Request for another Admin Feedback Thread

[Outlander]

Hmm. OK, so here's my view. I'm gonna try to put any personal feelings aside here, just get a somewhat unbiased train of thought.

Essentially, there's an issue, and I think everyone here can agree with that. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding it, it's somewhat come to a head with the recent ban of he who shall not be named. In general, I think some members feel like the admins are becoming less a part of the community, and thus less aligned with the interests of the community. Just the way some of these issues, like the ban, have been handled somewhat exemplify that in the eyes of those members.

That being said, I understand all the issues associated with being an admin. You do this because you care about the site, and having a group of members with this somewhat fixed outlook doesn't help your jobs. In the end, you're trying to do what's best for the site, even if you have to circumvent the views of some members to do it.

So, in short, I think a thread does need to happen. The worst conflict is one where both sides are completely convinced of their own view. If things continue on in this state, I feel it would only add more tensions to postpone it, and the two conflicting views won't have any middle ground before very long. Whether it solved anything, i'm somewhat doubtful. But, at the very least, these members can feel more open in their opinions and views.

 

[Loco]

If you want another admin review, you should first ask yourself one question.

What did the last one really accomplish?

 

[Nor'baal]

What we would get is a platform for a vocal minirity to complain about a singular specific incident that occured regarding a ban that they disagree with.

Isn't that just life in general?

I'm sorry, but that's wrong. It's been 7 months since the last one. I know that if you check Brandon's wall you can find a post I made there asking for one far before Pros's ban, but I deleted it because i was advised that I would get an infraction and likely a ban for it.

I know that @Proleptic PMed Brandon and asked for one recently. I promise you if there were a review session it wouldn't be a vocal minority on a singular issue.

This ban was a boiling point for a lot of complaints, oppression, and injustice that is happening out of the admin team recently and we need a venue where the members can voice their opinions.

Pros was acting like an idiot, he deserved a ban, and if anyone else had been banned for doing what he did, nobody would have complained. Just because Pros likes to dominate Skype chats and distribute long winded explanations from an imagined intellectual high horse by quoting second rate authors to make him appear superior doesn't make him special.

He's a nice guy, he just needs to learn when to not troll - and that's what a ban is for.

As for oppression, it's a god damn Star Wars website, not the western free world. However I can totally see Green Ranger building some WMDs to make the membership behave.

However, that being said: Not talking about issues doesn't make them go away. Denying people the chance for feedback because that feedback might be bad, once again, doesn't help.

It's like denying an election because it won't go your way, or taxing America and not giving them a parliament because your English (bad idea that, causes all sorts of trouble).

 

[Gaiaverse]

In the end, the leadership volunteers to run and pay for this site. It is their right to run the site how they see fit. I'm not saying there isn't a place for communication, just that at a certain point, if one feels oppressed and they are being treated unjustly on a star wars role playing site...leaving is an option.



gaiaverse10 - Sunday 4:57 PM
> #proslike
gaiaverse10 - Sunday 4:57 PM
> gaiaverse10 has left the channel

You left. You hashtagged. Your reaction (done before my post) was obviously way more mature and correct than my statement.

And why can't we let our opinion be known? Why? Why do we have to leave because we disagree with how things are going and such?

Hmm? What are you saying? I left as a protest, the hashtag being apart of it. You're post was post was "Suck it up" and an passive aggressive hashtag.

There is zero guarantee that players are going to voice their concerns in a mature manner. What has been posted in this thread isn't helping. Are people actually going to voice concerns prudent to the RP, especially given the present... climate? I doubt it. Am I saying a feedback thread would be a bad idea? No. But this calling for an open forum to harp on admins is lining up too beautifully with the banning of a certain someone.

What we done that isn't mature? Also, this just isn't over the banning of Pros (Who had zero infractions but was banned anyway for a month. Which I think anyone can agree is kind of strange), it's over a whole bunch of issues.

No one's trying to start a damn kangaroo court.

 

[Jessica Cloud]

How to be a Guest on another man's website

• Step 1: Acknowledge to yourself that SWRP is not 'your' website. It's someone else's. You are their house guest.
• Step 2: Acknowledge to yourself that the owners can run their house anyway they want to. Including, (but not limited to,) not making themselves, (or their Staff,) available to hear your opinions. About their house.
• Step 3: Acknowledge to yourself that you are free to leave their house at any time.

How to solicit social change on another man's website

• Step 1: Understand that you are a guest on another man's website. Behave like a house guest.
  
