Feedback on staff interactions

[Callie]

That's a bit difficult, and I understand where you're coming from. I once again bring up that staff are human, and the actions of one bad staff member shouldn't reflect all of us, though I completely understand why it can. For the second part, my direct messages are always always open both on discord or in game. If you have something you want to talk about I can talk from an almost unbiased point of view, so if it's to the point you need someone to talk to, or you feel as if a staff member has been unkind/impolite feel free to talk to me

 

[NotDetroit]

Yeah I get it shouldn't reflect on every other staff member I just think one bad staff member out weighs the good ones, sure it's wrong for me to say it out weighs all the good staff but it's not a fair scale. I may dm you about some stuff idk, I will think about it because talking to staff about how I feel about you guys (Thats making me sound like youre not human which I know you are lmao sorry) is not really for me but I may about this idk

 

[Nyn]

Okay I won’t lie, it is possible to forget that staff are just human, even tho you basically never realise you do that. It isn’t fair to stereotype the whole staff team because of a select few. Like I said in my first post, there are some good staff members. However, are are some who aren’t. I won’t name specific ones though, as it’s more than just one person.

Staff can often ignore issues that are brought to them (like NotDetriot said). The first step to fixing an issue is for those with the highest power to realise there is an issue.

 

[Nik_Blazius]

While your concern about staff being 'too young' is understandable, the staff team isn't comprised of mainly 13-year-olds. Most staff range from 16-24, and should be mature enough to have an understanding of their actions and potential consequences. While I might be biased, since I'm on the younger side of the team, I also have experience with my doubts and concerns about what I do on the server.

I also believe age is significant and there are staff members who can't deal with suggestions and they ask me to talk about the matter with their Head or Lead. I also suggested that they bring the problem to the Head/Lead collectively, but the response is that they can't do it. Is it because of the hierarchy, or because of the age difference? Staff members usually should be mature and responsible enough, so that you can give them freedom to solve everything with common sense. In PW it seems like everyone can be a staff member. As I mentioned before, when I was younger I was also a staff member and I only see my problems from a 3 year distance, although I have always been very critical with myself. Personally I've always been rebellious, but there are also people who follow everything they were told. It's problematic because they prefer hierarchy more than common sense and they start to reduce their personality. Ideally, in a higher position you know a lot about your staff members and you can let them do almost whatever they want because you trust them, there is a reason why they are staff members. As I see it, in PW there could also be a "wall" not only between players and staff members, but also between staff members and staff members.

It's difficult to try to find a balance between friendly and sociable with acting as a role model for other players, and I doubt staff are intending to seem fake, or lack authenticity. Some people's idea of 'professional' lines more with going by the book than others, and it's a way that staff avoid showing favoritism, or to avoid coming off as a friend more than an actual staff member. While it might seem cold and distant, it prevents favoritism from occurring. That being said, there is certainly staff who favor friendliness and openness over other forms of communication.

This part is hilarious. If you start to show favoritism because of talking friendly with someone, you are not really responsible enough and you can't control your feelings. I heard that some staff members tend to speak more with other staff members than with players. Does it mean that if a staff members attends class, the Professor and the Class Helpers can't help to show favoritism and they give them better grades automatically? (Off: Especially because grading seems like you can "feel" grades.) Also I believe a staff member is everyone's friend. Being friendly, sociable, responsible and mature enough simultaneously doesn't seem to be difficult to me. Not to mention it should be the criteria for being a staff member.

Keep in mind, even if there is a way for staff to follow the same formula of "friendly but helpful", then wouldn't it seem robotic at some point or another?

Friendly BUT helpful? It sounds like you couldn't be both of them. (Btw I don't believe in any formula for behavior and communication. Don't be and don't seem dumb, that's all.)

Is acting impartial and overly friendly something we should really stop encouraging?

