Staff Changes

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by MouseKing, May 10, 2021.

  1. I'd like to start off by saying I love SafeSurvival, I spend a lot of time here since me and Impala joined, and we are having a great time. I say this because I see a lot of people getting defensive on other posts about changes we would like to see and I would like to just head that off right now. This is solely my opinion and my current thoughts on things, subject to change, and it is NOT an attack on the server :D Now, on to the topic at hand

    I think there should be staff purges/promotions, even a possible reset to the way staff application system. There are a lot of inactive staff that I never see play, or I see once a week. There are other staff who play but don't do a lot of helping OR they are lower staff and don't have the power to.

    My suggestions are this:

    ·Purge inactive members from staff, or set a time played requirement for retaining the staff role (not including time away that was discussed beforehand or needs for a specific time away)

    ·Promote some current event staff so they have the ability to check chests for who last accessed, deal with claims, etc (if they choose to take on the responsibility)

    ·Add new staff for dead hours. I see the people who were just promoted but there is still a lot of time I play where a mod isn't on. Many hours some sort of staff is on, event staff or chat mod, but not actual moderators with the main command abilities.

    ·Add a way for applicants to know whether or not they have been approved or denied or if anyone has even read or brought up their application to the rest of the staff team.

    ·Sometimes the staff "hiring" seems more of a popularity contest among the current staff, rather than getting players who are on, willing to help with a chunk of their time online, and are patient and helpful.

    Again, this isn't some sort of attack or trashing of the server, I like the server a lot. I can't see behind the scenes, I don't know why or how some of these decisions are made, or if some of things are implemented or have been discussed before. However, this is how a normal player sees some of these issues, and can hopefully provide some feedback and transparency.

    I'd also like to give a special shoutout to Peb, Hikoo, and Knas specifically, because they have all gone above and beyond, by donating their time to help with things that don't fall under their base responsibilities as a mod. This isn't to say they are the only good mods, these are just the ones that I have had really good experiences with personally. I'd also like to say Enny I see you and all the hard work you do with Events xD
     
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  2. Cosunde

    Cosunde Veteran

    I have also been meaning to say these things in a forums post for quite awhile, so I'll piggyback onto this one with my opinions.

    In my honest opinion, from a public standpoint (without naming names), there are only 10 mods/admins who are active enough to deserve the role of staff. The rest of the mods on the team either camp in vanish when they play or don't come online often enough to warrant their current position as staff. I get that these mods have done things on Safe in the past, however the past is the past. The present is now. If the inactive mods want their job back they only have to apply with a guarantee of getting their position back within the next two staff promotion rounds.

    I strongly dislike mods who camp in vanish "to do logs and such" because there is no real reason for you to be in vanish; apart from activities that seriously require vanish, mods should not be in vanish at all. I get if you need an off-day every once in awhile, but you must be publicly available to the people when you govern them. It's like having a congressmember who you can never contact and never shows up to the hearings and other meetings that they should attend.

    In addition, I will say this again. Dead hours moderation is a problem yet again. Due to events which removed the mod who did the bulk of dead hours moderation in before November, there has not been consistent dead hours coverage.

    Anyways, that's all. I write this as I have no intention of ever becoming staff on here anymore, which is why I have decided to go public with my opinions. In addition, I have been rejected for staff twice, so I may be biased as I write this. Anyways, either rectifying these problems by getting more dead hours staff and purging the staff team or being more transparent with that some of your staff members do behind the scenes would be great.

    Edit: To make this clear, I'm not trying to belittle the staff team here. I understand that you guys do a lot of work behind the scenes and have real lives, however a harsh opinion is needed here if there is any hope of the staff team being reformed.

    Final edit: I have received closure and am now aware of why some of my points before are flawed. I have removed certain parts of this post to reflect that.
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2021
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  3. I'd like to add my take on this, as I believe I have some fairly legitimate points. I do have staff experience so I have an idea of what I am talking about.

    I believe a few staff have already been demoted recently for inactivity, but I disagree with having a time played requirement because it may make being staff seem more like a chore, instead of an interest, and may quickly decrease their motivation to play the server, causing less staff to be active in the long term, causing a domino effect where all staff become disinterested, and then the server isn't fully moderated.

