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[Thierryu1]

do this in the ideas section so we can see who votes for what

So toxic

Tbh even if the staff team was superhuman 100% unbiased the outcome of this poll would still be mostly yes, because the people voting on it have their own biased opinions on who should get what punishment. Nearly everyone can think up a few instances where the staff team didn't do what they thought was fair. It's hardly representative of how biased the staff team really is.

This hits the nail on the head! I can name so many questionable responses by the mods towards certain people but on the other side they might think they did it right or didn't see it as problematic as others do.

[Patel]

This was a weird way of saying the votes don’t matter.

Didn’t expect someone to be attempting to invalid the opinions of others.... but I’ll go down the rabbit hole...

Isn’t perception a big part of reality? So if most of the server perceives the actions of the staff team as showing favor for those close to them, then that could build a poor relationship between the staff and the community.

Just because someone perceives something as negative, doesn’t quite make it correct, but a bit more transparency and explanation can definitely mend these ripples. But that’s just my 2 cents.

The results do tell us that people have felt some level of inconsistency, but we kind of already know that. They offer no additional insight, so I can see why Rapsey would say that they're essentially pointless. The poll truly is uninformative.

What do you mean when you say "transparency", btw? Like what would you want to see changed? I see this word thrown around but without much substance. Appeals, refunds, and recoveries will likely never be made public, but I am in favor of atleast showing reports and the decisions mods make on them. I've always thought that the community should have some idea of how punishments are being dealt (i.e. some degree of transparency on reports).

I understand this adds pressure to decision-making but beyond the trial mod stage you really shouldn't be losing your nerve over it, and will definitely get used to it. Most importantly, this means someone can call you out and you have to answer for it. Name a guideline, name a precedent, give a line of logical reasoning - prove that you know what you are doing. That's about as transparent as it gets. There should be wiggle room ofc, not every report should be seen by the public so maybe we could instead make some sort of 2 week archive where reports that were already handled can be seen, and ones that cant be made public for whatever reason aren't included. Given how easy it is to move threads around I think this would be a pretty easy thing to do without adding crazy stress to the staff team.

[Rapsey]

This was a weird way of saying the votes don’t matter.

Didn’t expect someone to be attempting to invalid the opinions of others.... but I’ll go down the rabbit hole...

Isn’t perception a big part of reality? So if most of the server perceives the actions of the staff team as showing favor for those close to them, then that could build a poor relationship between the staff and the community.

Just because someone perceives something as negative, doesn’t quite make it correct, but a bit more transparency and explanation can definitely mend these ripples. But that’s just my 2 cents.

I'm not saying the votes don't matter. I'm saying the outcome of this poll doesn't show how biased the staff team is. It shows how many people have a different idea about what would've been fair in certain past staff decisions.

No matter what decision you make, there will always be people who think it was wrong (either too harsh or not harsh enough). Let's say every time you make a decision 90% agrees with you and 10% has a different idea. And the next decision same thing, except with different people in the 90%/10% groups. By the time you've made 1000 decisions everyone has been in the 10% group plenty of times. So even though objectively speaking you've been very unbiased (90% agreed with every decision after all), if you poll it this way all that matters is that everyone can remember 20+ times when you didn't do the fair thing (in their opinion) and so they vote yes.

Sure perception is important but this isn't really about perception. It's more about statistical analysis. If you want to look for evidence of systemic bias you won't get there by essentially asking "do you think all staff decisions are the right ones".

EDIT: by the way, this also doesn't indicate that there is no staff bias. It just doesn't say anything one way or the other.

[Thierryu1]

This was a weird way of saying the votes don’t matter.

Didn’t expect someone to be attempting to invalid the opinions of others.... but I’ll go down the rabbit hole...

Isn’t perception a big part of reality? So if most of the server perceives the actions of the staff team as showing favor for those close to them, then that could build a poor relationship between the staff and the community.

Just because someone perceives something as negative, doesn’t quite make it correct, but a bit more transparency and explanation can definitely mend these ripples. But that’s just my 2 cents.

The results do tell us that people have felt some level of inconsistency, but we kind of already know that. They offer no additional insight, so I can see why Rapsey would say that they're essentially pointless. The poll truly is uninformative.

What do you mean when you say "transparency", btw? Like what would you want to see changed? I see this word thrown around but without much substance. Appeals, refunds, and recoveries will likely never be made public, but I am in favor of atleast showing reports and the decisions mods make on them. I've always thought that the community should have some idea of how punishments are being dealt (i.e. some degree of transparency on reports).

