Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1
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I don't think it's really a good thing to have a separate RTS advertised on FAF related platforms by those financially/otherwise invested in it, but I also don't think that people invested in these ordeals should be discredited when they have a criticism of a part of FAF simply because they could potentially gain finacially/otherwise.
I also would like to state that toxicity occurs in all aspects of leadership, upper management, etc. I believe that is simply just how people who make it to those bigger positions are, you have to have an ego, and egos tend to clash with one another. I will take FTXcommando for example. He spends a lot of his free time invested in this community and carefully crafts his posts about tournaments, balance, general management and the like, while also organizing events, none of which he has to do, because he himself cares about making this community better. I would not expect anyone without strong convictions to be able to do that, and people with strong convictions usually lean towards to the more toxic side of things when disagreements arise.
I don't think airing dirty laundry is really relevant at all to this community, everything should be based on merit, and what you have to bring to the table. Sure, I do believe steps can be taken to make the FAF community as whole a less toxic environment, but I think once you step behind the curtain, that toxicity is irrelevant in the face of actual results. Trying to make the people running FAF less toxic to each other should have a low priority compared to finding the right people to do the job of building up and refining the community/FAF itself.
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Part of the issue is that many of the big contributors to FAF have left/stopped contributing as a result of toxicity, and if we allow the toxicity to continue, many more contributors will stop contributing to FAF as a result of toxicity in the future.
Also, some substantial portion of the 21,000 newish players that FAF loses each year are lost due to toxicity. I have talked to numerous people about this, and I believe that the number of people lost to toxicity is in the thousands per year.
Imagine if FAF had 10,000 more active users. Imagine how many of them would eventually become serious contributors.
Imagine how much better FAF could be if we didn't lose so many potential players and so many already great contributors as a result of toxicity.
Surely, something substantial should be done to curb that toxicity. -
Most toxicity folks people referenced are qanon supporters and not Ftx’exs from folks I talked too
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So when is part two coming out? Can I preorder it?
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- Toxicity in FAF is bad, as lots of people pointed out in my thread about why they would leave FAF. Toxicity repels new members of our community. At the moment we lose 21,000 newish players a year. Once we fix this and few other barriers to entry, we can start paid advertising to get more players and grow. But unfortunately on FAF .. toxicity goes all the way to the top.
Toxicity in faf is actually not that bad by any gaming standards. If anything we are way better off than many other way more popular communities out there.
So no I don't think that the toxicity is the main culprit of people going away from this game.
And no we don't lose 21000 new players each year. Those players are bound to disappear one way or another as no one sane will ever think about having 100% retention rate. If anything we are currently doing quite good if we have 10% retention rate over a span of whooping 2 years. That means that 10 people out of 100 will keep on playing this game for 2 years straight which is amazing.As a point of contention I will bring up latest TF|2 events that community did together with help of Respawn and a sale.
Before the event we avaraged 2.5k people globally at 11pm. After sale we peaked at good 8k people and slowly started coming back to normal numbers. After 3-4 weeks we were down to good old 3.5k players at said hours and slowly declining to the numbers of hardened veterans.
Seeing that stuff is not looking so great we decided to run a massive social media campaign urging everyone to come and play TF|2 together with us on may 1. Spamming reddit, twitter, forums and trying to expose other FPS players to what TF|2 is and why should they give it a try for the low price of 5 moners.
This is also the moment when Respawn took up our memes and decided to grace us with 4 day period (31.04-03.05)of TF|2 being free to play for everyone on steam and origin. This is where we peak, 22k players online in the EU evening.
After that the free period is over but we still see amazing amount of players averaging around 10k(13k weekends) for the first few days after the free trial. Honestly big success considering the sale is long over and there is this many people willing to buy the game at full price(or maybe on g2a lol). Unfortunately the numbers don't hold up and soon enough people start slowly dropping our one by one and going back to other actively maintained games. Now 1 full month after that event we are at 3k people average (4.k players on weekends). And that is only one month after the our big community campaign with lots of them also being returning veterans.Now if you compare it to the 10% retention rate of faf over the span of 2 whooping years I think you can finally see that FAF is actually doing pretty well in this departament. Even more when I can 100% tell you that TF|2 community is actually just as prone to salt considering certain balance issues there and a big stigma regarding certain weapons, titans and loadouts which goes way beyond what our usual gap/astro bashing looks like. Also, both games are critically acclaimed but underplayed so we have that too in common lol. Oh, and TF|2 is just as merciless
for new players as FAF.So no I don't think that your justification of not working on external promotion is anything more than just an excuse for you not doing any other real work apart from setting up news-hub and then more or less maintaining it. Even more when the topic that was supposed to gauge out our problems is so friggin old it's not even funny.
