unprofessional behavior from KGS admins during/after jubango

tchan001 · **#81**

Eizero wrote:

Is being an admin really that hard? If I were an admin, I'd just have KGS minimized and only do something if someone messages me. That way I only have to take action if it's serious enough that someone wants me to intervene, otherwise it's probably not worth it. I know a lot of people who would make good admins (I wouldn't though, lol).

What happens if there is a situation where two sides have complaints about each other and both ask you to intervene on their mutually antagonistic behalf?

badukJr · **#82**

BigDoug wrote:

Bonobo wrote:

I have also disliked quite some of the examples of admin behaviour that have been posted in this forum, some were really childish … i.e. they acted like a child would that feels hurt: bash all around w/o caring whether you hit a culprit or an innocent person, and not caring about whether the reaction is appropriate. BUT this is a free service, and I assume that most admins do their work on an honorary basis. Therefore I’d also not expect the kind of mature, “professional” behaviour I’d expect in a … hotel … or a restaurant … or … from a social worker or my therapist <shrug>.

It's an interesting comment. Let's look at the analogy in a bit more detail.

Suppose that you enter a hotel and join the queue to talk to the staff at the reception desk. They greet you politely. You ask about the check-out time and they reply that it's 10 a.m. So far, all good.

However, you believe that the check-out time should be noon. The reception staff reply that it's not the hotel's policy, so you begin to list the reasons why it should be noon. When they don't agree, you point out that they're not very good reception staff and really shouldn't be working there. The check-out time at other hotels is noon, etc. A queue forms behind you as you press your point with the reception staff. When a customer in the queue asks you to wrap it up, you then argue with the customer as well as continuing to argue with the staff. After a period of time, the reception staff tell you to leave, so that they can help other people check into the hotel.

Let's suppose that a similar episode happens on a weekly or fortnightly basis for years, as you point out the flaws in the hotel for them to fix (e.g., the curtains are the wrong colour or the free wi-fi isn't fast enough or there aren't enough free peanuts at the bar). The result is almost always the same (i.e., telling the staff how to do their jobs and rarely reaching an agreement). Note that you are never a paying customer at the hotel.

Now you've walked through the entrance and ask about the check-out time yet again. What are the expectations of the front-desk staff? Are they unprofessional if they expect another unsatisfactory encounter?

This post is great, because it highlights exactly how unwell the thinking of KGS admins is. Its clear that they believe every rule put into place is there to be strictly enforced, with no exceptions. Anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time in a hotel knows that you can quite easily request an extension on your checkout time. I've done so successfully several times at widely different locations. I'm sure if there is a huge event in town the rule tightens up a bit, but its not enforced 24/7 in an unyielding, Judge Dredd style.

Even within national judicial systems huge amounts of negotiation go on, and laws are generally not enforced in a black and white style.

This is why people generally get annoyed at KGS admins, because the experience with enforcement there is so outside of any of their daily experiences that it seems wrong. Just the fact that one of the admins takes so much time to write up some fabricated straw man argument shows the direction where everything is headed. If you guys are so burnt out doing this for free, isn't it time to step down and recruit some new blood? Its been a really long time for some of you. It is honestly best for the server.

Bovdom · **#83**

KGS admins are all about overbearing, they are just really bad people.

Admin: Please be aware that personal attacks are not permitted in the forum.
1. Personal Attacks
Remember the Golden Rule: do to others what you would like to be done to you. Trolling, flaming, bashing, or otherwise verbally attacking anyone is not allowed. When writing about a move that a member made, ensure all criticism is directed towards the member's move rather than the member. Also, please consider that not every member in the forums is a native English speaker as you write your post. (tchan001)

PaperTiger · **#84**

Eizero wrote:

Is being an admin really that hard? If I were an admin, I'd just have KGS minimized and only do something if someone messages me. That way I only have to take action if it's serious enough that someone wants me to intervene, otherwise it's probably not worth it. I know a lot of people who would make good admins (I wouldn't though, lol).

If that's all the admins did, the server would be a much less contentious and more pleasant place. Unfortunately, there are one or two senior admins who get a kick out of acting like an overbearing parent, and I'm afraid their attitude and the "us vs. them" mentality has made even some of the more pleasant people I've known on KGS to become unlikable admins.

