My Thoughts On GFL (More Informal)

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Hi everyone,

 

I am making this post to get a lot off my chest that I've been holding back for a very long time (years). Please keep in mind this is my personal thoughts/view and I know many people are going to go against what I feel is best for GFL. The reality is everybody has their own views and I respect that. However, a lot of these are foundations I built GFL on and those are things GFL should keep because it makes GFL stand out.

 

Introduction

For those that do not know, my name is Roy (my real name is Christian Deacon). I founded GFL in 2011 and owned it up until July when I passed the torch to @Aurora (who has done an absolutely great job, but I know she is going through a lot of the same struggles I went through). 

 

From early 2019 until I passed the torch to Aurora, I played a back-end role and played a huge part in GFL's Anycast network. While I was still owner, many people did not know who I was. Prior to 2019, I was both back and front-end. However, I had teams in-front of me to take the load including Directors, Council, and so on.

 

My Flaws And Failures

Before continuing, I would like to completely admit to my flaws and failures in the past/present. I'm basically going to roast the shit out of myself and it is needed/warranted. I don't think people gave me enough flack the past couple years of running as owner because I was back-end and not many people knew who I was (I felt quite guilty about this). Although, I will admit I got quite a bit of flack when I was more front-end throughout the years, but a lot of it was deserved.

 

Anyways, firstly, I am absolutely terrible at confrontation, stressful situations, or anything nerve wrecking. This was and still is by far my biggest weakness. I'd sometimes start shaking or freeze up completely or I'd try to avoid conflict all together and go "off the grid" (yeah, you could say I was a pussy). Although, I know in my head my intentions are good and I know the actions I'm making are right to me and what I felt was best for GFL (and I will still stand by that on a majority of the decisions I've made), I will admit when it came the time to break it to people I'm demoting for example or whatever it is, I will do it in the poorest way imaginable (it was cringe). This usually resulted in it becoming a shit show and some people personally getting more hurt (when making these decisions, I never mean for it to personally hurt others, but I will admit that's not really avoidable with how attached some people become to GFL and their positions). Although, I do think the result would likely be the same regardless.

 

If you want an example of this, you can watch a recorded demotion a long time ago with an old Division Leader named Violator.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7IYDqfsE8E&ab_channel=ViolatorChicka

I still stand by my decision and always will, but you can see how poorly I handled breaking the news in the video and it was certainly cringe-worthy (FYI the user "Xy" in that call is now @Aurora).

 

This is just one of the many examples in GFL throughout my past. I don't think I'm nearly as bad nowadays, but I wouldn't know that because I haven't dealt with situations like that in a long time for the most part. I'm certainly a more action-oriented person over discussion/arguments. I just do things and that's it. I do it because I believe it's what best for GFL, but that doesn't excuse how poorly I've handled confrontations and so on.

 

Secondly, I get burnt out way too easily and I have become uninterested in GFL towards the end of my ownership. The last big thing I contributed to was the Anycast network and even that had many issues on its own. The Rust performance issues a while back was likely caused by this. It was the same thing with TCP connections running slow like MySQL. Once the Anycast network was dismantled, things highly improved on that aspect. I failed there, badly. It has bothered me quite a bit since then to the point where I re-looked at the packet processing code written even though I had no use for it (I just wanted to know where I went wrong). But I couldn't find any issues with it. I came to the conclusion this was due to either Vultr/VPSs, the IPIP tunnel itself (less likely, but there are sometimes MTU issues with them), or XDP SKB mode resulting in more overhead than just plain IPTables due to the driver.

 

Either way, I should have fixed it either by rewriting the AF_XDP code so it supported XDP DRV/native mode or buying better hardware for things to run on. To tell everyone the truth, I was in a bad state mentally-wise for over a year at this time. I was drinking a lot, would get in a bad mental state, and never worked on anything until I found that slight bit of motivation which often times came too late. That's how it went. I wasn't "busy" like many people said/thought I was unless if it was for work or my open source projects, I just didn't want to due to the state I was in. I was lazy. I had plenty of time to develop and I didn't.