I believe the best is if you are honest with everyone. As I see, in Hungarian servers staff members are more open-minded and player-centered, but also very strict and consequent. Being overly friendly is what you can't experience in Hungary, and it's exactly what makes everyone artificial (bots).
There's also no need that staff members sometimes only write "<3 ilysm" to each other in global chat. For me it looks so wrong. (As we say in Hungary in similar situations: "Get a room for yourselves!") Also I heard "professionalism" from a lot of staff members here, I had never heard and never used this word at all.
I looked up a website of a Hungarian server and they write (only) this about staff: "The aim of the staff members is to encourage and maintain a livable community, and they do everything to provide you peaceful gaming." That should be encouraged because it's more important than anything else. You can build enormous maps and buildings, you can add cool effects and make interesting items and lores, but you can make the server amazing only with a livable community. I believe "normal players" do much more for this than staff members usually.

Now, the last sentence of this passage: "If players act a certain way, should we just deem them as fake because we view those actions as 'too good' to be true?"
This really depends. It depends on what "a certain way" is. If they act all robotic and without any authenticity to their messages, yes, I would say so. But it really depends on the situation.

I mean.. yes, following guides doesn't make any sense. Every situation is different and needs other types of interaction. That's what I meant on giving freedom to staff members. You could decide in a situation with common sense what to do, I don't think normal communication with players need any specific guidelines, just be yourself and manage the problem you think it's morally good, it shouldn't be a difficult task for staff members.

I think I just leave this video and this video here. (professionalism)

 

[Sticktrees]

When you say that it begs the question is there a reason for the claim? Or any feedback you have so they can improve?

There is no real reason I just find it funny how they are part of a team that is meant to "teach" and interact with players but outside of that they just never do they are huddle together like little ants.

 

[Aviforma]

I had friends on PW who I had spent months if not years bonding with. All of a sudden, they stopped joining Knockturn Alley and stayed in staff only calls. As someone who spent a good deal of time both as a player, player involved with the staff team, and member of the staff team itself, I can say 100% there is a large staff sub-community. There's just such a divide pushed between the players and staff between staff only info, staff "professionalism", and access to staff voice channels. I myself fell prey to this sub-community and started hanging out only in the staff channels for a couple weeks. It's not something that can be forced upon staff, nor is it something easily remediable. But it's gotten to the point where staff feel almost alien to the normal players on the server, and players want to become staff just for a chance to join this strong sub-community. It's scuffed.

 

[FlatJambo]

I agree with the small talk suggestion. I love saying hi to the staff, but I'd prefer actually talking to them and getting to know each other better. They are really amazing people after all!

 

[Mallaidh]

Okay! So I commented on this a while ago and I feel like the things mentioned on this thread and focused on have majorly shifted, so I feel the need to comment again - plus I didn't say nearly enough the first time.

This will be an EXTREMELY long post. I have a lot to say and reply to!

I will make it very clear I am not hating on staff and am doing my very, very best not to have at all a harsh tone when I post this! You guys do amazing, great jobs and many of you are my good friends on this server and I hope that this does not come off in any way aggressive. <3

This may seem harsh but if they continue to act like bots I think they should just add more bots. I would prefer if there was a under review bot that messaged your post instantly and then randomly assigned it to a poltergeist making it so there is not a strange random waiting period before staff see your post.

I don't like comparing staff to bots but it does feel like in some ways if you forgot about it the way staff act you could assume they were bots.
I am not saying at all that they are bots - they're real people who are completely genuine at times but the idea of handing out copypastas does mean that when they interact with the community from a staff perspective it can feel like there might as well be a bot speaking - in fact, as you mentioned here, adding bots to take on the roles of some staff copypastas would be much better and much more convenient.

would like to see bot run non assignment classes (WizPE, dancing, potions, dueling, etc.)

This part however I do disagree with this as I feel like the communication in classes of all kinds is one of the greatest ways that staff connection has been and can increase.
Wizpe was mentioned in the original post I believe, and the quizzes and the opportunity for professors to just spend some time talking to the students and chatting completely is an amazing way to bridge the gap that is already happening.
By introducing bots into these settings I think we will do more harm than good as people will just compare staff to bots even more.

I completely agree with this. When everything is scripted/follows a format, it feels fake. It’s like the person is a robot. If staff is were to just act like normal players, while fulfilling their responsibilities, it would feel more real.

This very much adds onto luckiestblock's post, as how staff can be compared to bots which is mainly because things feel very scripted and fake. I think they do act as normal players although there are some parts mainly in staff->player interaction where professionalism is considered to be more important. I think the key here is getting a balance between professionalism and being more realistic.

