Caution

Thanks for all the hard work!

I meant to make another post on this the other day, but forgot until now. Sometimes, it gets extremely annoying dealing with people in general on here when they're in a 'group'. Lumping people into a group works extremely, extremely effectively in reference to punishing, but it's obviously not the fairest thing to do. I don't even want to warn someone to stop doing something, let alone ban them (I genuinely hate banning anyone from the community - the Marine Corps was the best because people could just throw gloves on and handle their shit without anyone actually getting a legit paper trail, obviously can't do that on the internet...although sometimes I wish lol). I think that the tension has been up there, and there are some people who are doing what they can to further exacerbate the situation - sometimes it's hard to distinguish who is intentionally trying to do that, and who is just trying to be a little edgy sometimes or troll just a little bit, and happens to get thrown into the mix with everything going on. Do I honestly give a shit about an online reputation feature? No. I really, honestly, 100% do not. The problem though is that it's there for somewhat of a reason...right? Everything on the forums is here for a reason. Obviously, if you're utilizing it in a way that's fun but maybe not the intent, we probably won't care - the care and concern starts to come when that fun is at the expense of other people, and those other people care. I used to be a gigantic fucking troll for any of you who have known me since my early days here at ZM/SG. Most of that started dying off the higher and higher up I rose in the ranks. I still enjoy fucking around; my presidential address to the community was memeing on someone else. I can go on and on with examples, but the point is that at some point I have to step in and go 'okay guys, that's enough'. I'm not saying shit like that because I want it to be tested and pushed further, I'm saying it because I genuinely don't want people to get in trouble and not be able to enjoy SG in its fullest. I've known Fuze / Noob for probably like 11 or 12 years now, and I think we were on a team together at one point. I've thought it over a bit and after talking a little bit, I don't think they're intentionally here to bring negativity to SG (hopefully lol). It came across that way because of everything else going on at the time, and because of some of the CB encounters / threads made lol. While I still think it was genuinely a dumb button to push after being told not to do it, I think that a week might have been too harsh. Like I said before, it just gets genuinely annoying to have to deal with people doing shit, especially after being told not to. I'm not saying you can't meme and troll a little bit lol, but if we genuinely say not to do something, please just listen. Ask for clarification, come find me in TS and we can have a private convo where you tell me how gay and stupid I am, etc...I don't care lol. I'm going to end the ban now, a day and some change early. #fuzefreed

That doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

I read a response to this that was pretty riddled with garbage. All Ts wasn't offered some Marketing Manager position that was later rescinded because he declined - that literally makes no sense to rescind something that was declined (let's put on our thinking caps here). I spoke with him about his attitude, his future here, and the possibility of him coming back as a manager (once again - against the entire rest of the Board's line of thinking). I did not say 'hey bro want MM? no? okay I take it back lol'. There was also zero factual evidence presented to me about Insidious and what he was doing, it was a mix of circumstantial bits of server oddities and conversation between myself, him, and Spiked that was inconclusive at best. Then we received actual evidence and a had a followup conversation where we made our decision. The accusation that I allow pedophiles to knowingly run around the community clearly is an ad hominem bit. This 'everyone gets a vote' thing is also hilarious coming from someone who threw a tantrum (remember the Sarah incident?) almost every time the votes did not align with their thinking. In reference to this 'Caution wanted to ban us' and 'Caution is doing this and that' - I rarely ever make any decision alone without the general consensus of the Board or whatever usergroup is assigned. Are there some people I wouldn't mind banning? Hellllllllllllll yeah. Do I randomly ban them? No - once again, you disagreeing with a ban reason =/= it's 'just because'. If that were the case, I would literally just say 'yeah I'm banning them just because'. One of us usually pulls the short end of the straw and has to deliver the news or make some sort of action, and that Board member is automatically associated with that specific decision. For example, @Nimmy has been trying to bait some sort of response out of me in the CB - Nimmy and I are not friends, has been warned about this, and yet continues to do so. If I wanted to ban him, I would literally just log into the back end and change his user group to 'Banned Users'. It takes 30 seconds of time to remove someone from the community indefinitely. Someone may not like or respect me, but I will always be straight up with you, 100% of the time, and I actually have archived threads here to support what I am saying. It takes a serious 'dedicated leader' to not only turn what was quoted above into the endless amount of garbage that was posted, but also to convince a following of people that I am living in the Wild West that is SG, banning whoever I want, ignoring whatever evidence I want, and just going about my day. 99% percent of the decisions here have some sort of trail associated with them, including the ones that got some people banned numerous times from this community by numerous different staff members at different points in time. I'm not the nicest person in the entire world, but I'm the same person who donated a months worth of donations to support a fellow members hospital expenses when they had fallen on hard times. That's actually one of the few decisions I did get to make on my own. I'm also the same person who defends some of you guys behind closed doors harder than you defend yourselves in public, even when you don't see it. If you guys want to go over and join that community, then by all means, you do what you feel is best. I think you guys are getting conned, but you do whatever you want. It was originally meant to be a 'Well-Wishing' post, but because of the retaliatory post that was made by the leader of that community, I am left with no choice but to handle any and all actions against Steam-Gamers led by members of that community as one, and thus will be dealt with harshly. If you are a member of that community and you come here to troll, raid, bait, etc., in any way on what is deemed on behalf of that community, whether sanctioned or not by their higher staff, will be handled immediately and harshly. I did not want it to come to this, but the public condoning of poaching members and further fuming an 'us vs. them' scenario has left me with no choice. ZombieMurder / Steamgamers / Steam-Gamers has been my baby for 4 years now, and having been a member of the servers / forums for well over a decade, I will do anything and everything to protect it. This back and forth thing between the two of us is done - I just wanted an opportunity to publicly denounce the amount of garbage that I read, but I do not care to get into a back and forth 'yeah huh, nuh uh'. If you genuinely think that I run around banning users just because, put up a 'Pedophiles Welcome' sign, go into meetings like a dad who gets drunk and beats his wife and kids, etc., then you are entitled to your way of thought. I don't really think I would be able to sustain a Board of Directors team longer than a few months, if that were the case. I mean hell, at that point, why even have a Board of Directors team? I'd just do whatever I wanted to do. I'm not a perfect leader nor perfect person, but the amount of accusations tossed out with zero accountability are humorous, at best.

I didn't plan on originally posting in regards to this situation, but I think that I should, because I believe that this is starting to spiral even more into a situation where people think they have to pick sides - and I'd just like to give a personal statement about this whole situation. Banning All Ts and Euro was extremely difficult. There was absolutely no part of me that wanted to do that - which is why that group in general got a lot of 'chances' in regards to blatant disrespect, and even why Euro got a lot of chances in regards to her saying 'nigger' in TS on a fairly consistent basis. Admittedly, I probably allowed way more than what should have happened in regards to the racism on TeamSpeak. Some people think that we were too harsh on them or that it was unjust. Honestly - I feel extremely let down and disappointed. I stood up and defended both of them (and others in that group) multiple times against overwhelming odds among the higher up teams at different respective times. I led hours upon hours of discussions on why All Ts should be allowed to be an admin, why Euro should have a strike removed, why we should promote them, etc. While this obviously doesn't mean I (or anyone else) deserve unquestionable loyalty in any and every situation - it should show that at the end of the day, I'm trying to look out for them and for the best interests of the community, because at the time they did not have the best reputations...but I thought that they had a lot of potential. Disagreements occur along the way, but at least having the benefit of the doubt that I sort of kind of maybe a little am trying to steer the place in the right direction is well appreciated. I don't get every decision right, and neither does the Board. We mess up sometimes along the way, for sure. But the amount of actual disrespect that blew past joking is crazy, which is why I feel genuinely let down. I rarely ever take credit for anything, but there was absolutely no one who wanted to vouch for anyone in that group, and I feel like I wasted so much time doing so. As most of you know, All Ts has a new community. As I have mentioned in an admin section - do not feel like you are going to get punished for playing over there or anything. We obviously will not tolerate advertising (which has sort of happened...so this is a reminder not to do that) or poaching, etc. We here from the Board of Directors wish nothing but the best for them and their community, genuinely.