 

One thing I will say is I am in a much better mental state nowadays. I quit drinking completely and I have an amazing girlfriend who I love to death. My life is finally looking up and I'm gaining confidence I never thought I would ever have in my life.

 

The other flaw I have is communication. I am great at writing public posts I feel. I did it a lot in the Anycast network forum category and used to do it for front-end things in GFL back in the day (read here for threads). However, I have had communication issues with staff-related issues/discussions. I can't recall specific incidents at this time, but I know it has happened.

 

While I have other flaws as well, I think these are the biggest. I want to apologize for these flaws and failures I've had/have. A lot of them were critical, especially the Anycast performance issues since it led ultimately to some server's downfalls and that's not something I can take back. But I will try to get them back to how they were if I do come back.

 

I also want to apologize for how "all-over-the-place" this section is. I'm trying to get all of this shit off my chest at once and I will admit it's quite emotional. I am not going to say I was a bad owner from these flaws because I know I have other aspects that made GFL very successful. However, this has made me definitely more unique than any other server/community owner I know. If people think these flaws make me a bad owner, I respect that. But in the end, GFL was still successful regardless.

 

I guess my point is, I'm not some "GFL God" like many people make me out to be. I have many flaws and more flaws than others. I've seen so many people talk about me like I was heaven sent for GFL (if that's the right phrase lmao) and that just isn't the truth. But I will say I do everything I have done with the best intentions and only did what I felt was best for GFL itself in the long term.

 

My Thoughts/Opinions

Recently, I've become a bit more active in GFL just by browsing the forums and reading the Discords from time to time. I also been talking to some staff as well. To be honest, a lot of the things I'm about to go over are things I felt for years now, but didn't have the willpower or motivation to actually say something about. I held a lot of it in and just continued on with my "back-end work".

 

A lot of people are going to disagree on what I'm about to say and that is fine. However, I do think a lot of these things will result in GFL getting back on track because recently it has been going downhill from what I've seen.

 

GFL Politics

Those that know me know how much I absolutely hate politics, both in GFL and real life. I never pay attention to any politics and if you ask me who I vote for and so on, I will kindly say I'm not interested and if you give me shit, I will just start ignoring you (P.S. I really don't like people like that).

 

Anyways, the GFL Discords I am still a part of is filled with drama and GFL politics in my opinion. I've seen resignations due to it recently and I don't blame them. It's horrible. I don't mean to offend anybody, but if I'm coming to a new community and see "vote for me" and all this other political shit, I'm leaving immediately and I know I'm not the only one. People look toward gaming communities as a way to escape reality and real-life politics. Not get into an even worse type of politics (AKA gaming community politics).

 

This leads me to the next point, CR voting. I'm not going to lie, some of the people who has gotten into the CR position are great for the community from what I see, but the concept of CR Itself is bad for a gaming community. It all becomes a popularity contest in the end I feel. You have CR candidates who are putting it in their names, asking others to vote for them, and so on. From what I've heard, this all back-fired this past cycle which caused a lot of drama. The average age of all GFL players/members is more than likely certainly under the age 18 and there's a reason real-life politic voting or w/e is restricted to 18 and older (and even then, people get brainwashed like no tomorrow by all sides in my opinion). It's just not meant for a gaming community. It becomes a popularity contest.

 

I'm seeing more and more people say how much they dislike GFL due to all the political things going on inside of it. Now, on the flip side of this, I know many people are going to say if we're hand-picking staff instead of giving power to the people, it's favoritism. In this case, you're absolutely damn right. It does become favoritism, but people's definition of "favoritism" is so fucking.. dumb? I never understood this argument, but I think what makes more sense is how these staff are hand-picked. If people are given positions without showing any experience or interest in learning things/motivation (just for the pure fact that they're friends with the other), this is absolutely the wrong way. However, for me personally, I've always picked people who I thought were going to run a server/division successfully because they either had experience or were very convincing when telling me they were motivated or willing to learn what it takes. I love giving people a shot and I love creating new servers/expanding into new game modes to give somebody an opportunity. However, this is ALL FAVORITISM. I am "favoring" somebody for the role because I believe they'll do great. If I'm great friends with someone, but I see no motivation/skillset/interest in learning, I'm not going to give them a shot (and this has happened many times in the past when I was more front-end, some in which even stopped being friends with me for that solo reasoning which sucked, but w/e).

