An open letter of the problems within Ahoyworld

[Teddy]

First off, this post is being made with the best interests of AW in mind. Be aware there is a good chance I WILL be name dropping in this post. Take it as you will.

 

Stanhope:

You are the definition of condescending, and also the definition of every word under that. You should be nowhere near the Admin team, you might as well have paid money to get your tag. Just because someone can code and submit player reports does not make them an immediate candidate for an Admin. I, myself, actually worked my way up the ranks, from member>FA>Spartan>Admin. I also earned the respect of those around me.

Unlike you Stan, who jumped from FA>Admin in about a month or less. I’m fairly sure the consensus in the team when you applied was to let you in because you’d be useful as a coder, and most of us had no idea who you were at the time. Also I love how you just ripped me off the Public mod team without talking to me.

Just my 2 cents on you.

 

Core staff:

COMMUNICATE AND INTERACT. In my time as an Admin you guys just can't do that. People get promoted to CS and just disappear into the wilderness and never interact with the community anymore - you leave that to the Admins. Also, whenever I brought something to you guys I more often than not never got an answer back. Also what happened to that huge meeting we had a month back now? Just lost in the system I guess Origins. AhoyWorld is burning and you guys just sit around.

 

Admins: The true MVPs, you guys put up with most of the shit, but not all of you. Some of you also suffer from the communication and interaction disease. A lot of complaints I got was that the team wasn't open to the community at all with what was going on, and as per usual, this issue was brought up, chatted about and then nothing happened just like with everything else. Nothing will happen because of this post.

 

I'm just being extremely blunt here.

 

Anyone who knows me  knows I wouldn't be typing any of this unless there was a real issue. Hide this post if you want, issue me a warning point, whatever; but know this, a lot of people are with me on this as you’ll see it happen before your eyes. You will just be shooting yourself in the foot.

 

These days this is the only way the get you guys to listen, so I would hope this turns into a nice post debating about all these issues - not a shit flinging thread.

 

/Teddy

 

[Ryko]

2 minutes ago, Teddy said:

Also what happened to that huge meeting we had a month back now?

<15:06:09> "Ryko": GrandBravo: Yes i have that recording and sorry, i didnt had the time to create the feedback
<15:06:38> "Ryko": GrandBravo: well i would like to send you the recording but the thing is... I basicly tolled everyone that they can say what they want and their names would not be published. If i send you the recording, then my trust/word would have no point... 

[Copey]

1 minute ago, Ryko said:

<15:06:09> "Ryko": GrandBravo: Yes i have that recording and sorry, i didnt had the time to create the feedback
<15:06:38> "Ryko": GrandBravo: well i would like to send you the recording but the thing is... I basicly tolled everyone that they can say what they want and their names would not be published. If i send you the recording, then my trust/word would have no point... 

 

Perhaps the rest of the post is more of what needs to be addressed.

[Ryko]

Just picking the low-hanging fruit, I'll touch on the rest of the stuff when we're done in TS and I have time.

 

I didn't say this before, but Teddy, thanks for your letter.

[Numbnuts]

Maybe the fact community members want their names redacted so they don't have to deal with the fallout displays the lack of trust between the community and staff

[GrandBravo]

1 minute ago, Ryko said:

4 minutes ago, Teddy said:

Also what happened to that huge meeting we had a month back now?

<15:06:09> "Ryko": GrandBravo: Yes i have that recording and sorry, i didnt had the time to create the feedback
<15:06:38> "Ryko": GrandBravo: well i would like to send you the recording but the thing is... I basicly tolled everyone that they can say what they want and their names would not be published. If i send you the recording, then my trust/word would have no point... 

I'm working on the report as we speak. I'm very sorry that its been already a month ago. I've been too busy with some personal shit and also had to fight off a bad cold. Ill do my best getting this done ASAP!

[Ryko]

Before I really really have to go.

 

1) The fact that you are here tells me that you care about this community, and I want to recognize and appreciate that.

2) We've faced lack of trust issues before, and I appreciate that it can be toxic for the community.  We've also tried to take steps in the past to deal with them, and they work for a while, but ultimately I think everyone gets complacent until they rear up again.  This is a good check-in to tell us that we all have to do better, and we can.

3) GB, no fault on you for having a life.  I have always said that real life has to come first.  This is a community for playing a video game.  My only issue was that the feedback from this meeting was being held out as something that staff had not acted on, and yet staff had no idea about this feedback.

 

- R

[Vlk]

What did I miss ?


Sent from my iPhone using a phone app that is really irritating because it constantly advertises itself.

[ansin11]

Now since we're at this certain point anyways I might as well get some things off my mind regarding the staff team I've been unhappy about for a while now. I am aware that I only play EU1 and mostly post useless content on the forums as well as in the ingame chat, but that's not really the matter here. Gotta stay entertained somehow.

 

So, despite being known to the TS server for some 804 days and playing EU1 for more years than is good for any of the factions involved, I never saw myself as eligible for any staff position. That is because in my eyes staff roles bear responsibility with them I am not willing to take everytime I want to play on the server. This is also where I see parts of the staff team failing. Just today, for example, I got kicked from EU1 after an aircraft collision above FOB Guardian. Now I can't tell you what I got kicked for because I didn't take the time to read the message, but it matters not for the point I wish to make with this story: I recieved no warning nor was I asked to lay out my side of the story. I claimed to have collided with an AAF Gryphon and it was a really really close call and I thought I collided with him judging by the last split-second before my death, but after respawning I saw a jet above the FOB. So I might also have hit the Huron taking off just below me, but I didn't get a teamkill message. It's also possible that the wreck of my Ghost Hawk hit that Huron. As you can see, I, a pretty veteran player to the I & A mission, could no longer tell what happened; instead, there was no time spent figuring out who was responsible for whatever happened or if I had done wrong intentionally, I just got kicked.

A while ago, FOB Guardian as well. I tend to show off my superhuman pilot skills by landing on one of the roofs presented around the FOB. On most days half of piloting is waiting for passengers to come to be, so why not do it there. Harms noone, but some members of staff don't like seeing it, I know that and I have been told that. Removing me from the pilot seat in order to move the helicopter off the roof without asking me to move it myself - which I would do once a passenger shows up and looks around for a trusty pilot - doesn't feel nice and doesn't shed good light on whoever did it. It just doesn't seem very professional in my eyes and was not very respectful in any case.