Couldn't agree more. And then when there are things that massive amounts of people ask for and they decline, but instead of knowing WHY they just give us the generic answer which tells us they probably didn't read it to begin with.

Although I see your point, there could very well be a reason that well-loved posts are denied that we aren't aware of as we aren't involved in the GD process ourselves. I do agree that maybe if there is a reason that its impossible it should be shared, but I don't think I've ever seen a reply that generic. I think each time they have made it clear why it was denied, at least in what I have seen but then again we have both seen different things.

100% agree. As a student during classes, I find it kind of frustrating when i'm waiting for my turn to fly or duel but chat is muted the whole time

A very common thing I see about wizpe is people say I hate parkour, but wizpe is my favourite class because I love the chat.

Talking among students even without professors and staff getting involved makes a massive impact on peoples experience and then when staff do get involved that is when that gap is bridged and even friendships get made.

There's a reason why I LOVE going to WizPE classes, even though I dislike doing parkour for 45 minutes. It's because class chat is un-muted the entire time and the helpers & prof are actively engaging with chat. I find myself enjoying these classes the most because I feel like i'm enjoying my time with 60 other players and not just rushing to get my AC.

Well would you look at that, I only just mentioned that then scroll down and you've beat me to it the entire time!
I'm glad this shows there are more people agreeing with me that classes are improved by communication between everyone, not just staff->student.

Some staff after they become just don't interact with other players anymore they just become part of the "staff subcommunity" and don't do anything to "bridge the gap between staff and players".

This is something that has been mentioned increasingly on this thread - the idea of staff subcommunities. I cannot say much about this as I sadly have not witnessed this happening myself so I can't say anything for or against the existence of staff subcommunities and staff bricking themselves off from the public.

I will say I have seen staff who only go online for classes, then go immediately online afterwards. The ones you never see talking. But still, I don't really see that as staff walling themselves off from the outside world - just staff who aren't too interested in talking right now or are just pretty busy themselves.

I totally agree with this. The Professors could be replaced through bots and it would change a thing except the fact that bots would be available all the time.
I think it would be way better if the Professors would actually talk to the students in and also out of class.
As for the Poltergeists: Sometimes I notice that the reasons arent really well chosen for declining an idea sometimes it just doesn't make sense.
I'm not going to write a super long text but I hope the Poltergeists and also the Professors see this and maybe think about changing the way they're doing their Job here.

I think this really just adds on and backs up what others are saying and shows this isn't really a lone voice crying, there are many people who agree this has been a problem - perhaps one that has been around for way too long.

There are some staff members who act professional but I can talk to normally if I ever need to, such as Caro and Cate (CateCate_). Their both very nice people and although they act professional they still seem humane.

This is what I mentioned before - being able to find the balance and be professional while still being very open and, well, I hate to say it - human. More and more staff are able to find this balance which is an improvement but I'm sure for some this still can be considered a problem.

Still, the vast majority do not have this problem but I just hope more are able to find this balance and it's more emphasised as a good thing to have.

You are only reading this from the about of traction this is getting. If no one liked this or comment you wouldn't have acknowledged it. You would've given the same copy-paste response. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Although I understand your concern, I don't think that's what would have happened at all.
I've seen suggestions that have had no likes, no comments but I have never seen a suggestion ignored by staff.
There's likely been one or two but nothing intentional.

I believe the copy-paste responses you are referrig to are the ones that are seen on suggestions, however this is more of a feedback thread. I know they're practically the same thing ad that was a very unclear thing for me to say, let me clarify a bit

Suggestion thread (in my eyes) = a thread that suggests something to be implemented or changed in the game
Feedback thread (in my eyes) = a discussion thread that talks about ways that something can be changed and why it is important

Suggestion is more of a brief thing, so that warrants a brief reply (usually).
Feedback is more detailed and if you look at what I would call "feedback threads" you'd see they all have much lengthier answers as they do require a more deep, open response that involves a lot more thinking and a lot more involvement in the actual discussion.

With that in mind, I don't think they would have given a "copy-paste" (briefer) reply.


I may and most likely will continue on this in the near future as I have so much more I would like to say on this matter.

