ResetEra Tech Thread (Report Bugs Here)

Reki · Aug 1, 2020

Plaease consider Disclaimer's suggestions, that post is fantastic. Transparency and communication should be two things to focus on.

Disclaimer said:
While you ruminate on the possibility of creating a thread chastising the community's treatment of staff, what is more needed -- and what would assuage the tension that keeps snaping back on y'all -- is a general community feedback thread, stickied permanently in place not in Announcements, but in EtcEra. Have a strict rule therein against unproductive tone or attacks in individual staff members -- absolutely -- but it needs to exist, because as it stands the only public place constructive discussion about the forum itself is allowed to happen is in the Meeting threads (e.g. Asian Era Meeting), which is unacceptable on multiple levels, and takes away from focus on those specific communities' issues.

Staff has said this would be hard to moderate and a minefield of attacks when rejecting this idea. Which, fair, could happen considering the precedent of the old feedback thread - and, well, the fact that in any heated thread staff is overwhelmingly outnumbered by users posting - but that can't be a reason to ignore this suggestion indefinetely. Stuff like postcount restrictions, registration date filters to participate, a rotating set of users who can actively post, or whatever that helps weeding out bad faith actors while letting as much people as possible share their feedback. Basically, they could be creative to make it manageable while also moderating it with some rules like you said.

Disclaimer said:
(No, PMing staff members is not a solution, and it's shocking to me it's ever been thought of as a primary feedback venue, rather than a supplementary one for people uncomfortable with public feedback. It's antithetical to the forum format and precludes the possibility of larger-scale transparent discussion. The only purpose it serves is to disenfranchise members from communicating together about the forum on the forum, and while that secrecy might be thought to keep scrutinizing eyes away from staff, all it does is deepen community bitterness towards you.)

ClearMetal said:
@B-Dubs, even when you are faced with hostility, which you no doubt are, you still have to recognize that you are an admin and we are not. You wield absolute power over us. At most we can fling insults at you, while you can effectively erase our presence from this forum. And now you threaten with 'hefty bans' to anyone who continues with 'outright hostility', a term that leaves plenty of room for interpretation. Don't you see what this looks like?

This so much. It's the power dynamics of feedback-over-PMs what makes it such a bad - and even scary for some - way of handling criticism. And that's without even considering the accountability issues arising from the lack of transparency and the resulting "They said" and "No, you said" back and forth when stuff doesn't work out and gets referenced in other places.

Disclaimer said:
And, this might be a sensitive subject, but about being unpaid volunteers:

I'm not sure about this as it was never explained, but the impression I get is that DownUnderCoder may be a paid member of the staff. IIRC they appeared out of nowhere after the 2.0 implementation, when one or two folks left the tech team.

It'd be nice to have this and other logistics explained in an official thread rather than being brought up in random posts by staff here and there. Dunno how much would be wise to reveal, though.

MoonFrog · Aug 1, 2020

Imran said:
I dunno, man. While the idea that the community doesn't know what it wants and has to be dragged kicking and screaming into anything new is probably objectively true, the second you start viewing it as the adversary rather than the audience, you're not going to be able to reverse that mentality. I hope it works out for the better next time, I really do.

Yeah.

This is a time the staff needs to "be the bigger person" and choose to see the conflict through a constructive prism rather than a destructive prism. The problem Era has long had is the staff instead time and again views conflict through a destructive prism and in so doing makes conflict destructive rather than constructive.

The staff has the power and the responsibility (and hopefully the vested interest) to instead try and do better.

ArrogantBastard · Aug 1, 2020

John Dunbar said:
how else will posters know a thread contains news or is an ot?

I have been doing just fine for three years without, I don't know what to tell ya. I seriously don't get why users cannot have the choice to have the tags displayed, it serves the purpose for those that must have it and it allows those that don't want them to go on using the forum like they have for three years without em.

Xita · Aug 1, 2020

Disclaimer said:
Sigh... my dude. The overwhelming majority of us are not trying to be unduly hostile. We are just people in the Era community who want (a) the site to be a smooth visual experience, with regard to tags, and more importantly (b) for the site to be a better, more pleasant experience for both members and staff. Just because frustrations are boiling over into criticism does not make those core drives any less true.

While I never saw anyone make either of those particular comparisons you're pointing out, obviously both would be uncalled for hyperbole. You cannot, however, use such outliers to deflect all constructive criticism from the matter at hand, and continue to sweep the underlying issues -- which go well beyond an innocuous issue like unsightly tags -- under the rug.

From nearly the beginning, somehow despite the understandably high staff turnover since, and with the exception of SweetNicole's efforts, Era's staff have had serious issues with both communication and transparency -- two things which go hand-in-hand, and would engender a more positive atmosphere and probably stymie said turnover. That and that alone is the primary reason the community's frustration keeps boiling over time after ugly time.

And what's confusing from an outside perspective is, it's not some impossible or even overly difficult thing to begin fixing. Case-in-point: these tags. How should these have been handled in order to minimize community outcry and foster a more positive and productive discussion, free of reactionary vitriol?

Create a stickied thread preemptively announcing the intention of implementing the feature.

Show the community what it would look like, using the test site you just took a screenshot of.

Take in feedback on said design before it's implemented, so it can be as palatable and cohesive as possible.

Assuming this is technically feasible, or even necessary after design iteration, perhaps even allow people to turn off the tag visuals while mandating tagging in thread creation, both to (a) keep the functionality for search purposes, and (b) minimize workload on moderation to manually implement tags.

(Although this goes against the stated intention that most threads would not receive tags -- if they were less visually garish and incongruous with the thread list to begin with, perhaps it would not be an issue for all threads to have a mandated tag during creation.)

Communicate with the community. Utilize the community. The majority of us, I'd wager, are working professionals as well, but would be all too eager to contribute in what ways we could if we were simply given the chance, rather than chided and condescended to like naughty children, when the ball to fix these problems is fundamentally in your court, as the keyholders of policy and power here. The diverse and wonderful community we have and would like to improve here is not the root of the issue. Staff conduct, communication, and policy is. Address that problem, and suddenly the community will be much less distrustful and bitter toward y'all, making everyone happier.

While you ruminate on the possibility of creating a thread chastising the community's treatment of staff, what is more needed -- and what would assuage the tension that keeps snaping back on y'all -- is a general community feedback thread, stickied permanently in place not in Announcements, but in EtcEra. Have a strict rule therein against unproductive tone or attacks in individual staff members -- absolutely -- but it needs to exist, because as it stands the only public place constructive discussion about the forum itself is allowed to happen is in the Meeting threads (e.g. Asian Era Meeting), which is unacceptable on multiple levels, and takes away from focus on those specific communities' issues.

(No, PMing staff members is not a solution, and it's shocking to me it's ever been thought of as a primary feedback venue, rather than a supplementary one for people uncomfortable with public feedback. It's antithetical to the forum format and precludes the possibility of larger-scale transparent discussion. The only purpose it serves is to disenfranchise members from communicating together about the forum on the forum, and while that secrecy might be thought to keep scrutinizing eyes away from staff, all it does is deepen community bitterness towards you.)

A couple more ancillary thoughts:

The "Contact Us" form is not a great venue for ban contesting. IMO y'all should utilize other tools more often, such as banning from posting in individual threads, while still being able to observe them and learn -- or, in the case of "ignoring staff posts," warnings rather than bans.

Such a community feedback thread needs to also allow for community contesting of controversial banning situations, such as the ketkat fiasco, or the Shamima Begum fiasco, where the moderation was inappropriate on several levels -- regardless of whether it was done by committee, and again with rules against harassment of mods. (Ever think your committees are prone to the same group think, peer pressure, and defensiveness as any other insular group...?)

This would both serve to again stymie bitterness against moderation because people feel unable to voice disagreement without being banned, as well as prevent large-scale forum spillover with reaction threads that are inevitably locked, which also contributes to said uncomfortability within the community.

