Aerineth(OD)

Your response towards the hypothetical situation # 1 concerns me. Not everyone who is denied re-entry is just going to accept a 'whisper me to resolve this'. More often than not, they can get pretty upset, and most people aren't going to do this over chat. In turn, they'll do it verbally in a channel (in Teamspeak and out loud), disrupting the entire channel. Being approachable isn't the only reason you want to be able to have a literal voice. Being too heavily reliant on text can hinder your ability to address issues immediately as they arise, as they require you to pause what you're doing and type out a response, that is probably not going to be read immediately, if at all. Which leaves the situation to fester and deteriorate further. While you approach it in a way that works best for you, I'm not sure it's the most efficient. I would strongly recommend having the option to speak verbally to address these concerns. Not everyone uses voice chat. And there's nothing wrong with that. We've had Generals in the past who primarily have used text chatting to get by, but had the ability to speak verbally if a situation arose that called for it. I'm not sure if it's your preference to just use text, if you're shy, or you don't want other people to hear your voice, but I would again recommend considering pursuing this path. Your other answers are acceptable though. When you address a situation it doesn't matter who the individuals are. You must always handle issues objectively and confidently. One of the absolute hardest things, will be to address a problem that ultimately has you punish someone you consider a friend. And it is at that time that you must rise to do the responsibility expected of you. When you're in a position of responsibility and power, you can't be biased. I think overall, you have the gist of it. And unless it's already happened to you, it'll be put to the test when that day finally happens. Most if not all of us have already had to do this once. As a bonus question, if you would humor me, you mentioned you did have experience administrating forums and being a moderator. What forum software have you used? They're all slightly different so I'm just curious what you've already worked with. Putting aside my concern, I feel at least comfortable enough to give you a shot at Brigadier General. Diablo 3 does need a General at this time. Take what I said to heart and at least consider the option. I vote for you to be promoted to Brigadier General. Best of luck.

Second question post: Why should we promote you to Brigadier General, and why do you want to be promoted? Do you have experience with moderating and/or administrating a forum? I have a couple of hypothetical situations that I'd like to see your take and how you would resolve the issue. These are mainly because I've never worked with you and would like to see your methods of problem solving and solution methods. 1st: (A Diablo 2 specific question that can pertain to any complicated re-enablement) A member returns 2 weeks after being disabled for botting. They ask you to be re-enabled. All evidence suggests that he hasn't stopped botting in the time span that he was disabled, and has no intention to stop botting. Lets just say your answer is no. And this entirely transpires in a private message on Teamspeak. This member becomes upset you won't re-enable him and starts verbally (disrupting the channel) talking about how he should be re-enabled and that it's bullshit. He's become oblivous to any text method you send to him. What are your steps to de-escalate and handle the issue? 2nd: Say you have two friends that have broken rules, either different rules or the same. Another member who is just in the community reports them to you. What do you do? Does your action change if the person who reported the infraction happen to be someone who you don't like or likes to 'stir the pot'? 3rd: Building off the second question, say only one of those friends is botting or breaking a rule. Someone else in the community you don't regularly speak to reports the infraction to you. How do you handle the situation? Does it matter that it is your friend who broke the rule? Lastly, a regular question. Where do you envision OD in 5 years? 10 years?

Do you think this will put you at a disadvantage when it come to Generals meetings as none of us type currently (unless we are voting) and don't use the tilde in our after meetings or evaluation meetings? What skills outside of gaming related can you contribute to the Leadership and members of this community? A lot of what you've mentioned is gaming related so far. Of the current leadership team, is there anyone you have problems with, or forsee potential issues with? If so, please explain who and why. (Please be candid)

Updated both JR and Drewg.

You're definitely going to have to resize it or find a new signature. It's much to large and violates the signature rules. The limit on signatures is 650 wide x 250 tall based on a vote held at the end of last year. On another note though, welcome back! Glad to see you've returned.