But I haven't logged in to KGS for months, anyways. Not worth the admin unpleasantries or the decrepit software issues.

Bovdom · **#85**

I am not a native english speaker too.
I didnt make any personal attack.
Your message looks like it maybe wasnt a reply to my comment.
I dont understand you, really...
Are you a KGS admin too?

daal · **#86**

Bovdom wrote:

I am not a native english speaker too.
I didnt make any personal attack.
Your message looks like it maybe wasnt a reply to my comment.
I dont understand you, really...
Are you a KGS admin too?

If you can toss around the word "overbearing," you should know that "(admins) are really bad people" is a personal attack, because its criticism is directed at the people and not at their actions. For better or worse L19 also has admins, and they step in when L19 rules are broken. Which you did.

Speaking of admins, this thread really is quite the admin magnet. 6 current or former KGS admins , 3 L19 admins, an ASR admin and even an admin from another forum responded. Quite the successful complaint!

tchan001 · **#87**

I am a L19 moderator. As you have not been on the board for long, I just wanted you to be aware of the rule against personal attack instead of giving you an official warning. I quoted the relevant rule from the L19 rules page for your information to support why I gave you a notice.

tekesta · **#88**

When Go players play badly, it's either because they are tired or because their skill is deficient. When human beings communicate with each other badly, it's either because they are tired or because their skill is deficient.

And I was hoping that playing Go for a long time would help one to improve communication skills - or at least think before speaking.

If a Go player makes a move at appears to be bad, criticism should be given only after the game is over. The opponent has his own reasons for playing such a move. Even if you know that your opponent's last move is bad and he does not, it is better to wait until the end; exquisite moves often hide in bad shape.

Similarly, if a KGS admin does something that appears to be wrong, it would be better to find out why that happened than to denounce it publicly as improper behavior. Of course the KGS admin probably behaved improperly, but he/she is given admin privileges to enforce the server rules, regardless of personal behavior. (However, rude admins can drive away potential server members, which would go against the original purpose of the server.)

Perhaps the KGS admin in question was of East Asian origin; in East Asian culture guests are not to question the behavior of the host, nor should those in an inferior social position call into question the behavior of those in superior social positions, unless there is a possibility that such behavior may, in the long term, compromise the mission of the superiors. Even then, such a situation should be handled delicately to avoid causing the superior and other involved parties any embarrassment. With this in mind, the KGS admin did not see anything wrong with the style of her response and may have thought the offended party's response to that mildly unreasonable.

Finally, I would find it easier to understand and learn from games on BadukTV only after gaining experience with baduk. Those Koreans and Chinese play at a very high level.

kivi · **#89**

tekesta wrote:

Perhaps the KGS admin in question was of East Asian origin; in East Asian culture guests are not to question the behavior of the host, nor should those in an inferior social position call into question the behavior of those in superior social positions, unless there is a possibility that such behavior may, in the long term, compromise the mission of the superiors. Even then, such a situation should be handled delicately to avoid causing the superior and other involved parties any embarrassment. With this in mind, the KGS admin did not see anything wrong with the style of her response and may have thought the offended party's response to that mildly unreasonable.

I live in a country where you address even the CEO of the company with his first name without Mr/Ms etc., which much laid back than not only asian but also most other western countries.
I have many colleagues who are from east asia (born and raised there, moved here as an adult), and none of them has any problem with blending in to this type of local customs. They may feel weird in the beginning but people adapt.

Also admins are not hosts in general. They don't own or run the server. Of course the guy who owns/runs the server is also an admin, but he is not involved. It's more like someone having problems with the security at the shopping mall. Let's add that the security guy's are un-paid volunteers and the other guy was just looking around and hasn't bought anything yet --- wow the best analogy ever

Uberdude · **#90**

Another thought on this "the users don't pay so it's ok for the admins to be bad / rude / not as good as people who work in customer service industries / whatever". Firstly some users do pay, either for KGS+ or the android client. As people can have many accounts it's not easy to identify those who do pay (for example I used to have KGS+ on my Benzene account (because of the icon ;-)

) rather than main Uberdude account). KGS+ members don't get any special permission to break rules or leniency from the admins so the idea if you would pay you would get better service doesn't hold water. An even more extreme example is the user XY0908. For those who don't know him, he's a friendly Korean gentleman from New York who sponsored a tournament for top KGS players a few years ago to the tune of thousands of dollars. He liked to chat in the main rooms, sometimes not about Go, which incurred the wrath of some admins. He got booted, and left KGS for some time, presumably because he was upset about not being able to chat as freely as he wished. Many people thought this was a shame as he was a great contributor to the KGS community, but the admin response was just because he sponsored a tournament doesn't mean he can break the rules. Whilst I can see some logic to this, the admins should remember the reason for the rules: they are not an end in themselves, they are there to make KGS a nice place. KGS was a nicer place with XY0908.