 

Next up we have @Stanhope. Now I have no idea how or when he got into the team and I also don't know how he does on EU3. But he sure does a good job on I & A, both for the  development, code maintenance and server moderation. Because most of the time, if I see admin work that needs to be done it's done by Stan (on EU1 at least), and not by one of the many other people with admin rights to the server. Again, I don't play EU3, so the only one I have seen do any work on I & A development is Stan, so that's credit where credit is due. He doesn't get away just like this though, because he too has shown lack of taking responsibilities properly at least once, but this text is boring enough as it is, so since you, dear reader, have come this far already, I am not going to bore you with that. I am going to mention that Stan is one of the nicer staff members and defenitely one of the most approachable ones.

 

The last thing is staff just not doing anything at all. If i crashland my helicopter, spend 30 minutes waiting for a repair specialist to be flown in, he repairs it and discovers that all fuel has leaked and the mission still has a refuel script for engineers and repair specialists that doesn't work, then it's not my fault or any other players fault that the mission doesn't work properly, and if the mission doesn't work properly, what do these people have Zeus for? For the shiny tags?

 

So in conclusion we have problems at at least the following points:

1. Respect (the player is another human being with feelings, not some randomly named entity that gets replaced by the next one anyways)
2. Taking responsibility (again, in my eyes staff positions are a job, no privilege; if you want to enjoy a session without having to respond to calls every minute or won't be bothered to treat every player the same fair way, make a second Arma 3 profile)
3. Integrity (for some staff members some rules don't apply or they just sometimes apply)
4. Interaction (explain why you take certain actions against somebody please)
5. Kindness (similar to 1., how can you expect a healthy community if all you do is hand out orders and bans, at least attempt to hint towards the rules or explain that talking in one of the global channels should not be done because it annoys everybody else)
6. Transparency

 

It's late and I can't really think about much at all right now, but some people really need to get their shit together, I know that. Doesn't seem like much coming from a guy who should be banned for trolling and not the best overall attitude, but maybe that's just the right guy for that.

I've never been a very active part of AW, but lately I think twice about joining the server, because chances are I won't be able to enjoy my stay.

[Amentes]

1 hour ago, Teddy said:

First off, this post is being made with the best interests of AW in mind. Be aware there is a good chance I WILL be name dropping in this post. Take it as you will.

 

These days this is the only way the get you guys to listen, so I would hope this turns into a nice post debating about all these issues - not a shit flinging thread.

 

I'm gonna be the first one to ask that people respect this part of the OP and refrain from posting "bye"-themed youtube videos.

[MoonFire]

@Amentes SHhhhhh... No Tears. Just Dreams Now...

[Vlk]

I feel someone gotta clear the air publicly and shed some light on what's going on in this post

[Stanhope]

Right let me write my side of the story.  First of i'm going to say this: I'm a human, i make mistakes.  I try to learn from these mistakes.  I'm nowhere near perfect i do the best i can with what knowledge and skillset i have.

 

22 minutes ago, Teddy said:

You should be nowhere near the Admin team, you might as well have paid money to get your tag.

I would never ever under any circumstance accept a tag because i payed for it.  And sofar i have not anything to ahoyworld.  This not because i don't want to but because i don't have a credit card.  As far as i'm aware that's something you need to donate, if that isn't the case let me know and i'll immediately donate even with the current state of ahoyworld.

 

25 minutes ago, Teddy said:

Just because someone can code and submit player reports does not make them an immediate candidate for an Admin. I, myself, actually worked my way up the ranks, from member>FA>Spartan>Admin. I also earned the respect of those around me.

Unlike you Stan, who jumped from FA>Admin in about a month or less.

I can't comment on the path you took to being an admin but this is  how mine went:
I regularly played on EU1 & 2 and submitted player reports which in the majority of cases were for serious things happening.  Yes there were a few that were very personal and didn't have valid reasons.  Most of them got denied as the should have and the few remaining were acted upon because there was something to act upon.

One day I was on TS and out of the blew i got the member tag.   I didn't ask for it, nor did i consciously do anything to get it.  I presume that i received them because I earned respect.  At that point in time i had never open an SQF file yet.  After i recieved member tags I was looking how i could help the community.  Coding was one of my interests back then, i knew about some bugs so i started learning some SQF to try to fix them.  I continued to do that for a while and simultaneously i was still submitting player reports.  
One day out of the blew someone asked me if i wanted to become a field ambassador.  I didn't ask for it nor did i consciously do anything to get it.  I didn't even know what a field ambassador was and even till this they i think there are people who don't know what a field ambassador is or what he does.  As it turned out the role was to act as a liaison between randoms on the I&A servers and staff.  At that point in time i'd talked to a lot of staff members and messaged them when i someone was for example shooting at spawn with a hunter GMG.  I was trusted and often admins would kick people trusting that what i said was what happend.  Again i didn't ask for this nor did i consciously do anything to gain this trust.  While being an FA i also continued to learn SQF and try to fix bugs. 

Right around this time there was something going on inside the staff team.  It resulted in the guy in charge of I&A being thrown off of the staff team.  Till this day i do not know why, i've also never been interested into why this happend.  I continued working on trying to fix bugs in I&A and was just minding my own business.
One day out of the blew someone asked me if i wanted to apply for being a (back in the day) admin.  I didn't consciously do anything to get this question asked to me but it was.  I certainly didn't mind as I certainly wanted to help out more.  Note that at this point in time i was still a horrible developer.  The guy who asked me if i wanted to be an admin said that i could give his name as one of my 2 references.  I still had to find another one myself.  And i found it, i didn't do anything special i just went up to one of the admins i knew and asked if i could put his name in the application.  He said yes.  So a few days later i wrote my application to become an admin. 
I'm not entirely sure but i believe that at that time you were already on the admin team as a full admin.  So you could have voiced your opinion about the chain of events that led to me becoming an admin in there.  

