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The State of Sandbox

almost 8 years

For years, this lobby has been stagnant, it has been declining in activity, and it has quickly been losing interest for those of us who have been here for a couple of years. The ownership of the lobby being passed around like a game of hot potato to me was unacceptable and therefore I decided to create a plan to change the lobby and make it a better and safer experience for those of us here. I was made aware that I was the heir to the throne long ago and ever since then, I began to work on some of these ideas. I have been observing the lobby for years and participating when necessary so that I could bring you, the people, the necessary changes that you need.

To begin,

I did not intend to rule alone or with just the moderators I choose, I was not interested in a clique ruling the lobby like we are going to have with an owner like Merlot and like we had with Bebop. This secretive clique may be great for those who Merlot and Bebop are looking out for (themselves, other site moderators), but it is not good for the people. I intended to rule with transparency -- true transparency. I wanted the people of Sandbox to help make decisions and I intended to start up open forums to hear what you had to say on issues such as what the role of the lobby moderator should be since they do not do much (I will talk about this more later on in this thread) and if the moderators and I could not come to a decision about what to do with controversial issues like certain users posting content in the lobby chat, then we'd create an open forum allowing the people to have their say on the issue.

The role of the moderators would drastically change, making them more useful within the lobby as I have seen many people say that moderators just aren't needed in Sandbox, here are the descriptions of the roles that I created with the help of some of my friends which were set to be included in the moderator applications yesterday before the lobby was stolen from me:

Position: Forum Moderator Description: The forum moderator is the peace keeper of the forums. Their responsibilities include sticking the most relevant threads to the lobby wall, moving topics to their appropriate location, judging and enforcing rules violations in forums, and creating topics of interest. You should apply if: You are a very active user. You enjoy reading TheLastProphet’s and MeetTerry’s posts. You are organized.

Position: Games Moderator Description: The Games Moderator will have several responsibilities all of which include keeping the community having fun. The Games mod will be in charge of choosing the stickied setups, hosting setups and introducing new ones, hosting forum games or alternative games outside of sandbox or promoting games others are hosting. You should apply if: You are a very active user. You are creative. You are a good host. You enjoy the mafia based aspect of this mafia simulator site.

Position: Enforcer Moderator Description: The Enforcer Moderator will be the strong arm of the law. They must enforce the rules and will make no leeway for personal relationships. While all mods enforce the rules, the Enforcer Mod will be the primary mod to handle violations, give out punishment, police the lobby wall and lobby chat, and serve anyone who feels their experience in sandbox is being affected by other users. You should apply if: You are a very active user. You consider yourself tempered and level-headed. You are neither an SJW nor a racist. You’re not going to go on a banning spree.

Position: Community Moderator Description: The Community Mod will come up with the lobby announcements. They can keep the community up to date with events users are hosting such as: plugdj, discord, jackbox and movie nights. They will also lead design based aspects of sandbox including choosing the lobby banner, the lobby background, and the lobby polls. You should apply if: You are a very active user. You don’t need to be an artist but should have artistic taste. You communicate well with others and are up to date on social happenings.

We would put great empashize on having more community-orientented games like Dooze's Sandbox Assassin and Amelio's Sandbox Big Brother, SupBros' large games, or Plissken's unique events. We would create a fun lobby where we constantly have events being run and promote these events well rather than leaving the lobby stagnant as I talked about earlier and just having the same setup being hosted every single day.

I had great interest in running a lobby with an enforced set of rules, yet lenient when it needs to be. I had great interest I running the lobby with a policy in which everyone can play in Sandbox, but those who constantly interfere with the functioning of the lobby will be barred from playing here, a fair chance policy. This policy would also state that the moderators and even the owner themselves could not hold grudges and act due to that fact and this would include a fair chance when choosing moderators as well. With the fair chance policy, the moderators must live up to the rule as well and will be held to the highest of standards. In the event we had a moderator abusing their powers like error did, they would be removed from their position because of their interference with the functioning of the lobby. The main rules I believe need to be enforced are those that protect the people from legitimately feeling unsafe within the lobby. The people doxing users, threatening to reveal someone's personal information, and effectively chasing out our active userbase should not be allowed in this lobby -- and Bebop & friends are no stranger to doing this.

http://i.imgur.com/EmBybqe.png Bebop on who he thought the next Sandbox owner would be

http://i.imgur.com/XCsxx5M.png As we know, Bebop and his friends are no strangers to doxing users and threatening to reveal their personal information, this whatever it takes attitude is very telling.

http://i.imgur.com/pIHybZb.png He is not interested in working with the two moderators that have actually been beneficial to this lobby in recent memory. We can easily assume the hivemind believes the same.

