An open discussion on what it is like to be staff on TF nowadays

Quote from JagWire

You get criticized for doing your job, which is entirely voluntary. Sure everyone makes mistakes, but someone always has an issue with something.

I notice whenever shit hits the fan, suddenly people who haven't been on TF for years make an appearance and suddenly have an opinion about something.

and god forbid that you ban someone for doing something incredibly stupid, suddenly 50 TF lawyers appear and protest with some pedantic technicality.

100% Valid points, especially as a player with nearly a decade's worth of playtime.

This community is quite frankly very toxic and no matter what you do, you're examined under an electron microscope for every move. For example, I ban someone and there's a chance people will riot and somehow try to invalite decision despite the legitimacy of the ban or the fact evidence exists to support it.

On this server, people are never happy with anything and the community seems to have a high degree of toxicity.

It's important to consider both staff and user perspectives when looking at the current community, and so I would like to provide my opinion on this.

I agree with all the points mentioned here. I returned to the Discord server last week and was met with rejection for an incident that took place almost 2 months ago. I didn't understand a mental health condition so I got told to off myself. Someone else didn't understand the same condition, so was told they may be responsible for the death of someone that night.

As well as this, insults are not thrown as jokes anymore, but rather as actual insults. This has made even speaking in the chat an issue, especially for the likes of me who disagrees with a lot of opinions held by many here. It's not just other users either, there are staff members taking part in jokes like these without realising the effect it may create on other server members. Be a dickhead all you want, just don't be shitting on someone every time they talk in chat.

A few nights ago, two of my friends (Cyclippy and neon) joined the server and did not understand why people were using bots to speak. These individuals were met with direct harassment, and whilst yes they did troll to the point they were banned, only one out of a number of individuals actually welcomed them to the community. TotalFreedom is already dwindling in player counts and now of all times we choose to push new players out?

A light inspection over freedom-01 gives you an outlook on how things are right now. There's nothing wrong with venting every now and then; we are humans after all and we are not perfect. However, the fact that it's always the same group of people always rambling on about their issues and making conversations about themselves just turns the atmosphere sour. I'm not on about deep discussions here, but rather the talk of actual psychological disorders and the experiences one is going through them. I am not alone when I say this; it seems a lot of people are doing this for attention and don't seem to actually have a problem. TotalFreedom has and never will be equipped to handle these and if you do think you have a disorder, or an issue with mental health, please seek help from a trusted professional and not children on a block game.

That's just my two cents on this. I'm not going to leave the community, but if I'm honest I don't see a future in the long run for many of the current members.

Quote from man

A few nights ago, two of my friends (Cyclippy and neon) joined the server and did not understand why people were using bots to speak. These individuals were met with direct harassment, and whilst yes they did troll to the point they were banned, only one out of a number of individuals actually welcomed them to the community. TotalFreedom is already dwindling in player counts and now of all times we choose to push new players out?

I was about to remove the mute for cyclippy before their friend came in and trolled both of them out of the server. I actually thought they were their alt account.

Also I wasn't the one to time cyclippy out originally, it was someone else that I don't remember the name of.

I do agree with you that people are way too quick to assume new people are bad faith users, if they want they can make an appeal on the forums and I wouldn't object to it, but the one responsible for unbanning them would be Luke.

