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- Thread starter Daiquiri
- Start date
To a degree and to an extent, favoritism is actually a good thing for quite a few reasons and from many different prospective and angles. I'll be happy to go into a few cases with this holds true below.
So for starters, with promotions favoritism can be a good thing. I think that nominating your "friends" is actually a good thing for a few reasons. I didn't say actually promoting them simply because they are your friends, but nominating them for a promotion. With most friends, you trust them... when it comes to promotions of users, most of the time, you are to trust them (or at least, you should...). Trust is evident when it comes to both friends and promotions, so in this respect, "favoritism" can actually be useful thing for people to have and to use.
Another application of "favoritism" that can actually be useful is when you are moderating a room to a degree, because if your "friend" that you trust does something wrong to a severe extent, it will be that you trusted them enough to begin with when it comes time to ask yourself if you should actually trust them or not-- all because of favoritism.
Having favoritism actually allows you to look at things, and users, from a different angle. Are there times that this can be an issue? Yes, of course. Is there anything wrong with having favoritism to begin with? No, it allows you to both have feelings of faith and trust-- to a degree.
All and all, favoritism is a quality of human nature that cannot and will not be changed. There isn't much that people can do about it. Furthermore, while it can be hurtful at times to people, it will more than likely for *most* applications actually be beneficial. With that being said, I'm not sure I quite understand the meaning of this post to begin with, as I don't see there to be much discussion on this topic; it's pretty cut and dry to me. But hey, maybe I'm wrong and others can enlighten me below.
So for starters, with promotions favoritism can be a good thing. I think that nominating your "friends" is actually a good thing for a few reasons. I didn't say actually promoting them simply because they are your friends, but nominating them for a promotion. With most friends, you trust them... when it comes to promotions of users, most of the time, you are to trust them (or at least, you should...). Trust is evident when it comes to both friends and promotions, so in this respect, "favoritism" can actually be useful thing for people to have and to use.
Another application of "favoritism" that can actually be useful is when you are moderating a room to a degree, because if your "friend" that you trust does something wrong to a severe extent, it will be that you trusted them enough to begin with when it comes time to ask yourself if you should actually trust them or not-- all because of favoritism.
Having favoritism actually allows you to look at things, and users, from a different angle. Are there times that this can be an issue? Yes, of course. Is there anything wrong with having favoritism to begin with? No, it allows you to both have feelings of faith and trust-- to a degree.
All and all, favoritism is a quality of human nature that cannot and will not be changed. There isn't much that people can do about it. Furthermore, while it can be hurtful at times to people, it will more than likely for *most* applications actually be beneficial. With that being said, I'm not sure I quite understand the meaning of this post to begin with, as I don't see there to be much discussion on this topic; it's pretty cut and dry to me. But hey, maybe I'm wrong and others can enlighten me below.
Pawnpawn might have a point when he says that favoritism is natural and therefore inevitable. However, there is a very big problem when said favoritism starts to interfere with the rules, and people are not punished **cough.. Room owners abusing their power.. cough** because they are friends with global auth or whatever.
All of which you mention isn't really favouritism, or at least not the kind I'm trying to report. You trust your friends? Great. This isn't really favouritism, it's just.. knowing your friends. Favouritism enters in play when you actually favour them over other people just because you get along with them. Ex. promoting them or let them do whatever they want not abiding by the rules. There is a clear difference between the two that you're notoriously mixing up.
With regards to "is a quality of human nature that cannot and will not be changed"... well.. yeah, a lot of things are "natural" to us. Despite that we're still sentient beings and can separate between emotions and "policy", and that's what lets us moderate a chatroom.
Rohep
Banned deucer.
Was just about to post a thread like this...
Got locked today for insulting a retired staff member, and the driver who locked me turns around and calls a mod a (BAN ME PLEASE).
This might seem minor, but I ended up locked for it...
About the whole unicode situation, I've seen the same thing happen multiple times, with room staff making up rules on the fly about how many "symbols you can have in your name" so their buds don't get in trouble.
