Zandronum

Due to Razgriz recently going absent without leave, and a number of other staff members either being too busy or retiring (ie Cyber), and the recent restructuring of the Developers team, I have decided to update the Zandronum Staff team structure again. We may also reform our staff & transparency procedures soon, due to recent events which you can read about in the bottom half of this post.

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)

We have seen a number of staff members either resign or unfortunately have to leave the staff for numerous reasons, sometimes long-time members of the community. For example, our previous administrators during Zandronum's existence: Cyber, Dark-Assassin, Wartorn, and Zap610. I could list more staff names and positions, but I'll just link to our credits page instead: http://zandronum.com/credits
I'm kind of rambling a bit here, but it's always sad to see people leave, or sometimes even mysteriously vanish, and it makes me worried each time. We've had a lot of people over the history of Zandronum, and its code's previous history as Skulltag. A lot of people have grown up, gone to college, or gone on to make commercial games. I'm hoping that Razgriz hasn't vanished and is just busy with the duties of life. Sorry again for rambling, but each time this has happened in the staff I have never had a chance to actually put out anything publicly, and am basically venting here now.

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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

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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

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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.

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If you have any questions or comments, you may post them here.

No more Raz? Awww, no more big, italic, brightly colored text posts. :/


Also, what was in the emails? I didn't get anything.

These are indeed sad news, I just hope things will run without too much of a problem. If the numbers continue to dwindle you just have to look at the bright side, having a totally new guy or two in adminstration could be interesting!

About the newsletters:
I have not been informed that any spam like that have been sent to my familys mailbox from zandronums mail adress, if so then my dad would have notified me. (useless information, I know, but I wanted to help clear out that zandronum do not sell information.)

Just so you know, the "newsletters" were via email, and not through physical mail.

The emails in question were basically advertisements for the Skulltag.com owner/creator's new video game. I have added this info to the OP

Hope this clears things up.

Oddly enough, I got the said emails sorta late. But eh.. I just went to the bottom of the email and hit on Unsubscribe link. However, it said it was going to send me one more Email, which never did make it.

Anyhow, I don't know Razgriz that well, or was even aware of how well he did as a mod. But hey, people have RL stuff to get to. I hope that if you are going to bring some new people in as Admins or such, that they will keep up to date, and not slack around.

Updated the OP with a new announcement, and made a public forum-wide news announcement with updated information & a link to this thread.

http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3922

GL

my warning meter seems to be gone anyhow.

Also kinda off-topic: Someone's warning meter just went from 80% to 0% (not me).

Mine is gone too ... Huh ... I was at 30% before ...

... I spent about an hour getting together all the stuff to announce and I forgot to announce the warning system changes. Oops!

I'll get that into the OP


EDIT: vvvv Basically, yes. I have been discussing how to improve the warn system with a few people, and will make another post in the future once things are confirmed and set in stone

Yee I was going to make a topic to see if others got ads about wrack.. But the sender was clearly marked as brad carney so its kinda obvious it got sent to ppl who had skulltag accounts.

Best of luck to all ex-admins.. Hope they find time to stalk this place from time to time ;)

Razgriz being demoted is understandable, he has been extremely busy as of late.

If the people tracked the % of warnings, can't they just assume what it was before? Like if 5 was the amount to get 80%, can't they just do 5 dumb shit posts to get to 80%, then wait for a month, post more?

Oh would you please shut up about these stupid retirement/leaving threads that all of you are having... do any one of us really care if you're leaving? No. you're all replaceable, no one will remember you in five years so make making this as some sort of farewell show where at the end everyone get's milk and cookies, a hug and a happy goodbye. Fuck you and your cookies. This damn community is plagued with the curse of having some self-importance ego that you guys seem to warrant for no fucking reason.

Please, don't put yourself over, you're never gonna win me over and either when you have new users, they won't too. Sure, they will because you're gonna banned them if they stop treating you have you guys have big black balls. Well guess what, just because you painted your balls black doesn't mean you have balls of a black man.

Like really, the people who made goodbye threads are people who did barely anything on this damn community, nothing but mouth breathing title holders who takes up space for people who want to engage into this community. Do you really want me to sympathize that you have real life problems or just end up not caring about the community altogether, please, give me a fucking break.... my heart is dying.

I can't believe this.... I really can't.... this is just sad. I've been here since 2005 and I've learn that all of you are just sad pieces of shit and you know what, I am a sad piece of shit but at least I have that self-awareness, that self-awareness that makes me understand that is around me and all I see is that everyone is a scummy pieces of shit but different flavours.

When I see people that I thought could save this port gets treated like shit because they're trying to be themselves; That part makes me sad. People that has high hopes are being shunned because they said something defamatory or they just didn't like it. Please, you guys haven't learn a thing since the reboot. Might as well just go and behead anyone who has any good ideas and can put it to work.