A few days later it got accepted and i was made an admin.  I received my introduction from you.  As far as i could tell you didn't have anything against me at that time.  
I made my fair share of mistakes during my probation.  I managed to teleport the entirety of the server to 1 spot, i managed to load up a mission that shouldn't have been loaded up just yet as not everything in the backend of the server was ready yet, ...  
In the first few weeks i didn't do anything directly related to scripting for I&A.  After a few weeks of settling in I noticed that the guys who were doing it at that point in time really didn't like doing it at all.  So i started helping out.  And over time i took over development entirely.  During my time as a dev for I&A i've been joined by many people and have actively gotten more people on the I&A dev team as it's not a healthy situation to run it as a 1 man show.  

After becoming an admin i also got involved in AWE.  I received full admin access on AWE despite never having been on there before i became an admin.  I've also made my fair share of mistakes on AWE.  Some of which i got in trouble with but most of the time i just got told that i had to do it differently and i did.  I learned from those mistakes.  

Then the staff restructure came around.  I had noticed that at least some modded moderators weren't happy with me having powers there.  So i decided to voluntarily leave the modded mod team.  I gave several days notice and even got a period to reconsider by the member of CS i gave my notice to.  

Now something to note here: not a single modded moderator had come up to me and told me that they didn't like what i was doing and tried working out something to resolve that.  I however knew that it wasn't going to work out.  

Another reason that i left was because i was given public moderator team lead.  How this happend is also something worth mentioning.
Right before the staff change a topic was posted in staff channels asking for candidates for the teamlead position for public moderation.  I saw it and did not apply.  When the staff change came into place someone came asking if i wanted to be the teamlead.  I asked whether or not there weren't any other candidates, turned out there were 2.  I decided to give it a shot.  I'd be put on a probation period of 3 months, then the next candidate would be given a shot, then the last one.  After the 3 months were over I enquired how things were going to be handled.  I heard that one of the 2 candidates had dropped out and the second thought that he couldn't do better than me so he dropped out as well.  Note how i never spoke to both of them about the TL position.  They both voluntarily dropped out.  I also never asked for the TL position in the first place.  I had gained the trust from the people in charge and was offered the position.  

 

That's a brief summary of how i went from a random to public moderator teamlead and I&A dev.  If anything is unclear feel free to ask.
 

1 hour ago, Teddy said:

Also I love how you just ripped me off the Public mod team without talking to me.

Let me go a bit more in depth on this.  

After i got the public moderator teamlead role i noticed that there weren't a lot of active public moderators.  And some of those active didn't have their RCON open on a regular basis.
For those who don't know what RCON is: it's a tool used to connect to the chat of (in our case) an Arma 3 server.  We mainly use it to monitor the server and can kick people who are for example teamkilling.
Most nights i'd be the only one connected.  Because i have a real life as well i can't be behind my PC the entire night every day.  So sometimes there would basically be nobody monitoring the server while there were 60 people on.  I came back to my RCON flashing orange because there was someone TKing and nobody to kick him off.
As teamlead i made a topic in staff channels addressing this issue and asking for people to have their RCON open whenever possible.  I didn't get a whole lot of reaction to this but for a short period of time the amount of admins connected to the server via RCON increased.  Not much later we were back to the old situation.  I made a reply to that same topic addressing this.  After this you answered.  You wrote the following:

Quote

Fair points but to be honest when i get home from work (or anything for that matter) the first thing on my mind isn't "oh must open EPM!" and I'm sure this is the case with others on the staff team as well. The only time I'll probably have EPM open is on nights or whenever I'm doing something ARMA related, if I'm doing something else, it stays closed. We don't get paid for this job, its voluntary so to speak and its not necessarily a requirement to have EPM open 24/7 like you do. Stop being petty about it. We know.

 

My reply:

Quote

  On 12-9-2017 at 1:16 AM, Teddy said:

when i get home from work (or anything for that matter) the first thing on my mind isn't "oh must open EPM!" and I'm sure this is the case with others on the staff team as well

Same goes for me, when i get home i do several things before even going to my desk and booting my PC.  I also don't expect this from anyone.
 

  On 12-9-2017 at 1:16 AM, Teddy said:

The only time I'll probably have EPM open is on nights or whenever I'm doing something ARMA related, if I'm doing something else, it stays closed.

I personally will have EPM open whenever i'm using my PC.  For example right now i'm in class, it's boring so EPM is open.  In the time EPM was over i already restarted the mission because the AO bugged out.  
Now i get that not everyone can or wants to have EPM open at work or at school but when you're sitting at home at your PC it's not that difficult, it doesn't impact your PC's performance, ...
 

  On 12-9-2017 at 1:16 AM, Teddy said:

We don't get paid for this job, its voluntary so to speak and its not necessarily a requirement to have EPM open 24/7

Yes we're all volunteers but as a public moderator it is kind of necessary to use EPM.  No you don't have to have it open 24/7 but try to have it open when you're at your PC.
 

  On 12-9-2017 at 1:16 AM, Teddy said:

EPM open 24/7 like you do.

Because of summer break it might have looked like i'm on EPM 24/7 but that's just my PC being turned on while i'm doing other things.  I just turn the sound up so that if EPM pings i hear it.  Now that school has started again i'll still have EPM open whenever i'm at home and my PC is on.  Sometimes i'll even have it open while in class, like right now, but i don't expect that from anyone.  

I don't expect anyone to be as active as me.  I do expect people to be active.

 

  On 12-9-2017 at 1:16 AM, Teddy said:

Stop being petty about it. We know.

Well respectfully, if nobody is connected to EPM and there is a mass TKer people leave, if the AO bugs out people leave, ...  If these things happen too often people stay away.
So no i'm not being petty.  I care about whether or not there are people on the servers. 

From that point onwards i started monitoring you just a tad better.  Turns out that you lied.  I often saw you on TS, so by your PC, in the AWE channel, so arma related, but you weren't connected to the server via EPM.