 

Anyways, I see this being the biggest thing in GFL that has turned people away. I know it turned me away from anything front-end related for years, but it seems to have only gotten worse since I've been gone. I do apologize if I've offended anybody, but these are all my views.

 

Rank Simplify

I'm not expecting this to get anywhere, but I figured I'd just share my opinion on it. Before explaining this, I just want to mention I'm not trying to downgrade the work people in roles such as GFX or PR have done. I'm sure people have done plenty of great work and I appreciate you all for that.

 

One thing I feel overwhelmed me and others for a while was the rank structure. To be honest, I miss it being extremely simple. Back in the day, our structure was more like the below.

 

Administrator (SoJa and I) -> Council -> Server Manager -> Admin -> Trial Admin -> Dev -> VIP -> Supporter -> Member

 

Nowadays I feel there are a lot more ranks such as GFX, PR, and so on. They do have their uses, but I just don't see them needing separate ranks on their own. I really wish we would have implemented a reputation system where if somebody does something GFX or PR-related, they get separate reputation pointers that perhaps they can spend on something.

 

I guess this kind of goes into the "focusing more on server-side" I will explain below. However, I do think having a more simplified rank structure would be beneficial. Something like the below.

 

Director -> Division Leader/Technical Administrator -> (Maybe Council?) -> Server Manager -> Admin -> Trial Admin -> Developer -> Mods (for Discord and so on) -> VIP -> Supporter -> Member

 

Also, I think "Head Admins" should be removed. I think internally people looking up to an individual is fine, but I just don't see any point of having Head Admins publicly visible. Admins should be seen at the same level. If some have more permissions than others, that's fine, but it doesn't need to be publicly seen.

 

I will explain more below.

 

Focusing More On The Servers Themselves

The next thing I want to talk about is focusing more on the servers themselves rather than the community. Our game servers are the reasoning we have a community and when they are suffering, the community suffers. I feel a lot of staff nowadays are more focused on the community side rather than the servers themselves which really shouldn't be the case. The servers themselves should be a priority. I want to go as far to say that all ranks should have an involvement with new servers.

 

I know back in the day when SoJa and I were Administrators, we focused on the servers themselves, creations, development, back-end work, and so on. The Division Leaders trusted us because they knew we had the best intentions. From what I'm told, nowadays, a lot of the higher ups are dealing with the community itself and drama. This is a game server community for a reason. The game servers themselves should be a priority. Everybody should be working on them and I truly believe if that becomes the case, we'll see a lot of progress.

 

With that being said, the reason I think the ranks should be simplified is so we can focus more on the server-side ranks itself since in the end, that becomes more important unless if we start retrieving a lot of attention elsewhere such as social media, etc. However, I still see the game servers as the biggest part of GFL so far (I would love for that to change somehow due to the community server downfall generally, but so far we haven't been truly successful elsewhere unfortunately).

 

Trust Ownership And Higher Ranks

Another thing I've noticed throughout the years is Division Leaders and Server Managers having a mindset everything must run through them for their respective divisions or servers. This many times included every single change (even if it doesn't affect gameplay). These DLs and SMs got upset or angry when somebody a higher rank (including the highest rank) tried to intervene. While I do believe communication should occur if something is fixed/changed either through DMs or a forum post (such as a changelog), the mindset of "everything should go through me" rubs me the wrong way. For example, what happens if there's a bug or an issue and the SM or DL isn't there to fix it, but another higher rank individual can. Should we "wait to go through the SM/DL to fix it" or just fix it from there on and log it via DM or changelog. The latter seems much more logical to me and that's how GFL used to operate in the earlier years (2012 - 2016). For example, GMod Purge back in 2014/2015 had a separate DL and SM handling the server, but I also went on there and did dev work and fixed many bugs I saw. The DLs and SMs never had an issue with me when I did this. The server was very successful in those years (getting to 95 - 100 players most of the day and ranked 4th on GameTracker at some point). We all need to trust each other more if we aren't already. I've been out of sync in GFL's staff, so I'm not sure if this would happen nowadays, but if it would, it needs to change in my opinion. Otherwise, I feel servers and the community itself will suffer to a degree (it may be small, but it's still something that would improve things).

