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Current Staff Disposition

Somnastra

Puppycat Herder
Events Staff
Lore Staff
Good
Staff
Retired Owner
Somnastra
Somnastra
Good
First off, thank you everyone for being so patient. Transitions like this are never easy, but because everyone was able to keep calm and carry on while we were sorting things, it was a lot less painful than it could have been.

I would like to spend some time to fill you in on what's been going on. A few weeks ago - three, in fact - some issues that had been festering within a certain subsection of staff came to a head. Most of the members of staff were not only uninvolved in this, they were entirely unaware that it was even going on. I do not particularly wish to go into details about it, as I have already given all staff a clean slate in order to facilitate moving forward. What they do from there is what I will be paying attention to. I only mention this to give you a context for what was decided. It is important to know that communication had stagnated on a lot of levels, and this had implications not only for the atmosphere among staff, but also the amount of information that was ultimately communicated to you guys.

When I was given ownership of the server, the most pressing issue that I saw was not anything to do with the players, but rather the relationship that staff had with each other. So I posed the question to them: "How would you like yourselves to be organized?"

There were several who were in favor of a tiered system similar to what we had before (moderator, admin, management). There were those who were in favor of a more flat structure, which some may remember has been tried before with little success. I knew that I would be removing the Admin and Management subforums (which are hidden due to confidentiality concerns) in order to encourage more communication, regardless of the actual structure of staff, and once this was communicated, we really got somewhere!

Right now, we have created different "departments" within staff. These are simply functional, and for organization of projects more than organization of people. This was due to the fact that staff naturally seemed to gravitate towards one or several of these areas, while leaving others largely untouched. It would make it easier for staff to know where to go for information and guidance. These sections are as follows:

Hardware and Software
In-Game Technical
Moderation
Lore
Events
Media​

Moderation, Lore, and Events are probably self-explanatory, but I will go into each section in detail regardless.

Hardware and Software: What probably becomes very apparent when something breaks is that there is a certain amount of expertise and effort that goes into maintaining the physical server and the software that actually runs it, as well as updating all of the plugins. The forum falls under this, as well.

In-Game Technical: This covers server builds, roads, dockmaster, stablemasters, ports, build contests, and the like. Basically anything that falls somewhere between plugins and moderation will be in this section.

Moderation: You all should be familiar with this, as it's the most visible aspect of what staff does. This includes whitelisting, mediating disputes, and determining if rules governing RP need to be implemented or revisited.

Lore: Fairly self-explanatory, I think. Anything that has to do with the setting, backstory of the world, fantastic physics, or things regarding time-lock (something that's come up several times today and I don't know why) will fall under Lore.

Events: This is stuff such as campaigns and one-off events. Tied closely to Lore, but since there is a lot of cinematics and special effects that go into pulling off a successful event, in addition to storytelling, this is a separate section.

Media: This includes things like the podcast, Facebook, Twitter, and PMC accounts. This will be important to how we advertise ourselves to the rest of the internet.

Each section will have a coordinator. For the time being, each coordinator will be selected by me. These individuals will lead the section, ensuring that projects don't conflict with each other. Projects will largely be led by individual members of staff, encouraging increased participation from that quarter. Projects will be things like a particular event or campaign, or a piece of the lore, or the integration/development of a plugin, or the development of a new RP rule. Eventually I would like this process to be opened up to players, at least with particular sections, but we must take this one step at a time. The persons leading each section are as follows:

Hardware and Software: Somnastra
In-Game Technical: Solus
Moderation:
Lore:
Cherry
Events: Lannis
Media: IceandFire​

You may have noticed that "Admins" are no longer red in-game as well. This is because the distinction between moderators and admins is being phased out. From here on out, permissions will be given on an individual basis depending on the skills and particular project needs of each staff. That means that not everyone is going to be able to do that World Edit job for you. There will be certain things implemented on the forums in order to allow you request World Edits, and all staff will still have the same basic commands allowing them to vanish and teleport when they are needed in a dispute, as well as banning when necessary.

I wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of the current situation within staff. Things are looking up, and we're working out the kinks associate with this system. I'm hoping that it will increase communication on all levels, and to that end, I would like to ask you all to share any concerns that you might have on the current state of things. The only thing that I ask is that you keep things civil. I am not afraid of the handy warn button I have, and will use it if things get out of line.