That in combination with you calling me petty for basically me caring for AW having players on the public servers made me dig a bit deeper. 
I ran your GUID and IP through the logs, turned out you were rather inactive.  Having joined EU1 only a few times in several weeks.  And only being connected to EPM very rarely, mostly around the times i made the above mentioned topic and the replies to it.  
This in combination with you openly mentioning that you didn't care anymore led me to ask CS if i could remove you.  I asked them as you were spartan lead at the time and it would have led to a strange situation if that were to stay.  After a CS meeting you were removed from the spartan lead position and from the public moderator team.  From what i heard you said that you were starting to be burned out of it anyway.  Later that same day, a sunday, you asked for your position back on the public mod team, you however didn't ask me that, you asked it to CS.  Yes this makes sense as they were the ones to remove you from the public mod team.  But this also means that you are partially to blame for the lack of communication.  I obviously am also to blame here.  And i realised this shortly after.  However you were let back on the public mod team with my explicit approval under the condition that you'd become more active again.  I presume you agreed with this condition.  

I continued to monitor you over the following days.  On wednesday you hadn't become any more active than you were before all of this.  So i wrote up a few things and send that to you.  I addressed the condition for you coming back on the public mod team and explained what i understood by it.  
However you left the entire staff team just moments before i send that message.  You immediately saw it and send someone else to the TS channel i was in to tell me that you left.
As i was unaware of you leaving i deleted the message i send as it might be received as inappropriate and/or condescending.  
Now I find it remarkable how you lecture us on communication when you can't even tell me yourself that you left the staff team.
 

1 hour ago, Teddy said:

Core staff:

COMMUNICATE AND INTERACT. In my time as an Admin you guys just can't do that. People get promoted to CS and just disappear into the wilderness and never interact with the community anymore - you leave that to the Admins. Also, whenever I brought something to you guys I more often than not never got an answer back.

Now i don't seem to have an issue getting things done from CS.  I politely request what i want, tell them if it's urgent or not and then wait.  If i don't get a response in an amount of time depending on how urgent something is i send a friendly reminder or inquiry.  I also hardly ever have anything that has to be done urgently.  I try to plan ahead to avoid this as much as possible.
I don't know why you would be getting that issue.  It doesn't seem to be an issue with CS to me tho.

 

1 hour ago, Teddy said:

Admins: The true MVPs, you guys put up with most of the shit, but not all of you. Some of you also suffer from the communication and interaction disease. A lot of complaints I got was that the team wasn't open to the community at all with what was going on, and as per usual, this issue was brought up, chatted about and then nothing happened just like with everything else. Nothing will happen because of this post.

I don't know which specific issue you're talking about here, i can guess, but let me say this:
I try to be as open as possible without telling things i'm not allowed to tell.  Take for example the "what are the little things that annoy you?" topic.  Initially i just wanted some small things that annoyed people to quickly fix.  Now however it's basically turned into a request topic.  And most have been implemented (in the next version) and others are in the working.  I also try to give feedback on every idea, i might have missed some tho.  
When people come up to me in TS and ask me about things i try to give an as good as possible response.  I am bound by the fact that certain things are just not yet sure.  And if i were to tell those things i'd get peoples hopes up and disappoint them if it never happens.  That's why i don't share everything.  
(Obviously i also don't share passwords to for example the server or personal information on other players, i think everyone can see why.)

 

Then again if people come at us with the mentality that nothing will change because of anything they do it'll most likely not end well.  

 

1 hour ago, Teddy said:

These days this is the only way the get you guys to listen, so I would hope this turns into a nice post debating about all these issues - not a shit flinging thread.

That's not actually true.  If anyone of the people that are with you or you would have come up to me at any point in time i would have sat down and discussed with them what could be changed.  Not a single person has ever done that.
Yes communication hasn't always been good between the staff team and the players.  But in my case at least there wasn't any communication from the playerbase to me, a member of staff.  

 

23 minutes ago, ansin11 said:

Just today, for example, I got kicked from EU1 after an aircraft collision above FOB Guardian. Now I can't tell you what I got kicked for because I didn't take the time to read the message, but it matters not for the point I wish to make with this story: I recieved no warning nor was I asked to lay out my side of the story. And this is important because, though I claimed to have collided with an AAF Gryphon and it was a really really close call and I thought I collided with him judging by the last split-second before my death, but after respawning I saw a jet above the FOB. So I might also have hit the Huron taking off just below me, but I didn't get a teamkill message. It's also possible that the wreck of my Ghost Hawk hit that Huron. This could have easily been resolved by contacting me.

I would have been the one kicking you.  I included my name and the reason in the kick message.  Let me show chatlog between you and me for this specific event: 

14:54:10 | (Side) ansin11: awww yisss

14:54:17 | (Side) ansin11: way to take down a Gryphon

14:54:25 | (Side) Player X: Enemy jet over Guardian ?
14:54:25 | (Side) ansin11: flawless

14:54:32 | (Side) ansin11: na it ded player X

14:54:39 | (Side) Stanhope: don't tell me you intentionally flew into it?

14:54:48 | (Side) ansin11: MAYBE
14:54:59 | Player #78 ansin11 kicked!
14:54:59 | Player #78 ansin11 (GUID) has been kicked by BattlEye: Admin Kick (Waisting assets/stan)

 

Like you said you indeed did not receive an actual warning.  However you were contacted about the occurrence.  As i was playing myself i didn't check zeus.  I trust you as a person so i took your word for it that you did indeed flew into that jet.  And as you are, like you say yourself, a regular you should know that this is not acceptable.  Hence the kick. 

I can recall at least one more incident of me kicking you for something you should know not to do.

 

29 minutes ago, ansin11 said:

• Respect (the player is another human being with feelings, not some randomly named entity that gets replaced anyways)
• Taking responsibility (again, in my eyes staff positions are a job, no privilege; if you want to enjoy a session without having to respond to calls every minute, make a second Arma 3 profile)
• Integrity (for some staff members some rules don't apply or they just sometimes apply)
• Interaction (explain why you take certain actions against somebody please)
• Kindness (similar to 1., how can you expect a healthy community if all you do is hand out orders and bans, at least attempt to hint towards the rules or explain that talking in one of the global channels should not be done because it annoys everybody else)
• Transparency

I agree with you on all of these and do my best to do all of these myself.  But i'm just a human.  I have good days and bad days.  I make mistakes.  And if anyone comes asking about them i will openly admit to having made one.  However up until today, nobody has.