    Honestly this has been a problem for a while. There are many prominent members of the community who always play during dead hours but still don't get promoted. I don't fully know why but I think Staff have very high expectations and there is some clear favouritism for friends which I will explain in the next section.

    There's clearly favouritism to add staff's friends to the team, but this can be justified since staff know their friends well, and would know whether or not to add them to staff. The unfair aspect of this, is that many staff are not open to making friends outside their moderator circle, which may lower the chances that a normal person becomes staff. I did rant about this using an anonymous account, but it wasn't fully justified.

    I'd also like to tell my opinion, as I know many other people may agree with me.

    I believe staff have an unfathomable amount of secrecy within the entire staff circle. I was having a debate with a staff member not too long ago about how secretive staff can be sometimes. I mentioned the fact that players aren't told the consequences of situations they are involved in, as well as players not knowing their punishment history. There is almost zero transparency when it comes to certain situations and this has been a public problem for a while now. I have heard rumours about staff not having much transparency either, so I don't think it'd be fair to blame the moderation team here for most of it. I do believe that staff should be more transparent with their actions, and I know it is possible as it has been almost perfected on other servers I have played on, as well as the Discord server I am staff on.

    May I refer you to this forum thread for a more detailed version of my opinions.
    https://www.safesurvival.net/threads/concerns-with-staff-regarding-rules.4301/

    Hope I haven't forgotten anything, if I have, I'll add that onto this post.
    Thanks for reading.
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2021
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  4. Shazepe

    Shazepe Admin Admin

    Hi MouseKing,

    At the moment we have 21 mods, and 2 admins. We did actually just remove some inactive mods, and we do have some guidelines for activity in place already. I don't think we have any particularly inactive mods right now. Mods also can't be expected to be on the server 24/7, though we do promote some mods for later timezones so its more common. If it's urgent, we can usually handle it in the discord helpop channel, please post there if necessary. Claim checks, transfers, etc are all a courtesy and not the primary duties of a mod, they will do them when they're available.

    I assure you, this has never been the case. When promoting mods, we take into account many things like their activity, their interest in the server, and how they interact with others. Being friends or trying to make friends with staff has no effect on being promoted. I also have the final say on whether or not to promote someone.

    If you consistently can't get help with /helpop, please let me know. Also try discords helpop, which all staff can view and is always taken care of as I've seen. As for transparency, we are as transparent as possible. If you have a suggestion for how we can be more transparent that's reasonable, let me know, but there isn't much to be transparent about. We moderate according to the rules which are very heavily detailed, much more than most servers: https://www.safesurvival.net/threads/rules-safe-survival-official-rules-and-faq.5/
     
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  5. Hey shaz! Thanks for the timely response and providing some insight to what goes on behind the scenes :)

    I would just like to say that I've been playing for maybe 3 months now and there are a lot of mods I don't recognize. I do realize of course that mods can't be on 24/7 but some definitely seem to be on once a week or even not at all. Not that that is a detriment to the server, there could be 1,000 inactive mods and it wouldn't impact the server, as long as those spots aren't being taken up and not allowing other, more active people positions on staff.

    There are some definite players I see on often that I feel would be a good fit for staff, but again, I can't see the private staff conversations. I think that's part of the transparency that some people mentioned, specifically if you apply for staff there is no notice if your application has been viewed/denied and why that decision was made. For example if there was a good applicant but didn't play enough, maybe just that sort of response, "hey, we've received your app and your words were very thought out but you need a bit more time on the server, try reapplying in 3 months!" or "We are considering your application but you have 2 warnings on file, if you can make it through the next 2 months with no warnings and resubmit your application we will review them!". Any hint as to what decision was made and why, and something that allows the player to change their behavior or give them something to work towards, instead of just no response at all.

