@ganymede Cool-cool. Thanks for the output. Yeah, sometimes staff just isn't open to feedback anyways, regardless of whether disagreements are personal/taste/preferences, can be presented as objective vs subjective, or not. Thanks for your input!
@auspice said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
...I have a lot of heartbreak tied to losing spaceships.
I feel your pain. ;_; Spaceships R.I.P.
@loke said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
Do you think there was a way for those games to identify and get rid of those staffers more quickly or mitigate the damage they could cause while investigating?
I don't want to dictate or lead your response, but I've often wondered if more effort/focus towards staff principles (and accountability) would help mitigate a lot of this. I'm thinking of an atmosphere where staff that come on basically know they have to adhere to certain tenets and they are taken seriously by all staff brought on board. A cultural alignment.
So I don't know a single MU out there that defines its guiding staff principles in any way other than "we aim to make fun for our players, have a great game, and behave ethically." Every staffer always knows this.
When staffers fall into cheating and lack of ethics to the point that it ruins the game, it's not because there's not a cultural alignment or a list of ethical tenets - it's that when staffers fail, other staffers either don't call them on it/give them the boot, or can't do it because the unethical staffers have power over them.
Lack of correction of unethical staffers is what kills games. Not a lack of ethical staff principles.
@thugheaven said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
If you haven’t noticed by now....not really a fan of staffers who complain to players. Especially when I know what they’re saying just...isn’t true and I’m thinking what are they saying about me behind my back?
^ This. It doesn't even matter if it's true. If staff is gossiping about someone else to me, they're violating that person's privacy in a way that person is very likely not remotely cool with, and that throws my ability to trust them out the window. They're probably gossiping about me to someone else, too.
@darinelle I wholeheartedly agree, but I think some failure of people to hold each other accountable (outside of just not wanting to, and I think this goes for people holding people accountable, not just staff) is because people get tentative when there doesn't seem to be a precedent set for it.
I think when there's emphasis and a culture around upholding things, people are more likely to do it. Obviously this requires someone to lead by example and passion. Posted tenets don't do jack squat without follow through. Thoughts? Provided upholding certain principles is happening, do you think making them explicit matters? (to flip the idea on its head)
@apos Something I already agreed with, but worth a reply to shout out how important this is, because I've seen staffers do the contrary. At the point where a player leaves a game, they've left the game and regardless of the reasons, I think that boundary needs to be respected. If they wanted to provide feedback, personally I'd like to think that they would. It's not always going to happen, even in the best of circumstances.
Pursuing a player outside of the game feels like crossing an important line on many levels.
@loke said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
@darinelle I wholeheartedly agree, but I think some failure of people to hold each other accountable (outside of just not wanting to, and I think this goes for people holding people accountable, not just staff) is because people get tentative when there doesn't seem to be a precedent set for it.
Who cares why people are refusing to hold people accountable? If staffers cheat and no one does anything, that ruins a game. Whether it's because it's the first time, or whether it's because they don't want to tell their friends that they're being assholes, or whether it's just that they don't care - staffers cheating ruins games.
I think when there's emphasis and a culture around upholding things, people are more likely to do it. Obviously this requires someone to lead by example and passion. Posted tenets don't do jack squat without follow through. Thoughts? Provided upholding certain principles is happening, do you think making them explicit matters? (to flip the idea on its head)
Uh... Posted tenets not doing anything without followthrough was my original point, so I agree. On the other hand, if staffers are behaving ethically, do they need to have explicit tenets and a mission statement and bylaws? Not really, no.
You will never find the magic words that prevent you from having to do your job as headstaffer.
Absolutely. Staff ethics and behavior are set from the top down.
I've been fortunate to have come to most of my current staffing approaches through what seems to be a somewhat unusual approach to staffing, in that there were a group of five -- or more -- of us who equally held the ultimate authority on games. We set clear guidelines for each other -- and we held each other accountable to them.
We had codes of conduct that were viewable by all staff, and we worked hard to keep each other honest. We didn't take our bitching to players, and we made a conscious effort not to bitch about players to each other if we felt we were getting too negative. Everyone vents, but it can quickly turn into a toxic stewfest. If a staffer is bitching TO players ABOUT other players, I'm gonna look for an exit. #1 warning sign.
We tried to watch negativity. We tried to assume good intention. We tried to act transparently when actions had to be taken against players, and we worked to preserve staff confidentiality at every level. I think we mostly succeeded on all of that.
I think many people have unspoken and unexamined ethical principles. It can help tremendously to set them out and think about it and make sure you are on the same page. Always challenge assumptions. Everyone wants to think they act ethically, but what does that really mean? Not discussing the issues can swiftly lead to people thinking all of their actions are totally justified, it's fine, it's not a big deal, it was okay to do this on this other game, and a document that sets out your principles -- and builds in the gut-check and calling each other on things -- can help.
