Wezzy staff complaint

[kyres1]

BYOND Key: kyres1
Staff BYOND Key: Wezzy/wowzewow/alsoandanswer
Game ID: N/A
Reason for complaint: Excessive leaning on porting/overwriting unique content and behavior that devalues work put in by others, team members and contributors alike.
Evidence/logs/etc:

The spring cleaning PR here highlights the latest problem. It's what set me off to make this complaint.
https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/18318

This PR is an over-write of existing content for absolutely zero purpose. Considering all the effort still-existing staff, and myself put into this content over the course of the last year- even working alongside already-strenuous projects like the 3/4ths conversion, it's plain dumb to see this stuff get ported over. It is hard to encapsulate exactly how goofy this is, and I even find it hard to believe the PR will be approved regardless of this complaint. But, to give you a good example, imagine having all the work done and brought to an acceptable level in every degree; and then, in the last minute, swapping everything over to be content that none of your own team made. That would feel a little like you wasted your time even trying, wouldn't it? Does it matter how much time was spent? Because there was a lot! And it wasn't just me working on these, either;  every spriter on the team had their hand in making the sprites that are getting ported over here. I don't know if it's even okay to ask for their input here, but they seriously should consider doubling down on just how much work this was.

The behavior of devaluing our own direction, copying other server's homework, and inevitably porting in the end is a trend that has gone from Wezzy on for at the very least the entirety of a year. That's how much I can at least back up with demonstrable evidence. I should also make it very clear that "our direction" is not a vague term, because our team has had porting rules imposed before numerous times- contributors are even completely barred from ports of raw sprite content, as far as I know.

Given I'm not in the staff discord anymore, and have no ability to access these logs even if I asked, I have to leave it to someone in staff to substantiate what I'm about to say. I guess it doesn't matter who it is, as long as the contents of the interactions are made clear and visible.

Throughout the duration of the 3/4ths project which endured for numerous months, I was to the point of pulling hairs trying to perfect the artstyle we would eventually have. Between myself and Atteria, I had already gone through at least half a dozen revisions of just walls; redoing, rebuilding, respriting everything along the way. There was never anything I left in silence, and when I came for feedback, I was time and time again given the call to wait by Wezzy. I'd wait, I'd wait, and weeks later, Wezzy would return with his own top-to-bottom version of what I did, except in a completely different server's style. That's how we ultimately ended up with the Eris wedge-walls and wedge-windows. They are, by all accounts, a visual replica of the Eris sprites in proportion and shading. I am unsure if the current iteration is a product of Atteria's refinements or still just Wezzy's completely, but either way, the base is all the same. This is also how we ended up with Bay-like wall mounts for APCs and air alarms and fire alarms.

By the time all this shit had swung around, we were at least 4 months deep into the 3/4 project and I was already tuckered out. I can not describe how many revisions of airlocks, wall types, floors, and wall terminals I went through before ultimately having us settle on the same damn thing as before except with Eris walls and Bay terminals. It was, and still is very agitating to think about how dragged-out and problematic this project became, and I can pin virtually every problem at its core to Wezzy's handling of it.

Things for 3/4ths came to a halt only when I had asked Matt in the coordination chat to put his foot down and give us decisions and ultimatums. I had, as well, eventually conceded to the sprites that Wezzy proposed, because of the exhaustion of this months-long waste of time.

This problem is something that I am perfectly sure will persist as long as it goes unchecked, and the spring cleaning PR is exemplary proof of that.

Additional remarks:
I needed to make this complaint to highlight this behavior because this has become problematic probably dozens of times between Wezzy and others. There is obviously some form of disconnect between what people are telling Wezzy - namely, myself, and what Wezzy actually believes or ends up doing as a lead spriter. So, because of that disconnect, the only clear outcome is to make it as concise as possible on a formalized complaint.

At the end of the day, I just want this porting shit to end and I don't want any more of my work, or anybody else's work, pissed away because nobody bothered to question these types of retroactive decisions. I'm sure that's not exactly on par with the premise of most staff complaints, but I've spent years dealing with this and it's a problem that I'm not alone in seeing. I think at the very least, that's worth addressing like any other complaint.

[wowzewow]

On 30/01/2024 at 00:55, kyres1 said:

The behavior of devaluing our own direction, copying other server's homework, and inevitably porting in the end is a trend that has gone from Wezzy on for at the very least the entirety of a year. That's how much I can at least back up with demonstrable evidence. I should also make it very clear that "our direction" is not a vague term, because our team has had porting rules imposed before numerous times- contributors are even completely barred from ports of raw sprite content, as far as I know

On Direction : I've made it very clear in the past, and most of my views have not changed on the matter. They are not staff restricted, and free to read on the across the forums on the Guides and Tutorials.

