasible to go over important points and summarize them. Actually, one thing that would be neat, would be if players also provided their summaries of what happened, so we could get a better understanding of what you all thought and got out of it!

[Azungar]

Ah yes, hello. Even though you didn't specifically name me, I happen to be one of those people who decided that it would be best to move on from Goon and as there are concerns of privacy and that kind of stuff, I feel like I am in a perfect position to at least tell you my side of things. Should you be interested in such, that is.


EDIT: It should probably noted that these are opinions of a rather bitter ex-admin, so you should take them with a healthy sack of salt. I don't mean to particularly offend anyone, but neither do I wish to not present my opinions with the full range of snarkiness and annoyance that I get to experience on a daily basis.

There seems to be a relatively large divide about the direction which the game is trying to head towards, and there has been for a very long time. Coders have always been empowered to work on passion projects, which in my eyes is definitely a good thing, but leads to a lot of disagreements not just within the community, but even among the wizard/coder/admin groups alone. 

First of all, I disagree with you even on the basic principle of "direction". There is no direction and I honestly don't think there ever has been. Perhaps closest to something like that might have been Oshan when a considerable amount of people banded up and chose to work on something much grand in scale. Beyond that, it's all been passion projects and stuff that each of the coders has taken under their own belt. It can be good because those passion projects allow a lot of freedom and people are usually much more inspired to work on those things. But there is also that there are changes and additions that don't make sense in majority of the context. You're only touching the surface of the issue, because this also means that technically unless your feature gets a lot of people extremely annoyed or unless it does terrible things to performance, chances are that it won't be altered or reverted either. 

So in short, it's good but also bad. I don't think Goon could ever function like CM, because most people on the team don't share a passion or desire in creating something that is united. Goon is more of an amalgamation of good and bad ideas, that just sort of works. And sometimes stuff feels out of place or weird.

Often times things will require "the permission of the wizards," but from personal experience all that really means is messaging one coder/wizard that you know and asking them if you can put a thing in the game, and chances are if you've clout with them they'll make it happen for you.

Okay, honestly? I think we have four wizards who actively even contribute to the game and its code. Most of them are holding more of a "community manager" position. Nothing wrong with that, but just wish to state that wizards -VERY- rarely have anything to do with anything that you'll ever get to hear about. In the past, they have mostly given the green light on new admins/coders, who in turn have much more lasting consequences on the game. I think this is part of the reason why the system has fucked up so royally. At some point, the wizards chose to take in people who have views that are considerably different from that of some of the coders and that has caused internal friction to the point where some people rather would just give up on a project that they have been part for YEARS. It's a complicated issue because sometimes it is healthy to take people who have different opinions than some of the coders, to the point where some conflicts are to be expected. Just that there was and still isn't a system that allows these conflicts to be resolved in a healthy manner, rather the more stubborn party can keep on pulling shit behind the scenes for as long as they wish to. And yes, sometimes there is no way to resolve these conflicts as sometimes ideologies just clash too hard on principle level. And when that happens, you end up witnessing what is occurring right now with some of the admins leaving.

The admin team is so decentralized that the decisions of one wizard can have large overbearing impacts on the game, even if not a single other person on the team has heard of the thing being added.

I think Flourish answered this pretty accurately. Just wishing to point out that those overbearing impacts on the game have almost exclusively been by a singular coder who has decided to try things out. Sometimes that person gathers some opinions from other admins, sometimes they don't. Historically speaking, wizard level decisions only affect stuff by choosing who gets to code and who doesn't.

While it's perfectly alright, and honestly encouraged to work on all parts of this multifaceted game, it genuinely needs an agreed upon direction that is not just decided by the wizard team, or what the coders feel like making today, or what the players want to play, but a mix of all three. This should be something explicit that isn't too limiting, which details what kind of experience a player is supposed to have playing this game, and how they can expect it to evolce going forward.

I'm not sure if I agree or if I disagree. Mostly because I have no idea what the direction might even be anymore. It's become painfully apparent in the last couple weeks that Goon is no longer just about working on a funny farty spaceman video game. I also somewhat disagree with you wishing it to be a holy trinity of wizards, coders, and players. Mainly because wizards don't really need to be involved in such a decision as their efforts would be much better concentrated by actually organizing and leading the admin team into a direction. Admins should be mostly responsible for what gets created and players should be more vocal about what they want to be created. In the case of them actually bothering to create things by themself, I think it should be strongly encouraged for these to be added in if they make even an inch of sense. (A lot of patches in the last few days, most of them really good, with a couple of nonsense ones that work well as a joke but shouldn't be merged.) 

