Empire Minecraft (community) Staff Appreciation 2016

What the heck is this?

This is something which I think is very much required. The longer I thought this over, the more convinced I got that some things aren't exactly fair Well, actually they are fair but... This is an attempt to start an event which will determine the most popular (regular) EMC staff member for 2016. Obviously said staff member will win a prize. What prize? A symbolic one for starters; something which merely makes it official that they are our favorite EMC staff member for 2016.

Donations?

Of course donations can be made to add to the prize pool </hint> but I'll leave that decision up to you, EMC community. I'm sure it would be highly appreciated. I haven't set anything up for this, but if it becomes clear that some of you want to donate then I'll set something up.

Why would we want to do this?

Because I am convinced that there can be no fair way in which an EMC staff member can compete with a regular community member when it comes to things such as an appreciation award.

Think about it: If I go out of my way to help two players settle a disagreement with an auction then I'm pretty sure you'd agree with me that I didn't have to do that. So I'm going out of my way to help out. But if a staff member does the exact same thing we probably consider this to be normal because... Well, duh: they're staff so that's what we expect from them.

And that's where I think things become a little bit unfair. Sure, staff members did apply, they did agree to dedicate a large portion of their time to the Empire. So, more or less, they chose this. But I believe that they also got a little bit of an unfair disadvantage.

Feel free to disagree with me, but yeah... This is how I feel about it and you can't easily change that opinion.

How the event will be held

The event has ended!

Check here to see who the winners are!

click me

Rules

• Please do not vote using an ALT, only your main account.
  • If I discover an alt in the voting results I will remove that vote and that of the main.
• Staff members: feel free to vote for your colleagues, but do notvote for yourself.
  • If I discover a self-vote I'm going to have to remove you from the contest in its entirety. This sounds harsh, but I think it's only fair.

* I got reminded that not everyone might like to see their personal opinion shared in public, so I'm only going to share the result statistics (amount of votes and such). However, I do plan to make the full results available to Krysyy, provided that she's interested in that of course.

I already know who I'm voting for. It's a no brainer This is a good idea. Staff take a lot of heat sometimes and they are often seen as the bad guys given their roles. I've been there and know it's tough. I've had many interactions with different staff and they have always been above board for me. Staff do a great job here and they should all be appreciated regardless of a winner.

Maybe different wording here I dislike popularity contests in regards to someone doing good. Doing good is not always inline with being popular and sometimes votes are for the more popular ones.

Also, will there be a Community Manager version of this? It'll be a close race but I think I know who might win it.

EDIT: Vote casted. Also I am 96.4% sure I am not an alt.

EDIT2: Crud I voted no as I read 'do you disagree with this event'

Wow This is so Amazing!

What if we have more than one favorite staff member?

There are 2 choices to enter

lol! Yah, I've given it some serious thought if I should or shouldn't include senior staff (and developers) into the contest as well but ended up deciding against it. Seniors aren't really participating in the game so I don't think that would be working out too well.

Wait, but you're kloned right? Hmm, that might be an issue in itself as well

I want to say that I appreciate the staff..... But I do not know many of them so I wouldn't know who to vote for XD

Come to Friday night miners. I got to know ElfinPineapple pretty well last week

Trying to do events is one the things I plan on doing when I get back home. Would have started all ready but wanted to get some things done like portion's of my res and would have started going to things the past few days. However me seeing friend's and family and attending my cousin's wedding were quiet a bit more important than mine craft.

I really support this idea! All the staff I've had interactions with are pretty awesome, and deserve some acknowledgement for it.

I personally think there should be an annual EMC holiday for staff. And a separate day acknowledging senior staff / devs. Any time you see a staff member you throw green dye at them and give 'em a hug

Time for AWTBUMP. What's that you wonder? Well, that will be revealed in a future post, but for now I can share the secret that it has little to do with the Abstract Windows Toolkit found in Java

Something to know for the new & old players alike...

I can imagine that if you were new then you might get confused with this. After all: aren't those moderators basically there to tell us what to do? Isn't that the job of a moderator? Well, you'd be right if you say that moderators will correct us if we don't play by the rules, and they may step in if we still continue to do that and decide to disregard them completely (the rules and/or staff). Sure, that can happen.