 

32 minutes ago, ansin11 said:

The last thing is staff just not doing anything at all. If i crashland my helicopter, spend 30 minutes waiting for a repair specialist to be flown in, he repairs it and discovers that all fuel has leaked and the mission still has a refuel script for engineers and repair specialists that doesn't work, then it's not my fault or any other players fault that the mission doesn't work properly, and if the mission doesn't work properly, what do these people have Zeus for? For the shiny tags?

This *should* be fixed in the next update.  It had slipped my mind for a long time but there is code in now that should enable it. I've not yet been able to test it tho.  And as mentioned in other topics i can't say when I&A 3.2.10 is coming out.  Actually that's not true, i can tell yo that.  I&A 3.2.10 will never be released as we've moved to I&A 3.3.0.  This because of the amount and gravity of (the) changes.  But for this i cannot give you a release date yet as i'm still actively working on it.

 

16 minutes ago, Vlk said:

I feel someone gotta clear the air publicly and shed some light on what's going on in this post

I've been typing since this topic was posted.  It's just been a long reply as you can tell.

Now something else.  I know that a lot of people aren't happy with me in relations to AWE.  I've been very vocal with my opinion.  I've managed to piss both players and people on the modded mod team of by this.  That was never my intention.  I am aware of it happening and until someone communicates to me how they'd like to see me change I'll keep voicing my opinion.

Again that's not entirely true.  I have recently been asked 2 things.  1 to come closer to a more laid back style of playing on AWE.  And 2 i have been asked halfway last week to take a break from AWE.  I have done that.  Until this friday i had joined AWE once when only 1 person was on to look at the repo update.  I haven't played between the date i was asked to take a break and this friday.  This friday i played one mission.  
Why this friday?  because that was the day my final exam for this period ended.  

 

Now i am aware of one question that got asked tonight in TS.  Whether or not i should be kicked off of AWE.  If anyone comes up to me with a reason why i should, i will voluntarily leave AWE as it is.  I will not play on it in a significant amount of time.  To put an exact timing for at least 3 months.  After that i'll get in touch with the current modded moderator TL and ask his opinion on me joining AWE again.
Now with come up to me in mean in TS and as one player to another.  Because after all that's what i am on AWE, a player.  I'm not an moderator in there, i don't have any rights.  
Because of a bug in the way zeus is assigned i do have zeus there.  And many people have asked me to use it.  I have refused all of those requests as in my opinion if i were to exploit that but i should be banned from AWE.  

I'm also aware of the meme at least 2 people had as their avatar in TS tonight.  My response:
No i am not happy to see any member of staff leave. 

When i asked for teddy's removal i did this fully knowing that i had too few public moderators.  And no i wasn't happy with it at all.  When he proceeded to leave 3 days later after being given his spot back i wasn't happy either.  

I wasn't happy when copey left.  And i would have gladly talked about why he left.  But he didn't bring it up and i didn't know he was planning on leaving and why he was leaving otherwise i'd have talked to him about it.  

 

Now if anyone has any questions for me about anything don't hesitate to ask them.  Either here, via a PM on the forum, a message on TS, talking in TS, heck a lot of people even have me on steam.  

 

(I've heard that some of the videos were moved out of this thread, i had nothing to do with that, just saying for the record.)
(Another thing for the record: i have started writing this topic when i first heard of it being posted.  Nobody has told me i have to reply to this, nobody has told me not to.  I do this out of my own accord.)

[Minipily]

To follow up on this and make my thoughts from the meeting a little more public to all as some were not there.

 

My thoughts on the issues within Ahoyworld are mainly down to the community themselves, it is your duty as a player within the community to talk openly about what you would like and what your issues are. As Ryko said, the staff simply cannot work on any issues if they do not hear about it. If you are having trouble getting your point to staff, try and take it up the ladder of authority (Player you trust >Moderator > Admin > Core Staff).

 

The issues people are facing with @Stanhope. I can understand that people may get frustrated with him on EU3, perhaps utilizing the player report tool (which I may remind people that everyone has the right to use) a little too much, including possibly minor infractions. To this, why not talk to Stan yourself? There is no reason why one cannot talk to another and try and talk about issues or settle their differences. I can understand that it may be ones duty to report players for mucking around or breaking rules, just remember, minor infractions that do not really affect the game play on the server but one or two people DO ADD UP. And if someone is banned after a lengthy amount of minor infractions, it can seem unfair to that person.

 

For this I say, please please please, talk to each other and discuss the issues you are seeing. Perhaps talk to players more and explain what they have done wrong before reporting them. I'm not saying that Stan or others do not do this, but I am simply reminding people that this is an option. We are a community and though we have great amounts of communication now compared to previous years, that communication is not as a community but more targeted at a PVP battle between the players. Let us settle differences, learn to be a little more forgiving for the little things and just have fun. It is a Gaming Community at the end of the day.

 

There has also been the discussions between "Group A" and "Group B" and how we can come together as a community to make both sides work. For those that do not know:

 

Group A - "The rules should absolutely be followed all the time, and that fun is had when everyone is following the rules"

Group B - "The rules should be followed when it makes sense to follow them, otherwise they can be ignored / bent when it's reasonable or fun to do so."

 

I myself as a player are in Group B, but I fully understand and respect Group A and I ask politely that those in Group A understand and respect Group B. It is important that we make sure both groups can work together and get as close to molded the two as one as possible. Again, this is not a server or staff issue but is an issue about players in the community if we were to actually call these groups "not getting along" an issue. Probably made no sense seeing as I don't see an issue here but just an example, you get the point.

 

To conclude, at the end of the day I think a lot of issues we face are ones we should aim to work on as a community together rather than pin it on the staff. They are not here to purely baby sit us but more rather make sure we do not get out of control. If one wanted a community meeting to talk about a subject, the forums do exist to set up just that or perhaps plan it with a staff member.

 

I'm not trying to sound high and mighty, like I know exactly what is going on and that I know the way to fix it and that is to just get along all the time. I'm just saying it from the heart and trying to read it out to you as I've heard it. We are all humans and it is in our nature to disagree with certain points we all make, to the point where we may never agree. But it is important we talk as a community to find that balancing point, a place where all can get across the gap separating us.

[ansin11]

It appears as though I need to elaborate further on what went down today. Follow me into a stream of thoughts inside the mind of a capable pilot inbound for FOB Guardian. You have entered the final approach to your landing point of choice in front of the spawn exit. Chronological order.

