First, I understand why the reaction has largely been as it has been. Saying "I've been wronged" is probably not going to get you very far without more details. Probably at best you can hope for "uh, ok, I'm sorry about that". In order to do something, people are going to want more concrete reasons and examples. Moving on.
On the one hand, you're never going to see Novak Djokovic saying "I don't want McEnroe commentating my match" and getting anywhere. It just won't happen. And the same is true in basically every other sport.
On the other hand, this is mostly because the organizers sell the broadcast rights, and that's the money that gets used to pay the players. Such a thing doesn't exist in Dominion. There's no money. So it comes down to, to braodcast, you need access (since there isn't a watcher mode). You aren't going to get that access without the players agreeing. So you have to choose, do I go with this person or that. Well it's not a surprise who they picked given that they're PO'd at Adam for some reason. To be fair to them, choosing the other way isn't really better, for one incident at least. You do need to worry about precedent.
So, I don't really care about who commentates the Champion Match. Thankfully, that's not really what this topic is about, I don't think. I mean, clearly Adam is somewhat upset about being left out in the cold there, and I guess that is pretty understandable. But apart from not caring, "We got SCSN and Donald" is, from an objective standpoint, not something you can quibble with a lot. I mean, I have said multiple times I think Adam is hte best Dominion streamer, and I also think that a Champion match is not where I would choose to have Donald being broadcast, but on the other hand, Donald being broadcast at all is great, I am not going to complain about that.
But hooray, the topic is not really about that, which if you go reread the first few posts, it wasn't really? Though that has gotten dragged more and more in somehow. Anyway.
Apparently someone had a problem with Adam commentating. My thing is, did they ask the players (obviously Stef made the decision here, so it is really down to Mic) whether they were ok with this team before announcing it? If Mic was like "hey whoa guys, I don't want Donald commentating," would they have knocked him off and looked for someone else? I am going to doubt both of these things. Of course, I can't think of why Mic would have a problem with Donald commentating, but then again, I don't see why someone would have a problem with Adam commentating. That's not to say there couldn't be a reason, just that I wouldn't have seen one, the same as I wouldn't have for Donald.
To me though, the real issue we're talking about here is the title of the thread, "Accountability". At least when it comes to the league, Stef has to be accountable more or less only to himself.
I find it extremely ironic that Stef claims to be against personal insults and attacks on character, considering that this (along with the complete lack of accountability) is why I left the league. He claimed *in my own channel* that not only was I wrong about where my chances in a game stood (which would have been entirely fine, especially as I was indeed wrong), but it was to the extent that I was ethically doing something very wrong, in effect that I was purposefully trying to 'play' my opponent to get an advantage, despite not actually applying pressure to said opponent and said opponent having agreed to replay the game. After that was over, I took another look, realized I was more lost than I originally thought, and reported that I would like to take that as a loss rather than a replay. Despite this, it wasn't accepted or allowed to stand. Instead, there was a period of dead time where he considered applying some kind of additional punishment!
This is even more ironic now, given that Stef himself has all kinds of disconnection problems at a far higher rate than anyone else, and yet of course nothing is ever done about that. Indeed, the rules are loose and slack to let him get everything in, and everyone else bends their schedules to try to accomodate him. He also blames the client at every opportuinty despite it being exceedingly clear that it's at least not entirely the client's fault, since nobody else has the scale of problem he does, and a great many people have no or virtually no problems. Now I do think people should generally try to be accomodating, as I don't think he has much if any control over his disconnects, so I don't really have a problem with that. The part where I have a problem is that other people aren't given the same kind treatment. There are numerous examples of little prodding when people are behind on things, even by a very small amount.
