Yo, We Need Transparency.

[Christovski]

I've seen it happen but usually to people LEGITIMATELY spamming and necroing a lot, and breaking rules they were SUPPOSED TO READ WHEN REGISTERING

[TowerSheep]

How I feel:

I can tell you who does what in CG because I try to play a bit with everyone. I suggest Vent/TS because it's a good way to get to know who is who and who does what. If you want to complain about not knowing then think, who have you asked? CG is visible when you act like a community. The forums are 1 of many ways to connect. When is the last time you played ANY GAME with the CL's? (I speak to the CL's almost daily so if I ask them for something they are usually happy to help, and I return the favor when I can. Proof: ZM HA, I mentioned it to them and the next day there was one)

CL's/HA's are people and it is stressful dealing with as many problems as they do. When you get as many messages as them, most spam, it takes more time than you'd think to sort through them.

If you think you have the only complaint grow up. This is a large community and if you just look at this forum you'll see that several people have problems.

This is address to no one in particular but rather it's me venting about complaints I've seen.

[Christovski]

Well stop me if I'm wrong here TS, but if it is stressful, why don't they hold nominations for a new CL or two so the responsibilities are spread out and therefore less stressful?  I mean I seem to recall a time where there were 5 or so CL's, and currently there are 3: Inject, Crow, and Cadaver.

[UnknownError]

and Jorgen...

The only CL I have ever played with was Crow. I've played on ZM, only a handful of times, and seen Crow. I've played on TTT, a lot, and only seen Crow. I've play on TF2, when it's populated, probably once or twice.

I've only had a real conversation once with Skies. Hell, for about the 7+ months I've been with CG, I know nothing with what CG does behind the scenes. I can only guess that Cadaver is the advisor. Inject does all the back-end server stuff. Crow is the people's man.

I still feel CG is divided along server lines. Right now, we are not a community. I would think the "Community Leaders" would be the guys attempting to unite us.

[Christovski]

and Jorgen...

The only CL I have ever played with was Crow. I've played on ZM, only a handful of times, and seen Crow. I've played on TTT, a lot, and only seen Crow. I've play on TF2, when it's populated, probably once or twice.

I've only had a real conversation once with Skies. Hell, for about the 7+ months I've been with CG, I know nothing with what CG does behind the scenes. I can only guess that Cadaver is the advisor. Inject does all the back-end server stuff. Crow is the people's man.

I still feel CG is divided along server lines. Right now, we are not a community. I would think the "Community Leaders" would be the guys attempting to unite us.

I love Jorgen/Kleenex he was one of my ZPS bro's in SKG, but he's never here anymore I haven't seen him do anything so i didn't count him.

[Ðeath.]

I have a tiny suggestion that might help alleviate some tension, or might make things a bit more transparent. The announcements. Why are they not used as often as you possibly can? I mean, for example, if people mistakenly lost admin for a few hours, or if some incident is occurring with the servers/forums/etc, heck I don't know, Announcements are a good way to relay information, in my opinion.

My opinion on voting in CL's: Heck, an additional CL might help, but what would they be responsible for? As Cadaver (I think,) said in a way-off topic thread once upon a time, each CL is pretty much responsible for their own little area. IIRC, Cadaver's in charge of forum drama, Inject's the Tech Guy, heaven knows what Jorgen does (sorry, Jorgen. Haven't seen you around in a bit :s) and then there's Old Crow, pretty much gets stuff done, and helps here and there. I suppose a "Mr. Public Relations" guy/gal could help if people have complaints, as long as they were active enough to hear them; not that the CL's are not active, they just have actual lives, and things they do, like human beings usually do.

However, I'd like to stress the importance of Announcements, they're a really generalized way to get information across, and I've seen communities use the announcements to their benefit.

[Christovski]

Another point:  We've had 2 applications for Global Mod, and they've been up for over a week.  Why haven't any CL's said anything is being done with them?  Are they waiting a certain amount of time?  Are they thinking about approving them?

Why don't they at least give us some sort of status update on these things, so we have some idea of what is going on, rather than waiting forever for something to happen, while not having any idea what is happening with them.

