can some mod unban me from the shoutbox please since Jen falsely banned me from it ages ago and the discord got nuked, thanks in advanced
i pulled him the first time around even when he was a complete dogshit unit because i am a TRUE SIMP!!!! but no i quit this game because all these dailies were taking a mental toll on me lmao
CW: spicy takes; unreasonably long wall of text Oh boy what a question! So as soon as I started as a Forum Moderator, I actually had originally planned to quit around the end of this summer when I hit my two year mark. It would have been right around after I graduated law school, passed the bar exam, and moved halfway across the country to start a new job. It also would have been right after the anniversary event, and I had some cool plans in mind to completely revamp Royals Fashion Week (the theme would have been Harajuku Street Style!). But after deliberating and wavering back and forth over the past month or so, I decided to pull the plug and not look back. It's funny because we always like to say that we're quitting for personal reasons unrelated to the game--new job opportunities, school responsibilities, or whatever. The truth is, in my experience, that has never been the case. We were all leading our own busy lives before applying for these roles, and the only thing that has really changed is whether we want to continue taking the time out of our busy lives for these roles. I actually didn't give any reason at all when I quit, but I suppose I can share them now with everyone. 1. I was not happy with the direction that Staff was heading towards. This felt especially compelling as we were gearing up for recruiting the newest members. To somehow simultaneously be both as transparent and as vague as possible, I was disappointed with the way some of us were using our personal biases to systematically disqualify certain classes of applicants. And to be perfectly honest, there is always a significant amount of reliance on personal perceptions when recruiting for these roles as you might expect. Besides the actual content of your application, the most significant impact on whether you are recruited or not are any interactions you may have had with current members. But something about the conversations we had this time around felt particularly... unsettling. I genuinely believe that we have always been great about giving all applicants fair consideration and recruiting a truly diverse class of new members. But at least in my personal view, I am afraid that this is no longer the case. I was also kind of annoyed because I made a lot of significant overhauls throughout our effort to revamp the applications, and they never made it to the live version. I mean seriously, some of those questions we ask are so irrelevant and just poorly worded lol. But this was largely due to communications getting unintentionally lost throughout the process, which unfortunately sometimes happens. And to be perfectly clear for the record, these concerns are completely unrelated to our dashing new Developer and promising new Community Managers. And also as a side note, I would advise players interested in applying to Staff to seriously reflect over how they conduct themselves throughout the forums. This is the only place where your involvement with the community is accessibly recorded for us to observe, and players who actively and positively contribute to the community are seen upon very favorably. I also want to take this time to give a huge shoutout to @Stephen, who was literally submitting hundreds of hacker reports for months before being unanimously recruited--a fact that has always gone underappreciated by the community due to the section being private. 2. I was not happy with the direction that the community was heading towards. Honestly, I was just so annoyed with y'alls bullshit over the holiday season lol. Apparently y'all had all the time in the world to curse each other out over petty nonsense, but absolutely no time at all to submit a screenshot of your dusty ass next to a god damn tree for some sick free prizes. But the thing is, it really wasn't even that bad--especially compared to some of the truly spicy drama we've had throughout my time on Staff. But what felt different this time around was how little I cared about the content I was moderating. I mean, I truly do not give a shit about multi-clienting. I really don't. I always made an active effort to initiate dialogue between the community and the Staff--because this is something that I felt was sorely missing when I applied for Forum Moderator. But it was truly frustrating having to moderate discussions that had nothing to do with me, while also having to be the one to actively deal with people bickering with me when they received warning points for their behavior arising out of these discussions. And let's be real, perhaps GMs wouldn't avoid the Feedback section like the plague if y'all weren't so god damn nasty sometimes lmao. Given that I was one of two people mainly responsible for moderating discussions throughout the forums, I obviously was at the forefront of backlash arising out of enforcing the forum rules. I've received more than my fair share of accusations of being as a power abusing nazi by multiple players. Which is funny because I was always the one trying to discourage other Staff members from enforcing the rules unnecessarily harshly. I advocated for allowing players to appeal permanent forum bans. I advocated for reaching out to players with verbal warnings instead of handing out easy warning