But perhaps an easier example right now is a situation with mpsprs. They played... some number of their matches this season, and then they became inactive it seems. As far as I can tell, nobody knows why. But they haven't been on the forum in a bit over a month, what have you. At some point, Stef brings the subject of what to do about them up with their division moderator, and whle he says it's the moderator's decision, he feels there's only one thing that can be done (implying throwing the person in question (and I'm trying to not use gendered pronouns here) out of the league). I want to note at this point that mpsprs had played MORE matches than Stef for the season, because Stef was way behind (presumably due to his disconnection problems). This is a wholly inappropriate comment to be made by one of the direct competitors of the person in question, an indeed should not be in his place to bring up. But Stef runs things, so he did. And what are you going to do, disagree with him? Make a different decision? How did this person get to be a mod anyway? Stef stamped the approval. Now, I don't actually think that Stef is consciously thinking "I'm going to bully this person into getting things my way", but like most people, he has an inclination that he wants things to be done the way he wants them - and he doesn't hae a good sense of "this is not my place". On top of this, he questions whether or not mpsprs "threw" (lost on purpose) games in some number of games/matches before disappearing. I have not seen any justification which would make anyone think that this was the case (other than apparently a 6-0 score, which by the way would be enough to make it seem like many of Stef's own opponents are throwing him matches often). More importantly, that is a very CLEAR attack on character/person. Also in this exchange, there was some discussion on whether or not to include mpsprs's match results from up to that point in time. Stef suggests one position or another (I think it was to include them? I'm not 100% sure I'm remembering that part right though), making some claim about that being the rule based on number of matches completed. I looked it up. There is no such rule in the posted Rules and Regulations. And yes, I copied that whole thread this morning to have an archive copy, it hasn't been updated for many months and there's no rule about it now either. Now I want to say at this point that I don't think he was making the rule up to try to give himself an advantage - I noted at the time that the course of action he proposed would be slightly unfavorable to him, in fact. I would guess that it's what at some point he thought should be the rule, and so that's what he thinks the rule is. But rules aren't rules if you don't post them as such, and the big point here is that if you provide whatever the rule is whenever the situation comes up, you have no accountability. You, as a single person, yourself, are determining all the rules. One last thing on this situation: there was no public discussion of it. There are no posts in the forums of how it should be handled. There aren't even posts of how it WAS handled. How is a spectator/viewer/fan supposed to know the standings if you never actually post anything saying what's actually happening in a situation like that? how about that 6-0 match that isn't in the standings page, why was that not included? There's no public comments on this at all. It must have all been done in secret back rooms in private, where I would expect Stef to have been heavily involved in the decision-making process. How do I know about the situation? Because after I tabbed away from someone's stream around when it was finishing and let it sit open for a while, I tabbed back to find this big chunk of text there.
I don't think it's any surprise that Stef wins his own league with alarming regularity. And no, I don't think he's sitting there thinking "gee, what will make me most likely to win?" I think he makes rules which he thinks will be the most fun - but what's most fun for him tends to coincide pretty well with what gives him the best chance at winning. For sure the big part of it is that he's also a very very good player, you wouldn't get this far without that also being true.
The rules he makes are reasonable possibilities, in general, but certainly not the only possibilities, and at least in some players' opinions, not the best ones. I am not just talking about me, and I'm not just talking about Adam. I give an example: how are unfinished games dealt with? That any score which is not 1-0, .5-.5, or .75-.25 is not something which is agreed upon by other top players at all; notably, SCSN has expressed that he would like there to be more flexibility than that, but perhaps more notably, he didn't even know that wasn't impossible at some point, (becaues they aren't really announced or publicly discussed? I'm not actually sure about that, I wasn't around).
And that's the big point here. It's not "the Dominion League". It's Stef's. And there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that. I know I certainly don't want to play in a league where one person has more or less all the power, but it's not an unreasonable thing per se. I do think it should be advertised though - people recommend it all the time as the first thing when joining the forums, and there really isn't any notice out there that it's Stef's project. It's presented more like it were a collaboration of the community as a whole. So I woudl change the name, and I would put a notice on the rules that he is the one who makes the decisions in cases not covered there. Now, I am sure people are going ot say, oh no, it's not just him, but I would dispute this. First of all, he gets choice on moderators who supposedly are ruling with him. He also tends to be the one who brings these topics up. And when he does so, it's often with an air of "I think this is the best, what should we do?" (Again, I find it ironic that he accuses Adam of doing this with his poll, considering that Adam didn't do anything to promote himself there beyond including himself on the poll, and indeed given that he had been the one commentating all the matches at that point, raising the question would serve to open, in the eyes of the community, MORE of a door for him to not be the one doing it, not less. It also provides another example of Stef being the one doing the character attacks, claiming that Adam's reasons for posting the thing were not being honest). Beyond this, in cases where he cares, he (virtually?) always ends up with the outcome he wanted. Anyway, I think that it should be labelled as his league, because that's what it is, and then people can play in it if they want, eyes open. I don't want to, so I left. But I want to point out this isn't an "Adam is the only one" issue.