 

[Callie]

Hi again, I am also back to comment on some newer things said. One recurring theme I am seeing is people asking for staff small talk. While I do see why you would want that, and I agree there needs to be more of it, I would also like to ask for you to see it from our point of view. Talking to people we don't know can be hard, especially if you prefer not to speak at all. I personally try and speak in chat at least twice a day, but beyond that it's hard to jump into chat sometimes, so for this I would say give us a little leeway. Believe it or not we are regular people like the playerbase and have different preferences on how much to talk or when.

Another commonly mentioned thing is "staff subcommunity." While I won't say this doesn't exist (it definitely does) there is something I want to speak on. As we are regular people we have relations with other people. I may be more prone to hop in a staff voice call rather than a player one for two reasons. One is that there may be less people, or people that I know and that I'm comfortable speaking with. The second may be that I need to get work done or bounce ideas off of people, and as most of the time that contains staff-only information I cannot discuss it with players. The staff team is very large, and I think some people see us as one big group of friends, in which case why not talk to players, it's the same amount of people right? Yes I consider all staff to be people I respect and love to work with, but I also have friends inside that staff team whether they be based on common departments or real life interests. So given the choice between a voice call (staff or not) with a few of my friends versus a voice call with people I don't know, I'm most likely going to choose my friends if anyone.

The last thing I wanted to talk about for now was professionalism. I can only speak for myself here as all staff have a different opinion on when to be professional. There is a certain level of professionalism expected of us at all times, and that's something that's not up to us. Beyond that, generally I try to be as "normal" as possible in chats like global where I'm talking to players in a regular conversation. When I'm answering questions I want to be as efficient and informative as possible, so that may come off as professional or robotic but it's really just us trying to do our jobs. Overall I would really love to talk to more players, and I have no problem making new friends, it's just hard sometimes to connect with people you don't know, especially online.

Once again my Discord is Callie#5458 if you wanna talk

 

[Honey_Dwarf1]

Talking to people we don't know can be hard, especially if you prefer not to speak at all. I personally try and speak in chat at least twice a day, but beyond that it's hard to jump into chat sometimes, so for this I would say give us a little leeway. Believe it or not we are regular people like the playerbase and have different preferences on how much to talk or when.

I'm not saying that you should always be interacting with players, but surely as a member of Community Management/Moderation your job is to talk to players? Surely you should be able to talk to players online if the point of your department is to help players feel more like they are a part of the community?

Another commonly mentioned thing is "staff subcommunity." While I won't say this doesn't exist (it definitely does) there is something I want to speak on. As we are regular people we have relations with other people. I may be more prone to hop in a staff voice call rather than a player one for two reasons. One is that there may be less people, or people that I know and that I'm comfortable speaking with. The second may be that I need to get work done or bounce ideas off of people, and as most of the time that contains staff-only information I cannot discuss it with players. The staff team is very large, and I think some people see us as one big group of friends, in which case why not talk to players, it's the same amount of people right? Yes I consider all staff to be people I respect and love to work with, but I also have friends inside that staff team whether they be based on common departments or real life interests. So given the choice

While of course there is nothing wrong with having a staff subcommunity - it's unavoidable - I agree strongly with what Aviforma said:

But it's gotten to the point where staff feel almost alien to the normal players on the server, and players want to become staff just for a chance to join this strong sub-community. It's scuffed.

There's nothing wrong with having a staff subcommunity, but if players start to want to join the staff team purely because they feel left out of the community as a player, it's gone too far. I've seen conversations in global just between staff members which have ignored non-staff members and it really makes it seem like staff are somehow above talking to us.


What I'm trying to say here is that, as a member of community management and any part of the staff team aimed towards interaction and management of players, staff should be able to talk to players that they don't know. Not necessarily all the time - obviously you will want to hang out with your friends a lot of the time - but part of being a staff member is helping and interacting with players. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, it's going to be very hard to do your job.

 

[nathan1e]

Hi again, I am also back to comment on some newer things said. One recurring theme I am seeing is people asking for staff small talk. While I do see why you would want that, and I agree there needs to be more of it, I would also like to ask for you to see it from our point of view. Talking to people we don't know can be hard, especially if you prefer not to speak at all. I personally try and speak in chat at least twice a day, but beyond that it's hard to jump into chat sometimes, so for this I would say give us a little leeway. Believe it or not we are regular people like the playerbase and have different preferences on how much to talk or when.

