Reworking our recognition ranks

[Nick.]

Y'all really gonna do jefferyminecraft52 dirty like that?

[Alex]

As well as visitor messages? Can't write on my own or anyone else's as far as I'm looking

 

Dad......Have you finally come back?

[Unnamed Newbie]

I completely agree with this, veterans should have SA power because some of them actually frequent the servers and help out. Most of them were also the people who managed the servers so not allowing them to have power on a server they used to manage and help out on is a little weird to me. I think people should be granted HG if they are a longtime admin or you have contributed a lot to the growth of the community. Veteran should be kinda like retired staff in the sense that it should mainly consist of AT's IA's and once and a while a CA that has put in a lot more work but just never wanted to get to AT.

 

 

I want to try and get more into what I think about the change. I'm trying not to think of this emotionally, but I hope to help you understand where most of us are coming from.

 

SilentGuns mentioned he's been admin 10 years. I've been admin for 7 years, to this day. Many more have been admin longer. Obviously SG doesn't play as big of a role in our lives as it did five to ten years ago. But it seems jarring. There are lots of questions that swirled around my mind: "Do you not trust us to execute our job?", "Are they worried we're taking up room that could be used for SAs?" etc.

 

I know to a lot of members, I will sound entitled. But I just want everyone to understand that SG itself has genuinely been a part of my life for 9 years and for many more, it's been a part of their lives for longer.

 

Due to this, think I feel what a lot of others on this list feel; a mix of betrayal, anger, and understanding. There was a huge disparity between Legends to begin with in terms of 'accomplishments'. Hell, I'm one of the few who never actually made it past CA. But I know I worked my ass off in that brief time and really contributed to the PB community. SilentGuns was the unwavering pillar holding up our continuous attempts at Minecraft. Veggie was the admin who taught me how to play PB. ExRev was the first damn person I met and we held that PB community together like glue.

 

I don't want to put words in people's mouths, but I think everyone on this list genuinely believes that they deserve, at the very least, admin powers. It's hard to judge people off of their rank. I know I contributed more to in-server culture and fulfilling signature requests than I did "big picture" things or posting on the forums. And it's hard to come to terms with the fact that a small group of people - many whom some of us have never played with - have judged our contribution' to the community in a fair, holistic manner. I don't want to attack anyone's judgement - that's rude and unfair. I can only imagine how difficult it is to judge about a hundred players from many different eras based off of their achievements years ago. I just want to try and express how I genuinely feel. This makes it seem like the past 7 years of administrating the servers was all for naught.

 

Where I see a huge issue is that a majority of the new Vets/HGs who have been demoted are still relatively active. No we don't play every week anymore - but when we do play, we still uphold the integrity and respect of the admin position. And that is what hurts the most. You're telling us that after all our hard-work and my past 4 years of being a Legend that, suddenly, we don't deserve it anymore.

 

I think there are better ways to differentiate the individuals in those lists. There are some names: bethy, TCP, Haggard, Spraytan, etc. that are so essential to SG's history, you could put them in an SG Hall of Fame. They can keep their higher admin powers; they've earned lifetime achievements. That should not detract from the Veterans' contributions though. No, I did not found SG. Nor, was I President of SG. But yes, I made a difference, if not to SG, then to the individuals in our servers and I feel let down that all I get from that is some funny purple text.

 

I appreciate the recognition of being a Veteran and I'm proud of everything I've done for the community. I respect the time you've put into this decision and hate to be the one to argue it. But I firmly believe that we have earned your trust and respect to uphold the rules and integrity of SG.

 

Thanks for reading this all if you did. This isn't as life-changing as it seems - I'm just feeling a lot of different emotions right now.

 

Appreciate all you hard work

 

at least I still have an emoji

[Tyymunk]

Not really sure what the difference is between Veterans and HG now considering the fact that “normal members of the community who aren’t admins” will never be approved or even nominated to get this rank.

 

Also can HGs eventually become Veterans if they were previously admins or ATs or higher?

 

Edit: and what is the point of getting rid of the presidential award?

[SilentGuns]

I would also like to express gratitude for this recognition. SG has had held and still continues to hold a special place in my heart and hopefully i can find ways to make even more meaningful contributions.

 

 

 

As for the question of admin powers: while my activity is extremely sparse on CS:GO, I still show up on request and participate in events. I keep updated on the rules and I will show up if any of you ask for help. There are definitely more active veterans than me and if we keep ourselves updated then I don't see why we can't have some kind of opt-in admin powers.

 

 

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On a related note, if you guys need help then you can add me on steam. Link in sig. This goes for all ranks and anything within my ability.

[asdfg]

[video=youtube_share;_8872RyLhxE]

[Phoenix_]

I guess I'll chip in my 2c here as well. I'm going to be a bit out of place speaking on things beyond HG, but I'll share what I feel nonetheless.

 

I think that it's good that Legend was more or less split into two. There are people who can be distinguished in their actions from being Board members or Tech Team members who contributed more than absolutely anyone could have imagined. But, the people who are currently in the Veteran rank who contributed lots and lots over years at this community I think got the short end of the stick here. As multiple people in this position already spoke about this, I believe those who made large contributions and proved still semi-active members in the community who maintained the trust of the staff and community and upheld the rules of SG should retain some form of admin ability to assist in the servers when they decide to pop on. Describing what the 'similar perks to HG' are may have helped out here because as it stands, for those people their current position in the community outside of getting the recognition they deserve is pretty vague. IMO they should at least be able to have basic powers like mute, kick, gag to be able to help control servers if no one is on or they just want to help out. They've done nothing to betray your trust, but it seems you've betrayed them in their eyes.

