Changes In Forum Administration

[HorseJockey]

I haven't made any comments yet and I need to get this out of my head. I have been a lurker on these forums for almost 20 years, I have seen it all and I remember it all. I feel as I read these posts and the fallout from this that everyone tends to forget that they are dealing with people, their feelings, history and all that that entails. I wish you the best of luck Cali, but for my part I am incredibly disappointed with how ALL of this has played out.

"Sometimes bad emotional responses, lead to bad command decisions"

Just be decent to each other everyone...

[Kinsie]

It's the best resolution, but it sucks that all of this had to happen to get here.

Yeah... yeah.

This is a good start, but change doesn't immediately occur overnight, so while I'm optimistic for the future, I'll have to maintain an arms-length distance for a while longer and watch what happens. You've got a hell of a task ahead of you Cali, and I wish you the best of luck.

Best of luck, Cali. The best advice I can give you right now is that other communities are your friends. If you run into another situation where nobody is comfortable making a sound call - reach out. We're in this together, and with the communities so much more intertwined than they used to be, it's rare that a problem is ever exclusive to just one userbase. Chances are good that other people have also had to make the same tough decisions, and they probably have unique perspectives which can help shape a more complete view of the situation.

This is an important point. Make a habit of reaching out the heads of other community sites and services when shit pops up, because those other sites are probably dealing with the same shit and might have a perspective you're missing.

[wran]

I don't feel like there's much I can say as a mostly lurking nobody, but I feel like Cardboard Marty's courage in shedding light on this horrific incident with his video should be applauded. It's clear he put the community's needs over his own in the full knowledge that he was opening himself up to all kinds of attacks, and that ultimately led to this meaningful, necessary change. I hope this doesn't get forgotten.

[Unholypimpin]

Honestly I think this is the best case scenario we could have asked for, its a shame things had to come to this but atleast now the community can heal from this tragedy. My best wishes to the admin team, but im sure you guys will figure it all out in time.

[randi]

the admin team

That's just me and Caligari now, and I haven't done any admin work in 6 years! (Excluding keeping the server updated and running.)

This has all been very sad, and I had no idea any of this was going on. I really don't want zdoom.org to die, and he has my support in his new role. I was always impressed by his interactions on the forum years ago when I was still active here.

[Matt]

Guess I'd better get more involved in HD development again because this is going to be a lot of work for you Cali! @_@

Re: backroom dangers, I think the best way to mitigate the worst of that going forward is to just adopt a constant, relentless stance of aggressive transparency. Just lay it all out there whenever there's a problem (subject to making sure you're not defaming people or endangering someone reporting the problem) - and if there's any in-camera discussions influencing a decision, mention what was said too, no screenshot galleries just a summary of what was decided and why.

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.

(Just to be clear, though, I was not one of the people who complained that Cali mentioned in the OP - I didn't even see that post until after the fact.)

EDIT: A point that I'd neglected to make here that I definitely should have (and possibly even saved us 3 pages of... whatever that was) is that it's really easy to unknowingly channel a lot of antisemitic tropes, because they're so old and prevalent and evolved to parasitize off of people's legitimate grievances. My pointing that out is not to say that PB is a chud but to explain why people read it that way.

[TonynUBares]

I do want to ask how you intend to guarantee this moving forward. With backroom after backroom coming to light, "not going to exile them" and "this isn't a coup" isn't the most reassuring language. I don't doubt your resolve, but I would like to know if there's any way you can ensure that they won't be weighing in on decisions and discussions as so many ex-staff were found to have done in the incident.

It would be silly of anyone to think that the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper can be completely excluded when the whole thing here is basically theirs. If you and the other accusers don't somehow become proactive to make sure things improve, you'd become a bunch of happy peasants that have been given the sop. I can see only two possible futures here:
1) Vinz and Zuul, or Weasel and Rachel (names here are not so important) really understand their mistakes they have been accused for (or of? damn this language sometimes) and for the love towards the community they've been creating over the years they let someone else fully conduct the orchestra WHILST INEVITABLY WATCHING AND AT LEAST MARGINALLY INFLUENCING, THIS IS NOT DISNEYWORLD FOLKS
2) rather than the forum closing because the money flow is interrupted, the community becomes a sect made of the admins the way the always used to be, a bunch of yes-users and a bunch of people staying because totally unaware of things and facts

What I want to say is that to avoid 2), the people that got hurt the most should also actively monitor the whole, even without red names. Leaving the community solves nothing, because, against being ultra honest, Rachel can't be worse than any of your countries' politicians, tho none of you afaik abandoned your own country because of that *wink*.


For Caligari: mod rotation is something I also thought about, but beware that you'd need someone to check the thing is going decently, otherwise there's a chance that it turns to a semi-anarchy that would after require an even stricter dictatorship as a countermeasure.

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)

[yum13241]

I was always impressed by his interactions on the forum years ago when I was still active here.

Then why did you pick Rachael to be admin in viewtopic.php?t=54883? I'm just curious.
I wish you all success.

Seeing former admins with a blue name is super cursed.

[Redneckerz]

Well, this post-mortem doesn't surprise me, but it is good that it is told publicly. Thank you Cali on that.

It should be noted that everything in that announcement remains true. Marisa is gone and will remain gone.

I think that's for the best considering. Disregarding how the staff handled this, and despite the legality of certain aspects of it, a lot of hot air has been fumed out that is bang out of order even if it weren't the kind of situation we are in now. As much as that pains me to say for Marisa. That part is just a case of Play stupid games, get stupid prizes.

In light of community sentiment over the situation, Rachael, WildWeasel, and Candice have all voluntarily stepped down from their administrative and moderator positions. Ownership of the forum and discord has been transferred to myself.

