I'm sorry.

[DarkMatt]

It has taken days for the dust to settle, but today's drama has been buried. I have been cited as being the biggest problem around it and getting a lot of critcism over my actions, but that's okay because I have taken a big heap of drama and center it all around me, right?

Well, no.

A lot of things influenced my first couple of posts, but the greatest influence was Kley getting demoted. As for Kley, I cannot vouch for him anymore now that he has burned all his bridges, but I still harbor resentment that his demotion had to go about this way, which wasn't friendly, wasn't respectful, and wasn't considerate. Furthermore, this isn't against any particular user or users or even the staff or the community, EVERYBODY could've showed a little more empathy than they did, and Kley would've appreciated it. I was the only one to give him counsol with no strings attached or any remarks, and understandably, 1 person isn't enough to keep someone from running as far away as possible from this community. What I saw is that our community chased out a perfectly well-meaning member all because he was an inactive mod, he had insulted someone out of the long list of people who had a problem with him, and he had handled the situation in a non-productive manner. What this caused me to do was accept something I didn't want to, "This community demands people to not emotionally break down, because no one will feel for it."

This happening was ultimately the deciding factor on what I was going to do, because you can pull off a lot of things that I will not give a damn about, and I will constantly say, "Oh, I've done it before." When you flame and insult another user, it better be for a damn good reason, which I found lacking; all I saw was disgruntled users taking it out on Kley, when Kley has done nothing besides be. I might've really chastised users in the past, but I always keep in mind that I'm trying to end up with a positive return.

But this is where I made my first mistake: I concluded that the people participating were too ornery to listen to reason. I should not have done this, because I unwittingly took people craving for something to complain about and gave it to them. I had understood that the rest of the staff has tried before and failed, and understanding that their touch tends to be much more gentler than mine, and after making a couple threads and reading the response, I had given up being the bigger man in a situation where people were taking their concerns too far. I wish I had the patience of a saint and the resolve of a hero, but that's Superman, not me. I did, in fact, acted on my own. What I didn't do which I'll share to the community (but don't make a habit out of this) is that I did not thoroughly discuss my plan of action with the other staff members before committing it. You see, the staff normally trusts eachother to act in the community's best interests and we tend to not wait nor get a second opinion before acting. I try when I can't split hairs, but this was a very black-and-white situation.

Except it wasn't. There were varying degrees of concern and malice, and had I took the time to take the slow way out, I would've found out who wanted to really explain their problems to me and who just wanted to harp on us. Again, if I made a mistake anywhere, it's lumping every user into the "community" they tossed around, when I could've been much more patient and open about the matter and achieve the same result.

I did not think about that before I really start getting bitter over Kley's demotion. And by that time, it was too late. I was not in the mindset to handle such an encompassing problem and I was simply ill-prepared to handle the great big mess that was happening. I mean, we had complaints about inactive mods in general, staff handlings, and how we ran things. I know this is a bit rude for me to do to you, reader, but put yourself in my shoes and go from Pages 1 to 8 in the change thread. What would you do that you were confident would work? You would not only have to consider the way to phrase it but anticipate the reactions you would get from the people involved. Handling drama isn't as easy as taking the story arc and using tropes to solve all the loose plotlines. It's not just me that dropped the ball, nary a moderator that participated in the thread could fathom how to solve this problem completely, and I doubt anyone in the thread could. I don't mean this as an offense, I mean to point out that the situation had gotten completely out of control.

All that done, and me staring at 13 pages of people ceaselessly charging at the staff, I got sick of it and put my boot down on it. It's all I could've done, and if you know me, it's what I would do in a situation that's defying reason. But again, this was my biggest mistake. This would work fine given a community of people who are just confused on a manner and poking and prodding trying to do something. This was against a thread full of people purposefully trying to find fault in our actions and use it against us. A mature person wouldn't stoop to that level and do their best to act in a professional matter. I did not see the worth in that, and I played ball.

So that explains my actions until I started fighting wildfires with flashfires. After that I'm sitting there looking at what's happening and biting my fingers knowing that there's no turning back now. Some people would argue I should've backpedaled and apologized for my totalitarianism, but I'm nothing if I have to retract such a big point. Eventually, I saw something happening and trusted that it would work:

It was me blowing all other complaints out of the water by putting myself up for discussion.

This both worked and didn't work. It worked because I got what I wanted and the discussion focused solely on how I was treating the community. It didn't work, however, because I was calling bluffs. I'm sure plenty of people didn't think I was handling the situation poorly until I started hammering down my intentions when the first round didn't stick. And reading this now, I know for a fact that no one had a full grasp of the situation. I expected the opposite, and I should not do that to other people unless, and only when, it's a matter concerning their behavior. That'd be fine if I wasn't lumping everyone into the community shell, which I shouldn't do.

I am sorry I went as far as to make your fears come true, and I never should've given you due cause to be concerned. I can justify a lot of things, but this I cannot. I could've handled the situation without terrorizing the community for their riots, and I should've known better than to perform indiscrimatory suppression. All I can say is I let the mood of the matter influence my actions, when, as a mod, I'm not suppose to do this.

