The Staff Feedback Thread

[Charlie Brown]

This has nothing to do with anything that's been posted in this thread the last couple days but I just wanted to give a massive shout-out to the h-staff (particularly Audy and Klippy) for their innovation and going way above what's expected, with their implementation of mafia groups in the Underground. It's the little things that really make a big difference to the forum experience and these little innovations just show how much you guys care which is so cool to see. Massive props to Audy for fixing the issues that were brought up re: the groups so quickly as well. Thanks guys <3 So great seeing innovation and going above and beyond!

 

[Xander Olivieri]

We pick people based off merit, not off "oh my god this forum has no mod we must mod someone immediately". It's not about "oh my god I'll get picked if I make a million posts in this forum" either — it's about how the member in question appears to be someone who nurtures and grows a community.

Except, that was the exact reasons why -I- was chosen to be the Mod for Black and White when it came out. I was everywhere in that section and it came down to a posting war between me and two others. I was approached and given Moderator status shortly after it's inception because there needed to be someone to do the work. There wasn't any real merit to my posts.

My two partners at the end were amazing though. They did way more than I could have ever hoped to do. They were better thought of.

From what I have seen, a lot of the staff members seem extremely defensive about negative feedback.

This has been a thing since I was a Mod. We even had kneejerk bans that ended up being justifiable much later down the line, but yes, the overly defensive reactions has always been a thing. So much so that at one point, this thread seemed like an area where Mods would attack anyone that posted any severe criticism and we actually had to tell each other to shut up and stop talking in that thread so we could collectively think of a proper way to respond to the criticism.

With all due respect Lunaris (or whichever you wish to be called), I don't see the problem, here. I know this is not up to me, but as an individual who lurked that whole thread from the moment that guy trolled (it was obvious), Livewire's responses seemed perfectly justified.

Regardless of how the other guy posted, no that wasn't acceptable way to deal with a post. I know this first hand because -I did the exact same thing when I was a Moderator and got shit on by my fellow staff members as well as had my position threatened by the higher staff member.- Repeated warnings to the guy in private or through the Staff's system is the only proper way to have handled that situation and the guy should have outrightly been banned if he was as bad as he sounds (though with history here, he could have just harassed staff to let him back in a few times before getting permanently banned.)

Again: "You're full of crap" and the "Ridiculousness of your belief" holds the exact same meaning. The context is that we were talking about his beliefs.

The warning subject came up because I saw that some people were defending Livewire's reaction when it was pretty much the same thing I did.

There really is a lot of friend mentality when it comes to defense on these forums. It's best to leave it all alone and mark who you see with that disposition and ignore them as best you can. This was why I quit being a Moderator a few years ago, this and a few other things I saw constantly happening that I just didn't agree with and no longer felt secure in what I was doing.

This place, like everything has it's good and it's bad. Promote it's good, push the bad away. That is all I can tell you from experience. A lot of the time, it really isn't worth the fight.

This whole thing sounds a lot saltier that it should, but ya. I see no real improvement has been made since I last left. This is honestly slightly disappointing, but at the same time I expected much worse considering the final reason as to why I left.

 

[Salzorrah]

I'm just going on the other direction and actually thank Hstaff, specifically the PC Development Team, because without them, PC would just be another boring forum. One thing I've learned from the AF prank is that, how scaringly different PC has become with this cool innovations. Like we get these cool new fonts, PM systems, likes, variety, and what we return from that is "GIVE BACK OUR FEATURES OR DIE" vibe. I'm legit saddened that the work the PC Development team was worked on for years, gets overshadowed by a prank that almost everyone hated because they cant live without the features.

Don't worry, I'm atleast here to say thank you for the work that you've guys done to make PC an enjoyable place.

 

[Blah]

I wasn't dismissing his post. I felt it was needed to clarify that part because it is counterproductive to the discussion to present opinions as irrefutable facts in a discussion like this. As you said, opinions are what this thread is all about, but that's why presenting them as facts is counterproductive.