Hopefully none of this is perceived as hostility simply because it is critical, because its intention is the complete opposite. Such threats are not becoming of a community leader, by the by, and are only going to worsen the atmosphere. I completely understand y'all are stressed out, but let's try to fix that rather than bludgeoning members with your authority.

Hope y'all have a good day. And remember that this isn't just aggravating for y'all. I certainly didn't want to have to write this wall of text. I chose to, because I care.

Imran said:
Dismissing all the well-meaning feedback based on people being hostile isn't the way to go about this.

At the end of the day, this was rolled out badly and the initial messaging was bad. That can't be put on anyone else and that sucks and I know you don't want to hear that. I'm a founding member of this site - I was in the room when it was being created, I was part of the initial concept, I'm literally member number like 3 or 4 back when this site had member numbers. Even I was put off by how badly this thing was presented.

Honestly, if at the beginning you just said "Hey this isn't going anywhere" besides having a poorly-messaged hemming and hawing about it and saying maybe in the future it could possibly be turned off if everyone still doesn't like it, I would have just done the adblock script and been done with it. Dragging it out, locking all discussion of it in visible areas, and then blaming everyone else for it being an issue feels like throwing dirt on top of a molehill in the effort to make it a mountain, then asking who dared to call it a mountain when it's clearly a very large molehill.

I dunno, man. While the idea that the community doesn't know what it wants and has to be dragged kicking and screaming into anything new is probably objectively true, the second you start viewing it as the adversary rather than the audience, you're not going to be able to reverse that mentality. I hope it works out for the better next time, I really do.

Just pointing out a few excellent posts for the new page. I really hope the staff reads them carefully and does better the next time and actually takes this criticism to heart. It honestly feels like the staff runs into transparency issues every few months and in this case the better solution Disclaimer mentioned was so easily attainable that it's pretty baffling to me that it wasn't the one you guys went with.

Noodle · Aug 1, 2020

Disclaimer said:
And, this might be a sensitive subject, but about being unpaid volunteers:

Why? I don't claim to know Era's profitability -- indeed, none of us can -- but GAF was apparently lucrative enough to both (a) support its existence, as well as (b) provide Jackass-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named with an income sizable enough not just to live comfortably, but travel as well, solely off of it.

Is that not the case with Era, between ad revenue and "Era Clear" revenue? Maybe it isn't; I don't know, and if I was told it isn't, then I'd accept that. But if it does have similar revenue, then could staff not be given some small level of compensation, however thinly-spread? They certainly deserve it.

I have wondered that as well ever since I first got told moderators were unpaid. ERA is a sizeable asset that should be protected. From stuff like a staff member going on a vandalism spree or sudden departures suddenly meaning a massive gap in operating capacity, and I think employment contracts would help do that. Not to mention think of the sheer volume of threads that need to be checked. Does anyone here actually visit a majority of threads? There's thousands of them. It would certainly motivate me to check threads on subjects I don't have interest in if I was paid rather than doing it out of a sense of community. Then again, I don't know if ad revenue minus current overheads can support a stipend x 20.

oni-link · Aug 1, 2020

Imran said:
Dismissing all the well-meaning feedback based on people being hostile isn't the way to go about this.

At the end of the day, this was rolled out badly and the initial messaging was bad. That can't be put on anyone else and that sucks and I know you don't want to hear that. I'm a founding member of this site - I was in the room when it was being created, I was part of the initial concept, I'm literally member number like 3 or 4 back when this site had member numbers. Even I was put off by how badly this thing was presented.

Honestly, if at the beginning you just said "Hey this isn't going anywhere" besides having a poorly-messaged hemming and hawing about it and saying maybe in the future it could possibly be turned off if everyone still doesn't like it, I would have just done the adblock script and been done with it. Dragging it out, locking all discussion of it in visible areas, and then blaming everyone else for it being an issue feels like throwing dirt on top of a molehill in the effort to make it a mountain, then asking who dared to call it a mountain when it's clearly a very large molehill.

I dunno, man. While the idea that the community doesn't know what it wants and has to be dragged kicking and screaming into anything new is probably objectively true, the second you start viewing it as the adversary rather than the audience, you're not going to be able to reverse that mentality. I hope it works out for the better next time, I really do.

I don't even think it's true that the community will always hate change and have to be dragged on board

I don't think a single person had an issue with being able to ignore threads, nor did anyone have an issue with being able to ignore threads from the main page

I don't think anyone was upset when dark mode was introduced either, or 2.0 in general, or Giftbot, They were all really positive changes that improved the forum

I don't even think most people mind the tags, the tags as a concept are fine, it's the execution people don't like. I really appreciate that this is being worked on and once again, a massive think you to the admin, mod and tech teams for putting in all the work they do

It just seems like if they could be turned off, at least visually, that would be another universal win for everyone. People who prefer the unmessy and clean look can opt for that, and people who want to see tags and be able to browse just the OTs or just the Sales threads can do that

If that isn't possible, or not a priority for the admin teams, or just not something the admin team care about addressing because ultimately what they say goes, then that's fine, we can install browser extensions and fix it that way

I also really think we need a community feedback thread, where people can express what they like as long as they're not being rude or unfair, as events like this really cause damage to the community and tension between the users and the admin teams, and we really should be on the same page, as we all want Era to be a great place

I also think mod posts should always be added to locked threads, to explain why they were locked and to point people in the right direction

3 threads about the tags were locked with "seriously?" and nothing else. Anyone seeing that would have to somehow know they need to look in the locked "The f is this" thread and then search 20 pages to find a handful of mod posts a few pages in to read a brief "we are working on the implementation of this feature" post. I also think "this thread has run it's course" needs to be dropped from lock messages, as if people are still talking about it, then it's not run it's course, though "the same points/arguments are being repeated over and over" would be a valid reason to lock a thread in my view

In general this is why an official post in announcements would have been a smart idea before rolling it out, which has been done in the past, so it's doubly confusing it find it not only announced this time, but discussion of the feature actively subverted with threads being locked for vague reasons

TLDR:
- A community feedback thread should be added
- Locked threads should always explain why the thread was locked
- New features should be announced first so the benefits of them can be explained and we can be informed of how they work

Finally, I want to thank B-Dubs for all the work he does on Era, as I imagine a lot of is it thankless and stressful, and the work he and the admin/mod teams put into Era is much appreciated. We don't expect you to always get everything right, but we appreciate that you do get it right more often than not.

Edit: I guess we're sticking with "not" in this case

Dan L · Aug 1, 2020

Disclaimer said:
Sigh... my dude. The overwhelming majority of us are not trying to be unduly hostile. We are just people in the Era community who want (a) the site to be a smooth visual experience, with regard to tags, and more importantly (b) for the site to be a better, more pleasant experience for both members and staff. Just because frustrations are boiling over into criticism does not make those core drives any less true.

While I never saw anyone make either of those particular comparisons you're pointing out, obviously both would be uncalled for hyperbole. You cannot, however, use such outliers to deflect all constructive criticism from the matter at hand, and continue to sweep the underlying issues -- which go well beyond an innocuous issue like unsightly tags -- under the rug.

From nearly the beginning, somehow despite the understandably high staff turnover since, and with the exception of SweetNicole's efforts, Era's staff have had serious issues with both communication and transparency -- two things which go hand-in-hand, and would engender a more positive atmosphere and probably stymie said turnover. That and that alone is the primary reason the community's frustration keeps boiling over time after ugly time.

And what's confusing from an outside perspective is, it's not some impossible or even overly difficult thing to begin fixing. Case-in-point: these tags. How should these have been handled in order to minimize community outcry and foster a more positive and productive discussion, free of reactionary vitriol?

Create a stickied thread preemptively announcing the intention of implementing the feature.

