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
