Admin Team Shakeup

[Hileville]

On the 12 of February I informed the admin team via a thread in our private discussion area that a possible shakeup was going to happen.  I have not held this information in some top secret bunker.  I have been vocal about it to many of our Government members and other members of this community in which I trust.  I have quoted the contents of this post below.

 

I have made it known to several people that I am looking into a shakeup on the admin team which would result in fewer admins being more active on admin tasks. I wanted to have this thread which will serve as a heads up that changes may be made in the near future. I will be contacting a few of you to work on new moderation policies which will change the way we moderate the forums. Ultimately, I believe a change in culture is needed and am looking at ways to make that happen.

 

The post received no replies.  There have also been many other threads that were of importance over the last 6 months that were ignored.

 

Since we moved to these forums there has been a steady decline in admins actually working.  For the most part these tasks have completely fallen on my shoulders.  In my current RL schedule I cannot continue to handle every issue and task that arises.  The admin team needs to have the knowledge and desire to perform these duties.  I no longer feel several of our admins have any plans on doing just that.

 

It is with this post that I announce the removal of HEM from the admin team.  HEM's last administrative action was completed on the 24th of January with a grand total of 20 actions taken dating back to July.

 

Southern Bellz will also be removed from the admin team.  SB has in the past expressed no real desire to complete the basic tasks of an admin.  I have no desire to force people to do something they do not want so therefore feel it is best to remove them from the equation.  Southern Bellz will retain the power to alter member masks until the completion of his term as MoA.  At the end of the term Southern Bellz will be moved to the Former Admin masking unless a different mask is needed based on elections.

 

Rebeltopia and Tsunamy have also been removed as an admin.

 

Kris Kringle and Sandaoguo at this time will be given full administrative access.  Both Kris and Sandaoguo have expressed interest in the past to become admins.  The current admin team as of this post consists of myself, Drugged Monkeys, Sandaoguo, and Kris Kringle.

 

I do not take these moves lightly and I understand that people will be upset and feel that I am being a evil dictator.  If the community as a whole feels that this move is wrong steps to move forums should be considered.  I have tried over the last year or so that we have been on these boards to provide the best and most rewarding community experience of all the GCR's.  In order to continue and improve on this experience we need admins who are willing to do everything in their power to get the job done.

 

Thanks,

Hileville

[Escade]

I like the idea of admins being those members who have the time and inclination to help out with the forums.  If a government member was inactive he would be recalled or replaced and it applies here as well.

 

Thanks for letting us know, Hile

[Southern Bellz]

I guess disagreeing with how Hileville handles things is the new qualification for getting 'kicked off the admin team'.

 

Can't wait for what bullshit he comes up with GR and Kris.

 

Good luck guys.  By the way, expect to find out about your issues in a public post or the latest issue of the rejected realms times.  Because he has time for everything but to clearly communicate his admin actions to the people he takes them against.  Embarrassing. 

 

Here was the last PM I sent, for the record before I was de admined with no communication:

 

 

[Southern Bellz]

Here is a direct quote Tsu sent to Hileville in our PM chain regarding Bels.

 

 

 

And Hile -- if we need something done, that's not getting done -- let us know. Or at least let me know. I'm more than willing to help out, but I've just been bouncing in and out as of late.

[Cormac]

I think the refrain of "If you don't like it, move forums" is getting a little bit old at this point, and perhaps the government should consider taking you up on the offer.

[HEM]

Hileville has never held a staff meeting, never issued portfolios, never had one-on-one discussions to discuss our progress, and never done anything one would expect a competent supervisor to do.

 

That's all I am going so say for now. I need some time to compile my thoughts after being unceremoniously sacked without ever once being issued a directive or offered coaching by my "boss".

[Belschaft]

I'm going to put this simply, and without any bullshit.


We have a rogue root admin.

[Belschaft]

I like the idea of admins being those members who have the time and inclination to help out with the forums.  If a government member was inactive he would be recalled or replaced and it applies here as well.