I understand this adds pressure to decision-making but beyond the trial mod stage you really shouldn't be losing your nerve over it, and will definitely get used to it. Most importantly, this means someone can call you out and you have to answer for it. Name a guideline, name a precedent, give a line of logical reasoning - prove that you know what you are doing. That's about as transparent as it gets. There should be wiggle room ofc, not every report should be seen by the public so maybe we could instead make some sort of 2 week archive where reports that were already handled can be seen, and ones that cant be made public for whatever reason aren't included. Given how easy it is to move threads around I think this would be a pretty easy thing to do without adding crazy stress to the staff team.

I always wanted to see which staff muted/banned/ or expelled someone. Now you only see the reason but not the person do it. This could show that it's not always biased even if it seems so.

[Uim elon]

This was a weird way of saying the votes don’t matter.

Didn’t expect someone to be attempting to invalid the opinions of others.... but I’ll go down the rabbit hole...

Isn’t perception a big part of reality? So if most of the server perceives the actions of the staff team as showing favor for those close to them, then that could build a poor relationship between the staff and the community.

Just because someone perceives something as negative, doesn’t quite make it correct, but a bit more transparency and explanation can definitely mend these ripples. But that’s just my 2 cents.

The results do tell us that people have felt some level of inconsistency, but we kind of already know that. They offer no additional insight, so I can see why Rapsey would say that they're essentially pointless. The poll truly is uninformative.

What do you mean when you say "transparency", btw? Like what would you want to see changed? I see this word thrown around but without much substance. Appeals, refunds, and recoveries will likely never be made public, but I am in favor of atleast showing reports and the decisions mods make on them. I've always thought that the community should have some idea of how punishments are being dealt (i.e. some degree of transparency on reports).

I understand this adds pressure to decision-making but beyond the trial mod stage you really shouldn't be losing your nerve over it, and will definitely get used to it. Most importantly, this means someone can call you out and you have to answer for it. Name a guideline, name a precedent, give a line of logical reasoning - prove that you know what you are doing. That's about as transparent as it gets. There should be wiggle room ofc, not every report should be seen by the public so maybe we could instead make some sort of 2 week archive where reports that were already handled can be seen, and ones that cant be made public for whatever reason aren't included. Given how easy it is to move threads around I think this would be a pretty easy thing to do without adding crazy stress to the staff team.

This is actually a great example of the transparency I am describing. If a moderator feels pressured to appropriately do their job, then there are some underlying conditions that could be causing a conflict of interest (something like favoritism).

And if they become scrutinized by the decisions they make, then it shouldn’t really matter if they truly believe they made the absolute best choice given the scenario in front of them. If someone truly believes that they are making the right choices, then they are more likely to stand their ground, regardless of the community backlash.

It’s only those who realize that they made a mistake, or made an unbalanced decision that can choose to publicly admit fault, and right their wrongs. We don’t require that of our staff team because we don’t see the straight decisions made and why they are made. Therefore when a bad decision is made, they are not held accountable (from the public eye).

A great example of this is police officers. If a good police officer sees a bad police officer do something he considers bad, and doesn’t speak up, now we have two bad police officers. So if a majority of the community sees the favoritism, then it can be inferred that the staff also sees it. And if the staff sees other staff showing favoritism, and they don’t speak up or do anything about it, then they are just as bad as the moderators showing the favoritism.

[Uim elon]

This was a weird way of saying the votes don’t matter.

Didn’t expect someone to be attempting to invalid the opinions of others.... but I’ll go down the rabbit hole...

Isn’t perception a big part of reality? So if most of the server perceives the actions of the staff team as showing favor for those close to them, then that could build a poor relationship between the staff and the community.

Just because someone perceives something as negative, doesn’t quite make it correct, but a bit more transparency and explanation can definitely mend these ripples. But that’s just my 2 cents.

I'm not saying the votes don't matter. I'm saying the outcome of this poll doesn't show how biased the staff team is. It shows how many people have a different idea about what would've been fair in certain past staff decisions.

No matter what decision you make, there will always be people who think it was wrong (either too harsh or not harsh enough). Let's say every time you make a decision 90% agrees with you and 10% has a different idea. And the next decision same thing, except with different people in the 90%/10% groups. By the time you've made 1000 decisions everyone has been in the 10% group plenty of times. So even though objectively speaking you've been very unbiased (90% agreed with every decision after all), if you poll it this way all that matters is that everyone can remember 20+ times when you didn't do the fair thing (in their opinion) and so they vote yes.

