It is time for the community to rise up, cleanse our council, and fix the community.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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?

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.

• Its gotten so bad that at least one councilor has left council chat already, at least two more are thinking about it, and most seem to just try and stay out of the conversations altogether.

• 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.

• 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.

• THESE BEHAVIOURS ARE NOT OK. Aside from the rudeness and hostility, it's like I said, it's disfunctional. Work is impeded.

• 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.

• In this upcoming Player Councilor election we have a chance to fix this. Of the candidates, only one has made a point of taking a stand against toxicity. And for a position that is very much about talking to and representing players, it seems important to have someone who can communicate in a respectful fashion. To me, no amount of points like "but the current tournament organisation is so good" matters at all compared to the cost to the community. Lets fix toxicity first, THEN see how good we can get the tournaments.

If YOU care about toxicity, if YOU have ever had an issue with how hostile people are, now is your chance to fix it. Let's send a strong message that this is not ok. Let's clean up the council.

Vote NO to toxicity and YES to a candidate that respects his players.
If anyone wants to discuss this privately feel free to PM me on discord.

"But Nine, the work is so good - it's worth it"
I understand this point of view but don't agree. As we excise this poison from our community there will be some loss of productivity - but the productivity will return. In the meantime we will have a friendlier environment that doesn't drive our new players away.

"But Nine, there is no one else who can do this"
Would that be because we drove away the reasonable people? After we fix the toxicity, people who are both reasonable AND skilled will step up. I cannot accept the argument that only someone disrespectful can take care of business.

"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'.

"But Nine, you cant post other peoples conversations like this"
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.

"But Nine, you are totally overreacting and this doesn't matter"
Got it - that's your point of view and I understand that, and you are welcome to your point of view. I know I get more outraged about this than others. As I said people do reach out to me privately to tell me they share my point of view. I'm going to keep fighting for what I believe in - a better FAF.

"But Nine, you're not doing your job. Go post things on social media"
We get 130 new players a day. Getting new players is not the problem - retention is. Here is the official reply when I tried to work with the council on this issue.

"But Nine, not all the players leave because of toxicity"
Yeah I know. But this is what I want to address first. More will come later.

"But Nine, it's too hard - you will never win - it's not worth it"
Well I guess that all depends on the community doesn't it?

Im one of those who's silently leaving (and not some conversations, but contribution). So you have my full support nine

Purposely cutting everything you say from some document isn’t a very good look, neither is waiting until the very early hours of the morning (we are both Australian) to post some form of expose.

I own everything I said - if I have to use some harsh words to prevent abuse, so be it.

I’ll reply in depth later.

Mirddes has sent multiple death threats to people among other things, out of all people, I don't think biass calling mirddes a cunt is really the best example of toxicity here...

@archsimkat said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:

Mirddes has sent multiple death threats to people among other things, out of all people, I don't think biass calling mirddes a cunt is really the best example of toxicity here...

Perhaps calling him a cunt is not the best way to go about calling him out.

I was wondering why I haven't seen anyone with a CPU of over 300 in the past month. And very few people with less than 50 games. Did they all leave cause everyone was hating on them?

Ok, FtX is mean. Do you have any other points as well, or is this some last ditch attempt to bad PR him?

Wonder why he is mean?

Maybe because:

• There is a guy running the show here who is perma-afk and who has failed to supply what he demands of FtX for the FAFlive channel, which FtX already supplied (financial overview and a sheet detailing where the FAF patreon money goes, for the past years). If you do the math, there should be a lot of money, and in best case it has been mismanaged, in worst case - draw your own conclusions.

• There appears to be a conflict of interest on your end with the weird Sanctuary thing and the interests of FAF

• There is in general complete apathy and 0 will from your end to move matters forward, its natural to get annoyed when your attempts to do something get locked by afk people who arent willing to do more than set up 1 meeting per 6 months

If you and your buddy big S wouldnt hide behind closed doors and also try to work on stuff more than 1 talk per half year FtX toxcity would disappear (yes yes, Ftx is impossible to work with, etc. - because he actually works).

