Player Vs Staff

[BAC.]

We have acknowledged this issue both in this thread (I think, I've honestly lost track of what I've been typing) and internally. We have been way too harsh on forum moderation, without a doubt and this too will change. If you feel something happens to your post or you on the forums that is unjust, feel free to message me.

EDIT: Wait I was going to bed, shit

goodnight * 2 <3

 

[Alphadef]

The Staff Team
In terms of the staff team, like @Maj.Kat said, you are nothing but brainwashed losers to the management. Nothing but mere pawns that can be discarded at any moment for any little thing. You are a puppet, that's as simple as I can put it.

I'm not gonna say that I did nearly as much as Maj.Kat did in his time, but I damn well put my time into this server.

As you may see, some of the threads that the team still uses are mine. There are also a few behind the scenes that players can't see that I spent lots of time on that I would bet every last dollar is still being used by them.

I don't necessarily mind that this is the case, but you never get recognition for things like this. You spend time doing something for the community, but it's as if they don't give a shit.

For those of you who don't know, there are rewards you can claim for the work you do as a staff member, and while I will probably get in trouble for saying this, this is something that the staff team MILKS. I never posted a thread on this page my second time around for a reward. I simply did everything I did for the community, and as stated before, who cares? Maybe the players, at least I would hope so.

FOR ANY CURRENT STAFF MEMBERS
Good luck! : )

That's really all I can say. There are the dumbest things that you will be held back for. Having a high pitched voice, having an "immature" profile picture, or even misspelling a few words will keep you locked in the ranking system.

Please, think about the time you are spending for the server. Is it really something you want to dedicate your life to? Is it really something you want to spend your time doing? If the answer is yes, you do you. I won't talk down on you, as I did the same. But if you really think about what you are working for, you may just change your mind.

And for all you two faced monkeys on the staff team, have fun working your life away!

I do not do this stuff for reward or praise. I do it simply because I wish to help the community and I see the staff team as the best way to do it. With that said however, I've never felt unappreciated or looked down upon by any of the upper management. I've messaged every top level staff membered (except TJ and Melody, but thats just because I usually either go to a different member first or they're offline when I need to go to someone) about stupid questions and stuff at least once, and in most cases several times and have not had any issue. If behind the scenes, they treat me like a pawn or an idiot, so be it, but if they do they do a damn good job of hiding it.

(As for "Milking" the rewards, I've frequently heard a good portion of us can't even be bothered to actually claim them, since we do it for the sake of doing it as well).

 

[BAC.]

I do not do this stuff for reward or praise. I do it simply because I wish to help the community and I see the staff team as the best way to do it.

But there is no denying that everyone appreciate reward or praise.

 

[Alphadef]

But there is no denying that everyone appreciate reward or praise.

That is true, but as I also said (or at least meant to), even though I don't do it for it for praise or reward, I do still get and appreciate it.

 

[PMX]

Hey guys,

First, I hope that everyone is doing alright during these difficult pandemic times we are living worldwide. Hopefully, everything returns to normal shortly!

Sorry for the late reply, but I have been reading all of the posts that you guys have been adding to this thread, for the past few days and I agree that there are things that need to be changed in the community. Some of these things have been pointed out by you, and it is in fact nice to see so many people doing it, because it means that lots of people care about this community and for the Monolith project as well.

The changes that were mentioned were directed to us in Community Management (me included), staff team and development. As I said in the community meeting, where players had the opportunity to state their concerns, feedback and suggestions and receive instant feedback from us in the Community Management or in the Development Team, we started working on a few things, before the community meeting. I would like to show you what we are currently planning on doing for the future and what we started to do already! So, let's get down to it...

• Days before the community meeting, we in the Community Management had a meeting (with the Server Directors as well) and we also addressed some of the concerns that you mentioned here and in the community meeting: We, in leadership, should set the example and with that, should be the first to follow our community rules, that we also created. This includes being always respectful to everyone and, of course, listening to any feedback or criticism that we receive, in order to improve ourselves (me included once again) and other aspects in the community if needed. We all agreed to this, during and after our meeting and will therefore try to do that from now on. Do note that, it will take a bit of time, but we will get there.