If you ever do plan to sprite, are spriting, or have sprited, I urge you to read them.

I'm frustrated that I have to keep repeating this againl : Port whatever that already exists in game and from other servers. Unique Aurora things should be appropriately given tailor made sprites, unlesss sufficiently generic to fall into the former category.

This is mainly to just stop people from constantly reinventing our own wheels and waste their own time. Once porting is complete, we can use all the assets we've gained to springboard more effectively into building our own repository. Honestly, I can agree with your rhetoric about not porting. However, it is simply not feasible at the moment.

Average day-to-day spriters on Aurora do not have such a wide repository and knowledge of other servers. Typically, our current sprites, which are extremely dated, are used as reference, and in turn, create sub-par sprites. This isn't ideal, I do not like people wasting their effort with poor tools.

On Artstyle : I have exhausted all possible avenues of discussion about our artstyle with you. Absolutely basic concepts for a cohesive artstyle cannot be agreed upon. Palettes : You have disregarded discussion on. Perspective : Matt had to do a veto to go forward to use 3/4ths as a perspective. There are a myriad of other issues, but the main point I would like to put across is that your idea of an artstyle has no documentation whatsoever. There is nothing I can work with.

On Porting : As to my knowledge, I do not know of any ban of porting whatsoever. All I know that exists is a restriction on porting from other servers with differing licenses. I remember my discussion with Arrow when I mistakenly ported a slot machine from Goon (which was later rectified), with a different license from ours. As far as I know, you, Kyres, have been the main, and only spreader of this rhetoric.

On 30/01/2024 at 00:55, kyres1 said:

Throughout the duration of the 3/4ths project which endured for numerous months, I was to the point of pulling hairs trying to perfect the artstyle we would eventually have. Between myself and Atteria, I had already gone through at least half a dozen revisions of just walls; redoing, rebuilding, respriting everything along the way. There was never anything I left in silence, and when I came for feedback, I was time and time again given the call to wait by Wezzy. I'd wait, I'd wait, and weeks later, Wezzy would return with his own top-to-bottom version of what I did, except in a completely different server's style.

In no point in this project you were forced to overextend yourself. In fact, I specifically requested you to stop and wait for other spriters to finish their work as well so we could cohesively move forward together as a team. Was it the best decision at the time? Debatable. But it was the best decision I could make at the moment with the knowledge I had at the moment.

Then, for the walls, I had to grapple with you on deciding on the actual perspective of them because wall-mounted objects relied on their shape and form before I could start working on anything.

You were advised to stop working on walls any further, and I explicitly warned you that any work then on would be subject to further changes.

You then decided to wordlessly drop new computer console sprites, which was not requested, nor wanted, at all, as well as wall mounted objects. Which I very explicitly expressed that I would be working on. Which, I might add, time and time again, you have tried replacing. Across multiple PRs. I cannot fathom why you have kept doing this, other than leading me to speculation. They aren't even ports - they are fully original made sprites by myself. Same as the computer consoles. Which you also baffingly tried to replace as well, with pale imitations of TG style consoles. Which also lacked a majority of program sprites - which the existing ones already had. I'd understand if you tried to replace ported things, sure. But trying to replace my completely original sprites which are already well situated in the server is confounding.

On 30/01/2024 at 00:55, kyres1 said:

I can pin virtually every problem at its core to Wezzy's handling of it.

I accept that this project has not been as well organised as it should have been, seeing as it's the first major project I've undertaken in leading other people.

I have good faith that this is just a comment on my mismanagement of my project and nothing else.

On 30/01/2024 at 00:55, kyres1 said:

This PR is an over-write of existing content for absolutely zero purpose.

No, it is not. It is to organise and genericise sprites for future use, as well as to expand our sprite repository for future exoplanet and event projects.

For most events you have worked on, you have mostly wordlessly worked on your own seperate branch, before asking a Head Developer to merge it to master without a PR.

Which is perfectly understandable, to keep events spoiler-free and under lock and key. Most events were self-contained anyway, and would have no lasting effect on the artstyle of the server.

Similarly, in the Adhomai arc, a lot of assets were not seen anywhere else, and unique to Aurora's setting. Therefore, there was no need for any major changes.

For the Konyang assets, I am not sure what alternative course of action I could have taken here. It was already bundled and merged into the codebase without much fanfare.

Making a follow-up PR to rectify thing was the most sensible thing to do for me, after you went no-contact with the server and left without a trace.

There a mismatch in perception of how much I had changed. Most of it was organization, and some were basically palette standardization and improvements so they can also be used outside of Konyang. Not to mention a sizable chunk is original work done by myself, and a lot of original content made by other developers have been completely untouched, save for being moved to different .dmi's and folders.