 

Server Admin Visibility

This is something I know will trigger some people, but whatever. Again, just my view. I don't think admins need to wear any admin-specific tags or have themselves publicly known as admins on the server. I'll quote something @X2D (a great old Council member) said when he'd bring on admins in his old divisions/servers (mostly GMod). He said players shouldn't even know somebody is an admin until it is absolutely needed (e.g. the admin needs to do something in-game such as tell someone to calm down).

 

Many players hate seeing authority in a game server. Many of our players are younger age, and younger age generally dislike authority. Therefore, when an admin has very fancy tags showing off their admin rank, it rubs players the wrong way. Now, they can have fancy tags, just don't let people know you're an admin in it and if people ask, say it's a VIP perk so they'll be urged to purchase VIP for example (or Supporter).

 

While there are troll groups that will troll regardless, there are also troll groups who will only troll if they see somebody trying to show a certain type of (dominance?) on the server such as them being an admin. They want to piss off authority, but the chances of these troll groups going after people they have to manually find out are admins is lower and this results in less server drama. This also will likely make players feel more comfortable and result in them staying.

 

The less unneeded power an admin shows, the better. There is no reason to show off power unless absolutely needed. Hell, if somebody is doing something bad in the server, I feel the admins should try to talk to them like they're just a general player. If that fails, then obviously you can warn them and that'd basically be showing the power which is understandable.

 

We Need Fresh Blood

One thing people loved and hated about me is the fact that I love to expand. It's a blessing and a curse to an extent, but I truly believe expanding keeps the community alive. Ever since the Anycast network got dismantled after I left, server's population has fallen due to less POPs using A2S_INFO caching. You've seen this with servers like GMod Prop Hunt that has completely fallen and it was definitely caused by the lack of A2S_INFO caching.

 

What I've noticed happen in GFL in the past is it was once large and then it'd shrink slowly. This caused smaller groups who were more manipulative to feel like they cause more of an impact to GFL because it's already dying out. This gave them power and they'd often manipulate others against the Higher Ups because they would think the higher ups would give them more power as a result. It's extremely toxic. This happened a lot from 2016 - 2019 (until we built the Anycast network).

 

This is why I feel new blood is so important to GFL. Expansions, etc. The more new blood GFL would get, the less of an impact these groups would have even though they were still there.

 

I know this is a bit weird, but that's just my experience. Personally, I think we just need to start banning those groups straight-up and letting them go try to make their own gaming communities which would have a 5% chance of success (many in which, have failed in the past from my experience).

 

So yes, I fully support trying new game modes and games for game servers. I've done this a lot, had a lot of success and failures in the past. However, it's better than laying around doing nothing.

 

Give Others A Chance!

This is an add-on to the above. I believe we should give people chances as Server Manager and so on in new games servers pushed out. It's a great opportunity to see what they're capable of and give them a chance to learn and make a good server. If it doesn't work out for them, who knows, maybe in the process we find out something they may fit better in. Even if it doesn't work out entirely, it's still something fun for the other person. Something they may remember forever and who knows, maybe then can come back to it later on and succeed in it.

 

I know many people are going to say we need to improve our current servers and that is true. But new people should be given a chance at a new server in my opinion because it can be overwhelming bringing them on in an existing server. If there's a team working to improve the current servers, and then who cares if somebody else is given a chance at a new division or server? It can only benefit us if it works out.

 

Finally, As Laid Back Rules As Possible

This is another thing I haven't really looked into much, but for those that do not know me, I am very laid back. Perhaps too laid back. I legitimately don't care what anybody says towards me (although some things may hurt, I never do anything about it because I believe I should be stronger than words). I love mic spam, I actually used to do it a lot on a game called Holdfast, but it wasn't anything bad, just me singing over the mic while playing music through it or just screaming. Many people loved it and since it was local voice (only people around you could hear you) and people can mute you with a push of a button, I never saw it as hurting anybody. I mic spam with friends on Phasmophobia whenever we play ( @RivalRevival @Alexis @Hamtaro @JGuary55 @Ozkody or Killes and @DrakoHD know about this for sure lmao). Point is, I am all favor of laid back rules as long as people have a way to mute people quickly if need to be and people aren't getting hurt from it.

