How can we be more transparent?

Old announcement of past promotion rounds and updates to Wolfhome.
User avatar
Loki
Archdruid - Spirit Caller
Archdruid - Spirit Caller
Posts: 8006
Joined: Wed Apr 18, 2012 8:31 am
Pronouns: he/him
Preferred Name: Jayden
Species: Coyote
Contact:

Pride

How can we be more transparent?

We are creating a master list of things we can be transparent on! We want your help on things you want us to be transparent on, what is most important to you. We wanted to include the community in this as we feel like transparency is an important topic to our community, although we have some suggestions from December, we wanted to continue to gather opinions. Keep in mind, that certain subjects may NOT be able to be added due to our code of conduct.

***This is just for suggestions and will not be used as a place for discussion on things that have happened previously***


Where to discuss demotion transparency: https://forum.chatlands.com/viewtopic.p ... p=629#p629

The following are things we are not able to be transparent on, keep in mind this may change or be updated and not all suggestions will be able to be made transparent:
Things we are unable to be transparent about:

- Why an admin was demoted/quit
- Proof of bans
- Identity of users
- Logs from other users
- Discussions between administration
- Warnings an admin has recieved

Below are things we have done since this topic was created:
Added COC to ALL teams applications
Underdog has removed excess accounts from administrative roles
WIP Created on "How to write a promotion"
Bias rule implemented
Community meetings

"No one bad is ever truly bad, no one good is ever truly good."

User avatar
Horiyoko
Omniscient
Omniscient
Posts: 23701
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:42 pm

If it’s possible, compile a list of stuff that staff is unwilling or unable to be transparent on?

One thing that pops into mind, personally- The administrator, EC, RT, and Town Hall CoC are all things I think should be made available to the users to see.
I personally don’t see cons to it being viewable to the userbase. (Obviously there’s the one that AA’s and new recruits to community based teams sign upon acceptance but, a copy of said handbooks could be locked and pinned for users to be able to see.) if it is something you guys feel is able to be public to the users it should also be included in the applications. I took a quick look over through the EC application for instance and I do not see it. Typically prior to signing up for things you read the TOS n such. I think the same should apply here.

If I think of more I’ll post again~

˚₊‧꒰ა ♱ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
And let's be clear
I trust no one.

𖤐︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶𖤐
User avatar
Loki
Archdruid - Spirit Caller
Archdruid - Spirit Caller
Posts: 8006
Joined: Wed Apr 18, 2012 8:31 am
Pronouns: he/him
Preferred Name: Jayden
Species: Coyote
Contact:

Pride

lanidae wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 1:38 pm
If it’s possible, compile a list of stuff that staff is unwilling or unable to be transparent on?

One thing that pops into mind, personally- The administrator, EC, RT, and Town Hall CoC are all things I think should be made available to the users to see.
I personally don’t see cons to it being viewable to the userbase. (Obviously there’s the one that AA’s and new recruits to community based teams sign upon acceptance but, a copy of said handbooks could be locked and pinned for users to be able to see.) if it is something you guys feel is able to be public to the users it should also be included in the applications. I took a quick look over through the EC application for instance and I do not see it. Typically prior to signing up for things you read the TOS n such. I think the same should apply here.

If I think of more I’ll post again~
This is a really valuable suggestion! I would personally love to get the COC added for these departments, as for a list of things we are unable to be transparent about I will get to work on that! :smile:

"No one bad is ever truly bad, no one good is ever truly good."

shifterdarkwolf
Omega - Newcomer
Omega - Newcomer
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2011 3:21 am

With regards to the CoC for any of these groups, are these terms even disclosed when people are nominated or volunteer to take on admin positions? It feels a mix of insincere and awkward to expect people to sign up/be signed up for these roles and not disclose this until after you have made a decision to bring them on or not.

While it is true that those selected to be an admin could at that time be told the CoC and choose to not accept the role at that time, but I think it puts the nominee in the awkward position of essentially admitting that something about the CoC made them withdraw. It could be something as simple as not having the time required or some part of their character that conflicts with the CoC and unless they flat out tell you why (which they should not have to) then really it would just enter the realm of speculation. For (exaggerated) example: 'Did you hear, shifterdarkwolf was offered a gamma rank but they turned it down because of the CoC. I don't know for sure, but so and so said it is because he won't treat *insert group here* fairly like everyone else.' 'Really? Because I heard he was secretly working for the FBI and he doesn't want to blow his cover!'.

