Hey there community!
I'm writing this message to make sure everyone is aware of the current situation and status of the FSE administration (And the implementation process of our new policies and regulations), so you're all kept up to date with how things are progressing in the behind-the-scenes management. We've been working very hard recently to provide a positive and enjoyable community environment for you all, and on the whole I believe we've succeeded in this (as far as we can in the two months since we began implementation, anyway!), barring one or two events this week from a childish minority. At least from a moderation standpoint, the number of regimental disputes (and needless off-topic arguments in threads) have dropped dramatically in the past few weeks, and for that we've got you guys to thank as much as ourselves - you've all been incredibly supportive over the last couple of weeks, and have helped us immensely with your post reports and PMs (as well as your communication with the Community Reps in their first term).
However before we get to that, I'll just clue you in to the situation with many of the recent community disturbances in the last week or so (Better to get the negative stuff out the way
)
Recent Drama
As many of you are aware, we've recently had some issues with certain (Now ex-) community members obtaining and abusing the Admin password on our Official Servers and trying to spread rumours about various members of the FSE Development and Administration team. After several days of investigation (to make sure we had the right culprits) we have identified and permanently banned the users responsible from both the forums and the game servers. We do not (and never will) tolerate this kind of behaviour, and we apologise for any disruption or offence they may have caused you. With such a large Admin group it is difficult to vet every single admin (especially if they have held the position for a significant length of time), however we hope that new regulations put in place by Deofuta since the event occurred and the impressive solidarity and resolve of our remaining admins, will allow us to return to and maintain the high standards expected of us.
As an extension of this though we would like to ask you, our community, to try and avoid excessive public argument over the events of the past week, especially on the Taleworlds forum. Whilst we appreciate that many of you may wish to demand some level of explanation from those responsible for the recent disturbances, it does the community no good to have these issues continually discussed & argued over and over with members outside of this forum, particularly those who have been previously banned from this forum for either the event itself, or previous rule breaches. We want to continue to build and improve this community, and if we're going to achieve that we need you all to help us move on and prevent similar situations arising in the future. Argument either here or on Taleworlds will not help us improve this community, and it does the community no good to excite the trolls that live beyond the, ahem, wall.
We hope you understand why we're requesting this - You're still more than welcome to discuss any of this amongst yourselves, of course, but in the interests of continuing the positive development of this community we believe it would be best to simply leave the banned users alone. They have stated multiple times that they're not interested in rejoining the community in its current "state", and I believe it would be better for all of us if we can just leave them to it. They're banned, most of them are never coming back, so ignore them. After all, they can't hurt us.
Righty, apologise for having to be so serious for a minute there! Now it's time for some positive news (Yaaaay!)
Here's some info on what we've been doing in the last couple of months. We're very pleased with how things are going right now, and we hope you'll agree that the situation within the community is much improved on how things were around new years.
So, what have we achieved in the last two months?
Community RepresentativesWell for a start we've seen the first term of the Community Representative scheme, and I have got to admit that I was impressed with how successful the CR system actually was. With the help of the Community Representatives we have made numerous decisions affecting the conduct of both users and moderators on the forums, and they have acquitted themselves admirably in resolving regimental disputes (something we'd been doing until the CRs were elected). So, let me say thank you to the first term of Community Reps, who have done remarkably well in filling the role without any formal instruction or precedents on how to behave. I look forward to seeing how the second cabinet of Community Representatives do in their new roles.
New Moderation GuidelinesWe've formed a new set of moderation guidelines for the forum staff to follow - this includes a much more thorough process by which we can maintain and verify evidence of misdeeds, and more defined rule-breach/punishment doctrines for us moderators to follow. In practice, this means that we are generally now more relaxed about off-topic chatter (provided it doesn't devolve into an argument or ragethread), and will generally give a verbal warning for minor rule-breaches rather than immediately giving watched ratings. However, this also means than we've got more efficient (and fairer) infrastructure in place for more serious rule-breaches, and now record our punishments in greater detail (in case they are required for reference at a later date).
Two New Moderators!Yes, we've also got two new moderators,
McEwanMaster and
Malakith. Both of these moderators have proven themselves in the past three weeks (In which time they've also had to cover for me, when I had to leave at short notice due to Coursework issues), and we're very happy to have them on the moderation team. I hope you find them as helpful in the coming months as we have in the past few weeks.
Game Administration GuidelinesAlongside our reformation of the Forum Moderation guidelines we've also reformed the Game Administration guidelines, meaning that (like the forum moderators) game admins are now given more specific guidelines in how to punish certain rule breaches, and are more able to deal with problems as they arise. We hope this will allow for a more enjoyable playing environment on the official servers, and of course mean fairer treatment of all players on our official servers.
New Senior Admin/sIn tandem with our Admin reforms, we've also added a new authority position to the Administration ranks - The Senior Admins. The senior admins lead the administration teams on both the American and European official servers, and manage ban/unban requests from our players. They are working closely with our head admin (Deofuta) and our game admins to make sure that all ban/unban requests are dealt with objectively and promptly, and manage the administration team as a whole.
Our first two Senior Admins were Cenzii (EU) and LittleGuy (NA), who were joined by Crusader (EU) when the EU administration team requested (and voted for) a second Senior Admin for the EU servers (Congratulations Crusader!). All three of them have been doing well in the positions, and we're grateful to them (and the admin team as a whole) for the effort they put in on a daily basis trying to keep our Official servers enjoyable and clean.
Refined Server Admin RecruitmentIn addition to these other Server Administration changes, Deofuta has further refined his system for selecting and approving potential game admins, and is now in the process of transferring the method (trialled on the NA admin applications) to the EU administration recruitment process. We hope that the more rigorous selection process will prevent any repeat of the earlier mentioned breaches in admin password security, and will mean allow us to further bolster the excellent behaviour and professional attitude we've seen in the ranks of those admins remaining on the team. They set a high standard, and hopefully with the new recruitment process our new Game Admin candidates will meet their expectations satisfactorily.
The Reformed FSE AdministrationBy community request (and to make sure they have enough time to work on BCoF!), the Dev team have handed over the overall management of the community to Refleax (General Community Manager/PR Manager) and Deofuta (Head Administrator/General Community Manager), and have themselves stepped back from direct involvement in Community issues. This means that all your issues within the community need to be directed either to Refleax, Deofuta, or one of the other FSE representatives available (Myself/Malakith/McEwanMaster for Forum/Community issues, Crusader/LittleGuy/Cenzii for Server/Admin issues, Community Reps for Regimental & Community disputes or complaints). This also means that the Developers have more time available to, y'know, develop, and you all get more attention for your issues! (Win/Win situation all round, it would seem
)
These are just some details of the major changes we've made (some of which you may or may not already be aware of). There have also been a dizzying number of smaller policy changes and achievements, many of which were brought about with the aid of the Community Representatives - you can find details of many of their own rule additions and suggestions
:Here:, and any queries about individual rule or policy changes can be directed to any member of the FSE Support Group - If we don't know the answer, we'll know someone who does!
We hope you approve of these changes and achievements, and if you've got any suggestions then please feel free to send them to a Community Representative for discussion with the FSE Administration.
So, that's the biggest changes. Things appear to be going well, and we're very proud and appreciative of how you've all supported us over the last few months. We've hit a few speed bumps along the way (these changes are harder to implement than they look
), but those of you who are still here have stuck with us through that, and for that we're grateful. We hope you agree that things in the community are improving, and look set to do so for some time to come.
Warm regards (and
Happy Easter!) from us all,
The FSE Community Management,
Server Administration Staff,
& FSE Moderation Staff
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