Feedback open letter Pt.2

[jckrfc03]

Here's the new thread for any admins that wanted to comment publicly on the previous post but couldn't due to the lock.

this part will be formatted poorly as i am just using the forum textbox for it.

I will use this to respond to some of the comments also. First, I do realise that my post is obviously biased to an extent and that due to my lack of experience coding, playing rp etc that my points were not articulated in the best way. Now to reply to Cal's take on the ban section I had posted, I understand that ban appeals were privated for good reason and I did not contest this what I did say was that ban reasons would be a good thing to show publicly due to the fact that it would push some better documentation for bans. What i mean by this is, I have had a friend, brand new to goonstation, be banned with a simple "we don't want you here" message and this isn't really helpful as, if the person's ban was mistaken for someone else's and they are new then they aren't likely to appeal when faced with such a hostile ban message. Now I do understand that this is unlikely to happen due to the reasons that Cal had stated, people want something to entertain them and there would most likely be similar issues to be had. For the other point of admin feedback being handled internally, I understand that it makes sense to handle it internally, however when given a message like "there's no issue here" or "its been handled" on its own it feels incredibly minimal and leads to speculation that nothing has actually been done due to it being a one off statement given with not even a minor insight onto how the situation was handled from the admin team. Yes i probably did misunderstand the secret submodule as I don't code and a good majority of these points were brought to me by other community members.

And for Sord's reply now.

The first point that you make does make sense that people don't just get banned for talking out, however we don't get to see how many warnings said person has had and we don't know any steps that the admin team have taken to get in contact with them to ask them to cut it out so from our perspective it just seems as though two people that were vocal against the admin team, got banned for speaking out, now I understand the repeated and extreme behaviour that they exhibited and I get why they were banned from the discord for it. But it creates a space where people are afraid to speak out due to it, you might not ban them for it, but they still dont want to speak out for fear of being banned as it happened so recently. One amazing example of this would be this thread, multiple people have helped me work on it, however not one wanted to put their name to it in fear of any repercussions they may recieve. And the rest of the comment would be similar to what i said in the reply to Cal.

If you need any sources for my points mentioned above just say and i will add them to the appendix in the original post.

link for original thread: https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=21268

[LeahTheTech]

if the person's ban was mistaken for someone else's and they are new then they aren't likely to appeal when faced with such a hostile ban message.

This is a problem we're aware of, yep. I added "If you believe this ban was not meant for you then please appeal regardless of what the ban message or length says!" in big bold letters to the "You've been banned" popup somewhat recently to try to help with that, but it is ultimately a consequence of having to have such a strict anti-evasion system to keep out griefers. I don't see how making ban reasons public would help with that, especially as that ban would just show up as an autogenerated "(Evasion attempt x14) we don't want you here" that we get many of per day.

[jan.antilles]

Hi, I'm gonna respond to the transparency stuff.

For the other point of admin feedback being handled internally, I understand that it makes sense to handle it internally, however when given a message like "there's no issue here" or "its been handled" on its own it feels incredibly minimal and leads to speculation that nothing has actually been done due to it being a one off statement given with not even a minor insight onto how the situation was handled from the admin team.

Both player privacy and admin privacy matter. Admins and devs are volunteers, and we deserve the same dignity and respect that we give our players by not making public examples of them. There is no amount of information disclosure that will prevent people from believing whatever they want to. We work as a team with a shared goal, making this game better and more fun, and we hold one another accountable. If you do not trust us, we can't make you.

The first point that you make does make sense that people don't just get banned for talking out, however we don't get to see how many warnings said person has had and we don't know any steps that the admin team have taken to get in contact with them to ask them to cut it out so from our perspective it just seems as though two people that were vocal against the admin team, got banned for speaking out, now I understand the repeated and extreme behaviour that they exhibited and I get why they were banned from the discord for it. But it creates a space where people are afraid to speak out due to it, you might not ban them for it, but they still dont want to speak out for fear of being banned as it happened so recently.

Do you understand that there's literally nothing we can do about this without violating our policy and airing the dirty laundry of people who aren't even there to defend themselves anymore? The fact that we ban people who exhibit "repeated and extreme behavior" means that we DO care about the community. We DO care about what kind of tone is being set in the channels we moderate. We DO expect people to be respectful toward others who are putting in their time and effort to make things better, from admins to devs to player contributors.

Here's the thing about having a policy of not airing anyone's notes and warnings and ban reasons: it's not very fun for us. It doesn't make our job easier. It actually sucks, a lot, because people who have taken up a ton of our time and energy and goodwill can say whatever they want to whoever they want to make us look like tyrants. And except in specific situations, we can't do anything to defend ourselves or justify our decisions.

But it makes the community better. It lets people grow from their mistakes. It's worth it.

[stuck_in_void_HELP]

Note: This was written for the original thread, and it got closed before I could post it there, and I haven't been in the right mindset to post these last few days, so I'm just gonna copypaste it here. It's not exactly an inspired post, but I feel that I must contribute to the discussion. I'd like to apologize in advance if anything I say is something that's already been discussed, or that's irrelevant to the issue.

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Hi. I'm going to chime in here — I'm not sure if it'd be considered peanut posting, but since I'm mentioned by name in the OP itself I'm going to assume it's not; feel free to let me know and delete the post if that's not the case.

Also, another disclaimer is that I haven't exactly read everything said thus far, nor will I. It's a whole bunch of text and I've been without my ADHD medication until recently, which makes reading it all exceedingly challenging for something which, despite being deeply important to me, is not exactly life-or-death. There'll be a TL;DR in the bottom, feel free to skip all this garbage I'm writing, it's not exactly important or necessary that you read everything.

