Recently there's been some discussion in chat about the level of transparency and participation between the staff and the site members, so we just wanted to make this thread to clear some things up. We didn't really realise there was a problem before, but now it's been brought to our attention we want to say why and what we're doing about it.
First of all, thank you to those of you who run gamedays or impromptu tests. These are a great service to the community and we're very grateful to those of you who perform it: clearly we've not been nearly appreciative enough, which we want to change. In addition we as staff were discussing how few of these events we personally ran a few days before - the results of that discussion should be showing now.
However, there are other elements to running the site than these events, and judging participation purely by who runs events will not give you an accurate picture of who is involved in what. We've been pro-actively managing the staff list: everyone with a chat star or a pink/purple name at the moment deserves it - or so we as the other staff think. Other staff activities include site and chat moderation, outreach and working with other communities, technical upgrades, and active discussion about upcoming events: we've a few new things coming up that are largely down to "less active" staff members, and almost every large site event or project will have almost every staff member's input. (This post is made by me but has been extensively discussed with others, for example.) All of these are invisible to the outside world.
We don't choose staff members because we're friends with them. We don't choose staff members because they've been here for longer, and we don't choose staff members as a participation reward. We look for people who do things for the community above and beyond the call of duty, and then we give them tools to continue doing those things and see what they do then.
We're sorry we've not been very transparent before, and that we've allowed you to feel undervalued. In future we want to change that. However, we all truly believe that every current staff member is doing a worthwhile job and justifying their position. If you have complaints about any member of staff, we're all willing to hear those complaints, anonymise them, and pass them on.
And finally a gentle reminder - if people are causing trouble in chat or on the forums, please let us know rather than backseat moderating. Piling on them can make a bad situation worse, even if you have the best intentions.
First of all, thank you to those of you who run gamedays or impromptu tests. These are a great service to the community and we're very grateful to those of you who perform it: clearly we've not been nearly appreciative enough, which we want to change. In addition we as staff were discussing how few of these events we personally ran a few days before - the results of that discussion should be showing now.
However, there are other elements to running the site than these events, and judging participation purely by who runs events will not give you an accurate picture of who is involved in what. We've been pro-actively managing the staff list: everyone with a chat star or a pink/purple name at the moment deserves it - or so we as the other staff think. Other staff activities include site and chat moderation, outreach and working with other communities, technical upgrades, and active discussion about upcoming events: we've a few new things coming up that are largely down to "less active" staff members, and almost every large site event or project will have almost every staff member's input. (This post is made by me but has been extensively discussed with others, for example.) All of these are invisible to the outside world.
We don't choose staff members because we're friends with them. We don't choose staff members because they've been here for longer, and we don't choose staff members as a participation reward. We look for people who do things for the community above and beyond the call of duty, and then we give them tools to continue doing those things and see what they do then.
We're sorry we've not been very transparent before, and that we've allowed you to feel undervalued. In future we want to change that. However, we all truly believe that every current staff member is doing a worthwhile job and justifying their position. If you have complaints about any member of staff, we're all willing to hear those complaints, anonymise them, and pass them on.
And finally a gentle reminder - if people are causing trouble in chat or on the forums, please let us know rather than backseat moderating. Piling on them can make a bad situation worse, even if you have the best intentions.