God I hate this administration now, it's all emotionless and litteral.... It's like you guys are not learning that we need breathing room to make this work. There isn't any lax rules to people; unless they're favourited within the administration where someone who isn't favourited just seems to get metal rule whereas that loveable person get's a slap on the risk. Please, it's tiring and we get it.

Seriously, WE GET IT... you like to be fair and transparent... but I'm not really seeing that now am I? Are you seriously gonna take anyone of you serious when you have private forums and irc channels to shit talk about anything you want, please how unprofessional of you guys. Please shit talk all you want, I just expect to see it in a public forums because you know, we're all human...


Oh and one last thing, fuck you all of you, you'll never achieved such administration enlightenment.

Reach Term wrote: :words:

Oh, look who unsuspended. The fact that threads like these appear is because they want the community to stay up to date. Who said we cant care about people we know over the internet?

Mr.Man wrote:

Reach Term wrote: :words:

Oh, look who unsuspended. The fact that threads like these appear is because they want the community to stay up to date. Who said we cant care about people we know over the internet?

Get fucked, you're more pathetic than I ever achieved.

Bit harsh?

Reach Term wrote: Another post that claims the staff are biased, soul-less, ban machines

You seem upset.

Ladies and gentlemen, one of the soul reasons behind why we're changing the warn system! :allears:

Ok I'll make a non-sarcastic reply to this.

Reach Term wrote: Seriously, WE GET IT... you like to be fair and transparent... but I'm not really seeing that now am I? Are you seriously gonna take anyone of you serious when you have private forums and irc channels to shit talk about anything you want, please how unprofessional of you guys. Please shit talk all you want, I just expect to see it in a public forums because you know, we're all human...


Oh and one last thing, fuck you all of you, you'll never achieved such administration enlightenment.

You want it? You got it.
EDIT: Here's some transparency for you guys: "Reach Term" = "Mr. Cheater"

Reach Term wrote: Oh would you please shut up about these stupid retirement/leaving threads that all of you are having... do any one of us really care if you're leaving?
[...]
Like really, the people who made goodbye threads are people who did barely anything on this damn community, nothing but mouth breathing title holders who takes up space for people who want to engage into this community. Do you really want me to sympathize that you have real life problems or just end up not caring about the community altogether, please, give me a fucking break.... my heart is dying.

"The fuck all thread" posted by you: http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=2015

Spoiler: Quote from that thread (Open)

Reach Term wrote:Also I am tired of how that two groups/faction, no rather, tribes goes to war for immature reasoning and who has the bigger cock. I don't need this community and it looks like it doesn't need me. Fuck you. Report me, ban me... I just don't give a flying shit anymore.

Reach Term wrote: I can't believe this.... I really can't.... this is just sad. I've been here since 2005 and I've learn that all of you are just sad pieces of shit and you know what, I am a sad piece of shit but at least I have that self-awareness, that self-awareness that makes me understand that is around me and all I see is that everyone is a scummy pieces of shit but different flavours.

You are pretty much the sole reason why Skulltag (EDIT: and any group from ST's community) was/were banned from not just one IRC network, but TWO IRC networks, both Freenode, and OFTC. Your repeated harassment and blatantly offensive attitude towards the community and staff is why you are a scorned outcast.
Just because you have an unresolved persecution complex doesn't mean the administration or some manner of shadow conspiracy is out to get you. I have talked to you about this COUNTLESS times, even before I became an administrator.
I have done my best to tell the community and those who are punished that if they have any issues or concerns, they can bring it up on these forums, in PM, or via the emails on our contact page.

I have heard nothing but complaints about how we have private forums and staff channels on IRC, and endless allegations about how this means we are secretly conspiring against the community. Why is this the case with Zandronum? From what I've heard of ZDaemon, they have NO secrecy other than their banlists & source code. Kilgore is very public and transparent about his attitudes towards people he both does and does not like, yet he is one of the most ridiculed and controversial figures in the Doom community to this date.

Why is it that a port like ZDaemon for example can publicly ridicule and shame users, ban them for political reasons or even because of long-held personal grudges, but here at Zandronum, somehow us having private staff discussion areas makes us evil and secretive about everything that ever happens? I am almost tempted to make all of our private staff areas public just so you can see what really goes on there (Spoiler: When people have allegations against other players and we have no clue if it's true or not, what do you think ends up happening if it's proven to not be true? Oh wait, then it's too late, because the community drama-hounds like Reach Term/Mr. Cheater already ate it all up and use that info to defame and harass users non stop. Big surprise! )

Reach Term wrote: fuck you all of you

Man being socially awkward must suck :(