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Post by Polaris Seltzeris on Jul 24, 2019 21:49:26 GMT
Today, Total Freedom has a problem. A severe, gaping problem which is slowly damaging us: the admin system.
Being an administrator on Total Freedom has become so ingrained in our culture that it's almost sickening, and it's taken us years to get to this point. We have been using the same old admin system for the past six years, and it has transformed into a zombie which feeds upon our community. When you first join Total Freedom, the very first instinct you have is to exercise your freedom. The second instinct you have is to do whatever it takes to become an admin.
It's really simple. You see those shiny ranks in the chat, and watch as they strike down disobeying peasants of the community who infringe upon the conduct policy as they are gods. There is such an emphasis on this that players who break the rules get a lightning strike in game. It's at this point that you realize that you are only the bottom of the barrel, the peasant that the gods stare down upon in bitter disgust, who wait eagerly for nothing more than to get an excuse to strike you down. You see this with envy, and there starts the classic admin cycle.
Getting that admin rank is pretty easy. Just put on a helpful face and eventually you'll get it, it's an inevitability. Once you achieve your Super Admin status, as long as you have that patience and don't fuck up in between then or give up, you'll eventually get all the way to Senior Admin. At that point, most likely you'll be on a downward spiral to inactivity as your motive to be on the server has disappeared. You joined assuming "Total Freedom", a FreeOP server, would give you all of the freedoms you could imagine, but it didn't take long at all for you to get trapped in a classic job promotion cycle.
This type of scenario is the scenario for the vast majority of this community. Can you say that about any other online community? Probably not. Other online communities, not just exclusive to Minecraft, would see the idea of a platform revolving around everybody getting an admin rank as pointless & idiotic. You may argue that's the charm of Total Freedom, but it isn't. The charm of Total Freedom is the FreeOP, the admin cycle is the antithesis of FreeOP. When everybody is just trying to score a promotion and then go inactive once they run out of ranks to climb through, what is left for a community? When was the last time there was a strong community of players totally independent of the completely separated admin community? I couldn't tell you.
Really, there isn't much left for a community. We have been in a slow period of stagnation for the past few years, just look at the player base here. Advertising can only get you so far; there are systemic problems that have to be addressed. There is a cancer in this system, and it isn't difficult to spot. When a regular player joins the forums, how long do they stay as a regular player? Most likely, they're an old inactive former admin or they're posting admin applications & griefer reports just to get their own chance to climb through the ladder. Or, they're posting ban appeals. What's a community when all of the regular members are only doing meta things? Total Freedom on paper should be the last place composed entirely of admin applications & ban appeals, doesn't it go against the point of our existence?
There is a community which does more than just post meta things: the admin community. Once you're an admin here, you're exposed to an entirely different culture. I would call it a subculture, but wouldn't it be more accurate to call it the culture? There is an admin chat for admins to hold their own discussions a lot of the time unrelated to admin endeavors, and an admin world for their own peaceful sanctuary. They don't even always need to interact with the peasants on the forums, they have their own admin discussion areas and admin spam and drama area. Why should you be expected to interact with the OPs when all of the resources exist for you to do just the opposite? You have a world free from griefers as an excuse for you to completely avoid the OPs in the Minecraft world, and you have your own independent chat from the OPs. You're in a separate world, and the best part is that when you're an admin, the only time you have to interact with the OPs is when you have to police them. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
When your main community is composed of admins, you're not fostering a community, you're fostering an overpopulated staff team. There is no reason why admins and OPs need to be so divided, why should admins have so many building freedoms that OPs don't have when their purpose is to administrate? How long can this community last for the future when the regular players are only there to be micromanaged?
While we still have the opportunity, we need to set ourselves on the course for positive change. We have kept this zombie festering for years, and it's about time we dust ourselves off and revitalize our admin apparatus. Bring back our community and try implementing some meaningful changes to the system. Incremental change isn't going to fix our problems, only a massive effort for revitalization of our community and admin system. Get rid of the separation between admins and players, think of admins as players that are also trusted to moderate the community to make sure everybody can still have their freedom.
Perhaps for some new people here that are looking forward to becoming a Super Admin, or for those that have been here for years, they may be confused by this. The goal here isn't to take away the fun of the admins, it's to open up the fun to OPs and enable intertwining of the admins with the OP community. Regardless of what your position here is, it's in your best interest to support this for our future.
We need to change at some point, and if it's not now, it's when we experience a real problem or catastrophe. Sticking our heads in the sand will only enable more stagnation and cripple our community further.
We don't need to rush to implement these suggestions, we should implement each provision thoroughly keeping all factors in mind.
If you have an honest disagreement with this suggestion, then please provide constructive criticism and I may compromise & change it. Think of the long-term future of the server here when voting on this, not just your own personal gains.
Thank you for reading this, and if you are truly opposed to this, then please provide your reason why. We need to get on the right track.
