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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

deletedalmost 8 years
nvm​​​
deletedalmost 8 years
Edark leaves once again, back to main lobby.

He is not a part of the community yet he wants to make decisions for us.

Perhaps he would know dooze, and all the other wonderful users here, if he actually came to the lobby more than once every few months

Site moderators are not here to protect users on the site from malicious intent, they are here to keep the hierarchy in tact.
deletedalmost 8 years
next user to post after me is the rightful owner to sandbox
almost 8 years
I'm inclined to believe that Merlot too believes that what the community wants or believes matters very little.

Not only do you people not matter to the people running the entire site, you also do not matter to the person running this lobby.

I'd love to be proved wrong, though, because if Merlot believes that what the community wants matters, then she'll pass the lobby onto Dooze -- the people's owner.
almost 8 years

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.
almost 8 years

JamalMarley says


Taking the lobby from someone who had no intention of passing it around and proceeding to pass it to another person does not create stability.

He would know I had no intention of passing it around again if he bothered to speak before taking from me.



You're only looking at this from your perspective.



JamalMarley says


Dooze is by far the best option to own this lobby and she too has no intention of passing it around -- she will keep it. Let someone who the people support and who has no intention of giving up the lobby own the lobby.


I don't know if you do this on purpose but you talk as if you know what's best for everyone. I don't have anything against dooze but you're making them come off like a clear, obvious savior or something when this just isn't the case. Your wording your opinions in a way that make it look like it's everyone's opinion... you did this in the other post about dooze also.
almost 8 years
But you heard it here first, everyone.

Site administrator Edark believes that the what the community wants or believes matters very little.

None of you matter to Edark.
almost 8 years

Jimbei says

If Sandbox is not custom, why is it that normally site mods avoid it like the plague?


Site mods are modded to handle reports, the VAST majority of reports come from main lobby so they mod people who play main lobby. With recent development, site mods can't even moderate in sandbox so they have no reason to be here other than because they want to be, and since they're mostly aforementioned main lobby players, they often don't.
almost 8 years

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.
almost 8 years

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.


Right, the community railing against your mod pick error was all baseless rumor.

Cool, so you seem pretty dead set on just ignoring the community, at least I have a better understanding of why its in the shape it is.

Have a good one
almost 8 years

Floor says


JamalMarley says

Merlot has done bad things in the past according to Edark, this too should disqualify her from being the owner of this lobby.


He gave the ownership to merlot as a move to establish stability. Before merlot it was being passed around.

The issue from what I see is you think it's a personal move or sorts and that's why he took it away from you but from his perspective he just saw the ownership being tossed around so he gave it to someone he knew wouldnt do that.

It doesn't look like something personal but rather you being unlucky.

Or maybe you two are familiar with each other and there's something else. I don't know. But I can understand edark's moves if he just wanted a resolution.


Taking the lobby from someone who had no intention of passing it around and proceeding to pass it to another person does not create stability.

He would know I had no intention of passing it around again if he bothered to speak before taking from me.

But what has happened in the past does not interest me -- I am interested in the future.

Dooze is by far the best option to own this lobby and she too has no intention of passing it around -- she will keep it. Let someone who the people support and who has no intention of giving up the lobby own the lobby.
deletedalmost 8 years
Multiple users in sandbox throughout yesterday have complained about Merlot. I want to give her a chance- I think sandbox too, but you guys wouldn't give Jamal a chance.
deletedalmost 8 years

rockgirlnikki says

Where is Nathan, lol


nathan is too pure to deal with this sh​itstorm
almost 8 years

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.
deletedalmost 8 years
Edark;
You do not ever visit sandbox, and when you do, it's to disagree with something.
I feel you are lacking in transparency, because your only real connections to Sandbox is Bebop and Merlot.
You claim Sandbox is not a custom but you are an owner who has given fnoof power. You wanted him to be owner, despite many sandbox users complaining multiple times about him. You do not listen to us.
I do not trust your judgement, and you seem unwilling to give people like Jamal or Dooze a chance.
If you really want to make final decisions, maybe you should be a part of the community.
If Sandbox is not custom, why is it that normally site mods avoid it like the plague?
They don't want to deal with us, and we don't want to deal with you guys.
almost 8 years
Where is Nathan, lol
almost 8 years
Edark wants to continue to shift the conversation with me to be about me, but it's not really about me.

I have formally given my support to Dooze to become the lobby owner as I can see there are people who do not want me as owner and do not have faith in me so I believe that we need to search for the best option.

Dooze is the best option. She is active, she's integrated into this community, she's kind, she has put effort into putting on events for the community like her Sandbox Assassin games, she's fair, she's reasonable, but most importantly -- the lobby wants her as the owner.