Just about every point you made in this post doesn't ring true just for administration on TF, it seems to me like it also rings true for the development of the Minecraft server. Due to the way the pull request system works, there is always one reviewer required in order to merge a pull request. This is, of course, quite logical, considering if this restriction was not in place then it'd be trivial to get developer and merge permissions on TF, make a new branch, add some malicious code, open a pull request, merge it yourself and have malicious code on the development branch for whoever knows how long. This works fine when there's at least 2 active developers, but due to the nature of the developer role on TF, being without an activity requirement, and the terrible build times of TFM and just massive codebase issues, there is often only one active developer who wants to actively improve the codebase of TFM, without anyone to merge these PRs. When your PR is merged into the development, it often takes months for it to be published as a release, or put on the server. A lot of the fun in programming, at least for me, is to see your project actually running in production. Not just to have it approved and merged into the current development revision. I do understand that this is in the interest of stability, and I agree that is of high importance, but this certainly isn't the correct way to do it. It feels similar to the Debian project's stable flavour, which essentially holds back the non-security updates of packages. This, for me, is the reason that I haven't tried to make as many pull requests to TFM as I could've, it's just tiring to write changes and then get them sent into code review purgatory. Not knowing if your changes will be denied, accepted or ever merged into TFM in the first place. Code reviews aren't good when they're never done, and as such actually get in the way of development, instead of actually improving stability and code quality, as they are meant for. Neither is the branch system of TFM.

Of course, that's now all basically irrelevant now that Paldiu has started the development of FNS, however I hope that the "it sort of works, so why change it?" attitude will never be repeated to such a degree with the warning of my lengthy paragraph above. Let's hope FNS is finished quite soon, so we can finally kick TFM into the bowels of hell, and let it burn there for all eternity.

This entire server smells heavily of slow stagnation. The current stagnant status of TF will eventually lead to its downfall, whether you believe it or not. The server bills are paid, sure, but there aren't any features actually being added, besides the occasional bug or exploit fix. The server never changes. For some people, that's probably fine, but I enjoy change in my servers. If you eat the same food, made by the same cook, every day, for every meal, then eventually you'll get sick of that food. I'm sure the players can relate to this sentiment, as the server has been stuck on 1.17.1 for an eternity now. Please, for the love of god, just allow the server to be updated relatively fast to the latest version of Minecraft which Scissors has support for. I became a developer while the server was on 1.17.1 in May of 2022, and the server is still on 1.17.1 over a year later. And TFM is able to run natively on 1.19.4, without any issues. It has been successfully deployed on IPTFreedom, a server ran by one of our community members, without any issues. And by the way, the 1.19.3 PR still works.

I personally think operators moaning about TF not being on 1.19.4 is annoying, but it's a valid gripe to have with the way the server is currently being handed.

This isn't the fault of one singular developer, or even Ryan. There are much more greener pastures than attempting to fix the shitcode that is TFM. But, nonetheless, PRs not being merged in months isn't particularly good for the state of the server, either way.

It would also be much easier if developers without admin had access to some sort of logging, so they can read exceptions & what players are running to generate those exceptions, instead of having to rely on kind administrators to forward the stacktraces to them. I understand that the confidentiality of admin chat is a big concern there, but I don't think it would be particularly difficult to quickly add support to BukkitTelnet for allowing developers to remotely access the server's console, without the ability to run commands or view admin chat. If administration actually wants me to implement this, please don't hesitate to let me know to implement it.

I don't see myself being a developer for much longer if the server isn't updated to 1.20 (it is stable now) within the next 6 months.

I know some people will probably be angry if I bring Kaboom up in a thread about the state of TF, but I think in this case it is certainly warranted. After all, the server is usually always on the latest version of Minecraft a few weeks after release, and the plugins are updated every month or so. I find it much easier to contribute to Kaboom, even though the owner isn't available for contact on any sort of social media, due to the nature of the server, or there not being any sort of actual "development team", besides on and off contributors. Maybe this example isn't very good.

Also, if you're wondering why I haven't brought any of this up in development discussion or anywhere similar, it's because I think this is pretty obvious to anyone who's been spectating the development cycle of TF. But I don't know, maybe it isn't and I should've brought it up. Sorry if that's the case.

Quote from wild1145

Again the issue that's stopped us moving from our current version is lack of developer effort to provide a production ready 1.19 (now 1.20) TFM and other plugins release.