Long time no see. You probably don't remember me as we didn't interact much. Glad to see you stopped in and felt some nostalgia. You could always rejoin :P

I don't have a lot of time to type a usual post, but if I had to pick my worst issue in the recent months, I'd say it'd have to be my lack of just.. being here the past year. Some due to health issues, some due to work, and others due to real life stuff. As I went up through the ranks, I prided myself on always being here, and being available to people. I know it's not really something like some of the other people m ay have to share, but I feel like to me that's a let down to the community. Regardless, I have been around to help with questions or help with decisions in the community. I think that it's hard to say if it in and of itself hurt the community, but I can't say it's helped the community either. But I can say, that my health has started to slowly recover, and as a result, my activity has picked up (as some of you have noticed recently) and I look forward to continue to be here in the full capacity that I was when I was coming up through the ranks. My worst mistake in OD would be easy. I made a decision as a General way back when I led the Diablo 2 division that I regretted immediately. I'd say this was about 5 years ago. I knew it was wrong by doing it, but I let others around me talk me into doing it. We had a member up for promotion from Master Warrant Officer 5 to Second Lieutenant, and there were some votes on their promotion that were 'hopeful' votes in the hope that he would use the power of Second Lieutenant wisely and be able to put his aibiliyt to use. I had some complaints that that alone wasn't enough to warrant a promotion, and my fellow General at the time refused to side one way or the other and said he'd support whatever decision I felt was right. I made the wrong choice. I demoted him back to MWO5. Of course, immediately I regretted it. I went to bed shortly after and after getting up in the morning I decided there was no other option but to reverse it. I restored their rank and issued a formal apology for the demotion. I of course received many ass chewings by my members who had followed me up till that point, and even potentially damaged the friendship I had with that member. I requested at the time to speak to him after I restored his rank and explained what transpired, why I made that decision, and instantly regretting it. Of course they were pretty upset about it, but accepted my apology. We were friends, and honestly they were one of the first people I made friends with when I joined the D2 division way back in 2012. I look back on that decision a lot and have sworn to myself never to let peer pressure push me into making a decision I didn't and couldn't stomach. If there was ever a position that I couldn't stomach, I would refuse to take any part in it, after voicing my strong discontent with it. I feel like I've learned form this lesson many times over, and I feel as though it taught me more than I can ever teach anyone else. One of the hardest things I try to impress on people when I train them.. is you have to do something sometimes that you don't like. And you have to set friendship aside when making a decision for the betterment of the community as a whole. I told myself that over and over that night, but I just couldn't accept it. I knew it was wrong, not because they were my friend, but because on principle, it was taking something away from someone, that the community agreed they would be a good fit for. It's definitely not something I'm proud of, but it is one of the biggest lessons I learned in this community. Never act rashly, or only at the behest of others. Think for yourself and come to your own decisions with your own conviction, not that of others.

I've answered this earlier in this thread. These can be submitted to any other General or a Commander. They will then be nominated for an evaluation for which they must submit or be demoted by default. The quote from Badboi came from this thread..

This statement is false. Senior Officers can disable as well. Major's can disable anyone below the rank of WO1. Lt. Colonels can disable CWO2, and Colonel's can disable CWO3's. Brigs can disable anyone at or below Major, and each rank above can disable one rank higher. That said, Senior officers have almost never disabled people in the past. With the exception of perhaps resignations, it doesn't happen very often. Generally speaking, they've left that power up to the Generals in their division. Demotions are another power that Officers have. Second Lieutenant's can demote anyone who is an Enlisted member. First Lieutenant's can demote anyone at WO1, and Captains can demote anyone at CWO2. Major's skip a rank and can demote at or below CWO4, Lt. Colonels, MWO5, and Colonel's can demote Second Lieutenants. Brigadier Generals can then demote at Major. Again, this doesn't happen and has been left up to Generals. In the past there used to be a warning on the site, one that I still tell people today. If you're not a General, you must have at least 2 other members agreeing with the demotion, who can also demote. Still though, it's been left up to Generals to handle this responsibility. The set rank comments are correct (basically where someone can say I want this individual to be this rank up or down and as long as it's within their range, they can do it). Set Ranks are a very touchy subject, and as such are reserved for very rare instances.. such as rank restorations, winning a tournament that promises a promotion (usually reserved for enlisted and below), or when we need to demote someone multiple ranks. Here is a list of every power each member has with their console, separated by Rank, from lowest to highest. Anything in green is a new power attained when reaching that rank.