On 30/01/2024 at 00:55, kyres1 said:

I needed to make this complaint to highlight this behavior because this has become problematic probably dozens of times between Wezzy and others.

This is a very large assumption to make about the wider community. However, I would like to formally apologize to Nienna, who was caught in the crossfire of this, and Atteria especially.

Closing Thoughts :

Frankly, I'm very emotionally exhausted from all of this. As if my original work does not matter, for all I've done for this server : contained sprites, fixing inhands, overlays, animations, myriads of loadout clothing, the fact that they can be recolorable, multi-colored, all of the different variants and alt-styles.

For a complaint about me devaluing other's work, I've really had come to grips on how much I've been pidgeonholed into being "THE PORT GUY".

[kyres1]

1 hour ago, wowzewow said:

As if my original work does not matter, for all I've done for this server : contained sprites, fixing inhands, overlays, animations, myriads of loadout clothing, the fact that they can be recolorable, multi-colored, all of the different variants and alt-styles.

I get how you might get the impression I've said this, but I didn't. This complaint is in regards to what the words on the complaint says and nothing else. That is to say, porting behavior.

I do agree that you were basically brand-spanking new to the role of lead spriter when we were handling the 3/4 project, though. However, a lot of my frustration stems from these delays and coordination issues occurring alongside another project that the team was tackling, being Konyang. We were basically lost in the sauce figuring out if we need 3/4 first, or Konyang first, and eventually settled on 3/4. But, because of these issues in getting to that point, we had basically spent months on the matter. These issues are not exacerbated by your mismanagement. I honestly don't even want to quantify your quality as a manager because that wouldn't be right, given how new you were. But we go back to the first bit of my reply here. "Porting behavior."

1 hour ago, wowzewow said:

On Artstyle : I have exhausted all possible avenues of discussion about our artstyle with you. Absolutely basic concepts for a cohesive artstyle cannot be agreed upon. Palettes : You have disregarded discussion on. Perspective : Matt had to do a veto to go forward to use 3/4ths as a perspective. There are a myriad of other issues, but the main point I would like to put across is that your idea of an artstyle has no documentation whatsoever. There is nothing I can work with.

These points are missing things. Matt didn't do a veto, because there was no disagreement against 3/4 once I was actually told what it clearly was, in definition. Before this, yes, I said that 3/4 was ass and I didn't want it. I also didn't know what 3/4 was until this discussion that inevitably led me to agree with it overall. I have no memory of a veto at all, here, towards me or you.

I do recall asking Matt, like I said in the first post, for decisions to be imposed on the constant exchanges between us.

"Artstyle" is hard to estimate when the number of ports and direct model-replica of other servers increases while the stuff we're trying to make unique has no time to develop. Sure, you can QC and refine the unique sprites we have into being better or worse. But by porting anything over it, we're hitting a complete reset button on any progress we've made in the first place towards anything unique.

Ultimately, what this does is make us have a collection of ill-fitted together sprites from a variety of servers that don't link together in any artistic capacity, much less anything technical like palette choice or perspective.

I got around these things by spriting towards what I perceived was our artstyle. Could I define it? No. I couldn't even come close, because as above, the disparity between end goals here is extremely far apart.

In effect, you want us to look serviceable and not have us wasting time by spriting redundantly.

The views of myself and the conclusions I have viewed by the community, or staff, or whatever, are completely contradictory to that. I want to have everything we possibly can sourced from inside the community bar none. Zero. Emphasis on possibly, here; it's obvious we can't sprite literally everything, that's crazy.

In short, no. There is not and never has been solid "art style direction" given by anybody. Your guides that you've placed on the wiki without any input before are not something I ever considered, but that's something I should've brought up to begin with; nobody agreed on whatever's there. Ever. I certainly didn't, and definitely not when I was staff. As far as I know, nobody even pointed it out at all. This is, however, around the same time we threw out our unique main page for a streamlined version of a different server's - in effect, another port.

This all boils down to you thinking that porting extraneous content is something that doesn't deserve scrutiny and hasn't ever been contested or a concern at a higher level than the spriters and yourself. That much is something I claim to be false.

1 hour ago, wowzewow said:

I've really had come to grips on how much I've been pidgeonholed into being "THE PORT GUY".

Since people seem plenty shameless in heart-reacting my post like it's some stupid ass joke, let me be absolutely clear both to you and to the readers of this thread;

Wezzy has done way more to contribute to the status of this server as a single staff member than an overwhelmingly large percentage of the people we've had in this community.

Wezzy is not just a porter-of-things.