• Punishments Severity: A few players have addressed this, and I also agree that we should be more lenient in certain cases. As explained in the meeting, we do not intend to punish people. We want everyone to have a good time while using our platforms and following the rules at the same time, so that everyone can enjoy being here. On this note, we started to work on a punishment revision in the beginning of this week (11th of January), which will then be presented to staff for them to give their suggestions on the matter and to finalize the revision. We intend to be more lenient, as our goal, when we punish someone, is to make sure they understand what rules they broke and why they should not do that.

• Lack of Communication: This is also true. I believe there needs to be more interactions between leadership and community members and we are coming up with a few ideas in order to improve that, by doing bonding sessions or just hang out on discord or the server, so that we can improve this. If you also have any ideas, let us know;

• Development: A lot of you do not feel your suggestions are read or do not feel heard on this matter. As Mark stated in the community meeting, we usually go over your suggestions on the forums, even if we do not reply to them. In fact, we believe this can also be improved so we will start to reply to your suggestions more often, so that you can get feedback from our end. On a side note, I would like to state that our development team is not huge now and that is also why we prioritize our "workforce" to do different things that we have planned, in small patch updates, including in the upcoming massive update 2.0. However, you can see our "roadmap" on our public notion board as mentioned by @Tj already. If you have any questions regarding this, let a developer know, including me or @Mark.

• Staff Attitude: This has been addressed in the community meeting and I do agree that sometimes staff members should have a different approach to certain situations. We will have a staff meeting soon, to discuss this and we hope that with the new guidelines we manage to change it for the better.

• Response Time: Currently, the response time on the server for player tickets is high. We will also address this in the upcoming meeting and will make sure to be more coordinated on this matter, so that all staff members can do their duties and still play on the server and enjoy the community in a balanced way. We are also working, on the recruitment side, in order to bring more people on board of the team.

• Forum Moderation: As mentioned in this thread and in the community meeting, we will be more lenient in what forum moderation is concerned. There are times posts may be removed and authors warned for simple things that do not warrant that. We will make sure that changes, including with us in Community Management.

• Staff Appreciation: As mentioned as well, including by @Thy, we will try to find a way for you people to show your appreciation to the staff team and to specific staff members, of course. If you have any ideas, let us know!

• Community Management Activity: We will try to improve this as well and again, improve the communication between staff and players (see above).

• Staff Activity Review: This has been changing since we started the community and will continue to change in the future. We do thank all our staff (internally) for their work and dedication, and we mean all of it. They are the reason the server is stable through day and night. There are things to be improved in the whole team, but we will get there (see above). That is why we have internal rewards available for them, including a paycheck for being on duty on the server. Perhaps there are things we can improve in this field as well, as nothing is perfect and if so, we will also discuss it in the next staff meeting, where all staff will be able to give their input on this and other matters.

I listed most of the concerns that were mentioned/addressed here and in the community meeting but probably missed a few. All in all, I hope we can work together in order to find a solution for these and other issues that may arise, and it is good to see so many different points of view regarding what the community is and what it can be in the future. These topics will be addressed, going forward, but changes will not happen overnight (at least for certain topics that require more time). And again, whether you believe it or not, we really appreciate your input on these community matters and will do everything at our power to see these changes come to life.

To conclude, we thank all of you that support our community, including members, staff and developers and we look forward to working with you, from this point on. And if you have any questions, concerns or feedback, you can always DM me on the forums or discord. We are here for you.

May this new year be different, for the better, to all of us! More news and updates coming soon!


Kind Regards

 

[Damp Eggplant]

Update: First I would like to thank the community for finally speaking up and I would like to kind of just show all those that said I was the only one that thought this that you were wrong.