As I've mentioned in the post, there is a PR in the TFM repo that contains all of the necessary changes for updating TFM to the Scissors 1.19 API (and also 1.20)

Quote from videogamesm12

As a community, we must break this trend and realize that being intolerant pricks, even if you believe you are doing the right thing, is a godawful idea.

im gonna be completely honest and this is not just to you but also to some of the other points made here including my own

this thread won't get read by the target audience and the question we should really be asking is if it is worth even discussing this on here or maybe taking it up with the members who continue this behaviour

Being an admin on TotalFreedom for however long it was, wasn't really that special and honestly it put me in a worse position than being a Hub Mod.

As soon as I was instated as an admin, I was asked "Why?" and basically being told that it was a horrible idea to apply for Admin here. At first, I didn't think it was a bad idea, the server needed people from where I am and so I took that as an opportunity, I never thought that it would lead to people bullying me and giving me all sorts of shit just for being staff. Even some ex-community members that knew me, permbanned or not, targeted the server more just to get a rise out of me. I was honestly just going to resign right at that moment because it was just all the fucking time it would happen.

Eventually I just let it go and continued searching for things do to and people to punish while flying around on TF.

I honestly just think that in previous years, the reputation of TotalFreedom as a whole was on a downward spiral and it's only getting worse. Whether it be just the behavior of previous admins, or something that they did to community members at the time that made them leave, etc., it's only worsening. And I do agree with Jag and Alco when they say that when you ban someone you basically get put under arrest and taken into interrogation where they try to make you look bad.

Granted, I wasn't here for the majority of everything TF-related that you old-heads talk about now because I joined somewhere in 2020, but I still see some of that stuff now; Old admins returning and making a shit-show out of every situation just because something didn't go their way or because "the server just isn't what it was like back in the day" (whatever that means).

Obviously, a point really hasn't been made yet, but in my honest opinion, if we can somehow find a way to do something about the toxicity, or whatever stupid shit that's going on, then I think the server could see the light again.

I think for the past few years I have been known here as "guy who complains." Are we ready to listen? I doubt it, but here we go again, another two-parter.

I remember a time where I was optimistic about TotalFreedom and what was going to happen here. The thing that ended up changing that was when I got the chance to run a server of my own with a management team that was ready for something new. I have seen how well things can run if people are actually willing to try things out and experiment with different options. A few of the things said in this thread happen because they're symptoms of being stubborn and unmotivated, but there are solutions to these things that I have frankly been talking about for ages. I'm going to go over some of people's points and ideas.

Quote from Allink

This works fine when there's at least 2 active developers, but due to the nature of the developer role on TF, being without an activity requirement, and the terrible build times of TFM and just massive codebase issues, there is often only one active developer who wants to actively improve the codebase of TFM, without anyone to merge these PRs. When your PR is merged into the development, it often takes months for it to be published as a release, or put on the server.

Quote from Allink

Of course, that's now all basically irrelevant now that Paldiu has started the development of FNS, however I hope that the "it sort of works, so why change it?" attitude will never be repeated to such a degree with the warning of my lengthy paragraph above. Let's hope FNS is finished quite soon, so we can finally kick TFM into the bowels of hell, and let it burn there for all eternity.

Everyone knows now that it's long past time we got over TFM and moved on to something else. The part that nobody realizes yet though is that TF really doesn't have enough motivated developers to get a full, custom plugin done the way TF wants it to be done. Lakefield and I ran into this same problem when we were working on our server. Do you know who our lead developer was? It was the same person who is the lead developer for TF right now. Lakefield pitched the idea that we never needed a custom plugin in the first place and we should just move on to a fully permission based system running with LuckPerms, and that was honestly the best decision we made when it came to moving along server setup. We ended up making a solid permission-based system that worked for many different gamemodes, including creative, survival, skyblock, and the lobby system. LuckPerms is incredibly flexible, and also, very importantly, doesn't require a full-on developer to be worked on. Once the base setup is done, it's possible to manage everything from an easy to use online web panel.

