ON OOC DRAMA, STRIKES, AND HOW THEY WORKWe know the past week has been a difficult one for Rookies a

ON OOC DRAMA, STRIKES, AND HOW THEY WORKWe know the past week has been a difficult one for Rookies as a whole, so we feel like we’d be doing you guys a disservice to not address it a little. Normally we avoid commenting on drama in Rookies because we want to keep uninvolved parties uninvolved. We like to be the ones wrapped up in drama so you guys don’t have to be, but we believe essentially the entire roleplay has been affected by drama this week, so there’s no reason to keep quiet about it.First of all, we want to apologize to any members that feel we haven’t represented them well, or like we haven’t properly defended them or helped them enough. This is a criticism we get repeatedly, and honestly, one that hurts us, because we do a lot behind the scenes to deal with every concern brought to us. Have we done enough? We decided this week that we haven’t. Regardless, we want to shed some light on exactly how much effort we put into dealing with drama in RK, not necessarily to defend ourselves, but because we want to be more transparent with you and show you how stuff works in case it will help you.Our punishment for OOC drama runs on a three strike system, meaning you get two chances, and on your third offense, you’ll be removed from the roleplay. As our rules say, “If you cause a problem OOC and all available staff members unanimously agree, you will earn a strike,“ and that’s intentionally broad. It sounds simple, and maybe it should be more simple than we’ve made it, but it’s actually a complicated process. One of the reasons why is because we must have a unanimous mod consensus, as was already highlighted. This means all seven mods on the team have to vote in a strike trial, share their opinions, and agree. Since everyone has their own lives, everyone tends to type a long paragraph explaining their thoughts behind their vote, and sometimes we disagree, this process alone can take days.Let’s go back to that one thing I mentioned: strike trial. This is when all seven mods vote either in favor or against a strike for the behavior in question, but we feel like this needs a little more explanation. When an issue is brought to our attention, it is always brought to the attention of the mod chat at large. Sometimes, we can quickly discuss whether we think it’s strike-worthy and agree that it’s not, and that the issue can be solved just by talking to both parties involved. It’s important to note that these issues do add up, and repeated small problems can eventually result in a real deal strike trial and strike. When more serious issues come up, we immediately begin an official strike trial, and the trial is [party one] vs [party two]. It is never just one individual on trial, but both sides involved, and we’re very serious about getting both sides of the story, and forming the third side: the neutral one. Once we agree to start a strike trial, this information goes into our strike trial document, and we begin to collect evidence, which goes into another document containing all evidence for the case. We put all screenshots and messages in order, date them, and make sure the entire timeline is correct, then continuously update the evidence document as more information comes in. Just putting the evidence in the document sometimes takes hours. Since we want to be thorough in our investigations, it takes even longer since we get more and more evidence that needs to be added, and this process only stop when we all feel confident enough in our votes.Another criticism we receive often is one of favoritism, and we can admit, it’s hard to keep personal issues and pain out of voting against people that have caused drama. Thankfully, we have seven different mods with different friend circles and different opinions to curb that, and we also try to remain as neutral as we possibly can; in the past some of us have even refrained from voting if we feel like we can’t be unbiased about the issue. We try to keep personal issues and personal experience with the muns in question out of our votes, being entirely professional, or at least we used to. We’ve endured a lot of, quite frankly, abuse from the community doing this, and while we’ll still continue to put everyone else’s feelings above our own, in the case that we are continuously disrespected and hurt by someone, that will count as evidence into a strike trial too, even if it’s evidence we don’t count as highly as the rest we receive. There comes a point where we have to draw a line, and if someone has hurt us so much, it becomes hard to believe they haven’t done the same to others in the community.We’ll pause here to say this is not a post calling out anyone in particular, even if that may seem the case, but this is an issue with multiple people in Rookies. Now, we’ll go back to the criticism of us not doing anything, and say we’re determined for that to change. In the past, we’ve worried about being too harsh with disciplinary action, and scaring our members that don’t have anything to be afraid of, but we believe the positives of being harsher vastly outweigh the negatives. Rest assured, the strike system will stay, and we’ll still continue to be as loving in dealing with these issues as we can, but not at the expense of the truth like we may have in the past. We know you’ve heard this vow to be more serious often from us, and we apologize for that too, but with the firepower two new mods have brought to us, and the experience all these years have given us, we feel prepared to act more proactively on behalf of the community, regardless of the blowback we’ll receive. There may be a bit of a learning curve with this, so please be patient with us as you will, and know we’ll always do our best to act with your best interests in mind.It’s also important to note that in strike trials, neutral opinions are some of the most important to us. When drama reaches people that are uninvolved with either side and they come to us sharing their thoughts and their distress, that compels us into further action, so if you ever see something in RK that makes you uncomfortable, please come forward. We know there’s been a lot of discourse about us being untrustworthy, and we can’t and won’t force anyone to feel favorably about us. People may feel that we haven’t helped them, but we definitely can’t help people that won’t come forward. Please bring as much evidence as you can to us when you approach us about an issue, and we hope that we can prove different to those that don’t believe in us any longer. We’ll try our best to.With all of this in mind, we acknowledge that RK hasn’t been a very healthy environment, at least this week, if not for a long time, and we accept our hand in that. It’s been very difficult to work out a solution, but we believe we’re coming closer to one, and we hope as we continue to keep to what we said today, you’ll notice positive change. That being said, we want to remind everyone that this is only roleplay. Real work and feelings are involved, but at the end of the day, this is supposed to be a hobby and something fun. Please don’t prioritize Rookies above your mental health and wellbeing, although believe us, we know it’s easier said than done. If the negatives of being here outweigh the positives for you to be here, it may really be the best decision for you to leave, and we don’t say that because we want people to leave, but because we care about you guys beyond the scope of KRP, and want you to be happy not just here, but in your real lives. If Rookies isn’t a part of that happiness, we’ll support you in leaving us, and we’ll be here should that change.Even though this week might’ve been a little earth-shaking, beyond all of this, we don’t intend for Rookies to change. We’re still the same mods you know and (hopefully) love, and Rookies will be the same roleplay it’s been for nearly six years. We can’t and won’t promise it’ll be a perfect and always happy place going forward, and will say right now that sunshine takes a little rain, and when things are at their worst, you can’t have peace without a war. Please bear with us, and know we’ll be fighting to do our best for the community at large every step of the way. We’ll get through it all together! -- source link

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