Lieutenant General Triny(OD) demoted Lieutenant Colonel Ray(OD) to Major for Making false accusations in a public setting. on Thu Apr 25, 2019 10:20 PM (This wasn't a full demotion to Captain due to our demote button only demoting one rank at a time. There was a second demotion from Major to Captain to complete the demotion.) You were demoted for falsely accusing someone, in a promotion, something we collectively found to be a serious offence due to you being a Senior Officer. We expect more than that from Senior Officers, and as such, your rank at the time of the transgression factors into the punishment, and that resulted in your demotion to Junior Officer. There's nothing that's going to change the action you did, and as a result, the punishment is final. You will have to re-earn those ranks if you wish to come back. As such, the discussion of getting the demotion overturned is over as you've requested it be overturned by numerous Generals and Commanders, to which we all have said no. You can't commit an offense and not have to suffer a repercussion for your actions. Now, lets stay on the topic this thread is intended for. They system will not allow for an empty vote to be submitted. There will be an error kicked back to the user if they attempt to submit an empty promotion. But one of the biggest issues, especially going along with this thread, would be transparency. By default Generals and Commanders will be required to still see these votes. We need to be able to ensure people aren't falsely accusing someone in a promotion, actually using appropriate reasons for the promotion, and to ensure that there are no shenanigans involved in people's vote habits. We don't expect users to do this, but we still need to police the promotions to some degree, just to ensure they don't happen. Another issue is the development. There would be some scripting changes that need to happen to allow for this feature to become live. And currently, many of the scripters are busy working on upgrading the website as a whole, which is deemed to have a precedence right now, especially since we've officially committed to this. Once the redesign is completed, then we can discuss this feature. I want to reply more, but I have to go back to work.. my lunch got cut short today. :/

Sounds liked something perfect for the Recruitment and Retention Squad to take a look at and make a priority. @Dave(OD) @CompFreak(OD)

This is definitely something within our power to discuss. Whether or not it will be changed can be discussed in a meeting of some kind. This one is largely divisional based. While I think it is a good idea to have the Administration aware of who's coming up and who's got potential is a great idea, there are a lot of members for each General/Commander to know about, and everytime we recruit a new member, that process starts all over again with each new member. As a result, we've tried to compartmentalize it towards letting each division handle it. Another reason for this, is we try to let divisions manage their members as they see fit. As an example, if there's a member outside of my division, as a Commander, sure it's in my right to come in and handle a problem myself. But we as a whole really try not to do that. If there's a problem brought up about a member, or within a division to someone outside of the division, the first step we try to take is to meet with the Division Leaders and either advise how to handle the issue, leave it in their hands, or observe and step in if needed later. We're not against helping resolve problems in a division, quite the opposite. We instead believe that the division is a division leaders responsibility to manage, and we allow that division leader to manage it. We are there to be supportive of that. Any system is worth investigating to seek improvements. And I guarantee there is no perfect system. There's always going to be a flaw, or something that could be better. And to be honest, we haven't made a lot of expansive changes in a while. Little tweaks here and there are really the extent of that. I for one value your opinion, as I do the rest of the community. Because this place isn't just for me. It's more importantly a place for every member to ever join the community, and it's our job as administrators, to ensure it's an enjoyable experience. Thanks for the idea suggestion, we can definitely look into it!

