bunch of dumb ideas

[Caution]

I posted this in the BD discord chat a few moments ago. This is the general direction I’m trying to take things. Again, I’m not expecting this to be perfect on shot #1, but I think it’s going to move us in the right direction and let us tailor it to our needs as a community.

 

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so things are getting a tad stagnant in some of the discussions (not anyone’s fault, shit just happens sometimes and a lot of us are busy). Effective immediately, pending one of you guys having a reasonable issue with this, I’d like to start implementing the following:

1. We have a public board channel where we have 90% + of our communication. This will be read only for the entire community outside of us and the TA’s (I want them all to have access to it, not just Revenga / Nishok / Gator). I’d like basically everything that doesn’t have sensitive info being talked about on there. I don’t want to say don’t fuck around at all, but at the same time it’s going to be a first impression for us doing this, so I’d like it to be at least flowing with whatever the conversation is if we are gonna fuck around lol. 

 

As a side note…while we’ve typically always handled punishments in private: what if we didn’t? Had this idea this morning and wanted to gather some input on it. Flipping the script on it actually sounds like it might make sense, and lets the community see where our head is with what we tolerate / don’t AS we’re discussing it. Idk what you guys would think about trial running that. My thoughts are make absolutely everything public outside of personal information, obviously our super secret SG stuff, etc. etc. Or if there is some wild situation that is personal that we need to handle in-house.

I don’t want this to mean that we’re going to start doing VOIP whenever we want to talk about shit. I’d like those to be accessible to the public as well. Again, outside of the shit mentioned above. I trust all of you to make that determination on what’s appropriate and what’s not.

2. I want us to keep track of what we’re doing, at least once a month. I’d like there to be a public discord display of some sort as well as a display on the forums of what each of us individually has done, is doing, is thinking about doing, etc. This isn’t meant to really keep tabs on you guys from mine / Dom’s standpoint, but more so so the community kind of knows whose hands are in what.  I’ll elaborate more on this and maybe draft an example, but it’s not meant to be like paragraphs upon paragraphs (unless you want it to be). And if you’re busy or some shit just let one of us know or just post ‘busy with real life’ or something. No worries at all, I just want the transparency there.

 

3. I want AO’s to be able to approve admin apps on their own, whether they flow into Discord or the forums. This is NOT meant to be AO’s looking through and judging the way we do from a community standpoint - it’s meant to be that if an AO vouches for someone, they get admin. And if no AO vouches for someone, we’d still make that determination. This isn’t under any type of threat of punishment towards an AO for approving someone that doesn’t work out. I trust them to make that judgment call…and if we don’t, then we should be having another discussion lol.

 

4. I want scheduled, ROTATING weekly “meetings”. More or less ‘shoot the shit with a BD’ if there is nothing to actually discuss. Bringing this in with the posted BD activity we’ll be doing, I think more people will be inclined to voice opinions on stuff and whatnot. If you guys think weekly is too much, we can do biweekly. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that ONE of us be available for an hour or two at some point during the week. We could rotate that duty among us. For example, I’d run it week 1 and 2, Dom week 3 and 4, etc. And we’d choose the day / time that works best for us. This will rotate the schedule a bit and hopefully target different people’s availability.

 

None of this stuff is meant to be super seriously adhered to. I’m not trying to set strict guidelines or anything, but I want everything as public as we can reasonably make it. Some of this may work out, and some may not. But I’d rather get the ball rolling on trying something and tailoring it later if need be. I’m not expecting it to be perfect the first time around, but I think it’s going to take us in a good direction. Again, I’m intending to make all of this implemented (more or less) within the next week, just pending my availability. Does anyone have positive / negative feedback?

