Rave Radbury: Embracing Chaos, Leading Change

[RaveRadbury]

Campaign art by Aspev

Hey folks, Rave Radbury here. I’m sure you’ve noticed that things have been a bit crazy lately. Personally, I'm still reeling from oranges stepping down and what it implies. We’re on the edge of a new era, and the next headmin team will need to navigate a minefield of chaos and negativity.

I’m not just ready for that: I thrive in it.

With two terms done, I’m no stranger to the pressure and workload. I’m better than I've ever been, and I’m energized by the challenges ahead. If you’re looking for someone who’s experienced, but also charged up and ready to get us through choppy waters, I’m your guy.

My primary goal this term? I think the admin team could do more with onboarding and helping get the word out about changes and explaining them to the community. I know a lot of helpful people already do that, but there's gotta be some way we can improve. I'm going to start looking into that.

I know it’s tempting to look at all this and think, “Just trust me, bro.” But let’s be real—my history here speaks louder than any campaign speech. I’ve been on the front lines, from the first round of Manuel and the many rounds after that I built my reputation on all the way through two terms and a streaming program that actually managed to pull in someone with a large audience.

And here’s the thing: The recent spike in engagement around controversial PRs like the Wallening isn’t just a headache: it’s an opportunity. It shows growth, and moments like these can produce new contributors if we’re smart about it.

If you've got any concerns or something you need to sort out with me please post in the thread or dm me if its sensitive so we can talk about it. There's a lot of work ahead and I'd like that to go smoothly for everyone.

Pitter patter, let's get at 'er.

Here's my resume

Past Headmin Terms

Fall 2022 - Winter 2023

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• Created #Community-Content
  This channel encourages community content creation while amplifying the reach of content featuring our codebase, increasing potential discovery and driving them to our community.
• Enabled LRP Streaming
  We now have full streaming available on all the servers, along with a robust stream management team.
• Brought back #Admin-Auditorium
  Restricted to active staff and with a cooldown, Auditorium offers an incentive to the team and encourages
• Satisfaction Poll
  We've got all sorts of new info from the poll and I'll be using it to try and improve the community.
• Brought Back #Reports-From-Campbell
  Making Campbell once again the official-unofficial marathon server.

Fall 2021 - Winter 2022

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• Improved Admin Conduct
  With over 100 batcaves this term we took care to have direct conversations with members of staff about conduct, making sure to address issues as they came up and having the tough conversations that needed to happen.
• 100% Policy Thread response
  We were the first headmin team in recent history to provide closure and response to all policy threads made during our term (and then some).
• I did my part!
  A headmin term is a big time sink, and there is a ton of discussion behind the scenes. I was able to leverage my communication skills to write up difficult responses, find compromise, and negotiate consensus in a reasonable time frame.
• Enabled Streaming
  I pursued streaming for our community; we've had it going without any major incidents or hiccups.
• MSO compromised on slur filtering!
  What was thought to be impossible ended up happening anyway. While I can't take direct credit for it I appreciate that I was able to be a part of it.
• I used headmin powers to help Watermelon set up the urgent ping relay. I made Pingbus!
  Watermelon ushered in a new level of coordinated response for our supportmin team, it was exciting to provide support and advocacy for the launch of the urgent ping relay.
• I came up with the Player's Club! (Thanks Mothblocks for coding it!)
  I said I'd make a place for us to peanut privately in peace, and I did. We now have a place with rules so based that we apply the concept to the election subforum.
• I hosted a Community Meeting!
  What a blast that was, we had so many good conversations and the stage feature was such an improvement. I think it really brought out the best in our community.

Rave Radbury Lore
Making prisoners, Clown and Mime Fan, and other things I've done over the years.

► Show Spoiler

BYOND account: Spring 2018
Joined: Beginning of 2019
Adminned: End of 2019
Number of Election Threads: 8, including this one
Headmin: Fall 2021 through Winter 2022, Fall 2022 through Winter 2023
Trained by: Game Master Coconutwarrior97
Trained: Sylphet, Misdoubtful, Dreathtil, Cybersaber101, NoxVS, Pumpkin0, MrMelbert, MarketMonkey, WalterTruck


Noteable PRs:

• Made the Prisoner role
• Gave "civilian" jobs service lathe + headset access and moved them towards full service integration
• Added Foreigner quirk
• Added Clown and Mime Fan quirks
• Added Introvert and Extrovert quirks
• Gave pAIs a proper HUD, gave 'em encryption keys
• Reworked light tiles and added color cycle variant
• Added quirks to medical notes
• Revoked lizard "X" privileges
• Worked with an artist to add new emojis
• Reworked Social Anxiety

Other activity of note

• Slayer of Stickymayhem
  "in a decade you were the only one who could kill me add it to your damn activity of note"
• Facilitated the return of drones
  I was the one who reached out to JJRCop and helped him set up a meeting with headmins to get drones back in
• Kicked terry with keyholder
  Before the great memory expansion Terry was crashing a lot. I was there to answer pings and get Terry back up on his feet.
• TM'ed features for testing, bug fixes for convenience
  If a neat feature needed testing or a crucial fix was up on the github but not merged yet, I made sure that these PRs would be on the live servers for the players to enjoy.
• Assisted DevOps team with getting the interview system set up
  Using key holder privileges I was able to assist a DevOps team member get our interview system up and running via approved edits to the config

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[britgrenadier1]

you currently hold one of the least popular headmin decisions, that being to uphold a ban placed during your last term regarding a traitor and an atmos tech. Looking back, do you still agree with that decision? Why/why not? viewtopic.php?f=34&t=33374&p=665181&hil ... ia#p665181

MRP rules have changed a lot since you were headmin, what do you make of their changes and the vibe/tone shift that mrp has taken regarding things like grand sabotage and antag freedom?