points. I advocated for refraining from deleting posts with legitimate criticisms and frustrations just because we didn't personally like them. I was literally there on the other side as a player when Staff members were arbitrarily handing out warning points like candy, and I wanted to make sure we began to enforce the rules fairly and consistently. So if all of my advocacy resulted in me becoming the power abusing nazi, well... enjoy the forums now I guess. At the same time, all of this culminated into a core frustration I had with my role in the community--I had no agency over the forums. I actually have less access to parts of the forums than some of the GMs. There is nothing I can do in the forums that a GM cannot. I can't even serve forum self-ban requests for over two weeks because I don't have permission to revoke forum bans. More importantly, it felt as if my advocacy was consistently stonewalled by other members of Staff. Dave and I were by far the most lenient Staff members. And we had to consistently deal with not only pettiness within the community, but also pettiness within Staff with other members constantly bickering with us about how a random post they happened to see should have been deleted with an asinine interpretation of the forum rules. One thing that other Staff members don't realize is that they actually have a very limited understanding of how the community interacts with one another throughout the forums. So unless you're consistently reading every single post like I am (yes, every single post), you have no business enforcing the forum rules because you will never be able to do it fairly and consistently. Because at that point, you're literally just censoring random posts based on your personal whims--which is something that players in the community have complained about time and time again. And after a while, all of this got so exhausting that I honestly just stopped bothering. If Staff members that read two posts once a month on the forums felt that they had a better understanding of how to best improve the community, then go for it. Whatever. I mean, those tags in the Feedback section? What a fucking joke lmao. Let's be clear, the Forum Moderator is a completely redundant role. While Dave and I fortunately managed to make ourselves useful in our own ways, I am genuinely glad that the role is deleted--all memes aside. It's truly ironic, because I was actually the one who originally suggested implementing the Forum Moderator role in the community all those years ago in the first place lol. So I'm interested in seeing how this brand new Community Manager role (that literally spawned out of nowhere, always a worrying sign of impulsive decision-making) shapes up--I'm particularly interested in seeing whether they uphold our legacy of leniency and transparency. That being said, I unfortunately have doubts whether this role is the appropriate solution to these issues. As a matter of fact, I have concerns that it would actually exacerbate a lot of these issues. But I also believe that we recruited some of the most qualified members of the community for the role, and I look forward to seeing them carve their own success. 3. I was just tired. I always noticed that Staff members who last the shortest amount of time are those who have only been around for a year or two before applying (or those who do dumb shit and get caught LOL). I used to say that the only reason I didn't quit when June did was because I was a veteran who was already accustomed to and disillusioned by the imperfections within Staff. But all in all, I just found myself doing less and less over the past few months. There are basic responsibilities that I did on a consistent basis--replying to general inquiries, processing character issues, editing official communications, hosting forum events, and reading every post to enforce the forum rules. During the first year, I also took a lot of initiative in assisting or spearheading larger projects. But as time went on, I slowly lost the motivation to continue to work on them. There were a lot of things that I still wanted to complete during my time on Staff, such as an internal forum moderation guide, an external forum usage guide, and a series of "Meet the Staff" posts as a type of community project. But those had been on the backburner for many months now. And if I wasn't going to do them, the least I can do is make room for someone else who will. I'm sure this answer was much more comprehensive than you were expecting, but hopefully this addresses your question with little doubts in mind. I actually did get people privately reaching out to me with similar questions, so I figured I would make a single post where I could share all of my thoughts and experiences at once.
Were you happy as a forum mod? Are you happy now? Although I rarely post, I always enjoyed your rhetoric for drama involving the Forum Events.
Your way with words is beautiful and I love the way you write. Can’t wait for you to be my lawyer xoxo
I was, and I am! I mean it when I say that I truly enjoyed my experience as a Forum Moderator. And if I could go back in time, I would honestly probably do it again. And all my frustrations and criticisms aside, I genuinely enjoyed the time I spent with each and every person on Staff. I'm sure people may have been hoping for something spicier and angrier, but I'm glad I got to leave on good terms and on my own terms.
I'm glad you left on good terms and with no regrets. I personally can't really eat spicy food, but being happy is important.
