Been getting some concerned emails about this. The old thread was deleted since it was no longer constructive and getting out of hand. I would like to begin by quoting Stu to shed light on the reasons why the Zeros were downgraded from stage 2 to stage 1.

by stu on Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:46 am

I can understand why some of you didn't understand the decision that had to be made.

I will take a few moments to explain why this course of action was taken, since it's already been brought up by the group.

There were numerous infractions which had been brought to light in the past about the Zeros. I spoke with Zero and we had a lengthy discussion about many of those issues. I walked away from that discussion with more questions than answers. I asked that communication be kept with me.

Over the course of the following few days, more and more things were brought to light. These were not just from a 'few' sources, but many - and most unrelated to each other.

The Zeros were in the trial phase of the approval process and because of their numbers were granted level two straight out of the gate. This was a group decision and it gave them more perks coming out of the gate.

However, in light of numerous issues within the structure of the gang, it was deemed necessary to move them back to level one (where all gangs start out) and let them rebuild and repair their image to the community and for me to see that there was proper communication in place before pushing them back to level two.

Honestly, with the amount of issues that came my way, the easy way out would have been to reject their gang and make them resubmit with a new charter, etc. However, I believed that they could make it through this stronger than they were to begin with so I tried to bridge that gap and help them.

With such power comes responsibility and I offered my support to Zero on several occasions and tried to explain the reasoning behind my decision, however as it seemed then and now, this was seen as a punishment instead of a helping hand on learning how to interweave a group into the community while at the same time retaining the balance as well.

I'm saddened to hear of their decision to leave the sim. I had hoped that this would have just been a building block to help them rebuild themselves, but I suppose at this time, they felt that they didn't want to take the time to rebuild.

As was said, it was not a punishment, rather a chance to fix a problem that was only getting worse. Admins were receiving reports daily of members OOCly being pushy, unfair, etc. We found nothing wrong in most of the reports, but all the issues stemmed from the fact that there needed to be improvements on how each member (and the gang as a whole) presented itself to others OOCly. There needed to be more willingness to let go and just take unexpected losses when others decided they didn't like how things were going. As a gang you have the power of being a large and overbearing group. This fact needs to be handled delicately so that the stories of those around you are not trampled on. Every gang has had to face major overhauls with their group and even their members. Every gang faces issues of "walking on egg shells". It's the gangs (as a whole) that can respond to it all positively and constructively that make it in the long run. When members don't care about the outcome and can bend to the fickleness of those they play with - that's when they reach a level where fun exceeds the demands of being in a gang.

Zero was a good leader and had great potential. I feel it was my mistake to allow them to skip ahead to stage 2 ( a decision I pushed for since they had been waiting so long to officially form). The point of the new faction evolution system is that it allows leaders and groups to grow slowly both ICly and OOCly - tweaking things along the way. Pushing them straight to stage 2 made it OOCly more stressful to manage the issues in a way that works for this community since he was bulldozing ahead with a larger group that he had to be held accountable for. We understand and respect the decisions made to throw in the towel. The main objective in this sim is fun and it had stopped being fun for them and many they were encountering due to assumptions and misunderstanding and yes, some rule breaking.

There are many lessons that can be learned by all from this situation. The main thing to remember, though, is that our staff will try and work with any group in order to try and make it fit more cohesively with our community- we don't expect perfection, just the willingness to improve.

Please, take a few moments to review the new criteria of factions before commenting. Keep comments more on how relations can be made better in the future, not specific instances that went wrong.

http://thecrackden.com/discuss/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=4420&sid=feb9d4c6e63521db9bc0e8bbe0ead804

Thanks!