Thank you for your time, patience, and cooperation.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

PapaBraveHeart

Villager
Congratulations on the promotion, Somnastra! Always knew you had it in you, and I'm sure everyone would agree on this.

You're mature, respectful, responsible, and great with the community, let's not forget how good you're at managing the server. :)

Once again, congratulations.
 
Last edited:

Itzzaboy

King ForumStalker
Here's to hoping that this new system works out. I do have a question though...

What if, in some big discussion, nobody can come to a decision (let's say the staff are split 50/50) and there needs to be some sort of break. Before, management would generally have an overriding decision based on what had been said and make a deicison that made the most sense, but now that the tier system is gone, it begs the question, who makes those decisions when the staff cannot decide amongst themselves? The way I see it, there are a few options (you may have already made a decision, but I'm just laying down my thoughts here):

- Owner (Somnastra) has the overriding decision:
While this has a 100% chance of resolving a dispute in the short term, there will always be those people that utter that word. "Dictatorship". In a less negative manner (and no disrespect meant by this, this applies to anyone in your position) the server owner may not have the best opinion when it comes to certain departments that they may not have a lot of knowledge about.

- Department staff have the overriding decision:
At first glance, it makes a lot of sense to me that if it's a dispute over plugins, then whoever works on the plugins has the overriding vote, or when it comes to lore, those working on lore have an overriding vote. This makes sense to me because those people tend to have the most knowledge on the subject matter of that dispute, because that's what they do! Of course, when it's a single person making decisions, even if it makes sense, that horrible D work will undoubtedly crop up again. In addition, in areas where there are multiple people working, who has the overriding vote? Or if it's all of them, what if THEY can't agree?

- Playerbase vote for an overriding decision.
This has been done, in a sense, in the past, and while it certainly seems like the most player friendly way of doing things, it certainly has its flaws. First of all, it's likely that a majority of the playerbase are not particularly well informed on the subject matter at hand (we aren't all plugin wizards or master lore writers). That isn't to say that we don't have people in Hollowworld who are ignorant of those subjects by any means, but plenty of people are here just to play casually, and may not know the first thing about plugins or lore or player interaction. Second of all, these sorts of votes are usually done in a public thread, and players can be heavily influenced simply because their friend voted one way, or because someone made a seemingly good explanation on the subject and blindly votes in that direction. This can be fixed somewhat by making the voting private, and ensuring that the players are armed with the knowledge needed to make an informed decision, but friends still talk to each other, votes can still be influenced.

Honestly? I was just curious to see how things would operate, the big chunk of text up there is mostly to assist you should you not have come to any sort of decision yet
 

Legion

No Gods, No Masters.
Retired Staff
Here's to hoping that this new system works out. I do have a question though...

What if, in some big discussion, nobody can come to a decision (let's say the staff are split 50/50) and there needs to be some sort of break. Before, management would generally have an overriding decision based on what had been said and make a deicison that made the most sense, but now that the tier system is gone, it begs the question, who makes those decisions when the staff cannot decide amongst themselves? The way I see it, there are a few options (you may have already made a decision, but I'm just laying down my thoughts here):

- Owner (Somnastra) has the overriding decision:
While this has a 100% chance of resolving a dispute in the short term, there will always be those people that utter that word. "Dictatorship". In a less negative manner (and no disrespect meant by this, this applies to anyone in your position) the server owner may not have the best opinion when it comes to certain departments that they may not have a lot of knowledge about.

- Department staff have the overriding decision:
At first glance, it makes a lot of sense to me that if it's a dispute over plugins, then whoever works on the plugins has the overriding vote, or when it comes to lore, those working on lore have an overriding vote. This makes sense to me because those people tend to have the most knowledge on the subject matter of that dispute, because that's what they do! Of course, when it's a single person making decisions, even if it makes sense, that horrible D work will undoubtedly crop up again. In addition, in areas where there are multiple people working, who has the overriding vote? Or if it's all of them, what if THEY can't agree?