    Also as far as the staff choosing friends for staff, at least for me personally I looked over some of the staff applications and see some people that were approved but put little to no effort into the application and don't talk very much in chat or offer to help, and it baffles me why they were chosen, while other people clearly dedicated a lot of time to the app, are active in chat, and are never rude or out of line. Again I'm not part of the sphere of influence so have no clue why specific decisions are made on that level, nor am I tossing out accusations, but only trying to give an idea of the *appearance* it has to others from the outside. I actually do not doubt there were reasons, probably good ones, for the way things shake out in the server, but that's part of the transparency thing I guess to those of us out of the know.

    Thanks again for your fast and detailed response, it's obvious a lot of the staff actually care how things are perceived and I think it's awesome you guys are so willing to listen to feedback!
     
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  6. I just want to chime in to second this opinion. I don't think mods should camp out in vanish unless there's a really good reason for it.
     
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  7. Ikith

    Ikith Master

    I agree with some of these points, but a few of these (for example the play time requirement) would turn being staff in to a job. What I mean is every week you're required to clock a certain amount of hours, you have to remember ALL staff on this server are volunteers, they have lives outside of the server, sometimes those lives include school/college, work, families, children, etc, sometimes life makes you take a break from a game for a while.

    In my opinion, anything along the lines of a play time requirement is a bad idea, yes, track activity, but don't MAKE a volunteer clock a certain amount of hours, if they wanted a job/another job, they'd go get another job and get paid for it.
     
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  8. You're right it shouldn't feel like a job, but at the same time why be staff if you are never going to be on, yanno? Plus you could always just make the requirements lax, for example, you have to be on x hours per week, say 5, but you don't get staff removed unless you don't meet that quota 3 weeks in a row or something, unless you have prior approval.
     
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  9. Ikith

    Ikith Master

    You could easily track activity vs requiring someone to sign in a certain amount of hours, as I said in my post, staff are volunteers, turning it in to a job by requiring hours, even a really low amount is a slap in the face in my honest opinion, and this is coming from someone who was staff off and on for a total of 2-3 years, had I been required to log in a certain amount of time, even if I would generally be on more hours, I would probably have never applied.
     
  10. With utmost respect Shaz, but this is incorrect. Such is in the case of if they've been mod on the server before. They get favoritism over anyone who is applying to staff just because they've been staff on the server before even if they have shoddy playtimes in which they get demoted and the if/when they come back and are interested in mod, get it immediately. Most people don't point out names, but I'm going to say just a few. Syco, Dragon. Both in the past have stepped down from being mod only to reapply and get it immediately. Only to be demoted again because they don't play. Don't lie and say that it has never been the case when it is obvious that it is happening.

    EDIT: This isn't a case of favoritism where they're friends with current staff (kinda) or trying to be buddy-buddy with staff, but it is a form of favoritism.
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2021
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  11. Eugene H. Krabs

    Eugene H. Krabs Moderator Moderator

    So I do think that hearing back on why your application was denied would be good, however I think the new issue would be is people complaining about how they changed their application, or fixed whatever reason they were denied from the last application when they reapplied and still didn't get staff. I can see some people taking this as "Hey I fixed this thing, why didn't I get staff?". Even if it was worded perfectly about staff reconsidering down the road, I still see this happening.

    I 100% agree with this, like you said unless mods are doing mod things the require them to be in vanish, they shouldn't be vanished. Spending the entire time you are online in vanish makes it seem that you aren't available/can't be bothered right now. I get being in vanish to do staff things, but I highly doubt each time someone logs in, it requires being in vanish the entire time.
     
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  12. i would like to reply to this point specifically, whilst it may seem to the general playerbase that we just repromote anyone who has been staff previously, this is not always the case and there is reason for repromotion. we take into account how long they have been back on the server before re-applying, and whether we think they deserve to come back to the team. Repromoting people who have previously taken on the position makes sense, they know what they are doing and we know them well. this does not mean we do not consider others for staff, we go through every staff application when we are looking for new members. the two examples of people you listed may have left or been demoted, but theres multiple staff members who have rejoined and stayed with us. i hope this clears things up.
     
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  13. I'd like to counter with this piece of evidence.
     

