The New HaloMods -- Official Q&A

[Tural]

Tural, I take input from my staff all the time. Everyone I worked with will attest to that.

All five people, who, coincidentally, all agree with everything you say.

You give me input as well, but you don't accept when it's dismissed. You keep pressing your case.

You never once even said I had a valid point, every single time I said anything, I was wrong and you were right. You were just as unwilling to accept anything I said as you say I was to you. However, I gave in and said I'd try your approach, you never once acknowledged mine. Interesting how that worked out.

Once again, I had been working 7 hours straight on the site, it was 7am at the time, and I was completely through with my leniency. I decided there and then that it was enough. That was not a big *** you. I saw no other option.

So did you make a mistake in how you handled it? If not, then I don't see the reason for talking about the time and whatnot, if your decision making ability was sound.

I could have removed my post, yes, and I probably would have, if I hadn't gotten the 'You can't disagree because you're staff' comment. If you had said then what you're saying now, I'd still be a member of the staff.

[Geo]

Tural you hae no idea of the disagreements I had with him... don't make assumptions like that.

[GametagAeonFlux]

Tural, I take input from my staff all the time. Everyone I worked with will attest to that.

Coincidentally, everyone who left were members of the staff that you hadn't even asked (to my knowledge) for even the SLIGHTEST bit of input. There was no reason that any of the staff members should have been left "out of the loop" ESPECIALLY on something this significant. Hell, we even told the users a week or so before we merged the old forums together.

[Geo]

Everyone keeps repeating about being annoyed about being left 'out of the loop. I understand it wasn't liked, and was a bad decision. But it's all done, what will continually bringing it up do?

[Tural]

Because we want someone to finally acknowledge what you just did, that there was a mistake made. All we've had so far is it being defended as the right thing to do, nobody was admitting that they were wrong, it was the same old "We're right because we say so." When we can start reaching an agreement like that, we can make progress.

[GametagAeonFlux]

Everyone keeps repeating about being annoyed about being left 'out of the loop. I understand it wasn't liked, and was a bad decision. But it's all done, what will continually bringing it up do?

Continually bringing it up will help reiterate that it's the main fucking source of the problem (for me, at least), especially since until now you haven't acknowledged that it was a bad decision.

[Geo]

But I don't understand what can be gained from doing so...

[GametagAeonFlux]

But I don't understand what can be gained from doing so...

You weren't acknowledging it. You refused to admit it was a pointless decision and that there was absolutely no reason to not tell the users or at the very least the other staff members.

[Tural]

It's the principle of the matter. Until now, nobody in the new administration had admitted they were wrong. With two sides, one is right and one is wrong. If you're right, we're wrong. It's not dependent on what can be changed about it, it's about the attitude. Admitting fault is a big step in moving forward here.

[INSANEdrive]

I'm am saddened to see very little apologys...and more defending.

[SourceGuy]

I have said on numerous occassions that I am sorry I did not keep you in the loop. I'm sorry! I will tell you guys next time! Please. Can we put this behind us now?

edit:
(as per request from insanedrive ; ) )

SourceGuy wrote:Once again, I had been working 7 hours straight on the site, it was 7am at the time, and I was completely through with my leniency. I decided there and then that it was enough. That was not a big *** you. I saw no other option.

Tural wrote:
So did you make a mistake in how you handled it? If not, then I don't see the reason for talking about the time and whatnot, if your decision making ability was sound.

No, that was not a mistake. You said you experienced that as a big 'fuck you'. I am trying to show you how the circumstances caused me to react, 'promptly', if you will. That doesn't mean I shouldn't have acted the way I did. I might have done it more gently if I were in a better mood. But this is all irrelevant.

[Tural]

Yes.

[Vinx]

I personally think it is time for cake and celebration, time to keep halomods going for at least another 6 or however many years lol.

[FleetAdmiralBacon]

Good, now can we work on the things that need to be fixed?

[shadowkhas]

Everyone keeps repeating about being annoyed about being left 'out of the loop. I understand it wasn't liked, and was a bad decision. But it's all done, what will continually bringing it up do?

Because people think we left over something as simple as the forum being migrated.
I would not have left had it only been the forum change. I would have been happy to work it out with users and be on the support end.
I would not have left had it only been for extra sections. I don't agree with them, but that's a choice that doesn't bother me.
I simply feel like I was wronged because, no, I wasn't asked for any input at all on the new site. I would have loved to have been informed about it and been able to work out a more refined and consistent product for the users. I also disagree with the moderating policy of leniency...Communism works on paper too. It doesn't feel as effective to me, and if I won't be able to do my job as well as I have been in the past, then that's where I don't feel like I can represent the site.
The fact that all of these things happened is what led me to make the choice.

It seemed all these resignations were coordinated by you, Tural.

