Staff Feedback: Brandon Rhea

[Brandon Rhea]

The nice thing about the feedback you give me now is that I'm paying for a significant chunk of the site.

So all you ****ers can suck it.

 

[Jiang Winters]

The nice thing about the feedback you give me now is that I'm paying for a significant chunk of the site.

So all you ****ers can suck it.

But I don't want to suck it. :CCry2

 

[Lucid]

you might pay for it, but it's hassan and myself with SSH...

beware:

sudo rm -rf

<insert mad cackling>

 

[Ru the Boatswain]

The nice thing about the feedback you give me now is that I'm paying for a significant chunk of the site.

So all you ****ers can suck it.

He's lying, it's all me and my minimum wage job.

 

[Emma Lou]

He made my Dark Jedi the High Lady of the Temple...I can't complain!




OH WAIT! I CAN! *glares* You know what I am talking about, Mr. Rhea! :CIsee

 

[Phil]

(Insert saying here that is too mature for this website)

Nah, just kidding. I love and hate Baccster to no end. Sometimes he is making me laugh, sometimes he wows me, sometimes he makes me want to strangle him with a (CENSORED) from a fat man as I (CENSORED) out of a window while he (CENSORED).

But that's what makes a human being, just add some destruction and greed and we are all happy.

 

[SerCue]

you might pay for it, but it's hassan and myself with SSH...

beware:

sudo rm -rf

<insert mad cackling>

...

You do realize that most distributions of 'rm' expect a file argument after the options, correct? The command you've typed would do absolutely... nothing... on most standard linux installs. Typically, the reaper command is written thusly:

rm -rf /

Which explicitly declares a recursive force deletion from the root directory.


If you're going to butt in on everyone else's good natured joking with technical jokes just to make yourself feel superior, at least have the common ****ing courtesy to ensure you use proper command syntax.

Otherwise you look like an arrogant, idiot-child asshole, instead of just an arrogant asshole.

 

[Will]

The nice thing about the feedback you give me now is that I'm paying for a significant chunk of the site.

So all you ****ers can suck it.

I'll suck what I want!

And this is one of the instances where my sucking of it is not forthcoming, good sir!

 

[Santoro]

...

Let's all chill out, huh?

 

[Gambler]

Otherwise you look like an arrogant, idiot-child asshole, instead of just an arrogant asshole.

lulz, and you don't?

But yeeeeaaaah, Baccie boy does a good job here. He sits at the top of the monkey bars and pushes all of the other kiddies off when they come too close.

 

[Ser Yorick]

Feedback? Such a wonderful idea. I daresay I've never participated in one of these threads, so I believe I'll throw in my $.02. After all, this is my first opportunity to participate!

So, to the topic at hand: Brandon Rhea.

Brandon Rhea is, undoubtedly, an individual that has been instrumental to this site's success. His dedication to the site and concern for the wellbeing of the community are both readily apparent from even a cursory glance over this forum. His activity is something that seems... trite... to comment about. Not trite for any bad reason, but trite because a leader as dedicated as Rhea is never difficult to find when you need him. He's present virtually daily to address any concerns members may have, waste time in the OOC section, or hammer out a well-written RP. A good leader need not always be present to be effective, yet Rhea effectively appears to be always present.

Brandon Rhea's leaderships style is something that is often searched for in an internet community – a style born not of ambition, power, and control, but a style stemming from honest concern for the community as a whole. He leads not like a trained politician - searching for benefits, favours, and influence - but as a charismatic guide, pushing forward with the betterment of the community in mind. This style of leading is not without caveats, however, but only one of those bears mention. More on that later.

His effectiveness as a leader is directly related to his leadership style, I believe. Rhea is exactly the type of leader most communities thrive under, and this site is no exception. As a result of this, most (if not all) serious members of this site consider him an individual worth trusting. George MacDonald once said “To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.” Comments about faggotry aside, I think Rhea has earned this compliment, and most members appear to agree with me. His word carries the weight of respect and trust among the members, and that results in an environment that promotes the growth of both the community and its members.

Brandon Rhea's relationship with the members of this site is something that is so rare to find on an internet forum with open registration – that of respect. Anonymity frees people to loose their vindictive, bitchy sides, yet Rhea has managed to cultivate a mutual tone of respect among most members and most staff. The community fights within itself, sure, most communities do. But underneath the fighting (for the most part) is a layer of camaraderie and respect that keeps the real members and staff connected.

Overall, I have few complaints about Brandon Rhea. Indeed, his name is on the rather short list of admins I can truthfully say I respect. That's not to say I support his every decision, but I respect what he's been able to do (and continues to do) for this community. Many of the staff here would do well to take a page (or chapter) out of his book.

Warm gushy stuff aside, note I said few complaints about Brandon Rhea. Indeed, the one complaint that comes to mind is related to a caveat of his leadership style mentioned previously. While he strives to act in the best interest of the community, a good leader must also remember that a community is made up of individuals. Occasionally, a leader must make difficult decisions regarding these individuals and the community as a whole.