To be honest, I don't believe that you are so inept to only start working on it now after all this months of that data lying there and being useless. It's just that only now you had a bigger stake in all of this than just improving FAF (which let's be frank you weren't so interested in lately)
It's just that now is the best moment for you to actually try to gain as much leverage as you can before being actively removed from your duties due to not doing that much work and most importantly clear problems with conflicting interests due to your work on direct competitor to FAF. Which you never bothered to properly disclose to others together with other folks that are part of FAF. And that is something that you as councilor should have done long ago which only just proves that our mistrust is was properly placed.@nine2 said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
Look at the abusive names our councilors call people on reddit. Sure, the player he is talking to was problematic and was banned, and sure the post has since been moderated, thank god, although it's still there on reddit. But the point here is that our councilor that represents FAF, and a moderator of our reddit, is abusive.
The matter at hand was again and again dealt with politely. To the detriment of whole FAF that was suffering under this persons unhinged and often psychotic attacks. Person in question was politely asked again and again to start behaving as the FAF policy asks to. Not to be a dick to every person he desnt agree with, to not sabotage work of other contributors, to not steal the work of other people, to not harass faf moderators and to not keep on coming with wild demands to the discord moderation.
He was dealt with appropriately time and time again. Each time the moderation team was fully professional and handled his case with utmost care. Unfortunately there was no change in the behaviour of the unit in question which only kept on escalating it's attacks going as far as to again and again send death threats to other FAF contributors while boasting how he is not right in the head as he have the papers and he even won few cases in the court by waving them and proving how he's not mentally stable.
We have done everything we could to end the case politely, unfortunately it wasn't to happen. Perma ban from faf discord and game only brought up more resentment and more attacks onto the good name of our community.
So no, I can't blame bias and other people in that reddit thread for finally snapping and calling him for what he is. If anything I applaud the people who didn't let him tarnish the FAF name, even if they had to use stern words, but unfortunately that unit have proved again and again unable to accept that the problem lies in it, not in the whole faf community.@nine2 said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
It doesnt stop there though. Go search for the c-word on discord and see who's name comes up over and over again. This is not a one off case, this is a system. Sadly, this makes FAF look childish, and it could be so much more.
I know that you all are looking for the nice utalitarian and dystopian future where everyone behaves on the rails and plays to your tune. Unfortunately you have to understand that we all come from different background and as such we are part of different cultures. By extension some of us are more than happy to call each other cunt and other not so derogatory terms as a means of endearing so that at the end of the day we can just go and drink a bottle of beer while laughing happily about our days. Childish? Maybe, but it's by no means harmful and is widely accepted across the world and in many communities. Especially as the people in question use it only when speaking with others who have nothing against it.
To be honest it kind of makes me sad that you never got to experience this type of friendship in football club or other hobby circle when you can tell the other person straight to the face what is weighting on your heart and then reconcile in the evening being the best friends again.
@nine2 said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
The council is toxic to the point of being disfunctional, the inner council conversations are contaminated with petty words and walls of text. We can't even converse in a sensible way about topics like elections or the association. Do you know I get called names in formal Council chat?
Can't say what is going on inside council but from my experience there is big underlying issue here being the fact that certain people are having trouble putting some distance between themselves and the words they read. Thinking that everything is meant to attack them and make them suffer. All of that while thinking that they deserve way better. To me it mostly seems like there is underlying lack of humbleness in a big part of the community here.
And yes you are a big part of this problem nine2 which you have demonstrated again and again by being unable to take criticism in any form but the most polite one which only strikes me as something that someone who lacks humbleness would do.@nine2 said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
Click here to see what really goes on in the council. This document shows me getting called pathetic, a sociopath, ftx refusing to cooperate with the new FAF Association, councilors swearing a lot, lot's of really uncool stuff in serious conversations. It went on for weeks. There is way more but you get the idea.
Tbh, what I see here is nothing but lack of being able to take a step back and not take everything as a direct attack at your person. Which is a shame considering that it often goes in pair with too high of esteem about yourself and instead ends up with you looking down on people from your high moral position, when instead you could have tried to understand the other party more and why are they so full of pain when dealing with your person.
What I see are people full of passion for the project that are just full of pain due to others not only not putting as much time and love to the project but also being disregarded by the rest of the people in the know who should be actively working in making this a better place.
@nine2 said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
If the role-model Council members are not accountable for their toxicity, how can we expect the ordinary members of the community to have ANY form of respect for each other? FAF will stay like this forever, where people just shit on each other, and 20,000 players just leave.
Again, I don't see anything inherently toxic in there. I see people full of passion fed up with current state of affairs.
As for them being over the faf rules? Unfortunately I don't think that's how it is considering that Gieb should still have the power to remove/ban the post/people that he deems too toxic or to be breaking the rules of faf including FTX/Biass/me and others that you and your people deem to be plague upon the sacred grounds of FAF.