I'm not going to presume by what you wrote, but it should always be remembered that admins/mentors/wizards are here completely voluntarily, choosing to spend their own time creating fun things. They shouldn't be here to create fun things that the players want to be created. 

The feuding of many subgroups within goon management has been more vocal than usual in the recent years, and although censoring of these quarrels means that you only get to hear about it if you're in the loop, that doesn't mean that it's good for the game.

And congratulations, you have discovered the core issue. Not only have these quarrels been censored to private wizard channels which means that you REALLY needed to be in the loop even as an admin to figure this shit out, but the whole stance of Goon admins on a lot of the issues has been just a bunch of patting people on the head and wishing that things would just get better. I don't blame anyone, because I understand the desire behind everyone getting along but it's such a ridiculous pipedream when shit keeps boiling to conflict and leaks into other channels as well. It leaks into conversations about actual features, surfacing as genuine spite where genuinely decent ideas are shot down because of on-going feuds between people. I'm genuinely biased, so I won't point any fingers around, even if I personally think that it is just a very vocal minority. 

 It's not exactly surprising that Goon has bled in such a way after these conflicts have gone for such a long time, to the point where even newer generation of admins/coders have picked their side and stance on such. 

Maid's post in the News section of the goon discord talks about three things, Cirr leaving, Zamujasa being removed, (both of which are given plenty of time and verbiage, with little to no detail about what actually happened), and then glosses over the fact that 10, TEN of the pillars of the goon community have left. These are not small names either, Haine, Spyguy, fukken Wonk himself?

I think Flourish is right on this one as well. The post was mostly made with the information that they had at hand, without getting too into personal territory. And I think everyone who chose to leave, left because they felt like they were absolutely cornered in their choices. Some of them chose to lash out due to the sheer amount of frustration that they had towards how they were treated and some didn't. I'm pretty sure nobody here wanted to leave, but the circumstances were just such that nobody really wanted to stay. Me? I left because I had enough of the whole wizard head patting ring where seemingly the only solution was to attempt to appease everyone as seemingly most people were afraid to take any sort of more harsh stance or direction and I think that is where I have my personal doubts with all of this "policy" stuff. It looks like the same old, just in a new package where everyone will be attempted to be appeased but the truth will be closer to nobody being truly satisfied with the outcome. I hope that I am wrong and you'll have to excuse my extreme bitterness still.

Also, I'm terribly offended that I didn't make the list with the "big names".

Goon needs a lot of things. It needs a mission statement that the wizards/coders/admins/players can use to know what direction the game is going to be built in. It probably needs an administrative structural overhaul that makes it easier for people to be on the same page. What it needs more than any of that is a LOT more transparency about admin drama, updates, and general goings-on, because unless you know where to look, the community only ever hears the fallout of these events, and doesn't have any impact at all on them.

So what is that direction then? Try "Let's all focus on making this game as good as we can!" and you'll end up in exactly the same spot. Try something else and you'll end up alienating or pissing someone off. Transparency about updates is problematic as certain things require a slight veil of concealment. Admin drama is also problematic to be fully transparent about as it is often very much waged over a very long time and never in a direct conflict that would be easy to pinpoint. 

Without trying to be rude, I don't think goon is going to do most, if any of that, and now with almost all of the old guard gone, old-goon is no longer on life support, and is just genuinely dead. Good luck with new-goon, don't ruin it too much, I loved this game once.

I only disagree in the sense that old Goon has been dead for a while now. We just took quite a long time to actually realize that it has occurred. Goon will live on and I think that is a good thing, even if I on a personal level disagree with so much that has been going on or taken place. But yet, I am mature enough to know when it is best to just let things be and try not to fight them. Why stand up against something that people are trying to shape when you can just move on and find yourself a new place to which you feel more welcome?

A lot of people left when Goon decided to adapt to be more politically correct. I personally feel like this is just a continuation of that story, with the people who no longer wish to see that development is wanting to bow out. It's blatantly obvious that Goon doesn't mind catering to certain groups, which is fine but should perhaps be more directly stated. I personally don't think Goon has been a politically neutral ground for a while now, with certain people choosing to treat it as a playground for their political motives instead of a community created a video game. Maybe that's just the natural development of things.

---

What measures are being taken to ensure a disgruntled staff member doesn't leak the code again?

Who has said outright that they aren't coming back, and what are their reasons for doing so if they chose to give one?

In future, what will be done differently to ensure that dealings and conduct between the wizards and the rest of the staff remain at least businesslike?