yeah but haggard built a plugin that we used for quite awhile to make everything easier, because iirc we didn't have any admin plugins on there to keep the server as vanilla as possible. so it took either a server vote or an rcon command to lo3. I don't know if there are anymore lo3 scripts, I'd have to check.

it was insane how populated that old server was. I think it'd be fun to bring it back. I don't know if there are still any working plugins though for lo3

To the best of my knowledge, that is not possible.

should have just told you all we’re getting rid of ts3 for ts2 and getting rid of discord for vent

Hello everyone, After discussing it with the Board some more, we have decided to keep TeamSpeak for now, along with Discord. We are going to try and keep our Discord up to date so it doesn't become cluttered and gross (shoutout to Nishok, Wesker, and others for the huge amount of help they've given). While running the community, sometimes we forget some things should be brought to a much wider audience before actually making a decision, and this may have been one of those scenarios. While I cannot promise we will never switch to Discord fully, we will try and make huge community changes like that more public beforehand. In turn, however, I think that some of you guys need to realize the ridiculousness that ensued following this. Some of you guys did the right thing, and some of you the wrong thing. Let's try and keep things a bit more civil the next time something like this happens again. Having to ban people because they can't contain their anger over a VOIP decision is pretty petty and dumb. So, as stated, TeamSpeak will stay up. We have no plans on removing it now - and if we do, we will fill the community in before making a vote on something like that. Thanks

Fuze has been banned for a week on the forums for abusing the reputation feature after being warned not to.

i posted more times, that means i have more raffle tickets entered

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All posts must be in English. Posts include any type of text entered from your end to SG’s end - ie you’re still posting to the shout box. I don’t think anyone is going to care if you do it occasionally, i just wouldn’t make it the norm.

All T's has had his rank removed for, once again, continuing, among the previous drama associated with his step down.

I just told all of you to chill out with this, and Euro continued it. She is banned until further notice (would have just been a day or something, but she already has multiple bans - will discuss with Board).

Okay, so this reply is going to be covering this whole Teamspeak situation as a whole, and not just this specific thread. This thread is fine and is more or less the definition of healthy debate and disagreement. We are, however beyond the point of debating it. The points that you have brought up in this thread were brought up by the Board and discussed. Initially, we had a unanimous agreement among all of us, and then later one vote was swapped from yes to no. Even after the points were brought up for the nay vote, we were still on board to make the push to Discord. Mad Dogg brought up an excellent suggestion the other day about utilizing a trial run to give Discord a shot on its own, since there is still some time left on the TeamSpeak subscription. As always, with every single thing in this community, virtually nothing is set in stone. Everything is constantly reevaluated to make sure it's an effective addition to the community. Server rules, forum features, admin protocol, etc. Some of you really should have been at that community meeting where I said numerous times that SG is not, and has never been, a democracy. There are instances where we gather AT opinions, CA opinions, SA opinions, community opinions, or no opinions. Every single decision in this community is made by the Board, whether directly or indirectly (IE by proxy because we put someone in charge). Even if we took an issue to a community vote - we are establishing the parameters of the outcome. Once again - SG has always, since it's creation, been this way. In this situation, we more or less kept it among the board (although it wasn't a gigantic secret), because we figured there would be a decent group who hates change just because it's change (I will definitely touch on this later), and we were able to weigh the pros and cons decently among ourselves. More or less the same exact situation when we left Ventrilo for TS3. I spoke with the Board this morning because a lot of you even had me second-guessing my own vote on this whole exchange, but we agreed again to push forward. I think that about covers the decision for TS in itself - @Prez feel free to add something if I have left anything out, since we've talked a bit about this. Now we're going to cover conduct! The thread here is fine, this portion really isn't addressed to you , Dominic (although taking it to CB is annoying. just PM whoever next time). I want to steal a few words from Prez about this situation, because they were spot on about the amount of childish bullshit happening right now among a lot of you...but I'm going to deliver straight from my loving heart: Some of you are being fucking ridiculous. It's a trial run for Discord: grow the fuck up . For those that abused the reputation system, neg repping on some dumb shit - your rep has been set back to 0. I don't know exactly what, if any, punishments will be in the future for abusing the system (maybe just removing it, idk) - but I thought setting it to zero would be fitting. If you left a neg rep that was actually constructive, you're fine. Although you're shooting the messenger, because this isn't me just making some random fucking decision. If you're a higher up in this community, I seriously suggest you check what you are saying in public. Handle your shit in private with me, my VP, or close your mouth. If you have an issue with that: step down. I'm not going to sell you a rose garden and tell you anything you do or say is fine and dandy and will go unpunished. You are absolutely, completely, 100% allowed to disagree with something, voice your opinion in an adult manner, etc., etc.. What I saw last night was ridiculous, and completely inexcusable. One thing I will steal from Prez is the absolute fatigue we are experiencing from this group of people preaching to SG from their soapbox. We don't get every single decision right. It absolutely does not happen, and no one is saying that definitively Discord will be the one true beacon of light. We do, however, sometimes decide to step out of the box and take a risk. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. It is what it is. TLDR: We're giving Discord a trial run. Stop being dickheads about it - we've listened to a lot of you, and have still decided to go in this direction: it happens sometimes.