    Attached Files:

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  14. I just wanted to chime in myself on this. Now i know i'm one of the more recent mods to be promoted but i have been a part of this community for a while, from what i see i think the mods do a pretty good job of being on as much as we can and try to deal with things as soon as they come up. Now we are not perfect and no one ever truly can be but I do know staff have more obligations then the average player and it can be draining at times. On top of that many of us have jobs that keep us busy or require a certain schedule. And i can speak from my experience as a mod and say that initially I messed up my sleep schedule quite a bit in order to moderate the server during the dead hours where I would be staying up until 3 am just to stay on. Eventually i just had to realize i couldnt and needed to fix it so i dont stay on as long but still catch myself staying on until 2 sometimes but that's cause i love the server and want to be there to moderate it if need be. Now I'm not saying that anyone forced me to do this nor does staff expect you to do this if you get promoted. This was done purely by my own want but also a sense of needing to be there. I'm just trying to show a realistic look into what a moderator does sometimes so there is more transparency into what a moderator does and goes through. Now i have been sworn at, insulted, and dealt with some stuff i wish i never saw and never had to see again, but i am more then willing to keep doing it cause i absolutely love this server whether i am staff or not. As for helpop’s yes we may not always be on or answer right away, and yes we can take admittedly a little too long to answer them. For this we are looking into a way to make the helpop look more noticeable for us mods to see in chat and working on answering them faster. As for this discord I do see it as an underused resource sometimes. For example, i was not on last night and i was checking discord and saw there was a helpop on the discord so i joined as quick as i could and dealt with it. Now this is not something we could have known about had it not been posted on the helpop. Even if I'm somewhat busy I will try to get on as soon as I can if I see a helpop on the discord, urgent helpop channel or otherwise, and I know I'm not the only person on the mod team who would.

    We do want to make the server better and want to make sure that people do enjoy their time here. Yes we are not always perfect and yes we can do better. That will always be the case as we can never be perfect for we are all human. We do look for ways to improve the server and ourselves. Now if anyone has any suggestions about how we can improve the discord helpop we would love to hear it if you think of anything.

    As for the idea that we promote just due to popularity and friends, that isnt always the case but some merit perhaps in a different way than you think. In my opinion, one I formed before I was even staff, is that staff tends to choose people who are more popular on the server as we know they will stick around through, hopefully, thick and thin and won't disappear if a reset comes around or something else happens. However I do want to assure you that we do not just choose people based on popularity as of course we need to also look at how they interact with other players as we are a team after all and we need to make sure that a problem wont arise because we chose someone just based on popularity as well as we look at how people handle themselves in situations as mods need to try to remain as professional as we can. We won’t always be and we will be less than professional of course but we do need to be professional as much as we can. And yes previous experience does in fact help too but it isn’t going to guarantee that you will because of the other reasons we mentioned. Even myself doesn't fall into the “only popular people get promoted” idea as when i was promoted i wasn't really well known, well at least in my mind anyways. I felt more like staff enjoyed the way I interacted with people and the community in general and showed constant activity. I didn't really know anyone on the staff team nor did I really talk to any of them. Now perhaps i am wrong but I do think that it is at least an example that we do promote not just for popularity.


    I do appreciate that people want to help us change and I do think we have a lot of work to do as staff to get better overall but we also perhaps need players to know what an average staff member goes through when they are staff, both inside and outside the server.

    And with members who were mods and were promoted back again we do not always promote those who used to be mods who have reapplied just because they were mods, but if someone used to be a mod and stepped down for whatever reason and has since reapplied and been chosen, it is a lot easier on the rest of the team as they would already be familiar with commands and procedure and such. Sometimes people just needed to leave for a while and now feel they are in a better place to reapply to mod and its a heck of a lot easier on us to get someone who has moderated our server before than starting with someone from scratch. and even then, if they were a full mod before they would still start back out as an assistant mod. I do not mean to be retaliatory to anyone, but rather want some transparency into our knowhow and roles as moderators and giving you some more transparency into our decisions. I do love this community and I know this can be a sore spot but please, moderators or players should not be going at one another as we rely on each other to have fun with this community and the server overall.