Clearly it is neither of those things, but we know how the rumor mill works. If the CoC is clearly stated up front and it is something that I know doesn't jive with me, I simply won't offer my services. No explanations needed, no speculation garnered.

Beyond that, the CoC should be public info so that normal users know both what to expect from an admin (and what is wrong if it is happening) and really just a model for behavior. Admins should represent fantastic behavior and professionalism, why would you not want the everyday user to live those guidelines too?
Image
Avani
Leader of the Nerds
Leader of the Nerds
Posts: 34354
Joined: Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:05 pm

Thank you for the suggestion and explanations! The Administrator CoC is within the Application (under a spoiler), so we can definitely add the CoC to the other Applications as well so that those interested can see what they need to agree to before applying. They will be updated shortly, thank you!
Image
User avatar
Refresh
Adept Protector
Adept Protector
Posts: 1787
Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2018 4:04 am
Gender: Male
Pronouns: He/Him
Preferred Name: Izak

Pride

A great starting point is being completely honest and open with EVERY decision from the start.
Often decisions are made and nobody knows why. As an Administrator, you sometimes forget that users cannot see inside our discussions.
Just be clear why this decision was made, what it means for the community, etc.

I don't frequent the forums anymore so I'm not sure if this is still a thing.
When you have an admin meeting make bullet point notes that can be cleaned up and posted to the forums later for the community to see.
Or you can make them detailed, post logs of the team discussing a topic brought up by users and post it to the forums.
I know from first hand experience how simple this is to do, and considering the team is exceptionally larger now than it was during my time, this shouldn't be time-consuming.

We already introduced reasons why we promoted someone, but maybe just make it a little less filler and more WHY.
Stop making it as "this person is super kind!" instead, "we needed more hands on the ART team, we needed more forum mods, and this person suits this role great because of previous experience as etc etc". Especially now that the team is incredibly big for a site with such a small amount of users, which has been a point of concern since the site reopened.
If you have a large team, great, but you need to be clear why there's so many people.
Unless the CoC has been changed since December, being specific about someones purpose on the team isn't code breaking. This should be a pretty simple way to address concerns about the team being too full.

ETA: Also, could it be made public why UD needs two testing accounts at the same rank?
It caused some confusion when the site reopened. Or at least make it public knowledge that these aren't admins and are just testing accounts.
a guy. a dude. some fella. naruto enjoyer.

buy me a Ko-fi.
User avatar
Cairn
Spirit Guide - Wise Healer
Spirit Guide - Wise Healer
Posts: 3279
Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 2:38 am
Gender: gender neutral
Pronouns: She/They
Preferred Name: PK/Anne
Species: Forever Exhausted
Location: Arizona

Pride

I would like to see more transparency as someone who's been both user and (briefly) admin for chat and ART. There was definitely bias in how individuals were approached concerning things that were reported or brought up as things that need to be looked into further. There were extremely questionable things mentioned on chat [dream fantasies of literally torturing people to death and getting away with it] that were brought up but not reported that made individuals (including myself) uncomfortable concerning users. I hope stuff like that will be addressed because at the time I was not allowed to discuss it with other users because the specific user stating the uncomfortable things was not reported and a friend of different administrators. I think bias such as that needs to be addressed immediately and publicly instead of shot down in private because of friendships...
User avatar
Sylvah
Leader of the Nerds
Leader of the Nerds
Posts: 34728
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:31 pm
Gender: Female
Location: Alberta, Canada

@Refresh; first I just want to say thank you for the constructive feedback, I really liked this response in particular.

Being open and honest with each decision has been a huge goal moving forward especially with transparency as I'm sure you've seen within the last couple of months! It is for sure easy for us to make a lot of it public and keep the community involved with decisions/updates/whatever it may be and we'd like to continue to do it like this. A huge reason why this thread was made was for replies such as this and it's so lovely to see. As for bullet points for meetings, that's still huge as well and something we still use for meetings for the Administration as well as community meetings. We're actually striving to do a meeting for both here in the very near future as it has been a little while since those have been done, and we want to fix that and try to have more frequent meetings. You mentioned posting the bullet points/logs from the meetings, and we can most definitely do that! I'll be sure to mention that in our meetings thread(s) and implement that for future meetings. For promotions in particular, we do have more members on the Administration and I feel redundant saying this as you've had past Administration experience, but I'll say it for clarification purposes for those who aren't aware - that the more hands on deck for us lessens the overall workload in departments, chat activity (as some are on at different time zones), and spreading the workload for behind the scenes Administration work. We also have the WIP thread for what we are working on for the community to see as well, which we strive to update all the time when projects are starting/in progress/completed! But yes, I do agree with you and appreciate you saying we need to have more of a why in our promotions instead of generic compliments of said individual. That will definitely be noted and used!

