Greetings, ladies and gentlemen.
It is I -- the grand Jamal Tiberius Marley here to discuss some things with the community.
Speaking of community.. User Shoopie decided that it was a bright idea to come to our great Sandbox lobby and pretend that she is a member of this community -- she is not.
You know who is a member of this community? Jamal Tiberius Marley.
The same Jamal Tiberius Marley who has been here for years, the same who has dedicated time and energy into improving this lobby.
Shoopie dared call into question my ability to run the lobby yet her ignorance was made apparent during this period of poor decision making.
I have provided Sandbox with hundreds of poll suggestions in order to regularly engage the community, you may ask user Bebop to attest to the overwhelming amount of ideas I had for said polls.
I have provided a reason for users to come to this lobby as my presence was irresistible. Whenever I am out of hibernation, everyone always pays attention to me. Everyone wants to be keeping up with Jamal Marley. I give people a reason to log in every day.
I have been a member of this community who does not just post on the forums, who does not simply sit in the chatbox all day, I also play games and have played games since my arrival on this site. I participate in all facets of this lobby -- I am so well-rounded.
My work also expands to the greater website as I was a part of the Role Patrol who created many roles that were released in the last wave of roles and there are still plenty of unreleased roles that I have made and contributed to: https://epicmafia.com/topic/81195 https://epicmafia.com/role/15711 https://epicmafia.com/role/15712 https://epicmafia.com/role/15713
I have been saying since my return from hibernation that this lobby was stolen from me and this is the truth. Allow me to revive my State of Sandbox address after the theft occurred: https://epicmafia.com/topic/82921
I laid out my ideas for the community, some obviously still in development as I had little notice before taking over the lobby, yet the ideas were there nonetheless and I was ready to start rolling out changes. At the end of the thread I gave my support to user Dooze in the event that people did not support me -- yet the people did support me. I had my hopes that user Dooze would implement some grand changes to revive what was already a decaying community, yet she did no such thing.
My ideas are not complex, I am not likely not the first one to think of them, yet I was evidently the only one who had the drive and initiative to desire a change and push for a better community.
If you do not wish to click the State of the Sandbox address, then here are some of the unedited ideas from the thread:
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.
I do not claim my ideas to be perfect, yet they were ideas and I had the drive to implement them before the robbery, I do believe that we need an owner who cares enough to TRY to do something positive with this lobby.