Journal of Other Forum Analysis

[Taco Bell Tower]

I don't think I have much to add, but yeah, it's ridiculous that it's been this long and we couldn't even get a "I fucked up! My bad!". I also think it's important to note the B-Dubs general dismissiveness and perceived hostility towards the community was the issue at hand in this very thread just before he verbally abused his staff.  It's not the first (or second, or third...) time this is seen as an issue by the community. The silence and lack of accountability is also completeley par for the course.

Not only that, if we look at all the iterations of this thread I think 90% of the issues raised by posters are about staff-users communication. It's insane that after so many years, so many exoduses and so many heated exchanges this still hasn't improved. I get that mods are overworked, but at some point it becomes evident that this is not the only issue. It's also a matter of priorities.

I strongly believe that if a mod only got through 50% of the tickets they usually go through in an hour, but everytime they acted on a report they spent twice the usual time explaining the reasoning/writing a staff post this community would be in a much better place.

Like, what's the point of going through all the tickets if users often feel like bans are poorly explained and thread locks undeserved? Wouldn't it be better to EXPLAIN the rules to the users instead of locking threads with snarky posts like "Come on guys, we're not doing this"?  Sure, maybe this would result in some threads staying open for a little longer than they should and a couple of users escaping a deserved ban, but I still strongly feel like the tradeoff would be very worthy.

Just adding my voice that we need an official response on this. Silence is not acceptable.

ive seen a lot of these meltdowns (that get edited or deleted) happening especially in current elections/middle east war threads

not to be rude but if you cannot moderate without getting emotional on these particular topics then you shouldnt be able to mod them at all. Leave it to someone else and moderate any other thread on the whole forums… theres no issue with that.

There’s a high likelihood any statement he makes would get uncharitably picked apart and just add more fuel to the fire. Y’all are literally out for blood.

And it is deserved..

We wouldn't be "out for blood" if this had been adressed swiftly and properly. Every day without a response has simply allowed us, the concerned users, to stew in our frustrations. Ignoring it is not going to make everyone forget it.

I'm personally not chomping at the bit to kick Dubs out from his position head first, but the idea of him not getting any sort of punishment or disciplinary action is becoming harder to swallow with each passing day.

Yeah, better to have the ultimate authority have absolute impunity to lash out in a way that no user ever could get away with.  We can, and should, expect better or at least consistency in what is or is not ok.

Expecting the absolute bare minimum isn't being out for blood. Especially when it comes to the general manager of a supposedly progressive and inclusive forum.

It's been more than a week and there has been literally nothing besides Nep's post which isn't what anyone wants. (but was still appreciated)

This is something that any half way decent group could have dealt with in, at most, 2 days. But most likely 1. And we're ever encroaching towards 2 weeks, with it essentially being ignored by the person who did it.

There's really only one reason I can think of that it would take this long to handle publicly, and it's that there simply is no mechanism that was ever planned or discussed on how to handle someone at the top doing something egregious beyond "hope they do the right thing" (which doesn't seem to be happening), which if true would be a pretty glaring omission considering the history this very site was founded on. (not saying what B-Dubs did is anywhere near that, just that's essentially why people left to make ERA in the first place was someone at the top did something egregious and there was no mechanism in place to handle that)

Can anyone from staff have the fucking decency to at least give a reply to what they will do to handle this?

What do you think they can do? There is nobody above the one who started this. You can't fire your boss and there's no HR for Forum Mods. They are either talking about it behind the scenes or they aren't. In either situation, what are they able to come here and say? It's not the responsibility of any of the staff who didn't do this to give you the answer you want and yelling at them about "fucking decency" is blatantly misdirected anger.

I’m sorry but this kind of response is bullshit and it’s making excuses for staff. Honestly staff should have been prepared be for situations like these just like other jobs/workplaces do. And yes it is staff responsibility to give this community some type of response/update to this situation to alleviate any concerns people like me have over someone getting away with reprehensible behavior when any other person on this forum would (and rightfully so) have faced consequences already.

How are the other staff responsible for the behaviour of their boss? Try thinking about it for more than two seconds before going full Karen, maybe.

Staff are responsible for taking things into consideration and releasing a statement on this what is so hard to understand about this?

How is their response bullshit? There's no reason to go off on them for pointing out the reality of the situation. Who do you think is responsible? There's no community manager or anyone else in a comparable position. Do you think someone from MOBA is going to come from on high to address the concerns of maybe the dozen people speaking out in here? Worse fallout they will see from this is a few posters leaving if even that.

Nobody on staff at ResetEra is in the position of the people who could "prepare a statement" for any other company. This isn't some office tech job with higher ups to your higher ups and HR departments or PR departments or any of that. You're demanding statements and actions from individual people about something they didn't do and have no power over. You're being unreasonable.

Fair enough. I have set expectations too high I guess, I guess I assumed staff here were more important that what they are. But it’s still a bad look not communicating with the user base here yet and letting us know if anything will be done. At least some communication is not unreasonable to ask.

Oh come on, that is a poor reading of anything that's been said here and combined with your previous downplay of the behavior being criticized just isn't a good look.

I don't feel that passionately about this, I'm not frothing out the mouth.

People just wanted to see certain issues addressed and the longer this takes, the lower expectations become.

It went from he should step down to, okay can we get an apology to, just a single post acknowledging anything.

These morons deserve everything they get

It's a fucking video game forum