Apologies as this is a bit late lol
You say that most of the people would've been warned a handful of times, but this is simply not the truth for all cases (even though it should be). When I was on the Team, I witnessed people kicking for one reason, while others banned for the exact same reason. There was no set-in-stone system that said "if a user does ____ then they receive a kick/ban for ___ minutes/hours/days/months/years" and as a result, I was receiving reports from users left, right & centre of them receiving a severe punishment for something that their friend received a lesser punishment for doing the exact same.
Now this may have changed since the Staff Team were changed, but I know for a fact that this was a broken kicking/banning system that had been going on for a long time prior to me & others being appointed. It was an issue that may have been addressed behind the scenes, but never got beyond a discussion. Little to no action was taken.
This is also a Leadership issue (to keep it related to the original topic). While we were all trained in some way, some of us were trained by one person with a specific way of doing things, while others were trained by someone else. & To add, they trained by what they thought was the best way to train, there was no step-by-step training guide for them to follow to ensure everyone received the same training.
I don't know if this has changed or will change, but I sincerely hope so if not done already.
Then again, this was also at a time where it was very... Old Staff vs New Staff vs Razmirz.
Being on the team currently and coming from my own experiences, I have never seen anyone kick a player for no reason, or ban them from the game for no reason. It's very unfortunate that your team got trained by different individuals. Everyone is different and come from different cultural backgrounds and have other factors that play into how they may see things differently. Because the training was not consistent, of course the moderation that comes from it will be different.
When I spoke of the Staff Team being very close-knit, this wasn't an attempt to lump anyone nor blame them in an entirety for FH's issues.
What I was trying to suggest was that the FH Staff Team were (& some still are and will continue to be, which isn't a bad thing but can have negative aftereffects which is entirely situation dependent) close-knit and family-like, this isn't false. However, individually they are responsible for their own actions & decisions. But what won't happen is people identifying who did what and calling them out for it, as for hateful and toxic members of the community... that's far too much effort! They'd rather name and shame the Team as a whole. While this is wrong, it's not completely incorrect.
When a member of Staff does something wrong, it can change the reputation of the entire Team.
It is wrong, yes, but I cannot understand how such treatment towards those who don't deserve it isn't completely incorrect either. They had nothing to do with it. They shouldn't have to take the blunt end for another person's actions. It's like saying two brothers Billy and Tommy both have baseball bats. Billy takes care of his bat, while Tommy constantly mistreats his bat. Because of that mistreatment, Tommy's bat breaks, but instead of it being Tommy's fault, Billy also gets the blame because they are brothers. With this logic, because one brother mistreats things but the other doesn't, then that can potentially set a reputation for someone who hasn't done anything to deserve such a reputation. If we make it the norm to lump everything together instead of assessing the situation properly, there will be endless misunderstandings and things will always be misconstrued.
I would like to, however, apologise that you've received hateful messages and been on the receiving end of accusations.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Going to back to my point earlier, unfortunately when someone comes forward with malicious intentions for the Staff, they don't intend on actually finding out who did it and finding out why in a polite manner. It's awful behaviour I want to clarify, I will never condone. Neither should someone else's actions affect your reputation but, in today's society (not just FH but the existence of human beings) the actions of one mean everyone that follows them, is just as bad as them.
This is exactly what I want to break, and exactly why I point out the whole "lumping all staff together" to speak about "them", or in this instance, the ones who have done wrong within the group while also including those who had nothing to do with it, in a general sense. It's easier to lump them together than actually putting in the work to pinpoint the issue in a respectful way. It sets up the perfect building blocks for that kind of mindset and behavior to grow and become the norm. It has become so common to the point it's normal to tie everyone together as a collective group, even if two people within that "group" stand for two entirely separate things. It's something that's constantly waved by, excused, and replicated because it's quick and easy to do. It's not right and it needs to stop.
Everyone has a right to react as any human would. No one - Staff, community, guests - is a robot (except bots). The reason why the Staff are consistently held to a high standard is because the community is very passionate, the concern will continue to grow the more time that is wasted with no progress/updates/communication. They're very defensive over a game they love and care for, which I suppose means the community is often also emotionally-driven when they speak up with their concerns, but it is frequently expected of Staff to be able to remain composed when they are so heavily looked up to.
I fully understand why staff are held to a high standard. Indeed they are looked up to by many to continue bringing this game along and they are trusted to look after it. That's perfectly fine. Yes people can be emotional when voicing their concerns, that's perfectly fine too, it can be forgiven. However, when a member of staff replies with even just the slightest amount of emotion put into their response, all of a sudden it's not okay. It's disgraceful and unprofessional that they show their emotions. I get that they are expected to remain composed, and I agree that they should be able to hold a level head, but if they aren't allowed to show any emotion whatsoever while someone else can, that's just a double standard. Going to make it clear however that this is not to condone or wave by any huge backlashes, hurtful comments, rude orchestration of words/sentences or attacks by a member of staff if any place. That do be wrong.
As said by others on this thread, yes. It's a huge mix of everyone's doings that has lead to FH being where it is now.
I'm very glad that I could excite you guys a bit with that little mention of development. It makes me happy to see and drives me to continue working on things. I really try to find ways to mention at least something to you guys when the topic comes up without saying too much lmao It's not the easiest thing.
Yeah the staff page is lookin a bit smol- and yeah Raz removed himself from the page. Don't know his exact reasons but I can imagine he wants to be in the background of things, like he's said before.
I'm 100% sure he's seen this thread as well, even at the very least glanced at it lol
As I've said multiple times, the staff are only just a small handful of people, while the community IS the game. If everyone works together and helps to spread the word about this little place, I'm sure it will get around and catch people's attention.