Furthermore, I'll tell you this right now for you to remember: if you are seriously causing problems in the community and normal moderation doesn't stop it, I am going to send a PM to you. I will do this for only one reason: to get you to work on your behavior. Again, for people that are confused, this is a great help, but for those who have justified their ill manners, it gets very little done. I should know by now that I just get painted as the bad guy every time I try to step straight into the line of fire. There's no right way to do this: if you are the reason why someone has to stop, you become part of their disdain. It's like trying to stop a bull in a china shop.

There was so much I could've not done during all of this, but I had to stick to my guns at this point, otherwise I'd be a dangling part of this big mess instead of the solution. This meant I had to go above and beyond just the possibility of people focusing on me and make sure it happened, because, once again, that was what I was betting on. The staff could've (and did) cover for me, but I had to end the thread with me being on everyone's shit list, because the arguments before this was a convoluted mess of assumptions and accusations. The argument I stitched in was very simple, and now in the end, I am only having to apologize for putting the community through this, instead of spend several, several days trying to work with white hot tensions to stop getting hotter and hotter.

Had I been a better mod, this would not be as painful to some people, but I didn't do this because I know this community in and out, I did it because, again, I either stuck with my guns or lost the weight of my words/jail myself from the convo/be ineffective. Pick one. A mod shouldn't argue with users, but a mod also shouldn't lose ground when administrating. To me, it's the only way I can do my job, and to me, it is such a terrifying balance to strike precisely.

The ends did not justify the means, I know, but I had to work with what I had, and hold faith that, here and now, I would get a positive return from the dealer that is karma. Understanding what I had gotten myself into, I charged in without a second thought, and let my wits guide me through it. A rational man would've paced himself. I can be as bullheaded as all of you, if not worse. I'm sorry I kept your fears going, and god, I would've loved it if those were never part of the equation, but they were only spreading, and I only knew so much on how to stop them. As able as I am, I'm not a big enough saint to take hatred and turn it into love.

So that's why I acted the way I did. I won't apologize for my intentions and I'm not apologizing for the few times I had to actually take action, but I will ask that you forgive my impatience and dismissal of the matter. My attempts to explain it was all to reach this point fell on deaf ears, and instead of compensating, I held the other party accountable, which is something I shouldn't have done. I may not believe I need to respect people who are disrepsecting, but I do need to have faith first before I ask it from others.

---

Extra post tackling the grievances in the thread will come about later. Please wait warmly while it is prepared.

[DarkMatt]

-Priority #1 is to upgrade the forum. We can't really do much past that in the meantime. That requires Joey to spend the time necessary to transfer over to new software and set it up properly. There's no magic word for doing this, it's going to take a while, and that while is something Joey doesn't have now. We aren't supermen, we just try to make sure the extra work we have to do for this community can be done first before we take time out from everything else to do so. Again, we are definitely adults, and adults don't have all the time in the world.

-Yes. Joey has personal matters to attend to just like me and Valt and a buncha other mods and users here. That means not only this, but a lot of amenities for the community will be slow going. There is no reason to feel like we have to do it now. (There isn't one.) So please, we may not be actively working on the forums now, but we're not dead and we haven't forgotten. We are just caught up with this magical thing called "life" that some of you might have heard of.

-The entire community doesn't exactly want what you, the user, might want. This is something plenty of people don't respect, and I need to bring this up. And I don't mean "Not everyone agrees with the direction we're going", I mean "Some people are happy with what they have and don't want to demand more." Most of the people here are pretty chill and accepting of the staff, it's just the vocal ones that tend to be labeled the "community" because it's not like the peaceful folk is gonna take a step into the messes the rowdy bunch cause. I'm not going to assume, but understanding the needs of the community from a general perspective instead of yours is something to keep in mind next time we talk about the site.

-To protect against outbursts like before, I'm debating whether or not to add in an extra rules topic for SMBX.org, and I could use your input on this. It'd generally be to make horsing around and going too far against the rules, and if those two things never happen, then the staff will have fewer headaches and can handle their responses much, much better. I'd rather we make it a written rule and just bomb all that don't read it instead of see just how well reasoning goes with people who are being unreasonable. We'd get nicer complaints that we can deal with, and our userbase will learn to be professional. Win-win, yes?

-We need you to refrain from bossing the staff around and deciding what we do, because we ultimately have to do what you want and that requires you to respect that we're taking the time to do it. You have to care about us if you care about the community, and if you can't respect that, then, welp, you're just gonna be given the cold boot. We can't work together if you are insistent on how we must cater to you. This isn't a business, it's a community.

If there's any extraneous questions you have that hasn't been answered by this post, feel free to ask them here.

[Zeldamaster12]

double post!!1!!!1

Seriously though, I like how you're handling it now. You're addressing points in a much more civil and polite matter, I like that.

