TOPIC: [All Servers] Change Demotion Policies

We’ve been here before…
As per usual I’ll say that this suggestion is 100% serious and that it is meant to genuinely help everyone and not intended to stir up drama. I request people remain civilized regarding the topic despite the most recent events. And we hope to see that his one, much like last one will bare some fruit in an effect.

In our continued fight to gain more transparency in ZARP for all parties involved, we bring you a suggestion that some might feel is unnecessary, however, we feel it is in fact time for this to change.

Before we’d like to start writing this suggestion I think it’s time to mention that this suggestion was inspired by some… recent unfortunate events., however it is not the only reason why I decided to start writing it. This is something I hold close to my heart as something similar had happened to me before. I didn’t want to write this suggestion at first to avoid the drama, however, this is getting ridiculous.


Chapter I: Template and Introduction
Server Name: Semi-Serious RP, Trouble in Terrorist Town, Deathrun, Bhop, Surf, Prop Hunt, Forums, and Teamspeak/Discord.

Suggestion Title: Changes to the demotion policies.

How would it benefit the server: I feel that ZARP as of recently has threaded a bit of a very fine line. Recently a staff member was officially warned for something that seemed like a misunderstanding more so than anything else. I am aware that the reason might’ve changed in the aftermath but that really does not change the fact I wish to bring this to people’s attention. I’ll go more into detail later, however, for the short version, I feel it is time for lead teams to work more closely with their staff.

Good staff members are rare, and even though I cannot grant clear insight into the quality of the staff member who this most recently happened too, I feel that based on the uproar that occurred that the action taken has been excessive. ZARP is, despite what most people say a server that has been on decline since we’ve last left it back in 2017 – good staff members are rare and as many of the meeting outcomes have shown, the amount of people applying for staff is not nearly what it used to be.

Thus we think that is it more important than ever! To maintain a good relation with the staff members that are there, as they are becoming increasingly scarce. Perhaps it is time to start to deal with staff on a more personal level so that instead of demoting them people can work on fixing their issues. After all, the last thing I’d want is for any staff team to end up like the Deathrun staff team... the amount of staff members of which I can count on one hand.

Potential Issues/Exploits: As always there’s going to be some bad apples, people that will not improve despite all the effort and actions taken. I feel that something like this, however, is still required to ensure that any server does not dwindle and die. The bright flare it once may has dimmed quite a lot. And (in our personal opinion) with the amount of drama we’ve been seeing as of late we’re starting to slowly fear for its future.

In addition, a major issue would be when a staff member who wishes to seriously defend themselves might not be able to defend them. In which case it'll sadly have to come down to whether or not they are willing to call an impromptu meeting to handle the demotion, however, luckily it can partially be remedied if the staff member, when approached would grant their whole side of the story. So that the chance for misconceptions and misunderstandings are severely lowered.

Chapter II: What is the problem?
We feel that the problem that has presented itself is a lack of communication between the Lead Team and the staff team. Staff members dedicate hours of their time and effort into helping out users, into making sure that the server may run smoothly. It is the job of the Lead Team to do as their name would suggest, to lead the staff team. Their job also includes: training, guiding, mentoring and communicating with their staff team.

In the most recent situation a staff member known as CEO of Business had received an official warning for making a snarky comment in the gang chat after Xnator told him in admin chat that a user could be banned if they were to be racist again. Had CEO followed up on his snarky comment, and had he not punished the racist player he’d have been in the right to be officially warned for his actions, however, the staff member in question had, in fact punished the user that was breaking the rules.

We feel that the was a case of a misunderstanding here, something that if the staff member was properly talked to beforehand, and they could’ve explained their actions and defended themselves – that there then would’ve been absolutely no need for an official warning to be handed out.

Even if CEO’s warning was valid, we had a somewhat similar situation occur
Back when we were SSRP Lead Team as well, holding the position of Head administrator near the end of our ZARP career we had a tough time in life. One of our parental figures threatened repeatedly to leave which caused a strain on us mentally. We had to deal with lots of school work, upcoming exams and lots of other drama within our household (all of this had happened right after we had made it through another storm less than a month prior). This put a strain on us that made us unable to respond to (almost) anything SSRP related despite our best efforts.

We were demoted after several warnings for inactivity, something which in hindsight has been completely fair, however, in-between each warning none of the other Lead Team members made any attempt to contact us, and ask how the situation was developing.

Our inactivity (something we had made a post about, and had informed the fellow LT members about) had caused us to be demoted outright back to user. Even though we did our best to chip in where possible by doing things such as reports and actually being within the meetings, despite all the ongoing issues outlined above.