 

Lockon warning. What? Where does that come from? Doesn't matter, the computer is always right. Flares. Do-not-fire-in-base-hint. Flares. Do-not-fire-in-base-hint. The approch is messed up because of the hints, there is a Huron below me. I didn't see him before. Pull up, it would be really embarrassing to hit him. Oh boy, that was close. Where did that missile come from? [looks towards the runway area of Altis International, helicopter moving somewhere] [lets go of Alt key] Gryphon. Headed straight for me. So that's where that missile came from. Collision.

 

Now at that point I was pretty happy because I had avoided screwing up entirely by hitting the Huron and I had appareantly managed to take the Gryphon with me. I do regard that as a great success, I can certainly count the times I hit a jet with my helicopter on one hand. It does happen, but rarely, and requires a ton of skill luck. Enter the chatlog:

 

14:54:10 | (Side) ansin11: awww yisss

14:54:17 | (Side) ansin11: way to take down a Gryphon

14:54:25 | (Side) Player X: Enemy jet over Guardian ?
14:54:25 | (Side) ansin11: flawless

14:54:32 | (Side) ansin11: na it ded player X 

14:54:39 | (Side) Stanhope: don't tell me you intentionally flew into it?

14:54:48 | (Side) ansin11: MAYBE
14:54:59 | Player #78 ansin11 kicked!
14:54:59 | Player #78 ansin11 (GUID) has been kicked by BattlEye: Admin Kick (Waisting assets/stan)

 

Now it should be pretty obvious that I did not hit the Gryphon intentionally (Have you tried that? If I could, I would, but he either hits you or you're the only one going down.) nor could I avoid that collision. You can't possibly say that this is to be considered a waste of assets, trading something that respawns immediately for a dangerous enemy fighter aircraft. I hope you can understand why I felt treated unfairly there.

 

1 hour ago, Stanhope said:

I can recall at least one more incident of me kicking you for something you should know not to do.

You can recall exactly one incident of me being kicked because as of today, I only have been kicked twice. That first time was when you were annoyed by people pinging zeus. You expressed this in the chat. Now I wasn't one of them, but after you brought it up, I made sure to add my ping to the melody once (what else did you expect from me?). This sent me into the ocean south of Altis, and since getting out of there again presented itself rather complicated, I actually required Zeus assistance, so I pinged again, which got me kicked. This doesn't seem fair to me as I was the only one being teleported and as sudden teleportation is something I am helpless about, making it not very nice. Since I was not told that would happen and since I was having some banter with you anyways, I might as well ping you again to undo that abuse of Zeus powers, but yay I get kicked.

 

1 hour ago, Stanhope said:

And as you are, like you say yourself, a regular you should know that this is not acceptable.  Hence the kick.

So being a regular earns me easier penalties and less reasons to be treated kindly and fairly? Being a regular means my first crashed helicopter of the day is a wasted asset?

I didn't think so, but this is what it comes across as, and this is not exactly good for AW.

Besides I believe, and that's what you took my word for and what I got kicked for, that I took down a Gryphon, and that is, using just a Ghost Hawk helicopter, a feat and not a waste of assets.

[Stanhope]

6 minutes ago, ansin11 said:

Besides I believe, and that's what you took my word for and what I got kicked for, that I took down a Gryphon, and that is, using just a Ghost Hawk helicopter, a feat and not a waste of assets.

10 minutes ago, ansin11 said:

Now it should be pretty obvious that I did not hit the Gryphon intentionally (Have you tried that? If I could, I would, but he either hits you or you're the only one going down.) nor could I avoid that collision. You can't possibly say that this is to be considered a waste of assets, trading something that respawns immediately for a dangerous enemy fighter aircraft. I hope you can understand why I felt treated unfairly there.

 

That's where i have to disagree.  Ramming any vehicle into anything is technically always against the rules (rule 4.5.2 to be specific).  Now if the vehicle you used to ram isn't damaged in a meaningful way most admins, including me, won't say anything. Worse things happen all the time. If you however intentionally crash it into an enemy causing said vehicle to blow up you might be in trouble.  Chances of you getting in trouble increas if you did it close to an FOB or to complete or fail a mission.  In this instance you were in trouble.

 

13 minutes ago, ansin11 said:

You can recall exactly one incident of me being kicked because I only have been kicked twice. That first time was when you were annoyed by people pinging zeus. You expressed this in the chat. Now I wasn't one of them, but after you brought it up, I made sure to add my ping to the melody once (what else did you expect from me?). This sent me into the ocean south of Altis, and since getting out of there again presented itself rather complicated, I actually required Zeus assistance, so I pinged again, which got me kicked. This doesn't seem fair to me as I was the only one being teleported and as sudden teleportation is something I am helpless about, making it not very nice. Since I was not told that would happen and since I was having some banter with you anyways, I might as well ping you again to undo that abuse of Zeus powers, but yay I get kicked.

On an average day when i'm on the server i'll hear somewhere around 100 pings.  If i tell people to stop that's in 90% of cases not a request.  It'd be more of the warning type, if people keep doing that they'll get punishment.  Usually a lightning bolt next to them or on them if they are really having a go at it.
In your case you were standing in a safe zone and did it literally right after i told everyone not to.  I proceeded to teleport you over into the middle of the sea.  This as a punishment. If you would have respawned that would have been it.  But you proceeded to ping again.  So i put a lightning bolt next to you.  You pinged again, i moved on to a kick.  In that instance you got 2 warnings and 1 punishment before being kicked.
Hearing so many pings every day really gets on your nerves after a while.  So if i tell people to stop i will in most cases move on to bigger things if they keep doing it.
 

19 minutes ago, ansin11 said:

So being a regular earns me easier penalties and less reasons to be treated kindly and fairly?

It will get you the benefit of the doubt in some cases, your word being trusted easier but also being expected to know the rules better.  Whether or not what i did was kindly and fairly is debatable.  It's definitely not the kindest thing i've ever done.  But also not the worst.  

 

21 minutes ago, ansin11 said:

Being a regular means my first crashed helicopter of the day is a wasted asset?

