The future of EMC

You should use Chrome. For example, this is how your post appears to me (when in a textarea):

i actually do use nothing but chrome, because IE (sucks) wont show me the spell check's
sometimes i'm on my mobile.. and i do feel sorry for the people who get those replies.. fat fingers on a small phone syndrome
but you totally forgot to highlight what your chrome is doing differently.. cause i just see a plain red lineless post

On the future of EMC -
Their biggest challenge will be handling their own success. I think that's a challenge they've been facing, and handling as gracefully as is humanly possible.
Why did this thread turn into a complaint to some extent regarding staff? Because that would be one of the most visible challenges to handling said success. I'm thankful the servers work so well and with so few to no bugs.
Krysyy is soon (if not already) going to need to clone herself. They are adding staff from what I've seen, which will alleviate some of these complaints. Eventually, that will reach a critical mass where the ability to quality control the staff becomes problematic. Then you'll see more hierarchy added. Then the complaints will turn into a topic of breakdown between higher ups in the hierarchy being completely disconnected from the what's happening with the regular player's experience. If emc gets even larger, they may even go to a smp based moderating system with smp "owners" and mods who only mod on that smp. And that system will have a boatload of issues in it too. (There is not even a vague HINT of this currently; this is totally me wildly speculating based on my experiences elsewhere.)
We're seeing some of this already. And you know what? That's ok. They're working through it. They give a damn. At the end of the day, I hope we all appreciate that. Like really really, thank you.

I drive the staff insane on a weekly or biweekly (or more) basis with those public builds. The downside to public wild builds that we can't protect are the griefings. The staff didn't sign up for that. Did they need me to add to their already busy workload? Nope. They have been nothing but helpful and supportive. Not one of them has threatened to strangle me for those public builds. I would have at least said "I love you, but I could kill you for this too some days" if I were in their position.

And I have been in a similar position before. Go look at my profile on kongregate if you are 13+ (13 years and older only over there). 935 fans, 486 friends, and a room of up to 128 people that I used to own. Moderate that for a few years, and then let me hear you complain about volunteer staff It's not that I think staff are perfect. They're human. There will be flaws, personality clashes, mistakes, and delayed/late/terse responses. I'm just ok with that because I know the flip side of the coin all too well (which is why I am RETIRED and staying that way). They are volunteering their time and sacrificing their emc player experience to try and help everyone else. Just, try and keep that in mind folks, ok? Choose to be respectful with how and where you air a complaint with staff. They easily deserve that much from all of us.

This does not mean I don't wholeheartedly support poking fun at everyone and the universe in general
Baradar has mistaken me for a someone that can cure stupid. Your faith Baradar is touching, and utterly misplaced I'm working on it dude. Thanks for the extra challenge I'll be sure to ask you to come help more haha Thank you for letting me drive you insane on all my crazy projects!
Keph, please schedule time through my son for me to get Skype with you I'll try to be around tonight for ya.
MD has volunteered to manage my social calendar. He may not have realized that yet.
Kat, we need to go hunting. I miss you. I'll put myself on DND and we'll do a girl's night out and leave our menfolk in town
BK, stop making me hungry. Now I have to go eat

<3 Jules

I got soo... outraged

Now to start typing a mega rant about staff :S

I'm up for it! Any time you want

Mormons don't hate people because of the fact that they drink coffee. I have a lot of Mormon friends, and you don't see them yelling at people and protesting against people who drink caffeinated beverages. Also, what you drink is a lot different than sexual preference. If someone came on EMC yelling about how women are not equal, should we tolerate that belief? Disapproving someone because of sexual orientation, gender, race, or anything like that is not okay.

I was wondering what this thread was and clicked it. I was quite surprised when I saw it having so many pages already, and expected some controversy to have arised, somehow. Then I went to the last page, and saw the subject is on Christians again? Really? How did we get here?

Your example makes no sense. You say you're Mormon and that drinking tea and coffee is wrong, but wouldn't yell hater because you drink tea. You should read your posts before posting them.

You don't see Mormons going around telling people not to drink tea or coffee. But you however, go around telling people gay marriage and even being gay in general is wrong.

Okay. Thread read. Mostly. I think we might need to stay away from the "religious people are bashed" talk or whatever this is about. If you got concrete examples, just report them to staff, and they'll take action. But I don't think talking about it in public or making skewed comparisons will help.

I'm responding to everyone who shares this opinion rather than just you:

Staff are responsible for moderating the server. They keep cheaters, scammers, spammers, griefers, and thieves off of the server. It's not their responsibility to have a conversation with any member who wants to. Yeah, it's great if they interact with players with more than "hi," but I don't see how that's important to them doing their job.

Krysyy's already said that staff are observed for their interactions before they become a moderator, and Dramanya has said it's exhausting for five players asking you for a book, or a head, or a screenshot, or even a conversation every time they log in. Staff are idolized by a lot of players as is; forcing staff into conversation with a player that begs for an item should not happen.

Also, I believe there already are staff reviews. I really doubt, however, they're based on how social a staff member is, and it really shouldn't be.

#NubKnows

I've been a mod before. Twice actually at different places. Nothing like the in-game stuff, more on the forums/website side of things. Being a mod is a thankless job most of the time. You are often the 'bad guy' regardless of what you do. No matter what you do, someone will have issue with you. This is the nature of the 'job'. Having been on both sides I know what it's like. I think being a mod has made me appreciate those in the position alot more then before I was part of it.

The easy thing to do is complain about it or the 'if we don't get ____ I'll quit' non sense... but really nothing but internet fighting gets done. One of the the I learned to appreciate was a user that took the time to message me and get something off their chest or ask to clarify something they might not have liked or understood. I've done this myself with Krysyy a time or 2. It's a better option then blasting someone in public on the forums. You'd be surprised how open people are. I don't know all the behind the scenes stuff as far as picking staff. My old site just seemed to pick any old person and well it doesn't work. I don't see that here. Of all the staff I've had contact with in my time here I've had 1 issue. And that got settled fast by talking with them. Problem solved and even got a good friend out of it.

I guess in short.. if you have an issue with something staff has done, shoot them a PM or something. If it's needs to be resolved then you take it up the chain.