Show the community what it would look like, using the test site you just took a screenshot of.

Take in feedback on said design before it's implemented, so it can be as palatable and cohesive as possible.

Assuming this is technically feasible, or even necessary after design iteration, perhaps even allow people to turn off the tag visuals while mandating tagging in thread creation, both to (a) keep the functionality for search purposes, and (b) minimize workload on moderation to manually implement tags.

(Although this goes against the stated intention that most threads would not receive tags -- if they were less visually garish and incongruous with the thread list to begin with, perhaps it would not be an issue for all threads to have a mandated tag during creation.)

Communicate with the community. Utilize the community. The majority of us, I'd wager, are working professionals as well, but would be all too eager to contribute in what ways we could if we were simply given the chance, rather than chided and condescended to like naughty children, when the ball to fix these problems is fundamentally in your court, as the keyholders of policy and power here. The diverse and wonderful community we have and would like to improve here is not the root of the issue. Staff conduct, communication, and policy is. Address that problem, and suddenly the community will be much less distrustful and bitter toward y'all, making everyone happier.

While you ruminate on the possibility of creating a thread chastising the community's treatment of staff, what is more needed -- and what would assuage the tension that keeps snaping back on y'all -- is a general community feedback thread, stickied permanently in place not in Announcements, but in EtcEra. Have a strict rule therein against unproductive tone or attacks in individual staff members -- absolutely -- but it needs to exist, because as it stands the only public place constructive discussion about the forum itself is allowed to happen is in the Meeting threads (e.g. Asian Era Meeting), which is unacceptable on multiple levels, and takes away from focus on those specific communities' issues.

(No, PMing staff members is not a solution, and it's shocking to me it's ever been thought of as a primary feedback venue, rather than a supplementary one for people uncomfortable with public feedback. It's antithetical to the forum format and precludes the possibility of larger-scale transparent discussion. The only purpose it serves is to disenfranchise members from communicating together about the forum on the forum, and while that secrecy might be thought to keep scrutinizing eyes away from staff, all it does is deepen community bitterness towards you.)

A couple more ancillary thoughts:

The "Contact Us" form is not a great venue for ban contesting. IMO y'all should utilize other tools more often, such as banning from posting in individual threads, while still being able to observe them and learn -- or, in the case of "ignoring staff posts," warnings rather than bans.

Such a community feedback thread needs to also allow for community contesting of controversial banning situations, such as the ketkat fiasco, or the Shamima Begum fiasco, where the moderation was inappropriate on several levels -- regardless of whether it was done by committee, and again with rules against harassment of mods. (Ever think your committees are prone to the same group think, peer pressure, and defensiveness as any other insular group...?)

This would both serve to again stymie bitterness against moderation because people feel unable to voice disagreement without being banned, as well as prevent large-scale forum spillover with reaction threads that are inevitably locked, which also contributes to said uncomfortability within the community.

Hopefully none of this is perceived as hostility simply because it is critical, because its intention is the complete opposite. Such threats are not becoming of a community leader, by the by, and are only going to worsen the atmosphere. I completely understand y'all are stressed out, but let's try to fix that rather than bludgeoning members with your authority.

Hope y'all have a good day. And remember that this isn't just aggravating for y'all. I certainly didn't want to have to write this wall of text. I chose to, because I care.

Thank you for this post, you put my thoughts on this all in a very succinct and eloquent way.
100% agreed.

Hero_of_the_Day · Aug 1, 2020

ArrogantBastard said:
I have been doing just fine for three years without, I don't know what to tell ya. I seriously don't get why users cannot have the choice to have the tags displayed, it serves the purpose for those that must have it and it allows those that don't want them to go on using the forum like they have for three years without em.

I believe John Dunbar was being sarcastic.

ArrogantBastard · Aug 1, 2020

Hero_of_the_Day said:
I believe John Dunbar was being sarcastic.

You should have a tag for that.

Deleted member 82 · Aug 1, 2020

Disclaimer said:
And, this might be a sensitive subject, but about being unpaid volunteers:

Why? I don't claim to know Era's profitability -- indeed, none of us can -- but GAF was apparently lucrative enough to both (a) support its existence, as well as (b) provide Jackass-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named with an income sizable enough not just to live comfortably, but travel as well, solely off of it.

Is that not the case with Era, between ad revenue and "Era Clear" revenue? Maybe it isn't; I don't know, and if I was told it isn't, then I'd accept that. But if it does have similar revenue, then could staff not be given some small level of compensation, however thinly-spread? They certainly deserve it.

Your previous post is amazing, but I wanted to add something to this one:

ERA isn't just an American forum. It's an international one that purports to value diverse identities and to be somewhere on the left end of the political spectrum. In fact, I'd say it's safer to assume it is, as the kinds of political polls we've had during the US Democratic primaries showed overwhelming support for candidates and policies that are decidedly left-wing. It would be quite a stretch to call it outright leftist, but "socdem" or "demsoc", I'd wager, are labels with which the majority of the community aligns or is sympathetic towards, even the US side of it.

If we can acknowledge that fact, and assuming you and the majority of the community - especially the majority of the community - wants to keep it that way, then it only makes sense that the way the site is administrated and moderated reflect a more progressive, egalitarian, transparent approach to administration.

Specifically, here's what I'm thinking is currently missing:

more clarity regarding our... "leadership", so to speak. And, while we're at it, I'll be blunt: please drop the corporate lingo from the way you communicate and the titles you give yourselves. There shouldn't be a "General Manager", and official communication shouldn't read like it's written by a PR firm - I'm sure it's not, but it sometimes reads like it. This 'stylistic' choice only serves to dehumanize and distance the team from the community; the community isn't just a bunch of angry peasants, and the moderators aren't just robots.
some sort of transparency regarding who owns what, the site's finances, etc.
assuming the site is profitable in any way, there is no good reason why the moderators, and anyone who actively contributes to the site in any capacity other than simply posting, shouldn't be paid. Instead, we're left to assume that, what, 1? 2? Maybe 3 people get money from the website? If that's the case, that's just not fair. Maybe not everyone will agree with me, but I think it only compounds the communication issues and the high mod turnover.

I know this isn't technically about site features, but it's not like there's a proper venue for public feedback. And Disclaimer's posts were a nice segue into those aspects.

New002 · Aug 1, 2020

Disclaimer said:
Sigh... my dude. The overwhelming majority of us are not trying to be unduly hostile. We are just people in the Era community who want (a) the site to be a smooth visual experience, with regard to tags, and more importantly (b) for the site to be a better, more pleasant experience for both members and staff. Just because frustrations are boiling over into criticism does not make those core drives any less true.

While I never saw anyone make either of those particular comparisons you're pointing out, obviously both would be uncalled for hyperbole. You cannot, however, use such outliers to deflect all constructive criticism from the matter at hand, and continue to sweep the underlying issues -- which go well beyond an innocuous issue like unsightly tags -- under the rug.

From nearly the beginning, somehow despite the understandably high staff turnover since, and with the exception of SweetNicole's efforts, Era's staff have had serious issues with both communication and transparency -- two things which go hand-in-hand, and would engender a more positive atmosphere and probably stymie said turnover. That and that alone is the primary reason the community's frustration keeps boiling over time after ugly time.

And what's confusing from an outside perspective is, it's not some impossible or even overly difficult thing to begin fixing. Case-in-point: these tags. How should these have been handled in order to minimize community outcry and foster a more positive and productive discussion, free of reactionary vitriol?

Create a stickied thread preemptively announcing the intention of implementing the feature.

Show the community what it would look like, using the test site you just took a screenshot of.

Take in feedback on said design before it's implemented, so it can be as palatable and cohesive as possible.

Assuming this is technically feasible, or even necessary after design iteration, perhaps even allow people to turn off the tag visuals while mandating tagging in thread creation, both to (a) keep the functionality for search purposes, and (b) minimize workload on moderation to manually implement tags.

