Your View and Mine

[_mady07 1541]

 

Your View and Mine

 

Hey there yall. 

Today I am going to be addressing some issues I’ve noticed on the server.

I want to start out by bringing forward a statement on the events that conspired yesterday in which falsified screenshots were posted out to the server and shared among communities of myself and a few other staff members.

 

I specifically wanted to draw attention to myself in this. Screenshots that were aimed to sexualize myself and others. Honestly, this whole thing brought an eye-opening moment to me, where I sit here now and I consider why the server has gotten to this point.

So, I am going to give context to you, by starting out with the fact that I am 17 years old. I joined staff at 15 because I was featured as a false victim in a report and I wanted to help other people so they wouldn't have to deal with this all alone.

 

I joined the Community Team and started that process. I admit there have been times I’ve lost myself along the way, the goal has always been to help people and as a person who grew up on this server, I can say I'm not perfect. I am not an angel, I have made mistakes, and done things I do to this day wish I’d done differently.

 

So today, I come to the community and I want to ask what has happened. We all play the same game and we all enjoy the same communities, naturally as people are divided, but when does it get to a point where we as a community need to make change as a server culture.

 

 

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

 

The server as a group will always have people who don't get along. We will always have issues with each other and believe that one community is better than another.  

 

Do you think that the division has gone too far?

 

When the server points fingers at Moderation, and Admins for decisions they’ve made, usually there is a story the public doesn't hear. People on staff are not out to get you, nor are they looking to target you. Most of the time, they’re just like us, they want to help people. They enjoy being able to help others.

 

How do we fix the clear distrust of staff and community? 

And to that point

Why do you or your friends feel targeted by staff?

 

When people feel comfortable hiding behind a screen, they say a lot of things. They say a lot of mean things. We see it all the time. 

 

The idea that justice has not been sent out for people will always linger. It sounds so stupid but if you see something, say something. Make a report if you know something is happening. Talk to the right people, stop waiting and growing bitter over nothing being done. 

 

I think we all need a reminder, that there is someone on the other end of that emote. There is someone at the other side of that screen. We are all people, and if you take nothing else from anything I’ve ever said

 

I ask that you just show a little kindness to people.

 

The culture of LOTC is not going to change overnight. We are not going to all join hands and love each other.  I think however, we can start showing a little more humanity.

We can as a group decide that maybe this isn't the direction we should be headed.

 

Or maybe, we just need to be reminded that we are all just people playing a pixel game for one reason or another.

 

Thank you.

_mady07

 

Spoiler

Please leave your thoughts and comments, We can't move forwards with any change until we start the discussion. If this post has done nothing I hope it at least brings to light that there's a bigger issue more people should be talking about

 

[Josh3738 3137]

Expanding on Mady's explanation for the sake of context and clarity, a brand new forum account was created yesterday for the sole purpose of posting an inflammatory document with a handful of claims with regard to certain staff members' behavior and bias relating to another player's ban. These claims included lies about staff chats/votes and behavior as well as falsified screenshots implying racist remarks and sexualizing several folks, including a minor.

 

It's wildly disheartening to see that something like this even has to be discussed to be honest. The fact that someone a) went so far as to put all of this together, b) did it to incite further distrust of staff, and c) did it because of their disagreement with the handling of an already banned player is bad enough without producing content which has no place here and dragging peoples' names through the mud to make a point. There is an open door to question decisions and wonder why we do the things we do, but this isn't the way to do it in the slightest.

 

There's not a single report to mods or admins that goes without some discussion as to what happened and what to do about it, and even with all that we can still make mistakes sometimes and it falls to whatever dialogue is had to communicate the decision or resolve it. I agree that we're not as clear all the time on explaining what we decide, and that's something that needs to be worked on, but there comes a point where everyone's in the wrong. Spreading rumors, falsifying logs, and accusing one another, however self-righteous you feel your point is, does nothing but breed resentment and a dispassion for what's ultimately a game in favor of focusing on some driven agenda.

