We don't need another Highwon

[RhazhBash]

December 2013-A mod named Zabiba was in a Skype call with his friend Magafe while staffing. During the call, Magafe told Zabiba he was gonna jihad over Skype, and Zabiba killed him. Unsurprisingly, Zabiba got demoted and both of them got ghosting bans.

Zabiba was one of the most popular mods of his time, and Sir Lemoncakes later told me that Zabiba was next in line for admin before he got demoted. People were mad when Highwon made the call to demote one of their favorite mods, and a mass resignation known as operation 666 was started. Operation 666 was small compared to similar events, with only a handful of staff participating, but it set the stage for worse to come.


August 2014-Highwon got tired of everyone forming cliques with their private Skype groups, so he decided to ban external chats for staff and force them to use Teamspeak instead. This went about as well as you'd expect it to, and it led to resignations, demotions, backstabbing, Highwon losing his temper in staff discussion, and it may be the reason Highwon gave up on the servers after 2014.

People eventually got used to using locked Teamspeak channels, but so many great staff members left because of Highwon's reckless decision that the staff team was never the same. On top of that all the people who never got invited to private Skype groups had to watch themselves be left out of locked Teamspeak channels, making the problem even worse.


January 2017-A popular admin named Anna got demoted for inactivity, but the demotion came while her mom was on her deathbed. As far as I can remember the demotion was justified, however the horrible timing led to the biggest mass resignation in SGM history.

Not only did a majority of the staff team resign all at once, but people who were respected admins the day before started to band together against SGM. People publicly leaked staff info, threatened to DDoS the servers, threatened to mass chargeback on donations, and some people went as low as to threaten to post CP in shoutbox.



So why am I giving an SGM history lesson out of nowhere? Because Jabba needs to hear this. I'm not involved in anything happening behind the scenes, and all I know about the situation comes from J3k's report and Jabba's response, so I won't try to argue who's right. While I can't say who's right or wrong in that report, there's one part of J3k's post I can say with certainty is true.

Overall with all of this evidence, we conclude that the community is not sustainable with Ethan as a Director.

Highwon was always disconnected from the rest of his staff team, and the events listed were a direct result of that disconnect. One thing that's clear now is that the staff team won't accept Jabba as their leader, and they'll do anything to get rid of him. They're even willing to go as far as trolling their own servers until he resigns.

(Side note:Wtf are you guys thinking doing this? Community drama has no place on the servers and you should look for another way to get Jabba to resign. If you're mad you should never take it out on the servers.)
EDIT:Apparently I misinterpreted this message but my point still stands.

The whole reason AHG exists is because the staff wanted Highwon out of the picture. If the majority of the staff team sees Jabba they way they used to see Highwon on SGM then there's no way he'll be able to do his job effectively. There's plenty of people on the AHG staff team qualified to take on some or all of his work, and if his duties can be assigned to other staff then there's no reason to keep a director everyone sees as an enemy.

Jabba I'm glad you tried to repair this bridge before giving up, but it's time to call it quits. The only reason SGM survived all that drama is because it had a big enough playerbase to replace the staff team. If something like that happens while AHG is still trying to get off the ground there's no way it'll survive. In a time of crisis a leader should do what's best for the community, and if resigning is the only way to fix the divide in the staff team it's your responsibility to do it. You're no leader if you'd rather bring the community down with you.

 

[Pierogi]

Just to clarify, my post was tongue in cheek. There were 0 non-staff on the server at the time and we were all just goofing around spawning AWPlogis and Coomer's Hands. It was essentially an impromptu staff picnic that we opened up to the public.

 

[Evil Pauly]

i understand there is a lot of stuff going on but people need to stop typing paragraphs, I don't like reading...

 

[PwnageKO]

i understand there is a lot of stuff going on but people need to stop typing paragraphs, I don't like reading...

It's they don't realize we're GAMERS? our minds are constantly working milliseconds ahead of the average Joe so once we come across something we realize is just word stew, our L33T brains move on... incase the enemy team may be lurking around the corner.