(Although this goes against the stated intention that most threads would not receive tags -- if they were less visually garish and incongruous with the thread list to begin with, perhaps it would not be an issue for all threads to have a mandated tag during creation.)

Communicate with the community. Utilize the community. The majority of us, I'd wager, are working professionals as well, but would be all too eager to contribute in what ways we could if we were simply given the chance, rather than chided and condescended to like naughty children, when the ball to fix these problems is fundamentally in your court, as the keyholders of policy and power here. The diverse and wonderful community we have and would like to improve here is not the root of the issue. Staff conduct, communication, and policy is. Address that problem, and suddenly the community will be much less distrustful and bitter toward y'all, making everyone happier.

While you ruminate on the possibility of creating a thread chastising the community's treatment of staff, what is more needed -- and what would assuage the tension that keeps snaping back on y'all -- is a general community feedback thread, stickied permanently in place not in Announcements, but in EtcEra. Have a strict rule therein against unproductive tone or attacks in individual staff members -- absolutely -- but it needs to exist, because as it stands the only public place constructive discussion about the forum itself is allowed to happen is in the Meeting threads (e.g. Asian Era Meeting), which is unacceptable on multiple levels, and takes away from focus on those specific communities' issues.

(No, PMing staff members is not a solution, and it's shocking to me it's ever been thought of as a primary feedback venue, rather than a supplementary one for people uncomfortable with public feedback. It's antithetical to the forum format and precludes the possibility of larger-scale transparent discussion. The only purpose it serves is to disenfranchise members from communicating together about the forum on the forum, and while that secrecy might be thought to keep scrutinizing eyes away from staff, all it does is deepen community bitterness towards you.)

A couple more ancillary thoughts:

The "Contact Us" form is not a great venue for ban contesting. IMO y'all should utilize other tools more often, such as banning from posting in individual threads, while still being able to observe them and learn -- or, in the case of "ignoring staff posts," warnings rather than bans.

Such a community feedback thread needs to also allow for community contesting of controversial banning situations, such as the ketkat fiasco, or the Shamima Begum fiasco, where the moderation was inappropriate on several levels -- regardless of whether it was done by committee, and again with rules against harassment of mods. (Ever think your committees are prone to the same group think, peer pressure, and defensiveness as any other insular group...?)

This would both serve to again stymie bitterness against moderation because people feel unable to voice disagreement without being banned, as well as prevent large-scale forum spillover with reaction threads that are inevitably locked, which also contributes to said uncomfortability within the community.

Hopefully none of this is perceived as hostility simply because it is critical, because its intention is the complete opposite. Such threats are not becoming of a community leader, by the by, and are only going to worsen the atmosphere. I completely understand y'all are stressed out, but let's try to fix that rather than bludgeoning members with your authority.

Hope y'all have a good day. And remember that this isn't just aggravating for y'all. I certainly didn't want to have to write this wall of text. I chose to, because I care.

Was going to respond to B-Dub's post but this post right here is better than anything I could have come up with. Please, please, read this and reflect on it, staff.

Disclaimer said:
And, this might be a sensitive subject, but about being unpaid volunteers:

Why? I don't claim to know Era's profitability -- indeed, none of us can -- but GAF was apparently lucrative enough to both (a) support its existence, as well as (b) provide Jackass-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named with an income sizable enough not just to live comfortably, but travel as well, solely off of it.

Is that not the case with Era, between ad revenue and "Era Clear" revenue? Maybe it isn't; I don't know, and if I was told it isn't, then I'd accept that. But if it does have similar revenue, then could staff not be given some small level of compensation, however thinly-spread? They certainly deserve it.

This is something I've been wondering myself as "unpaid volunteers" has come up frequently since this whole thing started. Like you said, we don't know, but feels like surely the site must be bringing in some kind of money? Maybe it's time staff starts getting compensated?

CannonBallBob · Aug 1, 2020

B-Dubs said:
huge QoL improvement for many users

Saturday · Aug 1, 2020

I'm gonna go for brevity here.

I'm not going to use words like "transparency" because I think it's become a bit of a meme, rightly borne out of frustration, but now a bit of a buzzword headache for anybody who hears the word. It would detract from what I'm saying here.

I'm also not going to use statements that other members have echoed about "reflecting on your actions." this isn't a call-out to the posters who have said such similar things. I'm saying I want to avoid this sort of wording because I don't want to imply there's willingly shitty behavior on all y'alls end.

I work adjacent to customer service. It's with social media. My entire job is engaging with people over the internet. That's all I'm going to say. It's not great. It's not easy. I 100% understand being very, very tired about dealing with the aftermath of tags. I've read posts with the best of intentions and it's still a punch in the gut with their wording or their tone.

I'm not going to concentrate on how moderation should present itself, because that's a whole other topic. I'm not going to re-tread ideas like 'community feedback topic.' I think those ideas are loud and clear. What I'd like to do is to reaffirm the benefits of those general ideas, and not for a regular joe like me; but for you guys, the staff and the moderators.

It's about being proactive; setting up announcements in advance and having threads set up in advance. Being proactive means you guys can set expectations. You can ask questions that get broad answers, allows ya'll to shift a thread into open-ended discourse instead of closed-ended discourse along the lines of a poll and 5 pages of just ragging on ya'll. You can set the tone for the responses by preemptively acknowledging concerns users may have.

All the above; this is focused on you guys, and how to make your job easier. These might be obvious in hindsight, and I reckon ya'll might have already thought of this- at the end of the day I'm not sure why steps like community feedback topics or contesting bans via threads haven't been implemented, and I'm sure there's reasoning behind that. but there's nothing wrong with arguing for core benefits of how such ideas can benefit everybody.

Because it's not about 'feedback,' another term that's way too easy to lazer on with negative connotations, it's about working together, because by setting up this framework where - passionately worded concerns - can be alleviated as possible, the general flow of a conversation can go a lot smoother.

And yeah, there is a lot of faux-corporate speak being channeled in this post. And I fucked up the brevity part. Thanks for letting me get in my two cents.

Dave. · Aug 1, 2020

Disclaimer said:
Sigh... my dude. The overwhelming majority of us are not trying to be unduly hostile. We are just people in the Era community who want (a) the site to be a smooth visual experience, with regard to tags, and more importantly (b) for the site to be a better, more pleasant experience for both members and staff. Just because frustrations are boiling over into criticism does not make those core drives any less true.

While I never saw anyone make either of those particular comparisons you're pointing out, obviously both would be uncalled for hyperbole. You cannot, however, use such outliers to deflect all constructive criticism from the matter at hand, and continue to sweep the underlying issues -- which go well beyond an innocuous issue like unsightly tags -- under the rug.

From nearly the beginning, somehow despite the understandably high staff turnover since, and with the exception of SweetNicole's efforts, Era's staff have had serious issues with both communication and transparency -- two things which go hand-in-hand, and would engender a more positive atmosphere and probably stymie said turnover. That and that alone is the primary reason the community's frustration keeps boiling over time after ugly time.

And what's confusing from an outside perspective is, it's not some impossible or even overly difficult thing to begin fixing. Case-in-point: these tags. How should these have been handled in order to minimize community outcry and foster a more positive and productive discussion, free of reactionary vitriol?

Create a stickied thread preemptively announcing the intention of implementing the feature.

Show the community what it would look like, using the test site you just took a screenshot of.

Take in feedback on said design before it's implemented, so it can be as palatable and cohesive as possible.

Assuming this is technically feasible, or even necessary after design iteration, perhaps even allow people to turn off the tag visuals while mandating tagging in thread creation, both to (a) keep the functionality for search purposes, and (b) minimize workload on moderation to manually implement tags.

