DMR and the way they raid.

[Slush]

Jas asked me last night... "How can we solve this when noone wants to talk?" (i think, pretty close atleast). Noone (atleast I) wants to talk on TS because words, opinions and motives can be twisted. It can be reposted as something else, and with a brilliant speaker around (most know who) one can be tricked. English is not my native language and being up against the wall in a foreign language would not feel comfortable.

So here goes:

1. RGT member feels RL is too harsh/using abusive words on TS.

2. RGT member leaves raid.

3. GM talks to RGT member on TS. GM asks RGT member to apologize. RGT member leaves guild and explains in a post why.

4. GM locks thread and calls it "rage" post. GM removes ex-RGT members chance to say anything that is posted about him.

5. RL sees that ex-RGT member cant defend himself and writes a speculative post the RL knows (..) that the ex-RGT member will never see.

6. ex-RGT member creates a new thread to defend.

7. Super-admin Pen think this looks ugly and merges it back into the original thread. Also giving the RGT member a chance to defend himself.

8. 24 hours later the ex-RGT member makes a post.

9. Another super-admin (Smilo) removes that post.

10. RL asks for everything to be deleted ("archived")

11. RL's suggestion looks good to super-admin Smilo, who sweeps it under the rug.


This case would look good if only Pen (without the council's approval) didnt merge those threads.
TL's post would then stand as the "ultimate answer" (as we have seen before when Jinx and others have left/been kicked). Council removed Puja of the chance to defend himself and therefor TL statements looks true. I got this .. "what if im next"-creepy feeling. I've seen it before. I know it will happen again. Now Ive taken the appropriate steps to ensure I wont be next.

Thats why noone wants to speak, Jas. Sooner or later they understand how the system works. Its the council with their set of rules.... and then there's the rest.
Am I allowed to say that this system looks like a certain political system? Or is that too much and this thread will also be deleted?

Im no rage-quitter, and this is no rage post. I've been thinking on how to write this post for 3 days, but as the original thread was "archived"... here it is.
I've resigned as a raider and could have left RGT in silence, but I still feel that posting this critizism of the system is the correct thing to do and relevant to the case.

[JonnyAppleSeed]

I wish you had given me the chance to chat on TS as looking through this some facts are not what happened

3. GM talks to RGT member on TS. GM asks RGT member to apologize. RGT member leaves guild and explains in a post why.

I  only asked the member to look at appoligising to the raid for leaving 9 other people standing going what the hell. The personal issues that caused the outburst should have been sorted in a privet manner but I never got chance to request this as (goto 4)

4. GM locks thread and calls it "rage" post. GM removes ex-RGT members chance to say anything that is posted about him.

It *was* a rage post as the member involved was raging at me as he posted it. He quit TS and removed all toons in as big a rage as you would want to hear. The thread was locked to allow a cooldown period for all people involved. Including myself

5. RL sees that ex-RGT member cant defend himself and writes a speculative post the RL knows (..) that the ex-RGT member will never see.

It was agreed we should open the post to allow the member to respond after a cooldown and that *did* happen

7. Super-admin Pen think this looks ugly and merges it back into the original thread. Also giving the RGT member a chance to defend himself.

Again a balanced attitude to all the main partys. The threads were merged as one was in a public section and that just looks ugly. Forum rights were given back to allow a constructive response but again we got a personal attack

8. 24 hours later the ex-RGT member makes a post.

9. Another super-admin (Smilo) removes that post.

Again the post was directed at someone where it should have been discussed in privet via PM or TS with officers

Im sorry that you have lost confidence in the system but one problem being you have only one side of the story. In effect we have bent over backward to accommodate what is a tricky situation. I have tried to look into every avenue to get this resolved. The bottom line is I welcome constructiveness in posts but when it becomes personal I need to think about all people involved and ask people to talk to officers so we can mediate a solution. When this is not happening we end up firefighting inflammatory posts.

So the main thing is please talk to us with frustrations .... Second guessing what people are doing can spin things out of all proportion

As a point we still and always will run the guild with a rule of 3. No one person gets to decide anything alone and that in turn gives us a balanced approach to all the problems we hit running the guild

[smilodon]

Slush,

I'm afraid your problem and to be honest the problem with your whole post is that you've based it only on what you've read on some forum posts and then have made several assumptions that I'm afraid just aren't true. There have been a number of Team-Speak conversations and quite a few forum private messages between people that you're not aware of, as they are by definition private. Had you been aware of these conversations you'd realise that most of what you've just posted simply is wrong. Of course I'm not going to discuss what was said in private messages as they're private. But I'll set you straight on a few points.

First is regarding forum actions such as deleting posts and removing forum permissions. That's something I did. It had nothing to do with anyone else. I'm Forum Admin and I don't seek permission from anyone if I want to take actions on the forum. The decision to remove several posts and then to delete the whole thread was mine. It had absolutely nothing to do with Penfold, Jas, TeaLeaf or anyone else. In fact the raiding Council have had almost no input into this conversations at all. Likewise no one else removed anyone's forum permissions, they just remove badges. They were done by me. I remove forum permissions as people leave the guild or stop playing a game. It has nothing to do with why they leave. So someone could rage quit the Guild or post that they're no longer playing CS:GO due to work commitments and their forum permissions and badges would change accordingly. The method used to remove forum access is done through an automated script that runs once and hour. When a forum badge (in this case a Green WOW badge) is removed the script runs and the person is removed from the forum group attached to that badge. So it's an automated process. However when we realised that Niel had lost access to the forum half way through a conversation that he was part of, he was quickly added back again. This meant that he would still have the opportunity to respond and be part of the discussion, even though he had already left the Guild by then. Now that the discussion is over his badge and forum access has been removed as is normal, something he's told me he is quite happy with.