We feel that had we been talked to, or even been taken into the meetings to explain ourselves and tell them that our situation was not yet cleared up we might’ve actually been LT for a lot longer than the year we’ve been part of it, and that we might’ve done a lot more good for the community. However, that is in the past, something we cannot know for certain as its never happened. Even so, this story is part of the reason why we’ve decided to write the suggestion to begin with.

Chapter III: But can’t you just appeal?
Yes, appealing an official warning or even a demotion is completely possible, however, I feel it is not nearly enough. When a staff member is demoted or warned for their actions they may start to resent the lead team, something which is clearly something that some users do already. They may start to care less about their role and start to do less as a result.

For those that do, appeals are often either not taken serious or they are denied despite the fact that the appeal might’ve contained some valid points (this does not apply to all servers, I've seen TTT do it right! Probs to you guys). Regardless, even if an appeal wear to be accepted a staff member has been out of commission for a week at the minimum, time they could’ve spent doing F1’s and helping users, bettering themselves.

Briefly back into our experience with this: When we were demoted, we wrote an appeal that was detailed, outlining all our issues and that we’d be very close to being able to fix them. Our main issue, activity is something we tried to proof we could fix by playing as actively as we could over the course of the week the appeal was open for. And despite our best efforts our appeal was denied anyway.

They had demoted us straight down to user too, so that even though we could’ve proven our ability to play as an admin, and actually helped people out they decided not to give such a chance, something that, had we been able to defend ourselves we would’ve suggested we could do.

Chapter IV: What can we do?
To us the most logical solution would seem to change the policies regarding demotions and inform a staff member when they are to be brought up in the Lead Team meeting and that they are invited to stay after the normal meeting ends in order to attend that part of their demotion. This would achieve a couple of results.

• A staff member can hear the opinions shared, and thus improve based on them
• The staff member can have a moment to process and understand what it is the lead team feels they did wrong
• The staff member can clear up any misconceptions and explain their side of the story, something which in F1’s is extremely important!
• This can lead to the Lead Team being more in touch with their staff.

Now, now, before you start! I can already hear the comments being typedI’ll go in detail to each of these concerns that came up to us.

• We are busy and we have a lot to do already
  • I’m sorry, but as it stands I cannot see that adding this to your list of duties is too much to ask. Bad staff members are few and far in between and I mostly only see effort being put into events (for SSRP), which, don’t get me wrong, is great, but it is NOT your job as lead team to focus solely on them above other tasks.
• We can’t just go ahead and pull every staff member into the meeting
  • Perhaps you misunderstood, a staff member is to only attend the section of the LT meeting that concerns their demotion. No other part, in addition, the meetings are much, much shorter than they used to be. So I feel that time can be made to do such a thing.
• And what if they are inactive what do we do then?
  • We had this thought as well, but, we simply came up with an elegant solution in the wording itself. A lead team member that wishes to bring up a staff member has to as per our idea inform the staff member, and tell them that they are allowed to be present, it is an invite, one that they may take if they wish, but if not, they are free to abstain as well. In which case everything proceeds as it used to
  • If a staff member is inactive for such a time and they cannot be reached / and or do not answer your DM’s messages etc. Then you are free to bring them up as per usual as well. This way it does not impede the demotion process whilst it does increase transparency, personalization, and fairness.

Below we will provide a policy that we’ve drafted up over the course of an hour or so. This draft is extremely rough and will need some rewriting to be solid, however, it provides a staff member with a fair chance to defend themselves, something which in any other democracy they’d have had to begin with. We feel that as ZARP changes and the staff counts are as low as ever, its time to implement features to maintain the current staff, rather than relying on gaining new ones.

Chapter V New Policy
This policy is to extend the “Demotions” policy currently found here, other policies such as that of the rights of staff member ranks may need to be updated to reflect upon their ability to invite staff members into the LT meeting for their demotion.

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Chapter VI: Final Thoughts
We feel it is time for ZARP to make a shift towards more transparency. For users to know why they are punished, for staff members to know why they are being demoted right from the LT members themselves without it being filtered down. For them to be able to defend themselves in a more meaningful way than just “writing an appeal”. We feel it’s time for policies to be clarified and for many things to be overhauled and or reworked.

ZARP now has fewer staff members than we’ve ever seen it have, and in honesty, this is worrying. The Lead team (in our personal opinion, at least for SSRP, no offense) seems as lax as ever about dealing with staff and this really is a problem as they need to work to keep the ones they have around. As the amount of people that apply for staff, capable as they may be will not last without the guidance of those more experienced.

We feel that the lead team should take more responsibility when dealing with staff and that they should go about it in a more professional way. That things should be transparent and clear, and that they should not be afraid to tell the staff member that is to be demoted their personal opinions straight up, as beating around the bush has never helped anyone.

