Due to his mysterious disappearance, we have moved Razgriz out of the main Zan staff to the Contributors forum group, and his moderator powers at the Community Events/Clans sections are reduced until he resurfaces. If he does not return by the end of the month, we will be removing his mod access for that section.
Please do not send us emails or PMs begging to replace his position if this happens! We have our own staff member vetting process, but your support of us is appreciated.
Spoiler: A personal note to the community (Open)
I must also unfortunately announce that another staff member has resigned today. HeavenWraith, one of our Global Moderators, sent the staff his resignation notice this morning (as of this post). He joined his forum account into the Contributors group, and hopefully will still be around the community.
More info in this thread posted by him:
http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3926
EDIT: Update! I forgot to add this part
Due to a weird glitch in the way the Warning System works, there are going to be changes to improve it. Basically, warnings are not going to be visible to users any more, and it will change into a note taking system for the staff. The way it was before didn't actually seem to be curbing user behavior, it was admins/mods sending a PM that seemed to do the trick. Some tricky users were using the warn % to purposely monitor their warns so they could get as many infractions in without pushing it over a threshold that issues automatic punishment. This won't happen any more!
The glitch is not on the public end, so users don't have to worry about it at all. But if you're an Admin or Global Mod reading this, I'm sorry that you have been unable to see warns don't freak out I'm working on it
Concerning rumors going around, about the developers & staff, newsletter/spam emails, etc:
Before I start, please note that the Dev group & forum/irc/master/etc staff are separate teams, and they aren't obligated to do notices like above. Knowing that, we also can not take responsibility of the actions of previous staff and/or developers. Sorry if this seems disappointing for those who like to sit back and watch drama!
Knowing these things, we also do not give special treatment to ex-staff/devs with regards to them breaking the rules or harassing users, they are dealt with the same as regular users.
I'll state what I can: There may have been private staff threads/posts/discussions leaked by Zandronum's ex-staff or ex-developers before their staff group rights were formally revoked on the forums (ie. Developers can see our private staff subforum), and I am personally looking into this with the assistance of our staff & webmaster. So far, I feel I can safely say there do not appear to be any leaks of personal information or other alarming things.
I would also like to assure our users that their email addresses are secure and can not be used, sold, or stolen by third parties for advertisements. What prompted me to say this, you ask? There was a recent incident in which hundreds to thousands of users had been sent a newsletter email they had not subscribed or opted-in to, and some of these users had reported this to either admin@zandronum.com or myself directly, about their emails and personal information being misused.
Some users claimed the emails were sent directly from Zandronum, or were sent to Zandronum's forum/tracker emails. After investigating this I can assure you 100% that this was not the case. The emails were only sent to users who had a forum account on the (closed/locked since 2012) Skulltag.com forums, which was established as far back as 2003. The emails in question were basically advertisements for the Skulltag.com owner/creator's new video game.
Regarding the complaints, we are deeply sorry but unfortunately we have no control over the Skulltag.com website or domain. There is unsubscribe information in the email that was sent to users, and if you believe your personal information was/is being misused, it is advised to reply to the email and appeal for your information to be removed from their servers. Again I apologize, but there isn't much I can do other than offer this advice. Please be responsible and do not take this as an opportunity to start a feud or war.
I'd also like to let Staff, Devs, ex-Staff/Devs, etc. know that they can contact me at any time, and I will reply when I can about whatever issues that concern them, on a first come first serve basis.
If you have any questions or comments, you may post them here.