- Playerbase vote for an overriding decision.
This has been done, in a sense, in the past, and while it certainly seems like the most player friendly way of doing things, it certainly has its flaws. First of all, it's likely that a majority of the playerbase are not particularly well informed on the subject matter at hand (we aren't all plugin wizards or master lore writers). That isn't to say that we don't have people in Hollowworld who are ignorant of those subjects by any means, but plenty of people are here just to play casually, and may not know the first thing about plugins or lore or player interaction. Second of all, these sorts of votes are usually done in a public thread, and players can be heavily influenced simply because their friend voted one way, or because someone made a seemingly good explanation on the subject and blindly votes in that direction. This can be fixed somewhat by making the voting private, and ensuring that the players are armed with the knowledge needed to make an informed decision, but friends still talk to each other, votes can still be influenced.

Honestly? I was just curious to see how things would operate, the big chunk of text up there is mostly to assist you should you not have come to any sort of decision yet
My understanding is that Somnastra, as well as the current decider of vision, will have the overriding choice.
 

MRPolo13

The Arbiter of the Gods
Last time the barrier between mods and admins was removed we got a huge mess which led to very nasty things. Also, can I at least suggest that those groups cooperate properly, and that Media also focuses on research (both internal and external)?
 

Legion

No Gods, No Masters.
Retired Staff
Last time the barrier between mods and admins was removed we got a huge mess which led to very nasty things. Also, can I at least suggest that those groups cooperate properly, and that Media also focuses on research (both internal and external)?
Yes we understand that the last time we shifted to a flat playing field it was a mess. But we are confident that the mess caused in those instances was due to a total lack of any kind of authoritative structure. This system has the department coordinators who have authority over their own department and Somnastra is currently making the decisions about server vision, and so far as I can tell this should address the issues that the flat structure had previously.
Trust me, I argued for a management tier very ardently and for a very long time, and even I am satisfied with this. I believe it will be every bit as effective.
Alse yes we were indeed planning on cooperating XD
Lastly, research is something that would happen in all departments by necessity, and would focus on what topics were relevant to the department. You can be certain that the Media dept will be doing external research for advertising purposes, but the Events dept will also be doing internal research to see the reaction to an event, etc etc.
 

MRPolo13

The Arbiter of the Gods
Yes we understand that the last time we shifted to a flat playing field it was a mess. But we are confident that the mess caused in those instances was due to a total lack of any kind of authoritative structure. This system has the department coordinators who have authority over their own department and Somnastra is currently making the decisions about server vision, and so far as I can tell this should address the issues that the flat structure had previously.
Trust me, I argued for a management tier very ardently and for a very long time, and even I am satisfied with this. I believe it will be every bit as effective.
Alse yes we were indeed planning on cooperating XD
Lastly, research is something that would happen in all departments by necessity, and would focus on what topics were relevant to the department. You can be certain that the Media dept will be doing external research for advertising purposes, but the Events dept will also be doing internal research to see the reaction to an event, etc etc.
 

French Roast

Lord of Altera
Pronouns
She/Her
French_Roast
French_Roast
I really love this whole thing, Som, I do. I just want to take a moment to respond to Itzza, because he made some great points:
Here's to hoping that this new system works out. I do have a question though...

What if, in some big discussion, nobody can come to a decision (let's say the staff are split 50/50) and there needs to be some sort of break. Before, management would generally have an overriding decision based on what had been said and make a deicison that made the most sense, but now that the tier system is gone, it begs the question, who makes those decisions when the staff cannot decide amongst themselves? The way I see it, there are a few options (you may have already made a decision, but I'm just laying down my thoughts here):

- Owner (Somnastra) has the overriding decision:
While this has a 100% chance of resolving a dispute in the short term, there will always be those people that utter that word. "Dictatorship". In a less negative manner (and no disrespect meant by this, this applies to anyone in your position) the server owner may not have the best opinion when it comes to certain departments that they may not have a lot of knowledge about.

- Department staff have the overriding decision:
At first glance, it makes a lot of sense to me that if it's a dispute over plugins, then whoever works on the plugins has the overriding vote, or when it comes to lore, those working on lore have an overriding vote. This makes sense to me because those people tend to have the most knowledge on the subject matter of that dispute, because that's what they do! Of course, when it's a single person making decisions, even if it makes sense, that horrible D work will undoubtedly crop up again. In addition, in areas where there are multiple people working, who has the overriding vote? Or if it's all of them, what if THEY can't agree?

