Recent drama surrounding the staff

[Trilexium]

So recently (in the past few months) a lot has gone on for MCGamer- both in good ways and in bad ways. We've seen the departure of one YouTuber after another, and we've also seen the arrival of the AntVenom network to MCGamer. Let's get onto the YouTuber topic; in particular, let's talk about GoldEllipse.

Gold's a YouTuber with almost 13k subscribers, and very recently he put out a video stating his hatred for MCSG and saying that he and other YouTubers are moving on. He said some pretty off-colour things that I really didn't expect from Gold, but we hear it more and more now. The recurring theme of both Gold's video *which he later removed* and threads criticising MCSG/MCGamer is the staff team.

There are mixed opinions about the staff. On one hand, there are the people who claim that the staff team is bad- we don't do our jobs and we're corrupt, among many more reasons that people come up with. On the other hand, people say that the staff is hardworking and great. Negativity speaks louder than positivity (pessimist logic here) and so the staff usually get a bad rap.

So yeah. I guess I'm here to talk about people bashing the staff. Call me biased, making this thread as a moderator- I'll try to be as two-sided as possible here.

First, let's start off with people bashing the staff for being useless. Gold said in his video that he poked a mod asking them to deal with a hacker, and that the mod replied that they were busy. There are a couple of reasons as to why we can be busy:
- we're already dealing with something/someone (you can almost always count on getting no response from a mod in one of the meeting rooms, nor should you get mods for help if they're in a meeting room)
- we're doing something right now (could be non-MCGamer related, usually mods who are doing something non-MCGamer related are off duty as well)

Sometimes we plain-old just don't respond to your poke or your call for us in-game. This could be because:
- we're AFK
- we're doing something on another platform (handling a TeamSpeak issue, moderating the forums, etc)
- we're dealing with something in a meeting room (like I mentioned above)

If we're unavailable for any of these reasons, remember- there's more than one staff member. Get another. If they're busy, try another.

If at some point for any reason, no mods are available to help you, this is where initiative comes into play. I know it sucks, having to record hackers and effectively do a mod's dirty work for them, but sometimes you have to do things that you don't necessarily want to do. If you're unfit to get evidence for reports due to not having the needed resources to gather said evidence, turn to your friends- surely one of them can record it/screenshot it/do whatever and report it for you. If you're out of luck in any of these scenarios- there's nothing you can do except, well, do nothing. Wait for either a mod or another player to get evidence of a rulebreaker and continue playing as if you didn't know they ever existed.

*here's where I enter uncharted territory for myself*
There's also confusion about what senior mods do, and there's also claims of corruption against them. The senior mods do a few things. These are:
- act as middlemen between the mods and admins
- resolve ban disputes
- resolve more complicated issues with players (ie VIPs and staff members)
- hire and train staff members

I may have forgotten one or two small things, but these are the main things the senior mods do. They also get called corrupt for any number of reasons, the main one being (from what I observed) ban disputes. There are people who claim to be banned unfairly, and their bans are upheld by the senior mods despite doing nothing wrong. I don't know much after that, nor do I know any way of how to prevent such things happening.
Because their ban is upheld for *in the banned person's eyes* no good reason, the senior mods are labelled as corrupt. Once again, I don't know how this could be dealt with.

PS: Any comments reflecting the staff in a negative way will be looked at, and if it's deemed necessary, your post(s) may be removed. You've been warned.


</explanation end>

 

[overthetopgaming]

I don't know why people bash on staff.... Imagine if you are a mod, and see how it would feel to get hate because of people who complain. Mods voluntarily apply to make the server better for everyone to play. Not to just help you.

 

[Ceroria]

Thank you Dyna for saying something along these lines. I'm absolutely sick of people bashing on us for being "bad at our jobs", "corrupt", "butthurt", whatever. It needs to STOP. People form negative opinions on us for some crap rumors that started like a year and a half ago, that weren't even true anyway. I was going to write something like this myself, however I couldn't come up with a civilized way to talk about it without practically losing my head.

+1

 

[NuJaan]

It's quite childish how people call out the staff team. The staff team here is more hard working than any other community I have seen.

