Weekly Digest vol 2, ed 1 - Week ending November 14, 2015

Weekly Digest vol 2, ed 1 - Week ending November 14, 2015

Well, we had a bit of an odd week. By popular demand, I think we should resurrect our weekly updates. These may be bi-weekly sometimes, depending on the action the sub gets that week. But this past week had one huge issue that took all of our focus away from some other large events. It is a shame because these large events merited discussion.

LobaliGate

For the uninformed, it was discovered that /u/-Lobali had misappropriated funds related to the SSBD bookdrive. Lobali held the wallet that contained the donations. The plan was to slowly send SSBD books and other comfort items while he was in prison. SSBD was released from prison very unexpectedly. At that point, it was asked that Lobali send all remaining funds in the wallet to SSBD or his representative. According to Lobali, she spilled some fruit juice (I think of the Apple variety, high fructose corn syrup concentrations unknown) on the laptop containing said wallet thus making the wallet completely unrecoverable. Due to BTC fluctuations over time, it was pegged that there was about $2,600 to $3,000 in the wallet, or essentially, missing completely. Arguments ensued between the charity drive folks. It was kept quiet, SSBD being the gentleman he is didn't want it made public, much to Bruce's chagrin I'm sure. So there it remained quiet, in the deep bowels of their respective minds. Over time, Lobali made payments to SSBD but still fell about $1,000. SSBD called it even and moved on.

There it remained peacefully, not bothering a soul, until one day a catastrophic event happened. The event was so moving, so important, earth shattering, that it almost certainly guaranteed leakage of this theft. I liken it to when the magnetic poles of the Earth swap. So the event that caused this: The mod team removed ALL non-mod flair. This included flair of a gent by the name of BruceCampbell. After some modmail rants, he mentioned that Lobali was a thief. And shortly thereafter, made the same accusation in a sub that is not the main sub. Included were chat logs that covered the whole situation. This was Thursday night. The mods were trying to get a statement from Lobali over teh weekend, but due to health issues she wasn't able to issue one until I believe Sunday evening. On Monday, we decided to make a public statement in the sub. Chaos emerged.

At the end of the day, Lobali stepped down from her mod position, which was the best possible outcome in this particular situation. So AutoMod is not the top mod (I'm currently battling him between keystrokes).

To make matters worse, we lost Dank as a mod. He stepped down after the fiasco and he will be greatly missed. He did a lot for the community and was an excellent steward of the sub. I do hope that he decides to come back and mod one day. He is always welcomed back on the team. He will participate in the community though, so he will still be around! Congratulate him, and now he can speak his mind, unfiltered.

Market Exit Scams

Fuck, I picked the wrong week to quit smoking. During this exact time frame, we lost 2 markets: MEM and Abraxas. We don't have much information on them exception that they have been down since approximately the 5th of November. Initially it was hoped it was DDoS bringing them down and they'd pop up soon. but that's not looking likely. So the community didn't even get to participate in discussions on this - which should have been a big deal.

Mod Changes

Obviously with Lobali's resignation, that moved me to the almost head mod position (damn you AM). With the loss of 2 of our moderators, last week was near impossible. Luckily, our current mod team is stellar - we have built (really Lobali) an impressive team. They performed extraordinarily well under immense pressure and we are all thankful for their work and efforts.

Another change we saw was the addition of a community favorite: Waste! When we were in the thick of seemingly insurmountable work, we needed someone who could come in and start helping right out of the gate. I felt Waste was a logical choice, I reached out to him and to my surprise, he said he would be glad to help out temporarily. I do secretly hope temporarily means permanently, but we are extremely happy that Waste decided to come and help us out with the shit storm.

Policy and Rules

You spoke, we listened. We collected some of the top comments of concerns and suggestions the community provided. Some thought we had too many rules, or some rules were too vague and could be abused. We are working on that. Its not the highest priority at the moment, but we are going to be looking at this closely. We want this place to be safe, informative and fun for all. We realize that the sub has gone downhill in some respects. We can work on it. We are only a handful of people, we can try to tee it up but at the end of the day, the community will decide the tone of the sub and how well it works. But we are going to be reviewing a lot of what we do and will seek to make improvements.