As for the 20000 players leaving, please stop using this statistic as argument as it's nothing but a willingly done misuse of statistics not only in bad manner but also in bad faith. It's clear that you are not willing to use them properly so stop waiving them around like some kind of godsend information that give you heaven legitimacy. Just stop, as you are making a bigger and bigger fool of yourself even more when you clearly said that you will not begin working on externally promoting FAF. Which again brings us back to Sanctuarium which is direct competitor to FAF and which will be sold by you and your friends to make money of it. Sounds like you needed excuse not to promote faf and instead focus on your new baby.
@nine2 said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
Many people share my views on toxicity. You won't see them speaking out too much around the place, but they know I am receptive and they message me. They tell me that they refuse to read a forum topic since some toxic person joined the debate. They say that they had to stay away from aeolus chat and make their own chat due to the toxic people there. They say they have had enough and think of quitting their positions. The reasonable people don't tell you they are exiting a conversation due to toxicity, they just quietly pack their bags and go elsewhere, and this will continue until one day, eventually only the toxic people remain, and FAF is dead. This has to stop.
If they don't speak, they will never be heard. Especially when it takes just a moment to message moderators or even tell the apparently toxic one to tone it down. They don't need you to make a change, the tools are already there at the grasp of their hands. All they needed to do is take action.
So sorry if I can't see this but you putting on airs and trying to make yourself a savior of faf that will save it from the bad internet worlds out there. I just don't buy it. If I could get banned when I crossed the line then other will get banned even faster than me.
And then we again come back to the sad reality that people are not perceptive to negative feedback and instead will opt to take it as attack at their face. Even if it wasn't meant as such and instead was just informal response. We have people in place to screen forums so if someone feels attacked then they should just report the offender and await the judgement of people in charge which are far away from being under the grasp of evil FTX and his cronies.
If the moderators don't see the answers as breaking the rules of faf and being toxic then maybe it's time to take a step back and think about putting some distance between yourself and the words you read on internet. It can help a lot, it helped me so I bet it can help you too.
@nine2 said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
THESE BEHAVIOURS ARE NOT OK. Aside from the rudeness and hostility, it's like I said, it's disfunctional. Work is impeded.
Again, I don't think it's that bad here as you are trying to make it sounds.
I just feel like you are taking everything as an attack on your person even when it's not which ends up making you feel like everyone is hostile to you.
Which frankly saying is not really what's happening.
And no, we are far away from being dysfunctional. If anything I can't help but see your vision of FAF and world as the dysfunctional one. Hell the more I hear the more I feel like people are trying to make faf one of those dystopias that you see and read about in movies and books.@nine2 said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
I believe FAF can GROW and THRIVE. We have so many cool people, we have new projects, a steady feed of new players and new maps and SO MUCH to work with. If we could just take steps towards limiting the hostility, FAF would grow even more
I mean, funnily enough faf started growing more and more when the toxic contributors like FTX and Biass took over. Maybe their approach is actually the better one and more realistic considering it's grounded and to the face. They will do stuff and tell you what they really mean instead of hiding behind plethora of nice words but in the end not doing anything meaningful.
Also if you were to do your goddamn job of promoting faf externally then maybe we would have even more players here and now? Naaah, you have sanctuary to worry about. No time for FAF lol.
@nine2 said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
"But Nine, you are totally abusing your position of news editor"
There is nothing in my job description to say that I can't post news items for myself. I have posted every single news item for everyone else bar one, which was about a SCTA show match. I should get to talk as well. If someone wants to make some counter post to this they can ask me and I am very likely to put that on the news - just phrase it objectively like 'jerry said nine is dumb' and dont say 'nine is dumb'.Well gee, thanks for going after my head in this nonchalant way. Glad to know that you never wanted to be objective at all. No wonder I got kicked for this:
With this being the peak toxicity, sure the wording is strong but it should be in this day and age when propaganda is running amok. Even more when I get to live and hear propaganda 24/7 from my own government and have dictator running amok in neighbouring country.
All 'cuz I saw a promotion post that used the exact same underhanded tactics of subliminal messaging that my own government employs on daily basis.And sorry nine2, but what you did is also toxic and unbecoming of councilor position. If anything that's stepping lower than anything that biass and ftx did as when they get abrasive at times they still listen to others and try to help out, even if at times coming of abrasive.
Meanwhile you never took the words I said and instead decided to just remove me from the server while clearly stating that my words were meant to harm you and your person when they were only directed at big ass discrepancy in your treatment of news regarding the PC elections.
You literally kicked me for providing feedback, and then never tried to understand why I reacted the way I did to such blatant subliminal messaging in your news posts. How does it come off better when you did worse than FTX ever did to me(and I had few spats with him and others that you deem toxic), even Rackover was easier to talk with than you.It comes of as laughable when you preach understanding others and trying to help make bridges then outright state that you don't give shit about my background and why I reacted so strongly to you working like fucking Polish Goverement propaganda tube. Sorry, I just can't see you as someone who actually cares about others. You only care about them when it's good for your agenda.
I'm just sorry, I really feel sorry seeing what you are trying to do, that's what I and how I feel.