(Although this goes against the stated intention that most threads would not receive tags -- if they were less visually garish and incongruous with the thread list to begin with, perhaps it would not be an issue for all threads to have a mandated tag during creation.)

Communicate with the community. Utilize the community. The majority of us, I'd wager, are working professionals as well, but would be all too eager to contribute in what ways we could if we were simply given the chance, rather than chided and condescended to like naughty children, when the ball to fix these problems is fundamentally in your court, as the keyholders of policy and power here. The diverse and wonderful community we have and would like to improve here is not the root of the issue. Staff conduct, communication, and policy is. Address that problem, and suddenly the community will be much less distrustful and bitter toward y'all, making everyone happier.

While you ruminate on the possibility of creating a thread chastising the community's treatment of staff, what is more needed -- and what would assuage the tension that keeps snaping back on y'all -- is a general community feedback thread, stickied permanently in place not in Announcements, but in EtcEra. Have a strict rule therein against unproductive tone or attacks in individual staff members -- absolutely -- but it needs to exist, because as it stands the only public place constructive discussion about the forum itself is allowed to happen is in the Meeting threads (e.g. Asian Era Meeting), which is unacceptable on multiple levels, and takes away from focus on those specific communities' issues.

(No, PMing staff members is not a solution, and it's shocking to me it's ever been thought of as a primary feedback venue, rather than a supplementary one for people uncomfortable with public feedback. It's antithetical to the forum format and precludes the possibility of larger-scale transparent discussion. The only purpose it serves is to disenfranchise members from communicating together about the forum on the forum, and while that secrecy might be thought to keep scrutinizing eyes away from staff, all it does is deepen community bitterness towards you.)

A couple more ancillary thoughts:

The "Contact Us" form is not a great venue for ban contesting. IMO y'all should utilize other tools more often, such as banning from posting in individual threads, while still being able to observe them and learn -- or, in the case of "ignoring staff posts," warnings rather than bans.

Such a community feedback thread needs to also allow for community contesting of controversial banning situations, such as the ketkat fiasco, or the Shamima Begum fiasco, where the moderation was inappropriate on several levels -- regardless of whether it was done by committee, and again with rules against harassment of mods. (Ever think your committees are prone to the same group think, peer pressure, and defensiveness as any other insular group...?)

This would both serve to again stymie bitterness against moderation because people feel unable to voice disagreement without being banned, as well as prevent large-scale forum spillover with reaction threads that are inevitably locked, which also contributes to said uncomfortability within the community.

Hopefully none of this is perceived as hostility simply because it is critical, because its intention is the complete opposite. Such threats are not becoming of a community leader, by the by, and are only going to worsen the atmosphere. I completely understand y'all are stressed out, but let's try to fix that rather than bludgeoning members with your authority.

Hope y'all have a good day. And remember that this isn't just aggravating for y'all. I certainly didn't want to have to write this wall of text. I chose to, because I care.

Incredible post.

VenomousCoffee · Aug 1, 2020

Disclaimer said:
Sigh... my dude. The overwhelming majority of us are not trying to be unduly hostile. We are just people in the Era community who want (a) the site to be a smooth visual experience, with regard to tags, and more importantly (b) for the site to be a better, more pleasant experience for both members and staff. Just because frustrations are boiling over into criticism does not make those core drives any less true.

While I never saw anyone make either of those particular comparisons you're pointing out, obviously both would be uncalled for hyperbole. You cannot, however, use such outliers to deflect all constructive criticism from the matter at hand, and continue to sweep the underlying issues -- which go well beyond an innocuous issue like unsightly tags -- under the rug.

From nearly the beginning, somehow despite the understandably high staff turnover since, and with the exception of SweetNicole's efforts, Era's staff have had serious issues with both communication and transparency -- two things which go hand-in-hand, and would engender a more positive atmosphere and probably stymie said turnover. That and that alone is the primary reason the community's frustration keeps boiling over time after ugly time.

And what's confusing from an outside perspective is, it's not some impossible or even overly difficult thing to begin fixing. Case-in-point: these tags. How should these have been handled in order to minimize community outcry and foster a more positive and productive discussion, free of reactionary vitriol?

Create a stickied thread preemptively announcing the intention of implementing the feature.

Show the community what it would look like, using the test site you just took a screenshot of.

Take in feedback on said design before it's implemented, so it can be as palatable and cohesive as possible.

Assuming this is technically feasible, or even necessary after design iteration, perhaps even allow people to turn off the tag visuals while mandating tagging in thread creation, both to (a) keep the functionality for search purposes, and (b) minimize workload on moderation to manually implement tags.

(Although this goes against the stated intention that most threads would not receive tags -- if they were less visually garish and incongruous with the thread list to begin with, perhaps it would not be an issue for all threads to have a mandated tag during creation.)

Communicate with the community. Utilize the community. The majority of us, I'd wager, are working professionals as well, but would be all too eager to contribute in what ways we could if we were simply given the chance, rather than chided and condescended to like naughty children, when the ball to fix these problems is fundamentally in your court, as the keyholders of policy and power here. The diverse and wonderful community we have and would like to improve here is not the root of the issue. Staff conduct, communication, and policy is. Address that problem, and suddenly the community will be much less distrustful and bitter toward y'all, making everyone happier.

While you ruminate on the possibility of creating a thread chastising the community's treatment of staff, what is more needed -- and what would assuage the tension that keeps snaping back on y'all -- is a general community feedback thread, stickied permanently in place not in Announcements, but in EtcEra. Have a strict rule therein against unproductive tone or attacks in individual staff members -- absolutely -- but it needs to exist, because as it stands the only public place constructive discussion about the forum itself is allowed to happen is in the Meeting threads (e.g. Asian Era Meeting), which is unacceptable on multiple levels, and takes away from focus on those specific communities' issues.

(No, PMing staff members is not a solution, and it's shocking to me it's ever been thought of as a primary feedback venue, rather than a supplementary one for people uncomfortable with public feedback. It's antithetical to the forum format and precludes the possibility of larger-scale transparent discussion. The only purpose it serves is to disenfranchise members from communicating together about the forum on the forum, and while that secrecy might be thought to keep scrutinizing eyes away from staff, all it does is deepen community bitterness towards you.)

A couple more ancillary thoughts:

The "Contact Us" form is not a great venue for ban contesting. IMO y'all should utilize other tools more often, such as banning from posting in individual threads, while still being able to observe them and learn -- or, in the case of "ignoring staff posts," warnings rather than bans.

Such a community feedback thread needs to also allow for community contesting of controversial banning situations, such as the ketkat fiasco, or the Shamima Begum fiasco, where the moderation was inappropriate on several levels -- regardless of whether it was done by committee, and again with rules against harassment of mods. (Ever think your committees are prone to the same group think, peer pressure, and defensiveness as any other insular group...?)

This would both serve to again stymie bitterness against moderation because people feel unable to voice disagreement without being banned, as well as prevent large-scale forum spillover with reaction threads that are inevitably locked, which also contributes to said uncomfortability within the community.

Hopefully none of this is perceived as hostility simply because it is critical, because its intention is the complete opposite. Such threats are not becoming of a community leader, by the by, and are only going to worsen the atmosphere. I completely understand y'all are stressed out, but let's try to fix that rather than bludgeoning members with your authority.

Hope y'all have a good day. And remember that this isn't just aggravating for y'all. I certainly didn't want to have to write this wall of text. I chose to, because I care.

*claps*

Komo · Aug 1, 2020

ArrogantBastard said:
I have been doing just fine for three years without, I don't know what to tell ya. I seriously don't get why users cannot have the choice to have the tags displayed, it serves the purpose for those that must have it and it allows those that don't want them to go on using the forum like they have for three years without em.

Really it's a if it's not broke don't fix it situation.

Deimos · Aug 1, 2020

B-Dubs said:
I'm going to be straight with you all, there has been a frankly ludicrous amount of hostility over what is essentially a minor visual change and huge QoL improvement for many users.