As for UD having testing accounts, I have spoke to him about this and can definitely address it here. I can understand 100% why this would cause confusion for users, seeing accounts that have Administration privileges', but not officially listed on the Administration Team. I would have some questions myself, and it's a justified question. It was mentioned that having testing accounts is necessary for testing certain permissions, actions, etc for certain ranks of the Administration. He mentioned he will be removing the unnecessary ones that he no longer requires, they were just never removed after using them for whatever was being tested at the time. They will be removed when not required, and can always make new ones and remove once finished testing. I think that would help a lot and clear up confusion so the testing accounts aren't active 24/7. UD also mentioned that he was testing inter-administration business, and just never got around to removing the accounts. I hope that clears up your question with the testing accounts, and ones that are not currently being used for testing will be removed!

Thank you again for the lovely reply. Let us know if you have anymore suggestions or would like more clarification on anything else in regards to the above!
Cheers
Co-Owner & Alpha of Olympus
Come check it out & join our community Discord today!

checkout my ➛ art thread, commissions, & colouring services
view my ➛ links & important information
trello ➛ to-do list commissions
Prior Wolfhome Alpha

17.7.18 | 8.11.19
User avatar
Miu
Ethereal Ancestor
Ethereal Ancestor
Posts: 11692
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2007 5:00 am
Gender: Female
Pronouns: She/Her
Preferred Name: Koinu
Species: "Me-uri"/Fox
Location: Chattanooga, TN
Contact:

Pride

Cairn wrote:
Tue Jul 05, 2022 2:08 pm
I would like to see more transparency as someone who's been both user and (briefly) admin for chat and ART. There was definitely bias in how individuals were approached concerning things that were reported or brought up as things that need to be looked into further. There were extremely questionable things mentioned on chat [dream fantasies of literally torturing people to death and getting away with it] that were brought up but not reported that made individuals (including myself) uncomfortable concerning users. I hope stuff like that will be addressed because at the time I was not allowed to discuss it with other users because the specific user stating the uncomfortable things was not reported and a friend of different administrators. I think bias such as that needs to be addressed immediately and publicly instead of shot down in private because of friendships...

I wanted to touch on this -- if you feel at all that anything is ever handled unfairly while we cannot release other users' information to you we do want to hear your concerns.
I am not urging you to contact me but please know that if there are ever any concerns, whether it be over a poses, art, or any concerns - don't be shy to voice them. Part of what we are wanting to work on is rebuilding a relationship with the community and we are buckling down and trying to make lists to see what we can do. We are updating things that are out of date (and again for transparency, this is just some organiznig of faqs or updating things that are grossly outdated. I am personally working on rewording the NGs because who uses photobucket?)

Either way, I wanted this to be acknowledged. My inbox is always open to any concern. If I am not someone you want to reach out to, I don't want to speak on behalf of anyone ever, but in this instance *our* inboxes are open.



---

As a side note, I genuinely love these suggestions. I really do hope there are more. These are so valuable and insightful.
Image
☆ Previously known as Siren ☆
Characters
User avatar
Loki
Archdruid - Spirit Caller
Archdruid - Spirit Caller
Posts: 8006
Joined: Wed Apr 18, 2012 8:31 am
Pronouns: he/him
Preferred Name: Jayden
Species: Coyote
Contact:

Pride

The original post has been updated to reflect on what we are NOT able to be transparent on, this may change and things may be added if deemed to be too transparent. I have also added things we have completed since this topic has been created.

"No one bad is ever truly bad, no one good is ever truly good."

User avatar
Sylvah
Leader of the Nerds
Leader of the Nerds
Posts: 34728
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:31 pm
Gender: Female
Location: Alberta, Canada

@Cairn; I can assure you bias of any sort is not tolerated by those who are close to each other if that is the case. We have regulations in place for that in our CoC, that I can quote below for your viewing. The CoC is available to all to see, as well! Situations like that could have very well happened prior, and we now have a zero tolerance for anything like that & should not have to be a worry for any member of our community and rightfully so. We can also look into adding additional rules if those in place do not comfort anybody, we're always open to suggestions for these kinds of things. After all, the community is what keeps our platform strong!