Also, I can't post everything I'd like to say because I don't have access to a computer.

You should be focused on the points made. Quoting his post and stating that he was presenting opinions as facts therefore doesn't add any points to your side or take away any points from his. His presentation doesn't take away validity of the points he's made there. Then your comment is literally just useless, as in the end, it achieves nothing for either side. I don't exactly see where you can stem an argument for this from unless you wanted to argue for the sake of arguing. To me it's quite clear your post was achieving nothing other than a poor attempt to make his post seem more faulty, but you state this is not your intention. I think almost all of the points made there were good ones. If anything, you should be addressing those.

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I'm just going on the other direction and actually thank Hstaff, specifically the PC Development Team, because without them, PC would just be another boring forum. One thing I've learned from the AF prank is that, how scaringly different PC has become with this cool innovations. Like we get these cool new fonts, PM systems, likes, variety, and what we return from that is "GIVE BACK OUR FEATURES OR DIE" vibe. I'm legit saddened that the work the PC Development team was worked on for years, gets overshadowed by a prank that almost everyone hated because they cant live without the features.

Don't worry, I'm atleast here to say thank you for the work that you've guys done to make PC an enjoyable place.

Ugh... Why do you think we are unappreciative assholes?
I don't think you empathized well with those who were against the idea. It definitely wasn't a, "GIVE BACK OUR FEATURES OR DIE" mentality. It was closer to, "I want to browse the forums again. Can I have the old features back?". The shitstorm really happened when certain users took a "it's just a joke, haha u guys r mad and salty" vibe. Some of the features you mentioned are vBulletin defaults you get for buying it, the april fool's skin disabled even some of those in an attempt to remain genuinely retro. Hence the frustration.

gets overshadowed by a prank that almost everyone hated because they cant live without the features.

Nah, they claim it was a minority who complained and hated it (lol). We can live without some of these features, we'd just rather have them. Hopefully that clarified some things for you, because you seem to be under the impression that we're beating up forum staff for poor reasons. I personally don't think it was a poor reason or it was as extreme as you perceived it to be. I mean, if you consider that extreme, then you're a bit too soft in my opinion. This isn't a thread for a nice cup of tea by the flowerbed really.
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Honestly, being in this thread for a while, I don't think that it has any merit. Someone voices their opinions, they get argued against as to why the staff thinks their negative feedback is invalid. On the flip side, some of the complaints are just complete nitpicks and of the smallest of things.

Ingeneral, it really doesn't seem to be working. These guys occasionally have provided great points in terms of how to handle certain situations but those parts of their posts were seemingly went unacknowledged or a series of tangents and heavy opinions were used to morph them into "not that bad". It's kind of painful to read, honestly. There were a few people who took things well, I think Nah's post was good and well written for example.

To quote Ausaudriel:

I may sound like a dick here, but bring me a greater percentage of users than %0.01 who can back you up on your opinions and maybe I'll start to consider there's a larger problem.

They can't do that, and I doubt anyone voicing their criticisms about any topic can do that either. I challenge you to get 25% of the userbase to like your post saying that you guys are operating within reason. While I think it is within reason, no way will you get more than 20 likes discluding staff likes. It's just not going to happen, even if you guys were saints, no one really uses this thread they have better things to be doing, lol. So since anyone's feedback would therefore be unbelievable, lets just call it a day and rename the thread "The Staff praise thread". Think about it, you'd enjoy it, some members would enjoy it and no one would bother having to waste time posting silly criticism!

But it's frankly a little intimidating to post here because your post immediately gets some form of resistance and everyone perceives your post as wrong or unjustified. Oh and then you have someone like Anti logging into the battle server and saying, "I feel like just banning everyone on that thread". Yeah Anti, cool. That'll make me want to give any feedback mate. Good luck on your thesis though. Yep, this guy literally expressed his urge to ban everyone posting in the public chat of the battle server while I was just chilling there in plain sight. Whatever.

