Meowrisa

Australian Skial God
Contributor
I think this issue needs to be brought up in a more official place, and is long overdue.
The Skial Admin BBQ Prophet has been causing way more problems than he's worth, and I have sufficient evidence that I think warrants him being removed from the position.

First off, he's rude and just gives off an air that's bad for the community. While this in itself wouldn't be enough to get him removed if he did his job well, we can also see that he doesn't even do that right. He's been involved in 2 too many controversially triggerhappy bans, and that's something he should not be allowed to do anymore. He's also been complained about by a lot of server regulars, whom may I remind you are the main people we are trying to appease here and the whole reason the rules exist.

2 examples of him being involved/influential in controversial bans where his only evidence is his word:
https://www.skial.com/threads/ztg-«bbq»-prophet-notadr-this-admin-is-abusing-his-authority-and-lying-on-my-ban-appeal.69583/#post-703908

https://www.skial.com/threads/appeal-♛-jojo-da-pope-♛.69560/#post-703856 (Same case)

https://www.skial.com/threads/appeal-stealther.68956/#post-699744

(Notice that all of which were overturned by KillerZebra.)


He's handled about 20 appeals from what my research came up with, and he has done something out of line twice. This means that 10% of the time, from what we see on the forums, he's messed up. Other admins have had about one of these controversial bans if any in a number of years. Of course, I found more examples where admins have disagreed with him and their opinion has been swept to the side and ignored, and a ton of examples of him just lacking common courtesy in a bunch of his appeals and reports, amounting to about 25% of all of the one's he's handled that I could find in his history. Now the scary part is, if you take what he's done here and consider the things he's done outside of the eye of the forum, in a more privatized place, then him banning for controversial or wrong things 10% of the time is deeply concerning. Especially when you consider how many people appeal/report in comparison to how many people actually get banned on Skial. I personally think that the Jojo example was where he crossed the line. I highly doubt that he thought that ban was warranted and fair, but he knew the rules and used a statement someone said in a very joking way and banned them permanently without warning. BBQ says he warned them, but him saying "It was a prank" doesn't count. I know my research is limited because I'm but a simple forum regular and have not seen his in-server behavior, but from what I hear from the people who have seen it, it is far from what we want being the face of our community.

All in all, BBQ Prophet is just not worth the trouble. We have a great trade moderator in the form of Sargent Y and, while the extra help is good, I do not think that someone who reflects so negatively on the community should be kept in power. The examples he's already made could easily be used to further lower the reputation of our servers, even if you disregard his appalling attitude towards the regulars whom he considers beneath him. People do not like feeling belittled or treated unfairly and this is something BBQ Prophet does to everyone universally. Including to admins, of which I can name at least 5 off the top of my head who agree with my opinion. A little extra help is not worth losing reputation or infighting among the admins.

Thanks for the consideration, and regardless of what happens, have a nice day.
 

Party Chocobo

Australian Skial God
Contributor
You're really going to quote me from Unmod? That is the lowest of the low and is not relevant to any position I hold here. If it were acceptable to just take anything out of context for slanderous purposes, especially from Unmod, a several members of staff wouldn't hold positions here. I cannot reiterate how disappointed I am to be persecuted like this.
Just because something was posted in unmod doesn't make it magically go away outside of unmod. In fact it shows who you are truly as a person and holy shit can we see clearly what kind of person you are from those responses.
 

Blade D_Hero

Moderator
Contributor
As much as i've never wanted it to end up this way, i honestly believe it's time for him to leave.

https://www.skial.com/threads/ztg-«...g-an-admin-for-bribing-kids-to-scam-me.65260/

This report was the one that crossed the line for me. Mods can see which comments were deleted in that thread and can confirm this. For those who don't know or forgot, he said the OP was "talking out of his ass" + some other borderline insults that i don't remember.

For reference, i called him out for that back then https://www.skial.com/threads/reply-in-unmod.21031/page-1068#post-673127

I have never heard or seen any admins handle things so poorly.

Edit: ninja'd by courtney

The comment you're referencing, for reference:

YxQdZZ.jpg
 

ToTeM

Australian Skial God
Contributor
+1, always thought he was an immature ass, though i dont truly much pay attention to what goes on in unmod, i would never want an admin that says and acts like he does
You're really going to quote me from Unmod? That is the lowest of the low and is not relevant to any position I hold here. If it were acceptable to just take anything out of context for slanderous purposes, especially from Unmod, a several members of staff wouldn't hold positions here. I cannot reiterate how disappointed I am to be persecuted like this.
Just because there are no rules in unmod doesnt mean your words and actions cant be used against you, if you always act like an idiot saying regrettable shit its gonna be pretty easy to pin down exactly what kind of personality you really are
 

Luke

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
Quoting from unmod is a dick move, and you know it.