On the bright side I'm only more and more in awe of how great of man Giebmasse is. Hope you will become one day half of the man he is.
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@raider said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
So when is part two coming out? Can I preorder it?
Preordering might reduce the quality of the final product, I don't think you should
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@salty You're right thanks for the insight. Because of your intellectual foresight I should wait on my purchase!
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@salty Don't forget there is also a third part that is supposed to come out
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Alright. Lets get some things sorted out here.
I'm acutely aware that the community at whole is over the drama. After over 300 posts in the last thread, you'll come so far as to tell us directly. That's fine.
This election is mostly spawned from said drama. It's being spawned from the ongoing debate about the FAF Association and it's relationship to the council. FtXCommando and Sheeo have been personally at ends over this for the past few months. It is the dominating discussion in the Council chat and the root of all the "toxicity".
I cannot possibly summarise the discussion to the community and I personally had different issues with the topic than FtX does. I'll just quickly go over my opinions on the matter:
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Anyone could have joined the Association and fast-tracked their way to absolute power on FAF by attending the meeting. The Association was formed by the people that showed up, and the Board was formed out of everybody who volunteered to be in it with no upper limit. The only thing that stopped said Board from being overrun with bad actors was that they didnt show up. If you consider me a toxic entitiy that damages FAF, the only reason i'm not on the board right now is because I had to work that day and I didnt make it. I asked for there to be a Code of Conduct in the Association to prevent this, it was agreed upon but not made.
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You're not allowed to know who the list of people are who now hold this power. It's been admitted to in this chat and mentioning it implies severe consequences.
On May 12th - during the election period, a user quietly forwarded a number of screenshots of FtX talking about this topic and it was brought up in the council chat by Sheeo - while FtX had been kicked over prior disagreements - in an attempt to remove him out of the election entirely.
Here is that attempt: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848396700841672714/Capture.PNG
Here are the screenshots:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848396854105210910/Screenshot-2021-05-11-at-16.25.38.pngDo you know who the board members are who now operate FAF? Would you like to know? You're not allowed. Do you know the rules of the Association or the "statutes" they're bound by?
Do you think a councilor should be removed for trying to make FAF more transparent?
- The Council pledge that states: "I will collaborate with the FAF Board to work towards our objectives." Was created after the disagreement about how the council and board should work together. It's fundamentally binding FtX, and any other new PC to obey the new Board (who you don't know about) instead of continuing the current discussion.
I advocated for a number of changes to the pledges that ensure the Association are bound to actually work with contributors, here: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848399989607628810/Capture.PNG
These were deemed "superflous" or not needed. I if want to add this change I need to forward this idea to sheeo - who left the council chat, or an association member - who i'm not technically supposed to know about. This is so they can "discuss it at a meeting" which I have not been told the date.
This is why you'll notice FtXCommando made a fuss in his original application. Sheeo deemed this to be fine here:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/519425924874371094/848401440501530665/Capture.PNGBut you'll notice nine2 attempted to remove FtX from this election over the pledges here anyway:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/519425924874371094/848402063486615552/Capture.PNGYou'll also notice that suzuji (and feather) got a vote. There is no vote here for FtX.
To give you a TL:DR, the Association is a currently a group of people who "managed to be there for the meeting", and operate FAF's functions in complete confidentiality.
Despite claiming to wanting to make FAF more transparent, Emperor_Penguin has asked to join this association as of this morning. You can choose what to make of this information.
Now how does this link back to the election, and to this post exactly?
It's essentially public knowledge that Morax called this election. That's fine and he is allowed to do so.
At some point during this timeline sheeo has gone to Morax and explicitly asked him to run against FtX. I know this by admission, you'll also notice Emperor_Penguin also admitting to being in discussion with "the president of the board" (sheeo) throughout the election thread. You can also choose what to make of this information but I don't think it's particularly acceptable for people to go into private conversations and ask people to call elections in order to vote out someone you have a disagreement with.
Now, the post. You'll notice that the discussion period ends today. After this period is supposed to be a "review period" where the council (and the board?) go over the canidates and discuss their legitimacy to run. Nine2 planned this review period as he is the orginal creator of the election process this time around.
This is only a prediction, but this post is supposed to assist in another assassination attempt to remove FtX from the vote before he has a chance to be voted upon. The post was brought up to the council as soon as it was made, but turned into begging for help after you guys didn't show support. It's safe to say you've derailed this post.
My further prediction is this: if FtX does get voted back in, Sheeo will most likely use the board and the support he has been asking for in private to just remove or alter the PC position entirely as the nuclear option.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848406466956492847/Capture.PNG
Watch out for language like this when you read posts.
(more coming)
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Regarding the toxicity claims and the claims made in the OP.
It's not a secret that within the council itself. Nine2 in particular has had his head on the metpahorical chopping block for a while. The second biggest conversation in the council after the Association, is the handling of the conflicts of interest between being a FAF councilor and managing a game project that directly seeks to canibalise FAF's audience - for personal profit.