 

[McHazards]

this is true however i still am kind of sad that gold did this :-:

 

[boboy1999]

Its funny how people call out the staff and are rude but don't know half the things that happen behind closed doors between mods and higher staff. I wouldn't jude if you don't know 100% of the facts.

 

[RC_4777]

People love and support MCSG until things don't go the way they want them to. Kinda childish.

 

[OhFancy]

It's quite pathetic of what people say to staff here at MCGamer. I haven't seen another community with harder-working staff. GoldEllipse said that he was denied VIP and will try again, then a couple weeks later he states his hatred for MCGamer and it's staff and he will be moving on. He got muted because he admitted to hacks in a jokingly way, he was lucky that he got muted, most people get banned for 7 days for doing the exact same thing. I have never come across a non-working staff member- wait, I'll retract that statement due to one being demoted around a year ago, but other than that the staff here at MCGamer does their job perfectly fine.

I try my best to record as much hackers as possible due to the fact even the skightest help can make a difference. Around a week ago, I said to Dynarrhea- AnomalousDyna ily- that I had recorded a hacker and was uploading, what he did next was a staff-worthy thing. I stated that it was taking forever to upload and he recommended me a setting to render it as to help it upload. I went off to record more hackers but couldn't due to the fact I had uploading lag and couldn't retrieve sufficient evidence, I was shocked to see Dyna's name in the tab, he had not only followed me just incase and he said that he had gotten evidence already- so much for staff not doing their jobs heh? Dyna is the only one though, all the staff do their jobs, I love to see it, it makes me happy. I couldn't ask for a better staff team.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[GeckoGoggals]

I just don't understand how they find the bad in the staff team. There may be 1 or 2 mods that are bad, but bash the whole team for it? NO! No matter how I look at it, the staff team as a whole is pretty dog gone good. They do a lot more for us than we do for them. We just always want more, and we need to learn to become respectful, not spoiled.

 

[duckluv321]

It seems as though the majority of the dislike for the staff comes from a bandwagon effect. This wagon has several drivers, be it the few large YouTubers who have had issues with the staff, or some older staff-related drama. Many people involved are larger, respected members in the community, and this causes a lot of people to simply assume that what they are saying is true. The only thing I'll say on the bandwagon effect is that the ability to have your own thoughts, and opinions, and to use them for good things is very valuable. Never let someone else force their opinions into your own. Take into consideration the thoughts and feelings of others, but never take them as your own.

The staff team does their absolute best, and everything they do is with the community in mind. A lot of things might not seem like the best idea from the get-go, but often times, actions taken have been given plenty of thought, and look far into the future.

MCGamer is a community of hundreds upon thousands of people with different thoughts, defilement feelings, and different styles. It would be nearly impossible to please everyone, and though I know the staff team does their absolute best to do so, sometimes what the community wants isn't what the community needs, or ends up not as great as it originally seemed.

It seems as though often times minor mistakes, or simple decisions and actions are placed under a microscope, and every negative detail is zoomed in on to make a crystal clear picture, but all the extra, positive details are minimized, and often forgotten. There are pros and cons to almost everything,mane unfortunately, as is human nature, people tend to look upon the cons, over the pros.

You can't judge an entire group of people based on one persons opinion about one person's actions. You also can't judge a decision based on what your favorite YouTuber has to say, or what the "word on the street" is. Many people are super quick to jump to conclusions instead of gathering facts, and viewing both perspectives, which is understandable- most people don't log onto the forums or other social media and dig deep for all the facts, and form an official opinion- they simply work with what they've got. I've done it, heck, we probably all have, but when it comes to big situations, a little bit of fact-searching can go far.

Each staff member often has a strong suit, or as I like to call it- a habitat I've seen countless posts regarding people with "two forum posts and got mod". The forums are a great way to be in-the-know with the MCG community, but many people who apply for staff with low-forum posts and in-game activity may be just as involved, and capable, if not more, as someone with 500 posts on the forums. Personally, I'm a sucker for the forums, but I could definitely use some improvement with my teamspeak activity, and I think it's the same situation for many people. Though being well-rounded is awesome, if someone is able to excel in one area, it'd be better (in my opinion) than to do a mediocre job at two simply because they feel like they have to.

