First, I want to apologize to you EGROCK because you didn't deserve the response I gave you, but as close as you have been for a long time, and also a Yamato Pilot, I reacted that quickly because I interpreted your response as not caring that some of our regular community members were moving away from the chat channels because of the disruptions, and I shouldn't have thought that. We have had plenty of disruptions for a while now. Ant mentioned a lot of complaints he got as a result, myself included, which is why the changes were necessary. There is quite a bit of chat log to support that this was happening.
There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes in the game that the general public doesn't see, and doesn't need to see. The goal is to keep the chat channels free from disruption, and that isn't always easy, especially when some want to argue and reject a simple thing like using the trade channels for all buying, selling and advertising. We want to keep the chat channels clear of this because it disrupts normal chat and catching questions and other interactions between community members.
There are also a few who have exhibited bullying behavior toward community members, and this is not acceptable. Our community members don't deserve that either. As Ant mentioned, after we took over Toulan, we wanted to test whether the community could be self-policing, and over time we learned that it didn't work, because some of our community members were staying out of chat as a result of the trolling and rudeness of some who didn't care what they did in our chat channels, and this is something we don't want to happen.
We, as a team, discussed this situation at length before making the decision to add the new #toulan_trade and #virtualsense channels. We also put a protocol in place for how disruptors would be handled, and not something that is dealt with in public chat. We will continue to follow this protocol behind the scenes and not let it become itself a disruptor in the chat channels.
I could have handled the situation in chat better the other day, but it gets a bit overwhelming when after I share the changes and give a normal explanation, that some want to continue debating and challenging it, and at that point, responses become reactionary.
We evaluate community dynamics, and as a team, make decisions that aren't always easy to make, but as we have said from the beginning, community is our primary focus, and we want to continue in that vein and make sure our community members have the type of environment that is conducive to being helpful to each other, especially in our chat/trade channels. We make these decisions as a team because we find a need to. The majority of our community members are very helpful in channels, and have discussions about the game that are beneficial to all. We have always been a welcoming community, but disruptions are not welcome.
I love our community, it's nothing less than amazing. Many volunteer their time and effort to create the kind of community that has helped us evolve over the past 5+ years. I am grateful to you, and to the many I work with as teams to support what we want to accomplish for both Monria and Toulan.
Again, I apologize for not taking more care in my responses, and will work on that. I am splendidly IM-perfect, and a human being who is not only navigating community dynamics, but real life family issues at the moment, so I will do my best to keep the two separate.
Going forward, I will give more thought to a situation in chat before responding, but with regard to the disruptions, they will be handled according to the protocols we have in place in order to attempt to keep our channels free of disruptions.
With regard to additional moderation of our channels, I have had a discussion with Ant and he has made some suggestions which are being considered. An announcement will be made when all of the details have been worked out.
Also, I will not treat anyone any differently because of voicing their opinions. Feedback is always welcome, but once it is clear that the decisions we have made are working ones, continuing to debate or challenging the decisions becomes disruptive.
Thank You