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Luke
Veteran Member
Go home to your family, Neo
Posts: 1,124
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Post by Luke on Jul 24, 2019 22:03:18 GMT
This issue, in my opinion, is still existent but not as strong as it used to be. There is a distinct change in the way that OPs don't apply as much, or from what I've seen at least.
I feel that the majority of the admin team comes from reinstatements. I feel as if there should be a limit to the amount of times an admin can reinstate.
From this, it's my opinion that admin applications itself should stay open, because look at how many new ones there are accepted, but reinstatements should not.
If reinstatements do not get closed, admins should only imo have a 3 chances. If they get suspended more than twice, they should be unable to reinstate.
This is just my opinion. I don't expect anything to be implemented due to it.
Promotions - There is a suggestion regarding this in admin-only boards anyway. The way it used to be done is that Mark handpicked seniors, however that has the same issue as the *PAS. I'm not accusing Seth of anything, but the potential for favouritism existed back then and, if we were to go back, would exist now.
I'd like to see a trial of a system, where every admin in a particular rank would be put forward and as you said, voted upon based on their activity. As said before, there could be bias, but the same can be said about normal applications.
I have to disagree with your point on the "respect" topic at Number 7.
There has been times in the past where an admin has been toxic, and rude to OPs. They got demoted pretty much straight away. This was under Seth's ownership, too.
Interesting topic, to be honest.
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Post by Polaris Seltzeris on Jul 24, 2019 22:29:12 GMT
This issue, in my opinion, is still existent but not as strong as it used to be. There is a distinct change in the way that OPs don't apply as much, or from what I've seen at least. I feel that the majority of the admin team comes from reinstatements. I feel as if there should be a limit to the amount of times an admin can reinstate. From this, it's my opinion that admin applications itself should stay open, because look at how many new ones there are accepted, but reinstatements should not. If reinstatements do not get closed, admins should only imo have a 3 chances. If they get suspended more than twice, they should be unable to reinstate. This is just my opinion. I don't expect anything to be implemented due to it. Promotions - There is a suggestion regarding this in admin-only boards anyway. The way it used to be done is that Mark handpicked seniors, however that has the same issue as the *PAS. I'm not accusing Seth of anything, but the potential for favouritism existed back then and, if we were to go back, would exist now. I'd like to see a trial of a system, where every admin in a particular rank would be put forward and as you said, voted upon based on their activity. As said before, there could be bias, but the same can be said about normal applications. I have to disagree with your point on the "respect" topic at Number 7. There has been times in the past where an admin has been toxic, and rude to OPs. They got demoted pretty much straight away. This was under Seth's ownership, too. Interesting topic, to be honest. To respond to your disagreement about respect, that was part of the original suggestion and while things have definitely gotten better since, it's still worth simply mentioning. As for reinstatement, the issue is that most reinstatements are due to activity, not suspensions. I don't think you shouldn't be able to get admin back if you go inactive several times, I just think that you should have to go through the regular process that anybody else would have to go through, and I think the only way you should be able to go through that process is if there is demand for new admins and that's a major point of this suggestion. I don't have access to the promotion suggestion you mentioned, but this suggestion would make promotions work based on a routine period of selecting the best of a certain group of admins such as super admins, and allowing everybody to vote for which admins should be promoted. This would apply to all groups, including senior admins. I don't think going in the opposite direction to just have the owner pick promotions is a solution whatsoever. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2019 22:29:42 GMT
I've already tried doing this, and it didn't go well so I reverted it
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Post by Polaris Seltzeris on Jul 24, 2019 22:32:21 GMT
I've already tried doing this, and it didn't go well so I reverted it Citation needed for "didn't go well". You didn't even fully implement your plan, you got rid of the Telnet Clans, and when they complained because "muh rank" you gave up on implementing the rest of the system. This is a comparable variation of your plan, but it has its differences and if we're thinking of the future of this server then we need to do something like this. We can't keep being in a period of stagnation forever. |
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Luke
Veteran Member
Go home to your family, Neo
Posts: 1,124
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Post by Luke on Jul 24, 2019 22:34:24 GMT
This issue, in my opinion, is still existent but not as strong as it used to be. There is a distinct change in the way that OPs don't apply as much, or from what I've seen at least. I feel that the majority of the admin team comes from reinstatements. I feel as if there should be a limit to the amount of times an admin can reinstate. From this, it's my opinion that admin applications itself should stay open, because look at how many new ones there are accepted, but reinstatements should not. If reinstatements do not get closed, admins should only imo have a 3 chances. If they get suspended more than twice, they should be unable to reinstate. This is just my opinion. I don't expect anything to be implemented due to it. Promotions - There is a suggestion regarding this in admin-only boards anyway. The way it used to be done is that Mark handpicked seniors, however that has the same issue as the *PAS. I'm not accusing Seth of anything, but the potential for favouritism existed back then