Most people who left had access to the code until the last very few moments, but there is honestly nothing worth leaking in comparison to the January public release so at this given point in time, leaking the code means absolutely nothing. If you wish to be paranoid about something, be paranoid about if some of the people who have left join back in, get their access to the code added back and then decide to leak it. That being said, there is hardly anything to be done about such incredibly petty displays. More then anything, I'd stop treating the code as something that is sacred. 

I also outright said that I wouldn't be coming back and well, I guess here I am still caring by bothering to actually give you some answers from the other side. Reasons wary from too many unsolvable conflicts, endless annoyance at the behavior of some of the older staff members to being constantly fed up with certain people treat the game as some kind of their personal political sanctum.

[popecrunch]

For what it's worth I'm just gonna paste here stuff i said in the wizard offtopic chat channel, since it's relevant to stuff you're saying and, upon a couple minutes reflection, not really offtopic, and touches on what I think some of the manifestations of the core issues are.

(in response to someone pointing out that you'd posted)

i mean, he's allowed to
this is gonna sound weird but i'm actually a little thankful he did, because he very obviously is beyond the influence of those darn insidious wizards
he's also: not saying anything that is horribly incorrect, honestly
if i'm reading right, his post basically boils down to 'there is no such thing as a larger Game Direction because it's a shitton of passion projects' which is True, 'attempting to impose a coherent Direction would kill the chaotic spirit of the game' which is True, and 'the core of the problems is the systematic refusal to really Deal With interpersonal conflicts' which is True
like we got this far mostly by accident. a lot of the admins assumed the wizard council was handling interpersonal conficts but we sort of weren't. the admins were happy enough to live with that assumption because it let them keep on trucking and trust that there was someone putting the fires out, but we sort of weren't, we were just hoping they'd go out on their own or the people starting the fires would get tired of it or stop and quit
which is uhhh unsustainable, which is one of the bigger understatements i've made lately
i feel like if all of us really commit to the 'stop being fuckers to each other' bits in the admin guidelines, and are willing to hold each other accountable to that, that will get us most of the way home
and sure the wizard rework will involve some growing pains and some of us, myself included, might find ourselves without a seat at the Big Table, whatever the Big Table amounts to, it'll put a lot more agency and responsibility on admins and coders so they'll think in terms of 'i need to look out for my own shit, because i spent all this time assuming someone was cleaning up after me and they super weren't'
will some aspects of it suck? oh absolutely. does it need to be done? even more absolutely. will it eventually be a net positive? yes

[OMJ]

my honest opinion on all this is that the players/mentors don’t need to see or hear any of this. We aren’t owed anything. It’s just exerting extra energy.

[Superlagg]

my honest opinion on all this is that the players/mentors don’t need to see or hear any of this. We aren’t owed anything. It’s just exerting extra energy.

While it is true that I aint owed anything, I definitely appreciate being told about what's happening in a community I really care about.

[popecrunch]

Some folks want to know, there's not a reason not to tell, and doing so in a townhall format is a lot easier and fairer than doing some weird information economy thing where the only way to know what the deal is is to be online at the same time as someone else in the know, ask them, and have them tell you.

[Frank_Stein]

my honest opinion on all this is that the players/mentors don’t need to see or hear any of this. We aren’t owed anything. It’s just exerting extra energy.

There's definitely something to be said for not seeing how the sausage gets made.

The breakdown, based on what I've heard thus far, seems to be that people got too personal with each other, expressed ideas that clashed with some deeply held beliefs and identities, felt frustrated from a perceived sense of resentment, favoritism, and/or lack of accountability, and no one addressed it until it boiled over.

Transparency isn't bad, and this is definitely the kind of an event that needs a debriefing, but we should definitely be careful about peeling back too many layers of separation between players, coders, and admin staff. A certain amount of professional detachment should be held

[OMJ]

my honest opinion on all this is that the players/mentors don’t need to see or hear any of this. We aren’t owed anything. It’s just exerting extra energy.

, but we should definitely be careful about peeling back too many layers of separation between players, coders, and admin staff. A certain amount of professional detachment should be held

said what I was trying to say in a better way. Infighting is not the players business. They should be kept in the dark, if anything. Too many cooks spoils the broth

[Roomba]

Aside from the fact that a policy of blanket silence and "It's none of your business, it's an internal admin thing that's already being resolved" would be extremely unsatisfying and also turn off a lot of players, it would also be completely unenforceable because the admins who left the team would not be bound by that policy and would have no qualms sharing about the issues that caused them to leave from their perspective. It's better to have the town hall not just so that the players can be informed, but so each of the admins can have their say, instead of interested players only getting the story in private conversations with disgruntled ex-admins (after all, such issues seem to be what caused this mess in the first place).