 

If there's a problem, we can discuss it and figure out what's going on, but the stray comments and battles for the court of public opinion, inflated with whatever rumors they heard or "evidence" folks think they have, only serve to turn the community on itself with no regard for the ramifications of doing so. There are forums and emails dedicated to receiving reports and concerns in an official capacity. If you're concerned about something and want to hand over testimony, dms, screenshots, etc., then those are the places to do it.

[wowj 9765]

i think that this situation has been handled well and good

[Orlanth 4667]

As someone that as been on staff (with varying degrees of involvement, obviously) the single most heinous issue with LOTC in general is the lack of transparency for the staff team. Decisions are not announced publicly until the community tries to actively strong arm a (likely highly PR revised) response from the administration. The unfortunate truth is that either group treats it entirely as us versus them, where Staff are entirely focused on defending each other from the cancel culture of the player base, and the players feel they need to defend each other from inherently poor staff decisions.

To be honest, I'll just point the finger of blame and say this is largely staff's fault. The information of everything is always gatekept behind "they know what they did" and "protecting certain people". Decisions are always made based off of conversations in closed discord chats full of people that don't actually play the game they're modifying. I really can't remember the last time there was a genuinely sincere community outreach, "state of the server" kind of address where admins actually talk about the direction the server is going, or anything similar. I know we used to have them, but they're so infrequent they're effectively meaningless. The entirety of staff decisions seem out of touch and for the most part really are here.

That's not at all to say the player base is innocent because the weaponization of cancel culture is far beyond where it should be, and realistically it puts staff in a hard position. The unfortunate truth here is though, that the power is in staff's hand to take a stand on these matters and have completely transparent policies but for whatever reason it's been consistently proven that they won't. If there's anything to take away from this whole matter it's that staff need to be entirely transparent about everything, which includes providing full discussions for decisions, thought processes and even evidence. The player base knows when it's being fed PR bullshit, and it has moved past the point of caring into the point of abusing the expected behavior. 

[D3F4LT 1026]

Damn.

[PCSwift 1422]

I don't really know what happened yesterday

but your language is very lawyery, it makes me immediately distrust you

[sam33497 7360]

they were all storytellers, and they all thought some stories were more important than others, but they were all telling the same story

 

Spoiler

it feels odd for me to comment on this as someone who was recently banned for largely participating in similar behavior being disavowed in this post but i really sympathize with the points being made and i think we have really gone too far in terms of the scale of enmity on the server, like this has always been a thing constrained to groups in active conflict but now i feel like the sheer scale of the beef has reached an unsustainable level

 

its a bit too hypocritical for me to go on about this in detail after some of my actions but i really do respect you posting this manner of response @_mady07in response to the heinous thing that occured for little to no reason to you, you seem to have accurately grasped the issue- it's really professional and befitting of a staff member but i am sorry that this happened nonetheless, it should not have occured no matter the reason. Plenty of other recent happenings are a symptom of the same issue which you've accurately described. This needs to go, and that includes even from my side of the coin and me and my friends.

 

[xo31 4013]

i might be overlooking any possible issues, but would it be so bad to make like an announcement explaining why people were banned? (So long as it is appropriate to be shared, if not we can assume the worst) problem is we usually assume the worst if we dont know

 

also in general yall have my sympathy that shit was uncalled for and genuinely makes me lose faith in humanity

[Calise11 841]

Honestly I see a lot of staff reply's stirring drama or seeing who can be the edgiest on some posts, and just no ability to read the room sometimes. Understand yall are players too, but that badge means you got to carry yourself with some level of 'hey guys I work here' .