TF could honestly handle many of its development related issues if they just made the same switch we did, but I have pitched that idea before, and every time, one stubborn individual or another says it will "never happen" for reasons like "We already are using NetworkManager" (which honestly most people here agree is dogshit) or "We don't want to sacrifice full op...," a baseless idea that was literally already given up on by the current devs who at least knew better than to attempt to maintain it.

Just accept that it's time to move on to a more standardized permissions system. I know that the people here can do it because the much smaller team working on UMC/Darkstone got it done in far, far less time than it is still taking for TF developers to come out with whatever custom project they're trying to complete. It is not an issue of "we can't do it" or "it's impossible" or "it won't work." It can be done. Easily. If the community and administration here still can't make the choice to do it, it's honestly on them.

And if that wasn't enough, here's another hard to swallow pill for you guys: Your current lead developer chose to use the permission system that was set up by mostly Lakefield over anything that was done here when working on the new attempt at a UMC reboot. You know why that is? It's because it works way better and was made by people who were more focused on the idea of running a stable and enjoyable experience.

Quote from Allink

This entire server smells heavily of slow stagnation. The current stagnant status of TF will eventually lead to its downfall, whether you believe it or not. The server bills are paid, sure, but there aren't any features actually being added, besides the occasional bug or exploit fix. The server never changes. For some people, that's probably fine, but I enjoy change in my servers. If you eat the same food, made by the same cook, every day, for every meal, then eventually you'll get sick of that food.

I have said this exact same thing a million zillion times and the response I get nearly every single time is some form of "We're ok with this! We don't want it to change." How can people be ok with this? You're right, if the server continues on the same path it's going now, it's going to die some way or another.

Quote from Luke

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

The issue with trying to cleanse the TF community of these behaviors is that beforehand, TF had fostered the same behavior for years, and they still continue to do so for some things. Telling people to kill themselves and burning pride flags and talking about sexual things were essentially seen as basic, day-to-day non-issues for the longest time. It's going to be extremely hard to reverse that type of behavior within this community, but it's definitely being made harder by some of the ways in which this community currently functions. There's a good reason why most reasonable communities don't allow people to say "retarded" and treat the word as what it is, a slur.

Quote from Luke

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.

You have been here long enough to know that this is never going to change. It's behavior that has been affirmed and cemented by TF's community over the majority of its long history. That's another good reason why I keep pitching the idea that we try out anarchy over and over and over again. It's the only type of server that you could reasonably expect a community like this to exist within.

Quote from JagWire

An example I can give about this is when I was an event host. I was busy with my own life, but when I did host events people just found ways to exploit it, making me look like a fool.

and god forbid that you ban someone for doing something incredibly stupid, suddenly 50 TF lawyers appear and protest with some pedantic technicality.

Another example of the behavior that makes me keep saying that TF would work as anarchy over and over. Nobody can do this if there are no rules. If TF is going to continue to have this type of behavior as a community, it should accept that it's a place for people to say pedantic things and give anarchy a try.

Quote from Alco_Rs11

This community is quite frankly very toxic and no matter what you do, you're examined under an electron microscope for every move. For example, I ban someone and there's a chance people will riot and somehow try to invalite decision despite the legitimacy of the ban or the fact evidence exists to support it.

A good solution to this is honestly to just make punishments and bans private. The way literally every other server functions is that bans appear as someone just leaving the server with absolutely no message or anything, and that ban appeals are private and handled by staff only. I still don't know why TF hasn't made this change yet. The people arguing for transparency as a reason to keep the current system are the same people who throw temper tantrums every time someone gets banned for a valid reason.

Nobody should honestly expect people to treat staff-issued punishments in anything other than a completely pedantic way given that, honestly, the same punishments are issued in a pedantic way too. There's still "naughty, naughty boy" messages that pop up whenever people get banned, people who get banned end up being the ass end of jokes for way too long because the staff here literally have nothing better to talk about, and punishments are still handled and appealed in a manner that is literally just a TF spectacle and tradition at this point. It attracts people who seek out and cause real drama over pointless issues, and not the other type of useful "drama" people here still confuse it with that is just the constructive criticism that occurs when actual issues are addressed and changes are suggested.