I don't know, and I'm just going to abstain from giving my opinions on the matter too now. I've made enough enemies here and the concept feels utterly failed. I feel better off just contacting the people I want to talk to privately anyways. I do contribute a lot of good things to the forums, and I'm always following the rules (evidenced by my 0 infractions and 0 warnings and 0 post deletions due to moderation reasons - except that one post in MrDS's thread in which I replied to someone else's deleted post).

I think from these stats, and from my knowledgeable contributions exclusively to this community, you can't consider me a sour user or someone who doesn't care. Fact of the matter is that everything in the end can be presented to be situationally reasonable and therefore any criticism can be then dismissed. You're not going to get any of the criticism through unless it's blatantly obvious or the staff internally are disagreeing with each other. This would hold true for any group of people receiving criticism really, not just you guys. It really is just a failed concept.

That's all I have to say. My issues went from "Feedback thread wasn't moderated and taken seriously", to arguing with staff members about unrelated and trivial things, to realizing this thread isn't going to result in anything positive unless you're posting about something positive. If you wish to contact me I'm available via VM. Fair warning: If you PM me I'll ignore you because I'll assume someone is PMing me to ask me to make them their ROM hack again. Cheers.

 

[Omicron]

You should be focused on the points made. Quoting his post and stating that he was presenting opinions as facts therefore doesn't add any points to your side or take away any points from his. His presentation doesn't take away validity of the points he's made there. Then your comment is literally just useless, as in the end, it achieves nothing for either side. I don't exactly see where you can stem an argument for this from unless you wanted to argue for the sake of arguing. To me it's quite clear your post was achieving nothing other than a poor attempt to make his post seem more faulty, but you state this is not your intention. I think almost all of the points made there were good ones. If anything, you should be addressing those.

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If someone takes their opinions for facts the discussion can't be taken any further. And, exactly, I wasn't vouching for one side or the other with my post nor was I dismissing his post. I wasn't trying to stem an argument from it either, but I felt that if a constructive discussion was to continue, that had to be clarified. So the discussion didn't stall and could resolve.

Tone doesn't translate through to text and I guess I maybe should have not posted if I couldn't expand further. I'll consider it for next time.

 

[Jauntier]

Still on the April Fool's day fiasco, right?

I have empathy for FBI. I did lay out my criticism of the situation in his thread before it was locked (and another thread on the same subject is still prevailing, in what seems like an alternate praise thread despite the OP's question being ultimately answered and giving it no further reason to continue), I will say here again that there was affronting behavior by staff. I don't care about regular members basically flaming each other in defense of a feature they personally had no issue with, but posts garnering almost exclusive staff "likes" to their post was telling. I also don't care on the flip side of the coin for the people who only complained about how the feature had an ugly appearance. I didn't like the appearance myself, but I could live with it for a few hours since I keep to only a specific section of this site.

But I run a small operation elsewhere on the forums, and I needed to edit posts and change titles. I was unable to, because of "expired security tokens", which told me to contact an administrator through a ticket that would be sent via email. I filled that out, and as clicked to send it, I couldn't, because of--once again--an "expired security token." So I came to Feedback to offer just that, saw FBI's thread, and read through it to be sure no one else had brought up the same specific issue before making my post, and reading through it was just ghastly.

I've moderated two avatar forum sites in the past four years that had a userbase of roughly the same age range as PokeCommunity, and the same activity of members on at a time (roughly 200-300; guests are irrelevant as they do not contribute to the community). I left their staff because I didn't like the direction those sites were going both times their founders switched hands, but I do know that staff defends staff because they too often than not cannot take negative criticism of an event that they feel they took time out of their day to provide.

And yes, that's a fine feeling to have in private. Though I was never guilty of trying to guilt trip basic users with the infamous "Well, I'm human" dismissal, mothered people with the "We do so much for you / I carried you in my womb for nine months and this is how you repay me" counter-appeal to sympathy, or threaten to never do something again because I couldn't take a step back and examine the possible merit of negative feedback. I mocked a little there, but these defenses are all too clearly recognizable. You don't have to have been a member of staff to see the offense taking on a form as if it were a personal attack.