For weeks now have I been in discussion over the following points:
- Being a councilor while doing this, as I said
- Not disclosing that the conflict exists, which would be illegal if we were paid employees
- Using FAF's services to advertise the game you profit from, which has always been banned
And the point that dragged me into this:
- Using the FAF vaults in order to gain playtesting for maps, and then planning to remove the maps later to sell exclusively as a part of said game.
The council has mostly agreed to bring our discussions about this topic into the public, so we can go into more detail about this later.
When I first saw this post I viewed it as some kind of final lashing out, or an attempt to remove dissidents from the council in order to retain the position. Indeed I make no denials about my willingness to say yes in a vote of no confidence when you couple this along with the lack of progress in the area and how some actions (or lack thereof) have slowed other aspects of FAF.
I'll now go down the OP in order as long as I can before I run out of time. I have to go to work.
The mirrdes thing:
You can read the post here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecommander/comments/jgdlxc/sctarebalanced_is_a_broken_mess_with_no_sense_of/Here is the post in question that shouldn't even be visible:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848413888600342608/Capture.PNGYou'll notice the upvotes were cut from nine2's original post.
Here are some other comments that were removed:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848414181337989170/Capture.PNGYou can choose how you wish to interperet what I say.
doc
I'm not going to even bother replying to the document. It's incredibly weak. I will however mention this little part about the "code of conduct" sheeo made.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848415139538927636/Capture.PNG
Do you think is is acceptable to see some rules have been put in place and then immediately attempt to oust someone using them? And then cut that part from the public like you've done for every other snip in the document? I'm personally happy if everything i've ever said in the council chamber was shown to the public.
Many people share my views on toxicity. You won't see them speaking out too much around the place, but they know I am receptive and they message me.
If i say:
Many people think I am a good mapper. You won't see them speaking out too much around the place, but they know I am good and they message me.
People would think it's ancedotal and has no real weight in any discsussion. So does your comment.
I'm out of time and want to go into the retention stuff and the list of strawmen in the OP. I'll do it in a few hours.
One last thing for you though:
nine2 said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
Why do you think it's ok to call people derogatory names like petulant in council chat biass? It's meant to be a workplace for serious conversations about FAF.
Here is the ENTIRE log of council chat discussion were the word "petulant" was used. The community can decide how they feel about how I composed myself.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848416858864222258/Capture.PNG
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848416980444512266/Capture.PNGThat screencap:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848417079593795594/Capture.PNGhttps://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848417221922521104/Capture.PNG
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848417337199820808/Capture.PNG
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848417450885644325/Capture.PNG
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848417682603900948/Capture.PNGHow do you feel about this discussion? you have the right to know.
Lets talk more later.
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Excellent post Biass, thanks for this information
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Long way back to opening post. Glad to see you are championing FAF in a positive way. It is good to see someone address the toxicity issue as it has gotten rather bad because of some bad apples (I won't name names).
One of my FAF friends got traumatized from 1v1 toxicity so I had to make a mod to destroy chat so he could feel comfortable playing again. This is just in game and not on the message boards.
This forum post left a bad taste in my mouth yet I hope for a positive outcome.
Disclaimers: 1. I just want my friend to feel comfortable playing socially again. 2. I don't care about politics. -
Well first of all let me get this straight : This thread stems up from a scission in the council (saying that won't surprise anyone I guess). One group is made of sheeo-nine, while the other group is made up of biass-ftx. The discussion between those 2 party have been so bad, that they can't get in agreement about completely irrelevant topic, like the use of a word in an official thread (thousands of word of debate over such petty thing).
I won't be talking about the different subject that are opposing that 2 groups, like conflict of interest (sanctuary), news management, accusation of being afk, etc... and I will only focus on the topic of this thread that is toxicity, and especially in the council.
If you are lazy to read the following, it can be sum up at : it's not black and white, and you can't accuse specific persons (imo).
Before hand I will only talk about toxicity and contribution, not toxicity in the game. Other people have well separated those 2 different issues, and we can't say that toxicity in council lead to lower retention (or at least by a direct link).
first of all, you can find dirt on everyone. I'll expose private conversation here, not to condemn the person, but to showcase the issue.
Tbh this example was especially problematic to me, not because it can be said toxic, but because it meant, at that time that we couldn't collaborate to improve faf.
Note that I brought that up for the election of nine in the council (to warn other councillors when taking our decision), while i was validating that candidature (and at the same time setting my feeling aside).
What i want to say, is that you can find dirt on everyone. You can find dirt on me too, we all have our bad mood, we interpret badly what other people meant, etc...Here another example showcasing that issue even from a councillor at the time. It's not straight forward toxicity like insults, but the result was a moderator stopping contributing because of it.
So that was when we discovered that we were able to manipulate the lobby for malicious intent. I've the full log (and can provide it), but i'm only posting relevant parts of it to showcase the issue.