 

Now, on the flip side, I do absolutely hate it when somebody is attacking someone verbally for no reason or if the other person is innocent.

 

When I made GFL, I made it to be as laid back as possible. I wanted people to come home from school and chill out on a server or work not worrying about strict administration rules and so on. Obviously, GFL was A LOT more laid back then than what is now, but that's also due to society itself being so much different back then. Personally, I never insulted anybody ever, but I did like others feeling like they weren't going to get muted or banned for just messing around a little bit. Anything negatively directed towards somebody was a huge no-no though. Like if somebody was trying to insult somebody, they'd get a mute/kick/ban instantly. But just some people having general fun was fine.

 

I may make a post at a later time going through the specifics of this, but I understand if rules aren't changed as well. I just think we should make players feel as relaxed as possible in the game servers. I for one, wouldn't care if we had a RP server with local voice and people were going around playing music and singing, though 🙂 

 

To conclude, that's it. That's my view on things and how I believe GFL should go.

 

I guess a big question is also whether I am willing to return. My answer is yes because I am in the best position I've ever been at with life and have a lot more capacity. However, the role is up to the Higher Ups, so I don't know.

 

I do apologize if I offended anyone and for grammar mistakes. I wrote so much and feel so brain dead that I'm unwilling to go back and correct everything. I still think I made my points very clear.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

OWOWOOWOWUWUUWWUWUWUWUWUWU

[annoying furry 6,300 / 63,950]

this post is really long

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Just now, Aurora said:

this post is really long

I WENT ALL OUT IN WHICH INCLUDED ME ROASTING THE FUCK OUT OF MYSELF AND IM HAPPY ABOUT IT

[Ozkody or Killes 67 / 2,270]

Didnt even ping me so fucking rude I might need a forum mod

 

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,927]

I removed the video because I was worried about private matters, but was told that it would be allowed and so I re-added it.  Sorry.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

9 minutes ago, Joshy said:

I removed the video because I was worried about private matters, but was told that it would be allowed and so I re-added it.  Sorry.

It's okay! I was just trying to attack myself and nobody else really. Just wanted to show everyone what my flaws are and show I'm not this flawless figure some people make me out to be.

[Cassie 1,226 / 23,060]

legitimately some of the best ideas I've seen in a while. someone should put this guy in charge

Edited December 17, 2021 by Duc2000

[RivalRevival 986 / 13,674]

Can confirm the mic spam. 
 

You know me, I firmly believe gfl needs a thanos reboot, but I like the way you say it instead. 

[VilhjalmrF 2,099 / 30,684]

3 hours ago, RivalRevival said:

Can confirm the mic spam. 
 

You know me, I firmly believe gfl needs a thanos reboot, but I like the way you say it instead. 

I enjoy a good thanos reboot. Bring out the bot.

[Dinomoto 49 / 1,190]

Well, that was a refreshing read. 

[DaPainWayne 469 / 9,402]

11 hours ago, Roy said:

If you want an example of this, you can watch a recorded demotion a long time ago with an old Division Leader named Violator.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7IYDqfsE8E&ab_channel=ViolatorChicka

In the chat box: 
 

Spoiler

<15:52:19> You poked "Rick" with message: touch my penis

 

I started dying laughing as soon as I noticed that, and lost focus in the video lmao. Also, Butterking and Iron Gator... those names bring back so many good memories.

 

 

You really do make a lot of good points though, in this very, obnoxiously long, post. It's almost as if you ran it and know what you're talking about

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

2 minutes ago, DaPainWayne said:

In the chat box: 
 

  Hide contents

<15:52:19> You poked "Rick" with message: touch my penis

 

I started dying laughing as soon as I noticed that, and lost focus in the video lmao. Also, Butterking and Iron Gator... those names bring back so many good memories.