No matter what anyone says about me in the FAF community, I treat people with respect both as players and as individuals. At a certain point, I reviewed my opinion on the FAF community and noticed that at the level of "player-player" communication, a million disagreements arise, which in the future lead to various kinds of insults, and later reports on each other. It looks like some kind of childish narcissism.
99% of players believe that they are the best. And when faced with people who believe that everyone around is not able to do anything, it plunges me into a wild shock. People measure their skills, this is absolutely normal. But it is normal exactly as long as it does not turn into insults or mockery.
I once spoke out about the toxicity between players. I have expressed everything that I think about it without hiding anything. Players strive to be like their idols. Russian Russian is what I'm talking about right now, because I speak Russian myself and I can't speak for other segments of the Earth. Players see that streamers are allowed to insult other players with any words and they do not get anything for it. And the next day, they're covering you with all the possible phrases they've learned from the streamers.
Having gained a small influence among the Russian-speaking FAF, I came out with the signature #AntiToxic, which you can see now in my discord. Seeing this, the players noticed the hope in my face. Thank you to them that they follow my antitoxic movement and do not go on about the toxic compound.
"Start changing what you want to change around you" (C) Mahatma Gandhi

@blackheart said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:

Ok, FtX is mean. Do you have any other points as well, or is this some last ditch attempt to bad PR him?

Wonder why he is mean?

Maybe because:

• There is a guy running the show here who is perma-afk and who has failed to supply what he demands of FtX for the FAFlive channel, which FtX already supplied (financial overview and a sheet detailing where the FAF patreon money goes, for the past years). If you do the math, there should be a lot of money, and in best case it has been mismanaged, in worst case - draw your own conclusions.

• There appears to be a conflict of interest on your end with the weird Sanctuary thing and the interests of FAF

• There is in general complete apathy and 0 will from your end to move matters forward, its natural to get annoyed when your attempts to do something get locked by afk people who arent willing to do more than set up 1 meeting per 6 months

If you and your buddy big S wouldnt hide behind closed doors and also try to work on stuff more than 1 talk per half year FtX toxcity would disappear (yes yes, Ftx is impossible to work with, etc. - because he actually works).

I'm sure these are all valid complaints, but none of these issues excuse toxic behavior. Ftx has done a good job, but that doesn't mean he should be invulnerable to being called out on toxicity.

Normally hashing it out in private or with moderator involvement would be the most reasonable course of action, but this is a public office and it's important to come out with info about how the rest of the council feels about working with these individuals.

If the rest of the Council didn’t want to work with me I’d have been removed from the Council during the review period. This is an attempt to remove me because I intend to hold nine responsible for things Blackheart posted above as well as some other elements.

I’ll respond to this more in depth with actual context surrounding events if the thread is ultimately determined to be kept up. Because again, the area to air all of this out and actually determine if I’m actually incapable of working with the Council would have been in the Council.

This is nine not getting his way and instead airing out half context for drama in order to get me out and get somebody that would let him post about his personal game project on FAF news. And hopefully someone unaware of the paradox justification loops he sets up to not actually do his job in exploring how to promote and doing promotion on FAF. People want to know why I had to do FAFLive? I’ll explain it here!

I've been pulling back from the forum (forums are usually someplace I'm quite active) recently because the level of constant vitriol just drains my motivation to do so.

The discord? forget it. I'm with nine on this, this has to stop.

I'm trying to get people to come onto FAF. I keep recommending the forum and the discord, but there's always this nagging thought in the back of my head that it's a bad recommendation.

I hate that. I wish I could just recommend both with a clear head and no lingering thoughts of doubt.

I keep reminiscing about the GPG days and early to mid FAF days. I remember back then my experience of the online community made me think : "wow! people here have really built something special, where you can feel like a community!"

I legitimately thought there were very few if any nicer gamer communities on earth.

...

I understand that there's a realistic level we can aspire to today and that level isn't the early FAF days.

But we've got to start doing something.

We've got to have Some standards. rather than the none that we have right now.

In no other gaming community would it be acceptable for representatives of said community to be odious, vitriolic or use ad hominem attacks on a constant basis ....why is it tolerated on FAF?

This should not be the appearance we/FAF give off.

@tatsu said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:

I've been pulling back from the forum (forums are usually someplace I'm quite active) recently because the level of constant vitriol just drains my motivation to do so.

I’m sure you’re pulling back because of the toxicity and not because you’re busy working on your own FAF-derivative game and going around the Council to get people to everyone ping about your game on official FAF Discords with no actual oversight from FAF management.

didn't peoples mothers tell them that sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you

@blackheart said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:

Ok, FtX is mean. Do you have any other points as well, or is this some last ditch attempt to bad PR him?