• Step 2: Understand the owners better through fostering friendships, polite conversations, and easy participation.
  
• Step 3: Speak privately with the owners about whether or not they would be open to hearing new ideas, additions, or suggestions about their house. Understanding that most people may not share your opinions or goals, about their house.
• Step 4: Acknowledge to yourself that you are free to leave their house at any time.
• Step 5: Share and behave accordingly. Even when dismissed.

About Free Speech and Guests

• Step 1: When acting as a guest on another man's website please remember that you are always entitled to your private opinion. However. The owner is also allowed to ask you leave at any time, for voicing it.
• Step 2: Do not assume that another man's house represents in it's entirety the customs, laws, or values of your religion, your culture, or your nationality. It's not your house. It's not your God.

About Skype

• Step 1: Skype is not SWRP. Skype is Skype.
• Step 2: Skype keeps logs. Logs are evidence. Skype accordingly.

About Demographics and Assumptions

• Step 1: This website enjoys members of many ages, nations, cultures, tongues, educations, customs, and values. Assume nothing. Believe less.
  
• Step 2: Talking with a 15 year old is very different from talking to a 30 year old. You will probably do both in the next 30 minutes, incorrectly.
• Step 3: Star Wars Fandom is intense. You are not prepared. Still? Wu Tang 4Life.
• Step 4: You've read enough steps buddy. This isn't a Self Help Website. Beat it okay. You've got posting to do. Remember? :p

#Not my monkeys.
#Not my circus.

 

[Prudence]

Well to be fair, none of the staff has ever taken that stance. Those were my words, and I'm kind an ass anyway. Over the years, I have asked questions of many of the admin team about different things and was always given an answer and explanation if it was appropriate. The line of communication is there...no drama needed.

Actually just yesterday when complaints were voiced in a chat an admin told us the exact same thing you did.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

If we do end up doing a feedback thread sometime in the near-future (and I agree with Boli, for what it's worth), I can tell you that Pros' ban will not be up for discussion. Our stance is that we don't discuss bans unless there's a really compelling reason for it. That's what our stance has always been.

I will address the ban here, once, and I won't be doing any follow up to it. This is just to get the info out there.

Pros is a pretty nice guy most of the time. He's funny, he's entertaining. He and I got along well for a long time. Like many of you, we had a side chat on Skype with some SWRP members, Pros included. We would do group calls there all the time.

Unfortunately, because we were friends at the time, I ignored his behavior for way too long. He is a self-admitted troll. He would do things on the site and in conversations with people just to get a reaction out of them. He did it because he thought it was funny. I thought some of those things were funny too. To be honest, I had the mindset of "he may be a troll, but he's OUR troll." If his behavior could be pointed somewhere productive, then I found it useful.

That was a mistake.

Eventually he got worse. This is where his friendship with most people in that Skype chat broke down. We always had a joke about how the Skype chat was 'exclusive.' We'd joke about how any of us could veto someone coming into it. It was a very immature and douchey type of joke, but it was a joke. Pros, unfortunately, ended up taking it way too seriously. There were some well-known and well-regarded members of the site who we added in and Pros said he didn't want to be in a chat with them. He didn't 'trust' them not to 'leak' info from the chat (as if there was anything that could have been leaked other than general conversation or chats about RPs).

So, if I'm remembering that day right (this was over a year ago now), he created a new chat without those people. The rest of us said we thought that was dumb, and we weren't going to be party to that kind of immaturity. Pros said to someone (I may be paraphrasing, I can't remember the exact words) that we were putting him into a corner. We said he was putting himself into that corner by acting this way. We ultimately said we were staying in our regular chat with those other people. He left that chat. We always said if he wanted to stop acting that way, we'd be happy to have him back in. He didn't come back, and in fact blocked a lot of us on Skype.

I was disappointed by this obviously since I always enjoyed talking to Pros, but there was no ill-will there. I say that just to make sure that this story I told doesn't come off as 'I hate Pros now because he was mean to me.'

The reason I told that story is so I could say this: when you get some distance from a person, you tend to notice things about them that you might have overlooked before. You tend to stop dismissing their bad behavior and take a more objective look at things. I was biased towards Pros (in a positive way), and because of that I didn't deal with his behavior earlier.

