Mod quality has gone down

[Fewher]

Mod recruitment and hiring should've moved towards a more professional direction a long time ago. You have a game that regularly averages 150+ players, many of whom are children and young adults that require constant moderation.
There should be an actual interview process with a live-conversation via voice-coms and arguably even a live interview process. There is always the concern of DOXing and other information leaking out to the public which is why it's Managements job to ensure the people hiring are competent and responsible adults. Safety has also come up numerous times with staff, especially those who may put children in dangerous positions or grooming them into separate discords (ie; pedo drama). The importance for stronger hiring and vetting has never been more important in my opinion.


This whole conversation of the "Community" being involved in staff decisions, hiring's and firings really needs to stop. I cannot fathom how exhausting it is to read the same people constantly feel entitled that someone who plays the game feels justified that they should be able to vote or state their opinion on who gets hired. There is no company, business or legit volunteer association that publicly post applicants resume/cvs out to the community so they can state their opinion or vote on their acceptance. This mindset is ancient from the early days of SS13 when it was a smaller community that didn't require mass moderation and multi levels of management.


Furthermore, the irony of some people complaining about Mod quality while they themselves have benefitted from laxed rules and poor management is comical.

Which one? Current discord moderation has made sure every single group made their own metacord because they couldn't just have normal conversations in the discord without staff taking issue with it.
By the same token, there's plenty of discords that staff, whitelisted players, etc. are in where they band together to get what they want as well, i.e MP cord, CO cord, etc.
We both know firsthand that everyone does it, Soldier, let's not pretend otherwise, yeah?

ChainsawMullet is probably the finest example anyone could give when it comes to irony.
This is an individual in a community who only still remains due to poor moderation, lack of consistency and poor leadership among staff. Very few players (other than sleepy) can be banned multiple times, permanently community banned, removed from whitelist leadership, fired from staff... only to have almost every punishment/role removal reversed in such short time.


The problem is evident in this very thread alone. You have select individuals crying for change or "improvements" when they themselves have in-large benefitted from the lack of "teeth" moderation has held over the years. Permanent bans don't matter because eventually everyone gets unbanned (myself included) and being fired from the staff team isn't a big deal anymore (just re-apply in a few months). These are basic expectation a normal person would have from a community; Bad people stay banned and people fired from staff don't keep getting rehired yet this is no consistency when it comes to punishment.

Furthermore, the problem with CM in regards to a lot of things over the last few years has been evident but completely unchanging. The top of CM's leadership is extremely poor, uninvolved and rotten to the point quality among almost every avenue of CM has been degraded significantly. Staff applications and whitelist applications were always intended to be "soft-barriers" to weed out non-english speakers and individuals too lazy to put effort into the job. When you applied I (and others) added you to a list to be observed over-time, if you were good player, caused no issues and where viewed as a positive to the community then you where hired after observation. While we allowed players to "vote" on applications it was done purely so the community could "feel good" about their ability to have a say in the matter and never did I or other managers consider their votes/opinions.

Theres way too much "Community Pleasing" going on that constantly interferes with successful operations of this game and the constant pandering to the minority of vocal individual needs to stop. That's not to say things don't need to be improved or change... but rather that the community loves to use moments of weakness to install more "democratic/council" bullshit into every element of the game which never fixes anything.

[ChainsawMullet]

Furthermore, the irony of some people complaining about Mod quality while they themselves have benefitted from laxed rules and poor management is comical.


ChainsawMullet is probably the finest example anyone could give when it comes to irony.
This is an individual in a community who only still remains due to poor moderation, lack of consistency and poor leadership among staff. Very few players (other than sleepy) can be banned multiple times, permanently community banned, removed from whitelist leadership, fired from staff... only to have almost every punishment/role removal reversed in such short time.

Thank you for making assumptions about all of my punishments, but as someone who was actually present for all of them I'll happily tell you that they are all strenuous at best and blatant biased moderation at worst. With proper standards and accountability literally everything would have been resolved without much issue or bad blood on either side and everyone would've walked away happy.

Being discord banned for obvious jokes in the midst of other people making similar jokes, being part of a group of players all banned for the same thing, but arbitrarily having my punishment be longer despite having no recent history at the time, my removal from council was for, and I'm not making this up, "Saying 'stfu' to an admin on discord." I'm pretty sure you saw that one happen in realtime when you thought it was for disagreeing with you.

Even my removal from staff was due to proper standards and accountability not being enforced and as such I butted heads with staff members who abused the freedom given to them to pointlessly punish non-issues, drastically interfere with rounds, and publicly bash developers in announcements sent to the entire in-game population after being told they couldn't run an event during a dev test. Some of those staff members are still around to this day and still to this day get chewed out near weekly for taking things too far but never actually punished for it, just an endless line of minor warnings with some promotions thrown in for good measure.

