Changes In Forum Administration

[Tapwave]

This is all welcome and good change. We just have to remember that this is only the start of a new, hopefully brighter path and not the end of everything that has brought us here.

I trust everyone to be more honest with any problematic situations and not bottle it up when it's too late - but also for everyone to let people be transparent about these situations. Nobody should feel chilled in their expression or feel like nobody is going to listen. This is what brought us here, in the end.

[DreemurrDeceevurr]

I wouldn't be lying if I said I was starting to grow less fond of the Doom community in recent years for several reasons internal and external and that the recent days had shattered much of my faith in it. Let's hope now we can start to rebuild, however long that may take.

[22alpha22]

Wow, I did not expect a regime change to happen this quickly, if at all.

I must say that while it was most probably necessary for Rachael to step down, I do feel sympathy for what she must be going through right now. I know that if everyone was out for my blood, deservedly or not, I would not be ok.

With Caligari now in charge, I'm prepared to give zdoom.org another chance. I truly hope everyone will be able to calm down and start the healing process now. I think any further dogpiling/flaming/whateveryoucallit will only be destructive and cause unnecessary damage at this point.

I shall return to mostly lurking once more.

[Eric_]

This has all been very sad, and I had no idea any of this was going on.

This, I think, has been a significant failing of the rest of the community, and it's another reason that it's important that administrations actually speak to each other going forward. If important people at Doomworld or Zandronum had been asked for a second opinion on Rachael before instating her here, it never would have come to this. Likewise, if those important people had been paying more attention to the ongoings here, they could have also drawn attention to the matter before such extreme measures were necessary. It's just as important to keep bad actors out of staff positions as it is to not let in DDoSers and doxxers among the regular users. Not calling for blacklisting or anything, just make sure the electrician you're hiring doesn't have a history of his clients' buildings burning down. It's not always a drive-by arsonist.

[Ihavequestions]

Sorry to be harsh, but I see a lot of people demanding impeachment, but none of them to, say, propose theirselves to "make zdoom great again" (blonde toupee quote not intended)

Well, there certainly should be a proper recrutation thread for new moderators where people are given an accurate presentation of how mod's workday here looks like, how much time it typically consumes, etc., giving everyone a possibility to consider an aplication which then will be discussed and voted on.

[Caligari87]

What I'll probably do very soon is start a "Spring Cleaning" thread, specifically for the purpose of figuring out sentiment toward rules, moderation, organization, etc. I want to get the the people in the community engaged, to feel like they have a say in the direction of things, a sense of ownership and unity. Toward that end, I also want to bring some focus back to these forums. A lot of people have moved over to Discord, and I can't help but feel that's caused a bit of a fundamental split in both attitude and activity. How exactly to accomplish that, I'm not sure yet.

That said, it should also be noted that we're not an *intensely active* community either. On the forums, the pulse of activity usually seems to be measured in weeks. On the discord it's more like days, but that's still pretty mild compared to more wild-west places like /r/Doom or the Official Doom Discord. We also have a fairly small core of active people.

For evidence of this, the Marisa thread only ended up being 13 pages. Something of that magnitude on many other communities would be more like 50 pages.

This is to say that progress will be a slow roll. Not because of intentional delays, but because things just take a while to happen here. Moderators typically won't need to expect daily action, for example, so having a relatively large team with mild engagement would IMO be better than a small team with high engagement. I actually think the Community Guide program is a great model for how I want moderation to look here, with trusted community members helping out and guiding discussions, rather than cops thumping people with nightsticks for getting out of line.

Anyway, that's all probably kinda vague still. I just woke up and got some caffeine in my system for the workday, and wanted to drop a few thoughts. Expect a fair bit of brainstorm rambling from me over the weekend as I feel things out; ideally no one should be surprised when I make a change because I'll have talked about it like this at length.

[RKD]

I'm just a random user that has been lurking and occassionaly asking stuff for a while now (mostly lurking, tho). I've been playing Doom since the '90s and got into these forums after realizing how much cool stuff the community posted here. I'm also the type of person that likes to have as much context as possible in any matter, in order to draw my conclusions in the most conscious way I possibly can, so it took me literally hours between Marty's video, reading the corresponding posts and the Skulltag thingy shared by Eric. It's sad that it had to come this far, but I'm hopeful for the future of this community overall.

