if only we could point out minor misunderstandings without aggression, we would be having a productive conversation instead of an antagonistic one

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?

I wanna know - why would you consider leaving FAF? I'm talking about new players leaving, not older players.

FAF has a big problem retaining new players. We actually get a decent stream of new players in all of the time but we lose them quickly - 90% of new FAF players will be gone after 2 years. And for this reason that I have not spent any time making FAF ads (like I said I would in my promo councilor application) or doing serious work on the website. The best way to help FAF grow is to retain players.

So why do we have so many players leave? Well it's hard to know for sure but there are some obvious things to try:

• experience for new ladder players was demoralizing (getting matched against 1300 rated players etc)
• toxic and abusive players
• get crushed in team games
• steep learning curve
• lobby simulator

I think what would be good for FAF is to have some sort of "kindergarden" process where new players are babied for a while - their experience unfolds in such a way that they have positive experiences. So for example they could only match with other new people for a while, or they have to be able to be Sorian Rush AI once before they can unlock the rest of the game. Or there are dedicated helpers who can join the kindergarden games to offer advice. Or there are dedicated noob games automatically hosted, where you cant join unless you are in kindergarden. Or we could give them a properly organized training course, set their expectations. You need to be able to do this this this before you can expect to compete on Setons. Or we could put them in the kindergarden discord. Or we could put them in a same-language discord where they can voice-chat to people in their own language. Or we could auto enrol them into some clan. And you can skip the whole kindergarden process if you want. The idea is that we are trying to create an early positive experience to overcome the pain points.

TMM was meant to improve a lot of the pain around getting games so I'm interested in seeing if that helps at all (although I might have to wait 2 years...)

So does anyone have any ideas how we can retain our new players?

p.s. I don't want to have big conversations about poor balance choices or some such - I don't think that is a big factor in retention of new players, that is for disgruntled pros.

EDIT:
Hey guys - yes I am very interested in hearing what the newer players have to say. Please voice your opinion and just don't worry about it when people debate you -> some of us are keen to hear what you think. Don't be discouraged just because other people don't agree. I made this thread to hear what YOU think, this is your thread! Now go nuts.

Edit: FAF is actually growing overall. I don't mean to give the impression that we are declining in numbers overall. Eg:
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/287/is-faf-growing

I just mean that we are losing lots of our new players, and I want to keep a much higher % of them.

Hi guys, I've been asked to resign by the council due to my unprofessional posts about the election and council. I'm sorry about all of the drama guys, I guess I got a tad passionate there. Here is my resignation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYMArm3McSA

Whoever comes next, come hit me up to learn how to do the news, it's a bit tricky.

The Players Councilor (PC) is a member of the Council of Setons, who is elected by the community. The Board reserves the right to disqualify some candidates in rare circumstances.

The PC will commit to the PC Responsibilities:

• Communicate with as many FAF players as is possible to gather, represent, and promote their ideas and interests.
• Organize a schedule of the FAF community project events.
• Organize tournament directors who run tournaments for players.
• Gather feedback from the FAF project community to determine their top desires and problems.
• Present and represent this information in the best interests of the players to the Council of Setons.

The PC will take the Councillors Pledge:

• I will collaborate with the FAF Board to work towards our objectives.
• I will communicate professionally and avoid bringing FAF into disrepute.
• I will spend at least 4 hours per week working on These Responsibilities.
• I will be available at least 2 hours every other week for a voice call to discuss these Responsibilities and the responsibilities of other FAF Councilors.
• I will use and be available on the FAF Zulip (chat) as much as possible.
• I will do my best to help the other Councilors perform their responsibilities.
• I understand that if I am unable to perform these duties, I will resign or be replaced.

To apply, please post your intentions here. Some suggestions include:

• Your FAF Username
• Your interest in the role
• How you will maintain your duties as PC
• What you will change as the PC

New timeline:
Now: Applicant signup & discussion period
30th of May: Signups close.
6th of June: Voting Period begins.

Please follow this thread for an explanation on why some applicants were removed and for continued the player councillor discussion. https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1633/new-player-councilor-discussion-removal-announcements

Hey guys - yes I am very interested in hearing what the newer players have to say. Please voice your opinion and just don't worry about it when people debate you -> some of us are keen to hear what you think. Don't be discouraged just because other people don't agree. I made this thread to hear what YOU think, this is your thread! Now go nuts.