Despite all this, I don't really have anything personally against most staff (anymore), and if you gave me a button to fully reform staff to be competent, held responsible for decisions they made, and properly investigated if wrongdoings are thought to occur, with the negative being I would be unappealably community banned? I'd hit that button without hesitation. CM has lost its shine for me, largely in part due to how terrible the staff situation is, and that shine isn't coming back no matter what, but I still want it to be the best it can be.

I know it's wasted effort to try and communicate any of this to you, though, but I just thought I'd give it a shot.

[lurkermain]

I cannot fathom how exhausting it is to read the same people constantly feel entitled that someone who plays the game feels justified that they should be able to vote or state their opinion on who gets hired.

Computer, scan for signs of self-awareness..

[ThesoldierLLJK]

At the end of the day, it will still be the discretion of the moderator manager to approve or deny applications. I’m allowing the community to comment. But this not a Fortune 500 company, it’s a free 2d video game. Interviews, resumes, what’s next I gotta offer mods healthcare and a competitive 401k plan?

If Somenerd or Grimreaper want to jump in a voice chat with a potential applicant, I’m fine with it, but it won’t be a requirement.

We are trying our best to fix issues but it’s not an overnight thing. But I will say I’ve always tried to maintain fairness regardless of who a player is and or their reputation. If I was the host I would probably just ban people I don’t like because that would be my right, but I wouldn’t do that.

Remember when they wanted to revoke your probation Feweh, and you said you were never told the terms that you had to play. Everyone and their mother wanted you removed again, but I said what’s fair is fair and you should be extended.

Players aren’t getting extra chances because “oh I’m popular” it’s because sometimes I see things that I do not believe are fair, and that’s when I step in and reverse those decisions.

[c4xmaniac]

There should be an actual interview process with a live-conversation via voice-coms and arguably even a live interview process. There is always the concern of DOXing and other information leaking out to the public which is why it's Managements job to ensure the people hiring are competent and responsible adults. Safety has also come up numerous times with staff, especially those who may put children in dangerous positions or grooming them into separate discords (ie; pedo drama). The importance for stronger hiring and vetting has never been more important in my opinion.

Everything you said sounded miserable. The last thing we need is more staff moderation more creating issues where none existed before. Like what Soldier said, CM isn't a company its a gaming community and the staff are supposed to be representative of said community. Every time I've been staff on a server I didn't submit a resume with a cover sheet and then do an in person interview. I applied on the forum and my application was distributed through the community for them to voice their opinions on alongside staff.

I'm glad you aren't a staff member holy shit lmao.

[Fewher]

Remember when they wanted to revoke your probation Feweh, and you said you were never told the terms that you had to play. Everyone and their mother wanted you removed again, but I said what’s fair is fair and you should be extended.
Players aren’t getting extra chances because “oh I’m popular” it’s because sometimes I see things that I do not believe are fair, and that’s when I step in and reverse those decisions.

Which is relevant to what I stated, that bans, suspensions and removals are all over the place and if it where a boat intend to float you'd end up sinking faster than the Titanic.
Nothing is concrete, nothing is clear and the repercussions never stick so you end up with players like Sleepy or Chainsaw returning into positions of power consistently despite horrid histories following them. I can only imagine that the average person (like myself) looks upon these individuals and scratches their head wondering how these people keep coming back around.

My point is this degrades stability and legitimacy of the staff team to be taken serious by both players and fellow staff members.

In my opinion a huge loss over the years is the fear of repercussions that both staff and players use to have. While I was often labelled as being too intense, it was this fear from the player base that held them accountable and they knew if they fucked up they'd be gone. Likewise this extended to the staff team, where myself and fellow Managers held a very tight leash and were quick too correct wrong behavior.

I'm not going to pretend or act like my system was perfect or I was the greatest (i was though). However given the context of this post and the issue at hand I believe it relevant that perhaps a stronger hand and reflection from my era of administration would do the present team well to restore order and credibility.

Everything you said sounded miserable. The last thing we need is more staff moderation more creating issues where none existed before. Like what Soldier said, CM isn't a company its a gaming community and the staff are supposed to be representative of said community.

Which is exactly why individuals like you aren't fit for management or leadership. You lack the larger scope of what's at hand and are more concerned with how changes to moderation would impact yourself. My statement stems from a gaming-community that has grown so large that new methods of moderation are now required. Discord has become a hot-spot for child predators and alt-right recruitment. This game is largely played by children who are susceptible to these groups and CM has had multiple incidents in the last few years where both staff and fellow players have put others in dangerous positions. The fact that you're more concerned about "More moderation" or "My gameplay" is selfish and devoid of the reasons stricter moderation hiring should be implemented.