[jazzy]

10 hours ago, Caution said:

4. I want scheduled, ROTATING weekly “meetings”. More or less ‘shoot the shit with a BD’ if there is nothing to actually discuss. Bringing this in with the posted BD activity we’ll be doing, I think more people will be inclined to voice opinions on stuff and whatnot. If you guys think weekly is too much, we can do biweekly. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that ONE of us be available for an hour or two at some point during the week. We could rotate that duty among us. For example, I’d run it week 1 and 2, Dom week 3 and 4, etc. And we’d choose the day / time that works best for us. This will rotate the schedule a bit and hopefully target different people’s availability.

I think if the BD's can participate in some of the seed days and answer questions people might have, that would be a good in between from having meetings vs having an "open door" policy. It is nice to talk to zt, karma recently. I think a lot of people do join if higher ups are on because sometimes they just want to ask questions (or lay into someone lol)

[Caution]

‘Allowing groups to be trolls’ was mentioned several times in this thread. If someone wanted to specifically name names, I’d appreciate it. It’s not meant to get anyone in trouble right now or start a pissing contest, but I just genuinely don’t always know who is all friends, what’s joking and what’s not, etc. i know we’ve had issues with GG, but they seem fine after the unban (and tbh, looking back on it, we may have been too harsh in some situations and would possibly entertain them approaching us to get a rank back or a ban taken off record - just situation dependent). If people would feel more comfortable DMing me their thoughts, that’s totally fine too. 

[XeNo]

It's been many years, but one of the most effective ways I got information of how the community is feeling and hearing feedback from players, was just playing in servers. Obviously, servers being dormant appears to be a problem, but just sitting idly in an open discord channel would be good too.

 

The idea of weekly BD open door sounds nice, but also comes across a bit "gracing you with their presence". Just chill more in public channels and make the policy that discord dms are welcome and stuff will flow to you.

 

The BD that is most active in the discord and servers will always know more about what's going on. Ask questions to players, I used to ask for players feedback all the time and get good results. Just asking if people are having fun gets the conversation going, ask questions to why they feel a certain way. It helps inform faster than meetings and forum threads.

[XeNo]

On 9/9/2023 at 7:23 PM, delirium said:

 

7PM EST update:

 

300 players (not counting HvH servers) on CSGO community servers from the first page of gametracker alone.

 

184 of those playing on servers ran and/or founded by former members here.

 

This isn't even counting several other games with dedicated servers that we've been successful in and just gave up after minor/major setbacks.

 

Community severs aren't dead; the dedication and motivation within this community is.

 

You let a couple of groups of (not even very good) trolls push away people from your servers and community over the last 2-3 years while also pushing out people who had the facilities to manage your servers and provide free content (maps, plugins, community curation) because they saw the writing on the walls and were critical of people with more imaginary clout than them.

 

I wonder why SG is on life support right? Certainly not decisions made out of pure spite to the detriment of the community as a whole right? Definitely not fence riding situations and reapplying Band-Aids constantly in order to keep a completely ignorant, demoralizing, and mostly useless contingent of players around because "at least they populate the servers/forums/discord" while failing to realize that enabling those groups was what would ultimately kill your community right? Unquestionably not continuing to enable staff that shows no signs of motivation/dedication/time for the community to hold decision making positions and represent your community while not even being in touch with it right?

 

Community has had the pedal pushed to the floor and cruise control enabled straight into a wall since the late 2010's. Sure, Valve isn't doing SG any favors with their mismanagement and neglect when it comes to community servers, however, SG also didn't do itself any favors by continuing to operate the way it has when it was pretty obvious to a lot of people that shit was going to hit the fan if things were not figured out. Unfortunately for those with ties to this community, shit didn't change.

 

Even as of this post only one (recently promoted) Director has had the common courtesy to address any of the points/suggestions at length or try to take initiative on. You would think that the people most invested in the success of the community would want to engage in discussions from individuals who still clearly want the community to succeed. Unless you're all PMing @jazzy unbeknownst to anyone else, it seems like even at the highest level there is an air of fatalistic nihilism for a community that all of you should be working to revive or at the very least continue to keep the life support machines plugged in if you still cared as much as you did on your grind to the positions that have been bestowed on you.