Definitely not, I'll be more likely to trust your word for it and give you the benefit of the doubt.  However in this instance me trusting your word is what led to you being kicked.

 

23 minutes ago, ansin11 said:

I didn't think so, but this is what it comes across as, and this is not exactly good for AW.

If anyone at any point in time has any question related to any moderating related action i made i will always take the time to explain.  I have done this on multiple occasions and in most cases the guy who received the action understood why i did it after i explained it.  He doesn't necessarily agree that it was necessary but he understands why.  If you still have questions to why either of these 2 kicks happend I will happily explain it as many times as needed here, in TS, in a PM, wherever you prefer.

[Teddy]

Stan: I'm not going to disect your post like a surgeon but you're just twisting my words around.

 

I said "The only time i'll PROBABLY be on RCON....." This doesnt mean i'd be on RCON all the time, if at all when im on ARMA. Do not be so quick to call me a liar. More often than not when i had RCON open you already dealt with the issue at hand so i didnt bother having RCON open much. I enjoyed helping people if they asked, and being removed from the Public Mod team ruined that for me.

 

Also why should i have to personally come to you if i'm leaving the staff team? Was the leaving post on the Admin section not enough? You're not the only reason i left i'll have you know. I also find it bullshit that you could just wave your hand and remove me even though I've been on the team longer than you.

 

You're way to strict with people around here, i recall you banning somone for racism because he had the name "niger", even though he hadnt done anything out of line. You do realise that Niger is a country and also a river?

 

Your attitude towards the playerbase is also appalling. There is a reason people are making memes about you and talking about you behind your back.

[PiranhA]

This topic is starting to decline in quality, can have several reasons.

Could be the age, as ive seen kids "talk" like this before but i feel it isnt the case here.

Some people here dont know how to properly communicate on a mature level and to be honest, only mini so far hasnt been completely talking shit.

 

Its very easy to jump the bandwagon against Stan right here and now, nice and from a distance huh? What i think is: 

For those shouting from the sideline and never done anything productively for this community: you have no reason to talk here.

For those who have put in time and efford, i do see a reason in comments tho this is too late. What you put here to pay him back at stan or ahoy is something you guys should do waaaay earlier as feedback on the forum instead of in a private channel in TS.

 

And:

If you really have some balls you go talk with the one you having a problem with, privately talk with them, instead talking in a group about him/her. Being honest and fair feels vulnerable but requires more balls and brain as being the popular guy but i bet there will be a few left who are capable of being this mature.

 

Have a nice day and fun in whatever community you want.

[Minipily]

@PiranhA has a valid point, let's keep this civil and on track please. It's not common for the community to ACTUALLY start discussing stuff and I'd rather not have people just constantly slate on @Stanhope for doing his job. Yes he may be too strict on the little things sometimes but god forbid he does his job.

 

Slating people, arguing publically and jumping on a hate bandwagon is NOT HELPING this community. People complain that the community is "dying" but to be frank, they themselves are just trying to push it in the wrong direction. 

 

If people cannot settle their differences and would rather just stay on the hate train, then please let that hate train take you to a different community and may you have a nice time there. It's sad to see people leave, but not as sad as seeing them stick around just to argue and be rude.

[Noah_Hero]

So people are complaining about @Stanhope for reporting people? Isn´t that essentially what the job of an admin is? Like beeing the police of the servers and enforcing rules...

[GamerbugUK]

Never had a problem with @Stanhope on a public server and I don't play on AWE so canot comment there. He is the most active Admin I have seen in a while and has a good forum and server presence. Seems to try his best on the development of the I&A mission, and overall seems to have AW's best interests at heart.

 

This all comes from my perception of him, as a bystander who has seen him appear on the server, and then make a name for himself as a helpful community member initially and then an admin. That said I do not really engage in chit chat with people on TS, prefer to do my talking in game, or I try to be active here on the forums.

 

What I don't ever think is great is bitching about one another on the forums in public, it does nothing for anyone, at best it makes people look bad or petty, and when you are meant to be the people running the show that is never good. As for the AW community needing to know this, why?

 

Staff comes and goes, some good, some bad and I have never really know which was which (though some of the banter from some admins on in game chat is borderline childish on many occasions), or cared really; all I, as a player, cares about it the server runs smooth (active admins where possible), the bugs are ironed out and the server carries on providing entertainment.

 

Want to argue or complain about each other, please go do it in private as admins/core staff/whatever (and as adults), don't tarnish the server with bickering, it helps no one.

 

[Stanhope]

9 hours ago, Teddy said:

i recall you banning somone for racism because he had the name "niger", even though he hadnt done anything out of line. You do realise that Niger is a country and also a river?

I know yes.  The country is located in Africa, almost completely in the Sahara desert, north of a country called Nigeria.  The river Niger flows through several countries in western Africa including Nigeria and the country Niger.

 

9 hours ago, Teddy said:

You're way to strict with people around here

There is some truth in this statement.  But it's an oversimplification.  Yes i sometimes am a tad too strict but there are also moments that i let people get away with too much.  Take any moderator and ask him if he in at least one occasion has been too strict and i strongly believe all of them will say that they have in at least one occasion.  

Now I'm going to presume that by this statement you mean that i'm too strict more often than other moderators.  Again there is some truth in this.  I am stricter than most moderators.  But i don't blindly follow the rules.  I wrote both the I&A rules and the public moderator guidelines that the general public doesn't know.  I got those reviewed by both core staff and outreach.  Several adjustments were made, most simply fixing my horrible grammar and spelling but also some to the content of the rules/guidelines.  

No not all those adjustments were to loosen the rules up.  At least 1 rule was reworded to make it stricter.  I don't recall exactly how many were made more strict and how many loosened up.  But it's not been a one way street.
So to get back to how i enforce rules, i don't blindly follow them.  I follow the general spirit of the rules.  In numbers there are more instances where i let something slide than the total amount of bans i've made so far.  I even think that if you add my total amount of kicks and bans together i will still have let more things slide than that number.

 

Now i do get why you would make this statement.  As i explained it contains some truth however i think that the primary reason is something else.  Mainly that you didn't observe me letting things slide.  Now of course if you're not in the server or not actively reading on RCON that's normal.  And i didn't expected you to be in the server whenever i was or to be reading RCON all the time.  But you could have maybe thought about this.  Or you could have asked me about how i moderate.  So yes there have been issues with communication.  But don't blame all of it on everyone else.  Yes i've made several, don't deny that you have too.
 