So that brings us to the recent ban. It was interesting to watch the reactions to it because I see in some of you who I used to be too. Overlooking problems, thinking that Pros is a great guy because he's nice and funny, etc. Trust me, I've been there. But ultimately his goal, as he has said before, is just to troll. If you think he's legitimately interested in RPing on the site, you are wrong. If you think that his profiles he posted recently are anything other than something designed to get a reaction out of people, you are wrong. I've known Pros longer than you, and I know Pros better than you.

So his ban came at the end of his posting of those profiles. I can see why you might think that a month long ban for one issue is overkill. If it was just one issue, I'd totally agree with you. But he has YEARS worth of trolling, bad behavior, warnings, disruption, etc. One ban, for all of that, is arguably lenient. It also arguably should have happened a long time ago.

I also want to echo something Nor'baal said because he made a good point: "if anyone else had been banned for doing what he did, nobody would have complained."

Bauren was also banned for a month on Friday. Not a peep out of anyone. Why? Because everyone saw his disruptive and toxic behavior. He directed it towards most people. Not to kick Bauren while he's down, but he doesn't have the same 'nice guy' thing going on that Pros does. Yet, over the years, Pros has definitely been more disruptive than Bauren has. But Pros can mask it with humor and niceness. It doesn't look as bad, but it's still disruptive and it's still a problem. Just because people are friends with a person doesn't mean that their behavior should be excused (a lesson I learned).

So that's the story of this ban. Like I said, I'm not going to address it with any additional follow up that is specific to Pros, because at the end of the day we still have our stance of not discussing bans with anyone other than banned members. But because there was enough community interest here, I at least wanted to put the facts out there so people knew where we were coming from.

 

[Proleptic]

Isn't that just life in general?



Pros was acting like an idiot, he deserved a ban, and if anyone else had been banned for doing what he did, nobody would have complained. Just because Pros likes to dominate Skype chats and distribute long winded explanations from an imagined intellectual high horse by quoting second rate authors to make him appear superior doesn't make him special.

He's a nice guy, he just needs to learn when to not troll - and that's what a ban is for.

As for oppression, it's a god damn Star Wars website, not the western free world. However I can totally see Green Ranger building some WMDs to make the membership behave.

However, that being said: Not talking about issues doesn't make them go away. Denying people the chance for feedback because that feedback might be bad, once again, doesn't help.

It's like denying an election because it won't go your way, or taxing America and not giving them a parliament because your English (bad idea that, causes all sorts of trouble).

I am not even going to pitch in on this thread at the moment, I just wanted to say that when you say Pros I totally thought you meant me and I was so confused :'P

 

[Gaiaverse]

If we do end up doing a feedback thread sometime in the near-future (and I agree with Boli, for what it's worth), I can tell you that Pros' ban will not be up for discussion. Our stance is that we don't discuss bans unless there's a really compelling reason for it. That's what our stance has always been.

I will address the ban here, once, and I won't be doing any follow up to it. This is just to get the info out there.

Pros is a pretty nice guy most of the time. He's funny, he's entertaining. He and I got along well for a long time. Like many of you, we had a side chat on Skype with some SWRP members, Pros included. We would do group calls there all the time.

Unfortunately, because we were friends at the time, I ignored his behavior for way too long. He is a self-admitted troll. He would do things on the site and in conversations with people just to get a reaction out of them. He did it because he thought it was funny. I thought some of those things were funny too. To be honest, I had the mindset of "he may be a troll, but he's OUR troll." If his behavior could be pointed somewhere productive, then I found it useful.

That was a mistake.

Eventually he got worse. This is where his friendship with most people in that Skype chat broke down. We always had a joke about how the Skype chat was 'exclusive.' We'd joke about how any of us could veto someone coming into it. It was a very immature and douchey type of joke, but it was a joke. Pros, unfortunately, ended up taking it way too seriously. There were some well-known and well-regarded members of the site who we added in and Pros said he didn't want to be in a chat with them. He didn't 'trust' them not to 'leak' info from the chat (as if there was anything that could have been leaked other than general conversation or chats about RPs).

So, if I'm remembering that day right (this was over a year ago now), he created a new chat without those people. The rest of us said we thought that was dumb, and we weren't going to be party to that kind of immaturity. Pros said to someone (I may be paraphrasing, I can't remember the exact words) that we were putting him into a corner. We said he was putting himself into that corner by acting this way. We ultimately said we were staying in our regular chat with those other people. He left that chat. We always said if he wanted to stop acting that way, we'd be happy to have him back in. He didn't come back, and in fact blocked a lot of us on Skype.