Staff members give hours of their days, weeks, and life in general to support and help the server. To work on it and attempt to improve upon it. Is it really that much asked for a Lead Team member to respect them and grant them a chance to defend themselves?

This is a policy we had brought up when we first attempted to run for CM, but we never had the means or the experience to express our opinion about the problem or clear solutions for that matter, however, now that we have much more experience we do have the means to do so.

With that, we’ll be off. Back to the writing board as there is another unclear policy coming up in the coming day or two. We hope you all have a great day. And wish CEO the best of luck!

Kind Regards,
Kemi

I think this is really important and I've always had similar thoughts myself but I was never able to properly formulate them into words and this pretty much covered it and more. I swear this is like 5 times bigger than what most of my assignments look like and I can't figure out how you are able to make such well-drawn and thought out suggestions. Mad props and

This suggestion, is without a doubt, a great idea. Good job and much appreciation on taking the time to try and improve the community and especially the communication method between the Lead Team and the lower-ranking staff.

This (the bolded part) is indeed a great idea. Although at least when I was LT, I used to approach the staff via either Discord or TeamSpeak to gain as much intel as possible which we would later use to discuss in the meeting, the thing that makes your idea better than what We used to do is that the information could often become corrupted while being passed from the staff member, onto an LT member, and then to the LT collective in the meeting because there were often occurrences where parts of the story were left out, altered (unintentionally) and stuff as such, this way the staff member has the ideal option to defend themselves real-time, where everyone can hear what they have to say accurately!

Kemi wrote:

There would be no need for such a policy if it wasn't for a certain individual's reckless method of dealing with staff and his perpetual twisting of policies to his advantage, not to mention his twisted ego - But less of that now. I feel that if implemented properly (as it is), there would be a drastic decline in people getting punished for, excuse my language, retarded and bullshit reasons. Maybe someone else has a good idea as to what could be a good addition to the mentioned (suggested) policy to additionally make the whole vote system fair and adequate for all parties. In case I get any ideas I'll come back with some constructive input.

Hey Mr. Richard! Thank you for taking the time to reply and granting feedback on the suggestion as well as possibly providing your own ideas. I'll jump through some parts of your response quickly to share my opinion about it (I totally do not disagree with it, its just something I tend to do ). But just know that I highly appreciate the effort put into the reply!

I'm thankful for the compliment, I feel that the Lead team and the ones below them do not have the level of communication they need. This has been an issue on my mind ever since I was promoted to Super Admin initially, but it was something I found difficult to put to words, and at the I did not have the skills nor the drive needed to even think about making something like this.

I'm glad to hear that you always went the extra mile, and hearing your stories about parts of the story being changed whether it was intentional or not is also somewhat reassuring, don't misunderstand me its horrible that such a thing happens. But its nice to know that there's people that can share that this has occurred in the past, further solidifying the requirement for such a change.

That is indeed what the rewritten policy is intended to do. I hope it'll avoid unncessary and unfair punishments and demotions. I'm glad that point came across clearly.

I hope someone will, and I always invite people to share their ideas. I'd love to see new ideas crop up and if I am to think of something myself I'll edit my post and or post a new reply with the updated information. After all I can sit here and preach change but its ultimately thanks to people here in the community that I'm even inspired enough to think of these changes. CEO and Bazeraxe's comments on the situation regarding him was the main drive behind writing this.

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Nick0GR wrote: To answer how it done, lots of reserach, hours of drafting then refining and editing. This one took me the course of about 2 days to complete, ending up at 6 pages in the drafting word document and nearing 3000 words used. It used to be much, much longer but a lot of parts have been scrapped to ease up on the suggestion and make it easier to digest. After all, what is the point of writing one if no one is going to read it.

Great suggestions as always, you legend. I appreciate the support with my situation, and I hope some of your ideal policies get implemented! You always go above and beyond in your suggestions, and that is simply amazing.

CEO of Business wrote: I'll gladly support your situation, and I hope that they are implemented as well. If it wasn't for that hope I would've never written them to begin with. Its thanks to you (sorry) that I pushed this suggestion to the top of the priority list. Hence it came out today and not in a few days. I feel like this issue, considering what is going on is a bit more pressing.

This suggestion is amazing and will for sure benefit the community (As always), In my opinion this policy should be applied before its too late

Keep up the good work Kemi

The only things I see that could form a problem is that they invite the staff member in question to join and they don't have the time for it so they automatically lose the chance to defend themselves.

Otherwise

Yes.

DANlEL wrote:
Problem is, they won't do that

Kurze wrote:
Yes, sadly we had thought of it too. There's always the option for the staff member request their demotion in the meeting to be delayed until such a time they are able to participate, though I'm afraid that this may be a bit too unrealistic and it would take it to a whole other level. It was within our drafts, but we chose to leave it out because it might be a bit too far out there. Even so, the forced approach still serves as a heads up and a warning, so they can always provide their story to the approaching (or another) LT member in the hopes of giving the whole story, and clearing up any misconceptions just as Richard had stated he had done in the past.