[Pillz]

I have a tiny suggestion that might help alleviate some tension, or might make things a bit more transparent. The announcements. Why are they not used as often as you possibly can? I mean, for example, if people mistakenly lost admin for a few hours, or if some incident is occurring with the servers/forums/etc, heck I don't know, Announcements are a good way to relay information, in my opinion.

My opinion on voting in CL's: Heck, an additional CL might help, but what would they be responsible for? As Cadaver (I think,) said in a way-off topic thread once upon a time, each CL is pretty much responsible for their own little area. IIRC, Cadaver's in charge of forum drama, Inject's the Tech Guy, heaven knows what Jorgen does (sorry, Jorgen. Haven't seen you around in a bit :s) and then there's Old Crow, pretty much gets stuff done, and helps here and there. I suppose a "Mr. Public Relations" guy/gal could help if people have complaints, as long as they were active enough to hear them; not that the CL's are not active, they just have actual lives, and things they do, like human beings usually do.

However, I'd like to stress the importance of Announcements, they're a really generalized way to get information across, and I've seen communities use the announcements to their benefit.

Yeah, we had Nix solely as our PR gal in SKG, handling drama and communications between other communities because she was level-headed and smart; well spoken and blah blah. Of course we also had Nivek as the rage-machine that did borderline rule-breaking things and was often a blunt meany to people but he even got some things done and help founded the community so he was still loved when he wasn't tearing you a new asshole. Point being even people we might consider "unfit" could be a CL and help out, and the more CL's there are the less power it feels like there is to those few; and when other CL's cause an issue it can be properly addressed and sorted instead of lingering in the community as people wish for change and complain.. It's not all about being kind and good with people, it's about getting things done. Some people feel Kwaurtz might be a bit rough sometimes and wouldn't ever consider him for CL and to the contrary he'd probably do great things for this community.

Public relations though.. That's kinda what Cadaver is; but we could use another few people that not only does that, but has the ability to restart all servers and the such. Inject could fall back as the "owner" and train new CL's to do what he has to do, and when issues arise we consult him of course but that's better than waiting for him to do everything. I feel like Inject wants this too but feels nobodies really qualified for his job, and in a way I imagine he doesn't like the idea of other people doing his job.

We need some minor tweaking to how CG is being operated, and adding a few more helping hands would really help. Of course things are "fine" but they can always be better; and by better I mean we could have more players, events, and positive feels from the community. When you have that, your community thrives, and donations and growth becomes a thing.

People like Death, BlackLlama, Christovski, Myself and many others could easily do these jobs and we've been around for YEARS to see how it's done and how it's not done. I also see some regular admins and recent veterans who are the bees fucking knees and they would do well with such authority also. There's no need to keep a small lot of CL's, if people are willing and able to help we should let them do all they can. If it doesn't work out they can be bumped back down after a few discussions and warnings.

We're just too big to rely on 1-3 people to keep things rolling, or so I feel. We all have lives outside of CG of course, but the more of us there are, the less of an issue that should be.

[UnknownError]

I agree with Pillz, if we divide up more power/responsibilities we can help CG function much more efficiently and harmoniously.

[Fluffalupagus]

I have a tiny suggestion that might help alleviate some tension, or might make things a bit more transparent. The announcements. Why are they not used as often as you possibly can? I mean, for example, if people mistakenly lost admin for a few hours, or if some incident is occurring with the servers/forums/etc, heck I don't know, Announcements are a good way to relay information, in my opinion.

Now I haven't been around for long, but this needs a look at. This is probably the primary source of traffic from higher ups to the normals in any community. I really haven't been able to understand why we haven't been using them, I wasn't gonna say anything as I haven't been around long enough to really know the history. But as Pillz said, maybe if Cadaver is the "PR" type guy, this should fall to him right? Now I'm not saying the guys up top don't do a good job. But there's always, always, always room for improvement. Maybe if Cadaver didn't have time for it, that would be where new CL's come in? There's always something someone can be doing if you're really looking. Therefore, more people up top would definitely help the community run more smoothly.