Say, for example, that a member of this community makes a silly mistake. A foolish mistake. Let's call him Mal. Mal the Member. Most members of the community are not aware of this mistake, but say one member notices Mal's mistake. Say this other member (call him Mao) decides to poke a little fun at Mal. This could, conceivably, injure Mal's pride. If all Mao does is injure the pride of the Mal, no harm is really done. Mao was pointing out Mal's mistake in a tongue-in-cheek manner. No real harm done, but shocking enough to suggest the ghost of what could have happened if Mal was less careful.

Say also, that Mao carefully read through all posted rules of the forum to ensure that he didn't cross a defined line. Indeed, even say that Mao would have stopped if Mal would have made it clear he was freaked out and seriously asked Mao to stop.

A leader, then, would have to decide what to do. Should Mao be punished? His intention was never to cause serious trouble (indeed, say Mao didn't cause any trouble at all), and Mao had made sure he wasn't violating any previously stated rules. What seems an appropriate course of action? A leader could tell Mal to suck it up, or a leader could punish Mao in order to make Mal feel better.

Say our esteemed leader decides to punish Mao. This is certainly not an unforeseen consequence, Mao had to be aware that his actions could cause some unrest. What then, is an appropriate punishment for Mao? A warning that he should stop and never do this again seems... appropriate, as Mao made sure he wasn't breaking any rules. The rules then, should be modified to prevent this from happening in the first place. After all, Mao wasn't setting out to break rules, he was just poking at Mal.

Say then, that the leader decides to remove Mao from the community. Permanently. No warning given, no second chance. Permaban. This seems excessive, no? Mao broke no rules, and if he had been asked to stop by either Mal or anyone in charge, he surely would have. After all, Mao wasn't being destructive, just a little snarky. One could perhaps forgive the leader for making such a rash decision in the heat of the moment, but say when Mao tried to appeal his case later, he was summarily ignored.

This seems rather unfair to Mao, does it not? Complete removal from the community simply because another member's pride was injured.

I would draw your attention to the following thread: http://www.thestarwarsrp.com/forum/showthread.php?p=536431

In this thread, Mal is Lanx and Mao is Uscere.

The caveat of his leadership style, the whole point of this elaborate story, is the following post by our esteemed Brandon Rhea:



The first part: “Fair warning...” sounds promising. A warning that this behaviour is not tolerated is graciously accepted. I, being Uscere, can say that I would have stopped immediately and issued my most sincere apologies had I been warned or stopped. But, instead of sticking to his “fair warning”, Brandon Rhea goes on to assault my character, even going so far as to suppose he is capable of saying what I was thinking. He finishes by contradicting his first two words, and in a display that is anything but a fair warning, permanently bans Uscere from this community.

One can hardly consider the offended members active any more.

All I seek is the ban lifted.

Overall Rating: 9/10.

You are a terrible troll.

 

[Horizon]

You are a terrible troll.

I applied the "Too long did not read" rule.

 

[Ser Yorick]

I applied the "Too long did not read" rule.

I skimmed most of it.

 

[Lucid]

...

You do realize that most distributions of 'rm' expect a file argument after the options, correct? The command you've typed would do absolutely... nothing... on most standard linux installs. Typically, the reaper command is written thusly:

rm -rf /

Which explicitly declares a recursive force deletion from the root directory.


If you're going to butt in on everyone else's good natured joking with technical jokes just to make yourself feel superior, at least have the common ****ing courtesy to ensure you use proper command syntax.

Otherwise you look like an arrogant, idiot-child asshole, instead of just an arrogant asshole.

you entertain me. there is no such thing as a distribution of "rm". It's just a bash command. Also, the joke doesn't have to be technically correct to get the point across. I also seriously doubt you know more about linux distributions than I do.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

This conversation doesn't need to go any further. Let's let that be the last post about it.

 

[Lucid]

i just noticed that he'd been banned. 'scuse.

 

[Flame]

What a terrible off topic thread. A mod should lock this. Oh wait........

 

[Lucid]

spam spam spam spam!

lol, actually this was one of the things I was trying to suggest to Bac and that's curtailing the amount of spam in random threads. I think there should be a bit more attention paid to keeping stuff on topic and/or splitting threads if they start to develop discussion in a different direction.

 

[Tsar Fire]

spam spam spam spam!

lol, actually this was one of the things I was trying to suggest to Bac and that's curtailing the amount of spam in random threads. I think there should be a bit more attention paid to keeping stuff on topic and/or splitting threads if they start to develop discussion in a different direction.

We'd have so many tangent threads, we'd never keep track. It's just how things are here :CHappy.

 

[Ser Yorick]

spam spam spam spam!

lol, actually this was one of the things I was trying to suggest to Bac and that's curtailing the amount of spam in random threads. I think there should be a bit more attention paid to keeping stuff on topic and/or splitting threads if they start to develop discussion in a different direction.

I think we do fine when it comes to spam. We've been at this for more than half a decade now, and you're still new to the site, so perhaps you haven't quite gotten how we do things around here. Maybe you should be like Hassan and just stick to the technical stuff, leaving the moderating to the other admins. No offence, but yeah.

Bac, you get a 9/10 from me. Still too much of a politician to get a perfect score.