It's a lot of bullshit, but it happens too often for me to right a long post detailing it. I just ignore it, but if you can bring higher attention to it, go for it. I'd love to see you succeed.
Got locked today for insulting a retired staff member, and the driver who locked me turns around and calls a mod a (BAN ME PLEASE).
This might seem minor, but I ended up locked for it...
About the whole unicode situation, I've seen the same thing happen multiple times, with room staff making up rules on the fly about how many "symbols you can have in your name" so their buds don't get in trouble.
It's a lot of bullshit, but it happens too often for me to right a long post detailing it. I just ignore it, but if you can bring higher attention to it, go for it. I'd love to see you succeed.
Rohep
Banned deucer.
I didn't insult any staff member to his or her "face", and I wasn't talking to any staff member either.
I'm pretty sure AP didn't mean this for this at all.
Anyways,
Can favoritism lead to promotions? Yes, it certainly can. Can favoritism get you to look at a user better for who they really are, should they do something significant as far as a wrong doing in said room? Yes, it certainly can.
I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here... For me personally, favoritism isn't a bad thing. It helps me with a "leap of faith" for some nominations for some promotions as I said, even. It honestly has a lot more positives than negatives. I also have no idea how that log you posted at all relates to the topic at hand, but that's another point in itself.
Anyways, favoritism has a lot of benefits and I still fail to see the meaning of this post.
Aslo, Rohep... I think what you were trying to show was "being bias"... There is quite a difference between being bias and having favorites, so I'm not sure how that was at all relevant as well.
You missed the point entirely. The point of the post (to my understanding) is that popular and/or well-connected users are able to skirt the rules simply because they're friends with people with the power to punish them. It has absolutely nothing to do with promotions, it has to do with behavior. They can abuse, spam, do whatever that would be against the rules for a normal user to do simply because of their connections. Because of this attitude of being able to do whatever they want, they are showing a poor example to the community. OP is asking for the rules to apply fairly to everyone across the board because mods are not infallible.
The staff on showdown, be it global or room, are humans. Also being on showdown, it's easy to make a lot of cool friends. Which can lead to problems when you have to mute (or at least warn) your friend for trolling or likewise things. However, as a staff member (especially as a RO) we have to commit ourselves to treat all users equally. If a staff member can't do that, then it's really something that should be at least discussed with a RO in the room, or a global.
Rohep
Banned deucer.
I agree, favoritism and being biased are different; the effects were the same, however. And if AP didn't mean anything like that, I apologize, but he can reply himself and say that. When difference in rank affects a decision, it leads to the same problems that AP was discussing. Seems like you ignored the point of my post in simply agreeing that it is a problem on PS!, and encouraging him to try to bring attention to "circlejerks".
Your case relates to my thread only in a certain way. Parting from the base that a staff member is as much of a user as any other person, you still insulted a user and deserved to be sanctioned. The lock might have been a bit excessive however, as if you had insulted anybody else you might've been only muted and not locked from every chat. There is where favouritism enters in play, but it had little to nothing to do with your impulse of insulting another PS user.
Rohep
Banned deucer.
I never said anything contrary to this, but it still relates to the main idea of this thread, which is why I decided to post it.
Rohep
Banned deucer.
Oh god lmao
I've seen this happen in degrees that it causes major disfunction's in rooms, and honestly now that it's all passed, things seem a lot better. When cliques happen for regulars thats fine, but when staff do it, it can cause unseen implications when brought out in the open. It causes problems for both the regulars in the room, and people coming in. It makes the atmosphere a lot less welcoming, and when it is brought in the open it can hurt a lot of people's pride and sense of judgement at once, causing anger and backlash throughout the room until the situation is taken care of by the people causing it. Keep in mind this is just my opinion, but AP is absolutely right in saying that cliques are a bad thing on Pokemon Showdown. When you close off a group of people who are responsible for making the room what it is, it causes segregation. and that always ends, but it never goes over well when it does.
I was hoping someone would provide a user's point of view. Those are greatly overlooked.