- Playerbase vote for an overriding decision.
This has been done, in a sense, in the past, and while it certainly seems like the most player friendly way of doing things, it certainly has its flaws. First of all, it's likely that a majority of the playerbase are not particularly well informed on the subject matter at hand (we aren't all plugin wizards or master lore writers). That isn't to say that we don't have people in Hollowworld who are ignorant of those subjects by any means, but plenty of people are here just to play casually, and may not know the first thing about plugins or lore or player interaction. Second of all, these sorts of votes are usually done in a public thread, and players can be heavily influenced simply because their friend voted one way, or because someone made a seemingly good explanation on the subject and blindly votes in that direction. This can be fixed somewhat by making the voting private, and ensuring that the players are armed with the knowledge needed to make an informed decision, but friends still talk to each other, votes can still be influenced.

Honestly? I was just curious to see how things would operate, the big chunk of text up there is mostly to assist you should you not have come to any sort of decision yet
You make excellent points about overriding votes/executive decisions, so I just wanted to respond with a couple suggestions. In the case of Somnastra or department staff having the overriding vote, in order to help avoid the "dictatorship" accusations, could it be possible to provide a way for the rest of staff to overrule their vote if there's enough strong disagreement with the decision? And when I say "strong disagreement" I don't mean disagreement like an old man grumbling to himself but holding his silence, I mean like people protesting on the streets saying the decision is not going to do any good and will possibly actually do more damage than good.
And in the case of playerbase votes, addressing the issues of players not being informed and players being influenced by their friends' votes, could it be possible to do it where first there is a public information and discussion thread about the topic at hand in order to reasonably inform players and see if they're grasping the idea, an then close said discussion thread when the discussion is about done and start a separate poll thread which is locked to prevent responses to influence people's votes further, an the poll set to hide votes so nobody can tell what their friends voted.
I don't know, maybe this is more complex than you guys want to deal with, just thought I'd throw this out there.
 

Legion

No Gods, No Masters.
Retired Staff
I really love this whole thing, Som, I do. I just want to take a moment to respond to Itzza, because he made some great points:

You make excellent points about overriding votes/executive decisions, so I just wanted to respond with a couple suggestions. In the case of Somnastra or department staff having the overriding vote, in order to help avoid the "dictatorship" accusations, could it be possible to provide a way for the rest of staff to overrule their vote if there's enough strong disagreement with the decision? And when I say "strong disagreement" I don't mean disagreement like an old man grumbling to himself but holding his silence, I mean like people protesting on the streets saying the decision is not going to do any good and will possibly actually do more damage than good.
And in the case of playerbase votes, addressing the issues of players not being informed and players being influenced by their friends' votes, could it be possible to do it where first there is a public information and discussion thread about the topic at hand in order to reasonably inform players and see if they're grasping the idea, an then close said discussion thread when the discussion is about done and start a separate poll thread which is locked to prevent responses to influence people's votes further, an the poll set to hide votes so nobody can tell what their friends voted.
I don't know, maybe this is more complex than you guys want to deal with, just thought I'd throw this out there.
Unfortunately at some point you start trading player involvement for efficiency. A system like this sounds like something that would take entirely too much time, which ought to be spent in the ways that actually help the server.
 

Somnastra

Puppycat Herder
Events Staff
Lore Staff
Good
Staff
Retired Owner
Somnastra
Somnastra
Good
Here's to hoping that this new system works out. I do have a question though...

What if, in some big discussion, nobody can come to a decision (let's say the staff are split 50/50) and there needs to be some sort of break. Before, management would generally have an overriding decision based on what had been said and make a deicison that made the most sense, but now that the tier system is gone, it begs the question, who makes those decisions when the staff cannot decide amongst themselves? The way I see it, there are a few options (you may have already made a decision, but I'm just laying down my thoughts here):

- Owner (Somnastra) has the overriding decision:
While this has a 100% chance of resolving a dispute in the short term, there will always be those people that utter that word. "Dictatorship". In a less negative manner (and no disrespect meant by this, this applies to anyone in your position) the server owner may not have the best opinion when it comes to certain departments that they may not have a lot of knowledge about.

