Project Tranquility (Revising)

[VESSEL]

First of all ghrim you’re absolutely fine I take no offense & take care of your precious creature

I would like to add commentary on this though, generally:

What I can say is that we have implemented rules surrounding resigned and those who wish to rejoin. There are time periods that are in place now to prevent those situations from happening, because I agree that it was a double standard.

Did I miss this? Genuinely asking, because the last significant update I remember to anything regarding this was when alphas were able to be immediately reinstated after a leave of absence as an alpha, which was not allowed previously… in order to immediately let Sylvah back on the team as an alpha. It didn’t look good at all and felt like a rule was being purposefully bent to allow a specific person access, which is something that I think should be given more critical thought in the future. Timing and who it benefits does matter considerably.

[Loki]

Forgive me I’m on mobile! This was updated in April.

viewtopic.php?f=93&t=212483

[VESSEL]

Thank you! I wasn’t really kept up to date on that situation by anyone so the clarification helps immensely.

[Herb]

On this note, I do not think @Herb’s response was appropriate to target at Refresh. He has a form of valid commentary and criticism and the PA (and let’s be real, to most everyone it read very PA) was not necessary. I understand you wrote this and you want this to succeed, but I read it very much in a way that felt like it was meant to put Refresh down. Administrators are people, yes, but you are also meant to be held to a higher standard - to protect others, uplift them, act as a role model. It’s not often how admins want to be perceived, but when you step into the role people inevitably see you that way. Admins are the shepherds. I know for certain that if I were to ever make such a post as an admin, I would have been spoken to about it, which is why I say this.

I cannot being to really fully tell you all how badly I do feel reading back on how I replied to Refresh. He is valid and his feelings towards all of this and his responses have always caught my eye and always made me immediately look into depth as what he is referring to and try to come up of ways to revise or reflect on what was being said. My passive aggressiveness was uncalled for and I do take accountability on that, I should have worded it better and used the proper coding to make it seem like an emphasis rather than me ignorantly trying to get my point across. I am truly sorry as this is not the person I want to be perceived as. I hold all of your thoughts and concerns dearly and I really do take all of this straight to my heart and I overthink about it all until I find a solution to what is being said. I am very sorry that my replies and this initial project announcement was not written up correctly. You are right, it is my job to hold myself accountable for how I speak and how I act here, this website is being watched heavily by a ton of people who were always involved and had strong passions for being a part of Wolfhome, these are the same people I remember from being on chats growing up and I'd never want to hurt any of you.

@@Refresh, I personally and directly want to mention you, as I do recognize your feelings that you have for Wolfhome. I am so sincerely sorry for the way I came across and that I did not want to make you feel a certain way about me. We do not know each other, you only know me as an admin on Wolfhome, and it is my job to make sure that you and everyone on this community has a positive vibe and perception of me, as this is a community I am here to serve, protect and make sure they feel comfortable. I understand I cannot force such things, but I do agree that how I did reply to you was not what I was trying to go for and it was a mistake on my half and there are no words to describe how harshly I am taking this critique on my part.
If I am being honest, I really wish this project was presented via recorded voice (something of the sort) as tones are badly misinterpreted in text, I understand you, Refresh, and your way of responding and I guess I can realize now that I really reacted upon the ending part of your reply. I am in no way, expecting you to recognize nor accept my apology for how I replied to you, but I want you to know that I do deeply care about your concerns that have been expressed at any time that I have been a part of the Administrative team and I am always anticipating more as you are very helpful, everyone here in these replies are helpful to what we want to work towards.

I really do strive to continue to grow and learn as a person, and you all do help me in so many more ways than you could imagine.

[VESSEL]

On this note, I do not think @Herb’s response was appropriate to target at Refresh. He has a form of valid commentary and criticism and the PA (and let’s be real, to most everyone it read very PA) was not necessary. I understand you wrote this and you want this to succeed, but I read it very much in a way that felt like it was meant to put Refresh down. Administrators are people, yes, but you are also meant to be held to a higher standard - to protect others, uplift them, act as a role model. It’s not often how admins want to be perceived, but when you step into the role people inevitably see you that way. Admins are the shepherds. I know for certain that if I were to ever make such a post as an admin, I would have been spoken to about it, which is why I say this.