But this is what makes EMC so unique in my opinion.. I have this strong impression that the moderators, and basically the staff as a whole, are first and foremost here to make sure that we (us players) are having a good time. And although I don't know all the details, I have heard quite a few moderators sometimes mention tiny bits and pieces about that. And when I string those tiny bits together I get a story which reveals a little more about this whole process. Something which I'm never sharing because... There is a reason why the staff doesn't talk about it, and I respect that.

So yeah; on the Empire there is so much more to the staff than merely someone to help out players or merely someone to enforce the rules. It goes so much deeper. Deeper than all of us realize or know (myself included!), I'm convinced of that.

And that's why I still think, even after a night sleep , that something like this was definitely required.

Even if it is merely a small way to say "thank you" and show those staff members that we really appreciate all their hard work.

I wholeheartedly share this opinion!
Our staff are players before they become staff, and even once they do, they are still players. They take that knowledge of their time before they could help out and put it to good use now that they can.

Interesting idea, I'll be making my votes now

Woot. Entered my from. (I'm not an alt )

Shel thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate everything staff does for this community and I feel like they need this. It was so hard for me to chose only two favorite moderators as I am friends ( acquaintances maybe :S ) with all of them and I enjoy all of their conversations. Just yesterday me and carol were having a chat about sports and I really do love interacting with staff on this server. If it okay, I want to share my thoughts about all the current staff members and those that are on the Build Team, Contribution Team, and Stream team as well because you guys don't get as much appreciation that is deserved for you all.

Krysyy: First off, congratulations on your marriage (A bit late but this is a great day for you and your husband )! I have a very deep respect for you on EMC as you have given me a goal to try to be like you in the way to chat and play on here ( I don't see you much, but when you do it's always a party! ). I thank you for everything that you have done for Empire Minecraft.

Senior Staff: I thank you for putting up for us members! With all the road edits, event holding, and sparing your time in general to be with us is deeply respected! We realize that you have lives outside EMC as well, and I want to say thank you for sparing a few hours of your day towards EMC and making it better!

Moderators: While I am ninety-nine percent sure you here this everyday, I thank you for helping EMC in the ways you do. Without you guys, I honestly don't know what EMC would be like. I love our chats together and I respect you all reaching out to us peasants members and letting us make friends in the process. You help us in so many ways, and honestly protect us from danger, in which the rules on here are set up for .

Contribution Team- I honestly don't think you get as much appreciation as you all deserve. You spend hours of your day helping answer players questions, searching through the deepness of the wiki, and making blog posts about updates on both EMC and Minecraft. While I don't have first hand experience on how much time this takes, but I do know it doesn't take fifteen minutes to o what you all do, I would also like to thank ItsMeMatheus for leading this great team .

Build Team- You guys build the empire up in so many ways (Pun intended)! I appreciate the hours you spend working on projects on EMC and the hours of training at building ( I am a terrible builder myself, which is why I appreciate you so much ). So thank you all so much, especially to TheBoulder for leading .

Stream Team- I have to say, I do love me some live-streams, especially when it's people that I have met on this great server and chatted with. Streaming is not an easy thing to do, and I feel like streaming makes this server have so much more laughter and entertainment. I would especially like to thank JackBiggin for leading this team. He is a moderator that I deeply respect and cherish as a friend on EMC.

In no way am I expecting to receive extra "brownie points" from this, these are just my honest thoughts on both the staff team and the other teams on this server as well.

no fair, now i cant vote 4 my fav mod

so ur 2nd vote better be my favorite, or else!

Forgot to add, Private message me and I'll check where you want me to leave my donations at in maybe 8-9 hours if I'm lucky

BUMP

I do not like bumping but I just got some new stimuli "somewhere else" to do so. Just too bad that I had to pause 5 minutes afterwards because I couldn't stop laughing

This server.... the more you get to know it the more you get to love it. Seriously.

You still get to vote

Ze bumpzie again normally only one per day (max) but sometimes I feel I have to bumpzie a wee bit more.