I could go on but I hope you can see that when you only have some of the facts it's easy to make assumptions that are wrong and to therefore make an argument that doesn't make any sense. There are two separate issues here. A problem with a raid night in the DMR Guild and activities on this forum. People can resolve issues with Guild problems in game, on Team Speak or through Private messaging on the forum. What we cannot do is air those problems or make direct criticisms of other people in an open forum. If we do then I'll delete those posts. When a thread has so many posts deleted that it becomes unreadable or when the main contributors ask me directly I'll delete a post. The only action taken by anyone else was when Penfold kindly merged two threads together to make the conversation more readable. Which makes perfect sense to me.

And so on to why was the forum thread deleted? Because after a friendly chat, Niel and I agreed it would be the best thing to do. While the choice was mine to make I did respect his wishes and we agreed that the thread had gotten way out of control and that it would be best if it was just closed and removed. Again to make the point I was not asked to close the thread by anyone else, it was between me and Niel only. I really couldn't care less about what went on in a WOW raid. It's got nothing to do with me at all. You can discuss the right way and wrong way to raid as much as you like. Agree - disagree I don't care. But on this forum I will delete posts that break forum rules regardless of who made them, which forum they are on or which game they relate to.

So you see most of what you've posted is simply not accurate. There's a lot more that makes your post meaningless but that relates to private messages sent to me and I'm sure you understand that I'm not going to discuss them here.

The irony is that I'm usually accused of not being willing to delete posts. My belief is that if someone makes a post and then later regrets it, tough. You said it, so you have to stand by it is my belief. In fact we never delete anything. Posts just get moved to a private forum called 'Compost Corner'. But I'll make the point again, we do remove posts that call out people by name and are directed against specific people. We can't let this forum be a place for people to have public fights with each other, especially when they are about something as trivial as a computer game. Discuss how we play a game, disagree about how best to deal with a raid encounter etc but please DON'T start being nasty to each other.

So actually your post above does name names and make critisisms about people. For example you call me out in your point 11. that I deleted the thread because I was trying to cover things up. That would suggest I'm a bad Forum Admin who misuses his responsibilities. So I could take exception to that. However I won't. I think this thread serves a useful purpose. It's very dangerous to base a whole argument on something about which we know very little. There's no witch hunt going on, I don't delete threads whenever I like just because I don't like the content or because certain privileged people ask me to as a favour for them. I delete posts when their negative content is directed at specific people, and those people find the comments upsetting.

I don't find your comments upsetting, just a bit silly, so I'm happy to leave this thread alone.

[Sharpfang]

This thing has just gone way out of proportion. Had people talked it thru, like grown ass men, instead of raging and cricizing
on a forum, this wouldnt have become an issue. RGT has great progress, difficult fights takes its toll on people and everyone
can have a bad day. If someone talks to you in a manner you dont appreciate, suck it up and TALK it out after the raid.
A storm in a glass of water comes to mind.

PS: With all this f'in drama we should talk to a tv network, bold and the beautiful go home!

[smilodon]

You know, and this really is just a personal opinion, I think forums are the worst place to try to resolve complicated issues. It can be so difficult to understand a persons mood when we can't hear a voice but just read lines of text. They say that the words are just a fraction of the conversation. Tone of voice and body language are so important. And you get none of that here. While we can't do much about body language, unless we all buy web cams we can make our conversations much easier on TS. I really think that's the place to discuss problems and issues. Not on a forum. Here's it can be hard to make a point and harder to understand the point being made. We should use the tools we have to have better conversations IMHO.

Also there is a group post facility on the forum PM service. It's easy to send PM's to several people and then to reply to all those people with a single message.

[Penfold]

I agree with the above.

I have no vested interest and I'm friends with the main protagonists here having known them all for several years (Niel included).

Smilo's post #3 hits the nail exactly on the head and I suggest everyone takes times to read it.

The problem arises that people posting (myself included) only know some aspects of the story and some details of the incident. The trouble is then you post what you know (or think you know) and invariably it's half-truths or hearsay and it  just inflames the situation and escalates things as others want to say that's not how it happened and where it went wrong.

For example.

Slush complains that the RL was harsh and abusive. I've been told that he wasn't. Which side is right?
Niel and Smilodon talked and Niel asked Smilo to remove the offending thread which he duly did. Now there's no reason for others to know that and Slush's assumption then is that it's being swept under the carpet..... is wrong.

The original disagreement has now become secondary and is lost in this sea of half-truths, rumour and hearsay. This helps nobody.

For the sake of the others in DMR and for the wider community. This ends and it ends today and everyone moves on.

If ANYONE - and I don't particularly care on what side of the fence you're sitting - feels they can't move on then feel free to move out.

Please feel free to PM me (CC'ing Smilo) with your abuse to tell me how undemocratic I'm being but I'm looking to our Wider Community as a whole.

[smilodon]

Niel and Smilodon talked and Niel asked Smilo to remove the offending thread which he duly did.

I had better clarify this in case I get called on it. I and Niel spoke and we 'agreed' the whole thread should be removed. Niel actually came to me and asked for specific posts to be removed. A subtle distinction but if we're being called about our honesty it's worth me being clear. End of pedantic mode