I was disappointed by this obviously since I always enjoyed talking to Pros, but there was no ill-will there. I say that just to make sure that this story I told doesn't come off as 'I hate Pros now because he was mean to me.'

The reason I told that story is so I could say this: when you get some distance from a person, you tend to notice things about them that you might have overlooked before. You tend to stop dismissing their bad behavior and take a more objective look at things. I was biased towards Pros (in a positive way), and because of that I didn't deal with his behavior earlier.

So that brings us to the recent ban. It was interesting to watch the reactions to it because I see in some of you who I used to be too. Overlooking problems, thinking that Pros is a great guy because he's nice and funny, etc. Trust me, I've been there. But ultimately his goal, as he has said before, is just to troll. If you think he's legitimately interested in RPing on the site, you are wrong. If you think that his profiles he posted recently are anything other than something designed to get a reaction out of people, you are wrong. I've known Pros longer than you, and I know Pros better than you.

So his ban came at the end of his posting of those profiles. I can see why you might think that a month long ban for one issue is overkill. If it was just one issue, I'd totally agree with you. But he has YEARS worth of trolling, bad behavior, warnings, disruption, etc. One ban, for all of that, is arguably lenient. It also arguably should have happened a long time ago.

I also want to echo something Nor'baal said because he made a good point: "if anyone else had been banned for doing what he did, nobody would have complained."

Bauren was also banned for a month on Friday. Not a peep out of anyone. Why? Because everyone saw his disruptive and toxic behavior. He directed it towards most people. Not to kick Bauren while he's down, but he doesn't have the same 'nice guy' thing going on that Pros does. Yet, over the years, Pros has definitely been more disruptive than Bauren has. But Pros can mask it with humor and niceness. It doesn't look as bad, but it's still disruptive and it's still a problem. Just because people are friends with a person doesn't mean that their behavior should be excused (a lesson I learned).

So that's the story of this ban. Like I said, I'm not going to address it with any additional follow up that is specific to Pros, because at the end of the day we still have our stance of not discussing bans with anyone other than banned members. But because there was enough community interest here, I at least wanted to put the facts out there so people knew where we were coming from.

You talk about Pros like he's a goddamn drug dealer. :p

Also, and I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that you have to get a series of recent infractions to get a ban. The amount that Pros has gotten (From what I understand) is a grand total of one.

Continuing on I have also been told that you and Pros have not talked to each other in a year. So the fact you assume Pros is trolling without any evidence (I skimmed the profile and from what I know, Pros tends to prefer writing mundane/silly characters) and say he's some manipulative sociopath is odd.

I may add that Bauren was actively being argumentative and an ass over the course of the entire timeline, and the thing he did to get a ban was warranted and the correct action. Pros posted three character profiles that were sillier then most, how is that trolling? Especially since the Sith leadership seemed ready and willing to accept him.

And again, the fact that you and the others think this is just over Pros, and his ban was not the final lighter throw into the fire, there is no greater evidence we need an admin review. I can't speak for the others, but I dislike how it seems the site is stagnating, the rules are outdated and contradict each other and that it seems the admins seem to stay in their own clique or don't RP at all (Padme and GABA are the only ones I know of). That along with the fact that the "timeline compendium" and "state of the war" thread either took a user to make it (I should know, I helped Dmitri get it started....but the thread isn't even stickied for some reason. I hope this does not come off as an insult) or don't exist, along the fact that tech and planet profiles take forever get approved, which to me means the admins in those profiles are either overworked or don't have enough time.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Also, and I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that you have to get a series of recent infractions to get a ban. The amount that Pros has gotten (From what I understand) is a grand total of one.

You do not need a series of infractions to get a ban. There's no rule about that. The infraction system is to manage punishments but it is by no means required. If you have a long time's worth of bad behavior, for example, then you might get a higher ban right off the bat.

Bauren was the same way. He also only had 1 infraction.

And again, the fact that you and the others think this is just over Pros, and his ban was not the final lighter throw into the fire, there is no greater evidence we need an admin review.

If I gave off that impression, I apologize. I only addressed the Pros issue to get it out of the way. Beyond that I was content to let others have this discussion and see where this thread leads.