I feel Rachael stepping aside and letting someone else in that position was the sanest decision. Marty's/Eric's contributions really painted a bigger picture as to what kind of person she is/was. It's really hard to see someone that has been on charge of different sites for so long not showing any sensible personal growth in so many years. Sure, she swears less, but the belittlement of others with her constant passive agresiveness of "I know best" has been ever present. And it showed. With her past attitude in mind and with, obviously, a lot of people justifiably concerned about the future, is difficult to trust she won't do something to retaliate eventually. But I will do. I will do trust her, even if it means nothing since I'm a nobody. I will trust that she won't do something to harm this site, at least out of respect to Randi and Graf's work all these years, which I think should be enough of a reason. On a little note, I've used to be part of a smaller game forum, like, 10 years ago and, while I wasn't a mod, I did use to collaborate with the staff by reporting bugs and such. It came a time when I stood in my position for too much time and started losing the focus. I began to distrust people in the admin staff over there for reasons and became almost paranoid with everything they did. What helped me was to take distance from all of that and breath some air (and, alas, I was in the wrong). Perhaps this will be an opportunity for Rachael to have the space and time she needs to analyze herself and reconsiderate her ways. Everyone is able to improve and I do believe she can do so to. I hope she doesn't get the idea that people called her out just because they're all a bunch of "anti-Rachael" or something, that would defeat every chance for her potential growth, imo. As for me, I do not hate her and I think she's great at tech stuff and very capable at that. Just not currently suitable for an admin position.

I'm kind of sad for WW leaving the moderation team, tho. While some people went a little too harsh on him, imo, I'm also one of those who thinks he's still a legendary model and great as a mod. I do understand if he needs a break after all of this, but I have my hopes for his comeback eventually. One mistake shouldn't stain permanently anyone. I'm all about second chances.

In retrospective, I've gotta say that Cali's approach of a genuine "please speak and let us know what you think" when I was reading the previous post felt like a first. I mean, it should be common practice, but I guess that speaks a little about what kind of image the staff was painting for this site. I applaude this change and I hope whoever gets in the moderation team going forward sets your approach as a model to how to treat the community, specially the part where you let people express themselves and actually listen to them, albeit keeping boundaries to not allow unhelpful trolling/hating.

Btw, I'm a little concerned about your well-being, Cali. I put myself in your shoes and can't help but think that probably you weren't expecting to have all of this massive responsability on your shoulders in a matter of days. From a third-party viewpoint, it gave me off that impression. In that regard, I just want to let you know that, no matter if you intend to be in this new position for long or only for a while (since you have your job and a real life to live), I commend your courage and support your efforts to keep this place afloat, sir. And from what I've read, I'm not the only one who think that way. Just don't push yourself too hard. People is understanding with other understanding people. Stay true!


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PD: Man, now I kinda want to finish a map for Heretic I've left unfinished last year, so I have something to post here, haha

[Scripten]

This seems like a very solid set of first steps toward healing some of the past wounds in this section of the community. I too hope that we can all take important lessons away from this situation, and that some amount of grace can continue to be granted to those involved (save, of course, for the people justifiably removed from the community). I would personally enjoy seeing Wildweasel returning to a central position in the community, even if that position is not one of moderation. Same goes for everyone else, in their various roles on the site: nobody still here has done anything that I feel warrants exile wholesale.

Again, many thanks to you, Caligari, and to the other members of the staff and community who worked to get us through this situation and helped fill out the blanks for everyone who was grasping at straws when it all began. I appreciate the move toward transparency and the efforts toward flattening the hierarchy a bit.

[Xtyfe]

To echo what everyone has said so far, this was the best possible outcome. I wasn't sure if it would mean so many people stepping down (WW was a surprise, to say the least, I had hoped he might stay despite everything) so quickly but with everything that Cali has put forward, I feel that I can breathe a bit of relief. I want to be more active here and in the Doom community again, I feel confident now that I can do that without fear.

It's so sad that this situation meant losing so many prominent people and I say this for Marisa as well. I wish none of this happened at all but in the end, it should bring about a brighter future for this community. It was necessary.

[june gloom]

This has all been very sad, and I had no idea any of this was going on.

This, I think, has been a significant failing of the rest of the community, and it's another reason that it's important that administrations actually speak to each other going forward. If important people at Doomworld or Zandronum had been asked for a second opinion on Rachael before instating her here, it never would have come to this. Likewise, if those important people had been paying more attention to the ongoings here, they could have also drawn attention to the matter before such extreme measures were necessary. It's just as important to keep bad actors out of staff positions as it is to not let in DDoSers and doxxers among the regular users. Not calling for blacklisting or anything, just make sure the electrician you're hiring doesn't have a history of his clients' buildings burning down. It's not always a drive-by arsonist.