 

[Lunar]

I do mostly agree with some of the arguments that were brought up in j3kawesome's report. However, I believe the way that this was handled and making the entire situation public was just not a good decision overall. Making a situation this serious public early on is just not a good way to start this. Most of this could have been brought up privately in Staff-Channels.

I can see why they would do this, and this would be to get a community reaction and to see what the community would think of Ethan. But this still isn't a good practice to do, mostly all of the communities, discord servers, or just shit that I'm in would all probably not do this. This would just bring up unnecessary drama and humiliation to the opposing party in the situation. We can already see an example of people humiliating Ethan by just taking a look at the Discord.

Overall the way that this was handled was very unprofessional, and this should have just been handled privately.

 

[green county health dept]

The interesting thing with highwon is the community/staff team could always use that as a shield for criticism in regards to new content/unchanging policies. Without that blame guy, someone else takes the role when an overtly ambitious community suffers some stalling due to another’s work/life balance, usage of unilateral decision making without prior communication, unless the servers are monetized into a way to incentivize the lack of a work life balance (hasn’t worked before, see the sad tale of moat).

You can try forcefeeding koolaid to the community of “we’re all good!!!!!!!!!! This matter we made entirely public was solved internally and there’s no more dramaaaaaaaaa” a week later when this attempt falls flat, but there’s going to be friction created. I don’t think the captains removal is needed to abate the friction, I think a common ground of compromise, understanding, and figuring out to run the community in way that supports unilaterally decision making and democracy group think, a monetization scheme that makes every happy, and other creative ways to settle the other Ten Commandments of the trials of Nuremberg post.

If the solution is to removed the guy that fought tooth and nail to get you all here, you are better off creating a new community and trying again, maybe creating a new community is best since it doesn’t look like he’s leaving.

 

[PwnageKO]

I do mostly agree with some of the arguments that were brought up in j3kawesome's report. However, I believe the way that this was handled and making the entire situation public was just not a good decision overall. Making a situation this serious public early on is just not a good way to start this. Most of this could have been brought up privately in Staff-Channels.

I can see why they would do this, and this would be to get a community reaction and to see what the community would think of Ethan. But this still isn't a good practice to do, mostly all of the communities, discord servers, or just shit that I'm in would all probably not do this. This would just bring up unnecessary drama and humiliation to the opposing party in the situation. We can already see an example of people humiliating Ethan by just taking a look at the Discord.

Overall the way that this was handled was very unprofessional, and this should have just been handled privately.

I agree with this tentatively, but I wanted to note that, unless it was stated previously or is known already, we don't know if these issues had been brought up previously to Jabba in a less direct manner and were then not taken as something was more urgent than first thought. I don't know. I think posting the full report privately and allowing Jabba a chance to internally respond and allow him to attempt to make changes without it being so public would have been a better option. But then again, I do not know how much of this had been brought up prior and the report was the conclusion of all that prior trying to work it out.

I just don't like it when my parents fight.

 

[green county health dept]

i understand there is a lot of stuff going on but people need to stop typing paragraphs, I don't like reading...

eat my word vomit if you aren’t gonna read my somewhat thoughtful and semi intelligent posts about my opinion that doesn’t fucking matter, I can type 1000 wpm about the plot of Adam Sandler movies, live action scooby doo movies, and how dodgeball was truly a movie ahead of its time and how white Goodman would be a successful garrys mod server owner

 

[Evil Pauly]

i love mr sandler

 

[Pokeben10]

eat my word vomit if you aren’t gonna read my somewhat thoughtful and semi intelligent posts about my opinion that doesn’t fucking matter, I can type 1000 wpm about the plot of Adam Sandler movies, live action scooby doo movies, and how dodgeball was truly a movie ahead of its time and how white Goodman would be a successful garrys mod server owner

i would actually like to hear that dodgeball thesis

 

[green county health dept]

i would actually like to hear that dodgeball thesis

Theres two different ways here.

The original movie ending was to have the Average Joe’s lose the sudden death, and have globogym consume both their gym and their glory. With this movie being in the early 2000’s, White Goodman was on top of the world and could travel, workout, and seduce all the woman in the world the next few years, with nothing in his way. He would eventually find boredom with his success, and find a neat little game a lot of “fatso losers” were playing... half life 2.

