This is something I’ve been feeling for some time now. This isn’t just an opinion piece based on my own experience but I feel like I can talk for a fair few people when I’m writing this.
TF nowadays just isn’t fun for me to be around. There’s the odd voice chats which is quite fun but that can only go so far. There have been a lot of incidents recently that have all culminated over time that are shit that should just not be happening, for a community that has lasted for over a decade it’s ridiculous that it’s coming to this point. I’m just going to take this section by section. Anything stated here isn’t personal, I think most people here now know that I genuinely do not care enough to dislike people on TF with very few known exceptions. I don’t judge people based on Minecraft. I will also ensure to name no names, this isn’t a callout post on anyone but rather just my honest view on TF in recent times.
Server Management
This is an issue I’ve brought up privately a fair few times and to an extent has been resolved but it’s left a bad taste in my mouth. The current leadership team are all individuals who are talented, have integrity and are pretty good at their jobs. This is a stark contrast to many of the execs before (aside from a few like kae, miwo, etc) who just weren’t good. However, my issue lies with one thing: motivation and willingness to actually do stuff.
Prior to resigning from senior I often found myself just doing shit myself. A fair few people probably assumed I was just overreaching or powerhungry but there were a lot of times where nobody else was willing to do anything to help, meaning I was the only one capable AND willing to actually help do shit. This isn’t an issue with just one person who should have helped but with the whole team in general where I asked on teams for some form of assistance given how difficult the situation was, or advice, and nobody said anything just at all. It actually got really intense and difficult to cope with. Most recently I figured after the latest example of a shitty situation where I was basically the only one doing anything in any official capacity, it was time for me to step down from senior so I could focus primarily on the Discord.
Now as I said before, the problem isn’t the actual team given that they are as I said skilled individuals who are genuinely good at their job. My second issue and I suspect the reason they aren’t motivated is simple.
The Community.
Simply put at this moment in time the TF community is not nice to be around. There were previous times where TF was toxic but back then at least it was fun to be around, people spoke and did shit other than just be upset constantly in freedom-01 server chat about something meaningless.
There’s no sense of actual community anymore. It’s just a handful of people talking in freedom-01.
And that’d be fine if those handful of people talking had any conversation that people could join, anything that could involve others but they don’t. A lot of the time it devolves into something stupidly immature (beyond what I’d expect even from Minecraft) or something toxic or just stupid in depth rants about shit that doesn’t stop, pause and actually let other people speak
The reason I’m bringing this up is because I’ve found nowadays it’s incredibly difficult to do my job. No matter how many times I can repeat “take deep topics to private areas” or “don’t tell people to kill themselves” or “don’t burn pride flags” or even “Stop talking about explicit sexual shit in public”, it will fall on deaf ears. If I then do something to stop it happening, i.e. ban, mute, etc I will get screamed at and made fun of, and I’m sure the rest of the team can relate here
And no, this isn’t normal. Any other community would be receptive of the rules that have been in place for years, but on TF if I try to do my job I get screamed at by the community and if I try to do what I’ve done for the past few months now and try to be relaxed but firm I get screamed at by somebody who doesn’t like the fact that I’m being relaxed
At base value it’s just disappointing. I do want to be relaxed and I do want to give people as much freedom as they can but it’s incredibly difficult when people just constantly whine and take advantage of the fact that I’m doing that.
This isn’t something I plan on elaborating on much further following this. I don’t generally try and speak out in these instances but recently it’s just become too much to handle. And just a word of warning if I get paragraphs telling me I’m wrong and I should just leave then I’m not going to reply and I’m not going to resign. This is my opinion, and I’m saying this to incite change, not to shit on people and say that I hate TF. Resigning would solve nothing and would leave this problem for whoever my successor would be.
We can all do better people. Myself included. I am not innocent in all this, and I have done things I’m not proud of on TF. But I’m capable of admitting that.