Ops Promotion & Fall Out

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Ops Promotion & Fall Out

Post by Nymphetamine »

I know there's a lot of debate and discussion going on about why we chose the people we did, and a lot of people are unhappy about it. I know that there's some speculation regarding Igor's reaction, and the posts he made first on the forums and then the mailing list, that hasn't been addressed. We expected some drama and some unhappiness regarding our decisions, but we hadn't anticipated the vitriolic reaction we got.

I promise by tomorrow morning there will be a post made by the ops regarding all of this, and I appreciate your patience while we deal with it.

Thanks.

PS: I intentionally left this thread open for comments, but I will close it the moment it starts getting bitchy or starts demanding answers of why we did what we did.
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Re: Ops Promotion & Fall Out

Post by Selestia »

I'm not sure what I can say that won't fall into the "bitchy" or "demanding" category. I've already voiced my disagreement with the choices so there's not much else I can say. I'm sure the people who are up in arms about it are old-skoolers who would be better choices but don't want it. I don't know Suz and I don't know Obsidian. They don't come over from Sorcery with us. I've been told that Suz was an old skool BDI from the 90s who has been a lot of help lately. Fine. I can live with they, they seem like good people. Obsidian just appeared when I came back and no one can tell me a thing about him.

Now. Alex. I think that's where everyone has issue. Sorry, but it's true. I can't respect an Op I have on ignore half the time. I had been told that if I could act civilly that the past would be the past. I'm not sure what to make of that. What I don't understand is how someone who was on the verge of getting banned just months ago now has the @?

I'm standing with Igor and a few others on this. The folks who joined up with BDI after the move haven't seen a lot of me not do they know me from before I took my sabbatical, so my opinion has little weight for them. And they will probably blow me off because of my recent temperament, but whatever.

So. Until this is resolved, I find myself homeless for an RP channel at this time.
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Re: Ops Promotion & Fall Out

Post by Alex »

I expected a reaction from this, but I didn't expect Igor's reaction. It's disappointing that he chose to do what he did and I'm disappointed in the way he handled it. Not that it makes much of a difference. I'd prefer people stick around and see what I plan to do as an op, but I'll understand if they don't. I'd hoped that with the "clean slate" approach we took with the move to DarkMyst that things would be different.

Selestia, all I meant by that was that if you were willing to bury the hatchet with regards to our prior disagreements, I'd be more than willing to do the same. The offer still stands, for you and anyone else, should you ever decide to come back. As far as I'm concerned, the door is always open.
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Re: Ops Promotion & Fall Out

Post by TheC »

I am going to be totally honest.

I have had problems with Alex in the past because he is abrasive and has little respect for other players. However, I trust those who made the decision on the current OPs. They clearly weighed the decision heavily and it was not as if they did not have others to choose from. There is a REASON that they picked the players that they picked. And I think everyone should cool their jets and just see what happens.

Great things could be afoot! And if the current (new) OPs fail or things go sour - have some faith in your former OPs to make the right choice and remove the @ from whoever is causing the trouble. I think there is a lot on the line as far as having to prove themselves and having to earn the @ and the respect from the players, but those who are leaving in a huff aren't even giving them a chance to show what they are capable of. Or that they are capable of change in Alex's case.

Why would Margo or Dan assign @'s to people who could not be trusted.. after all the work they have put into moving this channel, making a new website and trying to really get things rolling again? Give them some credit - they aren't going to let new @'s run their hard work into the ground.
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Re: Ops Promotion & Fall Out

Post by Selestia »

You had a problem with Alex because he is abrasive and has little respect for other players. You just summed up the majority of my issue with him being in charge. Like I said, I have zero respect for an Op I have on ignore half the time. (The last time he was on ignore it was after he called me a condescending c*nt because I was defending a friend's storyline).

Again, lemme reiterate: this is a guy who was on the verge of getting BANNED who now has the @. I'm gonna be frank, and this will stir a hornet's nest and my ears will be singed off my head, but I really feel like this is almost a case of nepotism. Where friends/family were promoted instead of someone who was suitable. If they didn't have a suitable candidate, they should have left the spot open until someone stepped forward.

For the record, I did apply for the position, but do not want it. I'm in no state of mind to take care of myself half the time, let alone a channel. (For those who are joining the soap opera of OAmy's World, my baby sister recently passed away unexpectedly and I've been dealing with the emotional/financial fallout, hence my "bitchiness".)

I could say I don't care what Alex wants to do or where he wants to go as an Op, but that's a lie. It terrifies me, and it has angered old skoolers because now he has legitimate authority to do What. He. Wants. And that's scary.

I still have yet to hear anything on Obsidian, so mum's the word on him. *shrugs*
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Re: Ops Promotion & Fall Out

Post by Nymphetamine »