EDIT: literally went on one other forum post and see a member of staff taking the piss out of another players respective opinions with the form of memery. Personally, this is why I struggle to trust that my issues if I have any, will be taken seriously. So I sit and simmer until I'm on the bandwagon of "Hey staff really can be not the greatest on LOTC" 

Its lax. 
Nothing seems to progress. A friend of mine put in a staff application in 2022 and he got answered in 2023.
I made a staff application beginning of the year for build and it was well received by player base but never got a word from staff acknowledging I went the effort to submit it / ever hear back from. its been like 9 months ago back when the staff were looking. Its just a bit like what's the point?
Someone saying "Hey , we see this." - "We will let you know when its reviewed" would be great. 

LOTC is trying to be a governing body. But not quite there yet...


I am sorry but I just cant put my full faith in some of the staff :( 

 

Edited October 19, 2024 by Calise11

[Rig 17591]

It's egregious to post false evidence, or out of context screenshots, to attempt and paint broad generalizations that defame people. The worst case of this obviously had to do with the way that Mayrndz and Mady were portrayed throughout the extent of that document. It is insidious and creepy to create fake material insinuating or defaming somebody with the use of sexual language or misrepresentation.

Whoever created this document ought to be CGV'd or TOS'd.

[sprtn 3341]

don't always trust what you see, especially when it comes to cropped discord messages. it's insanely easy to inspect element that type of shit. i'm sorry that this had happened to both you and MayRndz.

[Salvius 409]

Even if staff don't believe bias exists there needs to be systems in place to counter bias and favoritism, and this system should be public and easily accessible to all players to read and understand. You can generate more trust if people know/believe that it is harder for staff to use their powers for their own personal gain or for the gain of other people they have relation to.

 

There also needs to be a better way to complain or report certain staff members rather than making a forum post. Cause there clearly isn't considering the amount in which the forums are used to make complaints about staff.

[kujo_ 2510]

as someone on staff i think it is disingenuous to imply vendettas and grudges have no impact on decisions. yes, sometimes staff means well, but that doesnt make us immune to bias, even if we dont realize it. i really think mods need some kind of conflict resolution training or something because modreqing can be super hit or miss (which i believe attributes to why many players feel like they were "targeted" during a situation). some people on staff simply lack the patience to deal with this community, and that is ok.

 

another problem this server has is EXTREMELY lax enforcement. a good chunk of the server should be permabanned by now but we give so many second, third, fourth chances to people that dont deserve them. and why bother with permas when the next admin can unban them because they play league together?? some real slimey ass people worm their way out of bans thru sheer benefit of the doubt or because they need to break the rules ten more ******* times before anything can be done, and it destroys any player confidence in mods actually protecting the community. if they do get banned its usually followed by their buddies asking for proof to "fact check" or whatever (they're going to harass the reporter) and then the report magically gets leaked. there has to be a better vetting system for reports!!!!!

 

at the end of the day this is a minecraft roleplay server. you dont need it to survive. nobody has a right to be on here forever. if someone loses their friends or happiness or anything REAL because of lotc, a ban is necessary to snap them out of the hypnosis this game can cause. do not convince yourself lotc is all there is

 

[trinn 5146]

ignoring the r replies x3

 

But an issue I want to point out with the community is the willingness to share and perpetuate questionable and highly dangerous rhetorics about people. Even if it's just a matter of taking a document and sharing a link on discord to your friends -- why? Why are we willing to perpetuate and share around dangerous rumours about people,  prompting it to get discussed between MORE people without any conclusive or helpful end in sight? rather than trying to stifle it and send it to get deleted/obliterated/handled.

 

I understand wanting to share things to keep people safe, especially with the context of how LoTC has been in the past. But on the flipside, I feel as if we've become more willing and lenient in sharing dangerous rumours before finding a viable and reliable way to verify them. 

 

I will always, nonetheless, applaud our community for times when we try to keep each other safe. This isn't to dismiss the many efforts of different people in our community to genuinely raise awareness and ensure that things are known where they should be. 

[_RoyalCrafter_ 5285]

I don't normally comment on these posts, but from nearly everyone who I know made a private report, they never get an answer back, or no concrete resolution. I feel addressing that would be a way to make players feel less of a divide.

 

My sympathies go out to those negatively affected by the recent false report.