Given the private chatter i had last night (I reached out to all of them to ask on their own well doing. Irregardless of what anyone may think of these people, they are still people like you and me. I don't consider any one of those folks that operated with ill-intent - Rather, they acted according to how they felt was best. I realize this reads like a defense for the most often mentioned user around here (Rachael) and i want to avoid any bias by not mentioning that yes, Rachael has been very gracious in providing me FTP-level access on DRDTeam - But that isn't to say that we have to stop looking at them as people instead of nametags now.

All in all i think their decision is for the best. I believe its good to take some time off, recoup and re-assess things considering their lengthy activity on the forum here.

Then why did you pick Rachael to be admin in viewtopic.php?t=54883? I'm just curious.

Forgive me when i look at this and all i can feel is doubt - Are you really curious or do you just want to stir things? Because i heavily felt that in the other thread by the amount of times you called this place Skulltag 2: Electric Boogaloo.
If you truly are curious, my suggestion (Which holds no weight, mind you) would be to ask either Randi or Cali directly.

Rachael is out of access, that's where things are right now. I believe that's also the one thing (Along with a host of other users) you vouched for in the end.

[Brohnesorge]

I, for one, welcome our new bald sunglasses overlord.

But for real, I have high hopes going forward. This is basically exactly what I was hoping for, even if its a lot to put on Cali's plate. Now we really will never see Tranquility.

[Professor Hastig]

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, then they won't get anything. You have to accept realities and one of those realities is that Rachael and Wildweasel are still needed unless you want to see the entire community come crashing down. As long as they don't interfere with moderation or the daily operation of the forum that is fine by me.

[randi]

Then why did you pick Rachael to be admin in viewtopic.php?t=54883? I'm just curious.

Because she was already running drdteam.org, which was more or less a defacto sister site for zdoom.org, as it was the home not only for the Dev Builds, but also GZDoom, and a number of ZDoom forum regulars were also hosted there.

[Unholypimpin]

the admin team

That's just me and Caligari now, and I haven't done any admin work in 6 years! (Excluding keeping the server updated and running.)

This has all been very sad, and I had no idea any of this was going on. I really don't want zdoom.org to die, and he has my support in his new role. I was always impressed by his interactions on the forum years ago when I was still active here.

I mean i'm sure the admin team will grow in time, plus I think the vast majority of the community has your back and will support you guys.

I doubt the zdoom forums will die because theres still a huge community thats willing to use it.

I was really sad when I heard that news, it was very shocking because I joined this community like 15+ years ago and would of never thought something like this could ever happen.

[Hellser]

As of writing, there aren't a lot of moderators left. We -- or I, speaking for myself -- will do our best to ensure that trust can be rebuilt and that the ZDoom Forums is a safe place for all to enjoy.

[june gloom]

Having read through the entire previous thread and assorted other things the only thing I can feel is a deep sadness. I'm not terribly active in the community except as someone who enjoys and plays Doom and the creative ideas people express in their maps and mods, but I've been a part of this community for almost 25 years from the day I discovered Doomworld all the way back in 1999. In all those years I've seen (and been involved in) some serious messy situations, most recently that whole business with Blade of Agony and KF targeting Doomworld in part over said business. But nothing could have prepared me for the amount of heartbreak that I felt when I discovered what had happened here.

I've got a lot of experience moderating/adminning stuff for years going back to a metal music appreciation (read: piracy) group on Livejournal all the way back in 2007/2008. In all those years I've learned two things: one, mod teams cannot operate like a secret society who close ranks when one of them misbehaves. If someone for example (using my own experiences) is a serial pathological liar who makes constant, easily disprovable claims, while also being very aggressive against potential new members under the guise of "protecting the community against chuds" it probably stands to reason that there's a fundamental trust issue in keeping that person in the mod team. And that's to say nothing of self-admitted legally actionable behavior. Building a healthy community requires transparency, accountability, and even-handedness; the mod team should be acting as community members, not as some sort of governing body with limited means of recourse when there's a dispute over how they do their job. The whole "Fun Police" business is actually horrifying in its implications, not just because one particularly headstrong actor with a tendency to hold grudges can simply unperson someone from the entire community over personal disagreements, but it suggests a deep rot in the community that all these disparate corners with their own focuses and cultures can be controlled by such a small group of people. It's like waking up and finding out the Templars are real. This is not how you build trust in your community.

The other thing I learned is that when you start getting into the Real Life Legal Stuff such as proof of Actual Crimes, you have a duty of care to your community and to yourself to treat it with all the seriousness it requires. Again, to draw from my own experiences, a (now former) moderator of a Discord I moderate chose to inform us of a Title IX investigation into alleged grooming behavior by an acquaintance of ours by telling us about it in public, unintentionally (?) sabotaging said investigation because word got back to the accused and the investigation went nowhere.

Ultimately I just want to have hope that moving forward this community can heal from the deep wounds that have been left by allowing someone with a documented history of abusive behavior have such absolute control over the forum. There are important lessons to be learned from all this, but rebuilding trust is something that's going to take a while. I have faith in Cali to make it happen, but I don't blame Matty or Vostyok (whose departure alerted me to all this) or anybody else who chose to leave for not sticking around to see it.

I for one will continue to be a very minor presence on this forum in part because I'm frustrated in how it's organized and how difficult it is to find finished projects, but these are matters unrelated to the issue at hand and I have no intention of exiting entirely. I want to see this community succeed because GZDoom's slow transition from just another source port to an actual honest to Palutena game engine with commercial applications is such a thrilling prospect and it's a testament to the incredible creativity of this extremely welcoming community. (How many communities for old FPS games are this queer, this furry or have this many women in it?)

I will see you all around the forums. Please don't break it again.