and, if we were to go back, would exist now. I'd like to see a trial of a system, where every admin in a particular rank would be put forward and as you said, voted upon based on their activity. As said before, there could be bias, but the same can be said about normal applications. I have to disagree with your point on the "respect" topic at Number 7. There has been times in the past where an admin has been toxic, and rude to OPs. They got demoted pretty much straight away. This was under Seth's ownership, too. Interesting topic, to be honest. As for reinstatement, the issue is that most reinstatements are due to activity, not suspensions. I don't think you shouldn't be able to get admin back if you go inactive several times, I just think that you should have to go through the regular process that anybody else would have to go through, and I think the only way you should be able to go through that process is if there is demand for new admins and that's a major point of this suggestion. I don't have access to the promotion suggestion you mentioned, but this suggestion would make promotions work based on a routine period of selecting the best of a certain group of admins such as super admins, and allowing everybody to vote for which admins should be promoted. This would apply to all groups, including senior admins. I don't think going in the opposite direction to just have the owner pick promotions is a solution whatsoever. well, alright, no limit to reinstating based on inactivity, but what if someone abuses this? E.g. reinstated as probationary super, failed that probationary period, reinstated again straight after? There should be some kind of restriction on that, at least My apologies, the promotion suggestion suggests to just stop promotions entirely for the time being. But that suggestion you made is pretty much what I said in my last few paragraphs, aha. |
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Post by Polaris Seltzeris on Jul 24, 2019 22:39:44 GMT
As for reinstatement, the issue is that most reinstatements are due to activity, not suspensions. I don't think you shouldn't be able to get admin back if you go inactive several times, I just think that you should have to go through the regular process that anybody else would have to go through, and I think the only way you should be able to go through that process is if there is demand for new admins and that's a major point of this suggestion. I don't have access to the promotion suggestion you mentioned, but this suggestion would make promotions work based on a routine period of selecting the best of a certain group of admins such as super admins, and allowing everybody to vote for which admins should be promoted. This would apply to all groups, including senior admins. I don't think going in the opposite direction to just have the owner pick promotions is a solution whatsoever. well, alright, no limit to reinstating based on inactivity, but what if someone abuses this? E.g. reinstated as probationary super, failed that probationary period, reinstated again straight after? There should be some kind of restriction on that, at least My apologies, the promotion suggestion suggests to just stop promotions entirely for the time being. But that suggestion you made is pretty much what I said in my last few paragraphs, aha. Well the idea is that everybody would be able to vote on regular applications similar to how they are now, and there wouldn't be a separate reinstatement system. If somebody failed a probationary period and then immediately applied I'm sure people would vote against them getting admin back like that. It sounds like we pretty much agree on this which is good, we can try to push this suggestion through and change the system for the better. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2019 22:40:49 GMT
I've already tried doing this, and it didn't go well so I reverted it Citation needed for "didn't go well". You didn't even fully implement your plan, you got rid of the Telnet Clans, and when they complained because "muh rank" you gave up on implementing the rest of the system. This is a comparable variation of your plan, but it has its differences and if we're thinking of the future of this server then we need to do something like this. We can't keep being in a period of stagnation forever. - I closed admin apps for like a month - I pretty much closed reinstatements and only allowed reinstatements for legitimate reasons and even if they did reinstate they started at the bottom. Reinstatements never completely went through but even then it backfired so i eventually reverted it. but whatever lets see the vote |
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Post by Polaris Seltzeris on Jul 24, 2019 22:44:59 GMT
Citation needed for "didn't go well". You didn't even fully implement your plan, you got rid of the Telnet Clans, and when they complained because "muh rank" you gave up on implementing the rest of the system. This is a comparable variation of your plan, but it has its differences and if we're thinking of the future of this server then we need to do something like this. We can't keep being in a period of stagnation forever. - I closed admin apps for like a month - I pretty much closed reinstatements and only allowed reinstatements for legitimate reasons and even if they did reinstate they started at the bottom. Reinstatements never completely went through but even then it backfired so i eventually reverted it. but whatever lets see the vote I can't quite tell what you mean by reinstatements not going through/backfiring. This works a bit differently because it flat out doesn't have a reinstatement system in favor of allowing former admins to apply again normally, I'm just honestly curious in seeing why you chose to revert it when it had support and was on the road to making major improvements to the server. |
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Post by Polaris Seltzeris on Jul 25, 2019 0:03:02 GMT
your threads are so long omg idc if u call me stupid or adhd or whatever but can u please just lay it out in bullet points, get rid of all the excess words and analogies, and just straight up say what u want? For one thing, I didn't write most of this thread, zekurt did. I wrote a couple paragraphs outside of the quote, and the parts that I changed in the quote were part of a numbered list. This isn't twitter, sucks to be you if simple paragraphs offend you. |
