On GM Professionalism

It irks me every single time I see condescending/rude/authoritative/sarcastic replies from GMs on ban appeal threads. The server is already in a position far from its glory days pre-new source and communicating in an unprofessional manner does not help a single bit in my opinion.

It is understandable that GMs can gradually become desensitised to the appeals considering the myriad of pleas/excuses that they see on a daily basis. However I implore that GMs should still reply professionally simply because they represent the management team of the server.

I hope that GMs can be constantly mindful of this and I suggest that GMs perform their duties off a rotational roster should they require some breathing space from the swarm of appeals to be handled.

Thank you.

-From a concerned member of the community

 

If you feel a GM is abusing their power, or acting in a way that is unworthy the position, you should PM either @Matt or @Tim your concerns. These sort of threads, in the past, have been notoriously awful in gaining actual feedback or stimulating dicussion as it becomes a "public court" thing rather than an actual investigation into conduct.

With that, I'll leave this open to discussion but if it takes a turn south I'll be locking the thread- so a heads up.

P.S. In case you're curious, any report you make (with regards to PM'ing one of the admins) would stay anonymous and I assume (greatly*) it would stay between the admins only as otherwise the person in question would be in the discussion- to answer any preemptive questions lol.

 

how do we make royals great again guys? we need to address the elephant in the room imo

 

I think a lot of this currently has to do with being a bit short-staffed when it comes to dealing with various kinds of things going on within the server. They are also people with lives so it's all volunteer work done on their free time. The amount of stress that can build up from their position is definitely understandable. Doesn't help that there's a consistent amount of abusers to deal with among some others they have yet to apprehend in the server.

Given their position, they are more in the know of whats behind the scenes so in some cases their behavior is justified but to the general public, it can come off as questionable behavior. I suppose there could be more effort taken to professionally manage certain replies given something like ban appeals are available for public viewing.

 

Cant agree more with this. Okay, I understand that, sometimes, they reply with 'sarcasm', but we arent exactly in position to ask a lot, because we cant imagine how they handle all this, with a free server. When it comes about helping the players, yeah, they do a really good job, and If I can thank them, it would be at least once per week (because Im always asking some dumb questions lol).

So, if there is something they can do better, maybe be more systematic with the ban answers. ''Why you banned me?'' - ''You were banned because of 'x'. If there is something to resort, show us with the proof". This idea would be something like what some countrys do with theirs legislations, where the judge shouldnt have an opinion, and should only trust on the justice itself. But, again, they arent judges, they are GMs! Being human is part of what they do!!

 

Can you explain it how was the "glory" days?

 

Players always hate GMs who in charge of Ban Appeal Section like few years ago most players hate Tim because he handled most of the Ban Appeals that time but for me he was good and professional.

As you said GMs now replied rudely in ban appeal, i do agree with this but not all the GMs ,some GMs are still doing great with Ban Appeals.

In my opinion,if player didn’t insult GMs ,GMs should still reply professionally but if players are rude and show no respect to GMs in Ban Appeals (actually not only in ban appeals) ,GMs don’t need to show much respect to those players too ,i feel sad and angry too if someone says Fxxx words to me when I’m trying to help him/her.

 

In my opinion, none of the ban appeals should be made public. As it isn’t meant for public viewing such as the report abuse thread. It isn’t like character issues and bugs report that players could share their helpful inputs. The ban appeal is between one player and staff, no one else should be concerned about how it is handled. In some cases, provocation is a powerful enquiry tool in extracting information and true intention.

I suggest making ban appeals hidden if this is affecting how players feel about some of the replies, the trade off will be a less interesting and transparent forum and tip offs from players who might catch on some ban evaders and evidences that we might have missed.

 

I'm for keeping ban appeal section public as they are right now. As you said, it's much more entertaining and could possibly be beneficial to GMs. Also to people that are newer to this game that read ban appeals they could learn stuff on what NOT to do.

 

to clarify, the elephant in the room is the absolute, undeniable disrespectful tone and choice of words by some very dear GMs. As a player that is aware that zero tolerance and a no bullshit approach to rule breaking is absolutely the correct way to handle things, it can be upsetting when ban appeals are handled in this specific manner. I've talked about it with a plethora of other people on this server and we seemed to agree on the comparison (comparing the feelings invoked within) of when you see (or experience) a police officer treating a citizen in a very non-respectful manner. Most of the game masters are respectful.

this position is the polar opposite of any type of 'solution' to this issue, man. transparency is mad important when dealing with a community such as this one, obviously.

ill post some examples of some responses that may have not even been ill-intended, but some things come out wrong, even over text, ya know?