Sure perception is important but this isn't really about perception. It's more about statistical analysis. If you want to look for evidence of systemic bias you won't get there by essentially asking "do you think all staff decisions are the right ones".

EDIT: by the way, this also doesn't indicate that there is no staff bias. It just doesn't say anything one way or the other.

Asking the staff to not show favoritism is not the same as asking the staff to never make mistakes.

You are interpreting the question the wrong way.... just take it as face value.... do you see favoritism? Not asking if it is right, or if it’s wrong.... just if it is being observed/ perceived.

Edit: Although you don’t care about the perception the community has on your staff team, I do.... that’s why I posted the question with absolutely no justification or persuasion and I asked for no reply’s (because they tend to be persuasive).... so people can actually sit and think to themselves and come to their own conclusion.

[Patel]

This was a weird way of saying the votes don’t matter.

Didn’t expect someone to be attempting to invalid the opinions of others.... but I’ll go down the rabbit hole...

Isn’t perception a big part of reality? So if most of the server perceives the actions of the staff team as showing favor for those close to them, then that could build a poor relationship between the staff and the community.

Just because someone perceives something as negative, doesn’t quite make it correct, but a bit more transparency and explanation can definitely mend these ripples. But that’s just my 2 cents.

The results do tell us that people have felt some level of inconsistency, but we kind of already know that. They offer no additional insight, so I can see why Rapsey would say that they're essentially pointless. The poll truly is uninformative.

What do you mean when you say "transparency", btw? Like what would you want to see changed? I see this word thrown around but without much substance. Appeals, refunds, and recoveries will likely never be made public, but I am in favor of atleast showing reports and the decisions mods make on them. I've always thought that the community should have some idea of how punishments are being dealt (i.e. some degree of transparency on reports).

I understand this adds pressure to decision-making but beyond the trial mod stage you really shouldn't be losing your nerve over it, and will definitely get used to it. Most importantly, this means someone can call you out and you have to answer for it. Name a guideline, name a precedent, give a line of logical reasoning - prove that you know what you are doing. That's about as transparent as it gets. There should be wiggle room ofc, not every report should be seen by the public so maybe we could instead make some sort of 2 week archive where reports that were already handled can be seen, and ones that cant be made public for whatever reason aren't included. Given how easy it is to move threads around I think this would be a pretty easy thing to do without adding crazy stress to the staff team.

I always wanted to see which staff muted/banned/ or expelled someone. Now you only see the reason but not the person do it. This could show that it's not always biased even if it seems so.

This used to be the case. The result was that we actually had the opposite problem - the community has collective biases too! Staff members they like, staff members they see as weak or dumb, staff members they don't like. So depending on the staff member, a given decision would be met without any issue, OR, the community would be in an uproar about it. This was huge when I was a mod/admin, I had a great relationship with the community so sometimes I could literally just say "stop doing ____" without punishing (for minor things) and people would listen. If you weren't in that position, you might have to issue a formal warning, which then makes the player mad, things escalate, and boom, they're muted. And it's because the player just didn't like the mod in the first place (sorry to say). They knew about that mod and who they punished. They themselves had sometimes been punished before.

Things have improved drastically since then. To amend my suggestion, if it's possible, the reports section could be open without identifying posters. Obviously if you know the mod well enough you'll pick up on speech patterns, but that's ok. For the most part, I think it's better when you don't know who exactly is punishing you. Then you attack the reasoning of the punishment rather than the punisher.

Asking the staff to not show favoritism is not the same as asking the staff to never make mistakes.

The idea is that the very perception of 'favoritism' IS just mistakes, a lot of the time!

[Rapsey]

This is actually a great example of the transparency I am describing. If a moderator feels pressured to appropriately do their job, then there are some underlying conditions that could be causing a conflict of interest (something like favoritism).

And if they become scrutinized by the decisions they make, then it shouldn’t really matter if they truly believe they made the absolute best choice given the scenario in front of them. If someone truly believes that they are making the right choices, then they are more likely to stand their ground, regardless of the community backlash.

It’s only those who realize that they made a mistake, or made an unbalanced decision that can choose to publicly admit fault, and right their wrongs. We don’t require that of our staff team because we don’t see the straight decisions made and why they are made. Therefore when a bad decision is made, they are not held accountable (from the public eye).

