Critique the staff - Who has the most room for improvement?

I can only vote for five?!?!?!

This seems like a cheap popularity contest. Who are we to judge them and say they need to improve? I think this thread demonstrates more the fact that there are way too many staff then who needs to improve the most.

The weaknesses I see in staff are 1) Poor communication with players 2) lack of accountability 3) Inconsistency

I'm stealing this quote from Steven Covey but I think it's applicable and that is "First seek to understand and then seek to be understood." Players don't feel understood. This is apparent in Euronymous's post saying there is no player/staff divide. The idea of a divide is dismissed before it's been looked into. If the players say there is a divide and the staff doesn't understand, then staff aren't understanding the players. Staff need to consider players concerns and regardless of if they are valid or not, the players can't come away feeling invalidated or that's a loss for the community. When player concerns are validated staff needs address them with mensurable action or rise losing credibility.

There's another phrase, "Familiarity breeds contempt". When dealing with people it's easy to forget to be polite and offer the proper respect, this is true both for players and staff. One problem here is that staff are the authority so they set the tone and the standard. When staff are polite and rational, players respond in kind. When staff go on rants on the GDB and in private correspondence (the request tool), this becomes a problem. The GDB is provided as a courtesy to the players, it'd make sense to be courtesy when posting on it. If players need to post a rant, that's what these boards are for. If staff want to post a rant, they should post it somewhere players can't read it.

Nyr often posts on the GDB that complaints about staff should be sent through the request tool. If the complaint is about a senior staff member, and that person resolves the request, there's no real point. While these boards seem like a good way to publicly shame misbehavior by staff, but it's needlessly ugly airing dirty laundry in public.

So Adhira... I find her presence in the game mysteriously absent. But not only her, there's a high turnover rate for game staff. Staff would benefit greatly be identifying why staff burn out and fade away and phase out those aspects of the staffing role. If senior staff aren't actively participating, someone should be stepping up to fill that role to ensure players that someone is at the helm, informing players of where the game is and where it's headed.

Fair enough. I just don't think I am personally qualified to look at some internet personality of some random person who types on a forum and say anything about them.

People just need to be decent to each other more than anything.

The problem is a lot of people here probably have limited exposure to most staff. I know I can't speak about anyone on staff right now because I have no experience at all within the past few years. I've had some characters, sure, but I played anonymously and avoided staff like the plague.

QFT.

I think most people have said everything that needs to be said about Nyr/Nessalin. So let me comment on someone else. Ever since Talia began posting I've had this sneaking suspicion she was Gimfalisette.

Now I am sure that both Gimfalisette and Talia are generally nice people in person. However, back in the copper wars when everyone was complaining about how little information got to the masse. During this time Gimfalisette argued otherwise, because staff had shared information with her character. She never realized that this was a problem back then, that staff only involved people they liked in their plots. This was something everyone was complaining about but not her, she was busy kissing staff ass. There is something about her characters and the way she posts that really outs her, I could always figure out who she was playing before she went and admitted it for example.

The problem with Gimfalisette is that she comes off as pompus know it all, who doesn't consider the fact that just maybe she doesn't really know jack shit about what the fuck she is talking about and is completely fucking wrong. More so than that, she has always been a cheerleader, who kissed the ass of the staff and stepped on the concerns of other players. And thats the same feeling I get from Talia. She comes off nice and helpful, until you criticize her or staff, then she loses her cool and gets all huffy about it. She just doesn't realize that she could be very wrong, and that the rest of the staff can be fucktards. I don't know if they are the same person but I'd be surprised if they weren't.

Again not bad people, but probably better for the game that both of them are gone for a while.