Feedback On recent discussions

[Mercy]

I waffled on whether I should post this one or not. I used to be an avid suggestion thread submitter and participant, but for a while now I have been primarily focused on just writing stories and leaving this to others.

When I woke up this morning and saw how heavily the invasion criteria got out of hand, I was disappointed it got locked, because I couldn’t respond to it anymore, but I can’t say I was surprised either.

I was again uncertain if I wanted to make a new thread to address something I noticed, but then I saw Lorn created a thread today, which I thought was quite a good way to try and insert some positivity into the community by reminding them on why they are doing all this in the first place. I have asked that question a few times myself, especially because when I look at the board… I see some people who seem to be absolutely miserable, who argue and complain a lot… and then still continue to do their writing anyway. And I didn’t really understand that, because if a hobby makes you miserable, I do not understand the desire to keep investing your time in it.

So I think bringing it back towards what made you fall in love with this setting and hobby in the first place is great.

That being said, I do want to address something I have noticed in the threads so far I haven’t seen mentioned.

First of all: I think the original suggestion and premise was fine.

The idea of bringing feedback back in some capacity, so that factions have a way to improve on things after a loss makes total sense to me. Incredibly reasonable. Heaven knows that when the Black Sun Syndicate lost against the High Republic in last year’s invasion, I wished we still had feedback, so we could know what to improve, if there was ever a next time.

But I also know why Site Staff in general refuse to budge on this one. People can get very toxic when they are given even a small ledge to climb on, to try and argue that a decision that wasn’t made their way, should be revisited.

I think up to that point the conversation was more or less okay. Afterwards the discussion continued, which I also think is fine, people should be encouraged to keep brainstorming and offering viewpoints because maybe staff sees something there that either changes their minds or offers an alternative avenue no one considered before.

Things took a turn when the goal posts shifted.

Now the feedback wasn’t just needed to improve for next time.
Now feedback was needed for transparency.

Because people in those threads were now claiming there is a lack of trust in site staff and their decision making when it comes to invasion judgements.

In other words, some people are now saying that site staff is biased.

Neither faction was named, but I think we all have eyes and ears, and there have only been two invasions recently before this came up. So I think it is obvious that this has to do with the victory on Abregado-rae and Thyferra, where the Sith Covenant and then the Sith Order won their invasions.

So between the lines, because people don’t want to come out and just say what they are thinking, the claim is now that site staff is biased for the Sith factions.

The conversation took a turn for the worse exactly when this perspective filtered into the dialogue.

I frankly saw behavior on both sides that I wasn’t very happy with. The obvious was the dismissive and joking behavior of some writers about a topic that is clearly animating a portion of the community. I don’t think that’s ever called for and even if you are unhappy about it, you can treat it with respect or simply not respond at all. I don’t think that was helpful at all.

Then again, that was highlighted numerous times by the writers claiming there is site staff bias. They asked over and over again to remember their humanity, that they are people with legit concerns and that this should be treated with respect.

I agree with that.

One thing I didn’t see however was the obvious counter point.

What about the humanity of the writers who won the last few invasions?

Obviously claiming site staff is biased is insulting towards the volunteer staff who are spending their hours slaving away reading through invasion threads that they have no stake in. It is a thankless job and I am always shocked people don’t quit more often than they do.

But what seems to be lost is how insulting it is to the writers who wrote their hearts out on Abregado-rae, Thyferra, on Brosi, on Coruscant, by claiming that site staff is biased in their favor.

I wrote Mercy in all of those threads. I poured my energy into the scenes I was doing with the writers on the opposing side, doing my best to keep communication going, coordinate, and make sure that everyone felt like their character was seen and respected. Many times I paused all my other private threads, to support my faction, to do this.

Does this mean that I didn’t have to pour my time and energy into these invasions? That we would have won anyway and that I was just wasting my time?

I hope not. I hope that is not what is being claimed.

But when you are disgruntled and annoyed by the other side dismissing your claims, I do hope you remember their humanity too, because your claims are directly telling those writers that what they were writing didn’t matter. That they didn’t earn their victory. That without site staff on their side, they would have lost.

That wasn’t said, of course. People were vague posting, writing between the lines… and I frankly am getting tired of that, because I have been encountering this tendency to allude to things and be vague for months now.

My feedback: just say what you think and stand on business.