Quote from wild1145

After being here for approaching 11 years as an admin now, it's hard to disagree with any of your points really.

Being 100% honest, it's really hard to motivate myself to work on TF stuff now, after the last couple of years of fairly consistent death threats, doxing and general issues it causes my life it's hard to keep loving the place especially when I've been working on building other communities which are significantly more friendly and grateful for the amount of time, effort and money that goes into running things like this.

A conclusion like this should mean one of two things happens:

One - drastic changes are made in an attempt to repair the broken state of the server and its community. Maybe I shouldn't say "drastic" because they're actually reasonable changes that a few people, or sometimes just I have been suggesting we do for ages. Switching to standardized permissions (WITHOUT any long winded attempt at a custom plugin,) trying out anarchy, banning slurs, and handling punishments in a mature and private manner are not hard things to do in the slightest. I'm not kidding when I say all this could be implemented in a week or two if people planned it out and accepted and agreed it needed to happen. And yes, that is with the development team we currently have. I know it's possible because Lakefield and I did a lot of the same things with a much smaller, but more focused staff team.

But, if people can't agree once again, and if what was said here is responded to the same way it was before, it's going to be time for option two:

Quote from wild1145

I'm open to options to turn things around, but I'll be 100% honest, given how much TF costs and how generally ungrateful people have been for the place existing, if the mood / vibe / general impression people get joining TF / our Discord / forums doesn't improve over the coming months, I'll start to re-consider shit-canning this once and for all.

If things haven't changed in a few months I will come back here and repeat what you said here. Something needs to be done about this, whether it's a revival or burying the dead corpse.

Quote from videogamesm12

Now, here we are. We've been given yet another opportunity to right our wrongs. Will we finally take this opportunity? It's up to us. I've been a witness to the various shitshows certain members causes both inside and outside of the community over the years. This is a dangerous trend, and it's literally killing us. As a community, we must break this trend and realize that being intolerant pricks, even if you believe you are doing the right thing, is a godawful idea.

It's all about shaping the network in the ways you want people to behave. A lot of the problems mentioned have solutions that, despite being not very challenging to implement, are things that absolutely nobody wants to do. At this point I don't and can't understand why none of it has been done yet. But if now is the time where it finally does happen, then yeah, maybe we have a chance to knock this server and its community off its current path to its grave.

Quote from Luke

Dude as an exec you were the problem I mentioned in the server-management section. You refused to do your job, you sat and just bitched about literally everything, and you refused to listen when legit like nobody else wanted your idea and still tried to press it as if it’d change anything

Since you're now bringing this up, I actually started to suggest the anarchy idea after everything else I wanted done with freedom was turned down by Ryan or someone else. Anyone else who was there knows it'd be a lie to say anarchy was the only potential solution I suggested - I brought up many different things that could be done to make the server more interesting. I talked with Steven about bringing a cracked system back that could host both premium and cracked players. I suggested we switch to standard permissions. I offered to do the work on that myself if it was needed, because I was someone who had the motivation to actually do it (at the time.) I suggested we experiment with datapacks and new gamemode ideas. The number one point I actually brought up with the executives then were that my hands were tied, and something needed to be done about the game server before I could begin marketing - I literally couldn't do the rest of my job properly with the lifeless state of the freedom server. Nobody can.

At a certain point the response to every single one of those changes I suggested was that it "wasn't my job," and that by making those points I "wasn't doing my job," but that is a completely nonsensical argument. For as much as everyone here hated the lack of actual action from me, that same lack of action has honestly been present ever since I left. People don't complain about it as much because it's under the guise of someone whose job is to pretend community events and small changes and steps taken to market a server that is currently a dysfunctional creative freebuild are actually going to cause any significant growth. The server is still just as dead as it was the entire time I was there.