When was the last time you played a full round of space station 13? What happened in that round that you remember?

[RaveRadbury]

you currently hold one of the least popular headmin decisions, that being to uphold a ban placed during your last term regarding a traitor and an atmos tech. Looking back, do you still agree with that decision? Why/why not? viewtopic.php?f=34&t=33374&p=665181&hil ... ia#p665181

MRP rules have changed a lot since you were headmin, what do you make of their changes and the vibe/tone shift that mrp has taken regarding things like grand sabotage and antag freedom?

When was the last time you played a full round of space station 13? What happened in that round that you remember?

I really don't have much to say, I wasn't the leading opinion on it. It made sense at the time, and we all agreed on it. If it happened under different rules I would judge it differently. If you want me to call it a mistake I'm fine with that, I cast a supporting vote in a triumvirate and I didn't see what you (and others) did.

I've been notified of MRP rule changes as the rest of the community has and so far I haven't had anything twist me up. If you think there is a specific intersection with how the rules have changed and that ruling I'd be interested in hearing more so I can give you a clearer answer. I have no interest in changing the MRP rules.

As for grand sabotage and antag freedom, my stances have remained steady: I think plasmaflooding is cool and I came to miss it during my heaviest manuel hours. I also think that we should try and follow a three-act progression system for development of antagonists and round. Unfortunately I don't think that my opinions on this can be realized through the headmin platform, and while I did go on about it once in an old thread, at the end of the day headmin work takes up a lot of energy and the opportunities to Enact Your Vision are actually fewer than one would hope for all the work that goes into it. In my perfect vision antags would draw station destruction permission, codified and adjusted based on previous rounds. Again, the scope of this is beyond what the position allows, so I don't have any plans to try and push for it, especially because I've never heard too much enthusiasm for it in the first place.

Last round I played was the Melbert Wallening TM on Manuel. I wandered around Northstar and then settled down in a maint drug room and idled. I haven't played much on Northstar and I was more focused on taking in the aesthetic than engaging people. Before that, I was doing weekly 4 hour streams of Manuel, but that stopped being a regular thing some time around when I had a death in the family and life happened. That was probably a year ago. I do not have significant hours in the game right now.

If you're worried about me getting headmin this time around, I wouldn't. I wasn't planning to run, so this campaign cycle is my sweatpants arc. Tryharding elections is fun but also intense and I'm not up for that this time around. Sweatpants arc over.

Thanks for posting and engaging me about your concern. Taking the time to write on the forums is very cool.

[Dax Dupont]

You've been very dismissive of player feedback regarding the wallening.

My question for you is, have you been able to reflect on this and how will players be assured you will take any player feedback seriously?

[RaveRadbury]

You've been very dismissive of player feedback regarding the wallening.

My question for you is, have you been able to reflect on this and how will players be assured you will take any player feedback seriously?

I take player feedback seriously as it pertains to what I can do for them. This is exemplified in opening /tg/station to streaming, I had policy threads, test periods, many pings. I like reading policy threads and hearing takes. I did a whole admin satisfaction poll and posted the data.

I consider coding and administration to be separate, the only times I've had power over the code as headmin have been in regard to small inoffensive things that we could ask nicely for or things that we were required to stamp because they touched policy. I don't think something like the wallening would fall under headmin purview but I understand that you're interested in seeing that happen. I'm up for engaging that, I think that we would have some good nuanced and calm discussion about it.

As for my dismissiveness, that's my fault, but I consider it resignation rather than dismissive. My engagement has largely been "stuff like this has happened before, everything will be okay", not going out of my way to engage anyone who feels differently, responding to people who decide to quote reply me on it. I get the sense that there are people who have chosen to reply to my statements that don't represent the average player.

I've stayed sane(ish) volunteering here because I accept that leadership is going to do things I don't have any control over and won't like. Sure, I'll advocate when I'm passionate, but I try pretty hard to acknowledge where the boundaries are, and at some point I'm usually like "I know I don't have any real say in this but thanks for hearing me out." and then I drop it. It's a deliberate choice, and it reflects in my attitude about some things. This is why I can simply say "New people will show up who didn't know how things were before." It's a true external statement demonstrable beyond our community. I've seen it happen at jobs. I'm not excited about it, it's a cold comfort.

To me, dismissiveness is going out of your way to quote reply people and tell them that their opinion doesn't matter. I've been accused of baiting because I'm sharing an opinion that obliquely disagrees with a horrible side effect (the feeling that everything is going up in flames) and doesn't refute the main point (not liking the wallening). I kind of get it, urgency is a strong motivator and if people are calm you lose that. People are feeling scrappy for every edge they can get, I don't blame them.

So yeah, I'm happy to engage people who want to talk and I appreciate you making this post so I can engage with you more. I've engaged a few people who were out of the loop and genuinely curious and taken them through the whole convoluted thing, filling in gaps and providing context where I can. I'm an explainer, from my perspective my observations are things outside of myself that I point to.