 

 

You really do make a lot of good points though, in this very, obnoxiously long, post. It's almost as if you ran it and know what you're talking about

Thank you! And shaking my head @Rick xD

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,927]

I'm not meaning to make you feel worse and I appreciate that you are taking the blame for it, but I suspect tunnel vision will kick in for a lot of readers and they're going to skim through parts until they see what they like.

 

The suggestions you are making are things that I really like too and you are far from the first person to suggest it (reference in server admins).  That being said: I think a lot of decisions were seeded and nurtured, and the challenges we see today have very deep roots.  Whenever anyone challenged it or said otherwise in 2016 I felt like they were quickly labeled as "toxic" or with a "bad attitude", and they were voted off the island.  Everything that was done had a message that was loud and clear, and it was very much different from the suggestions you're making today.

 

Had we done things different say for example a word never became against the rules, then nobody would bat an eye if it were used today.  Now that we have things in place there's a lot of pressure to act on it when things pop up on the radar and we have to make decisions that usually makes someone unhappy.  If we don't act on it then the person complaining or reporting it will be very much unhappy and will complain about us not fulfilling our roles as staff; similarly: the person being reported and punished for it is unhappy, and will say staff is being too hard on them maybe even personally biased towards them.  Because someone will always complain... we do have to do some political maneuvering to ensure we don't step on any landmines.

 

I don't think the revamps work well.  We've done lots of them and with many different groups including moderation.  I think because of the culture that has been nurtured the teams eventually converge back to their old ways.

 

On the bright side is that when I worked in customer service I could definitely point out which customers were upset.  They stick out like  sore thumb.  How about the happy customers who had rose pedals and red carpet treatment?  I don't know what it is, but these customers care less to say anything at all.  You need a very holistic view of your performance... sore thumb isn't a good measure, and GFL has always had one really big sore thumb no matter what we do.  It's not to say that I don't care and wont try to improve, but I wont lose any sleep at night thinking about it.

[Duck. 489 / 0]

I do agree with CR. To me, it is pointless because, as you said, it's a popularity contest. With the constant campaigning from CR candidates and their friends, I don't see how a community vote is a viable way to introduce someone new to the fold. I'd like to see CR introduce some form of anonymity, with a clause stating that you can't identify yourself as a CR candidate to others and if you do you'll be disqualified from running, the posts will be anonymous so we can judge them based off the content of their... content, I guess, and that way, when push comes to shove, we have new faces, but we only know them based on what their posts say and what they can do for the community.

[Avi 97 / 1,421]

20 minutes ago, Duck. said:

I do agree with CR. To me, it is pointless because, as you said, it's a popularity contest. With the constant campaigning from CR candidates and their friends, I don't see how a community vote is a viable way to introduce someone new to the fold. I'd like to see CR introduce some form of anonymity, with a clause stating that you can't identify yourself as a CR candidate to others and if you do you'll be disqualified from running, the posts will be anonymous so we can judge them based off the content of their... content, I guess, and that way, when push comes to shove, we have new faces, but we only know them based on what their posts say and what they can do for the community.

You know, I've seen this method actually work well in the real world; an organization I was a part of in school used this method. Nominees would fill out an application of questions they would respond to in short paragraphs. All identifiers were removed to prevent identifying the applicant (i.e. an example to relate to here if I were to say I am a server admin of Rotation, the identifying "rotation" part would be removed to make it harder to identify who I am). All members would read each application that were numbered instead of the person's name, and then select the people they felt would fit the role based on the number of slots we needed to fill. I actually like this idea and think it could make selections more about what a candidate could bring to the table instead of bringing their name.

Edited December 17, 2021 by Avi
Wording clarification

[Rick 1,651 / 17,972]

I agree with a lot you said here. Although my view is partially because im an old fuck and nostalgia im not here to bash on current GFL because current GFL is doing pretty good however obviously I agree with everything @Roy says about the GFL Politics. I think the system itself is a bit overboard for a gaming community and although its implementation to prevent true favourtism or the "popularity contest" it became the exact same thing. 

 

tbh half the people here are just around to play games and fuck around not get all fancy with literal crap. 