I can't speak for the others, but I dislike how it seems the site is stagnating, the rules are outdated and contradict each other and that it seems the admins seem to stay in their own clique or don't RP at all (Padme and GABA are the only ones I know of). That along with the fact that the "timeline compendium" and "state of the war" thread either took a user to make it (I should know, I helped Dmitri get it started....but the thread isn't even stickied for some reason. I hope this does not come off as an insult) or don't exist, along the fact that tech and planet profiles take forever get approved, which to me means the admins in those profiles are either overworked or don't have enough time.

Gonna address this all here:

1. The rules were updated at the start of the timeline. If you think something is outdated or contradictory, by all means please send it to us so we can look.
2. Speaking only for myself, I generally don't have time to RP (I am working on a new character, though, and I'm pretty excited by the ideas). Most of my time on the site is spent running the site. Which is fine, I don't mean that in a "I feel sad about not being able to RP" type of way. I enjoy running the site.
3. You're not wrong about tech and planets and that's something we need to address.

 

[Loco]

Don't get me wrong, Pros is funny most of the time, and you always know you're in for something ridiculous when he gets started.

But, anyone trying to convince themselves or others that he's not a huge troll- possibly THE Troll of the site, nay, the interwebz... you need to sit in a corner and think about your life.

 

[Outlander]

Hmm. I think that, if someone is going to commit to running the site, they need to be a part of the community. I understand that the Admins are pulling double duty. Its not easy running and participating in an organization. Any organization really. But, the Admins NEED to be a part of this community, not just it's keepers. Its essential for them to better understand the will of that community and to be actively connected to it's members. Otherwise, we end up with this Admin bubble disconnected from the average RPr. And it's not their fault or the fault of the members. Its just an unfortunate byproduct. But it's something that I believe does need to be fixed.

 

[Proleptic]

I could go on an on about this entire thread, as is probably evidenced by my own message to Brandon, but I don't necessarily believe this is the best time and place to do it. Once the admins organize a session, in due time, we can all voice our opinions, and that should be perfectly fine :)

 

[Gaiaverse]

You do not need a series of infractions to get a ban. There's no rule about that. The infraction system is to manage punishments but it is by no means required. If you have a long time's worth of bad behavior, for example, then you might get a higher ban right off the bat.

Bauren was the same way. He also only had 1 infraction.



If I gave off that impression, I apologize. I only addressed the Pros issue to get it out of the way. Beyond that I was content to let others have this discussion and see where this thread leads.



Gonna address this all here:

1. The rules were updated at the start of the timeline. If you think something is outdated or contradictory, by all means please send it to us so we can look.
2. Speaking only for myself, I generally don't have time to RP (I am working on a new character, though, and I'm pretty excited by the ideas). Most of my time on the site is spent running the site. Which is fine, I don't mean that in a "I feel sad about not being able to RP" type of way. I enjoy running the site.
3. You're not wrong about tech and planets and that's something we need to address.

It's fine. It just seems everyone in this thread seems to this just about Pros and I wanted to make the point clear.

1. Probably have to wait until after school, that and I would like more then an hour and half or so to look for any errors in the rules.
2. I can understand it, but I still think's it an issue. I don't feel like an admin time that is disconnected to the community outside of reports and other internet bureaucracy cannot properly administrate a sight.

And for my next trick, I'm going to complain about how the one main faction rule promotes an "Us vs Them" mentality and making this RP feel small and prevents people from really RPing with eachother.

Don't get me wrong, Pros is funny most of the time, and you always know you're in for something ridiculous when he gets started.

But, anyone trying to convince themselves or others that he's not a huge troll- possibly THE Troll of the site, nay, the interwebz... you need to sit in a corner and think about your life.

It may just be because I come from nationstates (and if want to know what NS is like, read the moderation forum) but Pros doesn't come off as a troll to me. Then again, if you read NS (And that was my first forum and RP experience) you may say I just have a different experience and thought about it.

I am not even going to pitch in on this thread at the moment, I just wanted to say that when you say Pros I totally thought you meant me and I was so confused :'P

I don't know about you, but this sounds like a confession to being BLADE's puppet account to me. :P

 

[The New Guy]

Hmm. I think that, if someone is going to commit to running the site, they need to be a part of the community. I understand that the Admins are pulling double duty. Its not easy running and participating in an organization. Any organization really. But, the Admins NEED to be a part of this community, not just it's keepers. Its essential for them to better understand the will of that community and to be actively connected to it's members. Otherwise, we end up with this Admin bubble disconnected from the average RPr. And it's not their fault or the fault of the members. Its just an unfortunate byproduct. But it's something that I believe does need to be fixed.