Hi Callie,

(I'm going to say this directly to you, but what I have to say is something that I think directly affects the entire discussion and is therefore something I wish to say on the public thread rather than to you personally over discord.)

Let me first of all start off by saying that I highly appreciate you (or any other staff member coming here to reply and take part in the discussion, for that matter) coming here and speaking openly about your own personal experiences from a staff member's perspective. While I appreciate every single comment this thread has received (even though I don't agree with all of them, I still appreciate this discussion occurring here) I find that a discussion like this is becoming a bit more "alive" (if that makes sense?) when light is being shed on different sides of the story.

Idk, I felt like so far I've mostly kept my replies about the discussion itself without actually expressing my appreciation for any replies I've had so far.

Anyhow, to the point. I wanted to reply to this specific passage from your reply because it is a part of my original thread and is something I still highly believe in. There are a few things I wish to say in regards to the points you've made in no particular order.

- I understand that you, as an individual staff member, experience difficulty just changing something as fundamental as this from one day to the next. I really do. Change doesn't come in an instant, it takes time to adjust to the idea of behaving completely different than one is used to until that point. But I think that is somewhat missing the point of this feedback thread. Personally, I didn't intend my paragraph about small talk to be pointing at individual staff members themselves, but rather at the people (leads? heads? idk how these things work) who are themselves responsible for writing protocols and organising trainings regarding the way staff members interact with players. This is why I was so happy when Ash replied with the things that she has done in order to try and improve on the points I brought up about Poltergeists, because it means that what I originally hoped would happen, was indeed being set in motion, at least on a Poltergeist level. So while I appreciate you at least thinking about the possibility of engaging in more small talk with the community (or even attempting it? don't blame me for not knowing, I've been busy with the new year at uni starting lately ) and would definitely encourage you to continue doing exactly that, I hope you also understand that personally, I was rather hoping for some change or another on a higher level (similar to what has already happened with Poltergeists).

- Touching on something I've said a bit as well in the previous paragraph: time. When writing this feedback thread, I never hoped that something like this would just be changed in a single day. I hoped to inspire the start of a process: the process of moving towards having something like this changed. I fully recognise that something like this can take up a fair amount of time and I don't think it would be productive for anyone to speed up such a process more than is absolutely necessary. So while I understand your points on feeling difficulty when engaging with the community, I think this would require practise and time and effort. Don't expect full results today, tomorrow or the day after. The most productive would be to do your utmost to at least try to change; after some time you will see that it lets you achieve far more than when you expect instant results.

- Something that also crossed my mind while reading this passage of your reply was the way certain people prepare for potentially being hired when having an application out. Most people, when applying for a role that interacts with the community, do exactly that while they haven't received any results yet: interact with the community. Personally what I see (from my perspective) is that a player commits to interacting with the community as best they can, then get accepted and suddenly stop doing that. Personally I feel it would be much more natural to keep such staff members regularly interacting with the community, as the community has already had plenty of opportunity to get used to this person while they were awaiting a response on their application. But that's just how I view the situation ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm not saying that you should always be interacting with players, but surely as a member of Community Management/Moderation your job is to talk to players? Surely you should be able to talk to players online if the point of your department is to help players feel more like they are a part of the community?

Next bit is going to be aimed at Daisy, but like before, I feel it makes sense to put it here.

While I agree that it would make sense for members of the CM department to be regularly interacting with the playerbase, as it seems, that is currently not the case. I feel like there is a distinct difference between what someone's job is, or what you would think to be logical that their job would be defined as. What I see here is that Callie talks from a perspective where she has been told what her job is, whereas you speak from what you expect that job to be.

Don't get me wrong, I fullheartedly agree with you that it would make sense for members of CM to be actively interacting with the community but I personally simply don't think it productive to put it like this, seemingly aimed at Callie who, as a "mere" prefect (no insult intended), isn't really in the power to change something like this on a wider scale. Please, by all means, correct me if I'm wrong in assuming you were talking directly to Callie here, but it seemed as much after you quoted a passage of her reply.