 

oh and there was a lot we did wrong back in the day but we learn from our mistakes and improve and that was the fun of it. 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Rick

[Nick 1,249 / 17,847]

Trying my best to stay out of GFL politics since I have wasted too much of my life already on it through the years, haha, but I cannot help myself.

 

Firstly, I am glad that someone has finally called for the GFL Battle of the Roles 2021; I was afraid we were going to miss it! 😛

 

Politics & top-level leadership

Jokes aside, for a lot of people who don't know me and probably also a lot of people who do, it might come as a surprise that I am not a big fan of politics or bureaucracy. I do think gaming communities such as GFL would thrive a lot more under single-point leadership throughout the hierarchy, and I think we should strive more towards this in ranks such as SM and DL (where we somewhat often have multiple people with decision-making authority; I will talk a little more about this further down).

 

However, for quite some time GFL's owner has not been directly leading GFL. This is not to talk bad about you @Roy; I wouldn't wish the full responsibility of GFL on my worst enemy! With the owner and leadership being split up, bureaucracy was needed in order to somehow split the decision-making authority. Now I am very biased about this since I had a big part in the design, but I think Council is a very good solution to this specific problem. It is without a doubt as @Joshy also mentioned deeply rooted in earlier practices: in each iteration of the ranks being redone, a group of people in power had to agree on how to split the power (often among themselves, haha) which can only lead to bureaucracy. I fear it would only be possible to break this chain if we started completely over.

 

To simplify the top-level, I believe the owner and the leader of the entire community must be the same person, and that requires an insane amount of dedication and motivation; the kind I think you can only get from being excited about a new community you just started (e.g. Roy and SoJa in the early years). It would be nice, but I simply do not find it feasible at this point in GFL.

 

Simplification of hierarchy

I don't think I see a problem with our hierarchy at the moment; except at the top where it gets quite complicated due to the above. I think Teams is an important part of GFL which we need to focus more on building up to achieve our goals (I will talk a little more about this further down). I really wish I had some good ideas for this; I think the main issue I had as a TL was breaking the cycle of distrust. Some teams have historically not performed super well and thus have gotten a bad reputation which results in less requests from the rest of the community. It might be worthwhile to do a workshop for discussing improvements.

 

Trusting higher ranks

It is very nice that @Roy brings up trusting the people above you in the hierarchy to make changes to your server or similar; it is a big issue in GFL. In my time as staff, I have had to resolve many conflicts regarding an SM or a DL feeling stepped on... also felt stepped on myself which I did not handle particularly well. What I have always recommended is that the parties make an agreement on what they expect and so on where it is described e.g. when a DL can step in and fix a bug and so on. It does not have to be a super formal thing.

 

The important part is that trust and respect should go both ways. I don't believe we should force a mentality where you just have to "suck it up" if your superior changes something; ideally, no one should feel stepped on and everyone should be confident in what the other party is doing. This is hard, if not impossible, to do perfectly, but communication is key!

 

Give more people chances

I wholeheartedly agree that we should give more people chances in role such as SM and DL. I have for a long time been concerned about the requirements for these types of roles since we often require someone to be good at everything from staff management to the technical stuff. I apologize to people who had read this rant a million times before, haha.

 

I think it is vital that we built up a more reliant and trusted development team and TA rooster who will, as the names imply, be responsible for development and technical administration for all servers. Thus an SM or DL will have more time to focus on staff management, expansion, and so on. As mentioned earlier, I am not a fan of having multiple SMs, and the most common distinction between two co-managers is a technical and non-technical manager; this could hopefully eliminate the need for a technical manager.

 

The classic argument I hear when I bring this up is that some servers require a dedicated developer or something like that; this model would not prohibit that since the development team could allow a developer to primarily work on a specific server and for TA we already got divisional TAs.

 

This was also the main train of thought, when Division Representatives was designed for Council: I wanted a Council where DLs had a say, but without immensely inflating the requirements for being a DL (i.e. they'd also become part of Council), thus the compromise Well-Established Division was born as a way to give long-living divisions representation without discouraging the creation of new, experimental divisions with their own DL who likely should not be held to the same standards as a DL of a more well-established division.

 

All in all, use our teams, TAs, and so on more to simplify requirements for roles such as SM and DL, and in turn be more willing to let new people have a go at it.