But actively discounting users for the feedback that they didn't like a prank that they would have preferred to switch out of for one reason or another, that's just poor. It was a site-wide, forced, and locked theme change, and for the issue that the theme change messed with my ability to edit posts because I assume it wasn't tested for debugging beforehand in a partitioned test forum--the sites I volunteered moderation services had developers who did these tests so I'm aware this can be done, especially on a site that has what could be upwards a hundred subforums altogether in their index--I immediately knew that this would be fixed if I just switched back to my current theme. But I couldn't. A toggle wasn't considered.

There were times as a moderator that I felt unappreciated, but maybe it's because I also have a higher managerial job in real life where it is demanded of me to keep a professional front, since there are real consequences as the people in positions above me are not and can not treat me as their friend, but I have to section those feelings away to actually listen to negative feedback and weigh it, not throw out some irrelevant emotional appeal hoping someone will take back what they said, or passive-aggressively sass them into abandoning bringing up their feedback in the first place.

I don't care what day it is. When a site has the option for monetary donations, the feedback forum is customer service. If I had donated money to the site and been treated in that thread the way I saw some of staff treat users, I would have been rightfully sore. It could have prevented me from contributing my own money if I felt like blatantly demonizing staff that deeply from this rare instance of public push back. I am a consumer for a service, but don't you ever alienate me the way one staff member "joked" to others by telling them if someone doesn't like the staff imposition of limited functionality, then leave.

Staff feedback threads so often devolve into "staff praise" threads and turn into a battleground for this very same justification of self and bush beating of accountability, where regular users can also hop onto the bandwagon. I hope pointing this out will make some users think twice about responses to my post, examining themselves before they display behaviors I have just pointed out. I am largely unaware of most staff members here because, again, I stick to one place, but again, pointing out this instance is pointing out a rare occasion of a group lapse in judgement.

 

[Kanzler]

I lurk heavily in r/SandersForPresident, and for April Fools they pretended that Sanders became a corporate shill and everybody revelled in dank memes. There was a lot of backlash to that prank, just as there was a lot of backlash to PC's prank. But the critics had a very compelling reason - the subreddit is active in its activism for Sanders' nomination, and they feared that by relaxing too much they'd drop the ball and they wouldn't be able to perform their very significant function as Sanders campaign supporters who do a lot of volunteer activism.

You might be able to argue whether or not that prank constituted too much relaxing, but nobody would argue with the fact that the subreddit has a focus on activism, that its activism is important, and that nobody would want to see the activism unnecessarily suffer. If the prank was more than just a joke, there would be real consequences - the subreddit could have failed at their purpose.

I don't know if the PC April Fools prank could be seen as anything more than just a joke. Have there been negative consequences as a result of the prank, consequences that were more than an inconvenience?

 

[Jauntier]

I don't know if the PC April Fools prank could be seen as anything more than just a joke. Have there been negative consequences as a result of the prank, consequences that were more than an inconvenience?

The supposed "knee-jerk" counter is to ask: "Have there been positive consequences as a result of the prank, consequences that were more than just a laugh at one's own expense?"

Everything has relative weight. I will explain how I view the situation:

The basic intention of a community forum website is to do just that: connect with others and communicate on a public platform, communing around a shared interest. If a feature is obstructed, whether by error or purposefully, and that feature contributes directly to a clear or convenient way to communicate at a basic level, then that may be considered a consequence.