Specifically on Bias:
Professional Mannerism

Administrators are encouraged to openly communicate and maintain not only a professional persona to the user base, but to show our "real selves" so to speak as well. We do not want to give off the impression that we are simply robots who only exist to enforce the Rules. However, there is, in fact, a time and place to joke given the situation and location. We strongly encourage our Admins to have fun and joke (including mild/minor swearing) in Public Rooms so long as you both use common sense and respect the Chat Rules. Administrators are held to a higher standard than the general user base, so that should be reflected even when letting loose. When it comes to handling a report, you absolutely MUST remain professional and unbiased regardless of time, place, or user in question.
Cairn, I want to thank you for this post because as it stands we are not happy with what's currently in there for bias as it's very minimal and clearly has not been updated to reflect our current thoughts about bias on the Administration and a topic is currently being made to emphasize on updating a section specifically for bias on the Administration in general as well as for reports like you had mentioned. We appreciate you!

Our current Administration CoC can be viewed in our Wolfhome Administrator Applications here if anyone wishes to go through it!
Co-Owner & Alpha of Olympus
Come check it out & join our community Discord today!

checkout my ➛ art thread, commissions, & colouring services
view my ➛ links & important information
trello ➛ to-do list commissions
Prior Wolfhome Alpha

17.7.18 | 8.11.19
User avatar
Horiyoko
Omniscient
Omniscient
Posts: 23701
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:42 pm

Thank you guys for being receptive and responsive to the suggestions being made.
I also appreciate how swiftly the suggestions mentioned so far have been heard and what could be done has been or started.
It's definitely a step in the right direction and I hope it continues to go that way.

That aside, I still don't really have any off the top of my head since I barely frequent the chat or even forums much anymore.
If something does come to mind I'll be sure to make another suggestion~

˚₊‧꒰ა ♱ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
And let's be clear
I trust no one.

𖤐︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶𖤐
User avatar
Sylvah
Leader of the Nerds
Leader of the Nerds
Posts: 34728
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:31 pm
Gender: Female
Location: Alberta, Canada

@lanidae; can't express how huge that is to hear, and how much the Administration appreciates this reply. Thanks a million.
Co-Owner & Alpha of Olympus
Come check it out & join our community Discord today!

checkout my ➛ art thread, commissions, & colouring services
view my ➛ links & important information
trello ➛ to-do list commissions
Prior Wolfhome Alpha

17.7.18 | 8.11.19
User avatar
Refresh
Adept Protector
Adept Protector
Posts: 1787
Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2018 4:04 am
Gender: Male
Pronouns: He/Him
Preferred Name: Izak

Pride

@Sylvah No problem.

I am just curious though, and this can be taken to another thread if need be, but why can't you be transparent on this?
Totem wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:51 am

Things we are unable to be transparent about:

- Why an admin was demoted/quit
I think we're all aware of how this in particular caused a lot of problems not too long ago.
From someone with first hand experience, I can say with confidence that, if UD had been transparent like I requested, we could've very easily avoided the entire shutdown and made steady progress to repairing the relationship between the administration and userbase.
I don't think users should know why an admin stepped down by themselves because that is personal, but if they were demoted I think it's very important that users know why.
People are going to have questions. Making a decision like that and then expecting people not to ask about it is pretty naive.
Giving a brief explanation seems like a reasonable way to avoid confusion. It doesn't have to be super detailed either, just so and so broke this part of the CoC and has been demoted. It shouldn't feel like naming and shaming - actions have consquences - and it shows your community that you are capable and willing to hold administrators accountable.

Really, this just feels like a step backwards. It feels like you're protecting admins who break the CoC - which didn't seem to be the case six months ago. It widens the gap between user - admin trust.
If this has been implemented, and like mentioned before I do not frequent the forums as much anymore so I could be wrong, there should really be a post stating this.
a guy. a dude. some fella. naruto enjoyer.

buy me a Ko-fi.
cicada
ginger dog
ginger dog
Posts: 43317
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 2:28 pm
Gender: female
Pronouns: she/her
Location: nc

@Refresh it hasn’t been implemented since it just happened recently with no explanation to those other than whoever made reports.


People are going to talk if a previous administrator does wrong by a user or the community, might as well lay it out up front so it doesn’t get blown out of proportion.
no longer active. please contact me on discord @cicadajo for any art-related enquiries
Locked Previous topicNext topic