Secondly, I'd like to note that I haven't been playing much Goonstation recently. This is not due to insatisfaction with the game, or any changes that have been made, or any members of the community. I'm just playing something else at the moment. This isn't really all that important, I just want to make sure that nothing regarding my recent actions can be mistaken as an act of protest - it's not.

And finally, the last disclaimer is that I'm not dissatisfied with either the admin team nor the dev team. I think that overall the impact you guys have had has been more good than bad, and I appreciate the opportunity to communicate.

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I think that the thing that most commonly comes up, as far as player complaints over the server's administration goes, is a general lack of communication. Players and the community feel as if what they have to say is being ignored or not taken as seriously, and that an admin's voice is worth several of ours. To put it in other terms, it is believed that any unpopular changes will stick to the game, despite an overwhelming negative reponse, because one or two admins/developers will vehemently support the change within closed communication channels. Whether or not that's true is a separate matter; the real issue as I see it is the general feeling of being unheard.

Adding to that is the general perception that the development team does not take kindly to criticism. I won't elaborate on this, nor will I name names, but I will say that while I don't exactly agree with the sentiment I can see where it's coming from. This, to me, feels like a snowball, where all a developer has to do is respond to criticism in a way that rubs someone off the wrong way, and they'll go and talk to their friends about how they got dismissed or angrily told off by someone on the dev team and that'll be the only side of the story their friends will hear. That kind of stuff spreads like wildfire sometimes and comes back in force in the shape of accusations and snarky comments that don't line up with reality.

The number one thing to blame for the above problem is something that's unavoidable and unfixable: the fact that text doesn't convey meaning and intention very well. But you can't exactly force anyone to join up on voice chat.

I think the conclusion I'm leading to here is that everyone is starting to form very different perspectives on the issue, which in a way means there's a growing divide separating us from each other. This is starting to erode the feeling of community, slowly but surely, as everyone is passionate about the game but most don't seem to agree on many things. It's something we should address together, as I don't feel it is a problem with server administration so much as it is a problem with server culture. We could be trying to work with one another to tackle this problem that we're too disconnected to see properly and communicate about.

I think that everyone is maybe? probably? a bit too focused on what they're doing instead of how they're being perceived. We're all a little biased, and see our own actions as being justified — so when someone disagrees it feels like we're getting pushback for being right. It's only human that we feel this way.

I'd like to finish off by repeating what I've said a few times before on the Discord: A town hall is needed, and not just now but regularly. I know that they're boring, shitty, and repetitive. I know that most questions are "what are your long-term plans for x and y" when long-term plans are avoided. But a town hall is a civilized, curated way to get players' questions, doubts, frustrations, and wishes up where they know that it's being heard. I'm not saying you guys aren't hearing what we have to say, I'm just saying that people don't always perceive it to be the case.

That's all I wanted to say, aside from a huge thanks to everyone in the community - Admins, Players, Developers alike - for creating and maintaining this cozy community that I like to call home. I really like it here.

TL;DR: Poor communication from everyone - all of us - and diverging perspectives is leading to something that one day could erode away the feeling of community we have. Personally, I feel that regular town halls wouldn't solve the problem but would help us get there.

P.S. When something potentially controversial is added/removed/modified, would it be possible for it to be added to the voting booth? As in, every player gets to vote on whether they agree with certain changes, and the votes are tallied after two to three weeks, and if it's approved by the community it stays, if it's not it doesn't. I dunno, just throwing poo-level ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. 

P.P.S. Sorry for being the broken record I've been recently in regards to town halls. I won't keep suggesting it anymore I promise. 

[ZeWaka]

Note: these are my personal opinions blah blah they're not all of the staff's blah blah

A town hall is needed, and not just now but regularly. ... I know that most questions are "what are your long-term plans for x and y" when long-term plans are avoided.

So? If people are going to just ask useless questions that don't have an answer like what our long-term plans are, what do you actually want to get out of them? Wasting everyone's time isn't my idea of something that is 'needed.' We've done several town halls in the past, and they're a huge burden on our administration team who basically need to sit around for hours answering rephrasings of the same few questions. I definitely think we should do one this year, but I don't know about regular ones.

P.S. When something potentially controversial is added/removed/modified, would it be possible for it to be added to the voting booth?

Sorry, but absolutely a firm No. Players love overreacting to things or abusing new features the week they're added. A much better idea would be a month or two later.
Even so, design by democracy never really turns out well. Players should instead take the role of designers and contributors, and give constructive feedback before something gets merged.

[Jakson]

Even so, design by democracy never really turns out well. Players should instead take the role of designers and contributors, and give constructive feedback before something gets merged.

I just want to make a quick note to this last statement here, regarding merge feedback being given before it is added: most of the controversial PR's have been made by devs who opted to bypass consulting the community before hand and merge the PR directly. This is not regarding any one specific PR, but is just a general pattern I'm noticing. Players are unable to provide constructive feedback before it gets merged because of this, and the only time controversial PR's are reverted only occur when an overwhelming and unignorable majority have voiced their feedback about it (see HoS cape PR). However in most cases once a dev makes a controversial direct merge themselves, it is locked in. Community contributors make controversial PR's too, and because they have to discuss with both devs and the community as to why their PR should go through, quality control is a lot more guaranteed. A solution for this could be to encourage developers to wait a day or two to merge a possibly spicy PR that might stir conversation after they create the pull request, allowing for more discussion on the pros and cons of said PR before merging it. It is not a big ask from the community for devs to leave a PR up for a day or two before merging it, and I think this simple request could negate a lot of unneccesary debate in discords immediately after a controversial PR goes through.