But then again you have to be careful not to let it turn into another Fun Police situation. I hate the idea that if one place bans you -- deservedly or not -- you wind up being blacklisted from an entire community no matter how different the various forums may be. ZDF is not Doomworld is not r/Doom is not Bridgeburner's Discord server is not Major Arlene's Discord server. Every subcommunity has its own culture and rules, and even if you don't have a moderator with a history of abusive behavior holding near absolute-power, even if your little "Fun Police" group is actually super professional and not petty at all, the mere thought of all these groups having a sort of shadow government dictating membership across all these disparate groups is quite frankly pretty upsetting.

Should admins talk to each other before making executive decisions? Sure, it's good to get a little feedback from fellow community leaders. But I feel that a better solution is that these forums and servers should be talking to each other more at the user level; this situation has revealed the depths of a deep divide in the community as the community is quite fractured across multiple forums and Discords. How this would actually be implemented is difficult to say -- for one thing, you can't force people to go to both Doomworld and ZDF and also all these individual users' Discord servers. But I've noticed that people have been reticent to talk about this on Doomworld, understandably so as Doomworld like any other forum does not wish to invite drama from elsewhere. Which means to me that Doomworld's administratorship should be upfront and say "hey, so, the Doom community is not just Doomworld, it's all these other places too, and you deserve to know about this situation that's got a section of our community in turmoil." (Substitute Doomworld for any other forum or server.) If you're going to have admins from different places talking to each other, then there should be transparency and accountability across each and every one of these places, not just ZDF.

Also -- I keep bringing up Rachael as a core part of what's happening here, but I suppose I should take the time to say that as much as I find her moderation style to be quite toxic to a healthy community, I get it. I know what it's like to be ruled by one's emotions and also what it's like to feel, as a trans person, that the whole world is out to get you. But if that's what you're feeling, if that's what you're dealing with, then you shouldn't be in a position of power. You have a responsibility to your community, and the kind of moderation style Rachael embodied was not fulfilling that responsibility.

And I know it sucks to wake up one day and find that the entire community wants you out. I know how that feels too (I wasn't popular in that old metal music Livejournal group I mentioned last night because I actually enforced the rules, it was pretty much anarchy beforehand. Really was the start of what soured me on the metal scene and metal as a whole.) My heart goes out to her as she processes all this, because at the end of the day she's still a person.

[will183]

I'm very hopeful this community can stay thriving and eventually recover.

My thoughts on the whole forum going forward

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1. Any sort of bias should be taken out of any equations with moderation. Moderators should be neutral in any situation unless they think there is an active problem that needs to discussed. No more Moderators banning people over disagreements, personal bias or other reasoning. Any permanent bans that are on any long standing community member should atleast be thought out thoroughly with as little bias as possible. If possible, warnings should be provided first and foremost before banning.

I also understand neutrality is not always an option and remaining neutral can also cause conflict with the community. I believe in these situations it is best that the community is consulted, with all parties involved in any situation should be talked to in a manner that is constructive and useful for the involved parties.
as an example from the recent events: Cardboard Marty's concerns should have been discussed far better, and Cardboard Marty should NOT have been banned from the community for the posting of his video.

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2. Additions to the mod team should be discussed thoroughly and well vetted. Everyone on the moderation team has to agree about someone being added. It would also be nice if community input could be taken into account, but I understand that's not always feasible or wise.

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3. Knowing what happened to TerminusEst13, Any sort of sexual provocation or anything of that regard HAS TO BE CONSENTUAL WITH ALL PARTIES. This should go without saying, but if someone discloses discomfort about someone's sexual advances to the moderation team, that should be thoroughly discussed and warnings should be issued privately to the offending party (The victim should also be notified about any warnings to the offender), if the offending party fails to cease any sort of advances with anyone who is not comfortable with these advances, their banning should be discussed. No shrugging it off.

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4. As a sort of extension to my first point, the moderation team should be 100% professional in all scenarios. If a moderator is actively making personal attacks or snide remarks against someone, this should be discussed and the offending moderator warned. If this fails to cease in any period of time, the moderator should be sat down and this should be discussed properly with them. If it still continues to fail, discussions about their demotion should take place.
I don't want a repeat of the "Accusers will burn" spiel in the Fun Police channel, or Candice's "Hypocritical much?" post on the previous thread. Anything a moderator says should be constructive and should never be a personal attack.

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5. Moderation channels such as #funpolice should be 100% entirely professional (atleast in regards to discussing any sort of situation or party). Any sort of the shenanigan's we've seen come out from that channel recently should never be repeated under any and all circumstances. I am also opposed to having a global fun police styled channel for mass banning across the entire community, Zdoom forums or elsewhere.