I think we have to also put into perspective, considering how the word "inconvenience" has a connotation of triviality--and "consequence" I feel is framed, alternatively, as grounded in actuality--is what kind of site we are on. This is marketed as a Pokemon website, its top and main focus. This is a nook for people who share the same interests to talk to each other in their free time. Arguably, PokeCommunity's biggest attraction is the support and resources it provides for ROM hacking, as much everything else provided here is not particularly unique of forum sites (franchise news coverage and discussion, casual chat, fan art and fiction, "real world" talk). In the grand scheme of things, this site in itself is trivial. I come here to write copious code that designs pretty post formatting as I fictitiously chronicle being a young adult who collects and trains magical/mutated animals, and keeps them in spherical, collapsible orbs, my ultimate goal being to pit them against each other for shiny buttons and regional recognition. This isn't a ridicule fallacy if the thing is actually ridiculous. The one universal consequence of the site failing is one less place to talk to certain people about a popular topic. Everything else can be simplified to "I can't do x with my internet friends on that webpage anymore".

That is if I based consequence as grounded on just actuality. But the value of sites like this is quite clearly intrinsic. The value is in your personal investment to the social aspect of the community. If I am having a difficult time posting, editing my post, or reporting errors to the webmaster email through a site where my only means of communication is through sending and receiving messages, then I consider it--purely by weight--a direct consequence.

Even though I dedicated time to actively pick up what you laid down for the birds, I'm not sure if this is relevant to the thread in the way you formed the question. I mean to say that this is feedback about the activity of members of the staff hierarchy, not so much the merit of the joke itself. It's why posts concerning the April Fool's Day retro theme in this thread are discussing another feedback thread. The focus is specifically on the reaction and handling by staff members in that thread, not the retro theme itself.

That's my input. Please like, comment, and subscribe.

 

[Kanzler]

-snip-

You have a point - I didn't really get to the point. What I meant to conclude in the previous post is to provide the following feedback: I don't think the April Fools Prank was an error on the staff's part.

 

[Jauntier]

You have a point - I didn't really get to the point. What I meant to conclude in the previous post is to provide the following feedback: I don't think the April Fools Prank was an error on the staff's part.

I would ask an error in what way, and why not.

 

[Klippy]

I'm not even going to get much into the AFD stuff. It's been talked about enough by now. A solution was provided for taking the theme off and the holiday's four days past now. Next year, there will be serious considerations into how we do a joke for the holiday. That's about all I can offer otherwise. It'd be nice if we could let it rest with the points that have already been made. We have a lot of feedback off the AFD thing though and will look to make plans for next year with that feedback in mind.

You have to remember that everyone in here is just a human being. I am not in the business of giving anyone else an excuse for words they said or how they acted though, but it's clear people are upset, no matter who you are. If you were particularly offended by something said from a staff member though, you may privately message an admin or smod to share your complaint if you feel it warrants such.

That said: some of the posts in here are getting way too heated and if you'll turn your attention to the OP, we do ask that you keep your comments constructive and respectable. That goes for the staff members posting here too. I'm seeing way too much toeing the line of disrespect - so please consider your posts before making them no matter who you are.

 

[antemortem]

I don't know what happened, but shut up and love each other.

 

[Nina]

I don't know what happened, but shut up and love each other.

While it seems tempers have been heated, you are in a feedback thread. It's always important to communicate with each other, even more so when it seems that there is a rift. Love does not fix problems, it's understanding, which needs to be spoken from both sides to attempt to achieve this.

It seems like everyone's been having problems reaching an understanding to the point it might need to be dropped, but please do not belittle members for not shutting up.

 

[Nina]

-snip-

 

[abnegation]

Dave that was a valiant effort to diffuse the tension and I applaud you for it. Honestly, I think members should consider how critical they can be of volunteer staff on a Pokémon forum. If you dropped the "staff" aspect to this thread and simply had a "member feedback" thread - contemplate how you would like to be evaluated.

There's a difference between helpful feedback and hammering home a point which has been made time and time again. I certainly don't believe staff deserve such diligent scrutiny. Nor should we begin to criticise someone's efforts to deflect some heat from a thread. Give everyone a little time to breathe, yeah?