[SilverDeoxys563]

I wasn't there to witness the actual debacle (I did post a few times but that was like my saying "LOL GUYS WTF WHY SO SALTY," but after my second post I pretty much got busy and started looking at other threads so yep.) but I really feel like I should remind myself: DarkMatt does his job so well, I keep reading his posts over assuming he's supernatural, inhuman or something.

But really guys, DarkMatt's a person, just like you and I. It took me looking at his location pun (which is awesome BTW) to remind me. I mean I might just come off as completely rude which I don't mean to be at all, but honestly I'm trying to take the time to compliment someone on something I didn't witness to shed some positive light. Hi!

(and tbh I probably shouldn't go read that thread, even though it might give me backstory on exactly WTF Kley did, so uh if any of you guys could fill me in...? ;D )

[Waddle]

(and tbh I probably shouldn't go read that thread, even though it might give me backstory on exactly WTF Kley did, so uh if any of you guys could fill me in...? ;D )

I'm pretty sure people started being jerkish towards kley bc. his inactivity, which ultimately led to his demotion, which caused even more discussion.
I think that about sums it up.

[SilverDeoxys563]

I'm pretty sure people started being jerkish towards kley bc. his inactivity, which ultimately led to his demotion, which caused even more discussion.
I think that about sums it up.

Yeah but like didn't Matt over here say that Kley snapped somewhere in there too? I want to know whether I'm reading this right, whether it happened before he got demoted or after, and whether it got him banned. Again just cuuuuurious so I can understand what happened here without reading it.

[Zeldamaster12]

8bit said something to Kley which led him to snap at 8bit. There was a bunch of debating and discussion over that, and evidently there was a bunch of drama in the IRC and Joey decided to demote Kley eventually.

[SilverDeoxys563]

8bit said something to Kley which led him to snap at 8bit. There was a bunch of debating and discussion over that, and evidently there was a bunch of drama in the IRC and Joey decided to demote Kley eventually.

oooooooooo that post that I read checking the new posts and didn't think much of

yeah :(

[JupiHornet]

Ok DarkMatt, you have officially gained all of my respect.

Apology accepted.

[DarkMatt]

Ah yeah, about Kley:

-What ended up happening was Kley went off the deep end and everybody, not just some specific users or the staff or the userbase and this includes myself, EVERYBODY wounded up contributing to this. Kley left feeling like the community didn't want him, and that's the feeling I'm seeing as well. I think it's because of my virtue of coming in mid-snap, but I keep on having the feeling that no one lent a shoulder for Kley to cry, except mine. In the end, it wasn't enough, because I had to sleep and attend college and all that. Though, to put some perspective, one of the last things I told Kley was to lay low. He didn't. I'd love to help him through everything, but I can only show him the door, he had to walk through it. I'd rather not go into detail about this and instead just describe it involves me talking to everyone about how we've let this maturity kick go to our heads and take someone who didn't know what to do and hold it against him to handle himself, when all he did was be inactive. People can't do this at times, and sometimes it's not their fault.

[Zeldamaster12]

I do feel sorry for Kley. Of course I'd want him in the community; he's a really cool guy. He was pretty mistreated during all this, and I'm sorry if I contributed to that (I wasn't on the IRC btw, just in Ragont's thread).

[JupiHornet]

I do feel sorry for Kley. Of course I'd want him in the community; he's a really cool guy. He was pretty mistreated during all this, and I'm sorry if I contributed to that (I wasn't on the IRC btw, just in Ragont's thread).

Wait, did Kley leave the community?

[DarkMatt]

As I said, I don't want to go into detail on what happened and play blame game. I just want to split the blame evenly amongst everyone, because it was a collective failure.

[Waddle]

I'm very impressed with how you're dealing with this. You keep calm, blame nobody, and you're pretty much handling the situation by yourself.

[Zeldamaster12]

The majority of the staff team were involved in this, but DarkMatt is really the main one who's trying to get all this resolved.

[Panda]

I'm curious about the extra rules topic you mentioned, do you have any brief ideas about what kinds of rules you're thinking about?

[Danny]

As I said, I don't want to go into detail on what happened and play blame game. I just want to split the blame evenly amongst everyone, because it was a collective failure.

Why don't you want to go into detail on what happened and play blame game? You did that during the argument, I'm not sure why suddenly you just went all sentimental. "I just want to split the blame evenly amongst everyone"? I really feel that was rather set up to be quite honest, because I question how you went from blaming certain people to going all sentimental. I'm not buying it.

[Waddle]

Yes, because why not start the whole discussion all over again? He apoligized already. what else are you expecting from him?

[Danny]

He apoligized already. what else are you expecting from him?

I'm not expecting anything else from him other than an explanation on how he was rather bitter and was playing the blame game previously, but he just snapped into being sentimental.

Like I said, it seems rather set up.

[FallingSnow]

The majority of the staff team were involved in this, but DarkMatt is really the main one who's trying to get all this resolved.

• Considering the majority of the staff team didn't need to make an apology topic
• Considering the majority of the staff team didn't have "all this" to resolve in the first place