I have received a message from someone who will be unnamed:

bro damp just being honest...because of your post on the forums
monolith is so corrupt and disgusting when looking into the deep community managment and staff issues
i agree with your thread, but since you spoke up about it they will never give you anything but shit

See it is very interesting because although this disucssion is happening still- dirty tactics are still being implemented: I know two members that have had their posts deleted: both unnamed. Also I would like to show some player targeting from staff:


I have been given a warning point for saying the following things(1pt each) by the same staff- this is the same staff member that told the community to stop being snowflakes
"GLIZZY GOBBLERS declares war on you guys- yall are toxic and you need to be put in ur place- you will learn that having guns doesnt make you powerful"- a common phrasing for war declarations- this was after this thread was posted and i got another warning pt so i may be gone soon
"We don’t like u so we declare war how bout that"- this one is a little more understanding but the following one would kind of show why i was targeted more
"Y’all are racist and u messed up our bank robbery by pinching my car"- this and the last quote were in the same thread but the staff gave two consecutive warning points even though they were posted minutes after each other- he could have at least just given one since they were basically the same one just separated
"mad cuz bad"- this is legit like one of the least offensive insults and it gotta a warning pt
"For any of those that have not heard this beauty yet! I recommend you listen to it max volume with your family(ram ranch link)-- you will come to love this song!"-there is legit an admin run org called ram ranch

Also I would like to show u guys a past staff report- in fact knight gave this post a warning pt for innapropriate behavior(aka standing up):
Your Steam Name: Damp Eggplant
Your Steam ID: STEAM_0:1:114026107
Your Character Name (If Applicable): Rob Santoro

Admin being reported( Tag by writing @ before their forum name): @Tesk @Asiandiskool

Reason for Report: Tesk: Staff power abuse: During a sit, in which I am not going to go into further detail, Tesk repeatedly not only called me a liar but also refused to acknowledge the video evidence another player had recorded. He also stated that he would speak to @Michael, which he ended up lying about and not doing. Instead Tesk, a person who I have often argued with, used his role as Admin to claim that everything he said was fact, which therefore meant everything I was saying was a lie and that its his word that goes. Another crucial point to bring up is the fact that he was the opposite side of the sit, yet he did not take the stance of an opposing reporter rather the stance of an admin that was stating for a fact that I did something wrong. We obviously had different perspectives in the situation that led to the sit, yet he was acting as if he was omniscient and saw everything, including my perspective. Another point, although it is natural to have a superiority of ranks complex(Tesk's being admin over Asiandkool being moderator), Tesk seemed to influence Asiandkool to follow his orders since he is a higher position than him and a person that could get him promoted/demoted. Two closing remarks for Tesk's portion: 1)I know from my ban appeal that both Tesk and Asiandkool will bring up the incident of my sit but I say that it is irrelevant because this report is not about the situation rather how the staff handled the situation so I don't want to see them bringing up the details of the sit 2)It honestly is a shame how someone like Tesk was made admin. For example, HolyHandGrenade, who is way more helpful and rational, has only recently become admin yet Tesk has been promoted before. Also to think that Tesk is on the same level as good admins such as SCOTTISH, and Tuko is a joke.

Asiandiskool: For a trial/new moderator, I would expect Asiandiskool to be observant in a sit rather than laughing alongside Tesk when I make my point. You were supposed to be the neutral ground in the sit since Tesk and I were opposing sides. Instead, you instantly took Tesk's side and thought of me as guilty, even though your outlook should be innocent until proven guilty. It was quite and unfair sit as Tesk did 10x more talking than you, the one moderating the sit, which is not how it should be. Asiandiskool apparently did not listen to a single word I said as he mentioned things that are twisted from what I said in the below-linked ban appeal. I specifically do not want to focus on the laughing matter though, instead I want to focus on two comments you said in the ban appeal. 1) "I can use a staff member's word as evidence as them lying would get them in severe trouble with upper management and he wouldn't risk his position for a mere $10,000 that you stole from the bank (which you admitted to in the sit.)" First of all as a person that is worth $1.5 mil, 10k does not mean much to me either. So then why would I not only debate for a long time in the sit and make 2 ban appeals? Because I can not stand injustices especially on this server I devote so much time to. Also, this sentence he said right here just reveals that he assumes the nature of Tesk is truthtelling even though he was the opposing side of the sit. This reveals that Tesk's role as admin made Asiandiskool believe that Tesk could not possibly be in the wrong, which is a false assumption. 2)"As for the entire sit, and @Tesk can attest to this is that you kept morphing your story to fit in a way where you felt in the right and lying to staff in the process and refusing to drop the money you stole." As for this, I first would like to mention how I never once changed my story, rather Tesk kept on rephrasing my story in a way in which it would sound like the situation was changed. He manipulated my words to appear that what I was saying was a lie. Second of all, you barely listened to me, Tesk spoke and you listened but when I spoke that is when you guys laughed assuming that I don't know the rules. Trust me, as someone that has had quite a lot of experience with staff and rules, I may not know the exact rules word by word but I know when something is wrong and that was wrong. Finally I would like to point out that you claim that I was lying even though you provided no evidence/contradictions that I supposedly said. I get that your a new moderator but don't let the power go to your head, and listen to both sides of the sit in a professional way.