I cannot being to really fully tell you all how badly I do feel reading back on how I replied to Refresh. He is valid and his feelings towards all of this and his responses have always caught my eye and always made me immediately look into depth as what he is referring to and try to come up of ways to revise or reflect on what was being said. My passive aggressiveness was uncalled for and I do take accountability on that, I should have worded it better and used the proper coding to make it seem like an emphasis rather than me ignorantly trying to get my point across. I am truly sorry as this is not the person I want to be perceived as. I hold all of your thoughts and concerns dearly and I really do take all of this straight to my heart and I overthink about it all until I find a solution to what is being said. I am very sorry that my replies and this initial project announcement was not written up correctly. You are right, it is my job to hold myself accountable for how I speak and how I act here, this website is being watched heavily by a ton of people who were always involved and had strong passions for being a part of Wolfhome, these are the same people I remember from being on chats growing up and I'd never want to hurt any of you.

@@Refresh, I personally and directly want to mention you, as I do recognize your feelings that you have for Wolfhome. I am so sincerely sorry for the way I came across and that I did not want to make you feel a certain way about me. We do not know each other, you only know me as an admin on Wolfhome, and it is my job to make sure that you and everyone on this community has a positive vibe and perception of me, as this is a community I am here to serve, protect and make sure they feel comfortable. I understand I cannot force such things, but I do agree that how I did reply to you was not what I was trying to go for and it was a mistake on my half and there are no words to describe how harshly I am taking this critique on my part.
If I am being honest, I really wish this project was presented via recorded voice (something of the sort) as tones are badly misinterpreted in text, I understand you, Refresh, and your way of responding and I guess I can realize now that I really reacted upon the ending part of your reply. I am in no way, expecting you to recognize nor accept my apology for how I replied to you, but I want you to know that I do deeply care about your concerns that have been expressed at any time that I have been a part of the Administrative team and I am always anticipating more as you are very helpful, everyone here in these replies are helpful to what we want to work towards.

I really do strive to continue to grow and learn as a person, and you all do help me in so many more ways than you could imagine.

I am glad to hear you recognize this and it does mean something. It isn’t my place to accept this apology as I feel that rightfully belongs to Refresh to do so, but I do want to add that I understand how hard it is not to beat yourself up and criticize yourself for everything. The thing I want to impart here is that you don’t have to beat yourself up. Sometimes you just have to say to yourself, "I fucked up and I’m sorry for it. I’m going to fix that and not do it again." Like I said, humility and understanding go a long way. Honesty does, too.

[Refresh]

@Herb

Yeah, thanks.

It absolutely should not have taken a user calling you out for you to realize how PA your post was. I got demoted and removed from the team for less.
However, people fuck up. Thanks for the apology.

Anyways. I cannot stress this enough. LISTEN to the feedback. If you have people who have sworn this site off returning to give their opinions, then you know it's time to shut the hell up, sit down, and listen. You have a real chance here to make MEANINGFUL progress. And I can't emphasis how disappointed people will be if you somehow fumble this opportunity.

[Hocus]

Forgive me I’m on mobile! This was updated in April.

viewtopic.php?f=93&t=212483

I appreciate this being revised and updated but these resignations and reinstatements that I’m referring to happened before this rule change, which as Kaz pointed out just makes it look like the rules were bent to accommodate certain people.

[Lorien]

I do believe that you guys are right. I personally left the team before the shutdown due to personal reason but also because I did not agree with how things were handled. So I cannot defend the decisions that were made at that time. A lot of people left and they needed to fill those empty positions. Im not saying it was right but I do understand why those decisions and positions were made/ filled.

With my current position on this team, I will strive to always uphold that rule (along with everything else but since we are talking about the resignations/ rejoining ones currently!) since it really wasn’t handled properly.

[Herb]

Thank you everyone for the feedback so far. Everything is being reflected on and taken into consideration.
Based on the replies we have received, we will be working on revising this as well as organizing this topic and the idea of it more strategically and address what needs to be addressed further, etc.

All of what has been said will be laid out in front of us and we will discuss each and every key point that was brought up. we will also be looking back again at past topics and concerns as well to aid us in making sure we clarify between new and old, as well as see if we missed any ideas that were wanted. Everyone who showed up and took the time to express their thoughts will help us achieve our goals for the project idea that we have presented.
We are leaving this open, and are continuing to welcoming any and all feedback. What would you like to see? What would you like clarified? Is there anything you would like to be addressed further? Anything helps us achieve our end goal!


We will continue making the necessary revisions to this project to shape it into what we all truly want going for the future of Wolfhome.
I cannot tell you a specific time frame of the revision process of this (I am 10 days away from having another little bean), but updates will be given and we are always eager to work on things, so this will not be set aside!
I am currently writing up a topic to organize the feedback from everyone and take out each and every key point given. I will continuously come back and update based on what is going on with this.