The issue is a big ego and poor communication skill, leading to someone talking other people down.
The message i want to convey here is that people define toxicity as insult in general, but it can be way broader than that. Especially people doing passive aggressive. It's very hard to work with such people (more on that later).Now note that I've been working with Icedreamer for a long period of time, despite knowing his behaviour. I didn't stop contributing because some people have been toxic. In the case of Icedreamer, he was also very competent for its job, thus why we can't just remove someone because he is "toxic".
I think people that contribute to a community like this one, need to grow a thick skin. Some people will quit the boat for little, and you can't save everyone. For example, thinking of the balance team, we can tell one another that our ideas are dumb, or that we are stupid etc.. But that doesn't stop us from moving forward altogether to improve the balance and keep confronting our ideas. Some people weren't able to handle that, even if in the end the light mood in the team prevent it from being a toxic place (imo).I also wanted to point out that some people in that thread played as if they were only victim of toxicity. But as I said already it's not black and white. And I find it way easier to contribute to this project with a ftx or a biass having a direct communication and possibly calling names on me, than with a Exotic-Retard always doing passive-aggressive with me.
So yeah TLDR :
It's all black and white, we can find dirt on everyone, and miscommunication in the council is due to the conflict of 2 groups.
Also you should grow a thick skin if you want to contribute in a community in general. -
@biass said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
This election is mostly spawned from said drama. It's being spawned from the ongoing debate about the FAF Association and it's relationship to the council. FtXCommando and Sheeo have been personally at ends over this for the past few months. It is the dominating discussion in the Council chat and the root of all the "toxicity".
This election spawned from being overdue, not drama or anything regarding the association.
It was supposed to be yearly but the council failed to make that happen.
You know this very well so why are you attempting to misrepresent it?
I cannot possibly summarise the discussion to the community and I personally had different issues with the topic than FtX does. I'll just quickly go over my opinions on the matter:
- Anyone could have joined the Association and fast-tracked their way to absolute power on FAF by attending the meeting.
This is wrong.
Not just "anyone" can join; they need to be proven sympathetic to the objectives defined in the statutes.
Joining does not give you "absolute power" in any sense of the word as you also need to be elected onto the board by the rest of the association, and the board consists of at minimum 6 members.
The Association was formed by the people that showed up, and the Board was formed out of everybody who volunteered to be in it with no upper limit.
The meeting date and time was announced by FtX and FtX attended.
The only thing that stopped said Board from being overrun with bad actors was that they didnt show up.
That and the rest of the people present who don't want to engage with bad actors, as well as what's written into the statutes.
What further are you suggesting? Every other voluntary association that I know of in the world operates like this, without issue.
You have complained about this but never presented any kind of solution except "keep sheeo in power because he is permanently AFK".
I asked for there to be a Code of Conduct in the Association to prevent this, it was agreed upon but not made.
As you very well know but are again misrepresenting; I said that was not my priority. I have delegated it to the rest of the board but so far, no takers.
You were asked to explicitly provide your own input and suggestion as to this code of conduct: That hasn't happened.
- You're not allowed to know who the list of people are who now hold this power. It's been admitted to in this chat and mentioning it implies severe consequences.
I answered this earlier and you're not responding to the problem.
On May 12th - during the election period, a user quietly forwarded a number of screenshots of FtX talking about this topic and it was brought up in the council chat by Sheeo - while FtX had been kicked over prior disagreements - in an attempt to remove him out of the election entirely.
Outside of filling in your pre-made narrative what is your point here? It's awfully convenient than you can pluck sections of chat to suit your conclusions.
On a side note; please refrain from sharing the private council chat without the permission of the other councillors. Just because you have no respect for confidentiality does not mean you have the right to impose that onto the rest of the councillors.
Do you know who the board members are who now operate FAF? Would you like to know? You're not allowed. Do you know the rules of the Association or the "statutes" they're bound by?
The statutes are public and you know it. They were, in their final version announced on the 21st of March.
You are not responding to any of the problems mentioned earlier.
Do you think a councilor should be removed for trying to make FAF more transparent?
That is not what happened, unless trying to make FAF more transparent involves power-grabbing and subsequently rage-quitting from the process when that fails.
- The Council pledge that states: "I will collaborate with the FAF Board to work towards our objectives." Was created after the disagreement about how the council and board should work together. It's fundamentally binding FtX, and any other new PC to obey the new Board (who you don't know about) instead of continuing the current discussion.
It's fundamentally about binding everyone on the council to work together with the board and not impose their own authority and refuse to accept the new ownership.
If they don't want to accept that then yes, they're out.
I advocated for a number of changes to the pledges that ensure the Association are bound to actually work with contributors, here: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848399989607628810/Capture.PNG
Your suggested changes are to the statutes, not any "pledges". The statutes were accepted and cannot be changed unless you invoke the processes mentioned in those same statutes. You're welcome to go ahead and do that.