The success and rise of the game would bother him himself and give him a new goal, how to reach out to these people and convince them to better their bodies. His ad campaigns would keep evolving to target this audience; his original one would be good template to lean into.

He would eventually stumble upon onto a gold mine of opportunity towards his ambitions of fixing these losers, garry’s mod. By establishing a group of monetized TTT servers to include both in-game perks and a gym membership to his global network of gyms, he could bait his mice in. Maybe he would offer in-gym promotions for his servers, workout out today and get free traitor passes or a skin or something dumb. He could make working out three times a week being part of his staff requirements, and find a lot of success in offering body replacement surgeries with in-game ttt items.

The canonical ending of the movie has an end credits scene where white Goodman is back to his original, beautiful weight. He enters a deep depression post championship, and eventually bores himself of TV. He learns about gaming as he is desperately trying to earn a living off online poker, and someone supports himself off a mixture of Walmart greeting, frozen dinners, and online gaming through out the next few years.

He stumbles into TTT blind, and loves being able to harass people over his microphone. Out of both a need for a place to play and a lust for cash grabbing, he sets up a monetized network of servers with the knowledge base he has built up. Since he ran Globogym, he has experience with a payroll and how to structure a franchise; he reaches out to players who he likes and establishes a network of paid staff and volunteers who don’t know less. His weight allows him to develop content around the clock whilst needing minimal nutrition, and soon he has another franchise to his name.

 

[BARTHOLOMEW]

I want to talk about Pixels (2015). My favorite Sandler film. Big fan of the scene where he says "Not this version Blue Lagoon". Don't get it - don't stress, I'm here to explain!

Essential the scene starts off with Adam Sandler aquireing power over these military personel. A man in a blue shirt (this is important - could come up again later *hint* *hint*) comes up to Adam, dismissing him, by asking him a ridiculous question. Adam, the wise man, keeps his composure in the situation, despite this military priveledged man trying to rag on him simply for being a gamer, and replies with one of cinema's greatest zingers - he tells this man in the blue shirt the famous quote "Not this version though, Blue lagoon". He used the man's own imagery against him, the things he used to show himself off to the world - the blue shirt - and completely dismantles it in front of everyone, the man's co-workers, the man's friends, his bosses. But you notice anything wierd with this poster? Here's the curve ball - blue in this cover is clearly associated with our heros. We see a triumphant man fighting for his city in a blue shirt, and yet in the scene he dismantles the aggressor for wearing a blue shirt while wearing an orange shirt. So what do the colors symbolize, is blue a symbol of home and good, and judging on how Q*bert is the only other orange thing, perhaps orange represents a sort of 'disconnect' from home? Perhaps the director was trying to make a statement with the scene, reminiscent of Toby Maguire's third Spiderman film in which he puts on the black suit, which corrupts him and his values, turning him from hero to aggressor. In this scene where Adam dismantles the blue-shirted man for making fun of him, I think the orange shirt Adam wears shows he might not be in the best headspace - and almost in a reversal of where he usually is in his life, becoming the guy who bullies the blue shirt. Another angle to look at this is in terms of Aposematism - the evolutionary process by which animals develop unnatural and vibrant colors to scare away predators. In this situation typically the victim would be Adam, successful gamer, surrounded by army men, but instead he has the power given to him by the president, a secret weapon similar to aposematism. He is even using a similar color scheme - warm, bright colors.

Back to the joke itself let's break it down what make's it so damaging. Every joke, every insult, has some level of truth to it. And "Blue Lagoon" is no exception, one of the truest insults of all - irrefutable in any way, as yes, this character in fact IS wearing a blue shirt. A wise man once said to know your enemy. It makes me wonder his motive - blue is a color associated with depression, but as I argued earlier I think blue might just be a good symbol in this movie. A new theory is the idea of false/true blue - in this image we see our heroes, our gamer warriors (other than the president and the love interest), in blue commiting acts of good. Perhaps beginning with the 'false blue', or as Adam puts it, the Blue Lagoon, it makes Adam's ascension to the blue shirt even more powerful - mark of a true hero.

