Grif,
I'll preface this by saying that I don't want this to seem like a dog-pile. I expressed interest in responding, and the team gave me a go-ahead to do so.
While I write this on behalf of our staff team, I also write as someone who has had the good fortune of writing, working, and even voice chatting with you in the past. I have a lot of respect for you and your opinions, and I’m very sorry to hear that you feel frustrated. It makes me feel very sad that you feel there’s no other recourse but to leave our team. You are a talented writer, a thoughtful staff member and a genuinely good-hearted person, and you will be missed.
I understand the need to vent publicly, and I’m sorry you feel that the message will be removed or that you’ll be banned for speaking out. It has never been our practice to ban staff for speaking out or voicing their frustrations, though we have always asked that staff conflict and concerns be dealt with between the appropriate parties and within the appropriate forum. Nevertheless, I’d like to take this as an opportunity to address your concerns as well as the concerns of any players who may be reading these posts. Apologies for the length.
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1. First, Golem’s note about moving your resignation message to a more appropriate forum. Some discussion was held about creating a “Concerns and Compliments” subforum or thread where players can, if they choose, voice their concerns publicly and we can address them publicly. If this comes into existence, Golem simply meant that these posts may be moved to that forum. I hope that helps clarify.
2. Regarding the conflict between another staff member, my understanding is that your concern is that a moderated thread was submitted to the review queue and was reviewed by another member of staff rather than yourself. We’ve seen this happen before and, to my knowledge, it is usually a misunderstanding of how modded threads should be reviewed. I’m sorry that this frustrated you to the point of no longer wanting to continue to mod threads, and I’d like to use this as an opportunity to be more clear with our players and staff about how to handle threads with a mod. After posting this note, I’ll make a comment on our Peer Review OOC thread, and perhaps add a note on the first post of the main review thread, to remind everyone that threads involving a particular mod need to be reviewed by that mod and should not be posted to the queue.
3. With regards to the seasonal gift giving event, it sounds like there may have been a misunderstanding or miscommunication. The gift was provided to the intended recipient, and a PM was sent asking that its cost be deducted from your character’s ledger before the medal was awarded. Perhaps this was missed? The intent was certainly not to make you feel unwelcome, and I’m sorry to hear you feel that way.
4. Regarding the late December retirement: As Golem mentioned, we are a team of volunteers who have lives outside of the site. I would add that the holidays are a challenging time for all of us. Emotions run high, we get stressed because of gifts or family or loved ones or grief, and then we’re asked to be our best and most professional selves on ST at the same time. This past holiday season, this was not true of our staff team. After a conflict, yourself, Kingdom, and Siren expressed uncertainty about staying and were retired for a brief period of time. While the retirement was quickly reversed, this was certainly not one of our finest hours and I'd like to apologize to all three of you for that decision.
The good news is that we’ve all realized that we need to do better. That’s why we’ve been taking big steps to make our team, and our site, stronger and kinder during 2017. Our players will receive an announcement within the next few days about how we’ve restructured our staff team, but one of the major ways that I would like to highlight is that we’ve created an “Advocate” group. The Advocates are responsible for a variety of tasks, one of which is to work with players and staff members to help resolve conflict. Myself and Golem will be working together to help us become more of the positive and inclusive environment you would like to see.
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Though you'll be retired shortly, as you've requested, it is by no means an attempt to silence you or stop our dialogue. If you feel the need to continue this conversation publicly, then that can happen. I do hope, however, that you’ll send me a PM or a Skype message if you’d like to discuss further so that I can do my best to address any outstanding concerns one-on-one.
Thank you for your contributions, your modded threads, your reviews, and your friendship. You will be deeply missed. I hope you decide to keep in touch.
Best,
Ru