    I hope my response has cleared up some things for you, I know it will not answer everything nor do I claim it will, but I hope it helps give at least a little insight and transparency to everyone. Now please lets enjoy safe everyone because in the end we, the players, are what makes safe fun, no matter what rank you have. No matter what role you play, we all just enjoy the heck out of this server and lets keep it that way. There is a lot of improvement to be done and I know staff will listen to suggestions and we do because we want to make this server the best it can be.
     
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  15. Syco had a very good reputation on the server, was basically the original (unofficial) event manager, everyone loved the guy, had his own warp etc. So I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting him back on staff.

    I wish the old forums staff applications were still there/visible and I'd be able to link multiple examples of former mods/admins etc being denied, I think it used to be the standard actually, if you had been staff previously you'd probably be denied.

    Heres a couple from this forum:
    KinkyKlinks (co-owner): https://www.safesurvival.net/threads/kinkyklinks.2816/
    JohnB (mod): https://www.safesurvival.net/threads/jbones-johns-staff-application.3248/
    Zai (mod & im not 100% sure this was denied, I dont remember him coming back as staff though): https://www.safesurvival.net/threads/staff-app.2415/

    Im pretty sure they get considered like every other application, just with the added advantage, like lou said, of having experience & working alongside staff previously so knowing if they were good at what they do or not.

    edit: to mallory's response - this is just clarification on syco being an outlier, Im not really adding anything for or against any side of this discussion. Its best I stay out of this for the most part :^)
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2021
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  16. Disclaimer: This is my opinion and experiences and in no way is reflective of staffs official view. No one on staff knows I'm writing this. Also, sorry for the book I wrote. TLDR: bottom paragraph

    I'm gonna try and touch on all the points mentioned and try to be clear as I can be.

    I know how things may seem on the server from the player side. I've been active on the server since 2015 and in those many years, I've seen a multitude of regulars, long time players, og's, and staff come and go. I've been a chat mod in Late 2016- Early 2017 for a very short stent, took a break and came back to the server around the 2017 Oct.

    I'm gonna speak candidly and give a little peak behind the scenes, I'm gonna start with a glimpse of how it was. During my stent as a chat mod for a short term, staff was honestly pretty hostile, pretty toxic, and that's why I did end up leaving back then (not gonna go into to much detail as it's not important and staff is all different now.) and ended up leaving for a break from the server. However, during that time I can tell you that what mod staff deals with a lot is stuff no one really ever sees. They handle, in retail terms, all the Karens and essentially get a lot of verbal abuse, which no one ever sees. They deal with rule breakers and people that abuse the rules, and a lot of times they aren't happy they got caught.

    That was how it was back then, the only thing that has changed is Staff. The current staff team is amazing, a lot of them do so much behind the scenes, not only are the responsible for the server, but also have the forums here, and also the discord to handle. That's a lot guys, and I'm proud of each and every one of them, for all that they do, they handle those "Karens" with the upmost professionalism, that at times it's super hard to do, it's really a thankless job, but those reading, I appreciate each and every one of ya'll. To be honest with everyone lately the negative comments, backhanded comments have out weighted the positive ones. (I'm not trying to bash this post, or for that matter anyone, it's just matter-of-fact. Warranted or not)

    Not getting selected does hurt, I do want to give out some key advice for you guys, to potentially help you guys get selected. We are in basically a small office firm, we have a mod side and an event side (I'll get more to that in a min) We gotta make sure that you're not only active during a certain timeframe, we take into account how you talk to people, how you conduct yourself, and how helpful you are to the overall community. How long you've been part of the server, there's many variables to take into consideration, it's not at all about what time slot to fill. We also take into account how you'd potentially jive with the rest of the staff team because we are huge on democracy. We don't want to have anyone that'll potentially bring back hostility and toxicity back to the staff team, and a lot of that does have to do with personality and vibe you give off to be brutally honest.

