The NPT discord is a strange beast - an affiliated discord in the same realm as the lore discord and departmental discord, the NPT is mentioned in official announcements (such as the one made last night) and is given quasi-official status - the NPT was provided a unique server icon to match the new icons that the lore, official, and staff discords have - and was apparently approached for private discussions about matters which the normal playerbase would not be made aware of until later.
And yet, at the same time, it is wholly unaccountable to the playerbase. The NPT, despite its apparently official status, is run by a parallel staff structure which has no affiliation with the real staff team. Occasionally some members of the staff team find themselves becoming relay staff, but this is not the rule - the NPT staff team can operate as they please, and new members of that team are recruited only by the NPT staff team and by the NPT staff team's standards. A player who finds themselves banned from the NPT has no way to appeal that ban except to the NPT staff team - and the ban appeal process is undocumented and largely subject to the whims of the NPT staff team. The relay also finds itself in a situation where moderation is held to less stringent standards than the real Aurora servers are - to be frank, this system is completely unsustainable. If the NPT is going to continue being a quasi-official discord that has a real and relevant relationship with Aurora, it'll need to be administered by actual Aurora staff- and held to the same standards.
Now, fortunately this hasn't really been an issue yet. I don't have any grudges or any outstanding problems with the majority of the NPT's team, and for the most part I think it's a great group of reasonable people. But the fact of the matter is that this really isn't acceptable in the long term - just because it's worked so far doesn't mean that tomorrow it'll continue working. In essence, I am requesting that Aurora's management put their foot down on this issue and integrate the discord into the official community apparatus - actual server staff should be the only people involved with managing the discord, and nobody else. Ban appeals, staff complaints, and what have you, will all be done through official Aurora methods. I wouldn't mind it if new staff roles were made purely for the NPT - stuff like relay staff and scenemasters - but for ultimately, they'll all need to be actual Aurora staff.