 

[j5701]

While I am relatively knew to this server, I did want to put in my two cents.

So far my experiences have been good, staff have been fair, and while I wouldn't characterize myself as someone who ventures into the grey area, staff (and mentors) have been kind and helpful leading me back to the right if I mess up.

With that said, in my short time here I have noticed that there seems to be a disconnect between admins/mods and the community management. Aside from PMX i personally did not know there were other community managers. While in the last week I have seen a lot more CMs on the server none of them have ever appeared as Staff on Duty (that I have noticed). This seems to me like a large disconnect, as in my opinion those that have the most power should be doing the most basic roles. It is impossible to know the experience of those "under" you without actually walking in their footsteps.

As for all staff and CMs, I do have on more point I would like to bring up. As a new player on this server, I have noticed that the biggest detriment to the playability of this server is the lack of adequate staffing. I understand admin sits can take a long time to properly do, which means that smaller, less important reports often take incredibly long to get to. While I understand its important to take care of the most important issues, the lack of action on these small reports adds up. I know it's "hard to find good help these days", but I think if there was one area you could work on it would be this.

With all that in mind, I really have been enjoying this server. The community for the most part is great (what is up with the homophobia?), and the effort that has gone into this project is breathtaking. I am glad to support this server, and hopefully will be a community member for as long as possible.

 

[Asiandiskool]

Hey Damp Eggplant,

I haven't been on the server in ages, but I visit the website for updates and saw myself mentioned.

Anyways, in my time as staff, in majority of my time, there was definitely a certain level of secrecy when it came to what was going on with staff and CMs which in turn makes it look like staff hiding info from the player base. Before I left, which was after the Maj. Kat incident, the CMs, at least in my opinion were more open than they were in the past which I said was a massive plus. Nothing is better than transparency when running something as big as Monolith. One of my few criticisms was that there was zero transparency. I haven't been on the server in a while so I don't know the current state of the transparency, but I hope it's better than before. Another criticism would definitely be the lack of interaction with staff/players alike. Not all CMs, but you can go on even as a staff member without seeing or interacting with a certain CM for 2 or 3 maybe even 4 weeks. It's very weird because in a leadership position, you should be there for your team and your community. When leadership and the community are active and engaging with one another, it's a beautiful thing.

When it comes to Staff v Players, I think there is a little confusion when it comes to this. Are there toxic staff members that are power hungry or want to specifically go after certain members? Sure. However, in my time, I felt majority of the staff team didnt fit this category whatsoever as I personally worked with them on many situations, trained them or helped them in certain sits as they want to make the right call not only for the staff team, but for the player as well. The overwhelming staff members are trying to do what is right with the server. No question about it. They, like myself in the past, sunk our free time into the server to help you guys whenever you needed assistance whether that was on the server, discord or the forums. The time it takes to make everything as good as possible, why would someone purposely ruin that by going after a specific player?



I'll leave you all with this:

Nothing will ever be perfect, but as long as you strive to be perfect that's the most important part.


Hope everyone is doing well and hope you guys are having a better 2021 than 2020
Even though I'm not on staff anymore, you can always reach out to me player or staff if you want to chat, have a laugh or two or need any advice im always a discord message away Asiandiskool#0180

 

[FreeSpy]

Hello Gregg,

You were discouraged because you have complete ill intent for Monolith Servers. You admitted this yourself - I think you should solely focus on your community.

If you had all of this negative stigma for Monolith - surely you'd have an inclination to work towards eliminating this during your tenure as a Server Director. To me, it just looks like you're taking advantage of a situation to align with your own goals.

As I've stated several times in this thread - we're looking to improve the professionality. PERSONALLY - it's something that I've already strived to commit to for the last 6 months, and hopefully it's already showing.