(these are things that aren't necessarily my opinion, however you can may be able to see how some people might take this as not-so-professional)

some examples of the 'elephant in the room' our dear friend and colleague @raiueh has mentioned:

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.132127/ - this is a prime example of the elephant. one gm handles things in a very professional manner, while the other..well you can form your own opinion

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/jail-appeal.131940/ - "And I appreciate if you don't constantly bring up the jail thing, because it won't help speed up this process but only annoys me more." :/

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal-for-thought-i-was-botting.132417/

some exemplary professionalism displayed:

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/id-deleted-or-blocked-from-connection.130952/#post-757370 - notice the troll-y, somewhat humorous remarks met by a very straight forward response. didn't even acknowledge the remarks made by the defendant.

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.131753/ - note the defendant insulting and copping a huge attitude, notice the staff member's response

this wasn't meant to be targeted at anyone, but it was certainly meant to distinguish professionalism and non-professionalism. being a GM in this community must be absolutely hard as fuck and any logical person can understand how one might behave in an unfavorable manner, no one is denying that, man. no one is denying that the mapleroyals staff does a fantastic job as a whole, so there is no need to argue those two facts.

what is being talked about here is the motherfucking elephant in the room, dog.

yan, mati, shane, sof, kai, luna, ray, and hampa; good job, its hard. thank you guys for volunteering=). theres absolutely nothing wrong with the community having these thoughts & feelings towards improving professionalism.

 

I had never intended for any finger-pointing as I wrote this. All that I ask is for staff members to be more tactful and professional in their replies to the community. Having the appeal section kept private or otherwise, replies should still be worded professionally out of basic courtesy and respect for others. Staff members signed up for this to serve the community and not to rule/dictate over us. I hope that they have not forgotten the things that they have written and promised the community when they initially applied to be part of the staff team. I do not believe this is too much to ask for.

 

Good idea!
I don't have any GM i am thinking right now but...

some times i feel tat people who make ban appels get treated like less than human

 

yes being a GM here is volunteer work, but thats also exactly why they should be prepared whats gonna get thrown at them after accepting the position as a GM. just because its voluntary work doesnt mean it should be the reason to justify any display of unprofessionalism.

on the contrary, i believe that because its voluntary, the GMs should put even more effort to uphold the professional image as staff of this server since they most probably already know what kind of shit they are getting themselves into.

dont get me wrong, i appreciate greatly, for all the effort the GMs here have put into holding this server together. and im not saying all the GMs here are unprofessional, but its just the occasional instances of unprofessionalism that im not agreeing with.

i understand the GMs here are humans like us and have emotions too, but agreeing to take on the responsibility of being a GM is pretty much equivalent to working as customer service irl, u are bound to get lots and lots of shit thrown at u. if any of the staff here cant take the stress, they are always free to leave as there are no obligations (at least none that i know of) tying them to their jobs instead of just replying with petty and paggro responses from time to time.

i agree with both @attenuate and @Exenet that there should be roster of duties but it is also true that the server is short on staff, so perhaps this is something that can be discussed and worked on?

 

If we could find more volunteers like @Tim and @Yan for their patience and professional in an appeal.. But not 8 days long of reply..

I mean If you have stress with work and life, why would you want to volunteer to be GM and release your anger and being judgmental towards an appeal??

Last time GM abuse power with summon P slimes since after that, abuse of power in ban appeal and giving out warning points on forum

Uncessary giving warning points after a 3month old thread, this was a joke a 3month old thread?? (filed a report for this)

I mean this duo K and M should learn to reduce your power abuse knowing that is a just a game. Be lenient with people, every human made mistake and wrong, unless you are a perfect human being?

*Note I didn't point directly to anyone, you know who you are and it's not Karven and nor Is Matt..

 

I don't think anyone is trying to justify unprofessionalism- I think it's more a matter if explaining why it happens and how to both learn from it, and how to avoid it. Realistically, I think a lot of staff post less than they used to because that's the only way to truly avoid it. There are things that will get taken out of context, there are words that will be put into their mouths (sort to speak) and we sometimes respond as humans- anyone who works in retail has experienced this. There are things said every day on this forum that are objectively worse than some (nay, most of the stuff Staff has said), and it's applauded because people put players here into 2 boxes- Staff, and not Staff- and if you're not Staff you can get away with a lot when it comes to what people think is okay and what isn't. Some of our model community members have outright shat on the server, it's players, and the staff and because they are well liked by a vocal minority- it's okay and imo, it shouldn't be, but I digress.

