Chai and Dragon revamp (+ staff discussion)

[Wingsrising]

I really wish someone would give some of the Subeta artists a lesson in behaving like professionals. Unfortunately, given Luxe's "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm going to go eat WORMS!" Dramatic Exit Post (tm) here, I don't think it's likely to happen.

So as not to sound excessively negative, clearly not all the artists are like that (Rah, and of course Aqua and FMD spring immediately to mind).

But really, there are a few people on staff (like Chimera) who should not be allowed to communicate with the Subetan public if they can't learn to behave like grown-ups.

[Illuen]

Could anyone possibly take some screenshots of the posts in question? I'm not able to see them, but I am extremely interested.

[Elzaim]

Oh God... someone had the gall to call out Chim (DNA... whatever she's calling herself now) on how rude her post was... and this was her exact retort:

"How was I rude this time? (Or am I just considered rude by default nowadays? )"


Ummm... unless I'm bling rushing in and having a huge rant about how the USERS perception of a long-time pet doesn't matter at all, then altering a picture so that we can have an 'emo' montre is pretty darn rude to me.

[Wingsrising]

Oh God... someone had the gall to call out Chim (DNA... whatever she's calling herself now) on how rude her post was... and this was her exact retort:

"How was I rude this time? (Or am I just considered rude by default nowadays? )

I was very tempted to respond to that by saying, "No, not by default, only when you :are: rude. Which come to think of it, seems to be the default. Never mind."

But that would be entirely rude, somewhat unfair -- she doesn't seem to be rude ALL the time, just frequently -- and would likely get me frozen. So I'll just register my unhappiness with the new Montre and let it go.

[Anubimon]

Could anyone possibly take some screenshots of the posts in question? I'm not able to see them, but I am extremely interested.

Sure, I'll take some screens of some of the main posts in the thread. Just give me a second to get them/upload them.

[Phibby]

"(Or am I just considered rude by default nowadays? )"

Keep it up, DNA. Keep it up.

And I agree, what's wrong with species individuality? Why do all Galactic pets have to be happy? Hell, if I had to assign specific mood characteristics to all colors, I'd think Galactic would be more mystical and/or trance/spacey (haha) than happy.

But really, the Angelic Charlie and Mortiking and Spectrum Charlie already posted are great colors, and that's largely because of their individuality. It's exactly why they stand out as some of the best pets of those colors, in my opinion anyway.

[Kamil]

Could anyone possibly take some screenshots of the posts in question? I'm not able to see them, but I am extremely interested.

Sure, I'll take some screens of some of the main posts in the thread. Just give me a second to get them/upload them.

I don't think it's quite fair to post screenshots/quotes from other conversations here and then comment on them where the people involved in the conversation have no ability to know what is being said (much as we'd like to think so, the world does not revolve around us, and not everyone on subeta comes here) and/or defend themselves, and so I'd prefer it if there was much less of that sort of activity going on.

As Jazzy said when conversation was still taking place on the Checkers thread after his banning: it's the equivalent of talking behind their backs.

It seems to me if one has something to say about the conversation one should have the balls to say it where the actual conversation is taking place, not run away somewhere else "safe" and backbite.

[Anubimon]

True enough. I won't upload them then, sorry about that.

[Wingsrising]

In the world of Subeta, the staff members are (like it or not) public figures. I don't feel obliged to refrain from saying negative things about Paris Hilton except on forums Paris Hilton reads, after all. As far as I'm concerned, in the little world of Subeta, the staff occupy a similar pubilc status. I'm not gossiping about her love life or some such, I'm commenting on unprofessional behavor that she has chosen to exhibit in public while representing Subeta.

If we never said anything negative where the people involved couldn't read it, then it would pretty much mean that we could never say anything negative about Neopets at all.

[Kamil]

Saying something negative about Neopets or Subeta as a whole is a whole different thing than running over here with a quote or a screenshot and saying 'did you see what that moron said this time!!11!', because one is referring to the business/site itself and the other, almost invariably, is referring to a specific person - and that's what's been bothering me. I think if you want to dress down a specific person you should have the courtesy to say it to their face, not behind their back.

Especially if you are constantly running over here with copied quotes to mock. Which you have never done, to my knowledge, so I'm obviously not talking about you. =D

[dandelions]

Yeah, I'd like to also say here that I am uncomfortable with how personal people are making this. Wingsrising, you said yourself you wouldn't say what you just did about Chimaera on Subeta itself because it'd get you frozen - while you <i>can</i> say it here, if you can't there perhaps it's an indication that it's heading a little too close to something that's not really acceptable? Yours is certainly not the worst example, of course; I'm just mentioning it as an illustration. This thread seems uncomfortably close to a prolonged attack on Chimaera, and while she may well deserve it (I've never seen a single one of her posts because I do not have an account, so I do not know) people shouldn't really be doing that behind her back. Give her a chance to respond. Criticism of Subeta in general is fine, but constant criticism of a single person just looks petty.