[Usnpeepoo]

Which is relevant to what I stated, that bans, suspensions and removals are all over the place and if it where a boat intend to float you'd end up sinking faster than the Titanic.
Nothing is concrete, nothing is clear and the repercussions never stick so you end up with players like Sleepy or Chainsaw returning into positions of power consistently despite horrid histories following them. I can only imagine that the average person (like myself) looks upon these individuals and scratches their head wondering how these people keep coming back around.

My point is this degrades stability and legitimacy of the staff team to be taken serious by both players and fellow staff members.

In my opinion a huge loss over the years is the fear of repercussions that both staff and players use to have. While I was often labelled as being too intense, it was this fear from the player base that held them accountable and they knew if they fucked up they'd be gone. Likewise this extended to the staff team, where myself and fellow Managers held a very tight leash and were quick too correct wrong behavior.

I'm not going to pretend or act like my system was perfect or I was the greatest (i was though). However given the context of this post and the issue at hand I believe it relevant that perhaps a stronger hand and reflection from my era of administration would do the present team well to restore order and credibility.



Which is exactly why individuals like you aren't fit for management or leadership. You lack the larger scope of what's at hand and are more concerned with how changes to moderation would impact yourself. My statement stems from a gaming-community that has grown so large that new methods of moderation are now required. Discord has become a hot-spot for child predators and alt-right recruitment. This game is largely played by children who are susceptible to these groups and CM has had multiple incidents in the last few years where both staff and fellow players have put others in dangerous positions. The fact that you're more concerned about "More moderation" or "My gameplay" is selfish and devoid of the reasons stricter moderation hiring should be implemented.

this is by far the worst take on this issue I have ever seen on this thread, completely out of touch with how CM is right now too. I don't think you even play the game anymore either.

[Papa_Pollard]

Mod teams still a joke just like its always been...

Standards are consistent, though I agree with Lumdor. With how heavy handed the rule changes where during pride month the mod team is pushing their own agendas way too much. Which actually ticked me off quite a bit in how self righteous they all felt, grow up youre policing a tdm server with a bunch of teens expect them to say dumb edgy shit.

Not to mention the fact that they have a general lack of care, empathy or want of understanding for players. Such as any time an event ends with just sheer admin abuse and player grief it gets waved off.

Expecting people to grovel at your feet and respect you simply because you passed a basic fill in the blank test and didnt ruffle any feathers during the time you spent playing the server isnt good enough.

You want players trust and respect? Actually do something to earn it then. Staff investigations, for a team wishing to be "more transparent" youre still very snakey about anything involving staff.
Having staff investigate other staff without any community involvement sure is great, especially when the staff member whos actions are being investigated is also part of the investigation team.

Prioritising staffs words over a players, sorry but theyre both equal and valid just cause they kissed more ass doesnt mean you should take whatever they say as truth.

Finally nitpicky rule enforcement, I get pulled up whenever I say something thats a no-no even if its insignifiicant but youve got other players saying on the DS pre-drop and during briefing "hey X im gonna/wany to eat your ass" or on the radio "is it wet and moist down there" literally thirsting and creeping on comms for most of the round. But hey ho since theyve got some lovely artwork who cares

[ThesoldierLLJK]

There is no illuminati protecting staff here people, you know why most of the staff reports get denied, it's because staff didn't do anything wrong, and everything is posted. We don't hide logs or anything like that at all.

Mods who do make mistakes get warnings when things get overturned, and if they continue to make mistakes they get suspended. If they do things like abuse their powers with aheal and get caught, they get removed. Mods who do really bad things like basedoperator or pfanner get cbanned. We don't "protect" anyone, but 99 percent of the time most complaints on our staff team is because a player is unhappy they were warned and or banned.

We also have a lot of internal reports that come directly to management from other staff when people do booboos and we investigate it and determine what to do in those cases as well

[c4xmaniac]

This game is largely played by children who are susceptible to these groups and CM has had multiple incidents in the last few years where both staff and fellow players have put others in dangerous positions. The fact that you're more concerned about "More moderation" or "My gameplay" is selfish and devoid of the reasons stricter moderation hiring should be implemented.

CM SS13 ain't free. The community's gotta be littered with the blood of people who say slightly edgy things or hold slightly right of center beliefs. Letting people have fun is not my interest, you're probably only thinking about yourself DDD Heavy handed staff and bans, not gameplay and fun ok. Praise enforcement.