 

I think I got around to say everything I wanted... plus a little more.

 

Quote

If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Nick

[annoying furry 6,300 / 63,950]

1 hour ago, Nick said:

it might come as a surprise that I am not a big fan of politics or bureaucracy.

 

hmm

[flying4ssassin 108 / 3,879]

8 hours ago, Joshy said:

GFL has always had one really big sore thumb no matter what we do.  It's not to say that I don't care and wont try to improve, but I wont lose any sleep at night thinking about it.

I think part of the issue is that the people who are the sore thumbs are the ones who since if you are enjoying a game server and have no issues you don't really need to talk admins and stuff.

 

7 hours ago, Duck. said:

I do agree with CR. To me, it is pointless because, as you said, it's a popularity contest. With the constant campaigning from CR candidates and their friends, I don't see how a community vote is a viable way to introduce someone new to the fold. I'd like to see CR introduce some form of anonymity, with a clause stating that you can't identify yourself as a CR candidate to others and if you do you'll be disqualified from running, the posts will be anonymous so we can judge them based off the content of their... content, I guess, and that way, when push comes to shove, we have new faces, but we only know them based on what their posts say and what they can do for the community.

This would work, but are CR's even really needed? Like imma be honest, they don't do much and council doesn't do much. I think part of the issue I and others have had with it is that you get a shiny title and you get to be in council, but at the end of the day you can do most of the things you want to do as a CR without being a CR.

I guess what I am trying to say is, instead of trying fix a broken system, just get rid of it and quite honestly sorta dissolve council into a public meeting of directors, DLs, and maybe TLs. Of course council shit will still need to get done, but the directors are there to deal with that since they are directors for a reason. (Also before anyone mentions it, I am not salty about being removed from council since their reasoning was completely valid and quite honestly I would have done the same).

 

I think something that is not really mentioned here is that part of the reason why GFL politics suck is that people do not know what the role actually do. I saw this a lot during the last CR race where a lot of people had absolutely no clue what CR was and then when they had it explained still did not understand it that well. Another example I have seen is with people expecting DLs and people to be directly involved and micromanage stuff since they see the fancy color and the cool title. I think most the GFL politics issues cannot easily be solved (other than yeeted everyone involved but that is not really a solution, it is more of avoidance) and that a lot of it could be solved by just explaining more of the inner workings of GFL more and be upfront about stuff like, "yes favoritism does exist when choosing for certain roles but that is because he know the person and believe they are capable to do the task and while there are other capable they have not really shown that are". That wording is kinda shit but I think it gets my point across. I tried doing this while I was SM for TTT MC and it sorta worked but it never really did anything since the server died and only caused problems no matter what was done (this is part of the reason why I resigned from it).

Anyway this is a great post and is basically what I had no clue how to put into words lol

Edited December 18, 2021 by flying4ssassin

[Duck. 489 / 0]

8 hours ago, Beaker said:

Issue with anonymous voting is that sometimes I have to know the exact person I am voting for. I understand the purpose of anomynity as it "levels the playing field".  But there could be candidates that have left a bad taste in my mouth, or that I would know wouldnt be that good at performing CR things. It also allows me to research the candidates name and history.

 

Take American presidential candidates for example. Candidate " bitch ima cow" and " suck my nuts". Candidate "bitch im a cow" has had long history of advocating for poopsocks. The "suck my nuts"  guy has had a long history of being anti poop sock. I am in which in favor of poop socks. The candidate "suck my nuts" also eats puppies for breakfast in which i find egregious. Especially if I am given the candidates name, I can research more about them. Like I never knew "bitch im a cow" killed Osama Bin Laden, pretty cool!

 

I also dont know how cr anoymous questions would look like. My bet is that most of them will look pretty similiar and it would be harder to discern who to pick for. Then it would become a game of ini mini mini mo. unless if the questions are executed well.

But Beaker, this is cringe! You basically admit here theres people who you'll never vote for if you knew they were participating, hence favoritism and bias. That's the point of the anonymity, to remove any preconception of those issues.

 

I'm also keen for the dissolution of CR though, doesn't seem like a worthwhile role much.