Regardless of what you think of staff right now, just remember:

 

[antemortem]

Please do not think that I was attempting to discredit the discussion in this thread, nor was I literally telling anyone to shut up. It was simply a razz for generating positive vibes, as whatever has been going appears to have stirred the metaphorical pot. Like I said, I don't know what happened and I don't care to retroactively read up on the drama that ensued post-April Fool's - I just wish for everyone to resonate with one another. My apologies if the timing was poor.

 

[I'm so HM02]

Well, I've tried to hold back and do not worry this is not going to be rude. Why do you staff fell like attacking me? Is it for laughs and stuff? I am really tired of it. And I can't do anything about it. I have proof, but you guys just ignore it. I mean I don't care if you bully me and attack me, I've been attacked my whole life. But, this is to far. I am really trying not to get past nine infraction points (because I'm at 8 right now). I'm just posting then you all attack me. The only mods that are nice to me is Gimmepie and Rikaadventure. I just want you all to stop attacking me and I will stop being mad at you. Deal?

 

[Sirfetch’d]

Well, I've tried to hold back and do not worry this is not going to be rude. Why do you staff fell like attacking me? Is it for laughs and stuff? I am really tired of it. And I can't do anything about it. I have proof, but you guys just ignore it. I mean I don't care if you bully me and attack me, I've been attacked my whole life. But, this is to far. I am really trying not to get past nine infraction points (because I'm at 8 right now). I'm just posting then you all attack me. The only mods that are nice to me is Gimmepie and Rikaadventure. I just want you all to stop attacking me and I will stop being mad at you. Deal?

I really wish you'd stop accusing people of attacking you without any evidence of such. You often times assume moderators are "out to get you" when in reality it is you who is making snarky comments about the staff here , calling us out for no reason, and making us look like the bad guy when we have done nothing but try and help you. If you are mad about what happened in the Treehouse thread you either need to 1.) avoid that forum or 2.) learn how to take a joke. If no one liked you here, no one would be taking the time to help you(which MANY of us have gone out of our way to do.) I get that you had a bad experience with staff on another forum but that does not mean that everyone is like that and it doesn't give you the right to try and make all of us look bad.

 

[Klippy]

Nobody is attacking you. You seem to take every response or action as an attack however, but if you've received infractions, they are very likely because you earned them. We don't purposefully go out of our way to target members and we certainly wouldn't allow any of our staff to punish a member unjustly. We don't discuss infractions in public, but you can appeal them via Private Message to a member of higher staff if you feel they were unwarranted.

Unfortunately we can't really help you if you perceive every response as an attack though and it seems like more than a few members have tried to assist you with those feelings.

 

[Her]

Well, I've tried to hold back and do not worry this is not going to be rude. Why do you staff fell like attacking me? Is it for laughs and stuff? I am really tired of it. And I can't do anything about it. I have proof, but you guys just ignore it. I mean I don't care if you bully me and attack me, I've been attacked my whole life. But, this is to far. I am really trying not to get past nine infraction points (because I'm at 8 right now). I'm just posting then you all attack me. The only mods that are nice to me is Gimmepie and Rikaadventure. I just want you all to stop attacking me and I will stop being mad at you. Deal?

i'm not sure what else can be said now. people have tried to help you see that things simply aren't as serious & dramatic as you are making them out to be, people aren't 'attacking' you for undue cause. when you post, half the time your posts are directly antagonistic or making some ill-advised comment about how you've been attacked for being yourself - when honestly, you do very little to present yourself as anything other than someone with an unfortunate predisposition towards self-victimisation. the issue just isn't there in anyone's mind but your own.

i've been talking with you and trying to calm you and be empathetic and what not, as i genuinely understand your fears and wanting to stand up for yourself when you feel you've been wronged. there is nothing wrong with wanting to stand up for yourself, particularly your stated history of someone who has been through things like before. but it's become exceedingly clear that you're not really looking for any sort of change or improvement. people really want to help you and like you, but it's very hard to do so when you've seemingly made it your mission to disparage people with little consideration of the reality of the situation.