Javaness2 · **#91**

I don't think money defines how KGS admins treat users, but I am open to receiving large sums of cash if somebody wants to conduct an experiment. You should always receive a civil or polite reply from the 'admin mailbox'. With regard to this case, I still don't know actually happened. This appears to be a case of somebody writing what they actually felt, rather than what they are supposed to write in relation to their role. I know that I've done the same in my life, both inside KGS and without. Not having seen the email or actually knowing the entire background, I don't feel like being that judgemental about it.

C. Blue · **#92**

The results are unfortunately within the range of "normal" for people assuming spare time admin jobs. Being admin puts a very high strain on your psyche, causing those who aren't professionally trained personnel sometimes to go bonkers ("AHAHA YOU NOTORIOUS TROLL WE GOT YOU GOOD" email) or turning into a machine from hell instead ("Don't-talk-in-this-room-please-or-I-have-to-eliminate-you") at some point without it actually being their fault.

I am serious when I say, please be more relaxed to the admins, their job can really be hellish and they aren't getting money for it but they're just normal Go players sacrificing their spare time for it. I remember when I made a totally normal suggestion to J*** when I was relatively new to KGS (he resigned a loooong time ago), and he immediately took it as some sort of attack, like why the heck I'm criticising and what my intention is. I was just totally flabbergasted because I suggested a neutral idea I thought was a good improvement for the server in a friendly tone, but such IS what happens when you as an admin have to deal non stop with users in unpleasant ways.

How can you do that? Pretty simple: Always be especially nice when talking to admins, to lighten up their mood. Then explain that you would like to help out (re: tournament stream link). Unlike in this case, usually you won't get a "we don't need your help here, go away" reply, but the admin will be happy too.
If you are really unsure what's going on, to be on the safe side, just stick with the admins you know they do not snap (or enter machine mode). Great examples of safe admins are: It, Javaness, Muttley.

If you can, meet an admin in real life, you will be surprised that it'll be a nice person even though you might have hated him/her on KGS.

Uberdude wrote:

Some admins seem to forget that, due to their greater power and responsibility, they should have a higher standard of behaviour than the regular users they police. xDragon has quite probably deserved some of his past bans, but that shouldn't prejudice new cases and sweety's response was uncivil and inappropriate. RBerenguel, I doubt there was deliberate plotting on Nyanilla's or the booting admins part, based on the info so far probably just the booting admin thought she has said 'no more links' rather than 'correct links', or thought that themselves, plus a predisposition against xDragon means a trigger happy boot.

Yes. And agreed, for xDragon it seems like even though he might've been banned rightfully (I don't know) in the past, now whenever he is accused wrongly or gets banned wrongly everyone is like "hey pretty sure you deserved this too, shut up", and when he gets somewhat heated up about it and doesn't write every forum post 100% carefully in every detail, he is just accused of even much more probably being the bad guy. :-p
Everyone who has been on KGS for a long enough time to observe the admins in many situations, knows that there is much more to this than xDragon presumably being at fault all the time, lol..

Also (this goes for everyone^^): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

RBerenguel · **#93**

C. Blue wrote:

Pretty simple: Always be especially nice when talking to admins, to lighten up their mood.

This is a very good suggestion, and in case I need to talk with an admin the way I'd do it. But anyway, it feels very wrong. It's not like I like being nasty, but I won't be nicer than "sorry to disturb you but... yadda yadda yadda, thanks." When online I always give the consideration that I may be disturbing the other party, but aside from that, they have an admin role. They are there to take these suggestions, if they take a suggestion badly I'd suggest quitting admin-ing and enjoying life (or go.)