That's what was said to you as well but you refrain from showing that obviously.
Even if you suggested changes to some pledge and wanted the board to sign it: I've answered this to you in private many times and again above to FtX. But no, you cannot make the board sign some pledge to have to collaborate "on mutual terms" with the council. It is not bound to have to work with the council structure and doing so could be legally problematic.
Stop trying to grab onto your personal power in an elected position.
These were deemed "superflous" or not needed. I if want to add this change I need to forward this idea to sheeo - who left the council chat, or an association member - who i'm not technically supposed to know about. This is so they can "discuss it at a meeting" which I have not been told the date.
I left the chat after this date. Your post is from may 6th.
To give you a TL:DR, the Association is a currently a group of people who "managed to be there for the meeting", and operate FAF's functions in complete confidentiality.
Some amount of confidentiality quite simply has to exist, and it's now quite abundantly clear that a person like yourself will simply not respect that.
Despite claiming to wanting to make FAF more transparent, Emperor_Penguin has asked to join this association as of this morning. You can choose what to make of this information.
Maybe he wants to help improve FAF; per what the statutes say?
At some point during this timeline sheeo has gone to Morax and explicitly asked him to run against FtX. I know this by admission
What? No I have not. I have encouraged anybody to run for the election.
You somehow feel fine presenting all this other chat from confidential sources; so why not back this up?
you'll also notice Emperor_Penguin also admitting to being in discussion with "the president of the board" (sheeo) throughout the election thread. You can also choose what to make of this information but I don't think it's particularly acceptable for people to go into private conversations and ask people to call elections in order to vote out someone you have a disagreement with.
That's not what's happened and you are utterly misrepresenting and lying to suit your narrative here.
This is completely unacceptable.
I'm done responding to toxic hypotheticals that fit your pre-made conclusions and the narrative you are trying to feed the community.
Please read and understand the statute, get yourself a basic understanding of how voluntary associations work and then come back and make arguments with a basis in reality.
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What do people define as toxic? I've seen this word so often that it is losing its meaning. In many cases people seem to see it as simply saying swear words. If this is the metric then I am as toxic as the next.
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@jaggedappliance said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
What do people define as toxic? I've seen this word so often that it is losing its meaning. In many cases people seem to see it as simply saying swear words. If this is the metric then I am as toxic as the next.
Trolling, lying, derogative behavior, being argumentative just for the sake of it. I don't think this is so hard to come to an agreement about.
Just using swear-words is clearly too low of a bar, though.
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But now, how do you define trolling. How do you ascertain that the other party is trolling you, so far to me it seems like by your definition of trolling you and nine2 are also doing it.
Lying? That's also something that we can't be sure of and is something that can't ascertained. Even more when you are clearly unwilling to prove your point by showing substantial evidence in form of proper logs/screenshots.
Derogative behaviour? Again, what does it consist of. What makes it derogative and not just being abrassive manner of speech which is not derogative by any means. How do you define that when we all come from different cultures, classes and ethnicities?
If anything I can assure you that you and nine2 came of as derogatory more than once clearly being unwilling to talk with others and saying that speaking to them is unproductive which I find way more derogatory than just being abrasive in speech but still willing to talk it out, even if in harsh words.
It also seems like the the derogatory ones are you and nine2 in your unwillingness to understand that we aren't all made from one mold and as such you can't expect us to conform to your views on that matter. Often resorting to outright banning people and kicking them from different servers without trying to understand their point of view and what makes them behave in certain ways.Again, being argumentative. How is that bad? And if it's that bad then you and nine2 also are guilty of it again and again. Even more as you both are tending to hide from any talks in public deeming it unproductive and then go off to do it yourself in the chambers.
Sorry I can't trust you at all, and especially your definitions. The only thing I see is people trying to make others conform to their world view with no regard to the other parties.
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I'm back, lets discuss some more items.
The OP has a number of strawmen arguements made in some attempt to stop some form of dissidence. I assume the "abuse one" relates to any comments made about nine2's personal game. But it's clear this didn't stop much. You'll note the last time I ever saw something like this in particular was when Poch made a post about the use of the french "message.es" as some form of gender neutral language.
The first two points are assurance that removing FtX (and myself?) will not end up in a net loss for the community. This is based on nothing and i'm not going to bother. Calling someone a "poison" isn't really kocher though.
"But Nine, you are totally abusing your position of news editor"
I find the use of the term "news editor" very interesting because during the ongoing discussions on the potential abuse related to the personal game, I mentioned numerious times that a Councilor has a responsibility to fulfill to FAF. A rank and file contributor after all, does not have an obligation to follow FAF's interests and can work on other projects as they please. I said this here for an example:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519425924874371094/848531791920889866/Capture.PNG
Saying "I'm the news editor" makes a user look like they're that said rank and file user.