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Post by Polaris Seltzeris on Jul 25, 2019 0:12:34 GMT
For one thing, I didn't write most of this thread, zekurt did. I wrote a couple paragraphs outside of the quote, and the parts that I changed in the quote were part of a numbered list. This isn't twitter, sucks to be you if simple paragraphs offend you. im sorry if you thought i was trying to be hostile. im not "offended by simple paragraphs" i genuinely DO want to know what you're saying but i literally cant sit down and read every word of your thread it's literally giving me brain aids. Not sure what to tell you, I use simple english. It seems that you're more upset over the size of the thread, which I can't really do anything about and I didn't write most of it. It's not like most of it is irrelevant. |
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Post by Polaris Seltzeris on Jul 25, 2019 0:16:21 GMT
Not sure what to tell you, I use simple english. It seems that you're more upset over the size of the thread, which I can't really do anything about and I didn't write most of it. It's not like most of it is irrelevant. can u tell me which parts are relevant tho so i can know what ur talking about without having a seizure All of them are relevant, but the idea proposals themselves are in the numbered list in the quote. |
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Post by mychaeljkmax on Jul 25, 2019 0:21:28 GMT
I don’t feel anything is wrong with the current system, nor did I feel anything was wrong with the system mark initially established. I think that there will always be something to improve upon, and if you look into something hard enough, you will always find flaws. No matter how many restrictions we set on the admin system, we’d probably still end up with a few “problem admins” (as mark dubbed them) here and there. No admin is perfect, and some are more motivated and serious than others who take things lightly. At the end of the day, an admin is an admin. Even assuming the systems we’ve had so far are heavily flawed, we’ve ended up with a fairly large chunk of excellent admins that have impacted the server for the better.
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Post by Captainclimber on Jul 25, 2019 8:43:09 GMT
I think we should maybe implement the many suggestions in this thread one at a time so it won't feel rushed and so we can implement this more thouroghly.
I don't exactly like the fact of closing admin applications, but rather make it more difficult to be accepted. However, I really like the idea of admin promotion in this thread.
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Luke
Veteran Member
Go home to your family, Neo
Posts: 1,124
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Post by Luke on Jul 25, 2019 8:50:58 GMT
Not sure what to tell you, I use simple english. It seems that you're more upset over the size of the thread, which I can't really do anything about and I didn't write most of it. It's not like most of it is irrelevant. can u tell me which parts are relevant tho so i can know what ur talking about without having a seizure 1. Indefinitely close admin applications. Use a "supply and demand" system for deciding when to open them back up, when a supply of new admins is needed, open it up temporarily. Basically the inverse of having a 'freeze' sometimes. 2. Stop giving rogue/suspended admins their power back so easily. If someone really proves they deserve it after a long time, maybe. But if we just keep giving people more and more chances, it just does so much harm to the server, and results in more drama. 3. Eliminate reinstatement applications. Former admins can be allowed to become admin again, but only through the regular process. This is so that we can keep that "supply and demand" system in flow, and only receive new admins when we need them. Nobody should be entitled to a rank.4. Admin purge. Purge a large amount of admins that simply aren't living up to the job. If that definition happens to include me, so be it. Progress has been made on this through the activity log, but we need to make sure everybody with their status is doing their deed.5. Apply a system similar to senior admin picking for admin promotions, you can have a routine period where a specific position such as super admins can be voted on to become telnet admins, and people choose which admins have demonstrated good enough performance to be promoted. This picking process would be open to everybody including regular members. 6. Stop treating players like dogshit. You see it every day, even on the forum. Stop acting like admins are more entitled to respect, everyone deserves the same respect. If necessary, take action against admins which treat members badly. 7. Apply the probation system which occurs with inactive admins to all forms of admin applications/promotions. Don't micromanage probation admins, but give them this one month trial period to show their activity & behavior. 8. Improve communication and transparency from executives and the owner. Communication & transparency is already vastly better than how it used to be, but when big changes come about make sure to make some sort of public announcement about it. 9. Increase OP voting rights. Allow them to vote on permban appeals (technically this may now be possible already). Allow them to vote on new admins as well as their promotions. 10. Stop giving admins so many perks that regular members don't get. Features shouldn't be "admin only, but OPs can request access". Have basic limitations to prevent the server from crashing with certain features, but admins should be doing their jobs and moderating when features are abused, they don't need to be utterly restricted because they can be abused, that goes against what this server stands for. Don't just have a system where admins build peacefully in their adminworld as they become distinguished from the rest of the server, have one "permanent world" which admins & OPs both share which has build protections in place (basically, merge the adminworld into the plot world). Basically, reduce the reason for why so many OPs wish to become admin. Admin is an administration role, not a fun role. OP should be the fun role, and it's a problem if you need to be an admin to be able to have fun on the server. |
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