The popularity contest has been around since Overdosed started. And believe me, it's actually a lot better than what it used to be. In the beginning, only Generals could promote someone. So if you didn't know a General, you'd never be promoted. There was no promotion system that we have, only a set rank system where a General could decide 'hey I like this guy' and promote them to Colonel just because they like that individual. I don't have any experience from this time, but perhaps one of the only one who does have a lot of experience with this is R.agnarok, simple because pretty much been here from the beginning. Today, we allow members to put anyone up, except for Major Tier Change promotions (MWO5 to Second Lieutenant and any General promotion). Further, we have modified the promotion to Second Lieutenant to allow for all members of the community to vote on the individual who has been put up by a General, that used to only be something that Senior Officers and Generals could vote on, even after a General put them up for promotion. We allow members to vote positively or negatively on any member that is up for promotion, provided their vote is valid. In the event the vote isn't valid it's reviewed, and subsequently removed. We allow members to vote on every single promotion in this community from Staff Sergeant up to the rank of Commander. As Badboi stated earlier, there have been times that we as Commanders have negged with the full extent of our power (-20) and still were overturned. And that's the beauty of the system. It actually gives voice to the majority of the community, not just a few. If every single member in the D2 community voted on a promotion that all 4 of the Commanders max neg voted, with even just 1 vote power, you'd still have +60 on that promotion. For reference that's STILL enough for a promotion to Colonel from Lt. Colonel (which requires 50 votes). Of course, this is a purely hypothetical situation, as if all Commanders had to -20 someone, there's probably a bigger problem at play. 20 vote positive or negative is a HUGE influence to a promotion. Regardless of who's voted on a promotion, every single member can still vote on a promotion. We encourage every member to voice a concern they have on a promotion. If you disagree with an evaluation that somebody's made, whether positive or negative, then make it known. Cast your vote one way or the other, but remember that the vote must be valid. If you claim someone did something, you must be able to prove it. As far as the popularity contest though, it's a tricky situation, because almost any way you look at it, there's a way to view it as a popularity contest, except maybe every vote was private until the end of the promotion with no indication of if the person was passing or failing. But even that has it's issues. How would you or any other member address the popularity contest in your own views and opinions? Leadership is open to ideas (for any topic, not just this one) on how to improve this. We are here to represent the community, so if there's something to improve on that we haven't ourselves, or if someone has an alternative approach, we need to hear about it. We don't have all the answers to every problem. And any idea is welcomed to provide for discussion on the idea, to either decide it's not a good route, or pick at it to improve any weak points there may be. Consider this a call to arms to the entire community to provide input on how to improve this community. Key point, what do you want Overdosed to do for you that we don't already, and how would we achieve this. Any donation we receive goes towards the upkeep of the community, which includes anything from the domains, teamspeak, security, as well as a few other yearly costs. As a result, any donation is set aside for those costs only, to ensure we keep the lights on for the community. In the event something comes up that costs money or would add to our expenses, we discuss the benefits and the drawbacks to the proposition. If the cost is a big enough benefit, then we potentially implement it. But donations are not a guaranteed thing so we don't spend money unless we know for a fact that it'll benefit the community. Donations are voluntary and not required of any member, hence the ebb and flow tendencies of them, so we aren't going to spend money just because we have a small pool available. We need to ensure the continuity of the community above all else. Not necessarily. Donations in generally are pooled into a fund to allow for payment of the expenses required to run the community. The exception to this, is those requests made on the Donation Emporium. The Donation Emporium is a place for a member to request a feature, such as a theme on the forums, providing how much it would cost, and what the benefit of adding it would be to the community. If there is enough support for this request, a pledge is started, and if the pledge is met by voluntary submission, then the request is purchased and fulfilled. This is the only time there is a guarantee to funnel the donations somewhere other than upkeep of the community. Now, as for the banter, it should stop now. The thread is meant to be educational to the members of this community so that we may answer any questions people have to ensure there's no confusion about where we are going, what we are doing, and why we do what we do in the grand scheme of things. Our position is to review things from the big picture, not just from a divisional perspective.

Please feel free to contact me in private. I can be found on Teamspeak @ ts3.overdosed.net, or you can email me at aerineth@overdosed.net. Either will be a good contact. I can help you get sorted out. :) Welcome back though :)