I am not interested in speaking about the lobby going back to me, because it shouldn't, but it shouldn't remain with Merlot either.

I have not seen any reasonable argument against Dooze become the owner.

Edark, what say you?
almost 8 years

Edark says


MrMongrel says


Edark says

Well mrmongrel, I've actually worked with merlot with her being a moderator and frankly I dont see where all the hate is coming from. But as I said, you're more than welcome to back up your claims.


Which claim, Edark? The one I said I wasn't clear on?

Or the fact that you've poorly chosen moderators before, the fact that you're making this decision with the bias of her being a good friend of yours, the fact that the community doesn't want merlot, or maybe its the fact that she herself has expressed serious disdain for the community as a whole?

Lmk.


You admit that you base your opinion of her being a bad owner on mere rumors that you cant even prove yet you're surprised that I wont act.

Atleast my opinion is based on working with her being as a moderator.

As I said, you're more than welcome to backup any claims you have of her being a bad owner. This isnt specified directly towards you, but to anyone who isnt happy with this decision.


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.
almost 8 years

Bebop says


rockgirlnikki says

Bebop you better watch out, Edark coming for Merlot. lolz


he's interested in someone else with blonde hair and blues eyes don't worry


CORY!? WEW.
almost 8 years

JamalMarley says

Merlot has done bad things in the past according to Edark, this too should disqualify her from being the owner of this lobby.


He gave the ownership to merlot as a move to establish stability. Before merlot it was being passed around.

The issue from what I see is you think it's a personal move or sorts and that's why he took it away from you but from his perspective he just saw the ownership being tossed around so he gave it to someone he knew wouldnt do that.

It doesn't look like something personal but rather you being unlucky.

Or maybe you two are familiar with each other and there's something else. I don't know. But I can understand edark's moves if he just wanted a resolution.
almost 8 years

rockgirlnikki says

Bebop you better watch out, Edark coming for Merlot. lolz


he's interested in someone else with blonde hair and blues eyes don't worry
almost 8 years
"If you cared about sandbox you would have responded sincerely to complaints during and after your ownership with an open ear, an open heart, and an open mind. Instead you continue to deflect to memes."
i'm actually responding to a lot of criticism in this thread, me upvoting memes doesn't mean anything.

"If you cared about sandbox, you would be addressing complaints instead of chiming in to defend yourself and your friends."
like i said, i have been addressing complaints but there's no mutual exclusivity to defending myself and others from false accusations.

"If you cared about sandbox, you would defend victims of doxxing regardless of who stands accused."
you know i actually talked to golbolco yesterday about the doxing? if you think i'm pro-doxing then please show how you reached that conclusion.

"If you cared about sandbox you would participate in the games, get to the know the community and find ways to improve it."
i participated in games for 2 years straight and i don't really find them all that fun anymore, i do still participate from time to time (i have played games TODAY) and i do interact with the community a lot.

"I'm sure you are a smart, capable young man and you are not immune to making mistakes in judgment --but please, for once be on our side Bebop or stop pretending you care about sandbox."
i'm not taking sides
almost 8 years
"If you cared about sandbox you would have valued the community's opinions when they brought complaints against error. You took his side and not ours."
i understand that i made mistakes in my ownership and i have absolutely owned up to them. i believed that even with his bad, error made up for it with the good - clearly i was mistaken but i don't think i should still be reprimanded for that months later.

"If you cared about sandbox you would agree Merlot should pass ownership to someone most of the community can agree on. You are taking her side and not ours."
i'm actually not taking anyone's side - if you read my earlier comments i already said that she wasn't the best choice.

"If you cared about sandbox being independent of site- wide rules like you once argued for Sandexit, you would be against administrator interference in ownership. Like you supposedly care about Brexit being free of EU interference."
sandbox isn't a custom lobby, whether we like it or not the lobby owner has to be someone they're okay with. i'm not saying that has to be merlot, but it needs to be addressed.
almost 8 years
Bebop you better watch out, Edark coming for Merlot. lolz
almost 8 years

MrMongrel says


Edark says

Well mrmongrel, I've actually worked with merlot with her being a moderator and frankly I dont see where all the hate is coming from. But as I said, you're more than welcome to back up your claims.


Which claim, Edark? The one I said I wasn't clear on?

Or the fact that you've poorly chosen moderators before, the fact that you're making this decision with the bias of her being a good friend of yours, the fact that the community doesn't want merlot, or maybe its the fact that she herself has expressed serious disdain for the community as a whole?

Lmk.


You admit that you base your opinion of her being a bad owner on mere rumors that you cant even prove yet you're surprised that I wont act.

Atleast my opinion is based on working with her being as a moderator.

As I said, you're more than welcome to backup any claims you have of her being a bad owner. This isnt specified directly towards you, but to anyone who isnt happy with this decision.