Meg, Roz, Sao and I produced a set of staffing guidelines for a game that we used to play and -- briefly -- staffed under someone else as a headwiz. I still use the guide today. Other games have adopted it as part of their policy as well. I've revised the guidelines, and will continue to do so, because I don't ever expect anything to be a perfect document. The staff policies are available for all players to view and I expect all new staff members to follow those guidelines.
Currently, I do act as headwiz over a cadre of other staffers and some of them probably find me humorless and nitpicky at times in the way I insist they follow those guidelines. I've had other staffers ask me to do something for their characters through staff channels -- just adjusting attributes on their bit, for example -- and I've told them I need them to use players channels, from their player bit: +request, help channel, paging me as a player, etc.. Completely pedantic, of course, but it also sets a tone and an expectation that staffers are not privileged due to their role. Stuff like that!
You have to keep people around you who will call you on your shit. Everyone is going to make mistakes. I know I make them all the time. You have to be willing to own up to your shit, and do so publicly if need be, and apologize sincerely. I think every complaint you hear is worth examining, and gut-checking with others. Sometimes it's totally off-base, but there's often something worth examining or reworking in many.
I've been fortunate enough that I haven't had players coming to me as a member of staff with complaints about another staffer -- but I've been on the other side, as a player making those complaints. I've seen headwiz justify bad behavior in others by pointing out how much work the accused does, or dismiss it in themselves by saying it's not a big deal, there's no real issue, stop exaggerating.
I disagree. As I said, trust is the most scarce resource. You can't buy it back once you've burned it.
tl;dr: yes.
@darinelle said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
Who cares why people are refusing to hold people accountable?
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I didn't mean in this context. I meant the issue in general of people holding people accountable regardless of context. It's applicable because these reasons could be root causes of staffers doing it is all.
@tez said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
You have to keep people around you who will call you on your shit. Everyone is going to make mistakes. I know I make them all the time. You have to be willing to own up to your shit, and do so publicly if need be, and apologize sincerely. I think every complaint you hear is worth examining, and gut-checking with others. Sometimes it's totally off-base, but there's often something worth examining or reworking in many.
I disagree. As I said, trust is the most scarce resource. You can't buy it back once you've burned it.
tl;dr: yes.
These are the three greatest principles of ethical staffing, period. If you do these things, you will succeed in most cases.
Everything else is just window dressing and different paths to the same goal.
I found it helpful writing out our guidelines if only because it helped ensure we were all on the same page.
I can deal with shitty staff. I can deal with nothing to do.
Can't deal with both.
Nothing to do but the staff aren't actively awful? I'll just run plots.
Staff suck, but there's stuff going on? Just avoid having to interact with staff and do my own thing.
Of course, this philosophy tends to end up with me on staff, so maybe I should just quit more often.
@saosmash said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
I found it helpful writing out our guidelines if only because it helped ensure we were all on the same page.
@EmmahSue and Troy and I once wrote out our guidelines. It was late into the game but they were clear. They didn't help ensure anyone was on the same page because we never enforced them.
If you have rules, enforce them. Not draconically, but consistently enough that everyone else knows what to expect.
If you do something consistently enough, people will assume it's the rule. If you break the presumed rule for someone, you will come off as a bad staffer.
I have ... conflicted feelings about 'writing out our guidelines'.
On the one hand, establishing what is right and good behavior is... right and good.
On the other, going heavy into writing rules tends to lead to an atmosphere where the rules as written are what matters, and not the effect.
I've also found that my personal ethics, the standards I hold myself to, are not per se what I would hold others to.
@darinelle said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
and gut-check with others.
Totally agree with all stated. I would add. Giving someone your perspective and then saying what you want to do, then getting a thumbs up...not good enough. Why? Because it means that person is already primed to agree with you. It means they only got your perspective. I've seen this happen a lot and it always produces inferior results. There are ways you can mitigate this without needing to involve other people.
You can, be careful to only provide said people with straight up facts. Don't color the facts, don't talk about what you want to do yet, etc. This will make it easier for someone to not have unconscious bias and to get as pure as an objective standpoint as you can get from any given person.
@ixokai I kind of meant just giving guiding principles. Like a mission statement or 3 golden rules to live by is all. Nothing heavy handed. It's a good point though. Writing this stuff out can easily verge into that territory, and I think a bible of hard rules isn't helpful. Hard to remember, legalistic, and too brittle when it comes to real world situations.
The contrary view is having something like golden rules or a guiding mission statement is that it is up to interpretation. I think if you have a staffer who is trying to bend something like this to fit their situation and not own up to their either serious misalignment or culpability in some matter means...well, you just found out they shouldn't be a staffer to begin with imho.
@saosmash
I think that's the key. Most often you don't need them once they are written (if people are actively enforcing them), but they help if someone just didn't think of a situation.
Basically, they make the situations a little more real before you get to that point and the damage is already done.
@sunny I'm pretty sure that's not the intent of these ideas, but you're right nonetheless. 
