I've waited a little bit to post this, but I feel that the League moderators have taken some actions that are inappropriate enough that the community should be made aware of them.
A couple of weeks ago I received a PM from a moderator stating that some of the contenders in the A division were not willing to cooperate with me to broadcast the champion match this season (this was when there were several games left to be played in the A division). It said the moderators discussed it and decided that I should not commentate any champion matches until the conflicts were resolved. I was not told what the conflicts were or who they were with, and after asking several times for this information I have still not been told.
I replied to all of the moderators asking for clarification on the situation, but also stating that this decision as presented to me was inappropriate -- people playing in the league should not have the authority to decide who gets to commentate (or not commentate) matches without the consent of the community, and this decision sets a dangerous precedent. If the players do not wish to cooperate, nobody is forcing them to have the match broadcast (actually nobody is even forcing them to play the match at all) so the decision should be to not have a broadcast. I also mentioned that in no other "E-sport" or game that receives commentary would this behavior be acceptable -- players in a high-profile tournament just don't enter if they don't like the commentators that much. Obviously Dominion is different but this was one of many reasons I gave against their decision. Another reason I gave is that I have
worked for over a
year, more than anyone else towards making good commentary for these broadcasts, and
every indication the
community has given shows that they want to see me continue that work -- this decision attempts to throw away all of that work when other options exist that don't do this.
For the record, I don't feel like I have to commentate every match (I'd actually like to not have that pressure, and I'd like for more people to make an effort to get involved, as seen by my work in some of those threads I've linked). Being shut out of the process entirely for seemingly no good reason is what I have an issue with. Maybe there is a good reason, but I'm not being told the whole story here so I don't know what it is.
When I got a response,
none of my concerns or questions were answered. I was told that due to my posts in other areas of the forum, I should no longer consider myself a representative of the community.
I also received several personal insults from multiple League moderators. Regardless of who is "right" or "wrong" or whatever about this particular issue, this behavior is completely unacceptable from anyone in a position of authority.
Full disclosure: the only actual argument I could get from any of these PMs was that maybe the community doesn't want to see me commentate matches anymore. That's one of the reasons I made the
most recent poll about this topic (though there were others). After the poll's results were clear, I sent one last PM asking them to change their decision, which they did not.
I feel that I have no choice but to tell the community that this has happened -- the League moderators have taken a course of action that is completely inappropriate in several ways. I know that I can never be comfortable participating in any part in anything moderated by anyone from this group of moderators: yes, I can only speculate what their reasons are for this (I wasn't told anything more what I've mentioned here, plus personal insults); but regardless of what those reasons are, the actions they have taken are so reprehensible that these reasons seem irrelevant -- there's no excuse for dismissing my valid concerns with personal insults via PM.
Perhaps the League moderators will be compelled to justify what they've done to the community now that I'm trying to hold them accountable for their actions? I will not allow the moderators to treat people the way they have treated me (and others in the past, btw) behind closed doors and not be held accountable to the community for what they say and do. The League can only succeed with the support of the community, and that community should be fully informed of what is happening, however ugly it may be.
What do I think should be done? Well
Stef has made it clear that the moderators of the League will have complete authority over anything that happens in the League, and I doubt any of them would step down based on the PMs I've received. But people seem to like the constant competitive play that the nature of the League offers them.
In this case, it seems the best course of action would be for the league to be dissolved (by people not playing in it anymore. Yeah that seems pretty ambitious, but it seems like that has to happen in order to stop things like this from happening again) and for another method of competitive Dominion to take its place. None of the moderators of this new thing should be current League moderators. The format and moderators should be chosen by the community (maybe another League, who knows?), and the workings of this new thing should be completely transparent. I would rather not be the one to put it together to avoid potential conflict of interest, since I'm unfortunately the one who got stuck in the position of having to out the behavior of the current League moderation, but I am capable of moderating tournaments and would be willing to do so if called upon.