Let's talk about the other big issue, though, and that's dealing with problems. If you want to try to solve an inter-personal problem, you need to talk about it. It isn't sufficient. But it is necessary. I understand not liking conflict. I don't understand pretending like it doesn't exist, hoping it will go away. That doesn't solve anything. These things don't go away. They just don't. Saying "let's not talk about this" just doesn't actually help. Saying "let's wait for everyone to cool down a bit" can, but at some point, you have to actually talk about it, or just be divided forever. Division is worse than argument.
I totally understand why the moderators aren't going to reveal the information of who is unhappy. On the other hand, it doesn't seem like a good move to let a player completely hold everything hostage. So I would think that, if the player(s) in question have an issue, you would want them to try to work it out. You would direct them to do so. Adam is getting shafted in some way, as you're just siding with the other person over him. To be totally fair, you don't wnat to be in the middle of that if you aren't the person in question. On the other hand, it's entirely clear that Stef is at least one of the people who has a problem with Adam here. I'm honestly still confused as to what the whole damn thing is about. If we're telling Adam to grow up and get over it, and the only reason Stef has really given is, I didn't like some rants you made and you banned SCSN, can we not say the same thing to him? I notice that no one is suggesting to Stef, "you don't have to be a part of it if you don't like it" as they are with Adam, even though that would equally solve the problem. Of course, the suggestion is a bit ridiculous, because it's Stef league, which is the real point.
Oh and moving threads. That is clearly not the right thing, it doesn't go where it was moved to. I assume the motivation is more "I just wish this would go away" than anything. you can view that as a positive, or you can view it as a negative. But moving this thread of course wasn't nearly as bad as moving the other one, which was definitely not general discussion and very clearly and specifically about the league.
To those people who are bringing people's personal lives into it, I could ask if you are being total pricks because your parents neglected you as a child? Just asking because you're being total jerks, and I was looking for some kind of explanation for it. I'm concerned. Of course that would be total BS and uncalled for, just like suggesting anything about personal lives causing stress. Seriously, it's none of your business nor germane to the point at hand.
I am entirely bewildered by the idea that "PMs should never be posted". If you tell me something, I have every right to repeat that as I see fit. If you don't want me to, you shouldn't tell me the thing in the first place, or at least you should at least ask me to agree to keep it private. (I am assuming that no such agreement was in place). This is especially true in potential cases of abuse. In some ways it's tempting to send PMs to all of you filled with vulgarity, profanity, all kidns of nastiness, you ****ing Nazi ****ing A**h***s, but you can't repeat any of this because I sent it in a PM! I mean, no it's not really tempting, because I don't want to do that, but it's really not hard to conceive of a situation of abusive language which should have no privelege of privacy. Of course, I rather doubt anything would come of it anyway - popular figures get absurd amounts of slack because "oh but I like him/that thing he did", and it's not hard to ignore things in private. Blaming the victim is a very terrible thing that society naturally does A LOT, and we should really try to avoid it. People wonder why rape victims don't want to speak up - well, it really isn't very hard to understand. At the same time, of course, not every person who has claimed to be a victim has been one (though in most of these cases, it can be seen that the vast majority are), and we should also not run to lambast anyone based on a single accusation for sure. None of this (paragraph) really has to do with the current dispute or feuding parties; it's about the "Nobody should ever post PMs for any reason" sentiment.
Anyway, so long forums. I would say it's been nice knowing you, but it's really turned toxic, so that's not as true as I would like it to be. I honestly do wish you well though.