I applied to be a moderator of this lobby under other owners in the past and have included my desire to be apart of a team with conflicting opinions in the application, and I have that same wish today and I wish to have people argue against me during these open forum discussions and I wish for people to play devil's advocate and I want to come to the best decisions possible as a result of this. I think it is crucial that everyone feels as though they can speak their true mind instead of feeling like they'll be punished for saying something the owner disagrees with like the moderators felt during Bebop's reign. I may not always make the best executive decision, but if someone can win a debate about something I did, then I think it is very telling that I made the wrong decision because if I was right, I should be able to defend myself and my decision. When Bebop made the many poor decisions he made during his reigns and the community argued against him, he resorted to arguing using jokes and memes to avoid having to actually argue and defend his decision -- this was one of the things I could not stand to do as owner as it is cowardly and it is not for the good of the people.

I was not interested in being pushed around by the site moderators (this is why they removed me, they knew I would not bow down to them) because these same site moderators are the same people that do nothing and in fact, support the doxing, threatening, and chasing away of our people from Sandbox. We needed someone to stand up to these people and I do believe we still need that. No one should fear for their safety on a mafia simulator site, this site should be to have fun, but it is most definitely not fun to have your personal information taken from you and it is not fun to be threatened with it.

I was the owner of this lobby and I was going to make it a great environment for all of us, but the fact is that it wasn't stolen from me -- it was stolen from all of you. During Bebop's reign, I was very much against the shady things Bebop & his friends were doing and fought to expose them and I did so, these people are not looking out for anyone but themselves and those who are in their hivemind. Edark removed me from the owner position because of many things including me openly stating that I do not feel as though he is fit to be an administrator ad he knew he could not control me or intimidate me. Edark did not come to me to ask me what my plans were or what my stance on any controversial issues were like that of the hateful comments rule that he asked baaabaa about when she was the interm owner -- he just removed me. Now the lobby is under the control of someone who has supported doxing users, threatening to reveal their personal information, and then chasing these same users out of the lobby out of fear -- and I just do not find this acceptable. If the people do not believe me to be the right fit to become owner once more, then I am formally giving my support to lobby moderator Dooze as I know she will implement these ideas and many others in order to protect all of you from people like Bebop, Edark, and friends.

Thank you, Jamal Marley

almost 8 years
i found the solution gg
almost 8 years
or one email that will speak up for all sandbox
almost 8 years
lets just spam lucid with emails bois
almost 8 years

Bebop says


dooze says

democratic vote


you're a good candidate please don't mess up by thinking mod elections can ever be a thing


hence the

dooze says

this is freaking sandbox not sweden

almost 8 years
N
almost 8 years

dooze says

democratic vote


you're a good candidate please don't mess up by thinking mod elections can ever be a thing
almost 8 years

dooze says


rockgirlnikki says

Edark, you know... did it ever occur to you that maybe dooze skyrocketed to popularity so quickly because they are capable in positions of leadership? *thinking emoji*


I just thought people thought i was cool :(


lol you're cool too.

I think we should wait to see what Merlot says. Perhaps we can make an arrangement where Merlot passes leadership to dooze because its literally what the majority of the community is asking for. If dooze is incapable, then Merlot can have her turn since she gave the community what it wanted. I don't know. Just an idea of sorts.
almost 8 years

dooze says

People are making me out to be more of a saint than I am. I do believe that I fit the owner position, but there are many others who do too. I think a democratic vote would be ideal but at the same time this is freaking sandbox not sweden. It's important to take what active people in sandbox want in consideration, too. I have no complaints against me, the one report against me was a joke, and people tend to respect me.

If the site mods feel the need to switch owners, I hope they'd feel comfortable messaging me to discuss the possibility of me being owner, but also know that I am unbiased opinion if they want to consider anyone else for the position


You're too kind.
almost 8 years

rockgirlnikki says

Edark, you know... did it ever occur to you that maybe dooze skyrocketed to popularity so quickly because they are capable in positions of leadership? *thinking emoji*


I just thought people thought i was cool :(
almost 8 years
People are making me out to be more of a saint than I am. I do believe that I fit the owner position, but there are many others who do too. I think a democratic vote would be ideal but at the same time this is freaking sandbox not sweden. It's important to take what active people in sandbox want in consideration, too. I have no complaints against me, the one report against me was a joke, and people tend to respect me.

If the site mods feel the need to switch owners, I hope they'd feel comfortable messaging me to discuss the possibility of me being owner, but also know that I am unbiased opinion if they want to consider anyone else for the position
almost 8 years
Edark, you know... did it ever occur to you that maybe dooze skyrocketed to popularity so quickly because they are capable in positions of leadership? *thinking emoji*
almost 8 years

dooze says

Hi edark my name is dooze I've been a mod for about a month now and active in sandbox for over 3 years. I've sent you messages before but you've never responded but that's okay you probably get enough messages as is


And this is why people support dooze.
deletedalmost 8 years
Time to ratify the constitution
almost 8 years

CooperD says


celestial says


rockgirlnikki says

Where is Nathan, lol


nathan is too pure to deal with this sh​itstorm


Nathan is the hot one right?