I’ll respond in like 30-45 mins.

You are all more than entitled to your opinion, but please understand this was not a random decision - it was one made among the Board, and after Prez and I having a lengthy discussion about it. This is the direction that we are planning on going. As always, not everyone will be pleased, and that is fine. I will absolutely not tolerate furthering a perceived divide among SG. I have zero problem with people disagreeing and healthy debate - I told the entire community multiple times that we are done with this shit attitude going around and overall disrespectfulness, which is why we are down a Board Member now. If you give off that negative of a vibe in this community, no matter what rank, you will be booted out the door.

Hello everyone, After utilizing a trial run with Discord and weighing our options, we have decided to make the push away from Teamspeak and towards Discord fully. It was a hard decision, but ultimately we believe this is the best option for us. Initially, we were hoping to utilize both TS and Discord simultaneously, sine both have their pros and cons. Eventually, we came to the determination that, if anything, it isn't serving a point to have both, as it's just wasted time in extra upkeep. So we weighed the pros and cons of both, and we believe that Discord is the future. TeamSpeak has had a great run (Ventrilo is still the best), but it is time for SG to move on and fully integrate to Discord. With that being said, we will be closing TeamSpeak down on the 31st of January. This should give us more than enough time to make sure everything is looking pretty. For those of you higherups that are utilizing our Slack channels - we may also be moving to Discord for that, as well...standby for that...we will keep you updated. Thanks everyone

Gator and Wawa have decided to make this optional for AT's / CA's, just encouraged to keep everyone informed as much as possible

Kicks is banned for a day for posting like an ass. I warned all of you that we were done with the BS and were going to start issuing bans - there's an obvious line that was crossed in this situation, and I'd say going into threads and calling people fucking retards and faggots with no context should be pretty obvious not to do.

Wow. So...yeah, we're not going to make this a rule. Will's post was sarcastic, but explains probably the biggest opposition to even considering it a rule. In reference to the majority of posts made on this thread...yeah that's not going to fly. Stop spamming and posting BS. Kicks - you are banned for a day, for obvious reasons. I'm leaving your post up for the sole reason of it being easy to reference back to.

I think we're going to discuss admin apps as a whole, so I'm going to go ahead and mark this as rejected, because we aren't sure entirely what changes we are going to be making. But any changes will addressed, and we will keep this thread in mind when discussing.