Symbolism of a blue shirt being used for good isn't something that was just forgotten by Hollywood's greats either - we see the idea of a blue shirt being good come up again in the film 'Free guy' (2021). Take this scene for example - Jackseptic guy, who I mean let's face it - if you're here, on video games, you know who this guy is - one of the BEST gamers of all time, calls this Blue Shirt Guy a 'good guy'. You think one of the gaming industries' top gamers would be wrong on this sort of analysis? Hmmmm... I'm noticing some sort of trend here..... Especially considering it's another video game related movie, it's clear homage to one of the most memorable movie moments of all time.

I highly suggest Pixels (2015) to all readers, especially those of you gamers. It's a movie about us, about hope.

 

[green county health dept]

View attachment 987

I want to talk about Pixels (2015). My favorite Sandler film. Big fan of the scene where he says "Not this version Blue Lagoon". Don't get it - don't stress, I'm here to explain!

Essential the scene starts off with Adam Sandler aquireing power over these military personel. A man in a blue shirt (this is important - could come up again later *hint* *hint*) comes up to Adam, dismissing him, by asking him a ridiculous question. Adam, the wise man, keeps his composure in the situation, despite this military priveledged man trying to rag on him simply for being a gamer, and replies with one of cinema's greatest zingers - he tells this man in the blue shirt the famous quote "Not this version though, Blue lagoon". He used the man's own imagery against him, the things he used to show himself off to the world - the blue shirt - and completely dismantles it in front of everyone, the man's co-workers, the man's friends, his bosses. But you notice anything wierd with this poster? Here's the curve ball - blue in this cover is clearly associated with our heros. We see a triumphant man fighting for his city in a blue shirt, and yet in the scene he dismantles the aggressor for wearing a blue shirt while wearing an orange shirt. So what do the colors symbolize, is blue a symbol of home and good, and judging on how Q*bert is the only other orange thing, perhaps orange represents a sort of 'disconnect' from home? Perhaps the director was trying to make a statement with the scene, reminiscent of Toby Maguire's third Spiderman film in which he puts on the black suit, which corrupts him and his values, turning him from hero to aggressor. In this scene where Adam dismantles the blue-shirted man for making fun of him, I think the orange shirt Adam wears shows he might not be in the best headspace - and almost in a reversal of where he usually is in his life, becoming the guy who bullies the blue shirt. Another angle to look at this is in terms of Aposematism - the evolutionary process by which animals develop unnatural and vibrant colors to scare away predators. In this situation typically the victim would be Adam, successful gamer, surrounded by army men, but instead he has the power given to him by the president, a secret weapon similar to aposematism.

Back to the joke itself let's break it down what make's it so damaging. Every joke, every insult, has some level of truth to it. And "Blue Lagoon" is no exception, one of the truest insults of all - irrefutable in any way, as yes, this character in fact IS wearing a blue shirt. A wise man once said to know your enemy. It makes me wonder his motive - blue is a color associated with depression, but as I argued earlier I think blue might just be a good symbol in this movie. A new theory is the idea of false/true blue - in this image we see our heroes, our gamer warriors (other than the president and the love interest), in blue commiting acts of good. Perhaps beginning with the 'false blue', or as Adam puts it, the Blue Lagoon, it makes Adam's ascension to the blue shirt even more powerful - mark of a true hero.

Symbolism of a blue shirt being used for good isn't something that was just forgotten by Hollywood's greats either - we see the idea of a blue shirt being good come up again in the film 'Free guy' (2021). Take this scene for example - Jackseptic guy, who I mean let's face it - if you're here, on video games, you know who this guy is - one of the BEST gamers of all time, calls this Blue Shirt Guy a 'good guy'. You think one of the gaming industries' top gamers would be wrong on this sort of analysis? Hmmmm... I'm noticing some sort of trend here.....

I highly suggest Pixels (2015) to all readers, especially those of you gamers. It's a movie about us, about hope.