There's been users that have compared this to coronavirus and staff members to Donald Fucking Trump. That is not ok and I will not give such people a platform to continue doing that shit. There has, over the last six months or so, been an unacceptable amount of hostility toward a group of people who are unpaid volunteers and we will have a longer talk about that at some point because that is not healthy for anyone.

We will make adjustments and improvements, but this is here to stay. There is no turning it off. That defeats the entire purpose of it. When we finalize all the changes based on what useful feedback we could find between the outright hostility and insults lobbed by some members, there will be an announcement thread explaining all of the new features.

EDIT: Anyone deciding to continue with said outright hostility is going to receive a hefty ban.

The community has been overly hostile and eager to grab their pitchforks, but you're fighting fire with fire. It was a huge mistake to push this out without warning and lock the discussion threads, some without comment.

Not providing accessibility options is always a bad idea. Whether or not it's a huge QoL improvement is just an opinion. It's not a minor visual change, it completely disrupts the look and readability of the thread list in its current form. I don't mind it and think it's a useful feature, but I can see why other people don't. Turning it off does defeat the purpose, but some people don't care for that purpose and I don't see why that would affect my enjoyment of it.

You have every right to be angry, I just hope you don't take it out on everyone.

Coyote Starrk · Aug 1, 2020

I get not liking the new feature. I don't like the new feature and I would prefer a way to hide them and yes I think the staff could have done a better job rolling the feature out, but the way this thread has gone is absolutely ridiculous. And if what B-Dubs says is true (and I have no reason to think it isn't) then it's even worse. I even saw one person threatening to use ad blockers over this as a way to somehow get back at the site for the decision. That is straight up stupid.

Take a step back and look around you. It's just a forum people. There is no reason to take it this seriously and be this pissed off about some icons on a screen. And there is no reason to make it personal towards the staff.

Disclaimer · Aug 1, 2020

Coyote Starrk said:
I even saw one person threatening to use ad blockers over this as a way to somehow get back at the site for the decision. That is straight up stupid.

As far as I've seen, the discussion of using adblockers has been specifically around blocking the tags themselves, not as some retaliatory measure against site ad revenue.

MoonFrog · Aug 1, 2020

Era is an internet forum made of gamers. It is always going to be an uphill battle to make that anything halfway decent. No one here is denying that.

In fact, people are acknowledging that, yes, staff probably have reasonable grievances with members and that the forum is frustrating to lead. Similarly, they're acknowledging that this is largely done on a volunteer basis and that the front-facing staff have little to do with the things that are making people angry in this sort of instance. And it is like.....I would totally get washing my hands of this sort of venture! But if you don't, that is your choice.

The problem is instead this pattern of Era's management to shoot itself in the foot and then blame the membership as if it hasn't shot itself in the foot and as if it hasn't chosen to try and lead this forum and has no responsibility for it.

The community is not an organized front. It doesn't have leaders and guiding policies. It also doesn't have authority. If someone is supposed to be leading efforts to make this a better place...it is the staff. Instead, the staff tends to just recoil from the ugliness in the community and ignore any constructive ways forward.

The staff have the most power over the direction of this forum via their decisions and policies. Yes, they can't create a good forum by command but they can do the most to shape the community. Repeatedly absolving themselves from this and setting it up as an us versus them as they pretty much always do makes it an us versus them. This is what people want to end. It is very sad and frustrating seeing this repeatedly.

It is a very natural thing to grab on to the most negative hyperbolic feedback, recoil, and retaliate. It is also a very destructive thing. Grab onto the workable feedback. Listen to sensible criticism. Make that the conversation and lead that conversation. This involves taking a lot on the chin, maybe more than is healthy: be aware of the potential that you need to step away.

Saturday · Aug 1, 2020

MoonFrog said:
Era is an internet forum made of gamers. It is always going to be an uphill battle to make that anything halfway decent. No one here is denying that...

I'm not gonna stan for the staff but

Similarly, they're acknowledging that this is largely done on a volunteer basis and that the front-facing staff have little to do with the things that are making people angry in this sort of instance.

And it is like.....I would totally get washing my hands of this sort of venture! But if you don't, that is your choice.

It is a very natural thing to grab on to the most negative hyperbolic feedback, recoil, and retaliate. It is also a very destructive thing.

This involves taking a lot on the chin, maybe more than is healthy: be aware of the potential that you need to step away.

Stepping away is a valid point, but making that a actual dot to emphasize is how burnout or high turnover happens. You're kinda making your own post a bit of a stress point to focus on.

B-Dubs · Aug 1, 2020

OK, enough clogging up this thread. This thread is here to report bugs, not whine about this. You're clogging it up and making it harder for the tech team to use it as it was intended. It's not here for you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

As I said, we've collecting feedback and working on stuff. So knock it off, this is a minor change that we are working on adjusting.

Deleted member 18407 · Aug 1, 2020

B-Dubs said:
OK, enough clogging up this thread. This thread is here to report bugs, not whine about this. You're clogging it up and making it harder for the tech team to use it as it was intended. It's not here for you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

As I said, we've collecting feedback and working on stuff. So knock it off, this is a minor change that we are working on adjusting.

Can we have a feedback thread that doesn't get closed then?

I also really hate how dismissive this post feels. There are some REALLY good posts that you're saying are just clogging everything up. It just feels like further proof that the moderation doesn't care about the users.

Deleted member 23212 · Aug 1, 2020

B-Dubs said:
OK, enough clogging up this thread. This thread is here to report bugs, not whine about this. You're clogging it up and making it harder for the tech team to use it as it was intended. It's not here for you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

As I said, we've collecting feedback and working on stuff. So knock it off, this is a minor change that we are working on adjusting.

This thread is being clogged up though because there is no where else to discuss it. Like, is the only thing we can discuss bug issues then? What about other feedback? I still feel the tags are too generic because filtering them out gives way too many results. Like, maybe have tags for politics, PlayStation, Nintendo, anime, music, etc. to make them more usable.

ArrogantBastard · Aug 1, 2020

B-Dubs said:
OK, enough clogging up this thread. This thread is here to report bugs, not whine about this. You're clogging it up and making it harder for the tech team to use it as it was intended. It's not here for you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

As I said, we've collecting feedback and working on stuff. So knock it off, this is a minor change that we are working on adjusting.

How are you collecting feedback when there isn't a thread that is open for users to give feedback? I'm not trying to be a jerk, I just think we should have a thread we can discuss this in. Can we, please?

Dubs, I want you to honestly look at what you just wrote: not whine about this, you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

You really think that is what is happening?

Deleted member 18407 · Aug 1, 2020

I think it is very telling that there has been no acknowledgement by the staff of the wonderful post by Disclaimer. A well-written and thoughtful message that will never be read by the staff and is going to be written off as a clog. If B-Dubs can't see why people are upset after reading that post, I think that says a lot more about them than the community itself.

jb1234 · Aug 2, 2020

Frump said:
I think it is very telling that there has been no acknowledgement by the staff of the wonderful post by Disclaimer. A well-written and thoughtful message that will never be read by the staff and is going to be written off as a clog. If B-Dubs can't see why people are upset after reading that post, I think that says a lot more about them than the community itself.

Yup.

Deleted member 82 · Aug 2, 2020

B-Dubs said:
OK, enough clogging up this thread. This thread is here to report bugs, not whine about this. You're clogging it up and making it harder for the tech team to use it as it was intended. It's not here for you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

As I said, we've collecting feedback and working on stuff. So knock it off, this is a minor change that we are working on adjusting.

"Stop being so whiny"

Dude, you are not providing us with any other way to give that kind of feedback. A private contact form that may or may not be answered at a later date isn't the way.

Don't just ask us to take you at face value when you say such vague things as "we're collecting feedback and working on stuff".

