On Conflicts of Interest

[Daisy 9729]

Hey,

 

So, this is not a post I foresaw myself making, but one necessitated by some poor decisions I have made over the past week, ones I need to own.

 

Haelun’or is a nation I have been part of for ten years, and it was in a difficult position in roleplay due to a conflict with Caurost. As part of this, they were likely going to lose nation status, though I identified a gray area in the Realms system that would permit them to keep it. Essentially, there was no requirement in the system for when a vassal needed to be under another realm, and when it could have its own realm. I presented this to the admins and KaiserThoren (the lead of the Implementation Team), with the idea that Haelun’or could keep nation status while becoming a protectorate of Numendil, who had agreed to do this in roleplay. I left all the decision-making to them, and agreed to respect the outcome. Beyond other pros and cons that were discussed, we knew that the OOC agreement of the nation leaders involved would be necessary at a minimum, so on behalf of Haelun’or I went to Unwillingly to pitch the idea, the full logs of which can be found below (you may have seen cropped versions of this floating around, and I want to give clarity to that):

 

Spoiler

 

Unsurprisingly, Unwillingly stopped replying to me after this, as I was being rather abrasive. A couple hours later I apologized to them and we agreed to wait until after the RP to decide the matter of nation status. Ultimately, we vassalized under Numendil and as it stands will be losing nation status.

 

Now it may come as a surprise to all of you due to my long history of admin announcements, but I am a terrible text communicator, and in retrospect, reading these messages, I was coming off the wrong way. I want to clarify, at no point was I attempting to dictate what will happen in roleplay, and the initial ‘outcomes’ I presented to them were just what I had thought was going to happen based on an RP meeting that had occurred a few days earlier, not what must happen in any way. Based off some of the possible outcomes of the RP, my goal was to clarify what the OOC repercussions of this would be to quell the overwhelming anxiety I had over the future of the nation, so I could go into the upcoming roleplay at least understanding what would happen mechanically should the roleplay have went one way or another.

 

Kaiser explained what him and the other admins were looking for in a much better way, and in retrospect, he should have been the one to message Unwillingly, not me:

 

Spoiler

 

The crux of the issue, in my mind, is that it was not a nation leader messaging Unwillingly, but an admin, and we have power. Power that can be abused, power can lead to bans. I shouldn’t have been acting on behalf of a nation like this, as this was a clear conflict of interest.

 

So, how did we get in this position? Admins aren’t allowed to be nation leaders, right? So, my character holds the position of Maheral in Haelun’or. The Maheral is a largely cultural leadership position, though does occasionally get involved in the day-to-day politics of the nation. Sort of like a weird high elf pope. For the large part, I have been staying out of any controversial political situations in Haelun’or, and intended to stay away from the Caurost debacle with a ten foot pole. However, due to some very unfortunate timing, the nation leader had to take an immediate hiatus due to real life circumstances beyond their control, leaving my character as the senior most member of the government to deal with the diplomacy. I did not plan to be in this position, but I should have taken further steps to avoid it.

 

In all, I would like to apologize to the community, especially those in Caurost, for putting myself in a conflict of interest, and acting in a way that was unbecoming of an administrator. To remedy this, two things are being done:

• I will be immediately taking steps to step down from my position in Haelun’or’s leadership to remove the conflict of interest.
• We are amending the Staff Conduct policy to prevent situations like this in the future (see the spoiler below):

Spoiler

Old:

Administration & Management

Administrators and team managers (or equivalent positions) may not be the leader of a realm.

 

Moderation

Moderators may not be the leader of a realm.

 

Technical

Senior technicians and members of the implementation team may not be the leader of a realm.

 

Story & Community

Story and Community team members may also be realm leaders at the team admin's discretion.

 

New:

Definition: What is a position that acts as leader?
A position that acts as leader is the direct leader of a realm, or a position adjacent to the leader such as consort, heir apparent, or viceroy, only when they consistently act in place of the direct leader. If this applies to a particular position is under the discretion of the team’s administration.
 

Administration

Administrators may not hold any position that acts as leader of a realm, vassal, or lair. In addition, they may not hold a position equivalent to consort, heir, viceroy, leader of the primary faith / culture in the realm, military leader, head diplomat, or treasurer within a realm, vassal, or lair.

 

Management

Team managers (or similar positions) may not hold any position that acts as leader of a realm. In addition, they may not hold a position equivalent to leader of the primary faith / culture within a realm.
 

Moderation

Moderators may not hold any position that acts as leader of a realm.

 

Technical

Senior technicians and members of the implementation team may not hold any position that acts as leader of a realm. In addition, they may not hold a position equivalent to treasurer within a realm.

 

Other Technical team members may hold such positions at the team admin's discretion.

 

Story & Community

Story and Community team members may hold a position that acts as leader at the team admin's discretion.

 

Cheers,

   — Llir

 

[Laeonathan 5889]

A good decision. Long overdue. I am thankful for your work as an admin, but you seemed biased in Hnors favor in many situations.

 

Though why keep average staff out?

[Wyrvun 1808]

nothing happened haelunor and fenn in 2022

[candyzeroyal 168]

ok.

[chacmul 358]

FREE HIM. FREE MY MAN BUFF.

[MailC3p 2403]

****, it is so over for Haelun'bros

[Cheese 8880]

9 minutes ago, Llir said:

Story and Community team members may hold roleplay leadership positions at the team admin's discretion.

What happens when a Story Team member creates prophecies and multiple powerful/meaningful ST objects and MArts for a realm that they happen to be the heir to? Seems kinda biased

[Hawkeye_Gough 624]

All hail Sohaer Morgan!

 

-- Jokes aside, I'm really happy to see that the team cares to handle and resolve situations like this. I'm a big fan of Llir and I believe that they meant no ill will or intention. It's hard to see change in a community we love and I respect the absolute shit out of coming forward to everybody like this.

[PrimnyaQuorum 3999]

2 minutes ago, Cheese said:

What happens when a Story Team member creates prophecies and multiple powerful/meaningful ST objects and MArts for a realm that they happen to be the heir to? Seems kinda biased

ALERT, ALERT: ELF DETECTED. OPINION INVALIDATED

[sam33497 7356]

3 minutes ago, Cheese said:

What happens when a Story Team member creates prophecies and multiple powerful/meaningful ST objects and MArts for a realm that they happen to be the heir to? Seems kinda biased

 

The things mentioned here were achieved through player-accessible means

 

Anyone can make prophecies, and anyone can make MArts with the lores they possess.

[Werew0lf 24180]

3 minutes ago, Cheese said:

What happens when a Story Team member creates prophecies and multiple powerful/meaningful ST objects and MArts for a realm that they happen to be the heir to? Seems kinda biased

im a real angel 

[__Hergh 785]

[Epicethan4 948]

I’ll applaud you for being honest in this area and amending the rules. I always said that admins should have no leadership involvement within a nation, and I found your influence over Haelun’or deeply concerning. It was a running gag that you might use your admin position to benefit your realm. Once again, good on you for admitting to this and amending the rules. I hope from now on Admins step back fully from nation involvement 

Edited May 26, 2025 by Epicethan4

[hopey 364]

.

 

[wowj 9747]

Kill this guy with hammers!