Genuinely my only stance and goals have been to try and get people to lighten up and not take things so seriously that it's causing them anguish, which it seems to be doing to everyone all the time. Because if we're not having fun, then what are we doing? Obviously my efforts didn't have the intended effects, I'm taking that L.

I'd like to continue talking with you here or elsewhere if you'd like. While I was entering the community I saw a lot of your posts on the forums but you weren't around at the time IIRC. Big fan of your work and the time you've invested.

[Dax Dupont]

You've been very dismissive of player feedback regarding the wallening.

My question for you is, have you been able to reflect on this and how will players be assured you will take any player feedback seriously?

I take player feedback seriously as it pertains to what I can do for them. This is exemplified in opening /tg/station to streaming, I had policy threads, test periods, many pings. I like reading policy threads and hearing takes. I did a whole admin satisfaction poll and posted the data.

I consider coding and administration to be separate, the only times I've had power over the code as headmin have been in regard to small inoffensive things that we could ask nicely for or things that we were required to stamp because they touched policy. I don't think something like the wallening would fall under headmin purview but I understand that you're interested in seeing that happen. I'm up for engaging that, I think that we would have some good nuanced and calm discussion about it.

As for my dismissiveness, that's my fault, but I consider it resignation rather than dismissive. My engagement has largely been "stuff like this has happened before, everything will be okay", not going out of my way to engage anyone who feels differently, responding to people who decide to quote reply me on it. I get the sense that there are people who have chosen to reply to my statements don't represent the average player.

I've stayed sane(ish) volunteering here because I accept that leadership is going to do things I don't have any control over and won't like. Sure, I'll advocate when I'm passionate, but I try pretty hard to acknowledge where the boundaries are, and at some point I'm usually like "I know I don't have any real say in this but thanks for hearing me out." and then I drop it. It's a deliberate choice, and it reflects in my attitude about some things. This is why I can simply say "New people will show up who didn't know how things were before." It's a true external statement demonstrable beyond our community. I've seen it happen at jobs. I'm not excited about it, it's a cold comfort.

To me, dismissiveness is going out of your way to quote reply people and tell them that their opinion doesn't matter. I've been accused of baiting because I'm sharing an opinion that obliquely disagrees with a horrible side effect (the feeling that everything is going up in flames) and doesn't refute the main point (not liking the wallening). I kind of get it, urgency is a strong motivator and if people are calm you lose that. People are feeling scrappy for every edge they can get, I don't blame them.

So yeah, I'm happy to engage people who want to talk and I appreciate you making this post so I can engage with you more. I've engaged a few people who were out of the loop and genuinely curious and taken them through the whole convoluted thing, filling in gaps and providing context where I can. I'm an explainer, from my perspective my observations are things outside of myself that I point to.

Genuinely my only stance and goals have been to try and get people to lighten up and not take things so seriously that it's causing them anguish, which it seems to be doing to everyone all the time. Because if we're not having fun, then what are we doing? Obviously my efforts didn't have the intended effects, I'm taking that L.

I'd like to continue talking with you here or elsewhere if you'd like. While I was entering the community I saw a lot of your posts on the forums but you weren't around at the time IIRC. Big fan of your work and the time you've invested.

The wallening normally wouldn't fall under headmin purview but statements have been made basically that shows that in actuality it is if it pertains to forking.
I also want to engage the playerbase and get some numbers on how they feel, this also gives additional reasons for maintainers to realize just how liked or disliked it is.

This post is actually a good post and I understand you're reasoning better. Thank you for explaining things, this certainly makes posts you've made more reasonable.

[RaveRadbury]

The wallening normally wouldn't fall under headmin purview but statements have been made basically that shows that in actuality it is if it pertains to forking.

This makes total sense, and is why I think it's a real and viable option.

This post is actually a good post and I understand you're reasoning better. Thank you for explaining things, this certainly makes posts you've made more reasonable.

I appreciate the opportunity to explain, it's far easier to not engage.

[RaveRadbury]

I'm hearing things from people. I'm seeing things playing out.

There's a lot of change on the horizon.

I can help us navigate through this and come out better than we went in.

I'll be re-writing my thread this evening.

[RaveRadbury]

That DDOS was nuts. Things have been moving so quickly. Wild, wild, stuff.

New campaign thread.

[Lacran]

On one hand, I see a fiery, funny and capable guy who's done a huge amount for the community, but I'm still really, really conflicted here.
I was hoping you could help me reconcile how conflicted I feel regarding your new platform, and how it seems juxtaposed with your tone in the wallening thread:

It's interesting to see a whole bunch of new people I don't recognize cope in the same way and intensity that the old guys coped in back when they were mad. Some of the old guys are still around, still coping. Life's funny like that.

Sorted the github prs by reacts and strolled down memory lane...

Generally when head coders or MSO say "This is the way that it's going to be" I don't really care to be against it. I've yet to see a case where it didn't make sense for them to do it that way. I prefer to consider what can be done to make the change easier for everyone. Gently reminding people "This happens all the time" tends to be pretty helpful, especially with all the new faces in the github.

Regarding your chat with Dax, I definitely see how initially that "we've seen this before lads, let's keep our heads and trust the powers that be to handle this." is the most mature and reasonable stance to take prior to merging being declared.