I watched click the first time last year. God I've been missing out on what could been the best movie theatre experience ever. Ever time the dog humped the stuffed animal I laughed, every time adam sandler skipped a family dinner and pursued his dreams I cried.

 

[Moleman]

View attachment 987

I want to talk about Pixels (2015). My favorite Sandler film. Big fan of the scene where he says "Not this version Blue Lagoon". Don't get it - don't stress, I'm here to explain!

Essential the scene starts off with Adam Sandler aquireing power over these military personel. A man in a blue shirt (this is important - could come up again later *hint* *hint*) comes up to Adam, dismissing him, by asking him a ridiculous question. Adam, the wise man, keeps his composure in the situation, despite this military priveledged man trying to rag on him simply for being a gamer, and replies with one of cinema's greatest zingers - he tells this man in the blue shirt the famous quote "Not this version though, Blue lagoon". He used the man's own imagery against him, the things he used to show himself off to the world - the blue shirt - and completely dismantles it in front of everyone, the man's co-workers, the man's friends, his bosses. But you notice anything wierd with this poster? Here's the curve ball - blue in this cover is clearly associated with our heros. We see a triumphant man fighting for his city in a blue shirt, and yet in the scene he dismantles the aggressor for wearing a blue shirt while wearing an orange shirt. So what do the colors symbolize, is blue a symbol of home and good, and judging on how Q*bert is the only other orange thing, perhaps orange represents a sort of 'disconnect' from home? Perhaps the director was trying to make a statement with the scene, reminiscent of Toby Maguire's third Spiderman film in which he puts on the black suit, which corrupts him and his values, turning him from hero to aggressor. In this scene where Adam dismantles the blue-shirted man for making fun of him, I think the orange shirt Adam wears shows he might not be in the best headspace - and almost in a reversal of where he usually is in his life, becoming the guy who bullies the blue shirt. Another angle to look at this is in terms of Aposematism - the evolutionary process by which animals develop unnatural and vibrant colors to scare away predators. In this situation typically the victim would be Adam, successful gamer, surrounded by army men, but instead he has the power given to him by the president, a secret weapon similar to aposematism.

Back to the joke itself let's break it down what make's it so damaging. Every joke, every insult, has some level of truth to it. And "Blue Lagoon" is no exception, one of the truest insults of all - irrefutable in any way, as yes, this character in fact IS wearing a blue shirt. A wise man once said to know your enemy. It makes me wonder his motive - blue is a color associated with depression, but as I argued earlier I think blue might just be a good symbol in this movie. A new theory is the idea of false/true blue - in this image we see our heroes, our gamer warriors (other than the president and the love interest), in blue commiting acts of good. Perhaps beginning with the 'false blue', or as Adam puts it, the Blue Lagoon, it makes Adam's ascension to the blue shirt even more powerful - mark of a true hero.

Symbolism of a blue shirt being used for good isn't something that was just forgotten by Hollywood's greats either - we see the idea of a blue shirt being good come up again in the film 'Free guy' (2021). Take this scene for example - Jackseptic guy, who I mean let's face it - if you're here, on video games, you know who this guy is - one of the BEST gamers of all time, calls this Blue Shirt Guy a 'good guy'. You think one of the gaming industries' top gamers would be wrong on this sort of analysis? Hmmmm... I'm noticing some sort of trend here.....

I highly suggest Pixels (2015) to all readers, especially those of you gamers. It's a movie about us, about hope.

Color theory in pivotal films such as these are an integral way to subtly shift the audience's perceptions and develop context without the need for verbal exposition. I've noticed that this concept is used in incredibly varied and diverse ways in the games industry as well. In the popular video game Portal(2005) the protagonist is given a device which allows them to create titular 'portals' (that is, two gateways linking separated instances in spacetime using interdimensional technology). These portals have a distinct orange and blue color to them. This symbolizes how they are different, yet connected in ways that the human mind cannot even fathom.

Now, take for example the smash-hit e-sports game Rocket League(2010). This game completely flips the script, wherein one's team color can be either blue OR orange, decided randomly by the games code. This is in fact an allegory for the complex and intricate relationships between good and evil. In Rocket League, you can be good or evil at any time, but one thing remains the same: your goal is to win, and you must demolish anyone who stands in the way of achieving said goal.