Staff are most definitely thanked for their work here by Community Management. You just haven't been here for a while.

We're already committing to an internal reform to how we present ourselves, even prior to this thread, even prior to the Community Meeting that happened yesterday.

That response is pretty old, I don't care though.

Gregg brings valid points and trying to invalidate them (Like Jucamais pointed out) is just wrong. It doesn't necesarily matter what intent there is if the points are actual facts, which, they are.

Trying to invalidate Gregg's argument by bringing in the other community, his past, and other things imo makes you look worse here. I feel like you're trying to use this to somehow ruin his argument, but it makes it stronger here, and you kinda fucked it up.

I get that you committed to a reform, but where are the results of that. Surely, if reforms actually happened we'd see something, right?

I don't doubt that staff are thanked here now, but you have to keep in mind that this thread has things pent up for over a year plus, because there have been no outlets for this before other than maybe a community meeting and this.

You management have already said multiple times that "Silencing people were never our intent" or "We do not want to censor anyone". But just the first time you guys allow a thread like this to exist and people feel confortable to speak their minds without fear, There is a flood of messages from dissatisfied people who have not had room to speak before. Look at what this thread has become, almost like an escape valve for all this tension that was accumulated due to the censorship that you guys had been condoning until then.

This is very much true from what it looks like, due to a number of things,
1. Actual censorship

There have been so many cases of censorship that I've lost count at this rate, over the 2 years i've been here, but I'll bring up that some videos and some topics that dont break rules such as racism or homophobia are not allowed to be talked on, and so they are avoided (but present), with it even being shadowed in the community meeting.

2. Lack of communication, addressed by PMX
When you stop communicating your intent, your actions, your reasoning, your everything when it comes to stuff like removing opinions, people will start to theorize that we can't have hope, that we can't trust the words of management because of the lack of communication,

3. Lying, and avoiding answering certain question
This was something I noticed in the meeting where some things were left with a pretty vague answer, maybe because of language barriers, maybe because of ulterior motives, we may never know. But, when you lie, people will somehow find out no matter how small or big the lie may be. And when people do, that ruins credibility hard.
Add into the mix that people can be paranoic (like me), and you've got yourself a fuckfest of people trying to prove they're telling the truth and others bringing up how uncredible the other people can be, which leaves people on the fence or usually on the side of the paranoic people (Not saying paranoia is bad, it is actually pretty alright),


I don't think it's very fair to not assume that there are ulterior motives, that there's things that are withheld from our ears, that stuff has been censored, that some players' opinions have been shut down for the sake of keeping a good look, which then falls backwards and breaks its back because, again, no one trusts the CMs that much because of previous situations and claims made on this thread.

ps i wrote this in class so i might've made not a lot of sense but its ok

 

[parkerx]

I went to bed and woke up to genuinely laughable responses from community management. I have read every word of every reply to this thread and I'm not surprised that not one of them came from @Mark. No one else seemed to address his attitude and it was completely swept under the rug. Maybe Mark is busy playing WoW or Cyberpunk or sleeping and is biding his response until he's free. I really would like to see some self-reflection from Mark at this point and perhaps hear what he has to say about this thread and its replies.

@Mark, I am inviting you once again to join this conversation.

I appreciate some of your attempts to explain yourself and mention that internally, you're discussing improvements and have been. But certainly, not all conversations or messages in these locked channels and DM's contain whatever you constitute to be sensitive information. So perhaps we are able to see some screenshots or evidence that they exist. I'm not saying that these conversations do not exist, but I am wondering what they look like and if Stuvi's are like "Hm. You know what? It is a problem that no one has heard my voice and my DM's get left there for days, weeks, months before I consider typing back a response." or Tj: "Maybe I do act emotionally rather than weighing out the benefits and cons of my actions", or Mark: "Maybe I am kind of a dick to our staff members and players and also act on my emotions like you, Tj". Please send some screenshots with timestamps, thank you.

A lot of players focused on the racist comments of CM. Having been a black person for my entire life at this point, I didn't really care as much as the others. I've read more disturbing conversations that CM have been a part of and I think the focus should have shifted to those. Some of these convos are publicly available and I would love to either post them here or in my DM's if you'd like to see. parkerx#4911 on discord. I am able to forgive some of, however, never forget, these disgusting comments and actions.