Then we start seeing a bit of a shift:

I recently ran into a game, Dead Estate, that's doing the whole robotron roguelike room but their fresh spin was 3/4ths isometric which, yeah, does mean that I had to adapt and my aim didn't always work out how I thought it would. But you do adapt. Imo the only valid arguments for this line of thought are in regards to new player experience.

Then after the merge is rushed through we get takes like:

Nah, some people will come back when all the bugs get worked out. New people will show up who didn't know how it used to be. This is how it goes.

Y'all need to chill out, my point remains that this is cyclical in nature and we have these kinds of conversations every time.

Timonk, Thranos, donk and myself attempted to explain to you that this approach sounds like you're saying player investment to oppose this change seemed naïve, and that it's really invalidating to discuss a significant exodus on players like they're a few eggs needed to make this omelet.

Jac expressed their concerns that your defence of the matter was only serving to exacerbate the situation. There was also a number of vague criticsms by others direct towards "people in this thread", but I can't quote them in good faith as we can't guarantee they were directed at you.

To better explain my concern, do you think your behaviour regarding this recent drama, represents someone who's attentive to, and acting with the player's best interests at heart? and demonstrates the capable navigation of a minefield of negativity?

Do you feel like your cyclical status quo mindset, might've been at odds with the change players needed and may continue to need, and if so, what specific lessons have you taken from that to guide you through the new era you're excited to be a part of?

[Archie700]

I'll be more direct and say that your comments in the wallening pr and thread were dismissive and, quite frankly, rude, to the point it contributed to the toxic atmosphere around the wallening.

As a member of the admin team, we're supposed to be communicating with the community and felt really disheartening to see someone on the team dismiss concerns so rudely.

Regarding your previous behaviour during the wallening pr and thread, how would you take steps to ensure it doesn't happen next time?

[RaveRadbury]

Thank you for posting, Lacran. I appreciate the opportunity to have an engaged discussion with you about this

To better explain my concern, do you think your behaviour regarding this recent drama, represents someone who's attentive to, and acting with the player's best interests at heart? and demonstrates the capable navigation of a minefield of negativity?

Gonna start with this and answer it clearly: no, that wasn't leader behavior.

I was hoping you could help me reconcile how conflicted I feel regarding your new platform, and how it seems juxtaposed with your tone in the wallening thread:

Most of these posts are pulled from the peanut thread which also ended up being the feedback thread. I've only realized in retrospect that there wasn't a public feedback thread on the coding and they probably should have been separate.

It's interesting to see a whole bunch of new people I don't recognize cope in the same way and intensity that the old guys coped in back when they were mad. Some of the old guys are still around, still coping. Life's funny like that.

Sorted the github prs by reacts and strolled down memory lane...

I wouldn't have put this in a real feedback thread. This was banter, reflecting my frustration with what I saw as overblown reactions. It wasn’t about dismissing real opinions, but rather about addressing the entitled mindset where people treated the game like a product they paid for, and continued to express resentment even after claiming it was 'ruined'.

Like when you said:

I love it when coders add shit that contributes nothing but frustration

In the same thread, is that a post you would have made in a real feedback thread? Would you have posted your roofening idea in there? I don't think you would have. I think we have the same logical boundary between the player's club and the rest of the forums.

I recently ran into a game, Dead Estate, that's doing the whole robotron roguelike room but their fresh spin was 3/4ths isometric which, yeah, does mean that I had to adapt and my aim didn't always work out how I thought it would. But you do adapt. Imo the only valid arguments for this line of thought are in regards to new player experience.

This was a part of a bigger quote and discussion about depth perspective in games, which involved me having a misunderstanding that timonk took the time to explain a few posts down. I see the last line is likely the part that causes you the most concern. It was an assertion in the shitposting zone, and I was proven wrong shortly after by Timonk. Perhaps if I had gone out of my way to make a post confirming that I had ceded to Timonk's point? I've found peanut threads frequently live up to the "pissing in a sea of piss" expectation of people tossing out opinions and making assertions and as long as we're not being too vicious with each other all's fair? Either way it was a shaky assertion and if I was asked to make it on the record I wouldn't have.

Generally when head coders or MSO say "This is the way that it's going to be" I don't really care to be against it. I've yet to see a case where it didn't make sense for them to do it that way. I prefer to consider what can be done to make the change easier for everyone. Gently reminding people "This happens all the time" tends to be pretty helpful, especially with all the new faces in the github.

Nah, some people will come back when all the bugs get worked out. New people will show up who didn't know how it used to be. This is how it goes.

This is the thing I was talking about so my guess is that I failed to communicate tone here. This was in response to someone who asked "Is this really how it ends?" Did I come off as sneering or mocking when I said this? It was a very low energy statement from me. I don't think anyone was doing great at this point.

Y'all need to chill out, my point remains that this is cyclical in nature and we have these kinds of conversations every time.

This is where things started to get messy. By this point, I was two or three exchanges deep with Timonk, and then Dax and Jac added their observations, which made me realize I wasn’t handling the conversation as well as I could have.

Jac expressed their concerns that your defence of the matter was only serving to exacerbate the situation. There was also a number of vague criticsms by others direct towards "people in this thread", but I can't quote them in good faith as we can't guarantee they were directed at you.