Screenshots from Subeta's forums should not be posted here unless the content of the post is informative rather than a source of mockery - for example, if Keith makes a post explaining downtime, or a new feature. There's something wrong with screenshotting forums which are closed to all non-members simply to watch drama unfold. If you must do so, take it to instant messenger or private message, where it doesn't look like we're officially sanctioning it.

[daisybell]

I think it's important to make it clear whether this is a new rule on NC saying we can't discuss what staff say on the site they work for, or it isn't.

I'm just worried that we end up with not being able to say anything at all about the way staff members of either site behave on the site they work for. If Chimaera was saying things on her personal site, or on LJ or whatever it would be wrong to have long discussions about it. But whenever a staff member says something on Subeta, they do so as a member of staff on that site, so they have to be careful what they say, especially when it concerns their area of work. Or, even worse, we end up with a biased situation where it's fine to say "TNT sucks" but not to express any kind of displeasure about Subeta staff members at all.

I think personal attacks and insults are wrong, and perhaps Chimaera/DNA is being undeservedly attacked. But her behaviour has in a way brought it upon her since she is so often rude to anyone who says anything negative, even if they say it politely. If you constantly get your head bitten off by a particular artist whenever you post on the Subeta forums or news comments, then that is a problem and I think not one that's inappropriate for NC.

[Wingsrising]

Yeah, I'd like to also say here that I am uncomfortable with how personal people are making this. Wingsrising, you said yourself you wouldn't say what you just did about Chimaera on Subeta itself because it'd get you frozen - while you <i>can</i> say it here, if you can't there perhaps it's an indication that it's heading a little too close to something that's not really acceptable?

I probably shouldn't have said that even here, since it was excessively snarky. I usually listen to the nagging voice telling me not to post things, but this time I ignored it, which was almost certainly a mistake on my part.

However, I should point out that there are a lot of things that are perfectly acceptable to say here that would get me frozen on the Neoboards. Pretty much anything can get you frozen there, in fact. The Subeta forums aren't anywhere near as freeze-happy but there's a limit to how far I'm willing to push it.

I should note that IIRC, no one had a problem with directing negative comments about things in the Editorial personally at Donna when (it was believed) she wrote the Editorial. We say things about TNT in general because we don't know where specifically to direct the comments, and IIRC back when TNT staff members used to post here they complained about this fact. I think it would be unfair to make comments about the behavior of the Subeta staff in general as if they were all behaving badly when in fact it's only certain staff members who are doing so.

Nor did anyone have problems with our commenting about David's bad behavior. Didn't we actually (help) get him fired, in fact?

I agree with daisybell. Commenting like this about something someone posted on their personal LJ would be grossly inappropriate, but these are people making public remarks on a site they represent. As I said, that makes them pubic figures of sorts and slightly different rules apply.

[shaelyn76]

I am confused now. Since DNA is not a member of NC we are no longer allowed to say anything about her? Does that apply to any and all Subeta staff that are not members of NC? Are we not allowed to screenshot and post any comments made on Subeta unless they are directly informative or ours from Subeta? I really need some clarification as I don't want to (continue to) ruffle anybody's feathers here.

[Figment]

It's really a fine line between what is okay to say and what is not, I think, and a lot of it has to do with the distinction between attacking a person and attacking their behaviour. As wings said, subeta staff are public figures; what they do in public, especially the things that have implication to the users, are pretty much fair game for us to discuss. The problem is when people take it to the level of personal attack. I'm not saying that we haven't singled out individual employees on neopets before, but the two sites are incomparable in a number of ways, the main one being distance between staff and users.

If this thread makes me feel squirmy and uncomfortable in my bones, how must the several people who work with and for DNA feel when they read it? If this degenerates again into personal attacks on one specific person I am seriously going to consider locking it. I don't want to get all 1984 on anyone's ass, but I do think we need to be acutely aware of that line, and engage in active-minded self-censoring.

General rule of thumb, I think, would be to think about whether or not you would put your comments to DNA's face on subeta and still consider them appropriate.

I don't know about anything else, but if I were subjected to the intense scrutiny and criticism that's been directed at DNA this past month, I would certainly begin to crumble beneath the pressure. It's no excuse; as we've said, when you're in a service industry you simply need to buck up and deal with the abuse and try to be as pleasant as possible, something which DNA certainly does not seem to be doing. But I can imagine what she must be feeling, and I'm sure it's unpleasant.

Regarding screen shots &c., I'm not sure. I don't think we should make it a general rule never to post them because whether or not it's useful or necessary depends very much on the situation. Right now, I think that publicly posting screenshots would just fan the flames, so the speak. But in other situations, who knows? If you aren't sure whether something is appropriate to post, chances are it might not be. You could always PM a mod to ask, I guess.