Otherwise you are just trying to play victim while insulting the very side that you actually require to write your stories in the first place.

Thank you.

 

[Colette]

if a hobby makes you miserable, I do not understand the desire to keep investing your time in it.

I don't mean this as a joke, I mean it genuinely: sunk cost fallacy.

The friendships, the memories, the parts of yourself you put into something that you can never get back. People hoarding the memories of the past harder than they wish to look towards the future. Problem being, any discussion to see what that future could look like or how to get along gets shut down by memes every single time by people who could have just shut up instead of trying to earn internet points with snarky remarks that add nothing to the conversation some people (excluding the snarker) want to have.

 

[Darth Kentarch]

I'm just gonna say this right now. What the hell happened? Like, not in the past couple of days. Like, how did we get here? Did I miss something? Was something said? I mean, invasion losses are invasion losses, but this one hit a nerve. This explains the overreaction to the Cherry Coke comment I made earlier; I'm telling myself that. I mean, WTF. What did you guys do while I was busy this summer?

 

[Novac Lyrikal]

'My feedback: just say what you think and stand on business."

just gonna be honest, i think many, MANY people would never as they dont want to get smited or other people just dislike them.


its why i hesitated so much making my 2 posts in some of the threads, shame and more welcoming or whatever its called

 

[Alan]

I will say, that I am disappointed in the public responses some people, especially influential and long-standing members had in that thread.

I will also say, that there's a great many people who are afraid to speak publicly or don't want to engage in these types of discussions but hold opinions nonetheless, and that reached out to me despite not posting in those threads. I think it's a very bad sign for people wanting to avoid a discussion in a community and being afraid of being banned, muted, ostracized, or bullied for simply speaking in a public thread about a topic they care about and have a stake in.

 

[Darth Solipsis]

I actually agree with one part of this wholeheartedly, people should say what they mean and stand on business.

So let's do that.

Questioning whether an opaque judging process is consistent, transparent, or vulnerable to bias is not the same thing as telling individual writers that their posts "didn't matter." That's a rather convenient reframing of the criticism, because it turns a discussion about process into a personal slight against the people who happened to benefit from its results.

Nobody needs to believe that the writers on the winning side sat around doing nothing in order to question how a victory was determined. Both things can quite comfortably be true: people can have written excellent material, and other members can have legitimate concerns about the system responsible for judging it.

In fact, if those victories were as well-earned as you're arguing and I'm perfectly willing to believe the writers involved put considerable effort into them, greater confidence in the process would strengthen that accomplishment, not diminish it.

What I find particularly strange is invoking everyone's humanity as a reason people should be careful about voicing distrust. Trust isn't something a community owes an institution because questioning it might make somebody uncomfortable. Trust is built through consistency, accountability, and enough transparency that people can understand why decisions are being made.

And yes, accusations of bias are serious. They shouldn't be thrown around casually. But neither should every criticism of a system be inflated into an accusation that the people who won must therefore be talentless frauds who were handed their victory. Nobody said that. You supplied that conclusion yourself.

There's also a certain irony in criticizing people for "playing victim" immediately after several paragraphs explaining how criticism of Staff's invasion process is actually insulting to you personally because you participated in the winning factions. If we're going to "stand on business," then let's actually do it. Constructively, and respectfully, I’m down.

Debate whether Staff is biased. Debate whether invasion feedback is workable. Debate whether transparency would improve anything. Debate the evidence people are presenting. Hell, disagree with all of it. But I would agree that fanning the flame and fire starting is not the way.

But "questioning the process hurts the winners' feelings" is not a substantive defense of the process. Writers deserved respect for the work they put into those invasions regardless of which banner they wrote beneath. The system that judged them is still allowed to be questioned.

Those two ideas really aren't in conflict.

 

[Mercy]

Darth Solipsis

Hey, man, thank you for weighing into the discussion. I have some thoughts in response.

First of all, something isn’t ironic just because you said the word irony. Throughout the last few threads, people were claiming they wanted civility and were trying to make the point that people responding irreverently to the threads was disrespectful because they were simply trying to raise points that concerned them. My counter point is simple, you cannot demand others to acknowledge your humanity without you acknowledging theirs too. If you want to be treated with respect, you should treat others with respect as well.