With that being said I must admit that you had a rather strong opinion in the rest of your reply on staff sub-communities and the impact they have on the community as a whole. I can therefore not do much else than completely and fully agree with both you and the point @Aviforma made earlier.
One specific staff sub-community comes to mind, one that currently is no longer present due to something that occurred a few months ago. While it was good to see that the members of this sub-community had found each other in friendship, something that did become quite clear was their frequent behaviour of putting inside jokes in global chats for everyone to see, making a lot of players feel left out.

The most ironic thing of it all? When I, a mere player, attempted to join in on said inside jokes, I would get striked down, receive small warnings, official warnings, literal official warnings that still exist to this day and damage my reputation on this server because it was deemed "too insulting" and such inside jokes should be "moved into PMs". These are literally the same jokes that these staff members made in general chats.

 

[luckiestblock]

Thought I clear up some things in a short post (at least for this thread).

This part however I do disagree with this as I feel like the communication in classes of all kinds is one of the greatest ways that staff connection has been and can increase.
Wizpe was mentioned in the original post I believe, and the quizzes and the opportunity for professors to just spend some time talking to the students and chatting completely is an amazing way to bridge the gap that is already happening.
By introducing bots into these settings I think we will do more harm than good as people will just compare staff to bots even more.

I don't attend Wiz PE very often but a few weeks ago when I did the professor and class helpers stayed out of chat until about 15 minutes left, when they did 2 triva questions and then, 10 minutes later, allowed us to leave. Is this atypical? Idk but about 2 months ago I also attended another Wiz PE but the chat was muted for over half of it because a controversial topic arose and they didn't feel like dealing with it. If I just got unlucky and staff are normally very chatty I retract my request for Wiz PE but if not I think I should mention that those trivia questions could be done by that one non bot class helper that is there.

 

[MattyPoltergeist]

the thing about professors being bots definitely aint a new thing, there's always exceptions with professors or classes but i remember thinking for my first few classes that profs WERE bots but i do think that some of the authenticity has dropped slightly or atleast the human connection, i still do see professors connect with students in class but not often and almost definitely not the new players. But making a class fun doesn't just have to be about throwing in 1 or 2 relatable non-scripted lines, there's a lot of potential with classes that have slightly gone which more leans on thr roleplay side. In one class I went to about moulnjir (i know i butchered the spellling but idk), the professor got an axe out and probably with a powertool made it strike down on one of the class helpers, I've seen the same with avada kedavra. Just little stuff that surprises and interests people who typically go to classes is good - tours used to be a thing but aren't anymore or games (like what Ami taught in flying class, maybe flying professors could think of new games). Trivia is also a fun thing to throw in but shouldn't be used excessively. Same for unmuting chat for an opinion etc. Everything will seem fake and unoriginal if there isn't any surprise or originality even if the professor doesn't mean it to be. I also think prefects, along as poltergeists should be doing their best to keep chat active, obviously it's not a demand to join in with every confirmation but just maybe talk in chat more than just the odd "How is everyone doing today". It's this sort of repetitive behaviour that has made the player base mock a lot of the regular staff doings. I think they should always try and keep the connection when they're not dealing with other things and with the amount of staff the server has I don't think that's very hard. I don't think the staff 'sub-community' is specifically a staff trait but more of one that a lot of players have after they've played the server for more than a year and just in many cases it's brought to the staff team.

 

[MattyPoltergeist]

also i made a few mistakes in that but for some reason its not letting me go back and edit the text so thats annoying

 

[Aviforma]

The most ironic thing of it all? When I, a mere player, attempted to join in on said inside jokes, I would get striked down, receive small warnings, official warnings, literal official warnings that still exist to this day and damage my reputation on this server because it was deemed "too insulting" and such inside jokes should be "moved into PMs". These are literally the same jokes that these staff members made in general chats.

This is something that stands out. I remember a thread someone made about how the server seemed as a new player, in which they discussed trying to join in on inside jokes. IIRC, they called someone "stinky" and got a warning despite seeing a staff member do it. If staff get to engage in these behaviors because they're "inside jokes" and players can't... well... y i k e s

 

[Mallaidh]

Thought I clear up some things in a short post (at least for this thread).