Dick move.
Unmod doesn't mean "I do what I want here without being judged", it means that forum mods don't police it.
If someone is being racist, sexist, or anything else in unmod - this is still an issue, in my opinion.
It would be a dick move if I was suggesting that he should be forum banned because of something he said in there - but I'm not.
 

Blade D_Hero

Moderator
Contributor
Quoting from unmod is a dick move, and you know it.

Dick move.

Even if you ignore the stuff from unmod, there's documented evidence of him:

-being an asshole to people in the regular section of the forums
-spewing hatred over Steam (with that group he owns)
-being a jerk to people on the servers

That's already 3 strikes. Unmod is just extra, but don't try to make it seem like he only talks shit in unmod when it's happened basically everywhere else as well.
 

Antamania

Australian Skial God
Contributor
I rarely post here anymore, in fact I only play TF2 every once in a while, but I do read and keep an eye on stuff as I used to regularly post / be very active on this forum for years. So I'll post my opinion even though I may not be as well versed as this fellow as the others are. As someone with a lot of experience adminning (though in fairness; none on skial) I saw the thread that person made to complain about him and was pretty disheartened by the responses BBQ offered. Even if that person was 100% in the wrong, they deserved a measured, competent response to their complaint.

When people come to the forums if they feel they were wronged, it's absolutely right to not treat them with kid gloves and kiss their ass, but it's certainly not right to attack them either. Admins need thick skin, especially on pretty much the only big tf2 group left that isn't a vanilla experience. I also think this goes doubly so for trade moderation. People need to be able to trust that a trade moderator will resolve their problem maturely, reasonably and such, as some people make a large chunk of money from it. I can tell you right now, if I had a complaint with how I was treated by him, and I got a response like that, I would immediately stop regularly coming around. Moderators and admins should be there to resolve drama, not play a large part of it. The sheer amount of complaints about this guy is worse than the complaints some of the more controversial admins got.

He clearly doesn't respect the player base here, and Skial gets enough bullshit without poor admins running amock. As someone who often calls an admin into hightower to resolve a situation, I personally wouldn't feel comfortable calling this particular admin in, as I'd worry he'd make the situation worse. He doesn't have the temperament that someone in a position of power should have. He has no interest in helping out the community from all that I've seen.

Now, as my aside....I think linking stuff from unmod is in poor taste. I think there is enough in there to damn almost everyone who has posted in this thread if someone chose to actually action anything that happened there. People should feel free to express themselves there, as that was the assurances they were given. Once you start using it as evidence against a said person, it stops being a free expression space.

I think this person probably shouldn't have admin, but if it's not ok to remove it from him, perhaps a very stern talking to / education about his role. I wouldn't feel comfortable trading with him moderating over it, and I can imagine he's probably scared away a good portion of traders after reading his responses here.
 

Maddo

Gaben's Own Aimbot
Contributor
Unmod doesn't mean "I do what I want here without being judged", it means that forum mods don't police it.
If someone is being racist, sexist, or anything else in unmod - this is still an issue, in my opinion.
It would be a dick move if I was suggesting that he should be forum banned because of something he said in there - but I'm not.
You're suggesting he be removed from server admin for something he said in there, that's a bigger dick move than suggesting being forum banned for something said in a forum.
So you're ok and fine with having some one of this caliber on your team? Because it seems nobody else does.
Stop trolling for attention
 

Bottiger

Administrator
I think everyone needs to relax.

Any issues that get mishandled will be corrected and as you can see, we overturned the ban even though it was completely by the rules.

I don't feel comfortable removing his admin when he didn't actually break a rule where the ban was involved. Only the kick was improper and I'm not about to remove someone's admin for 1 kick. I did not see anything wrong with the other ban appeal.

I have explained to him how he should be more lenient and less aggressive. And if something like this happens again, then we can revisit this issue.
 

Meowrisa

Australian Skial God
Contributor
I think everyone needs to relax.

Any issues that get mishandled will be corrected and as you can see, we overturned the ban even though it was completely by the rules.

I don't feel comfortable removing his admin when he didn't actually break a rule where the ban was involved. Only the kick was improper and I'm not about to remove someone's admin for 1 kick. I did not see anything wrong with the other ban appeal.

