Absolutely massive essay incoming, will likely be two parts.
Camp3r’s posts were out of line and disrespectful to the community, they did not address the situation at hand but laid out his pent-up frustration of being an admin for a prolonged period for RGL. This has been acknowledged internally,
DrHappiness
And funny enough, there is/was an internal policy for posting on threads like this, it is clear that after this incident it needs to be implemented again.
I just wanted to say to camp3r’s impact, even before he was head admin, camp3r was the head and shoulders of RGL, without him, not a single match is scheduled, and the lower divs do not function let alone exist (which is much of the league). And I wanted to ask that, if possible, y’all show some mercy for him because I promise you a camp3r in his right state of mind does not make these posts (take that as you will).
However, I will not admit that everything in his posts is complete non-sense, and I would like to provide some perspective as to how we got here in the first place.
The transition from ESEA to RGL was already tough, admins did not know how to admin or act publicly, players did not know how to handle admin intervention (let’s be honest, ESEA had literally no active admins except for the occasional prayer from tri, so in NA it was quite literally the wild wild west). RGL fucked up numerous times, and was completely flamed by the community for it, which 10/10 during the earlier era was warranted. They were not only growing pains of the league, but a result of misguided leadership from up top and not adjusting to the wants of the players in time. I would say this period spanned from around Season 1 to about Season 6 of RGL. In that time, RGL made themselves public enemy #1, and for many reasons rightfully so! I remember being on those threads and reading some of the ridiculous shit and unclear rulings that were taking place; I posted quite a few times myself. This began the (perceivably) unrepairable relationship that the community (or tftv in this case) has with RGL. As reno became 6s HA, PR improved massively and the shitshow that was public RGL posting finally became reasonable, though I would say that the mentality was still cautious around player feedback. Tftv RGL threads themselves began to disappear as RGL was seemingly doing a little better of a job, though of course not perfect. There was the occasional thread bringing up stuff that happened in past seasons, things the current administration could literally not control, and other threads that had some relevancy and were helpful in putting RGL in its place.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of the resentment that existed in the early days for RGL still exists, despite the efforts from the admin team to attempt and salvage what was left. I wish I could hit the reset button and completely wipe the past PR garbage shitshow insane-fest from history to fix this, but it’s obviously not possible. I won’t say either that the community pre-conception/apprehension towards RGL is completely unwarranted, but as the admin team has grown out of treating players like crap, the same could not be said for the current NA tf2 environment. To be clear, this is not just on tftv, there is a clear indication that no matter what RGL does, good or bad, there will always be the idea that RGL is against the people, RGL bad, what have you, (which is something I have heard touted in numerous pugs, scrims, matches, etc.). Because of this, a lot of (veteran, lol) admins have felt this built up resent and feel like we are constantly shat on by the community, which for a volunteer position is exhausting. I’m not saying this is happening to the level to which admins perceive it, and to an extent I believe it is exaggerated by the interactions that can leave a sour taste, building up over time into a warped perspective.
For example, this is something that just happened in advanced with the scheduler fucking up and me being too latent to fix it. I admit that I fucked up here, and it’s not about the fact that there was a post or the fact that I dropped the ball, they are completely justified in being upset, it’s that there was an entire ticket and good faith effort that I put in to try and both resolve and explain the issue. I promised going forward it wouldn’t happen again and I would make damn sure that there was official policy to stop this from happening (this is not the first time this has happened in advance!). It’s the fact that the post made literally no mention that admins were contacted and that the issue was attempted to be solved, in fact it made it sound like I made no effort to do anything. To be frank, it not only made me feel like shit, but I also questioned why I went through any effort to respond to it in the first place, as it felt as though my effort was completely ignored. They are in every right to ignore what I said, the thought I put into the entire situation, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling useless when it gets turned on my head publicly.
I think interactions like this, even those hidden in tickets and dispersed around the whispering of pugs, creates the mentality of it being extremely difficult to admin in this community. It feels like after turning every corner there is a massive brick wall that is the community perspective, and no matter what I do or what good faith effort is put in, it’s impossible to change.
However, I would like to reiterate here that it only seems this way from an admin perspective, and I don’t speak for everyone, though I do not think what I am saying is completely inaccurate. Despite what it may seem like, and I don’t have to say this, but I encourage people to keep posting on the forums with league issues if admins are incompetent. The league needs to be held accountable, though I ask that you show at least some courtesy to admins that put in logical, rule-based effort to help you out.
I would ask that people apply to RGL, but I cannot advocate that anyone become an admin after the interaction I had with a fellow member of staff just yesterday.
RAONICALIAS
The highest member of staff actually, the owner, arcadia.