And this loops back around to your main point in question. All of these media have one thing in common: gaming. It could be said that all games are in effect a test of the players inherent good and evil traits. In the same way that many games do not have a conventional 'ending' per se, there is at the same time no conventional 'ending' to the debate of morality. Though the 'player' is in control of the 'game', there is no player that controls the endless game of life, death, time, justice or morality. No one man can decide what is TRULY evil, so no person or thing can ever be seen as unquestionably evil.

So, what exactly is my point here? Well in Nazi Germa

 

[dogewant2be]

pixels fucking sucked

 

[interloper]

 

[Grumble]

December 2013-A mod named Zabiba was in a Skype call with his friend Magafe while staffing. During the call, Magafe told Zabiba he was gonna jihad over Skype, and Zabiba killed him. Unsurprisingly, Zabiba got demoted and both of them got ghosting bans.

Zabiba was one of the most popular mods of his time, and Sir Lemoncakes later told me that Zabiba was next in line for admin before he got demoted. People were mad when Highwon made the call to demote one of their favorite mods, and a mass resignation known as operation 666 was started. Operation 666 was small compared to similar events, with only a handful of staff participating, but it set the stage for worse to come.


August 2014-Highwon got tired of everyone forming cliques with their private Skype groups, so he decided to ban external chats for staff and force them to use Teamspeak instead. This went about as well as you'd expect it to, and it led to resignations, demotions, backstabbing, Highwon losing his temper in staff discussion, and it may be the reason Highwon gave up on the servers after 2014.

People eventually got used to using locked Teamspeak channels, but so many great staff members left because of Highwon's reckless decision that the staff team was never the same. On top of that all the people who never got invited to private Skype groups had to watch themselves be left out of locked Teamspeak channels, making the problem even worse.


January 2017-A popular admin named Anna got demoted for inactivity, but the demotion came while her mom was on her deathbed. As far as I can remember the demotion was justified, however the horrible timing led to the biggest mass resignation in SGM history.

Not only did a majority of the staff team resign all at once, but people who were respected admins the day before started to band together against SGM. People publicly leaked staff info, threatened to DDoS the servers, threatened to mass chargeback on donations, and some people went as low as to threaten to post CP in shoutbox.



So why am I giving an SGM history lesson out of nowhere? Because Jabba needs to hear this. I'm not involved in anything happening behind the scenes, and all I know about the situation comes from J3k's report and Jabba's response, so I won't try to argue who's right. While I can't say who's right or wrong in that report, there's one part of J3k's post I can say with certainty is true.



Highwon was always disconnected from the rest of his staff team, and the events listed were a direct result of that disconnect. One thing that's clear now is that the staff team won't accept Jabba as their leader, and they'll do anything to get rid of him. They're even willing to go as far as trolling their own servers until he resigns.

(Side note:Wtf are you guys thinking doing this? Community drama has no place on the servers and you should look for another way to get Jabba to resign. If you're mad you should never take it out on the servers.)
EDIT:Apparently I misinterpreted this message but my point still stands.

The whole reason AHG exists is because the staff wanted Highwon out of the picture. If the majority of the staff team sees Jabba they way they used to see Highwon on SGM then there's no way he'll be able to do his job effectively. There's plenty of people on the AHG staff team qualified to take on some or all of his work, and if his duties can be assigned to other staff then there's no reason to keep a director everyone sees as an enemy.

Jabba I'm glad you tried to repair this bridge before giving up, but it's time to call it quits. The only reason SGM survived all that drama is because it had a big enough playerbase to replace the staff team. If something like that happens while AHG is still trying to get off the ground there's no way it'll survive. In a time of crisis a leader should do what's best for the community, and if resigning is the only way to fix the divide in the staff team it's your responsibility to do it. You're no leader if you'd rather bring the community down with you.

Forget the past, the future is now old man.

P.S. I made your chicken parm, it was tasty.

 

[PwnageKO]

Forget the past, the future is now old man.

P.S. I made your chicken parm, it was tasty.

Leak the recipe.