Selestia wrote:Again, lemme reiterate: this is a guy who was on the verge of getting BANNED who now has the @. I'm gonna be frank, and this will stir a hornet's nest and my ears will be singed off my head, but I really feel like this is almost a case of nepotism. Where friends/family were promoted instead of someone who was suitable. If they didn't have a suitable candidate, they should have left the spot open until someone stepped forward.
On the verge of getting banned in the last year? The last 8 months? There's been almost no conversation about banning Alex since ODan, Amy and I took over the channel. There was *one* mention of it, where I emailed them both and told them that if they were holding off on banning him because of regard for me, that they didn't have to.
Selestia wrote:For the record, I did apply for the position, but do not want it. I'm in no state of mind to take care of myself half the time, let alone a channel. (For those who are joining the soap opera of OAmy's World, my baby sister recently passed away unexpectedly and I've been dealing with the emotional/financial fallout, hence my "bitchiness".)
We knew you didn't have time, given how little you'd been around in the channel since the move and most of the summer. This is why you weren't selected. (But thank you for wasting our time applying for a position you didn't want.)
Selestia wrote:I could say I don't care what Alex wants to do or where he wants to go as an Op, but that's a lie. It terrifies me, and it has angered old skoolers because now he has legitimate authority to do What. He. Wants. And that's scary.
I don't know what gave you the impression that any of the new ops would have "legitimate authority to do What. He Wants." No where was it ever said that we were giving them the keys to the castle and letting them go off and do whatever they want, without review, without consideration or moderation from Dan and myself.
Wolfram wrote:We're looking for people that we can trust with managing the channel for the long term, and so we will be initially critical of newbie ops. Consider this like the first three (six?) months on the job; if for some reason it doesn't work out, there are no hard feelings.
Which we totally and fully intend to hold each of them to. If Alex or any of the others does anything that jeopardizes the stability of the channel or setting in any manner, whatsoever, they will be removed, without consultation, without reprimand, and without a vote regarding their behaviour. If we have a problem with one of our probie-operators, we will take care of it, decisively and swiftly, and this was always the intention. We told each of them this that it's one chance, and if they fuck it up, they're gone. No questions asked, it's as simple as that, no ifs, ands or buts. Wherever the idea came from that they were going to get run of the setting and be allowed to do whatever they wanted without consultation of the full op team is an asinine and erroneous assumption on your part.

The bottom line is: If they fuck up, Dan and I take responsibility for making a mistake, remove them, and fix whatever they broke and keep going on with our plans for rebuilding the channel.

Hate him or all of them if you want. The fact still remains that they were willing to put in the time commitment, effort and dedication required to continue building up the channel from its 3-4 year slump, and that's why they were chosen.
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Re: Ops Promotion & Fall Out

Post by Obsidian »

Mum's the word indeed. So I suppose I will weigh in on the topics at hand.

First, I'm not going to get knee deep in snark and positioning. It doesn't do anyone any good and just makes for a flame war, which is not what I'm here to do. With that in mind...

Second, it seems like the big issue here is that Alex was made an op. I'll say this on the matter. I have been playing with Alex on and off for about a year to the date. We played on and off because I had my own share of OOC issues that kept me from being more active on DarkMyst. That being said, there are a few things about Alex that people seem to take offense to. Primarily, Alex is pretty cut and dry. He says what he thinks and weighs in on topics where he has an opinion. Most of us do this, we just don't do it as honestly and as pointedly. As with any other person, you can take what he has to say in several different directions. Because Alex is Alex, some of you take what he has to say as trolling/snark/whatever. The fact is, a lot of the time, those I've seen get upset with Alex are really putting words in his mouth. I'm on the receiving end of 'flack' from people all of the time, and I give it out in ample doses. The deal is, I don't take it personal. It's funny to me. Alex makes me laugh.

Regardless of the above, Alex has made it very plain that he wants to take his position as Operator very seriously, and understands the gravity of the situation. He's professed this himself several times. This really comes down to the fact that certain people dislike the guy for their own reasons, and now that he is considered a channel Operator of the storied Black Dragon Inn, people are calling foul, regardless of knowledge regarding Alex's intentions or purposes. In short, you don't like Alex because you don't like Alex, and any other opinion is null. It's going to fall on deaf ears because you. don't. like. him.

That's your opinion and you are more than entitled to it, but your opinion has little to do with why the man was selected, or further, what Suz and myself were selected. The fact is, we were selected and entrusted with being Operators of a great roleplaying channel. The persons who selected us had their reasons, and weighed the possible costs and fallout of their issue. To call to question so many different things about our selection is to call to question the competence of the current Admins themselves, and considering the fact that most of those crying foul could have or were Operators and Admins at some point in time is pretty telling, to say the least.

Third, I personally find your statement, Amy, that you applied for the position but no longer want it as a cop-out, but those are my personal feelings on the matter. We all have baggage and OOC drama and other real life issues that are bound to pop up on occasion. Your self admitted soap opera of a world really has no place or basis with and in regards to BDI, other than I'm sure you have some if not most of our condolences. But to prop your, again, self implied 'bitchiness' up with those reasons is a bit flimsy, considering the obvious overtones of disagreement and dislike in both of your messages.
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Re: Ops Promotion & Fall Out

Post by Wolfram »

On the case of nepotism, I would like to mention that Margo said repeatedly during the time where she was coming up with her votes that she didn't want this to be a case of "Margo vouches for each of these so they must be awesome". But the idea that one can entirely disassociate oneself from personal feelings about another in times of judgment is kind of absurd. If someone is a friend of ours, they are probably a friend of ours because we have found in them qualities of which we approve.

I approved of Alex not because he was a friend of mine (I'd say coolly distant, at best), but because of his interest in working the setting. The official keys to the channel and all back-end content are still in the hands of Pat, Margo, and myself, and I feel that Alex is self-aware enough to put his feelings on the backburner when it comes time to work for the channel. I simply didn't feel that about many of the other applicants. If I'm proven wrong in this, so be it, and in the call for ops I intentionally left us a method by which to address this.

Except Margo posted quicker than me so that second paragraph has been covered regardless. Dammit, woman.
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Re: Ops Promotion & Fall Out

Post by Selestia »

Yanno, I'm on IRC as Selestia right now if anyone one of you wanted to talk to me about my concerns. Instead it's really looking like you're ganging up on me because no one else wants to speak up about it for whatever reason, either than they really don't care, don't have a problem with it, or don't want to be ostracized. Whichever works for them, but as I said, I'm online.
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Re: Ops Promotion & Fall Out

Post by Nymphetamine »

No one's ganging up on you, Amy. Everyone's replying to you in the same format you chose to address your concerns in. You know how to find us if you want to talk to us in a less public place.

Locking the thread, regardless.
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