In the end, there are two key things to remember when it comes to any kind of MCG drama- your opinion is just as valid as anyone else's- understand, and consider the thoughts of others, but never adapt them as your own to fit in with the crowd. MCG is a huge community made up of all kinds of people who all think differently, and when something goes awry, there will be all sorts of opinions flying around, but before you give yours, make sure you know what you're talking about, and what effect it may have on others.

(I feel like I need to add a smiley face because this post has smiley face withdrawal )

 

[Mooclan]

As one of the people that has argued both for and against the staff, here's a few points that I'd like to make.
Keep in mind that I'm not a staff member, never have been, and do not intend to apply in the near future.

- While we may make claims of "Staff Corruption", keep in mind that the vast majority of staff members are not "corrupt", and our very usage of the term is quite extreme.

- Staff members aren't always mean and intimidating. I used to think that they were, and for at least half of my time at MCSG I had very little contact with any staff members, but now I've started to meet a few more of them. Originally, my only contact with seniors staff was when one of them pulled me up to a staff channel at 1:30 AM and lectured me for about half of an hour. That made my initial outlook on the staff rather negative, but over time I've come to learn and accept that the staff members are really quite decent people. Heck, almost all of them joke around just like regular people, just that in public they have to maintain a mature attitude.

(I started writing this post like two hours ago >_> I had to go AFK, and so I forgot where I was going with this post.)
But basically, don't hate on them.
I know I've done it a bit before, and I'm not proud of it.


Also, as duckluv321 pointed out, the bandwagon thing can have a surprisingly large effect.
Especially on the forums and YouTube, people often adopt the opinion of someone else based upon who they are and how logical they make it sound, and not their own personal feelings.
Back before I was a forumer, I used to listen with rapt attention to anything that RC_4777, HalfSquirrel, The_Arena_Master, and Duckluv321 said, whether or not I agreed with it. At the time, those four people were my forum "idols" who I held in very high regards. I foolishly considered anything that they said to be true, often forgetting things that I had personally heard of experienced, just so that I could "jump on the bandwagon" and earn the "approval" of those forumers. (Luckily, those four were almost always relatively spot-on, so even though I was a bit foolish in my actions, I wasn't led too far astray.)

Now that I'm in a similar position as them, I'm forced to realize how much of an impact things that I say can be. I might not be as powerful of a writer or as convincing with words as them, but I still hold a level of responsibility, whether involuntarily or not, as a forumer that a few people look up to. (its so awkward saying that)

Please realize that while other people might say one thing, they are just as prone to make mistakes as anyone else. Just because your favorite YouTuber said one thing, doesn't mean it's true. The same goes for forumers - Just because I might say "Oh, so-and-so is mean. >:c" doesn't mean that it's true, only that it's my personal opinion. Please, don't make it yours as well without having your own experiences and rational conclusions.


On the topic of GoldEllipse, as was previously discussed on another thread - Really, I think he's blown the entire thing out of proportion.
Up until his mute, he was completely fine with MCSG. He expressed no hate towards it or the staff, and he was completely willing to support it by bringing in players through his videos.
He broke a plainly stated rule, and received a punishment many times less severe than what any regular player was. And yet, he still was upset to a degree that was rather absurd.


**gosh dangit my internet is about to be unplugged. >:C**

 

[BitoBain]

Why do people always think that the people who have power over them are corrupt? Why must it be a natural assumption that we should be wary of anyone and anything that has power over us? Is it because we are so bad at assessing risks? There may be a few staff members who screw up sometimes, but that does not mean that the staff are all part of some terrible organization devoted to making gamers miserable. They are just humans living normal lives, trying to moderate the game, forums, and teamspeak.

Perhaps people think that moderators get sprinkled with magic pixy dust when they become moderators; this juice turns them into emotionless robots who calculate everything perfectly and never falsely ban hackers. In reality, they go through training with prepares them somewhat for the job, and the rest they have to learn by experience, and sadly yet truthfully, by mistake.

Anyways, hearing people complain about things like the staff, the maps we have, fps, ping, etc... is a little silly once you gain some perspective. No matter how many little problems there are with MCG, the organization is still amazing. We get to play a violent game by controlling pixels with buttons on keyboards and mice. What could be more awesome than that? Then we get to go onto these forums and meet people from all around the globe, and talk out loud with people anywhere. The old saying that gratefulness brings happiness will never become outdated.