It's like saying i'm just the "vault janitor" when as a Councilor, i'm responsible for the great majority if not all of the FAF Content pipeline and how users / authors interact with it.You can take away what you please from this comment. I just don't enjoy the language used.
There is nothing in my job description to say that I can't post news items for myself
Refers to the game from which nine2 has a financial incentive. I would assume any readers would be aware of this by now.
You mean like the dossier biass published on morax to take him down and assume his position? I have no doubt there some takedown document about me somewhere.
This refers to the public document wherein I made my case for Morax's relection. I am happy to share it with anyone who is curious, but this would damage Morax's run for PC which is the point of the OP (to get support for Penguin) so be warned. No dossier exists for nine2 and paranoia is not healthy.
FtX prevents or otherwise blocks retention screenshot
I searched for "yt channel" in zulip and couldn't find the relevant post. I'm assuming this is before I became a councilor. Why has there been no attempts to solve retention after that?
I want to go through the rest of the posts and also talk about retention (I tallied the responses from the "why would you leave FAF" thread) But i'm honestly fried. I stayed up to 7am following this stuff. It can be done later.
Just quickly though for sheeo:
The election was supposed to be yearly and you know this well
No? I had to call for an election for MnM after a ~2 year office. No yearly election was done for player councilor before FtX. Nine2 was elected to promotions now a little over a year ago, shall we call an election?
Not just "anyone" can join; they need to be proven sympathetic to the objectives defined in the statutes
Would you like to explain how you audited the first wave of members in order to prove them as sympathtic? Did you ask them to which they just said yes? Saying they need to agree to some vague pledge means nothing of any actual value.
What further are you suggesting?
I'm suggesting you implement the revision I posted.
You were asked to explicitly provide your own input and suggestion as to this code of conduct: That hasn't happened.
"if you want to speed it up, why don't you to come up with a proposal for the code of conduct yourself?" is the exact quote. I don't think these two are the same. You're asking me to make it for you.
I don't know where you answered "this" earlier.
Outside of filling in your pre-made narrative what is your point here? It's awfully convenient than you can pluck sections of chat to suit your conclusions.
On a side note; please refrain from sharing the private council chat without the permission of the other councillors. Just because you have no respect for confidentiality does not mean you have the right to impose that onto the rest of the councillors.Damn dude, did you read the original post? Or open the document?
The statutes are public and you know it.
I'm asking people if they know what they are.
I'm not even going to bother replying to this backwards attempt to gaslight me into thinking i'm doing this for my own "power". So I can continue to moderate the vaults or something? What a joke it is that this baseless phrase was even mentioned.
Your suggested changes are to the statutes, not any "pledges". The statutes were accepted and cannot be changed unless you invoke the processes mentioned in those same statutes. You're welcome to go ahead and do that.
Discussing anything with you is literally not possible. I can't even get you to properly read what's been said and i'm constantly being gaslit into some absolutely insane story of me trying to "power grab". You even went so far as to claim that because I didn't get mad at an advertisement made in 2017, that my claims against nine2's game project were based entirely on some personal vendetta. I can't be bothered. goodnight. Oh, and release the patreon data.
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If this is about Biass being toxic (which seems to be what your examples are trying to show), why are you making this about Ftx's election? Aren't those two different people?
When was this code of conduct posted in the forums publicly for everybody to have a look at it, so we actually know WTF this is all about?
If you want to change FAF, and a big part of FAF would definitely want to make it more welcoming by reducing toxicity, why is all of this stuff going down behing closed doors until several days before an election takes place, to be used to paint people in bad light? Dont get me wrong, i can sympathise with your general goal here. But this thread would appear more than a little bit shady to anybody not involved deeply in FAF, and for good reasons.
You cannot change FAF without involving the FAF community from the beginning through the middle until the end. This whole Council of Setons thing could die and i woundn't shed a tear. Doesnt seem to work very well anyway.
Edit:
Here is and idea fro you: Convince anybody who is with you to leave the Council of Setons and create a less toxic alternative. Toxic environments destroy themselves over time, since they cannot attract new people. You can help that along instead of opening up a drama thread that nobody can relate to. -
@sheeo said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
@jaggedappliance said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
What do people define as toxic? I've seen this word so often that it is losing its meaning. In many cases people seem to see it as simply saying swear words. If this is the metric then I am as toxic as the next.
Trolling, lying, derogative behavior, being argumentative just for the sake of it. I don't think this is so hard to come to an agreement about.
Just using swear-words is clearly too low of a bar, though.
Trolling is not an easily agreed upon judgement, nor is arguing just for the sake of it in many cases. Lying is of course extremely negative behaviour. Derogative behaviour I assume means insults which is not always toxic in my opinion, it depends on the insults and where they are directed e.g. are they personal or aimed towards an idea or towards some very negative behaviour.
In reality all this thread has done has put out the serious disagreements from within the council into the public. It doesn't look good and I don't see where this is heading at the moment.
