Staff Professionalism 2

In response to @bibz thread that was locked shortly after, I would l like to clarify that the thread was not meant to single out a member of staff but, it was clear that there were many instances that are re-occurring over their time on staff. Examples are used to back up her claims, what's the point of making baseless claims without providing information? I feel like the said staff member(s) are taking it very personally without taking any accountability at all.

In addition, I find that the common re-occurring excuse that "we are unpaid volunteers" is a bad mindset of excusing yourselves. You wouldn't be unprofessional if you were volunteering for another organization/company, would you? Trolling her in the shoutbox is also not professional btw. As mentioned on the previous thread, the requirements of "you agree to represent yourself as a GM Intern in a professional manner to the rest of the community" needed in order to become a staff member, is clearly not shown from the instances she listed above.

The point of the feedback thread is so staff can reflect on their actions. We, as a community all want the best for the server that's why we are still around. We aren't here to criticize you for no reason.

 

While @bibz thread spoke about extending professionalism, I think this goes past that but also rectifying past actions and changing their behaviour. Especially a behaviour the community is well aware of considering that an admin from another PS posts and gets quite literally 30x more likes than an official GM of royals and that speaks volumes.

It's embarrassing how long unacceptable behaviour has been ignored due to bias that has even been called out by staff themselves. While some volunteers are unpaid no one can deny some still benefit on the success of the server.

Clearly from the likes many people agree with what Bibz had to say. No one is chastizing anyone for being in a relationship, and the issue has constantly fallen on deaf ears.

 

Having separate account from your staff is actually a good thing. There were so many complaints and threads made about staff making unprofessional posts, uncharacteristic, mod being high and mighty, etc. Separate them and the posts will be treated as players being dumbasses like the rest of us. It's good PR for your staff team, and also sets a good professionalism standard where you can separate work and fun.

 

You are allow to have relationships or emotional breakdown in or outside of the game, frankly, no one actually do care about that, but the thing is your worthless precious feeling should not be the first priority of how should the server go.

 

It feels like the examples in the original thread were nitpicked so that it could be closed without any proper response or reflection as to why people feel that there is a professionalism issue within the staff. Volunteers or not, there should be a standard that staff should be held to with regards to their conduct in game and on the forum.

 

I do believe staff professionalism should be upheld in replying to players and forums. This includes liking certain posts, replying in game or posting in general. The most important is to be wary that a staff member is the face of MapleRoyals and even with a separate forum account it does not fix professionalism. In addition, I understand Staff are human but trolls and comments are inevitable in an online platform hence Staff needs to have a good tolerance and emotional intelligence.

 

we be going in circles, til this place becomes a circus !

 

I still get PTSD from posting in GIOYC sob

 

In just the shoutbox earlier, there are already some additional instances that questions staff's response to feedback from the community. If anyone wants the full text from shoutbox, read it here if too much time has passed, but here are some examples:

• To me, this reads as if Muff was dismissing bibz' argument for why the thread even existed. It reads as if Staff was not willing to even listen to her argument because she's "in the wrong."

• Gert's additionally seen brushing off bibz' original argument in her post. Sadly, to me, this makes him seem so far removed that he no longer understands nor empathizes with the community. Us players are seen as disposable and are at will to the staff's actions. (I understand that the picture in the original post may provide context that proves the argument otherwise, but this was my read on the context of Gert's message alone).

• And lastly, our very own server owner brushing off bibz's entire reason for making the feedback post. Again, it feels like it's a one way conversation where staff is not even appearing to listening to our feedback.

As others have pointed out, is the staff in denial of staff's professionalism? Maybe, I'd encourage staff to consider the aspects of denial and how it may apply to you all as a team/individual:

• You refuse to talk about the problem - Matt seems to be avoiding the problem above by shutting down the feedback, even though it has resonated with a decent amount of people via likes/comments thus far.
• You avoid thinking about the problem - Gert's claim that bibz is "overreacting" and Muff claiming her post had "very little, if any merit," thus brushing aside her chances of even justifying herself.
• You promise to address the problem in the future - hello autoban
• You persist in a behavior despite negative consequences.
• You blame other people or outside forces for causing the problem.
• You find ways to justify your behavior - Gert did this in the screenshot above by saying "who cares?"

Regardless, I'm glad to see that there's still enough professionalism going around staff to give a thanks to a staff member who abused their powers. Yet, sadly no thanks was given, seemingly on purpose, to one of the more popular staff members who engaged with the community in a positive manner. /s

 

Having read through both threads, I find that there are overreaction on both sides. I agree with everyone that staff should behave professionally. However, I fail to see how the example provided in the original thread supports the argument.

I haven't seen any player voice this opinion, so I want to put this out there. I, for one, don't find it at all unprofessional for a staff member to use 1 forum account for both official statements and personal opinions. From what I've seen, in general, staff put in a reasonable effort to state their intentions in forum discussions and contributes to them constructively. On the other hand, I feel like locking the feedback thread so quickly is premature and unnecessarily appears defensive.

Spoiler: full disclosure

Becca's personal player account previously made a one-time donation to my library project (linked in my forum signature), but outside of this I have not directly interacted with her.

 

That thread that you linked definitely looked like a classic case of staff taking things personally. As with the Kai's profile section saga thread, a member of staff aired their thoughts and shut down the thread prematurely without at least appearing to address the OP's arguments thoughtfully and giving the community a chance to respond. The optics certainly looked not the best there.

Look, I think there's a good point somewhere in there that the GMs may not have displayed their best behaviour at times in game and on the forums, but at end of the day, this doesn't seem like a big issue. Having looked at the screenshots, I wasn't able to spot any major incident of abuse. It's also hard to tell whether a GM did abuse her powers in kicking someone out because we don't even have the full context on the whole thing. And while I can understand the confusion over Becca's reply in the GM event thread, the language in the post read like it came from a staff member merely airing her thoughts in her personal capacity.

And finally, I think it's a good time to urge a bit more tolerance on both sides. I just came back to see what's up and already can tell that this server is no longer in its heyday (you can tell from the player count as well as the lack of staff applications last year) and many of the people who came back to this server after having fallen in love with maplestory when they were kids, are moving on with their lives. Or maybe it's just me who's moved on.... either way, I think it's ideal that there's some middle ground to be struck here between the staff and the community; that the community holds the staff accountable for the things they do, while also being cognisant of the fact that they're human and ensuring that the standards asked of them don't go any higher than they need to

 

Kinda sad to see not much has changed.

 

just locking a thread without actually having a discussion with one another isnt very professional of staff. you all let yourselves give your input then locked it without letting the thread creator make a rebuttal - the disrespect you have shown in that thread as well as in the shoutbox afterwards for a member of the community is concerning and the nepotism you have shown towards your fellow GM staff is clear as day but your action plan to address these legitimate concerns are clear as MUD. classic case of silencing unwanted opinions.

 

tl;dr "Let us discuss among ourselves only and lock the thread due to taking it personally, because it is very much needed. Oh wait, it's not a big deal at all, so lets not give any constructive feedback, don't bother, don't care"

 

we bringing this back ?