- Department staff have the overriding decision:
At first glance, it makes a lot of sense to me that if it's a dispute over plugins, then whoever works on the plugins has the overriding vote, or when it comes to lore, those working on lore have an overriding vote. This makes sense to me because those people tend to have the most knowledge on the subject matter of that dispute, because that's what they do! Of course, when it's a single person making decisions, even if it makes sense, that horrible D work will undoubtedly crop up again. In addition, in areas where there are multiple people working, who has the overriding vote? Or if it's all of them, what if THEY can't agree?

- Playerbase vote for an overriding decision.
This has been done, in a sense, in the past, and while it certainly seems like the most player friendly way of doing things, it certainly has its flaws. First of all, it's likely that a majority of the playerbase are not particularly well informed on the subject matter at hand (we aren't all plugin wizards or master lore writers). That isn't to say that we don't have people in Hollowworld who are ignorant of those subjects by any means, but plenty of people are here just to play casually, and may not know the first thing about plugins or lore or player interaction. Second of all, these sorts of votes are usually done in a public thread, and players can be heavily influenced simply because their friend voted one way, or because someone made a seemingly good explanation on the subject and blindly votes in that direction. This can be fixed somewhat by making the voting private, and ensuring that the players are armed with the knowledge needed to make an informed decision, but friends still talk to each other, votes can still be influenced.

Honestly? I was just curious to see how things would operate, the big chunk of text up there is mostly to assist you should you not have come to any sort of decision yet
Generally speaking, I hope that the coordinators/leaders of each section will have the deciding vote in most cases such as this. They have veto on projects already, in case there is something that conflicts with existing lore, events, or plugins. I have also reserved veto power for myself, in the case that something is just... completely against where we're trying to take the server. I do not expect that I will ever have to excercise this, nor do I particularly want to. But the buck's gotta stop somewhere, right? I'm okay with taking that responsibility.

I really love this whole thing, Som, I do. I just want to take a moment to respond to Itzza, because he made some great points:

You make excellent points about overriding votes/executive decisions, so I just wanted to respond with a couple suggestions. In the case of Somnastra or department staff having the overriding vote, in order to help avoid the "dictatorship" accusations, could it be possible to provide a way for the rest of staff to overrule their vote if there's enough strong disagreement with the decision? And when I say "strong disagreement" I don't mean disagreement like an old man grumbling to himself but holding his silence, I mean like people protesting on the streets saying the decision is not going to do any good and will possibly actually do more damage than good.
And in the case of playerbase votes, addressing the issues of players not being informed and players being influenced by their friends' votes, could it be possible to do it where first there is a public information and discussion thread about the topic at hand in order to reasonably inform players and see if they're grasping the idea, an then close said discussion thread when the discussion is about done and start a separate poll thread which is locked to prevent responses to influence people's votes further, an the poll set to hide votes so nobody can tell what their friends voted.
I don't know, maybe this is more complex than you guys want to deal with, just thought I'd throw this out there.
So two things:

First off, I intend to let staff do their jobs. This means assisting in making decisions for the server. What I am doing is setting the overall tone and direction. This means that I shouldn't be making every decision, but in the case that Itzza outlined, I (or the coordinators) would be a sort of tie-breaker anyways, which would imply that you wouldn't have protests in the street. You see why I'm not entirely convinced this is gonna be a thing, yeah?

And second off, I will be making every effort to communicate with players, and I intend to listen, but kind of along the lines of what Legion said, not every decision needs to be brought to a community vote. There are some things that will be (in fact, something will be soon), and I am always open to listening to people. That being said, I will not act on every suggestion, nor will every decision be made with the intended result to please the majority of the server. Some decisions we will have to make based on legal considerations, or preventing egregious interpersonal issues. Make sense?
 

TheDeester

One so Bereft of Light
Lore Staff
Server Outreach
Evil
Staff
Shadow Hedgehog
Pronouns
He/Him
GrapeFlavDragons
GrapeFlavDragons
Evil
Should probably unsticky this.
 
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