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And Now His Watch Has Ended

BigFella

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Hello MCGamer,
Most of you would have previously known me as BigFella or Joel. Today I'm going to share with you my decision and what actually went down during my time as a Moderator and Trial Sr. Moderator. A lot of people always questioned why I was no longer staff and I thought it was time to share it with you, so here it goes...
On October 17th 2014, I was first accepted as a staff member on MCGamer. My interview was led by Sheldor (his first lead) and Shelby, along with about 5 other Sr. Staff members. The lead up to the interview wasn't to bad but my stomach turned when they moved me in. Thankfully I was accepted that day and was ready to join such a wonderful family.
At around this time was when MCGamer v2 was first released. Me and my newly founded AU mod friends would just sit in the hub for hours muting people for Mass Demonstrating the 'Bring Back V1'.
During the first few months, I wasn't the person the open up and get to know 'everyone'. I sat back and enjoyed speaking with my group of friends within the staff team.
Fast forwarding to January 2015, I thought it was about time I got to know some more people and put a little more effort in.
My good friend ViolentKitten was hosting something called Trivia Night within the upcoming weeks and I took the chance and decided to help out. I was heavily involved within that for the next few months that when he resigned he handed me the management of the event.
Although I still didn't think I was doing enough for my community of AU. A lot of players were discussing the fact that AU should be receiving cleansweeps. KitMencha and I got together and we pushed for one and were successful. After the cleansweeps were over, I was overwhelmed with my contribution to the community as of the result (Trash Talking Filter being introduced.)
During the next few months I was really struggling with my motivation as a Moderator. I would often spend my afternoons & weekends listening to AU, EU, US clans talk to me about their issues, dealing with rude people in the teamspeak chats, being spammed poked about an EU hacker, attempting to communicate to a Turkish player saying he needs to post a Ban Dispute, etc etc. All of this was heavily impacting my social and school life.
At the end of March, i resigned for the first time. Many people were upset with my decision and it took a great deal of motivation to bring me back. I was re-instated with my moderator rank 3 days later. Without the support of my friends, this may not have happened.
I cannot remember a lot about what happened before I was offered Trial Sr. Mod but I remember Col. Star assigning Croe and I a community based event. We spend the next couple of weeks preparing that event with constant harassment of Col asking us how we are going
The week before the event was the fort-nightly staff meeting. I remember the night before the staff member, a Sr. Mod asked me if I was going to be there tomorrow. I was like pfft what am I needed for. So I got up at 6am and turned my phone on and was waiting for the meeting to start.
This was when I hear a voice of a young man trying to communicate with me, I was utterly confused and startled as I was unexpectedly moved into the Admin Board Room. Turns out I was needed for that meeting to receive my offer to be Trial Sr. Moderator. I accepted the position and was warmly welcomed into the Sr Staff team.
Here's were things begin to turn a little sour. After the meeting, an admin was supposed to train the 3 Trials. Unfortunately this never happened as something popped up.
Over the coming week we began to constantly try to receive our training as a sr moderator. This was extremely difficult to do so with the timezone difference.
I started to feel a lack of communication between the Trials and the Administration, so I eventually consulted KitMencha which agreed to do our training with approval from the Admins. Although this training would still need to be re-done by the administration (at this stage)
KitMencha trained Croe and myself on the following:
- Xime
- Ban Disputes
- Mod Apps
- Teamspeak Ban Logs
This training seemed to go a little late into the night and so I asked nick if he was able to run me through a few things again at a later date.
Unfortunately because KitMencha was on leave during the whole 'trial' period. I was unable to receive that extra lesson.
Because he was on leave also made it extremely difficult to learn or gain anything from my trial period. Oft times I would sit on TeamSpeak attempting to solve situations and handle problems by myself.
It also made it really really difficult to do Moderator Trainings, Interviews and Resignations due to my timezone and the only other Sr. Moderator being on leave. At times I would often ask to other Sr Staff if they were up for those sorts of things and wouldn't receive a response until up to 8 hours later.
During those weeks as a Trial, I would often contact the Administration so that they could complete the training in which I was supposed to receive, although I was often given little to no response. Within the last 2 weeks they gave word to Nick that his training would be sufficient although there was no direct communication between the admins telling myself that.
Within the last few days of my trial was when a Sr. Moderator was able to help me on the sections I still needed assistance on from my training. Although unfortunately, I was unable to complete the satisfactory amount of actions required as a Sr Moderator.
On the day, I got up at 4am in the morning to go to the Sr Staff meeting. They eventually said that they would be discussing Croe and I's Trial period. We were moved down to a different channel and sat there for about 30 minutes talking. We both discussed what was in store and I remember saying that I think our Trial is going to be extended because there was no formal training and our other Au Sr Mod was on leave. After talking for a while I was eventually moved first. I remember going in with high hopes of an extension and coming out wishing I hadn't gotten up this morning. The administration deemed my trial unsatisfactory for the amount of work I had completed within the period. They thought it was best to put me back as a moderator. I felt lost, hard done by and unwanted. I couldn't comprehend what had happened and to be honest I still can't. It felt as though my time was done and that I should no longer be apart of the staff team. I resigned for a 2nd time a few days after I was removed from the Sr Staff team.
My journey as a staff member lasted almost 8 months and I am glad I was apart of the staff team. I hope that I left a legacy within the AU community that the AU staff can carry on.

Note - im posting this at 12:00am, I'll fix any mistakes in the morning
 

Braden

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This was a really sad and unfortunate story to hear. Thanks for sharing your insight on what exactly happened; I know it would be a difficult topic to hear about. :<
 

Vanth

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It's nice to hear a first hand story from a staff member, it's not often that this happens! Your story was moving and it made me look at things in a different perspective. BigFella, if you could go back, would you have resigned? Or would you have just carried on as a Moderator. I just want to let you know that to me, you were amazing whilst on the staff team!

~Vanth
 

Ceroria

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I'm really sorry to hear about what happened, Joel. I myself have encountered situations in which I've needed to contact an administrator but was unable to because they were working on something important. Luckily, it appears like their business was for good reason because the Community Update seems to be one of the things our player base actually agrees with and doesn't want to revert, therefore I am glad. Heck, even training sessions for regular moderators are scarce because of awkward timezone differences and whatnot.

While sometimes the decisions made by the administrative team may be a bit wonky, everybody has to understand that their decisions are always for the best, and are usually the right call to make.

(although I 100% agree that you would have made an excellent Sr. Mod man)
 

Vanth

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This pretty much is a great example of why for the longest time I've been saying we need an AU based administrator.

I'm sorry this happened to you, BigFella. I love you <3
I recommend Vanicle | Vanessa as she is always on. Please pick her! Maybe there should be a vote...

~Vanth
 

Keno

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This was a heart warming read, Joel! Eye-opener to say the very least. I truly appreciate all the work that you have done for the community since day 1 as a moderator and until the day you resigned.

I hope that you have an excellent life outside of MCGamer and that you enjoy whatever it is that you wish to pursue in the future.

Take it easy,

~ A_Money (Keno)
 

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