I've begun a draft of rules around "Financial Interests of Mods" as it applies here. Its in its first draft, but I've drafted a number of strict policies as it applies to modding here. There are some obvious ones: No marketplace admins for instance. But we are working on have a demarcation of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. We don't want a repeat of what just happened. Also, we want to make it clear that we mod here for free. We don't accept favors, BTC, discounts, or the like. Bottom line, we are going to be more cognizant of a mod's participation in events that can create a conflict of interest.

Additional Mods

We are currently working on determining how many mods we need to aid in our efforts. We are early stage and will probably onboard mods at different points in time. I don't think throwing 4 new ones at once will be a good idea. So more than likely we'll spread out the timeframe.

In Closing

We want to make a good faith effort to make this place awesome. We want this place to be fun like it was when it was smaller. To do that, we rely on the community to help us do that and to do their part. We'll lay the framework, its up to the community to take it from there and make this a great place to exchange information and find the stuff we are looking for (not in its own thread of course, lol)

I appreciate the patience this past week. The events were far from ordinary and I think we're finally at a point where we are above water now. We still have a lot of work to do but we are getting there. I'm feeling a lot more positive now than I was a few days ago.

On Lobali, I know we are all angry and upset at her. She did violate the community's trust and cast a shadow over an otherwise awesome fundraiser. I believe we have had a chance to vent that anger. At the end of the day, she did return the sub to the community and for that I'm extremely grateful. I would hope that by now we've gotten the anger out and can move past this. This is not saying to sweep it under the rug at all, this is more aimed at the pure hateful comments we've seen. It creates work for us and I consider it done at this point. In addition, it doesn't serve a purpose at this point except to be hateful towards a person. Its hard to remember because we all are behind keyboards, but behind each one is a human being. I don't waste my time on hate, its a useless emotion that convolutes and clutters what actually needs to be done. I think we've said our share as it pertains to Lobali. Despite it all, I hope you feel the same way in that I do hope Lobali finds peace and is one day able to tell teh community what happened. I consider Lobali a friend, one that made a huge mistake, but a friend nonetheless. Despite what happened, I wish no ill will on her.

AMA

I saw a few posts asking if I would do an AMA. I think I've fairly known around the community, BUT if you would feel interested in this, I wouldn't mind participating. I'll answer what I can. If you see benefit doing this, perhaps doing on for each of the mods (or even where we participate together might be of interest). I know many mods are so behind the scenes, you should get to know them better.


Comments


[7 Points] yalldontknowjack:

Fe for trusted mod will update when I have time to read.


[6 Points] MLP_is_my_OPSEC:

Great write up Econ! You should really take up writing up these Weekly Digest threads again, they're super fucking informative. Considering time available of course.

Also, a thread where we can all (mods) answer questions probably wouldn't be too bad I guess..


[2 Points] None:

[deleted]


[1 Points] None:

Great post.


[1 Points] coffeencreme:

5/5, would read again!


[1 Points] octomarvel:

I think you guys doing a group ama would be great. Single mod ones tend to bring out the trolls and plus an inside look at mod interaction n banter would be good for the community to see on some transparency steez.

Also, it would be like seeing voltron form and who doesn't wanna see that?

=)

PS - well written econ. More concise than an alcoholic during a moment of clarity.


[1 Points] bobbiggs69:

I am very glad to see these again!

They performed extraordinarily well under immense pressure

Don't you think this is a bit over-dramatic? It's not like they were storming the beach at Normandy.


[1 Points] VladTh3Impaler:

Excellent write up

Thank you for taking the time to explain what's going on for those of us that aren't on 24/7


[1 Points] ElectronicChronic:

This is awesome, hope we keep on doin this


[0 Points] stillsellingdope:

REALLY appreciated that you take the time to update us, please don't stop with these, very useful. Big thanks homie!