Drew · **#94**

palapiku wrote:

Quote:

Dear KGS-troll,

We didn't forget what you brought to us, now simply you had it back.

ahahaha, KGS...

i don't care if KGS admins are volunteers, insulting the users, especially ones that just got officially punished (banned), is simply not cool.

I work in marketing and I would immediately fire anyone on my staff who ever spoke so rudely to a client/rival/whatever while representing my company. No questions asked, you're done.

I have a hobby website and would immediately fire any moderator on my staff who ever spoke so rudely to a user. No questions asked, you're off the team.

It doesn't matter if the user in question painted the Sistine Chapel with a mural of the moderator's mother doing unspeakable acts with Go stones, you cannot and must not be anything more than patient and respectful.

KGS should be ashamed to tolerate such behavior among their inner circle.

Hong Ny · **#95**

To me as someone who does not use KGS very much, this does look like a lot of Kindergarten.

Someone was acting poorly, and then an Admin responded poorly.

:tmbdown:

Mike Novack · **#96**

Drew wrote:

I work in marketing and I would immediately fire anyone on my staff who ever spoke so rudely to a client/rival/whatever while representing my company. No questions asked, you're done.

I have a hobby website and would immediately fire any moderator on my staff who ever spoke so rudely to a user. No questions asked, you're off the team.

It doesn't matter if the user in question painted the Sistine Chapel with a mural of the moderator's mother doing unspeakable acts with Go stones, you cannot and must not be anything more than patient and respectful.

KGS should be ashamed to tolerate such behavior among their inner circle.

Except Drew I suspect that you might be inexperienced with the world of voluntary organizations. In that context "being the boss" gives you a great deal less power over subordinates than what you are familiar with.

Try picturing how you would have to operate in the business environment with which you are familiar except with one teensy change. Imagine that there was no pool of unemployed out there, so if you fired a worker you would be unable to hire a replacement. You could get rid of any worker if you wanted to, but would then have to manage to carry on with one less.

I rather suspect that there is no "waiting line" of people eager to be a KGS moderator.

I rather suspect that you would have a great deal more trouble with controlling your workers if you weren't paying them, if they were there if they felt like it and gone if they felt like it.

Boidhre · **#97**

Mike Novack wrote:

I rather suspect that there is no "waiting line" of people eager to be a KGS moderator.

I'd imagine it's exactly the opposite actually. It'd just be that the vast, vast majority you wouldn't let near any role with admin powers...

Drew · **#98**

Boidhre wrote:

Mike Novack wrote:

I rather suspect that there is no "waiting line" of people eager to be a KGS moderator.

I'd imagine it's exactly the opposite actually. It'd just be that the vast, vast majority you wouldn't let near any role with admin powers...

I agree with Boidhre.

Bad volunteers, just like bad paid employees, drive away customers. Without customers you are nothing.

The behavior revealed in this thread does real damage to KGS' image, as evidenced by replies in this same thread.

Is it a drop in the bucket? Absolutely. But without action it becomes more of a leaky faucet...

If the KGS powers-that-be believe that they can ignore this behavior and not duly suffer, that is their judgment to make. Time will validate or invalidate their decision.

I happen to disagree, and have adjusted my behavior as a customer accordingly.

Uberdude · **#99**

When I used to spend a lot of time on KGS I would willingly have been an admin if it meant BigDoug wasn't and I believe I'd do a better job than him (my metric for admin success is reducing problems not number of interventions). I regret that when I was canvassed about being an admin some years ago I declined as I did not realize there was a shortage of admins and following that the trouble-making* admins like BigDoug and Nyanjilla were reinstated.

* I don't mean they are intentional trolls, but that their heavy-handed and interventionist approach can often annoy users and create trouble and resentment. I am a proponent of a more laissez-faire style.

And as for driving away customers, KGS does seem to be declining. When I got my smartphone I didn't buy the KGS android client because I don't feel like giving money to wms anymore with his laziness on the sound problem and dislike of the admin situation. A few years ago I would have bought it. Now I play on IGS (for free) on my phone (which also has the advantage of more players so it's easier to get a game).

xDragon · **#100**

i guess doug doesnt think highly of us. he sees the people defending me as just my cheer squad?

EGR:

then doug pm...

unprofessional behavior from KGS admins during/after jubango

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