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6. Harassment of people based on identity should be punished of course. But jumping to immediate conclusions in this regard should be avoided and instant perma banning of people who might do or say something that could be mistaken as bigotry is often too much. Remove the offending posts/threads, and talk to any necessary parties, but immediate banning should be avoided, with warnings being provided to offending parties. Repeat offenders should be temporarily kicked for some period of time, and any obvious trolls or straight up direct harassers should be banned. moderation shouldn't call people out publicly neither.
Some of the things I've seen in regards to immediate call outs and personal attacks from moderation on this forum in the past is extremely unprofessional in my opinion. I am of the belief these sort of conflicts should be resolved with professionalism. Either discuss, warn or ban any offenders. But you most certainly do not need to make personal attacks, privately or publicly. I also believe it's best if people respect each other, even if they disagree with each other's ideologies or identity's on this forum. Even if it is begrudging. We're all here for Zdoom, and it's community. Not for petty squabbling because you can't get along for some reason or another.
And do I need to say that encouraging violence for any reason should never be acceptable under any circumstance? (Besides against the demonic hordes)

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7. Constructive criticism of the moderation team should be welcomed. Even non-constructive criticism usually has a reason behind it's existence (Although sometimes this could just be because of a personal grudge for reasons mentioned above.)

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8. The community comes first and foremost. No specific people should be favored by the moderation team in any sort of important regards if it could affect this community. As I have said. The moderation staff should always remain neutral above all else.

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9. No one should be above the rules. Plain and simple.

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10. The whole my way or the highway approach that certain moderators employed that have since stepped down, should not occur any under circumstances.

I can't really think of anything else to add at this time. But these are just my own thoughts that I've typed out. None of these are demands of course, but more what changes I wish to see with this forum personally. I hope to see this place be a positive force in the community, for modders, players, map creators, game developers, artists, streamers and source port programmers and anyone else who wishes to interact with the community. Especially since Doom and a decent chunk of it's community has helped me with a lot of my lowest points in my life from the past three-four years. (2019-2023)

[Captain Ventris]

Well, this is certainly a start. Cali, I have faith in you, I really do, and I will be watching for changes eagerly. Sounds like you already have a bunch of good ideas and we all know you have a cool head.

[dawnbreez]

Hey, so uh, I know everyone's primarily concerned about the moderation team changeover, but did anybody contact the FBI about the Big Federal Crimes that the accuser committed (according to the chatlogs Marisa gave, anyway)?

[Caligari87]

The accuser is (allegedly) located in the Philippines. If someone has enough information about the problem to notify the relevant authorities about illegal activity they may do so, however I will not be pursuing it and I would ask that this forum NOT be used to coordinate any such efforts.

[DoomKrakken]

Re: PB's Hall'd rant, TIL this is not common knowledge for the various GZDoom communities, so for everyone reading: the idea that the elites have been taken over by a cabal of $IDENTIFIABLE_MINORITY_GROUP who are unfit for their position and got there by nefarious means is a really common antisemitic canard which has often been redeployed these days against LGBTQ+ people. I know I kneejerked when I read that and might have initially banned PB myself if I were a mod (if possibly later calming down enough to reach out to offer to unban if he had a good explanation); but at the same time in this particular case there was a strong sense of "they protect their own" and the possibility of Marisa being trans (and actually being targeted by Kiwifarmers) being used as a cover for her actual impugned misconduct, which seems to be what PB was trying to point out specifically even if with a slip into some very Unfortunate generalizations.

I'll leave this here for you to look over:

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Intriguing...

I do not believe PillowBlaster's statement had to do with Marisa et al. being trans, but rather he's attempting to highlight the fact that people who point out any sort of wrongdoing done on the part of somebody who just so happens to be trans are often - seemingly automatically - accused of being bigoted... just for pointing out something that has nothing to do with the person being trans.

No mention of "this person is trans and therefore wrong", no sweeping generalization of trans people saying "see this is what trans people do"... he's just seeing a pattern where, for whatever reason, certain people accuse any naysayers of being bigoted simply because the wrongdoer just so happens to be trans and therefore "anti-<wrongdoer> == anti-trans". He's pointing out the fact that there exist people who hide behind the "bigot" buzzword, abusing it to call others to arms and drown out the dissident opposition in a sea of confusion and madness and reactionary emotion.

PillowBlaster laid out his concern that the ZDoom moderators - many of whom just so happen to be trans themselves - could possibly be falling into this cycle; either because they were themselves afraid of being called bigots, or because they are actually petty enough to sling the word to silence others. He held that others ought to speak up about it and voice their dissent, regardless of who the wrongdoer is.

Like PillowBlaster said, "... it's not a 'phobia or 'ism to notice such things and to air your grievances...".

With all that in mind, considering how quickly PillowBlaster was banned and his comment censored, it's absolutely reasonable now to think that the fears which PillowBlaster expressed in his statement may indeed be true... and that's honestly scary.