9 hours ago, Teddy said:

Your attitude towards the playerbase is also appalling. There is a reason people are making memes about you and talking about you behind your back.

Well i presume that people are talking behind my back because they don't have any interest in making AW a better place.  To put it bluntly.  If they wanted to improve AW they would come talk to me, try to reason with me.  And if that didn't work they could have filled an admin report against me.  To this day not a single person has done this.
Again yes communication from the staff team to the players has been an issue.  But same goes for the communication from the players to the staff team.

And from what i hear most of the talking behind my back has nothing to do with me as a member of staff.  I hear that most of it is related to me as a player on AWE.  

 

 

Now for everyone that feels that communication between staff and the players is a bad state: you have certainly captured our attention.  Now is the time to come forward with your vision on what we can do different.  We'll obviously also internally look for ways to improve but we can most efficiently improve if we get direct feedback from you guys.  So put any and all ideas you have on how comms could improve in this topic.

For those who want to talk about how i moderate or any of the actions i took anywhere:  I'm on teamspeak almost every day,  I check the forum every day for messages (and other things),  Create a specific separate topic for it,  Message me over steam, ...
As i said earlier i have made my fair share of mistakes.  I'm more than happy to talk civilly about situation with anyone to see if that situation was one.  I assure you there are plenty.  

[Johnson]

I'm sitting in uni so I don't really wanna read the novel above me (so sorry if this has been saidalready), but I did read the original post.

 

• Stanhope is far from the worst AW staff member we've had, if his "reports" have no great consequences and (from what I've been told) only focus on smaller issues then why is that reporting an issue at all? It's not like hes getting anyone banned behind their back (so long as they get a chance to speak their side or be given fair warning should a great number of these small issues build up on one player). With how I currently see AW, I would highly hope long-term, faithful and commonly rule-abiding players would not be banned over tiny issues.
• Main point, AW is incomprehensibly more social, active and connected between its members than it has ever been before, especially regarding EU#3. AW is better in every way (other than playerbase/mindset at times) that is was in the past. The connection between admins/staff/corestaff and normal players has never been stronger, speaking from experience. In the past there was a definitive line between staff and players. For example: Myself, Minipily, Pancake, Jochem /// Dave, Bacon, Kenny. Not anyone's fault, its just the way it was and it eventually caused problems through lack of communication.

 

Myself and Mini have gone through the whole (fuck it, were leaving AW) countless times and every time we come crawling back AW is better in so many ways. We complained about staff not communicating, they communicate. We complained about not enough players, we have a decent number. We complained about realism, we have the MSO and we can choose how realistic we want to play when we ASL or CMD.

 

Long story short, in my eyes, as someone who has complained for years about AW, were running out of things to complain about.

 

(Feel free to counter argue me though, always up for topical debate)

 

P.S if this is a dick measuring contest on "Who can complain and rebel the most", Mini has already one with me in a close second. We got a head start.

[Ryko]

1) No staff has anything to hide or obfuscate, we're not that complicated here. We don't harbour agendas, most of us just want to play a game. We're all volunteers; no one gets paid anything (and certainly no one pays to take on a role). We're not omniscient beings who always have the solution to problems, both technical and interpersonal. So if you're expecting any admin team to be able to fix anything, all the time - think again.

 

2) If you are a player and you're angry that a player report got filed against you, maybe you should be considering your actions.  If a player report is filed, it's reviewed by the relevant admin team and followed up on.  If you don't hear about as a player, it's because it was reviewed and determined not to not be egregious enough to warrant further sanction.  If you hear about it as a player, you violated a rule.  Does that require that the person filing the player report should speak to you about it? Not in the least - it's an anonymous reporting tool for a reason.

 

3) I'll echo Gamerbug's comments that to bring interpersonal issues to the public forum is unprofessional and petty, and it's certainly not my preference.  That said, our system doesn't have any prohibition against it, so if staff member feels they want/need to vent their frustrations in public, go right ahead. Teddy, for all the comments you have about Stan, I could say much the same about you.  You were an active and productive admin on the public servers, you decided to stay on both teams when we reorganized the hierarchy between the public and modded servers.  There were a lot of moderators on the AWE server who resented that you were put in as a de facto moderator on AWE with essentially no time in on the server. I supported you as an admin on both, and you made your own fair share of mistakes.

 

4) Communication: for reasons I'll address separately in the future, CS has not been as communicative, and that's on us. However, we specifically changed the hierarchy on AW so that decision-making did not need to always run through CS, by instituting the system of team leaders for the public and modded servers: CS was being asked to intervene on issues that were brought from the players in the servers, which created a delay in getting certain decisions effected.

 

Teddy describes AW as burning. I think that's a bit of a stretch, but if you no longer enjoy playing here, you probably shouldn't - there are lots of other arma communities out there.  My sense is that at the heart of this letter is an appeal - to make the community a better place - otherwise you probably wouldn't have written the letter.

 

(added: people seem to be interpreting my comment of "if you don't like it, play elsewhere" as "we don't want your opinion, like it or leave it." That's absolutely not the case. I have always welcomed opinions, suggestions, criticism and feedback, and I don't think I have ever actively discouraged people to engage in this. What I am trying to get across in this comment is this: it's a free world, and you're a free person in it. I don't want anyone to feel badly when they play in our community, so if the environment's not for you, either speak up and see if that environment can change, or exercise your free will. And if speaking up doesn't work, then that is a shame, but it's probably not for lack of trying on anyone's part.)

[Numbnuts]

3 hours ago, Stanhope said:

Well i presume that people are talking behind my back because they don't have any interest in making AW a better place.  To put it bluntly.  If they wanted to improve AW they would come talk to me,

I have seen you threaten a non member on AWE cause he accidently got in the gunner seat of a vehicle that can take 2 gunners when it was pointed out to him what he had done he immediately switched and jokingly said "you didn't see anything" at which point you threatened him with the fact you were recording. if you expect any member of the community to treat you like a dependable member of staff like we did with teddy copey and shadowknight that is not going to happen.