I don't attend Wiz PE very often but a few weeks ago when I did the professor and class helpers stayed out of chat until about 15 minutes left, when they did 2 triva questions and then, 10 minutes later, allowed us to leave. Is this atypical? Idk but about 2 months ago I also attended another Wiz PE but the chat was muted for over half of it because a controversial topic arose and they didn't feel like dealing with it. If I just got unlucky and staff are normally very chatty I retract my request for Wiz PE but if not I think I should mention that those trivia questions could be done by that one non bot class helper that is there.

I've been lucky enough to never have this happen and I really think it doesn't happen a lot. It's awful that both instances you tried to join wizpe this happened to you. I think if you attended a third time (not forcing you to do this at all, if the class isn't your thing you don't have to) you would hopefully see more of what a normal wizpe class can be like.

 

[Deniz]

Hey everyone, even though this thread seems to have quieted down a bit, I'm gonna leave a quick comment which should hopefully bring some insight to some things:

First of all, thank you for all the comments on this thread here. We genuinely do appreciate hearing your insight and the experiences you've had on the server, good or bad. They help us understand what we do wrong, and what we do right. Clearly, there's quite a few things we're not doing so great, and I don't disagree.

There are many flaws within every department and every role, none of us deny this nor will we ever. There'll be flaws no matter what, but we try every day to improve each of these roles. This is not me trying to 'sugar coat' anything, because it is true.

For the comments about Community Management, I agree there are many flaws and I'll be spending a lot of time working with the CM leads on fixing these issues. They occur too many times, and it's about time we step in and fix them properly. CM is the department that's supposed to be the bridge between players and staff, and I feel like we haven't been living up to this much lately if I'm honest. I hope with the changes we've made (e.g. the Inquisitorial Squad changes) and the changes we make in the future, we lower the gap between staff and players. I acknowledge that the communication between staff and players have gotten worse, to the point where the only way some players feel heard is by 'yelling' at us on Discord. This was not how it was supposed to be, and that is our fault.

For the comments about Academics, I'll personally bring this thread up to them (the academic leadership team), and make sure they give it a look. I will return here with another comment letting you know of the decision they decide to make. Personally, I agree that classes can feel robotic and not personal. Wizards PE becomes extremely boring if the Professor isn't actively trying to make it exciting. Classes become extremely boring if the Professor is just copy-pasting their lesson plans, and calling it a day. We need to see their humanity.

There's always been a confusing line between 'professionalism' and showing when you should be human. If you make jokes in global, you're immature and unprofessional, if you're strict and serious, you're a robot. How do we as a team draw this line, and follow it properly? If I type with proper grammar and punctuation, am I robot? Should I type in all lower case? If I warn someone, should I put any emojis or use a copy-pasted message? Which one is the best? How do we ensure consistency? And how do we ensure that this 'consistency' doesn't result in us being called clones? And how do we ensure that the decision we make is what the majority of the community wants and expects? (no, a poll is not the answer)

So, TLDR: I'll work with leads to fix flaws in CM, I'll bring this up to Academics leadership team so they can work on it, I agree there's fundamental flaws that needs working on, and I'll try to work with appropriate people to fix these things. These things do take time though.

Thank you again to the people who commented or simply liked comments for your feedback. We truly do appreciate it, and we are listening, even if it may not always seem that way.

~ deniz out! ( get it? showing my jokey human side )
i spent like 10 minutes trying to put a gif here but apparently i'm a boomer so it didn't work : (

 

[Nyn]

oBviOuS mOvEmEnT! Ty Deniz <3

 

[nathan1e]

i spent like 10 minutes trying to put a gif here but apparently i'm a boomer so it didn't work : (

(It's really very easy, you use this button when typing out a reply:

and just copy-paste the URL of your favorite GIF in there...)

 

[Keira :D]

Thanks Deniz! I have been lucky enough to have never experienced anything like what you guys have been saying (staff not talking in classes, etc.) but I do agree with you guys, sometimes class does feel a little copy and pasted, but i'm glad that the staff team will be trying harder to make classes more personal, I am also glad that @nathan1e has made this thread, it opened up my eyes in a new way, thank you for putting up this suggestions and thank you staff for recognizing this, that takes a lot of maturity to realize your mistake and fix it, so thank you all

-Keira