Regardless thank you for pointing it out, we had intended to make mention of it in the end but forgot to do so. Our bad.

Edit It has now been added, thank you again! You can find it at the potential issues part of the template.

Like I said in CEO's appeal, it's something I had to deal with 3 years ago and to see it still happening is pretty sad, not sure why the lead team is still allowed to get away with such poor ethos.

Mr. Richard wrote: Kemi wrote: I agree 100% and I also think EVERYTHING related to demotions, official warnings and more serious punishments such as community bans should be recorded/screenshotted. I see no reason why they shouldn't be, if said punishments are all valid then the recordings will only show a well-functioning staff team and if they are not all valid then it will make it a lot easier to deal with false punishments. I can't see any laws or rules against recording on Teamspeak so I have no clue where that rule is coming from. In the UK it is perfectly legal to record conversations both with consent and without consent. If said recording was to be shared with a third-party then consent would be required from all involved parties but in the case of ZARP if the purpose of the recording was stated beforehand and all parties gave consent to be recorded then it would be perfectly legal and woudl help to clear things up.

This would go hand in hand with the person being punised being present in the Lead Team Meeting and that meeting being recorded so as to see exactly what went on in the case of an appeal.

Every policy needs to be reviewed, not just this. I was forum banned for 48 hours - it was agreed it didn't make sense but it had to be formally discussed first. It took 47 hours to get it repealed. If we just had more transparency and talked to users or warned them sufficiently before giving big sweeping punishments, many issues on this forum and in this community would be solved overnight. As you stated in your post, it's really not THAT hard. I don't have any bad blood, I understand that this is the way it currently is and I can deal with that - but it would be great if that changed.

I know this will probably be discussed in the CM team meeting but I think we should get some more opinions on this so bump!

if you don't want me bumping this kemi just tell me

Nick0GR wrote:
Some days we just need some time to cool off and sit back and relax, feel free to bump it whenever you feel it necessary.

That being said... tis about that time again.

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Justice wrote: I do have to say that to a certain degree, I agree with you. However, there is a lot of work involved with seeing the issues with policies. pointing out the flaws in a system is only part of the deal when making suggestions to change things. The other part being coming up with solutions, one that is usually a lot harder and a lot of the times, sadly, ignored.

I wish for there to be much more transparency in ZARP hence I've been pushing to get users to see the mistakes they made, hence I'm working on something that staff members can use to explain themselves and to work out problems rather than them being demoted for silly things that could've easily been avoided.

Our suggestions are big, but slowly produced over the course of hours if not days, drafting, refining then making it readable in the first place is a lot of work but it is necessary to incorporate the explanation as to why something should be changed, as well as solutions to the problem. After all, anyone can point out a problem but to come up with solutions is a whole different thing.

We're slowly making our way through many of the policies to see what has room for improvement, as well as observing the forums and checking in game occasionally to see what the issues people are currently having are, and we base our priority based on what we find and index to be priority and what can wait a few more days and or weeks. We've done quite a bit of work already, one suggestion was already somewhat "accepted" and we're far from done.

We'll do our best to keep suggesting things to make ZARP into a more transparent place, however, sadly, we do not have too much influence just yet, but we'll keep working on that too. Thank you for your reply Justice.

Bump

Kemi wrote:
I get that on a technical level the policies can be improved, but unless policies are strictly followed then there won't be a resolution. Unfortunately the current policies are used inaccurately in some cases, so I think changing them won't fix the issues. Staff need to simply be more reasonable: don't punish your staff so quickly (who willingly give their free time and effort to help better the server), and don't overreact to small cases. This really fixes the majority of problems. Yes, it's a complicated issue, but this post doesn't technically fix the issue, just make it easier for people to identify - ultimately, if the issue itself isn't fixed though then there is no change.

Justice wrote:
Took me a couple of reads (and a few days, sorry!) to get back to this. Yeah, you are right. People should not overreact but sadly in the light of recent events, this appears to still be a pressing issue. We simply wish to provide the defending staff members with more tools to use against such demotions, warnings, and sanctions - this might not fix all issues but at least give them a better chance until a solution is provided.

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It makes sense to us for someone to have the ability to defend themselves, look at any other authoritative system. Biggest example? A courtroom they always grand the defendant the ability to defend themselves, hence the name. Yet here in ZARP that is not the case. We wish to change it still - see this as a BUMP.

A little bump before the CM team meeting!

I feel that in light of recent events something like this might certainly need a bump!