LANFest are enquiring if we wish to help them raise money for charity. Is there a TD and two casters who are interested in picking this up? Besides the charity, FAF might get some publicity. This is the message received from tachyon:

LANFest would like to partner with the FAF Community to raise funds for the Children's Miracle Network with a streamed and produced tournament, likely Saturday April 17th at 5p PST.

It would involve mutual social media / marketing pushes, and some hosts and casters from FAF.

My thoughts were to do a few 4v4 Seton's Clutch showcase matches with giveaways (likely CPU's or keyboards/mice) to participants, but I'm open to ideas. Definitely thinking something more open and accessible and fun than a hardcore tournament, to encourage anyone that likes blowing up robot armies to participate.
We would need at least two casters and someone to help design the tournament. My role would be communication with the LANFest volunteers and production team.

I'm still waiting to hear back if Children's Miracle network will do a mutual social media push agreement as well.

Update, the devs will incorporate the NVidia fix in the next game patch. In the meantime use the "Nvidia fix" UI Mod - found in the mod vault.

arma for Archive Councilor 2021

Yep I like it especially since councilors like to define their own role. Now that role could be more specific. Also if someone helps out with part of your role they get recognition.

Hi guys, I've been asked to resign by the council due to my unprofessional posts about the election and council. I'm sorry about all of the drama guys, I guess I got a tad passionate there. Here is my resignation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYMArm3McSA

Whoever comes next, come hit me up to learn how to do the news, it's a bit tricky.

It is simply a fiction that the council is against my game. FTX and Biass are milking it for all they a worth and spreading it as far and wide as possible. But yes it would be good if the other councilors could confirm what has been talked about in the council.

that's just something they say to make me look bad and derail the conversation =).

the reality is the council has let me continue for now. but two delightful councilors raise this smear campaign story again and again.

If this is about the fact that the news was used as a tool > that same tool was offered to all councilors to use.

If this is about the fact that a councilor spoke in favour of a candidate > There are no rules that is not allowed. In real life politicians are always talking about their candidates.

The issue as I see it is the 10,000 want change but don't know how to get it. That is what I was trying to give them.

If I'm right > I've helped FAF achieve their goal

If I'm wrong > no one will vote the way I recommended - no harm done

I cast a bet that people think the way I think they do. Lets see how out of touch I am.

Hi Turin, I'm not really here to answer your point by point questions to be honest.

Hi Turinturambar. My goal with the newspost was to reach the common man. We know full well that what the aggresive vocal discord/forum people think. Basically everyone I talk to personally is fed up with attitude in FAF. I wanted to know what the 10,000 common man thought and let him know that he had the power to create change.

Do you want to know what the common man thinks?

If yes> Why don't we find out? Poll on newshub? People can vote in election?

If no > why?

In general our team posts everything that is submitted to us. We have not filtered out any FAF-political content. In political situations especially it is fair to have the same rules for everyone. The current policy for FAF-political posts are this:

If a councilor wants to make a FAF-political post we will publish it - just phrase it objectively like 'jerry said nine is dumb' and dont say 'nine is dumb'. You need a title, description and image. If you don't provide an image we will put one in for you. If your text is too long we will do our best to preserve the intention of the message and shorten it.

If a non-councilor wishes to submit a post it will be considered but not guaranteed.

To ask for a post follow the instructions here
https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19374#p184740

The way democracy works is [everyone talks shit about each other] then [someone wins]. There seems to be this idea from the community that I am somehow not allowed to talk while every other councilor can mouth of as they please. Am I some sub-councilor or what? Oh wait I write news therefore I must not post news about me. Well ... that's garbage. All councilors are offered the opportunity to post any news they want. In fact I have posted 100% of what councilors have asked me to post. If that is not good enough then it seems like you dont want an equal playing field - you want an unequal one where only I have to shut up.

And if election integrity is something that is something that must be fiercely enforced ... just you wait for part 2.

You might notice that some councilors are trying to save their own skin / look good / retain power / not commit to pledges.

I am not here to retain power. I am here to create change. Toxicity is a serious issue that should be addressed in this election.

If I am fired for giving a (potentially over the top) huge opposition to toxicity, I can sleep at night, believe me. I'm here to help FAF, not look good. I look forward to seeing what the 10,000 players think. Perhaps they disagree with me in which case fair call, I can accept that.