 

Thanks for letting us know, Hile

That is not the issue here Escade, at all. As you are aware two and a half weeks ago I was unilaterally removed from the admin team; needless to say, HEM, Tsu, Rebels and SB were not pleased with this course of action. We've been attempting to deal with the matter internally, but yesterday Hileville ruled that his was the only opinion that mattered, forbade any of the other admins to discuss the matter with me, and declared that the admin team would not be allowed to vote on the matter - the admin team, historically, votes on all matters. This ruling was not exactly... greeted warmly.

 

Hile has now removed every member of the admin team save one - DM, who is inactive. This is a purge by a rogue root admin, attempting to assert control over the forums.

[Unibot]

Removing Admins who are inactive seems to be a good idea and I fully support Kris and G-R being admins.

 

I do hope though that players here who are concerned about the influence of Admins, heed my earlier proposals and calls for the Judiciary to play a more active role in moderation (which were laughed at by several of the people complaining now - minus HEM, who talked to me in private about it and proposed his own bills regarding it).


Ultimately, if the Administration would be more about enforcing the judiciary's rulings and the day-to-day stuff, it would matter a lot less whether so and so is on the Admin staff. It's when Administration crosses into the realm of politics that we desperately start worrying about who is in those positions, because it's so easy (and common) to equivocate the banning of X,Y and Z for political reasons on the basis of moderation reasons.

 

That's not just a criticism of TSP's moderation regime, but basically every moderation regime I've seen in NS including the official one. 


- Unibot

[Awesomiasa]

I'm just going to state in brief my opinion.

 

I'm upset that this has occurred, the removal of the admin team, for the second time now, this time due to the non-acceptance of dissenting opinions by  the Root Administrator Hileville. It has to end, immediately.

 

Hile, I recognize that you do own these forums and have oversight over it as Root Administrator. But showing the door to those who disagree with you under a pretext of them being inactive and not contributing as admins is absolutely not the way to go. You own the forums, doesn't mean you're Supreme Overlord. There is no 'I' in team. Thus, I urge the reinstatement of all removed admins.

 

There is a definite need for a Charter of Governance of sorts amongst the admin team, as well as regular monthly admin team meetings, perhaps the minutes of which can be disclosed to the wider community (see here and here for examples). The examples given are in relation to the common consensus by the admin team on internal governance, and a more transparent and accountable administration.

 

I believe I speak on behalf of the greater TSP community here that the experience on the forums has been a enjoyable one, save for this huge pitfall of the lack thereof of rules for proper governance. It is in the greater interests of the community that this issue be rectified fairly and openly, and thereafter a more accountable and transparent form of internal governance in the admin team be implemented.

[TheGrimReaper]

There was reasoning given for the removal of HEM and Southern Bellz.

 

There was no reasoning given for the removal given of Rebeltopia or Tsunamy.

 

There was reasoning given for the appointment of Kris Kringalia, and Sandaoguo.

 

There was no reasoning given for the retention of Drugged Monkeys, which is significant as he was the only member of the previous administration team retained.

 

I would, therefore, like to request reasoning for the removal of Rebeltopia, and of Tsunamy ,and reasoning for the retention of Drugged Monkeys in the context of comparison with the reasoning given for the removal of either HEM or Southern Bellz.

[Punk D]

When admins spat, that's the recipe for forum disaster. First, I'm sorry you guys couldn't work this out internally. Second, I see Tsu, Bel, and HEM around the forums posting so they have at least been active TSPers. Doesn't mean they are active admins. I'd love to see admin activity counts if those are possible. 

 

But having seen true rogue admins before Hile is going in that direction though I don't know if he's crossed the rubicon. I can't agree or disagree with this action but I having known Tsu for years, he's a very good admin. He tries to be objective and I'd like to get more reasoning around his dismissal. 

[Ryccia]

I don't know for the moment if Hileville removed them because of inactivity or because "he says so". For now, until more evidence is brought upon the public and Government House, Im supporting the removed admins. There's no bad reason for removing them.

[Southern Bellz]

For the record, it is hilarious that Hileville accuses anyone of being inactive admins, considering he had the stones to remove Bels as admin with a brief explanation, and while Bels asked for more information - it was all the admins who were removed who responded.  It took from March 4th till YESTERDAY to just tell Bels why he was banned.