I have explained to him how he should be more lenient and less aggressive. And if something like this happens again, then we can revisit this issue.
I would agree that people need to stop flat out attacking his character; it's irrelevant to his position. What's relevant is how he presents himself.
If you truly feel that having someone like this on the team is okay, then I trust you. I'm sure we all appreciate your attempt to correct him, and hopefully something comes of it.
As of right now, he's not doing some (bolded) of the things he was expected to do as an admin when he applied;
  • Will be around for more than a few months.
  • Calm. Will not get mad if you lose your admin.
  • Knows instinctively what is fair.
  • Smart enough to use the ban command properly.
  • Able to gain friends while playing on our servers.
  • Willing to help people on the other servers too.
  • Actively trying to participate in the community.
These are important qualities that cannot be overlooked, and I would hope that if in the future he persists in refusing to abide by them, you would take action.
Thank you for taking the time to look at this case.
 

Fairnessplease

Rage-Inducing Forum Troll
Can people change? Can people learn from this mistakes? I believe I can change Prophet into good, no one is actually bad but how society presents them to be bad. We shall change him into good no matter the amount of damage he has done, but even though he is not at peace; we can bring peace upon him because he has another chance at his position.

Peace.
 

Meowrisa

Australian Skial God
Contributor
Bumping this thread with more questionable actions of Prophet's:

2 more reports were made on him; one was about mic spamming (which is a kind of grey-area), and the other was about another situation where Prophet muted someone over an "argument" with little to no evidence.
https://www.skial.com/threads/ztg-«...-admin-spamming-audio-not-able-to-mute.70181/
https://www.skial.com/threads/ztg-«bbq»-prophet-notadr-false-mute-and-gag-admin-abuse.69894/

He also took care of a few reports and appeals being way too lenient with evidence.
https://www.skial.com/threads/state-from-jakefarm-vote-spam.70139/#post-708725 In this one he just believes what he's told using chatlogs with no other evidence.
https://www.skial.com/threads/appeal-ib2spooky.70047/#post-707975 In this appeal he lets someone go for no good reason; this one is probably amongst the most questionable of his actions.

I think keeping him around is more trouble than it's worth; and I still feel this way.
We had an overwhelming amount of support even from other admins for his removal, and he's still doing his job badly after his warning.
You could argue that these were all ultimately his decision and invalid; but him refusing to listen to the other admins suggestions and openly arguing with regulars on top of the aforementioned group where he berated "scammers"...
It just really doesn't look good. I wasn't going to make this post but he's made even more questionable decisions since it was closed.
I request that this suggestion is, at the very least, opened back up for discussion.
 

Meowrisa

Australian Skial God
Contributor
Apologies for the double post; just going to tag @Bottiger as I know it is ultimately his decision and he gets email notifications from forum tags.
 

Maddo

Gaben's Own Aimbot
Contributor
I'm not sticking up for Prophet, but a lot of the points you make are wrong, you seem to be overlooking facts in your effort to depose him
https://www.skial.com/threads/state-from-jakefarm-vote-spam.70139/#post-708725 In this one he just believes what he's told using chatlogs with no other evidence.
Chatlogs are evidence and many people have received punishment for votemenu abuse from chat logs.
https://www.skial.com/threads/appeal-ib2spooky.70047/#post-707975 In this appeal he lets someone go for no good reason; this one is probably amongst the most questionable of his actions.
Prophet has every right to overturn his own ban, @RMSniper is the one here who acted unprofessionally by insulting another admin in appeals, you gonna start a thread to have her removed?
Someone with a false appeal goes on to accuse Phrophet of failing to advance his team on TRADE US, so a false report on prophet
Prophet reported for mic spamming, 2 other admin comment that the reporter was in the wrong, so another false report on prophet

I wont jump to the conclusion that these two reports have been made with the single purpose to discredit Prophet as I have no evidence, but I do have suspicion.
 

Meowrisa

Australian Skial God
Contributor
I'm not sticking up for Prophet, but a lot of the points you make are wrong, you seem to be overlooking facts in your effort to depose him

Chatlogs are evidence and many people have received punishment for votemenu abuse from chat logs.

Prophet has every right to overturn his own ban, @RMSniper is the one here who acted unprofessionally by insulting another admin in appeals, you gonna start a thread to have her removed?

Someone with a false appeal goes on to accuse Phrophet of failing to advance his team on TRADE US, so a false report on prophet

Prophet reported for mic spamming, 2 other admin comment that the reporter was in the wrong, so another false report on prophet

I wont jump to the conclusion that these two reports have been made with the single purpose to discredit Prophet as I have no evidence, but I do have suspicion.
That's fine; having someone play devil's advocate for the other side is always very important. Everyone's entitled to their own defense.
I did not overlook facts due to a personal bias; I promise you that. Those threads still hold water, as it shows how some regulars and other admins perceive Prophet and his actions.
This thread was not made out of spite but to remove someone who makes the community look bad and cooperates poorly with the other admins from a position of power.
You and I both know that if he made mistakes controversial decisions of this volume within the application process he would've been declined. There's no reason he shouldn't have to hold that standard up.