I AM DUMBFOUNDED. UTTERLY STUNNED. BRAINFUCKED. At the responses (and lack thereof to some important points that were made) to @Joey., @Maj.Kat, Gregg (who is forum banned and has his IP discouraged from visiting this site), and @Knight. I will no longer use a nicer word for your "dishonestly", CM. You're fucking lying. You're being deceptive. Talks of an anti-cheat, making your staff members feel appreciated, etc, etc, etc, etc. Gregg is speaking perfectly when he says this place acts like it's a Fortune 500 company and all of your statements and actions are empty damage control and quite frankly- bullshit. I don't have anything else to say about your responses except that you're lying.

This is just so incredibly wrong and blatantly false that I'm not gonna waste any more time on it.

I am particularly confused and rather disturbed by this response about the "anticheat". Considering how many players are wrongfully banned for cheating and CM realizes this and unbans them, it should make you wonder why they get it so wrong often. It's because a coin was flipped and it landed on heads, so, unfortunately, you were permanently removed from the community for "third party software usage".

I remember calling PMX on my way home from work to hear about why Maj.Kat was demoted as this was a shock to me. His reasoning was vague and exaggerated. "His actions were monstrous!", "I could not believe how irrational what he was saying was", "At this point, we had no choice but to demote him. It had gone so far!". I got home, and all I had to do was a little reading to see that these were heavily untrue and exaggerated statements. The combination of reading the conversations between Mark, Tj, and Maj.Kat and some verbal communication between us resulted in at least 5 resignations either that night or in the coming days. No one was asked or even convinced to step down from their positions. In fact, I remember telling ja and tweety that they shouldn't resign if they wanted to remain on the staff team. But they had enough as well. It was a mutual agreement that what we saw was fucking sad and intolerable. Instead of telling the truth about these conversations and the events that took place that night, they chose to lie. In the following days, weeks, promotions were handed out like pieces of candy to keep more resignations from occurring. These promotions were given to staff members that they are quoted in saying that they are untrustworthy and immature. Some of them were treated like shit in staff VC and had their ideas shit on and shut down. But no, they are now your senior administrators! Congrats!

I would like to invite staff members to speak their minds. I understand your lips are sealed by the fear that you will be demoted or locked in your rank. Because that will happen lmao. But trust in me that if you are punished for speaking your mind, this is not a place that you should want to be.

Also, I am not particularly thrilled to announce that I don't feel comfortable using my own IP to log into the forums as a response to what happened the night of Maj.Kat's demotion. If it's not already too late, use a VPN when connecting to the forums.

 

[LayZey]

Also I would like to show u guys a past staff report- in fact knight gave this post a warning pt for innapropriate behavior(aka standing up):
Your Steam Name: Damp Eggplant
Your Steam ID: STEAM_0:1:114026107
Your Character Name (If Applicable): Rob Santoro

Admin being reported( Tag by writing @ before their forum name): @Tesk @Asiandiskool

Reason for Report: Tesk: Staff power abuse: During a sit, in which I am not going to go into further detail, Tesk repeatedly not only called me a liar but also refused to acknowledge the video evidence another player had recorded. He also stated that he would speak to @Michael, which he ended up lying about and not doing. Instead Tesk, a person who I have often argued with, used his role as Admin to claim that everything he said was fact, which therefore meant everything I was saying was a lie and that its his word that goes. Another crucial point to bring up is the fact that he was the opposite side of the sit, yet he did not take the stance of an opposing reporter rather the stance of an admin that was stating for a fact that I did something wrong. We obviously had different perspectives in the situation that led to the sit, yet he was acting as if he was omniscient and saw everything, including my perspective. Another point, although it is natural to have a superiority of ranks complex(Tesk's being admin over Asiandkool being moderator), Tesk seemed to influence Asiandkool to follow his orders since he is a higher position than him and a person that could get him promoted/demoted. Two closing remarks for Tesk's portion: 1)I know from my ban appeal that both Tesk and Asiandkool will bring up the incident of my sit but I say that it is irrelevant because this report is not about the situation rather how the staff handled the situation so I don't want to see them bringing up the details of the sit 2)It honestly is a shame how someone like Tesk was made admin. For example, HolyHandGrenade, who is way more helpful and rational, has only recently become admin yet Tesk has been promoted before. Also to think that Tesk is on the same level as good admins such as SCOTTISH, and Tuko is a joke.