[Cherzi]

Absolutely insane that this kind of post has even been made after what has happened recently involving users and the administration. I wasn't going to say anything and cause a scene publicly, but this was officially the breaking point. I will also be writing on behalf of Vukasin since they don't even want to look at this forum and they were also wronged by the administration.

First off, transparency? Where was the transparency when me and Vukasin were rejected from the admin team?

You rejected Vukasin because of an offense of "mini-modding" when all they did was go into a room and asked a user if they were alright after being harassed and asked for information to pass onto an Admin since none were online. How is that mini-modding? They didn't say they were staff and try to handle the situation? They also even said they were not staff, and yet you continued to write them a warning message that they had pretended to be staff and tried to confuse others. Seriously? Do you have some quota that you need to fill?

You rejected me for supposedly: "not logging" anything that I had done to help out with the Wolfhome discord server, using Greek symbols as a custom role icon?? which is actually crazy to me that these were the reasons, and honestly, I even suspect that I was wrongfully badmouthed in the administration meetings you had when discussing applications because of a certain admin. I was privately messaged three times to make sure to log changes in the server, which was odd because I was literally doing everything I was told to do. The first time I was messaged I thought, "Oh, maybe I just forgot to log something, my mistake." And then I got a second warning. And then a third. And every time I was just like "???" Every single time I made a change or even had a helpful idea, I logged it into the mod chat, and even had a master-list of things I logged, not to mention Discord literally has a built-in audit log AND there was a bot-logging system that logs every single thing a user does and it could be filtered to see exactly what I was doing, nothing I did was secretive. I did everything I was asked to do by them, and it could have been seen at any point in time and was, in fact, logged. This probably comes across extremely silly to some of you, and yeah, it IS silly.

The second reason was apparently over uploading Greek symbols, you know, Wolfhome's literal admin ranking symbols, as a custom role icon feature on discord. I was told that I was "out of line" over such a thing and had to remove it because allegedly, the Greek symbols are being used for predatory reasons on Twitter (not sure how this makes any sense since the Greek letters are literally apart of an ALPHABET, you cannot just say a symbol means this or that??) underdog himself even commented on the situation and said that it's ridiculous to have to have such censorship on every little thing and just because a couple of disgusting people on Twitter said something, does not make it true. But yet, I was still rejected over these reasons, after I was told my application was great and congratulated on making it to the interview stage (where they wasted 50 minutes of my time just to tell me that I was causing problems in the Wolfhome discord), I was messaged with a final answer that I could not be accepted because of the Wolfhome discord "incident" -- yes, an incident, like I had gone through and literally destroyed their server.

Which brings me to yet another point! I see that you guys' are mentioning that the Wolfhome discord server has had drastic improvement and changes and blah blah blah, taking credit for the things I did (Did I mention an administrator got promoted over MY and VUKASIN's idea to revamp the Wolfhome discord and bring it back to life?) yet I was told by a fellow (demoted) administrator who was talking to a (current) administrator, and they both said that I had quote on quote, word for word, "ANNIHILATED the Wolfhome discord server AND LAUGHED ABOUT IT" ......what? "Annihilated"? How does one... destroy a discord server? ...and I "laughed" about it?? Especially since, you guys kept every single thing I did, literally everything I implemented was not changed or removed... so why were two administrators badmouthing me? Over something that did not happen? Where is the transparency and where are the consequences?

We have not received a single apology or even a THANK YOU for the things we did besides a half-assed, non-personal, un-apologetic "thanks for everything you did for us and we're sorry to see you go"... from TWO people, who just didn't want to have a guilty conscience. Furthermore, I don't want this to seem like me and Vukasin are "whining" about an application rejection. We are perfectly fine with being rejected and would have even stuck around to apply again since we genuinely did want to help out -- but we were rejected for silly reasons (and probably even reasons unbeknownst to us); it literally felt like we were apart of some high school drama during all of this. I have evidence and proof for everything I have mentioned and am not afraid to provide.

This "Project Tranquility" is just another way of saying "we're so sorry for all the things that have happened on this site, have this not really personal apology that we are mass sending to everyone who 'needs' one so that we look like we're doing our best." You swear you're changing and trying not to be the "bad guy", but continue your lack of self reflection and respecting your userbase.