The reason I literally did nothing but suggest these changes is because I knew nothing was going to get done anyway unless changes were made to the in-game experience. And honestly, everything that has happened since I left has proven that point. Tizz has honestly made just as much progress as I had as marketing manager, but that's something nobody here wants to talk about because I was up front and took the shit for getting nothing done while he has just accepted that his hands are tied and taken steps to obscure the fact that nothing is still getting done. In this thread everyone is complaining about how the server is still sluggish and boring, and that nobody has any motivation to do anything.

I am done talking about anarchy, and I am done suggesting any more changes. I am done trying to give you guys ideas. I am done trying to help. I am a fool for believing that at some point people would listen.

Quote from Panther

Quote from Luke

Dude as an exec you were the problem I mentioned in the server-management section. You refused to do your job, you sat and just bitched about literally everything, and you refused to listen when legit like nobody else wanted your idea and still tried to press it as if it’d change anything

Since you're now bringing this up, I actually started to suggest the anarchy idea after everything else I wanted done with freedom was turned down by Ryan or someone else. Anyone else who was there knows it'd be a lie to say anarchy was the only potential solution I suggested - I brought up many different things that could be done to make the server more interesting. I talked with Steven about bringing a cracked system back that could host both premium and cracked players. I suggested we switch to standard permissions. I offered to do the work on that myself if it was needed, because I was someone who had the motivation to actually do it (at the time.) I suggested we experiment with datapacks and new gamemode ideas. The number one point I actually brought up with the executives then were that my hands were tied, and something needed to be done about the game server before I could begin marketing - I literally couldn't do the rest of my job properly with the lifeless state of the freedom server. Nobody can.

At a certain point the response to every single one of those changes I suggested was that it "wasn't my job," and that by making those points I "wasn't doing my job," but that is a completely nonsensical argument. For as much as everyone here hated the lack of actual action from me, that same lack of action has honestly been present ever since I left. People don't complain about it as much because it's under the guise of someone whose job is to pretend community events and small changes and steps taken to market a server that is currently a dysfunctional creative freebuild are actually going to cause any significant growth. The server is still just as dead as it was the entire time I was there.

The reason I literally did nothing but suggest these changes is because I knew nothing was going to get done anyway unless changes were made to the in-game experience. And honestly, everything that has happened since I left has proven that point. Tizz has honestly made just as much progress as I had as marketing manager, but that's something nobody here wants to talk about because I was up front and took the shit for getting nothing done while he has just accepted that his hands are tied and taken steps to obscure the fact that nothing is still getting done. In this thread everyone is complaining about how the server is still sluggish and boring, and that nobody has any motivation to do anything.

I am done talking about anarchy, and I am done suggesting any more changes. I am done trying to give you guys ideas. I am done trying to help. I am a fool for believing that at some point people would listen.

To be quite honest, more than half of the points you've made are irrelevant with the changes video and I are making across the board. You say we don't have the developer manpower to accomplish a new custom plugin in a way that TF needs it to be done, and I would like to counter that by saying that video allink and I are all currently actively contributing to our new project. I have all the time in the world now that I work mornings exclusively, ND most of my time at home is spent working on FNS. There's a lot of BTS stuff going on and I don't expect you to know that but at the same time it's very bold and aggregious of you to make such broad assumptions based on information from a couple years ago. While I agree with some of the things you're saying most of it is currently unfounded at this current time.

Quote from Panther

I am done talking about anarchy, and I am done suggesting any more changes. I am done trying to give you guys ideas. I am done trying to help. I am a fool for believing that at some point people would listen.

Does this mean you'll stop bypassing

Quote from Panther

I am done talking about anarchy, and I am done suggesting any more changes. I am done trying to give you guys ideas. I am done trying to help. I am a fool for believing that at some point people would listen.

Even if you have good ideas (which I personally don't believe you have many of), if you act like a pretentious jerk while attempting to inform people about it, don't be surprised when nobody pays any attention to those ideas, and are instead focusing on the way you behave.