Accusing site staff of bias without evidence is not respectful, doing it after invasion losses when they just spend so much of their time reviewing big threads is even less so. Asserting that people lost an invasion, because site staff was biased against them, means saying that the other side didn’t earn their win fair and square. I am not sure why we are having that argument, you cannot assert one thing without the other. They naturally go hand-in-hand. And that, again, is not respectful.

If you actually believed the other side won fair and square, you wouldn’t start vague posting about a lack of faith in site staff and their process. That is a general ‘you’, I am aware that you weren’t involved in the initial threads and are only coming into this thread to reply to me now, so I am not accusing you personally, to be clear.

I think more importantly though, you seem to either not have read my post or skimmed it, since I clearly said in my post that I am a supporter of more transparency in the process. I would love it if factions receive feedback after invasions have been wrapped up.

But you can request more transparency without falling into conspiracy theories and accusing volunteer staff of bias, while inherently disrespecting the winning side and robbing them of the ability to celebrate their victory by implying they didn’t win it fair and square. Which the poster managed to do in his original suggestion, by the way, and I acknowledged that too.

Which you’d know if you actually bothered to read my post instead of fighting some phantom you constructed for your audience. I am sure it was satisfying to type, but it was rather juvenile.

In the future I would appreciate it if you actually read through the background of what happened and then read my post, before responding. Because this is a waste of my time and more importantly a waste of your time.

Do better, because this was frankly disappointing to see from someone who is held in such high regard in this community.

 

[The Contingency]

Darth Solipsis

Hey, man, thank you for weighing into the discussion. I have some thoughts in response.

First of all, something isn’t ironic just because you said the word irony. Throughout the last few threads, people were claiming they wanted civility and were trying to make the point that people responding irreverently to the threads was disrespectful because they were simply trying to raise points that concerned them. My counter point is simple, you cannot demand others to acknowledge your humanity without you acknowledging theirs too. If you want to be treated with respect, you should treat others with respect as well.

Accusing site staff of bias without evidence is not respectful, doing it after invasion losses when they just spend so much of their time reviewing big threads is even less so. Asserting that people lost an invasion, because site staff was biased against them, means saying that the other side didn’t earn their win fair and square. I am not sure why we are having that argument, you cannot assert one thing without the other. They naturally go hand-in-hand. And that, again, is not respectful.

If you actually believed the other side won fair and square, you wouldn’t start vague posting about a lack of faith in site staff and their process. That is a general ‘you’, I am aware that you weren’t involved in the initial threads and are only coming into this thread to reply to me now, so I am not accusing you personally, to be clear.

I think more importantly though, you seem to either not have read my post or skimmed it, since I clearly said in my post that I am a supporter of more transparency in the process. I would love it if factions receive feedback after invasions have been wrapped up.

But you can request more transparency without falling into conspiracy theories and accusing volunteer staff of bias, while inherently disrespecting the winning side and robbing them of the ability to celebrate their victory by implying they didn’t win it fair and square. Which the poster managed to do in his original suggestion, by the way, and I acknowledged that too.

Which you’d know if you actually bothered to read my post instead of fighting some phantom you constructed for your audience. I am sure it was satisfying to type, but it was rather juvenile.

In the future I would appreciate it if you actually read through the background of what happened and then read my post, before responding. Because this is a waste of my time and more importantly a waste of your time.

Do better, because this was frankly disappointing to see from someone who is held in such high regard in this community.

Wassup. I love seeing people play victim.

I think the irony here is that you're asking people to "stand on business," while also reframing criticism of Staff's process as a personal attack on the writers who won.

Those are two different things, saying "I don't trust how this was judged" is not the same as saying "the winning writers were bad and didn't deserve credit." You keep treating those as interchangeable, and then using the emotional weight of the second one to shut down the first. If the accusation of bias is wrong, challenge the evidence. If the process is fair, defend the process.

But "questioning the system disrespects the winners" is not really an argument about whether the system is fair. But this is where your post loses me: you're criticizing others for playing victim while also making criticism of Staff's process partly about how it makes you feel as someone who benefited from the result. That's a little hard to believe.

You also talk about civility, then pivot into calling my response juvenile, saying I wrote it "for my audience," and telling me to "do better."

If the point is that people should be able to disagree openly and directly, then that way of thinking has to apply both ways. I'm perfectly fine with you disagreeing with me, and I just think you're proving my point more than rebutting it.

If anything, you're demonstrating it right now in front of everyone.

Keep going. Your doing great, kid.