Something people forget is the other side of the story- again not an excuse, just an explanation. Dealing with people who outright lie in appeals and more recently post excessively offensive and pornographic images.... I would argue in 99% of Staff posts it's completely fine, it's professional, and a good chunk of stuff none of you actually see because it gets taken care of, and the active users here are very good at reporting shit. If there's an acceptable % of patients that a doctor is allowed to kill before it becomes a problem (Read: Doctors don't lose their license if a patient dies), I think there should also be an amount of posts that Staff can be a little sarcastic in (I'm not saying they should do it on purpose, just like doctors don't go out of their way to kill people, but shit happens and I don't think public opinion on the severity of cases that do happen are exactly accurate).

People should also stop breaking rules. This again falls back on the problem of having enough people to adequately moderate- stuff gets missed, but that doesn't mean after X amount of days it's forgiven- reality is a a lot gets... for lack of a better word ignored because you're right we should be more lenient sometimes---- we're all humans and make mistakes- why can't staff be afforded the same measure?

Before people jump on me for stuff I've said here- it's not like feedback threads like this get ignored- of course I can't speak for others, but I read all of these types of threads and think on it- I would assume the others do as well, and more often than not it's discussed in the discord.

But, this is when I justify and excuse- I think things could be a lot worse, and we should take the good, reflect on the bad, and continue with the good. I can't speak for all staff of course, but the current Staff is, IMO, some of the better we've had in the past. In the last... what 18 months (?) since I joined, the last 2 waves of additions have brought diversity of skill and opinion that I think was severely lacking- and we work well together. Discussions are calm, collected, and professional. Of course former staff were also excellent, and did their job and with the exception of some obvious outliers (No P-slimes yet lol ) the current state of the forum and game is for the better because of them.

This already happens (albeit not necessarily because of the latter, but the former). Staff leave, some come back like Yan, and Stan, and sometimes they leave again, for a myriad of reasons. Some find it easier to do so, some go invisible and spend more time on behind the scenes work like handling reports and just scouting the game catching bad guys- I think we're all adult enough here to know when we need to take a break and step back.

 

Firstly, if you said there is not amount of X days to be forgiven, then I think that within 5 years thread made by any individual in this forum, the mods should clean through, to check uncessary spam or useless post. And give warning points tho those people. If not this would be call as being buyers by certain GM who target only certain people for their post on forum.. Wouldn't this be power abuse and being unprofessional?

Secondly, if they are adult to know things, why would this thread being made? Their action isn't showing that they are acting as an adult by being rage with the people who appeal their ban and being buyers only target few people post to give warning points.. An adult act way better then this certain GM. There shouldn't be any buyers to this so call "volunteer work" by certain GM choose to take up..

 

We rely on people reporting things- it's impossible for me (the only forum moderator by title) to handle it all, let alone the dozen or so Staff who participate in moderating the forum. There are hundreds of people who visit the forums every day (I'm lowballing a bunch) and you guys are constantly looking through current, and old threads. I'm not sure what incident happened that you're referring to- but there is a very very good chance someone reported the post and that's how it come to our attention.

We don't single people out- no matter how it feels. Additionally, more times than not, old stuff that gets moderated is simply deleted and we notify the person and no points are given (unless it's severe enough)- this of course is done on a case by case basis but that's generally how I roll with that sort of stuff- this all falls back on how little people are actually made aware of what gets moderated on the forum (edit: fixing shitty grammar lol)

I don't know why this thread was made- I'm not OP. Do I think whatever happened that sparked this thread could qualify as "rage", no, I don't as that's a bit harsh, but I respect that OP felt it was enough of whatever that it should be addressed.. (I'm honestly just not sure what to call it, it's 3 am lol) .

I don't really get what you mean by "buyers" though- care to elaborate?

 

If you think that the WPs given to you by me or other staff is unfair at any point in time, I urge you to make an appeal thread and we will review it. There's no point in attacking me here (it's rather clear now that K is me, if not Karven), and I will not apologise for doing my work by dealing with reports, and issuing WPs as I deem fit.

But I would like to clarify that even though an offence was made 1 year or even 100 years ago, it's still an offence and will be dealt with accordingly. It was just unfortunate that it took someone 3 months later to report it. I would also like to iterate that staff do not review every single post and we rely on the community's effort in helping us maintain a proper discussion.

To everyone else, if my respond came across to you as being sarcastic/arrogant/whatever, I can only assure you that those were never my intention. By now you should be familiar with my bold and non-sugarcoated approach in dealing with ban appeals. This is because I don't want to waste time, and would prefer the appealer to get straight to the point. When he/she don't, that's when I have to up the ante because if not, the appeal is never going to be settled and is going to take weeks because the appealer doesn't want to cooperate. If you look back at my track record, most of the appealers were indeed rule breakers trying to smoke their way out of the system. So I ask you, if I don't break them to get them to confess, who will? But of course that came at a price -- this thread.