    I started off as a no one, a steve, just like everyone here. In the beginning I wasn't much for interacting with the community, for the most part I wasn't part of any social circle. I slowly had to work my way up and get out there, to be helpful, to engage, and to take part in the community, I was fortunate enough back then, in 2016, to be asked to be part of staff outright because I was part of the community and did try my best to help everyone out and get myself out there, let your actions speak louder than words or applications, cause they are noticed. At that time I just had to do a short application as part of "paperwork". So that's why some times you do see the short and lacking applications. Actions will always speak louder than words. I do want to bring up what roles different staff members have (insert smooth segue here)

    Moderators have different levels: Which you get promoted once you master each level.
    Chat Mod
    Assistant Mod
    Moderator

    All have different responsibilities, think of it as a store:
    Cashier
    Office Assistant
    Account Manager

    All have different level of responsibilities, and being chat mod you slowly get introduced to the processes, Assistant Mod you handle more of the back of house paper work and filing, but can still help out with chat mod duties. Moderator does all of the above and more regarding the various issues that arise.

    Event Staff... we are plebs :p

    But really though, we handle the hosting of, creation of, and anything to do with events.... and that's basically it. To get to a point mentioned. I, myself, have asked about Event staff to have some perms for chat mods, such as chat clear. However, we have our own separate roles for reasons, which I agree, we each have our own function that make this server work, and if everyone did everything, it would really be too much for one person to under take.

    As for me getting back on as Event Staff. Did being past staff help, honestly, yes. The only reason that helped and only reason it's strongly considered is the fact that those that have been staff do have past experience and know the plugins, rules, and processes. It's not that other's are getting overlooked, it usually comes down to experience like any job, which I know a lot of you don't think it is, but I do consider it a job.

    Staff does spend many hours between the server, here, and the discord channels, for Event Staff we do things off the server to make sure things function they way the should before bring stuff to the main server, so that's why there's some Event Staff you almost never see. The Central City HH and TH arena I can tell you took me over a month to make, working on it after I got home from work almost each and every night, current spawn took everyone on staff over a 3 week period to polish and make ready... Those are nights that I could've easily spent with my family or pursing other hobbies. (not making a fuss, just stating this for my next point.)

    Everyone here on staff is volunteer, we get nothing out of doing what we do, we enjoy being here for you guys. We do have School, College, Jobs, Family, Friends, other hobbies and interests. Some times those things do draw us away for a little bit here and there, recently for me it's been helping out friends who haven't been doing too well lately, which in turn was part of the reason Easter was delayed since I kinda was spearheading it and I do take full responsibility for that, and again I do apologize. But saying stuff like "purge staff" "Fire Staff for x,y,or z" does hurt us, but here we stand, ready to help when you guys reach out. We may not always be around when you are around, we do have jobs, friends and family, and above all, irl does come first.

    We do have time limits before being removed from staff, it's 3 weeks of inactivity without prior notice. We do have policies in place for inactive staff members, but like I previously mentioned, it's not only the server, it's here on the forums and discord.

    We try to be as transparent as we possibly can be within reason, as for Events, we try to give you guys updates as we work on them like with Easter. We do try our best here on staff and ik from Event side, hasn't been going too well this year, but with the new staff members, we are working hard, and we are determined to bring out some awesome events for you guys to enjoy in the near future.

    Sorry this was a long read, but I had a lot to say. If you guys do have any issues at all regarding staff, events, or the server... please continue to reach out, we will always be here to help.

    TLDR: Current Staff does do an amazing job. To get staff, be polite, courteous, help out the community as much as possible, let your actions be your application. Staff is a job that takes many hours behind the scenes and in them as well.
     
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  17. TLDR: Current Staff does do an amazing job. To get staff, be polite, courteous, help out the community as much as possible, let your actions be your application. Staff is a job that takes many hours behind the scenes. We will always be here to help.

    Messed up my last paragraph, apologies.
     
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  18. I mean I get it and just wanted to bring to light a lot of the issues and to try and address them for everyone in a little more detail, and let you guys know what’s going on. We do have processes for inactive members, and those that can’t find the time anymore do take the path of stepping down such as the recent case with Amrou. Some have given notice that they wouldn’t be active for a bit do to personal issues, but they still want to be part of staff. we also have created more space for event staff recently as well, so there’s not really a concrete number of positions.

    Currently it just feels like we have a good number of active staff and if we need more positions filled, we do open them up.
     
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