Timonk, Thranos, donk and myself attempted to explain to you that this approach sounds like you're saying player investment to oppose this change seemed naïve, and that it's really invalidating to discuss a significant exodus on players like they're a few eggs needed to make this omelet.

If your concern is "will you act like this ever" yeah it could happen if I'm having a bad one, but if your concern is "will you act like this in the leadership position" no, I won't.
Opening up to this kind of engagement with people is an attempt to demonstrate that.

We might have some contention here and it might need more than just two posts to get through but I'm having a hard time putting my finger on exactly where the problem is

Was my presentation too blunt? Did my behavior not align with what’s expected of someone in my position? Or was there an expectation that I should have responded to all points raised, even those not directly addressed to me?

If you could clarify where I fell short, I’d appreciate it as it would give me more to think on.

Do you feel like your cyclical status quo mindset, might've been at odds with the change players needed and may continue to need, and if so, what specific lessons have you taken from that to guide you through the new era you're excited to be a part of?

Unless the 'needed change' was something drastic like '/tg/station Dying From This,' I believe my ability to step back and consider the big picture during turmoil is valuable for the community. Where I fell short was in how I presented my views and followed up. Although I’m an extrovert, I’m more of a thinker, which sometimes leads me to be insensitive. I’m committed to improving in this area and ensuring my interactions are more thoughtful.

I think one solid takeaway from this whole experience that you might appreciate is that The Wallening and The Sinful Forum Ban both have in common an important lesson of "Taking the time to get full approval from ruling powers before announcing your thing so you can make it quick because you're uncertain about reactions is an incredibly bad move that will piss off everyone more than if they had been normal mad. Then you're stuck, likely exhausted, and have no real way to escalate up or down because the die has been cast, you cast that die." And believe me, now that I've seen this twice, I will probably point it out every time I see it to keep other people from making such a big mistake.

A concrete solution to this is to see if we can't put some structure into the admin team that's a little more concerned with communication and PR. If more effort had been put into getting the word out about the wallening players wouldn't have been evoking Vogons. I think there's a lot of room for improvement in that area with application that goes beyond upcoming PRs. We could get community coordination and events going, it could be pretty sweet.

[Vekter]

I'd be kind of rude to encourage you to run this term and not campaign for you, wouldn't I?

I'll agree that your comments did seem dismissive, but I wasn't doing much better at the time and most of the rage did feel like general cope. I appreciate your reflection in the last few posts and I think you understand as well as I do that things rapidly changed and ended up being a much more serious problem than we first believed. I have two questions for you:

Going forward, if elected, what will you do to try and help keep cohesion between the coders and admins?

What, if anything, do you think can be done to help mend the rift between coders and players?

[Timonk]

I've found peanut threads frequently live up to the "pissing in a sea of piss" expectation of people tossing out opinions and making assertions and as long as we're not being too vicious with each other all's fair?

the point of peanut posts is to filter out the "spam" that does not bring anything new to the table, and it has morphed to a point where it is just a place for the community to banter and talk about things. it is in a way more lax than other things, like policy threads. but when someone in your position (especially yours, but any position really) comes into the thread and nonironically says things the way you said it, it is going to be recieved very sourly, no matter if you are in a sea of piss or the holy palace of 100% on topic posts. That you posted your take in a peanut thread doesn't matter. It was very clearly your opinion at that point in time. The opinion of someone who aspires to be in a leading position in the community. And you go ahead and tell them, among other things, to cope about it and that the new players in the community will have no idea it used to be different. As you may now realize, it came off as extremely condescending coming from someone like you because you essentially told all existing players that they are easily replacable. You may not be the sole factor, but voices like yours contributed to the worsening of the situation.

[Timberpoes]

When you enter election arc mode, your tone shift from usual towards the politically correct elect me pls adult in the room persona is asinine. You come across as condescending, snide and insincere.

I don't know whether it's intentional or not, but I prefer when that carefully crafted veneer peels away and we see hints of the Rave we had headminning 3 years ago. Don't get me wrong, you still had the contemptible election persona but being teamed with Tattle and Nameless all but made it vanish after you stomped Lepi in the player vote to capture a period of hope after 3 terms of near stagnation.

[RaveRadbury]

When you enter election arc mode, your tone shift from usual towards the politically correct elect me pls adult in the room persona is asinine. You come across as condescending, snide and insincere.

I don't know whether it's intentional or not, but I prefer when that carefully crafted veneer peels away and we see hints of the Rave we had headminning 3 years ago. Don't get me wrong, you still had the contemptible election persona but being teamed with Tattle and Nameless all but made it vanish after you stomped Lepi in the player vote to capture a period of hope after 3 terms of near stagnation.

Gonna hop the queue for you bby. Not sure what your election experiences have been but mine have involved getting doxxed and having to spend the entire election cycle dancing around bad faith questions about slurs from people who felt my stances were politically motivated. Pretty much every election before this one had increasing levels of anxiety and also every arc it seemed like more and more people had a negative opinion of me that reflected characteristics that I didn't see in myself. And the harder it gets the more thought I have to put into my writing, which produces content that's apparently not great. The great joke of it all is that's me trying to be careful and thoughtful.