Asiandiskool: For a trial/new moderator, I would expect Asiandiskool to be observant in a sit rather than laughing alongside Tesk when I make my point. You were supposed to be the neutral ground in the sit since Tesk and I were opposing sides. Instead, you instantly took Tesk's side and thought of me as guilty, even though your outlook should be innocent until proven guilty. It was quite and unfair sit as Tesk did 10x more talking than you, the one moderating the sit, which is not how it should be. Asiandiskool apparently did not listen to a single word I said as he mentioned things that are twisted from what I said in the below-linked ban appeal. I specifically do not want to focus on the laughing matter though, instead I want to focus on two comments you said in the ban appeal. 1) "I can use a staff member's word as evidence as them lying would get them in severe trouble with upper management and he wouldn't risk his position for a mere $10,000 that you stole from the bank (which you admitted to in the sit.)" First of all as a person that is worth $1.5 mil, 10k does not mean much to me either. So then why would I not only debate for a long time in the sit and make 2 ban appeals? Because I can not stand injustices especially on this server I devote so much time to. Also, this sentence he said right here just reveals that he assumes the nature of Tesk is truthtelling even though he was the opposing side of the sit. This reveals that Tesk's role as admin made Asiandiskool believe that Tesk could not possibly be in the wrong, which is a false assumption. 2)"As for the entire sit, and @Tesk can attest to this is that you kept morphing your story to fit in a way where you felt in the right and lying to staff in the process and refusing to drop the money you stole." As for this, I first would like to mention how I never once changed my story, rather Tesk kept on rephrasing my story in a way in which it would sound like the situation was changed. He manipulated my words to appear that what I was saying was a lie. Second of all, you barely listened to me, Tesk spoke and you listened but when I spoke that is when you guys laughed assuming that I don't know the rules. Trust me, as someone that has had quite a lot of experience with staff and rules, I may not know the exact rules word by word but I know when something is wrong and that was wrong. Finally I would like to point out that you claim that I was lying even though you provided no evidence/contradictions that I supposedly said. I get that your a new moderator but don't let the power go to your head, and listen to both sides of the sit in a professional way.

This is exactly what I was talking about, Standing up for yourself is a no no in this server. You're either wrong or people ignore you.

 

[Tye]

This is exactly what I was talking about, Standing up for yourself is a no no in this server. You're either wrong or people ignore you.

I completely agree in the past standing up for yourself/friends on forums or in game was punished, I think that this thread for now anyway is a place to do so. Its up to the management whether they change.

 

[Balldrip]

I would like to invite staff members to speak their minds

Sure, I guess I will go ahead. I'll keep it short and sweet, don't want to go into crazy detail.

I've been staffing on Monolith for over 6 months and have been playing on the server for a little over 3 years. Having been a member of the community for a while there are obviously some points addressed here that are valid and things need to change. Reading some of these posts has troubled me because in my whole time staffing I have not bumped into any trouble with the names people are mentioning, probably just me, but I'm being honest. I don't think I have ever joined a staff voice channel and left regretting that I joined it, it's always a good time / is productive. A lot of these posts are making some people on the team seem like disgusting people, and I can not agree with that. Sure, there have been times where someone may have acted out of line and shouldn't get away with it. Change can be made, not instant change, but it will be made slowly.

Conclusion: Personally, "brainwashed" or "pieces on a chessboard" isn't how I'd describe my time here. All the time I have devoted here has been because this is something I find fun, a nice distraction from the world around us, and balancing my life with Monolith on the side isn't hard, stop making it sound like its a living hell.

I am not going to sit here and say I have done everything perfectly in my time staffing, everyone has bad days, makes mistakes etc. I am trying to change and improve on where I can do better.

Like I've said, humans improve off failure and mistakes - this is a learning process for some, so the feedback is appreciated.