[Loki]

Since it is out in the open, on our transparency topic nonetheless, Vukasin received a Reminder for not providing full logs of the situation and attempting to handle it themselves. They were denied a position within the Admin Team due to the concern of them attempting to handle further situations that were above their rank.

You were denied because after having asked multiple times for help with the discord and proceeding to not, as well as not informing us what you were doing exactly. The concern here was you also taking matters into your own hands, and continuing with the same attitude of not helping or explaining. We also found out after the interview where you stated you PMed an admin directly about certain things this did not happen. This made certain administrators uncomfortable.

We only denied you this round, and had every intention of accepting you both when we re-opened. We were hoping to see you guys prove us wrong and really step up, we wanted to see growth in your committee roles and help us decide if we made the right choice, we planned to possibly nominate one if not both of you when we felt confident you could handle the roles.

We adored you both and praised you both. You both always got thank you's and job well done’s. You both made Wolfhome wonderful and strived to help it grow.

Although we all understand you are both upset with us for the decision we are still willing to welcome you both back into community teams with open arms with the possibility of administrative positions in the future.

[kain]

Let me see if I understand this. If this doesnt apply to certain indviduals then you can let it roll like water off a ducks back, but if it actually offends you then welcome to one of the MANY "other shoe" you are no doubt getting from multiple users calling you out on using what is basically A BLANKET POST APOLOGY.
You want to say "look, we made mistakes, we're sorry, let's hug it out" when I personally watched the site catch on fire because THE USERS called out administration on their actions, and demanded to be held responsible.
I watched as this site shut down, and return with so many users banned because admins would rather get rid of the person rather than solve a problem.
I watched as a site I was proud to be a member of and even invested money (along with MANY MANY others) only to not even be interested in returning after seeing what it became, another chatsite where admins still played favorites, and use petty egos instead of actually resolving through conversation.

Hurt feelings? Let me prase it better, you betrayed your promise as administrators, whether it's forum, art, chat, or wherever you were given a gold sticker. You didn't hurt feelings, you burnt bridges, and now you're realizing that this part of chatlands is dying because you were so busy being important that you forgot the USERS are what helped build the chat. You kept thinking you were gods that were always right, and before you even start with "we are human, we make mistakes too" keep in mind this is near a repeat of what caused this chat to shutdown before.

Yeah, we're pissed. No, a lot of us arent coming back. No, a lot of us aren't going to believe what we know is a polished turd, because even the shiniest of dung is still of exact value.

[VESSEL]

One thing I want to know here, with precedent above all else is: were Cherzi and Vukasin involved in a discussion regarding that? If they were still in heavy consideration for a future role, would it have not made sense to have a constructive discussion about what they both did wrong, why it cost them the potential to train, and what they could do to do better and improve their standing next time? I’m not sure if just waiting for others to "do better" is the motive here. If they had your adoration and praise, wouldn’t it make more sense to take what good qualities they had and mold them into tenured administrators? The reasoning for their rejections seems rather minor in terms of what opinions the team held of them, and very solvable mistakes as well.

[Lorien]

I understand that you were hurt, I am not going to sit here and tell you that you are not allowed to vent and express your feelings. ): But I will ask that this topic remain about positive change. We are not the same people who were on the team when the shutdown happened. We are not the people who enforced ALL of the wrongful bans and warnings that had taken place.

I still care for this site and am actively trying my best to remedy the hurt that I am able to. We do not want to forget this hurt, but we do want to move forward from the burnt rubble and starting building anew. In order to do that, we need help.

[Loki]

One thing I want to know here, with precedent above all else is: were Cherzi and Vukasin involved in a discussion regarding that? If they were still in heavy consideration for a future role, would it have not made sense to have a constructive discussion about what they both did wrong, why it cost them the potential to train, and what they could do to do better and improve their standing next time? I’m not sure if just waiting for others to "do better" is the motive here. If they had your adoration and praise, wouldn’t it make more sense to take what good qualities they had and mold them into tenured administrators? The reasoning for their rejections seems rather minor in terms of what opinions the team held of them, and very solvable mistakes as well.

During the interview with Cherzi, we discussed this and I brought it to the team to discuss as I am not directly involved with the Discord. Upon this, was where Cherzi stated they received the go ahead from an admin via PM. Supposedly this did not happen and resulted in rejection.

As for Vukasin, this was fairly fresh (the week or so they applied) a user asked if they were an admin and they were not given a yes or no answer. Unfortunately due to how fresh it was, was the reason for rejection.


I do understand what you mean by “do better”. I think we ultimately just wanted more time to pass.