For the longest time I have had this suggestion but I never got the chance to post it since I didn't know how well it would go over. Now that I have heard some people talk about it unprovoked I know now would be a good time to suggest it. What I suggest is that a small executive team be put into place so that a little bit of stress can be lifted off kevins shoulders. I don't know who he would pick but it needs to be people he knows are willing to help with the servers. The executive team would be able to manage small server updates that they run by Kevin everytime so that Kevin can work on bigger things without having to work on the little things such as adding a map or retexturing one that we already have. The main reason I am bringing this suggestion into light right now is that the last update for the TX servers was 2 years ago. I could be wrong and there might have been a more recent one but still that doesn't make up for the unbalanced things going on. If an executive team were put into place then they would help manage the servers in certain branches so that instead of Kevin getting 50,000 messages about a server that needs something added. He can get 10 - 15 based on who runs what servers. Thank you for reading, I hope you have a great day and hope that we can keep running panda as well as it is now.
Declined A suggestion I have been wanting to share for a while. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Loli Police
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TBotV63
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Senior Admins worked so well last time, why not recreate them but with more permissions. 
Last time we tried something like this was like 2.5 years ago I think, when kevin was ready to make Stabbin and me both Head Admins; me on the organisational side (with perms to add/remove admins) and Stabbin on the server-side (updates, etc.). This lasted about 2 days before we both decided we didn't really want to do it after all and we backed off.
Given that it took quite some convincing for him to give perms to his 2 most trusted community members (besides Ron. and maybe Madact?), and that didn't even work out, I'm not sure if this would be feasible.
Of course it's not up to me, it'd be up to him. I'm just giving some context here. I've always thought it would be for the best if the balance of powers was more spread out, it just never happened (at least not including permissions to take concrete actions; anything that needed to be done always had to go through him).
Given that it took quite some convincing for him to give perms to his 2 most trusted community members (besides Ron. and maybe Madact?), and that didn't even work out, I'm not sure if this would be feasible.
Of course it's not up to me, it'd be up to him. I'm just giving some context here. I've always thought it would be for the best if the balance of powers was more spread out, it just never happened (at least not including permissions to take concrete actions; anything that needed to be done always had to go through him).
Pricholas
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Loli does have a point, and I'm sure many of us have had similar thoughts.
Nothing is getting done without Kevin.
2015 had thirty-two changelog posts.
2016 had seventeen.
2017 had four.
2018 had three.
Some tasks on the staff page have been open for over a year.
Admin applications are delayed by months, becoming commonplace to see them withdraw.
Panda isn't necessarily in a bad state, it's just very slow going, and not improving.
The issue, as Evo stated, is the lack of a competent individual (or two) who is willing to put their time and effort into the task at hand.
The problem evolves into stale and old content, issues not being fixed, and the community twiddling their thumbs waiting for Kev.
While it would be nice to have more people on the lead admin side, can't really support it unless said people are not only dedicated, but capable.
Nothing is getting done without Kevin.
2015 had thirty-two changelog posts.
2016 had seventeen.
2017 had four.
2018 had three.
Some tasks on the staff page have been open for over a year.
Admin applications are delayed by months, becoming commonplace to see them withdraw.
Panda isn't necessarily in a bad state, it's just very slow going, and not improving.
The issue, as Evo stated, is the lack of a competent individual (or two) who is willing to put their time and effort into the task at hand.
The problem evolves into stale and old content, issues not being fixed, and the community twiddling their thumbs waiting for Kev.
While it would be nice to have more people on the lead admin side, can't really support it unless said people are not only dedicated, but capable.
I wholeheartedly agree with almost everything stated above by my peers. Updates to the servers unfortunately seemed to have completely slowed again after it seemed things were looking bright as we turned into a new year. A dedicated team with extra permissions seems like it'd be incredibly beneficial to the general wellbeing of players, especially people who are giving real money to Kevin in return for perks which they aren't receiving for months, I'm sure we're a long way off giving somebody that kind of access, but the aforementioned points above me are extremely valid as of right now. The man himself said it at the beginning of the year he'd try to keep on top of updates and implement more:
Just to make it clear, this isn't a personal dig at you Kevin, I'm just a disgruntled staff member who wants to see the community thrive with the great people that occupy it by listening to what they have to say and acting on that accordingly. I hope whatever went down in the past hasn't permanently changed your view on giving people more access, because the team is looking pretty strong as of now. +1 for this suggestion btw.
but it's not looking like anything of the sort is happening coming up to the end of the first quarter.
Just to make it clear, this isn't a personal dig at you Kevin, I'm just a disgruntled staff member who wants to see the community thrive with the great people that occupy it by listening to what they have to say and acting on that accordingly. I hope whatever went down in the past hasn't permanently changed your view on giving people more access, because the team is looking pretty strong as of now. +1 for this suggestion btw.