 

It was all the admins who were removed who said to Hileville that you can't keep doing things like banning Unibot and removing admin of people without discussing/warning them.

 

This has nothing to do with inactivity.  Hileville is lying to your face about it.

[Ryccia]

I got all the evidence I need. For now, my veridict for Hileville is guilty.

[Belschaft]

http://i376.photobucket.com/albums/oo202...ft/PMs.png
 
^ The above screenshots are of PM conversations between myself and Hileville, and between myself and the rest of the admin team. They show the following;
 
1. That Hileville issued a gag order, prohibiting the admin team from discussing my removal as an admin
2. That Hileville refused to allow the admin team to conduct a vote in regards to his actions
3. That the admin team refused to abide by these prohibitions - prohibitions that went entirely against all existing procedure for administrative matters
4. That shortly after this, all members of the admin team who refused to comply with Hile's orders were removed

[Ryccia]

Not fair, I say. Hile, would you care to respond in your defense? Not offending, but you have been accused of something bad here.

[Todd McCloud]

I mean I can understand why someone would like to remove inactive admins or admins that compromise security. But there wasn't really a process for this, apparently it just "happened". It's what made me upset in September / October last year.

 

Could we have a statement as to why these guys were removed?

[Belschaft]

We have one. It's full of lies.

[Rebel-topia]

Regardless of my position in this whole spat, this is complete and utter crap. I dont know where you get off making every admin decision in this region. You may pay for the forums, but you dont own them! As a citizen of this region, and as a former and current cabinet member, I ask you to act an adult, reinstate the 5 admins that you alone decided were not worthy of admin access, and discuss like adults.


I really thought highly of you, Hileville. I really did. I dont know what your problems are with those in this region, but its extremely out of hand.

[Ryccia]

Hile, make the right decision. Please make the right decision. Discuss like mature people and not like little children.

[HEM]

I still just don't know what to say...

 

I don't think I deserved to be removed, considering I received no direction / portfolios / feedback from my supervisor. But even assuming that I did deserve to be removed, the other admins certainly did not. Tsu even offered to do MORE in a convo with Hileville.

 

Hileville has forgotten that he works for this region, not the other way around.

[Hileville]

Here is the list of admin action count on these forums.  This includes everyone who has at some point had access to the ACP.

 

[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND] 

Hileville - 3046 actions taken

Belschaft - 235 actions taken

Carta - 85 actions taken

Eluvatar - 56 actions taken

tsunamy - 40 actions taken (tsu is also being returned to admin status)

rebeltopia - 31 actions taken

Southern Bellz - 28 actions taken

HEM - 20 actions taken

Drugged Monkeys - 12 actions taken (DM has been very active on our test forum learning the forum software and how to do more technical level things)

Tsrill - 2 actiosn taken

Todd - 2 actions taken

raw - 1 action taken (wrote the throwback theme which was paid for)

Fudgie - 1 action taken

 

Rebeltopia was removed as his only actions since 24th of November 2013 were to mask the recent additions to the CSS.

Tsu has been restored so I will not get into detail there.  I will say that he did offer to help more which I missed.

 

Further, Bel was informed of the basic reasons as to why he was removed on the March 15.  This resulted in a few back and forth messages about him telling me how wrong I was and he doesn't recognize my authority as an admin.

 

Looking back at the wording of my original post here I didn't mean for the move forums line to come out that way.  If the community does not like this decision I can understand that.  However, I will not continue to work with the individuals who were removed.  They have done nothing to help take admin tasks off of me and share the workload.  They do not respond to threads encouraging them to use our test forum to play around in.  I have had conversations in which I have asked what they actually wanted to do and learn how to do.  They usually ended with no response.  You can paint me as a rogue admin or a dictator or whatever you want.

[HEM]

 

 

 I have had conversations in which I have asked what they actually wanted to do and learn how to do.  They usually ended with no response.  You can paint me as a rogue admin or a dictator or whatever you want.

 

Hilleville, here you are using what people call their imagination 

[Southern Bellz]

You're not a dictator, you're a child. After years of working with us, instead of talking privately about an issue, you make a self righteous statement about it.


The fact that every single member of the admin team that you removed has more actions than the one you kept shows how full of crap you are.


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