I'm not even sure what veneer you're referring to, especially because this arc I've been trying to engage more sincerely and be more open. I think it's gone alright, despite people being mad at me. Interesting to hear that you don't notice any difference at all. You should check my recent twitch vods, I think I'm more my normal self there than here. See if I line up with the Rave you've created for yourself.

[Timberpoes]

It's just the vibes I feel.

Maybe I'm retarded or whatever and have 0 emotional intelligence so I just can't people good. Your election cycle you is different to the not election cycle you.

It's tough to articulate tactfully, but outside of the whole headmin cycle you just feel way more personable and human question mark? Inside, it feels like there's a PR job to build yourself up to the role, but it detracts from everything in a way that just feels artifical?

Dunno. Always nagged at me but I never worded it out.

[RaveRadbury]

It's tough to articulate tactfully, but outside of the whole headmin cycle you just feel way more personable and human question mark? Inside, it feels like there's a PR job to build yourself up to the role, but it detracts from everything in a way that just feels artifical?

yeah idk man I guess I like to be a little showy with election threads, it's fun and funny. might not be to your taste. I agree that I act differently during elections, partly because it seems like the spirit of the season to dress nice and act a bit more diplomatically.

feel free to hit me up in dms if you want to articulate untactfully

[Lacran]

I feel like a lot of people have stated very directly what their issues were with what you were doing and why, so I'm unsure why there's still confusion. I'm going to try to level with you directly on this.

You came across as an arrogant uninformed prick.

Now, obviously it's hypocritical for me to just leave it at that, because I do that all the time. So, why are people objecting to you being a prick specifically:

Your opinions you expressed, and the manner you expressed them in came across like you were a condescending bittervet that knew everything there is to know.

Your yourself stated your priority was to support the status quo and combat player entitlement. In this instance, you were dead wrong to do so, it's not really that you were rude, it's that you were arrogantly enabling behaviour someone that's been around as long as you have should've known was really fucking bad. Wanting players to respect the insight that comes with your experience also makes you more accountable than some other dude.

I gave my feedback in a cunty way, in a formal feedback situation I generally wouldn't have that exact tone at that exact point, I'd definitely get there though. But me being pissed off at coders for adding an incredibly frustrating thing and me speaking out against that is internally consistent, my platform is based primarily on how I approached this issue and what I learnt from it.

Yours is that you want to be at the helm of an exciting new era, one that's occurring despite your contribution. I was never going to post to your original platform, because being a burnt out bittervet with really nothing keeping them here but inertia was consistent with your behaviour and opinions expressed recently.

This jarring leap you do between "I'm an extremely experienced and capable member of this community that you can rely on" to "I need 15 people to breakdown my own behaviour to me" makes me think you either have an extremely selective view of your own behaviour that does you no favours or you just have a penchant for obscurantism.

[GamerAndYeahMick]

Hi Rave I think historically although we may have maybe engaged in conversation in a way that was not helpful (my fault mostly) but also a lot of conversation that was at least productive and came to some sort of mutual agreement, I am interested to see how you think me and you would fair together if you did get elected and how exactly any plans that we may have that conflict would come to be resolved?

[RaveRadbury]

I'll be more direct and say that your comments in the wallening pr and thread were dismissive and, quite frankly, rude, to the point it contributed to the toxic atmosphere around the wallening.

As a member of the admin team, we're supposed to be communicating with the community and felt really disheartening to see someone on the team dismiss concerns so rudely.

Regarding your previous behaviour during the wallening pr and thread, how would you take steps to ensure it doesn't happen next time?

So this is a multi-faceted thing, and it's ended up being long. I don't want to mollify you, Archie. I'd like to build understanding.

► Show Spoiler

Fundamentally and primarily what drew me to /tg/station was the github. The opportunity to contribute my own designs and ideas to a social RPG like this was a blessing, shortly before that I had finished a game and while it got the daily feature I was running on empty and fumbled any next steps for it. As many of us do, I tore through the wiki and then the github. Then I began contributing and I operated within the bounds of the behavior that I observed. Overall it was a refreshing experience, people didn't pay you too much attention until you had a few PRs up but I felt that was fair and made sense. I had been engaging the local indies scene and I found that environment to be kinda weird and constantly low-key competitive. The atmosphere here was collaborative, informative. You didn't have to dress up your opinions, clear feedback was preferred. Sometimes people made memes or snarky posts to express themselves. Goof had recently been gitbanned, so people pointed to his conduct as where the line was. Everything went pretty fine, and I always get a little thrill when I see something that I worked on being used by other players or showing up in a video. I share this to establish two things: there is a separate culture of discourse in the github and I see a lot of value in open-source collaboration.

The discussion in maintbus that you and I saw, the one that inspired you to reach out, wherein MSO made an example of one of my posts, was in regards to a specific failure of multiple dynamics coming to a head. He specifically pointed out where my comment fell (the limit), that the person who was engaging me had at some point had their posts minimized retroactively, and that there was an assumption that I was a maintainer based on how github labels users. These three things coming together don't look good. If I was a maintainer during that PR I would not have been engaging it the way I did, but I've scrapped to defend PRs in the comments before. Even if everyone knew that issue managers weren't maints the confusion can still happen as long as github has its terrible labelling system, so I think that if I want to remain true to myself I should resign from issue manager until that gets sorted.