A great example of this is police officers. If a good police officer sees a bad police officer do something he considers bad, and doesn’t speak up, now we have two bad police officers. So if a majority of the community sees the favoritism, then it can be inferred that the staff also sees it. And if the staff sees other staff showing favoritism, and they don’t speak up or do anything about it, then they are just as bad as the moderators showing the favoritism.

One problem with that is that when the people get to judge the correctness of every decision they start applying pressure to get what they want, even if that isn't what's fair. No one ever claimed that justice of the mob was always guaranteed to be unbiased.

You use police as an example but IMO it's actually an example of the opposite. Cops answer to their superior, not to every nosey citizen with an opinion on the matter. You don't get to judge (or even know) the speeding tickets a cop hands out to everyone else, or argue when one drunk fool gets off with a warning while another gets charged with disorderly conduct.

[Patel]

This is actually a great example of the transparency I am describing. If a moderator feels pressured to appropriately do their job, then there are some underlying conditions that could be causing a conflict of interest (something like favoritism).

And if they become scrutinized by the decisions they make, then it shouldn’t really matter if they truly believe they made the absolute best choice given the scenario in front of them. If someone truly believes that they are making the right choices, then they are more likely to stand their ground, regardless of the community backlash.

It’s only those who realize that they made a mistake, or made an unbalanced decision that can choose to publicly admit fault, and right their wrongs. We don’t require that of our staff team because we don’t see the straight decisions made and why they are made. Therefore when a bad decision is made, they are not held accountable (from the public eye).

A great example of this is police officers. If a good police officer sees a bad police officer do something he considers bad, and doesn’t speak up, now we have two bad police officers. So if a majority of the community sees the favoritism, then it can be inferred that the staff also sees it. And if the staff sees other staff showing favoritism, and they don’t speak up or do anything about it, then they are just as bad as the moderators showing the favoritism.

One problem with that is that when the people get to judge the correctness of every decision they start applying pressure to get what they want, even if that isn't what's fair. No one ever claimed that justice of the mob was always guaranteed to be unbiased.

You use police as an example but IMO it's actually an example of the opposite. Cops answer to their superior, not to every nosey citizen with an opinion on the matter. You don't get to judge (or even know) the speeding tickets a coo hands out to everyone else, or argue when one drunk fool gets off with a warning while another gets charged with disorderly conduct.

Check my edit, I actually like this idea of showing just the text in the reports section, without revealing the posters' identity. This way we can see the *material of the dialogue* (transparency) without running into the issue of personal bias against the staff member. Provided that people use proper grammar and avoid showing too much personality, any given mod should have little worry about being identified. Obviously you'd have to code it though....

[Uim elon]

This is actually a great example of the transparency I am describing. If a moderator feels pressured to appropriately do their job, then there are some underlying conditions that could be causing a conflict of interest (something like favoritism).

And if they become scrutinized by the decisions they make, then it shouldn’t really matter if they truly believe they made the absolute best choice given the scenario in front of them. If someone truly believes that they are making the right choices, then they are more likely to stand their ground, regardless of the community backlash.

It’s only those who realize that they made a mistake, or made an unbalanced decision that can choose to publicly admit fault, and right their wrongs. We don’t require that of our staff team because we don’t see the straight decisions made and why they are made. Therefore when a bad decision is made, they are not held accountable (from the public eye).

A great example of this is police officers. If a good police officer sees a bad police officer do something he considers bad, and doesn’t speak up, now we have two bad police officers. So if a majority of the community sees the favoritism, then it can be inferred that the staff also sees it. And if the staff sees other staff showing favoritism, and they don’t speak up or do anything about it, then they are just as bad as the moderators showing the favoritism.

One problem with that is that when the people get to judge the correctness of every decision they start applying pressure to get what they want, even if that isn't what's fair. No one ever claimed that justice of the mob was always guaranteed to be unbiased.

You use police as an example but IMO it's actually an example of the opposite. Cops answer to their superior, not to every nosey citizen with an opinion on the matter. You don't get to judge (or even know) the speeding tickets a cop hands out to everyone else, or argue when one drunk fool gets off with a warning while another gets charged with disorderly conduct.

That’s because police don’t issue punishments. They can only charge you with crimes. It’s a judge and a court that issue punishments. And in 99% of cases, it is all made public so not only can it be scrutinized by the public, but it can also be referenced in the future to ensure transparency and balance in the law system. Often times, pressure is exactly what a system needs when it makes a mistake. Look at the case for Cynthia Brown.