Like, fucking hell, at least respond to Disclaimer's posts, which have been incredibly generous and measured in terms of content and tone, instead of acting all pissy because some of us here (including myself, I'll admit) are getting annoyed. Everyone has been agreeing with Disclaimer and appealing to you to hear them out, so focus on their specific feedback and give us something concrete, not vague statements.

Give us good reason to think we can "knock it off" and we will.

Deleted member 862 · Aug 2, 2020

B-Dubs said:
OK, enough clogging up this thread. This thread is here to report bugs, not whine about this. You're clogging it up and making it harder for the tech team to use it as it was intended. It's not here for you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

As I said, we've collecting feedback and working on stuff. So knock it off, this is a minor change that we are working on adjusting.

this hit and run style moderation doesn't work, you must know this because it's a big part of why this site even exists

Even now you've not responded and any of the posts in here from your last post, the original thread was locked with no reply and every thread asking why is just locked.

Where exactly do you expect people to discuss a new feature? Are we even suppose to give feedback? just shut up and go away, right?

Noodle · Aug 2, 2020

B-Dubs said:
OK, enough clogging up this thread. This thread is here to report bugs, not whine about this. You're clogging it up and making it harder for the tech team to use it as it was intended. It's not here for you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

As I said, we've collecting feedback and working on stuff. So knock it off, this is a minor change that we are working on adjusting.

But... you're the one who invoked the last 6 months of moderation and tied it to current events. Why are you allowed to raise it but we're not?

Deleted member 21220 · Aug 2, 2020

B-Dubs said:
OK, enough clogging up this thread. This thread is here to report bugs, not whine about this. You're clogging it up and making it harder for the tech team to use it as it was intended. It's not here for you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

As I said, we've collecting feedback and working on stuff. So knock it off, this is a minor change that we are working on adjusting.

Why does every post by you on this topic seems hostile and dismissive of the whole situation. There was a lock message on one of the threads that just simply stated "seriously". None of this is helping and you can see that. But considering this isn't the only thing that's been brushed off recently on the site why am I not surprised.

There were ways this could have been done correctly, they were done with other additions to the forum so it's not as if yous didn't know how to do them. And anytime something is done with the site, even if it's minor, there's an announcement and usually a post explaining how it works. But this time nothing, and clearly it's an issue you need to respond to correctly and stop dismissing it.

There was a brilliant post by Disclaimer which was ignored while you spent the time to call a chunk of this forum whiny. The only thing people were complaining about were the tags, you brought up attempting to ban everyone giving criticism about this new feature (which isn't as minor of a change as you think, and you'd know that if you read some posts).

And the more I read this post the more dismissive and hostile it becomes. It's a joke that this was posted.

We get that there's work being done to fix issues, but the lack of communication on the original change, the lack of availability to give feedback and the general dismissive nature in these posts about these issues are the real problem here. I.e. it's mostly staff communication that's the problem, which you're not excelling at right now.

Deleted member 27751 · Aug 2, 2020

B-Dubs said:
OK, enough clogging up this thread. This thread is here to report bugs, not whine about this. You're clogging it up and making it harder for the tech team to use it as it was intended. It's not here for you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

As I said, we've collecting feedback and working on stuff. So knock it off, this is a minor change that we are working on adjusting.

Mate, coming from someone who worked as both a game journalist and telephone operator for national transcribing line, you are sooo going about this the wrong way with your responses. The irony is that we have no thread to discuss this exact issue at hand, a "small QoL" feature (by your words but far from it truthfully) that had no announcement it was coming and no way in which to turn it off if someone decided they didn't like it. I can see that the team wants the tags to encompass the title hardcode symbols like |OT| but that is a pipe dream in its current stage with literally no community discussion. This preaching of clogging up space in A YEAR OLD THREAD about bugs from an update long gone just speaks to the volumes of communication and its lack of such to the community.

You want people to take on these updates and work with the team, a volunteer team we most definitely understand, then actually talk. Provide proper channels, ones in which we can efficiently talk about site design issues and bugs that isn't tucked away in a random corner of the site. That you are lashing out like this shows that such thoughts of QoL changes being set in stone is not at all cohesive with the ecosystem of ERA and it really needs to change. Yeah idiots are lambasting with hot takes about stupid shit, who doesn't see that on any platform? Instead you provide efficient discussion channels that work with the community on issues and changes so we don't see sudden shifts on ingrained posting styles that are jarring to the very design of the forum.

I mean, your other admin stated darkERA wasn't even considered during the process because it clashes so heavily with the aesthetic. How in the heck does that even work?

Disclaimer · Aug 2, 2020

Delphine

Forgive me for tagging you here, but as you're the community relations admin, I feel it necessary. I've never seen you be anything but kind and earnest, so hopefully this could be a more productive avenue for conversation.

What is going on? Where is anyone else on staff? Why is no one except B-dubs speaking in here? Has anyone read our feedback and concerns, or my post specifically?

This isn't about something as trivial as tags, nor is it about "grievances," as B-dubs puts it. It's about improving the forum and community-staff relations -- your wheelhouse -- and easing longstanding problems that have compounded stress on both parties. Let's work together to fix that!

I mean no disrespect to B-dubs when I say that the tone he has been taking is emblematic of what's wrong here, as I actually went into in my longer post, which... perhaps he didn't read? Just talk to us, the community. Utilize us, as I said. Work together with us. We are a resource as much as we are the foundation of what this place is; we are not the enemy at the gates besieging the staff. Stop treating us like that, at worst, or like naughty children, at best, when what we want is simply dialogue and improvement.

The tone staff have as yet taken in this thread and the past one is starkly opposed to the open-hearted tone usually seen in their communication in the Meeting threads. Why? And do you recognize that, how it makes us feel, and why it's a problem? (Yes, people were critical in the tag reaction thread -- sometimes thoughtlessly so -- but as I wrote out earlier, preempting that reaction and fostering a more positive feedback environment would have been trivially easy for staff.)

Everyone should participate -- not just you, and certainly not just B-dubs; moderation, too. Openly and honestly -- not by filtering responses through PR-speak. As much as I've gone into detail about how I think the persistent communication/policy issues are the root of fiasco after fiasco, I would love to have an inclusive discussion about it, rather than speaking to a wall. And I certainly don't want this apprehension -- this inappropriate open threat, actually -- of banning to loom over posters in here who want nothing more than to be productive and improve this place.

Want to have this discussion in another thread? Let's. Want to simply rename this thread, since it's about a year-outdated subject (and is thus not being "clogged up")? By all means. But it's a discussion that needs to happen, or I fear for this place.

We understand y'all are volunteers (although as I went into, I really think that should be allayed however slightly with some sort of stipend, if Era's finances allow for it; work deserves payment, if it's possible), and I am by no means trying to put weight on your shoulders. Quite the opposite. I believe very simple changes to policy and communication could ease the weight on staff shoulders, as well as the anxieties and frustrations of regular posters.

Hero_of_the_Day · Aug 2, 2020

Seriously, acting like the issue at this point is the tags is such nonsense. It's you're response to the community not liking them that is causing the rift. And I don't mean the fact you didn't just immediately reverse the tags. You've made this minor change into such a big deal by refusing to engage with the community about it. And every time you pop back in to tell us to shut up while still NOT engaging in any conversation is just... so fucking shitty.

Deleted member 18407 · Aug 2, 2020

No response from the staff yet, huh? That's really really really shitty.

MirageDwarf · Aug 2, 2020

Last post regarding this since this thread is supposed to be the place to report actual bugs...

That is unbelievable response. Make me wonder if mod team think they are doing a huge charity favor to others by being mod and sees themselves as victims.