That's a quite silly allegation. Tural told me about the new Staff attitude, and he said he would probably be resigning, but never told me to.
I made that choice completely on my own, and all of the previous factors that I've stated contributed more than what he told me about.

EDIT: Hugs.

[Doom]

First off...Wasn’t warlord banned?..I’m pretty sure I’ve had him banned, banned him myself, and had my staff ban him several times over the years, and yet he always manages to sneak his way back in...Just had to get that off my chest...

I’m completely awestruck at the complete cluster-*** you have created in your attempt to handle this situation...It boggles the mind how quickly the situation has degraded from your standard change backlash to an all out brawl...From what I can see (and this is from my years of experience as an admin of a popular forum), spawned from the admin/dev teams poor reactions...I cannot begin to fathom how you locked a (mostly civil) thread discussing issues and complaints from the community, only to promote your own thread...Rule #1 was always, do not lock a thread unless absolutely necessary, the community has a voice, and we need to hear it...After reading this thread, I would’ve stood behind any of my staff for locking it...It’s an all out flame war...The other thread didn’t have any of the name calling and accusations being tossed around that this one has...It was locked because it was creating a negative vibe on your new fancy pants site, and you don’t want anyone disagreeing with you that it’s the best thing since offset lists...

You all claim that none of you want power, it’s not a power trip...I call ***...I worked on the site behind the scenes for years, never once being given any staff position...You don’t need power to moderate in order to develop for the site...It doesn’t make you qualified, it never will...Moderators are qualified to moderate, and the years of experience they have makes them qualified...I don’t see moderators being given ssh access to the site so they can make changes...Because they’re not qualified as devs...Well, Tural is, but he was quite content working on the site from the background, and allowing me to upload the changes he made...He was senior staff not because I thought the title looked fancy, but because he was good at what he did...He didn’t even get a fancy title for being senior staff, and it was never publicized that he was senior staff...Modesty goes along way...

Geo worked hard and long to bring you guys the most familiar layout he could, but we still had setbacks with dealing with an unfamiliar systems.

Geo himself has defended the poorly constructed theme, saying it’s completely stock, so it’s not your fault that it looks bad...Completely ignoring the fact that it was your choice to use the theme, and your choice to go live with that theme...I’m not exactly sure which part he worked long and hard on...The clicking of ‘install’, or the clicking of ‘continue’...
You continually all say you want to listen to our honest complaints and criticisms, but when we give them, they’re rebutted with “we’re staff/administrators now, we win”, or “quit saying negative things about our site, we put a lot of work into it, and we deserve your kudos...You’re going to make us cry, and that’s not allowed”...I’ve pulled the admin card out once or twice in my day, but I always followed it up with sound reasoning why I was right, and you were wrong...And I was always right, just like I’m still always right...

And the users are right...Personalized themes should be allowed...I denied them...I also ran a forum with about a dozen custom written modifications that would have to be applied to them all...Now you’re running a stock forum with the emblem mod (which is pretty easy to add to a theme)...And I ran that forum with a great big team of ZERO developers willing to help out...I don’t see why you can’t offer a half dozen alternatives for people...

Excuse me? What do you know about how I pick my staff. I've worked with these people for a long time. I know exactly what they're capable of and who should be in which position. What is it with this 'deserving' 'power'. I pick moderators because they do a good job moderating, not because they 'deserve power'. That is an old halomods philosophy that I intend to defuse. I believe that is also what's causing so much resistance from the staff.

An old halomods philosophy?..Excuse me?..Pretty sure I picked staff for the last few years since I actually took a position as administrator, and I sir, take offence to this statement...It took me a lot of hard work and convincing to overhaul the staff on this site to remove bias and “friends made staff” before I was even an administrator, and I will not have the likes of you bad mouthing my hard work and dedication...

Bold + Underlines.

-Doom

[Geo]

What did that contribute?

[Iron_Forge]

To all the people with the "shut up or leave" mentality, you shut up...People who complain are just showing how passionate they are about this site as their home...Those are the people you want to keep...The people who just accept it and move on don't really care...

For everyone else...Let's go start our own halomods...With blackjack and hookers...

[FleetAdmiralBacon]

To all the people with the "shut up or leave" mentality, you shut up...People who complain are just showing how passionate they are about this site as their home...Those are the people you want to keep...The people who just accept it and move on don't really care...

For everyone else...Let's go start our own halomods...With blackjack and hookers...

In fact, forget the halomods. Blackjack and hookers is enough.


You made me do it.

[diamondbackk60]

To all the people with the "shut up or leave" mentality, you shut up...People who complain are just showing how passionate they are about this site as their home...Those are the people you want to keep...The people who just accept it and move on don't really care...

For everyone else...Let's go start our own halomods...With blackjack and hookers...

Very very true..