That being said, I won't apologise for what I have said so far, here or anywhere else just because a handful of people disagree with my method of handling appeals.

 

Just think of it like real life!
Who the hell likes the police??!! -_-
I'm just kidding! <333

In my point of view, it's all about how to maintain a huge number of people, without this way of order, the GMs can't sniff out the people in the ban appeals, as they sniffed out alot already.

Though i do think that the most professional people in works are those who haves fun and likes what they are doing, without that specific emotion, sooner or later they will realize that everything is getting messy, in terms of living, feeling, even as they socialize. (No, i don't have anyone in mind, neither that i'm pointing it to anyone )
-just my point of view walking by-

I don't really mind what they are doing, even if it did happen to me, as i know everyone is just doing their jobs, and that there would be no way that they would go like... (Alright, i'm getting you unbanned, just don't tell others) since no one got this treatment, i think they did their job as equalizing every person in the game, there might be mistakes, but no one is perfect as human beings.

 

Great topic of discussion, OP. Much needed.

Basic etiquette should be the standard when dealing with ban appeals from a position of authority. It goes a looooong way in keeping the discussion civil and direct to the point.

Things like "Could you please list all of your IGNs including mules" instead of the emotionless "List all of your IGNS" (or variations similar) help immensely in setting the right tone for the discussion. Your first response should always be polite, warm and ideally even friendly. When users appeal a ban they are often on edge to begin with, and when they sense rudeness or hostility they react accordingly by lashing out immaturely in response, which creates a less productive and more time consuming discussion overall. We want the staff to be able to get in and get out to extract the most productivity out of their time (I'd think this is what they would want too--less time wasted), not to go back and forth because a player spoke to them in a way they didn't like or whatever. User appeals ban -> staff member asks any questions they may need answers to -> appealing user provides answers -> staff reaffirms that there is undeniable evidence to support the ban -> provides the answer to the appeal/reason for ban and that's that. Handling your emotions is an absolute must when in a position of power. Each person should be treated the same way. Your stance, behavior, and overall approach should remain consistent and not vary depending on your own mood, feelings, or external factors such as the maturity shown by the other individual (the one appealing in this case).





Another big issue is the guilty until proven innocent approach. We all don't like rule breakers, there's no doubting that, and we want to see them punished to the fullest extent...but bans where the user has to prove they didn't commit an offense when there was no proof that they did commit it to begin with is an absolutely prehistoric approach to a justice system. It provides no benefits over a system where there is proof attained prior to the ban, only downsides (false bans).

You're a witch!
"no I'm not"
Prove you're not a witch!!!
"uh I'm not a fucking witch wtf, prove I am one since you're accusing me of it out of nowhere"
Sorry we won't show you any proof, but witches have big noses and so do you, end of story bye you will be stoned to death on X/XX/XXXX at XX PM
*weeks later*
UPON FURTHER REVIEW WE HAVE DETERMINED YOU ARE NOT ACTUALLY A WITCH, APOLOGIES, YOU'RE FREE NOW

Like what in the fuck??????????????????????????????

How it should be:

You're a witch!
"no I'm not"
Unfortunately you were found to be performing witchcraft on X date at X hour with X person
"bbbut iz my brothers cousins mailman visiting from fucktopia performing craft of witch not mi i swar officur"
We have photo/video/witness (logs/screenshots/recordings on MS) proof of this incident occurring and you will be stoned to death (remain permanently banned). [We wish you the absolute best in your future endeavors and appreciate the time you put into our server. Thank you for playing MapleRoyals] (adding this to further explain the type of politeness that should be taking place even when people lie to you)
*weeks later*
Crickets (because the player was banned with proper supporting evidence)

We should have undeniable proof that the offense was committed prior to banning the individual. I feel so bad for players like that Crowley dude who was basically called a liar repeatedly entirely based on poor speculation rather than any sort of fact or evidence. It's just not fair, at all, and there's absolutely no reason why it should be like that. It doesn't benefit us in getting the actual rule breakers with sufficient proof (hence why they remain banned). Speculation just leaves for the possibility of error, meanwhile evidence-based doesn't and still bans those who were actually proven to be breaking the rule(s).



Finally, if we want to save the staff more time (less responding/back and forth in threads), we should be making the ban messages accurate so players don't have to come in with the whole "ID IS BLOCKED FROM CONNECTION" shit claiming they don't know what offense they were banned for and needing to get an explanation before being able to proceed.




Now with the few troubled areas aside, much love to the staff for all of their hard work and effort put in. Especially to those who make that extra effort to be polite and civil (I see you Matt and Sof), y'all are the best (well, second best, we all know Kevin is our MVP).