First, you lock all discussion threads. Then say people are showed extreme hostility against staff for a feature. When people asked for examples, no examples were given. I am sure 99% of members would condemn that behavior. Mods are usually fast to hand out bans. Huge majority wouldn't argue in favor of users who gets flagged/banned for this kind of hostility.

Ideal way would be to have one thread for discussion and let everyone know to not expect immediate response from mod team because they have to take care of jobs that pays bills first and also take care of families. Without clear announcements, people would think mods are always up to date but choose not to respond.

Deleted member 18407 · Aug 2, 2020

Still no mod response? The silence is deafening.

BDS · Aug 2, 2020

MirageDwarf said:
Make me wonder if mod team think they are doing a huge charity favor to others by being mod and sees themselves as victims.

That is absolutely what they are doing. They have a siege mentality and genuinely view themselves as the most oppressed and put-upon group on the forum.

We have tried various forms of communication and solution-finding with the staff over the years and it is clear nothing is working. The only fix to ResetERA's issues is a complete top-down cleansing of the entire admin and mod staff, followed by the transparent election of new staff members from within the userbase as chosen by the userbase. The rot is systemic; everyone needs to go.

Zelas · Aug 2, 2020

Zelas said:
Thank you for the update. Are you guys discussing allowing users the option to disable the tags without having the threads blocked along with them?

DownUnderCoder yes, no?

kenta · Aug 2, 2020

B-Dubs said:
OK, enough clogging up this thread. This thread is here to report bugs, not whine about this. You're clogging it up and making it harder for the tech team to use it as it was intended. It's not here for you all to air every grievance you've ever had.

As I said, we've collecting feedback and working on stuff. So knock it off, this is a minor change that we are working on adjusting.

This is incredibly disappointing and juvenile.

You have members of the community that you have stewardship over coming to the table in extremely good faith, with deeply considered and thoughtfully assembled feedback and it's being flat out dismissed and even derided in favor of a narrative that makes you the victim.

Friendly reminder that the other day you seemed to resent the comparison to "Donald Fucking Trump". Please do better.

Noodle · Aug 2, 2020

Frump said:
No response from the staff yet, huh? That's really really really shitty.

I'm guessing they're forbidden from discussing it given they're active but didn't respond to or moderate any of the short-lived discussion threads. Right now it seems like the responses we have had were daring people to push back in order to validate the admin's anger.

Deleted member 18407 · Aug 2, 2020

Noodle said:
I'm guessing they're forbidden from discussing it given they're active but didn't respond to or moderate any of the short-lived discussion threads. Right now it seems like the responses we have had were daring people to push back in order to validate the admin's anger.

They can't hide forever.

WillyFive · Aug 2, 2020

I have no issue whatsoever with the new feature, but as this is a bug report thread, I will chime in to say that the way the moderators and/or administrators have been unable to listen to the community and be transparent is definitely a bug that needs fixing. This can be a great site, if you let it.

Disclaimer has offered excellent suggestions and I fully support the staff in implementing each one of those changes. Hiring someone with better experience or training in managing communities would help too.

Deleted member 82 · Aug 2, 2020

Very nice bans there. Maybe if the "General Manager" didn't act so petulantly for things the community has been asking for for ages and still hasn't been able to get concrete updates on - things as simple as an actual public place for meta-feedback -, people wouldn't be so frustrated. But I guess you can also just ban a few people who were a bit too mean instead, that works too. Until it doesn't.

Also, if you're so worried about people spreading "conspiracy theories" about the team's motivations and stuff, well maybe there's something to be said for clear, regular communication and action, instead of letting suggestions and concerns linger indefinitely in limbo.

So, because this post might get me banned - can't be too overtly frustrated after all, because that's a sin per the TOS -, I'll reiterate: read Disclaimer's original plea, and also, communicate fast and well, and with no bullshit jargon. No "we'll discuss this and get back to you whenever." No "woe is us". That won't fix anything. And if you, B-Dubs, or anyone else in the team thinks they're not up for it, or it's just become too much - I can certainly understand that, which is why I never applied to be a mod in the first place -, they always have the option to step down, and you can find people to replace them. It's not like anyone on the team has a contract or makes money from this apart from a scant few - I assume, since you won't really communicate on that either.

Deleted member 21220 · Aug 2, 2020

I'm not going to comment on the bans, but don't they mean a member of staff has read the thread and still not provided any clear communication on the actual problem nor responded to Disclaimer's insightful post?

Disclaimer · Aug 2, 2020

Take some responsibility for people's continued frustrations instead of handing out bans.

Indeed, why are bans happening before a single staff post? Why are staff members clearly not being allowed to communicate here? Do you think that's healthy policy, for anyone? Talk to us. The community is Era's foundation. We migrated here together.

If there were actual dialogue happening here -- dialogue, not one staff member posting a shut down or mega-response -- then frustrations would quickly abate, and you'd rekindle people's willingness to engage with you in good faith, by actually demonstrating good faith yourselves. Frump's post, while not something I would have posted, is not far from the truth, either. How is "hiding" not what this silence is? I ask you that. That protracted silence is only worsening the situation, as it has in every other fiasco, and giving rise to the frustated behavior for which people are being banned.

What is the course of action here after the continued radio silence? Is there going to be a long PR response about how the community is the only problem, followed by a thread lock? I hope not, because I sincerely would like to communicate and brainstorm ideas for site improvement for all. Era's longstanding problems are truly not all that hard to fix, and taking simple steps toward that will make everyone -- staff and members -- so much happier. This perceived embattlement, this us vs. them mentality, it needs to stop. But all of the power dynamics of the situation put the onus on you.

Gods, y'all. It is not this hard to communicate. This -- exactly this -- is the policy that's engendering this cycle of bitterness. Talk. Admins, talk. Moderators, talk -- regardless of whether you're allowed. Here. Not behind closed doors. Are you members of this community only when posting trivialities, or what? This diverse and wonderful community is comprised of so many individuals who want to improve things, and yet the only ball in our court as members is whether to stay or leave. Let's change that instead of perpetuating this relentlessly toxic environment where members are afraid to even broach the subject without inappropriate punitive action.

Bans are easy, and that power is all too tempting. Talk is hard. But the latter is the only way toward progress and de-escalating the discourse. Era was ostensibly founded on transparency and community engagement. How about we work towards realizing that vision, for all our health and happiness?

Sawneeks · Aug 2, 2020

Having spoken to several staff members in the past about this I again ask that a Feedback thread be made. As Disclaimer has so eloquently put it, discussion and talk are the best way forward in these cases.

Is it going to be hard? Yeah. But do you want this scenario where no one knows where to go and people just leaving the forum like in the past? I know the staff doesn't want that and neither do the users.

And not similar to the last two feedback threads where they began, got locked, and then hidden from everyone. Which we are still waiting on an official comment about why those were hidden, by the way.

Sax · Aug 2, 2020

People keep wanting a response that isn't just an arrogant dismissal and the response is silence and a few bans. Cool. Cool cool cool. Disclaimer's posts are so well reasoned and worded and thought out but both times we've gotten the equivalent of the "didn't read lol" meme in terms of the next staff actions here.

Ryan. · Aug 2, 2020

I don't necessarily agree with some of the reactions to any changes made to this site but I also don't agree with the staff reactions to some of these posts including the bans. I feel like we go through this kind of thing far too often and see no improvements after it's done.

Not like pointing this out matters because I'm not the only one who has done this. I know site staff and moderation isn't the best thing in the world and often a thankless job. Believe me I've been on that side, but there's better ways to be handling this.

Nanashrew · Aug 2, 2020

i'm just generally confused. Past site updates we got release note threads on what they do, how they work, and how to use them, etc. But this one got nothing.

ResetEra Tech Thread (Report Bugs Here)

tag reference no one gets

Tried to PM someone for a tag

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One Winged Slayer

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One Winged Slayer

That's some catch, that catch-22

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Very low key

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One Winged Slayer

Prophet of Truth