Wonder why he is mean?

Maybe because:

• There is a guy running the show here who is perma-afk and who has failed to supply what he demands of FtX for the FAFlive channel, which FtX already supplied (financial overview and a sheet detailing where the FAF patreon money goes, for the past years). If you do the math, there should be a lot of money, and in best case it has been mismanaged, in worst case - draw your own conclusions.

I assume you’re referring to me here? FtX has yet to supply the intended payout list for the FAFlive channel.

I have supplied the information I can give about the patreon funds to those who have asked including those who attended the association meeting.

Sometime later this year, as promised in the announcement, the full accounts and details are to be posted for the 2021 year and going forward.

I suggest you draw conclusions based on facts Instead of hearsay.

• There is in general complete apathy and 0 will from your end to move matters forward, its natural to get annoyed when your attempts to do something get locked by afk people who arent willing to do more than set up 1 meeting per 6 months

Again, are you referring to me?

I have spent more than 40 hours this year just responding to toxic spam. I have done several voice calls and invited those who want.

I might appear AFK to you because you don’t see my communications (you’re not in zulip and most communication here goes on in private).

But it’s also exactly the kind of the toxic narrative invented by the persons referred to here.

If you and your buddy big S wouldnt hide behind closed doors and also try to work on stuff more than 1 talk per half year FtX toxcity would disappear (yes yes, Ftx is impossible to work with, etc. - because he actually works).

I’m not hiding anywhere. FtX was invited to participate and work things out and has on countless occasions caused the conversation to utterly derode into toxicity.

oh hey its the big pileup of the year. i even came out of the Retard-cave to post here. i think its my first post since the new forum appeared isnt that nice.

i mean the funny thing is nines right though innit

if youre competent the world is full of places to go since, well, thats what it looks like when you can do stuff. so you think why do i have to talk to these dudes who try to obstruct things i do in faf, when i can just go somewhere else and not do that. so you leave, easy for you, bad for faf but also not your problem.

you can tell if the dude writes a quitting post then comes back a few weeks later since they have nowhere else to go

anyway i had that thought about 3-4 years ago and quietly resigned from every position i had in faf since i had better stuff to do. I kept managing nomads though because i liked that so why not.

So what did i do anyway for faf, well a couple of things:
I maintain the nomads mod
i was a moderator
i was the wiki admin
I was on the balance team
i have code in the faf patch like the shield bouncing the target priorities thing and well the hundreds of other commits i dunno
i maintain the 3dsmax and blender supcom model importers
adding video to faf code is possible because of me
there was some other stuff i forgot, something like making python client themes and half the fancy faf avatars

imagine all the other dudes who also just stopped doing things because why spend time with people who are dicks to you when you have all these people outside faf who arent dicks to you that you can spend time with instead

i do love the hit squad that comes out as soon as you talk bad about one of the boys though. thats great.

@ftxcommando said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:

going around the Council to get people to everyone ping about your game on official FAF Discords with no actual oversight from FAF management.

that is quite the ...interesting way to put it.

this is just some more ad hominem so since you didn't bother to formulate it truthfully, I'll let the truth come back to nag you when it does come out. (but it's not my job to correct you)

In the meantime you can correct yourself on your own if you feel like it.

I know you won't and that you much prefer falsehoods and leading others on. I won't play your game.

@exotic_retard said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:

i do love the hit squad that comes out as soon as you talk bad about one of the boys though. thats great.

I do love the sanctuary squad that comes out as soon as you talk bad about one of the boys though. thats great.

@tatsu said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:

@ftxcommando said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:

going around the Council to get people to everyone ping about your game on official FAF Discords with no actual oversight from FAF management.

that is quite the ...interesting way to put it.

this is just some more ad hominem so. since you didn't bother to formulate it truthfully. I'll let the truth come back to nag you when it does come out.

In the meantime you can correct yourself on your own if you feel like it.

I know won't and that you much prefer falsehoods and leading others on. I won't play your game.

Far as I'm concerned it's a bannable offense for you and as nine is project manager of this game, he should be held responsible for failing to communicate to his team what the line in the sand was for FAF after he was told this was off the table.

i suggest that we do not discuss S________ on the FAF forums, that is surely going to upset some people.