 

Not all of this is on the current team, but, it is the current teams job to clean the mess up nonetheless. Hopefully as previously stated there is a plan before the drain-circling/dead horse beating ends forever.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Double posting but I'm on my phone so I don't want to edit this in.

 

This post is a very long way to, in what seems to me, type "I told you so". While people may have seen writing on the wall or noticed the community was dwindling and had ideas or ways to fix them that went unheard, this entire post is unhelpful.

 

My assumption to you sticking around and posting something so long winded and filled with animosity, is that you still care. I think you should lead with that part of your emotions next time you post, so that it can constructively build a solution to the current situation. Whether you saw it coming years ago or not, the present cannot be fixed with anger for past events.

 

That being said, I've been away for many years and have no knowledge of what all transpired to leave SG in the state it is in now. However, your sarcastic retelling of events points to signs I remember well, and caution I hope also recognizes. Stagnation in positions of power leading to inactive leadership.

 

It's not easy to entrust people with leading your beloved community that you've been part of forever. In times of activity and population, it's easy to go years without promoting a BD since the decisions have been made to make things successful, so relish in the success and take some time away from the community while popping in to give input on direction and decisions. However in times like now, aggressive expansion and removal of cogs not running should be heavily considered, emotions, friendships, and seniority aside.

 

I have demoted people who I used to be lower rank than, and I've demoted people who have been here years longer than me. When we realized the trouble the community was in, it was down to harsh decisions for the betterment of the community. You lose many friends, and gain even more enemies. People should work towards the common goal, improving the community, or their positions should be replaced with people willing to do so.

 

In a population that is dwindling, you need the people still around and active to all be leaders and decision makers, and not shy away from giving newcomers a chance to help where they can. Revenga was a regular when he went straight to TA because we needed it, not because he had earned the favor of the community. He did earn it though, and absolutely one of the best gamble decisions I feel I've ever made. He helped us tremendously then, and continued to do so years after. I just had to go for it and give him his chance.

[Dominic]

On 10/1/2023 at 2:53 AM, XeNo said:

Double posting but I'm on my phone so I don't want to edit this in.

 

This post is a very long way to, in what seems to me, type "I told you so". While people may have seen writing on the wall or noticed the community was dwindling and had ideas or ways to fix them that went unheard, this entire post is unhelpful.

 

My assumption to you sticking around and posting something so long winded and filled with animosity, is that you still care. I think you should lead with that part of your emotions next time you post, so that it can constructively build a solution to the current situation. Whether you saw it coming years ago or not, the present cannot be fixed with anger for past events.

 

That being said, I've been away for many years and have no knowledge of what all transpired to leave SG in the state it is in now. However, your sarcastic retelling of events points to signs I remember well, and caution I hope also recognizes. Stagnation in positions of power leading to inactive leadership.

 

It's not easy to entrust people with leading your beloved community that you've been part of forever. In times of activity and population, it's easy to go years without promoting a BD since the decisions have been made to make things successful, so relish in the success and take some time away from the community while popping in to give input on direction and decisions. However in times like now, aggressive expansion and removal of cogs not running should be heavily considered, emotions, friendships, and seniority aside.

 

I have demoted people who I used to be lower rank than, and I've demoted people who have been here years longer than me. When we realized the trouble the community was in, it was down to harsh decisions for the betterment of the community. You lose many friends, and gain even more enemies. People should work towards the common goal, improving the community, or their positions should be replaced with people willing to do so.

 

In a population that is dwindling, you need the people still around and active to all be leaders and decision makers, and not shy away from giving newcomers a chance to help where they can. Revenga was a regular when he went straight to TA because we needed it, not because he had earned the favor of the community. He did earn it though, and absolutely one of the best gamble decisions I feel I've ever made. He helped us tremendously then, and continued to do so years after. I just had to go for it and give him his chance.

 

Always appreciative of your input, and your insight actually sparked some ideas and considerations in my head. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to drop some wisdom on us homie, hope all is going well with you.