[Gentoo]

While I'm sure this was a long time coming, I don't think it's a stretch to say this wan't in part catalyzed by many of the recent incidents and demotions involving LGs.

 

To me, LG has seemed like a nice way to part ways with a long time staff member, acknowledging their work and making their time easier should they choose to play on the servers from time to time. I'm not entirely familiar with much of the drama that's gone on recently, but in the past year, I'm fairly positive at least a few people have been demoted from staff positions to the LG rank. This is something that hasn't sat right with me. While it may be done with the intentions listed above, I don't think you could blame someone for interpreting it as just appeasing the parties involved. These are people who were heavily invested in the community, and now have to sit by as a glorified SA. From my perspective, demoting someone to LG is asking for trouble, and may be one of the reasons why this change ever had to come to fruition.

 

I don't think its at all likely that you'll have issues with people that have intentionally parted ways with the rank, and are no longer invested in the community. While I don't have any footing in the conversation, I feel this gives the impression that HGs don't really matter and that LGs can't be trusted.

 

I have no doubt that these changes were made with the best of the community in mind, but I don't feel that many of these people should be effected by the actions of so few. The distinctions here seem quite vague to me, and I'm curious about if they would've even made a difference. Despite any the drama prior to these changes, I don't think there's a previous LG that I knew that couldn't, at the very least, be trusted to administrate the servers. These are people that grew up in this community, regardless of what schizo shit they're raving about in shoutbox, they have enough decency not to subject the servers to abuse.

 

Just for clarity's sake here, these are just my own guesses to what could have contributed to this change, and I could be totally wrong about all of it. However, I'm really having trouble discerning why these changes needed to be made, or what positive impact they are meant to have.

[Prez]

people that grew up in this community, regardless of what schizo shit they're raving about in shoutbox, they have enough decency not to subject the servers to abuse.

 

Just for clarity's sake here, these are just my own guesses to what could have contributed to this change, and I could be totally wrong about all of it. However, I'm really having trouble discerning why these changes needed to be made, or what positive impact they are meant to have.

 

Coming from my perspective, even though I haven't been VP or on the board for over a year these kinds of decisions and changes are made with the mindset of positively pushing our organization into more logical forms. You can't always work with the "if it ain't broke" mentality, otherwise progress will never happen. This change, while unexpected, makes sense to me in the way that there has always been a lack of concrete definition of what/who qualifies as "Legend" vs HG. Making a middle rank and *more* clearly defining all three now makes sense, and it is more scalable, even if there is further room for clarification. That isn't to say that there isn't room for improvement, but these kinds of announcement threads are by and large made for two reasons:

 

a) To notify everyone of what is happening, of course; and

b) To see what kind of feedback happens.

 

If they didn't want feedback, they would lock the thread and delete further discussions from the outset. Obviously, the team doesn't run that way in general - so then you get responses like yours, mine, everyone else's, etc. Programs like this never, and I mean never stay in Version 1 format. Will they add administrator permissions? Maybe, who knows; might take a few days for them to discuss and bring in the right people. Trust me, I've been in those meetings before; it took weeks and weeks to create the initial structure of the Divisions we have today... and look what happened: they have probably changed 10 times since the original thread two years ago.

 

I think these kinds of discussions and threads with public opinion are healthy. However, changes are made with a purpose and will always end up being affected by some future event, feedback or criticism and they will change again.

 

The other thing I will mention is that nowhere in the OP or from a BD directly was it mentioned why powers weren't granted. Everything that is said until it is clarified is pure speculation. No one here that doesn't have a red name can say why it was chosen - be it trust issues, personal decisions, whatever. It is best not to speculate because you'll just end up pissing both yourself and everyone else off with rage over what the potential reasoning is. It will likely come out from the Board (at least partly) on why it was decided in this way, especially due to different responses being posted by various members of the community (mine included), so I would wait for that before making any more judgments or opinions on this.

[Gentoo]

The other thing I will mention is that nowhere in the OP or from a BD directly was it mentioned why powers weren't granted. Everything that is said until it is clarified is pure speculation. No one here that doesn't have a red name can say why it was chosen - be it trust issues, personal decisions, whatever. It is best not to speculate because you'll just end up pissing both yourself and everyone else off with rage over what the potential reasoning is. It will likely come out from the Board (at least partly) on why it was decided in this way, especially due to different responses being posted by various members of the community (mine included), so I would wait for that before making any more judgments or opinions on this.

 

It's not very often that the regulars of the community are filled in on why changes like these are made. Understandably, it's not always important, and may just stir drama, but I do find reasoning important when assuming someone else's perspective or aiming to rebut a certain point of view. While I suppose it's not entirely necessary to share your speculations when offering counter-points, this is something that I have trouble understanding the reason for in the current implementation. While eliminating the Presidential Award in lieu of a "Presidential Rank" seems reasonable to me, I can't fathom another explanation to why longstanding previous Legends no longer get powers other than if they can no longer be trusted with them.

 

While it's not always best for the Board to share their reasoning with the community, anyone even marginally invested in a topic considers the reason for it, and I feel that that ?is a very important part of feedback.