I've seen the maintainers being very firm about their right to moderate their spaces so I want to see what they decide is best for the community during this time of flux and I will abide by it.
The host is aware of my conduct and where it occurred, he has stated his issues with it.

There were a lot of emotions during the wallening and despite my attempts to exist outside the cycle I was glued to my screen like a lot of others clearly were. I got indignant over how the PR (and by extension the contributors) was being treated and I chose to express it with humor. I place great value on contributors, they are players who stick around and make things. That is very cool.

When I first showed up here we only had a maint team. It's so cool that we've expanded beyond that. It's my understanding that Bay lost their coding team due to a power struggle with the administration that resulted in a walkout. That team keeps a separate codebase that they never publicly host. It takes a long time to replenish coding talent. The maint team is way over my head, personally. I've worked with these kinds of people in the indie dev scene. Programmers do what they want, it's their class quirk. In any small indie team the leader is likely going to be the coder. The whole reason that open-source exists is that coders want to do things to the exact level of quality they want to the exclusion of how long it takes and not getting paid for it. They do it for the satisfaction of the work, working on the thing and making it better. If they don't feel appreciated they go elsewhere, which is pretty straightforward for volunteer work. I can't stand idle while people are killing the golden goose.

We have these really talented capable people who spend a lot of time working on things for the community for years and so much of the feedback in the comments took that for granted. So I posted in defense of them without making judgements about the PR itself, which tracks logically for me but as I've thought on it more I can see how having no clear opinion made things worse. When a maint said I wasn't being helpful, I stopped. If I were to do it again I would balance it out with engaging people more about their concerns.

As for my posts on the forums, specifically, I deeply regret that my posts ended up in the same thread as forum irregulars coming in seeking a real place to talk about feedback. If I'd realized that was going to happen I wouldn't have posted.

Aside from what I can do on a personal level, I think there are structures that we can put in place to prevent things like this from happening again, and I'd be happy to do the heavy lifting for a term to see to it that they happen.

The admin team should do more to notify players and help them vent. I did that for stuff like cloning, I'd go into OOC and drop the link and let people talk and engage. It goes pretty well if you put on a good song and keep things light. I don't think it's fair to expect the team that spends hours agonizing over code to also spend hours agonizing over people. That sounds like admin business, we should be doing what we can to support them. Something as simple as a post that gets updated detailing what PRs could use a signal boost so that the playerbase are aware of the incoming change.

We could go even further by coordinating events to encourage newer/less-integrated community members to try and make a PR or a sprite or a design doc, something like a PR Jam. It's a fun opportunity to learn something new and learn more about how the community works. Something like this empowers players and strengthens the community. I actually just came up with this while writing the response and it seems pretty lit I think I'll try to pull this off regardless of what happens with this election.

[RaveRadbury]

Hi Rave I think historically although we may have maybe engaged in conversation in a way that was not helpful (my fault mostly) but also a lot of conversation that was at least productive and came to some sort of mutual agreement, I am interested to see how you think me and you would fair together if you did get elected and how exactly any plans that we may have that conflict would come to be resolved?

From what I've heard from others and seen with my own eyes I'm excited to have you as host pick. I can't recall your style but for me personally in headminbus I try to find where the shoe pinches and what we can do about it. I enjoy brainstorming and I don't really get attached to my ideas. I try to keep my list of hard nos as short as I can and at the end of the day I like enabling new ideas and projects. My general policy arc has been building out a formalized content wing in partnership with community members.

Peeped your platform, very solid, very warm. I know there's been a lot of "what should we do with x server" talk and if you're addressing that with your platform I think it's fine. Personally, I'd prefer stability for all of our servers right now.

Are you good with keeping a schedule and that kind of organization? (Shit I should put this in the debates thread) Having at least one person who's put together like that is a great asset to a headmin team. Coincidentally, I am not one of those people, as it turns out.

[RaveRadbury]

I feel like a lot of people have stated very directly what their issues were with what you were doing and why, so I'm unsure why there's still confusion. I'm going to try to level with you directly on this.

You came across as an arrogant uninformed prick.

Now, obviously it's hypocritical for me to just leave it at that, because I do that all the time. So, why are people objecting to you being a prick specifically:

Your opinions you expressed, and the manner you expressed them in came across like you were a condescending bittervet that knew everything there is to know.

Your yourself stated your priority was to support the status quo and combat player entitlement. In this instance, you were dead wrong to do so, it's not really that you were rude, it's that you were arrogantly enabling behaviour someone that's been around as long as you have should've known was really fucking bad. Wanting players to respect the insight that comes with your experience also makes you more accountable than some other dude.

I gave my feedback in a cunty way, in a formal feedback situation I generally wouldn't have that exact tone at that exact point, I'd definitely get there though. But me being pissed off at coders for adding an incredibly frustrating thing and me speaking out against that is internally consistent, my platform is based primarily on how I approached this issue and what I learnt from it.

Yours is that you want to be at the helm of an exciting new era, one that's occurring despite your contribution. I was never going to post to your original platform, because being a burnt out bittervet with really nothing keeping them here but inertia was consistent with your behaviour and opinions expressed recently.

This jarring leap you do between "I'm an extremely experienced and capable member of this community that you can rely on" to "I need 15 people to breakdown my own behaviour to me" makes me think you either have an extremely selective view of your own behaviour that does you no favours or you just have a penchant for obscurantism.