Matth
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Good Sunday @Loli Police .
Firstly: as Admin of this community I'd like to sincerely apologize to you, if you feel any of my colleagues has not taken seriously you and your suggestion.
In order to go in medias res, I explain you this. In 2015 -before what Evo told-, Kevin tried to solve this problem with the assistance of some few admins, including Madact and me.
Unfortunately this needed project failed miserably, because that restricted team of Admins had few effective powers and stuff couldn't be fixed anyway, needing for Kevin to intervene.
With hindsight, I thank Kevin for not having given more effective powers to all us special Admins. I bet it would have created even more problems and discords, in my opinion.
On the other side, I embrace Evo's idea. The main problem actually is Kevin not having time enough to dedicate to us. The answer may be giving more special powers to just 1-2 admin(s).
Ofc, categorically I exclude myself for many reasons. But I bet there may be 1-2 admins (not more, to avoid problems) who have Kevin's trust and who could handle this responsibility.
The real matter would be:
1. asking for Kevin's approval, and of course we are nobody to tell him how to properly run this community;
2. looking for those max 2 admins who should have different powers (organisational side + server side, as @EvoWarrior5 explained).
In my opinion the second point is even harder to do than the first one. Ok, Kevin may approve because he may need help (this is up to him); but then, among the admins he really trusts the most, it may be hard to find who wants to assume this responsibility. Because, let's be clear on this, more powers imply more responsibilities, and not everybody wants to take them.
There's nothing more we can do but waiting for Kevin. I bet he will handle this situation in the best possible way.
Firstly: as Admin of this community I'd like to sincerely apologize to you, if you feel any of my colleagues has not taken seriously you and your suggestion.
In order to go in medias res, I explain you this. In 2015 -before what Evo told-, Kevin tried to solve this problem with the assistance of some few admins, including Madact and me.
Unfortunately this needed project failed miserably, because that restricted team of Admins had few effective powers and stuff couldn't be fixed anyway, needing for Kevin to intervene.
With hindsight, I thank Kevin for not having given more effective powers to all us special Admins. I bet it would have created even more problems and discords, in my opinion.
On the other side, I embrace Evo's idea. The main problem actually is Kevin not having time enough to dedicate to us. The answer may be giving more special powers to just 1-2 admin(s).
Ofc, categorically I exclude myself for many reasons. But I bet there may be 1-2 admins (not more, to avoid problems) who have Kevin's trust and who could handle this responsibility.
The real matter would be:
1. asking for Kevin's approval, and of course we are nobody to tell him how to properly run this community;
2. looking for those max 2 admins who should have different powers (organisational side + server side, as @EvoWarrior5 explained).
In my opinion the second point is even harder to do than the first one. Ok, Kevin may approve because he may need help (this is up to him); but then, among the admins he really trusts the most, it may be hard to find who wants to assume this responsibility. Because, let's be clear on this, more powers imply more responsibilities, and not everybody wants to take them.
There's nothing more we can do but waiting for Kevin. I bet he will handle this situation in the best possible way.
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I was so excited when Evo and Stabbin was going to work with Kevin over the actual responsibility of powers. Would mean Kevin could leave it to them, possibly he still has final say on major changes to server(s) but overall was pretty happy. Ended up it wasn't meant to be and since then we've been in a drift.
It's pretty much summed up in a lot of the comments above. Personally I'm not going to rant to Kevin about this as really we are using his servers to play gamemodes. He doesn't really owe us anything and I really like the freedom / no advertisements this place comes with. What is sacrifices is updates though and considering a lot of people care about the state of their favourite server its a big frustration for them. They have either two options ; Continue playing on panda community without any recent updates or leave for another gaming community that has an active owner.
Considering TF2 is pretty old and so is this community, hobbies change. People move on.
As for the trust thing, I don't know what to say. Up to him. He has the right to be cautious considering past antics but over protection could ruin this place. Security. That's what I'd sum it up as.
I'll leave this up for a month, if nothing comes from it I'm sorry.
It's pretty much summed up in a lot of the comments above. Personally I'm not going to rant to Kevin about this as really we are using his servers to play gamemodes. He doesn't really owe us anything and I really like the freedom / no advertisements this place comes with. What is sacrifices is updates though and considering a lot of people care about the state of their favourite server its a big frustration for them. They have either two options ; Continue playing on panda community without any recent updates or leave for another gaming community that has an active owner.
Considering TF2 is pretty old and so is this community, hobbies change. People move on.
As for the trust thing, I don't know what to say. Up to him. He has the right to be cautious considering past antics but over protection could ruin this place. Security. That's what I'd sum it up as.
I'll leave this up for a month, if nothing comes from it I'm sorry.
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