I wish I could go into more detail, but it is getting late for me. Hope I was able to touch up on some of the points made in this thread. If you would like to speak to me or have any questions, my discord is here - Balldrip#0984. Monolith related or not, I am here for a chat

 

[Alphadef]

I get that you committed to a reform, but where are the results of that. Surely, if reforms actually happened we'd see something, right?

This seems to be a common sentiment in the thread (At least, among those who don't think the staff is unredeemable), but as has been stated multiple times a lot of the reform is recent. You have to give it time to be shown. I'd also like to argue the this thread's continued existence and non-locked status is also somewhat a sign of change. The topic of which I would like to use to jump to this:

I would like to invite staff members to speak their minds. I understand your lips are sealed by the fear that you will be demoted or locked in your rank. Because that will happen lmao. But trust in me that if you are punished for speaking your mind, this is not a place that you should want to be.

Maybe I'm just blind and miss everything, but genuinely the biggest (and only issue) I've ever had with policy was how strict some of the team can be towards heated criticism. I've expressed this concern to the team whenever I felt it was starting to get out of hand, and while I only recently feel like it might finally be being addressed, I've not felt like I've been at risk of losing my chances because I've expressed the opinion.

 

[parkerx]

I've not felt like I've been at risk of losing my chances because I've expressed the opinion.

Michael and Maj were demoted from a disagreement. Joey was considered immature and not suitable for SA because he had a cartoon frog as his profile picture. Gregg expressed suggestions of staff praise, but Tj thought the idea was "retarded". There are several other examples of this poor decision-making occurring. It is simply untrue that your rank is entirely unaffected for expressing an opinion that is unfit of CM.

 

[Alphadef]

Michael and Maj were demoted from a disagreement. Joey was considered immature and not suitable for SA because he had a cartoon frog as his profile picture. Gregg expressed suggestions of staff praise, but Tj thought the idea was "retarded". There are several other examples of this poor decision-making occurring. It is simply untrue that your rank is entirely unaffected for expressing an opinion that is unfit of CM.

I'll be honest, half of those people are before my time and the rest are very early in my time, so im not going to sit here and claim I know very much about the your situations. But I would like to reiterate that I've given contradicting opinions to CMs almost directly, and yet I've recently been promoted. I'm sure you can find some reason to justify that happening, if I had to guess either I didn't contradict them hard enough or they're desperate for staff or something along those lines but so be it, come up with whatever reason for it you'd like.

Did you know I missed you guys when you resigned? Hadn't necessarily known you all that long but you seemed like enjoyable people. Ja recruited me onto this team, and I fondly remember the TF2 community bonding session with Joey. But ever since that day, the main thing I've experienced from any of you has been hostility and toxicity. I remember Ja accusing me of explicitly trying to find any excuse to punish him because he claimed I had bias against him, when in fact the issue was that I was not trying to be biased towards him. Before the sit where he directly questioned my ability to be a staff member I had still respected him and looked up to him, but he chose to go into it with the assumption I was his enemy. What he likely doesn't know is after that sit I not only got off for the night, I lost the energy to do staff duties for a few days because I felt betrayed by the man that recruited me. If you assume the whole world is against you, you will quickly find out you brought it upon yourself.

 

[Credence]

So we as players are expected to instantly change our attitude or suffer severe punishments but we have to give grown men time to be more professional and less insulting?

 

[Deleted member 12627]

So we as players are expected to instantly change our attitude or suffer severe punishments but we have to give grown men time to be more professional and less insulting?

Not to mention the countless clapbacks on forums that just get overlooked...

 

[Alphadef]

So we as players are expected to instantly change our attitude or suffer severe punishments but we have to give grown men time to be more professional and less insulting?

At the risk of this "backfiring" because I don't know the actual answer, but what's the most recent example you can think of? And don't count this thread because this thread is basically heated insult fest in both ways already.

 

[Credence]

At the risk of this "backfiring" because I don't know the actual answer, but what's the most recent example you can think of? And don't count this thread because this thread is basically heated insult fest in both ways already.

Like the other day on the server I had a kos on a lot and I killer the wrong lt by mistake and it was my first punishment in months and I got instant given a warning point and threshold banned. Or how I got an infraction for a light-hearted meme I posted to my profile by the same guy I've seen reopen threads to post a meme or an insult.