Thank you for detailing your thoughts on this and going the extra mile. I was hoping that you would post again. I read in your thread that you describe yourself as a thinker and as I've been reflecting on things I realized that maybe you and I both say less than we should and it fails to represent who we actually are.

I'm glad that you clarified for me that your primary concern is based in rhetoric, principle, and logical consistency.
I'm not sure how you can condense my argument down to status quo, as my observations were in regards to just how things work out as broad general principles of psychology and how organizations work. To me a status quo argument is "we should keep taxes where they are" and while that may have similar inertia one is about how we need to keep taking 7% of the money and the other is about how after I am long dead there will be someone living in my house. Shit you don't have control over happens and it does not make me a bittervet to accept that. There are so many disaffected people in the greater community, who, once you hear their story, it turns out that they fundamentally disagreed with oranges over a design change and said something rude and got blocked. At some point it clicks, like, "either I work with the existing team as it is or I fend for myself" and I chose cooperation. I've detailed more in my spoilered response to Archie's question, if you have a moment for that.

Now oranges has stepped down and thrown out all of that on his way out. I really didn't see that coming.
I had to re-evaluate, and I did. I will continue to.

I also spoke with Donk after I stopped posting in the wallening thread and he rightly pointed out that if I wanted to be headmin that I needed to recognize that it's a shitshow right now, there's going to be a lot of negativity to handle, and I can't act like it's just going to be on cruise control. So I'm igniting my inner fire and trying to put on a hopeful face so I can spend the next 6 months cleaning up after this. That's the goal, that's it. I get how you see that as not logically consistent, I had to put in some effort and dream big. I've also had to engage people and re-learn how to be comfortable sharing my thoughts longform with the community. I do appreciate you continuing to engage despite finding my struggle to be absurd. I suppose it is a bit absurd to seek understanding rather than rushing through an apology. But I'd rather people understand me so they can dislike me correctly.

So here's something for you re: logical consistency. You know that headmin is a lot of work and there's extra work on top of it that *I* had a hand in. Why not vote for me to make sure I take care of it. If I quit (never gonna happen) or fail (possible) it'll be pretty humiliating for me.

As for the final Jarring Leap: man I have become so cutoff from the community, do you see how many words I'm using here compared to the words I used during my entire second term like??? At some point I lost the plot on being able to engage people authentically, and some noticed that. The only conclusion I could come to as an appropriate fix was to take feedback from people, hear it, and try my hardest to recognize it as sincere and not clap back on it. But for me part of that involves clearing up definitions and getting a precise understanding. This also means avoiding cheap or easy apology and working towards something authentic.

Sincerely, Lacran, thank you for putting the time in and talking with me.

[RaveRadbury]

I'd be kind of rude to encourage you to run this term and not campaign for you, wouldn't I?

I'll agree that your comments did seem dismissive, but I wasn't doing much better at the time and most of the rage did feel like general cope. I appreciate your reflection in the last few posts and I think you understand as well as I do that things rapidly changed and ended up being a much more serious problem than we first believed. I have two questions for you:

Going forward, if elected, what will you do to try and help keep cohesion between the coders and admins?

What, if anything, do you think can be done to help mend the rift between coders and players?

Thanks for reppin' the badge, Vek!

Yeah there was a lot going, I stg these things end up being like psychedelic trips you're like "is this it? i don't feel it" AND THEN IT ALL HITS AND YOU ARE ON THE RIDE AND WE ARE ON THE RIDE, and fuck man you just have to wait for it to end.

Administration-wise I think one of the most important things is that we respect their process as they move forward under new leadership and avoid pushing to administrate their spaces. I reached this conclusion after watching maints politely asserting that boundary a handful of times. I would like to offer support to the coding team as they are interested. I think that the admin team could help the coding team with some communication tasks, just as they help us with tooling.

I think the maint team is already putting a lot of work into mending the rift. As I detailed earlier, I think onboarding players into the community and getting them involved is the perfect solution as it both enriches the community and it enriches the participants. I would think that if everyone was on the same page re: the basics that the wallening could have been engaged much differently.

[RaveRadbury]

I've found peanut threads frequently live up to the "pissing in a sea of piss" expectation of people tossing out opinions and making assertions and as long as we're not being too vicious with each other all's fair?

the point of peanut posts is to filter out the "spam" that does not bring anything new to the table, and it has morphed to a point where it is just a place for the community to banter and talk about things. it is in a way more lax than other things, like policy threads. but when someone in your position (especially yours, but any position really) comes into the thread and nonironically says things the way you said it, it is going to be recieved very sourly, no matter if you are in a sea of piss or the holy palace of 100% on topic posts. That you posted your take in a peanut thread doesn't matter. It was very clearly your opinion at that point in time. The opinion of someone who aspires to be in a leading position in the community. And you go ahead and tell them, among other things, to cope about it and that the new players in the community will have no idea it used to be different. As you may now realize, it came off as extremely condescending coming from someone like you because you essentially told all existing players that they are easily replacable. You may not be the sole factor, but voices like yours contributed to the worsening of the situation.

Point taken.

[RaveRadbury]

What a great election arc! I feel like I got a lot out of it, big thank you's to everyone who engaged my thread and everyone who ran. It means a lot to me that we can do something like this twice a year and have a bit of fun with it.

See you next time!