I'm gonna echo what @Outlander said. I personally don't think that what happened to Pros needs to be discussed any further, but we do need some way to discuss the site's happenings with the admins. I've only been here for a month and I can already see that the leadership has been noticeable distant from the members. An Admin Feedback may not be needed now, in the wake of Pros ban, but it needs to happen soon.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Everyone is also welcome to PM us and talk to us at any time. We're pretty active on Skype too. We're always talking to members. So it's unfortunate that there's a disconnect but a lot of it stems from people making assumptions about admins too, and how we'll react to things. Which isn't to throw everything onto you guys, just to say that perception also plays a key factor. People who come to us and start talking to us in spite of that perception tend to come away from it surprised at how their perceptions maybe weren't entirely accurate.

I will also say that I'm a mood-based writer. As in, I generally only write when there's a strong desire to do so. And telling me I should RP more is a surefire way of making me less likely to RP. :P Because then it becomes a sense of obligation, and no one wants that for themselves.

But right now I'm in the desire to do so phase, with the new character I'm working on. So we'll see where that goes.

Probably have to wait until after school, that and I would like more then an hour and half or so to look for any errors in the rules.

Cool, take your time. No rush. Feel free to PM that to me too whenever you want, if this thread is over by then.

 

[Drorre Vesajiliac]

I will eat your Character.

 

[GABA]

I jump into RPs and everyone runs away. >.>

 

[RedneckLoves]

@Outlander @Gaiaverse @Cinereous

Do you guys honestly think that Brandon - since his confession to not having much time to RP brought this specific issue up - is not part of the community? Do you seriously, honestly think that he has no idea what's going on here, how the members feel about things, what certain issues are recurring problems, etc?

He's been running this site for more than a decade. I think it's pretty stupid to think that he doesn't care about or can't relate to or isn't part of this community just because he spends all of his free time RUNNING the site that we all love so much and thus doesn't have much time to spend DOING the FUN things that WE all get to do - RP.

As for the rest of this conversation, I am of the opinion that some - maybe most, maybe not - of the admins seem to be somewhat disconnected from the rest of the memberbase and something probably should be discussed about that. I do agree that it should definitely wait until things have calmed down about the Pros ban thing - of which I have not been involved and thus have no opinion.

If everyone's been having such extreme feelings about the admins for such a long time - like it seems a lot of people are saying - then someone should have said something about it BEFORE something like this happened - where a whole bunch of people get pissed off about a decision made and feel the need to take drastic steps such as leaving the gen swrp chat and creating hashtags and other such things. I understand that this may have just been "bringing the issue to a boiling point" but it seems that a few people have had these feelings for a long time and it doesn't make sense to me that it was never really mentioned before now.

 

[Outlander]

@Outlander @Gaiaverse @Cinereous

Do you guys honestly think that Brandon - since his confession to not having much time to RP brought this specific issue up - is not part of the community? Do you seriously, honestly think that he has no idea what's going on here, how the members feel about things, what certain issues are recurring problems, etc?

He's been running this site for more than a decade. I think it's pretty stupid to think that he doesn't care about or can't relate to or isn't part of this community just because he spends all of his free time RUNNING the site that we all love so much and thus doesn't have much time to spend DOING the FUN things that WE all get to do - RP.

As for the rest of this conversation, I am of the opinion that some - maybe most, maybe not - of the admins seem to be somewhat disconnected from the rest of the memberbase and something probably should be discussed about that. I do agree that it should definitely wait until things have calmed down about the Pros ban thing - of which I have not been involved and thus have no opinion.

If everyone's been having such extreme feelings about the admins for such a long time - like it seems a lot of people are saying - then someone should have said something about it BEFORE something like this happened - where a whole bunch of people get pissed off about a decision made and feel the need to take drastic steps such as leaving the gen swrp chat and creating hashtags and other such things. I understand that this may have just been "bringing the issue to a boiling point" but it seems that a few people have had these feelings for a long time and it doesn't make sense to me that it was never really mentioned before now.

No. I think he cares. But that doesn't have a bearing on the situation. I really don't think Brandon is a member of the community. I think he cares about it, and attempts to do what he thinks is best for the community. But he's gonna have drastically different experiences and views because he doesn't RP much. And like I said, it's not his fault. Its just a byproduct of being in his position for so long.

Also, just something I noticed:

"Drastic Steps"

"Creating Hashtags"

Just thought that was somewhat amusing.