Post nudes, Nathan.
deletedalmost 8 years

celestial says


rockgirlnikki says

Where is Nathan, lol


nathan is too pure to deal with this sh​itstorm


Nathan is the hot one right?
almost 8 years

Bebop says

remember when garden got removed and the lobby was passed to someone (roadman) who understood how sandbox worked and he handpicked someone to be owner rather than it getting passed around like crazy? maybe this should be the new precedent


hey actually this wouldn't be a bad idea if we tweaked it a bit. maybe a counsel of 7-9-11 users that have contributed to sandbox and care about their moderation, could have a vote and decide who the next owner is?

at this point i dont think we have any relatively objective person who understands how sandbox's moderation works and can single handedly decide who'd be a good owner, but we surely have several users that could talk about it and come with the best decision for the lobby.


dunno. just an idea. probably would be hard to implement. but we all know that some people are involved enough to make a good decision.
deletedalmost 8 years
Does it actually matter? It's been proven time and time again that this lobby is a joke. Most users have come to expect the lobby is not to be taken seriously - it appears to just be a tool used to enhance the egos of a select few.

The fact is, if you give this lobby to children who are emotionally and (possibly) intellectually underdeveloped, what you're going to get is a lobby that's fragmented and has no consistency. No one has any trust in 'the system', a system that has proven to be corrupt on many occasions for a lot of us - highlighted specifically by reports not being judged appropriately when the 'elite' are reported for legitimate reasons and the responses from moderators being meme worthy.

People have diminished trust in the mod team and the site as a whole which is a shame, because proper structuring of the website could well be the thing that leads to its success.

Will Merlot be a good owner? Probably not. But who cares, there'll be another one before you can blink.
almost 8 years
If you feel like we're wrong, and you are going to continue to play favorites, then perhaps you should step-down as administrator. You of all people should be unbiased and welcoming of community outlooks.
almost 8 years
And if you still think our opinions are falsified, then you're wrong. Everyone knows that regardless of how great of a person Merlot is, the main concern lies within her boyfriend (sorry, Bebop) being in the background and how her inactivity is PROVEN. That's why users are upset. A couple will remain a couple regardless of what they tell you (i.e. bdog1321 and dahlia).
almost 8 years
You were entrusted with the title of admin for a reason, Edark, why don't you live up to it instead of playing favorites and ignoring the understandable, and rightful, opinions and views of the lobby's community.
almost 8 years

dooze says

Hi edark my name is dooze I've been a mod for about a month now and active in sandbox for over 3 years. I've sent you messages before but you've never responded but that's okay you probably get enough messages as is


our hero, the chosen one
almost 8 years
Hi edark my name is dooze I've been a mod for about a month now and active in sandbox for over 3 years. I've sent you messages before but you've never responded but that's okay you probably get enough messages as is
almost 8 years
Further, no one is complaining about dooze like they are with Merlot. As an admin of the site, I would think you'd take into consideration the opinions of the actual sandbox community, rather than your own, especially since you aren't part of the sandbox community.
almost 8 years
Edark, Merlot created an entire f*cking forum saying that she no longer wished to be apart of Sandbox like a month ago... I think that's evidence enough that she's out-of-touch with the community. Additionally, you have never seen dooze because YOU DON'T COME IN SANDBOX. Dooze constantly plays games, and has been pretty active in forums. Multiple users can even vouch for this, and I can vouch for those same users, and so on and so forth. You can't be serious.
almost 8 years

Edark says


JamalMarley says


Edark says


MrMongrel says

Can you quote where I said she was a bad owner? Because I'm pretty sure the case I'm making is that literally no one wants or trusts her, despite your bias towards her. This has happened in the past with you modding error and ignoring us, and it seems now you're intent on being stubborn again until it continues to blow out of proportion.

We're asking you to work with us.


If you dont even imply she would be a bad owner I dont really get why you're so against her. What the community thinks matters very little as more often than not it tend to be baseless rumors.

You're all more than welcome to back it up tho and prove me wrong. I'd even encourage you to do so.


She's inactive, she's not apart of THIS community, she's out of touch.

Dooze is active, she's apart of this community, the people actually want her as owner.

If you only passed the lobby to Merlot to create stability, why not give it to someone who can do the same while actually having the support of the people within the lobby?

What are the downsides of making dooze owner, Edark? I am curious what you think.


I dont even know who dooze is nor have I ever seen her. how could I take the risk of making someone random owner again? If Merlot doesnt work out or if any single one of you can actually back up any of your rumors I'd be all ears.

But since you clearly cant, I'll take my leave. Feel free to PM me any concerns tho.


But you knew fnoof, clearly we should not be going by your knowledge of a certain user.

You aren't apart of the Sandbox community, of course you don't know Dooze, but the people of Sandbox know Dooze. We know Dooze to be a capable person and someone who is deserving of the ownership position.

She's not a random.

If you want to get to know her, then do so, ask her about what she has planned for Sandbox and what she has done for this community.