[Kwaurtz]

All I have to say is that having been there and back, the CL's deal with a lot of stuff, and its not as simple as bringing on a new CL. When I got put into that spot, I had to learn what every server did as far as backend, that each game server will be set up differently, and dealing with the different admin mods etc can cause a headache with how they react to the server. Not only that but the CL's are not meant to be there for dealing with every small issue. CG has a line of command, and interrupting that line and going straight to the CL's doesn't always bring the best.


As someone who works with technology now, you have to follow the proper chain of command. Failure to do so can lead to things being overlooked, stepping on peoples toe's creating resentment, etc. If its a server issue, I'd approach the proper HA for the server. If its something they can't help you, move to the next person. Considering that theres been a few hiccups lately mitigated to a single server, I can say for once I have full faith in the CL's and how they are running this, and have no interest in what truly goes on in the background.


May I also say that CL's owe you as much information as they want to give. CG while it is a friendly community, is not your job, it is not your income, and is a community in the sake that it is a bunch of servers held under the same banner. You cannot go from one CG server to the next and expect the same player base, reactions to things said, etc. Thats what makes CG, is that it is an eclectic group of personalities, that arent forced together.

You also have to accept the fact that they are humans, and have lives outside of CG. As you can see Inject has been very much keeping you up to date with what hes doing.

And like Tower said, don't just send a pm to the CL's, that won't get anything done. We have multiple ways of contacting them, if all you do is send a pm then obviously it isn't a big deal because you aren't doing your best to reach them as fast as possible, so why should they respond to your item as fast as possible?

All in all, what I'm saying is don't critique them on something that half of the people in this thread have never had to deal with. Chris, Pillz, and Tower being the exceptions to this statement. In short, the CL's owe you nothing except for the solace that the servers are up, and everything is being taken care of.

[Inject OH 4]

I am so fed up with the secretive way things are done around here, its just like politics sometimes!

I also don't think we should be required to go anywhere but the forums to talk to CLs, every time I ask why PMs seldom get responses I get told "Message them on steam or Vent (or TS) you'll never hear back from a PM."

Well why not?  If they're a community leader, why aren't they on the COMMUNITY FORUMS?  It's just as easy as replying to an email, even if the response is "I got your message but I don't have time to deal with it"

/rant

Nothing secret is going on I'm not sure what you are referring to.
I Respond to PMs, and visit the forum every day.


ON topic to the OP of this thread:
You all need to relax, this isn't really the place for the initial incident, you should have PMed someone.

Also Maybe?: http://www.conjointgaming.com/forum/index.php?topic=10158.0
I know you reapplied at http://www.conjointgaming.com/forum/index.php?topic=10593.0
Probably was glanced over as an error. That or have you been on the forum in a year?

[Cortez (Mr. T. FOO!)]

Perhaps this is where having global mods could help. They're supposed to moderate the forums, obviously, but maybe they could act as a bit of an middleground between CL and HA. Considering that they wouldn't be tied to any server and just the forums they could devote more time to dealing with the issues that arise and help to communicate them to the CLs if needed.

Also I think that if the CLs just had more of a presence on the forums it would be better. Once CG was a lot more focused around ventrillo, now it's the forums. Just posting on threads like normal users and using the announcements might help.

[Christovski]

I have been told to keep things secret by people in the CL group, and things are often done where noone is aware things are going on, in my experience.  Like the ZM HA situation where noone got Inject to respond until Towersheep said something to him, why did towersheeps request work but noone elses?

I agree with Cortez, more announcements would be nice, we usually get one per 3 months and they grow irrelevant quickly

[Old Crow]

I totally agree. CG is not the CIA, its an open gaming community. If there is anything I can do to help out more just suggest it.

I like to answer PM's ASAP, and I usually do too. The way I figure it, its part of my job so if you message me, I should be able to message you back.

Concerning the Unknown stuff. I have no idea who removed it initially. I was told by Yankees that it was removed, so I checked the mod logs to see who did it but couldn't find anything, so I simply put it back to where it was.