Wezzy and me disagree. A lot. Wezzy frustrates me a lot. I frustrate Wezzy a lot. This stuff is visible and goes back a long time because we've been staff together a long time.

That said, devaluing your work would be piss poor behavior. It is so piss poor that, if I hadn't been given the opportunity to clarify, I'd expect you to report it as just breaking the rules outright. So, whatever you take from this complaint, do not perceive it as reducing your worth as a contributor or staff member at all.

The absolute best outcome of all of this is to literally just conclude these disagreements, I'd say. I think that you have the tools at your disposal as-is to unify everyone's collective vision into one. I'm not saying it has to be your vision. It could be head staff's, or whoever. I don't think any of this would be as clear-as-day without making this a publicized complaint, though. Just don't misinterpret this as an attack against you, and do not let people uninvolved in this steer you wrong.

Edited February 3 by kyres1
bolding and reddening that text

[MattAtlas]

My opinion from reading this complaint and having seen most of the things in this post happen as they happened is that everything stems from fairly basic miscommunications or sometimes rushing ahead without properly consulting everyone (maybe a head developer or maintainer was consulted at that point, but not the rest of the spriters, or someone working on something). I don't personally see any actionable bad faith behaviour, but I do see a few things that need to be worked on.

1. Porting sprites from other servers and when to do it.
2. Revising the spriter guide/palette stuff.

@wowzewow @kyres1 Does this sound right?

[wowzewow]

9 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

My opinion from reading this complaint and having seen most of the things in this post happen as they happened is that everything stems from fairly basic miscommunications or sometimes rushing ahead without properly consulting everyone (maybe a head developer or maintainer was consulted at that point, but not the rest of the spriters, or someone working on something). I don't personally see any actionable bad faith behaviour, but I do see a few things that need to be worked on.

1. Porting sprites from other servers and when to do it.
2. Revising the spriter guide/palette stuff.

@wowzewow @kyres1 Does this sound right?

Yes, of course.

1. Porting

On 03/02/2024 at 22:27, kyres1 said:

I want to have everything we possibly can sourced from inside the community bar none. Zero. Emphasis on possibly, here; it's obvious we can't sprite literally everything, that's crazy.

Man. The thing is. I really would agree with you. But it is simply a matter of difference on when.

Again, the majority of sprites we have at the moment are 2007 /tg/ codersprites. I do not blame any amateur spriter using it as a reference, because they don't know any better.

What do I say then? "Sorry, I have to reject your sprites because look terrible, and it is through no fault of your own that you chose to use codersprites as a reference."

It'd be like if coders had nothing to go off other than 2010 Aurora codebase documentation, and then asking the team to singlehandedly and uniquely code shuttles and exoplanets.

It's unfeasable, it's populist. Unless this can be rectified we will be at an impasse until the end of time.

2. Spriter Guide/Palette Stuff

On 03/02/2024 at 22:27, kyres1 said:

"Artstyle" is hard to estimate when the number of ports and direct model-replica of other servers increases while the stuff we're trying to make unique has no time to develop. Sure, you can QC and refine the unique sprites we have into being better or worse. But by porting anything over it, we're hitting a complete reset button on any progress we've made in the first place towards anything unique.

We wouldn't even need to have this conversation if I was allowed to simply get all our sprites up to speed instead of this endless back-and-forth.

It's basically playing a constant Ship of Theseus of trying to police our new sprites and fix our old sprites.

It is humanly impossible for me to juggle so many people with differing artstyles, wants, needs, visions all at once.

Especially given our revolving door contributors over the years, a consistent artstyle will simply not emerge from randomness.

At the end of the day, only after all is said and done, then we can constructively work on an artstyle.

Until then we're basically just stuck reinventing our own wheels over and over.

[kyres1]

7 hours ago, wowzewow said:

things

On 1 : You're right. These words definitely fill out the gaps left in my head between stuff that I've said here.

On 2 : Yeah. It's clear that, looking between both of our posts, a long stretch of intense coordinated vision in the entire team of (not very many) spriters is necessary to achieve the enigmatic artstyle we all crave. It could be argued that having less people makes it easier to find a direction, but this assumes that, even with our fucking fantastic technical ability between the spriters we currently employ, none of them have plans or other shit to do in general.

But, "long stretch of intense coordinated vision" is just unfeasible. As we demonstrated with the 3/4 stuff alongside Konyang, there is more often than not an ongoing project or projects that demand the attention of devs long-term. At the same time, to completely assess and come up with a new direction, the slate would need to be completely clear, and that means halting a lot of development that is plain unnecessary.

Basically, I get what you mean. You did a great job at putting into words the things that I'd hoped to hear to resolve our conflicted vision of it.

I wish I could've labeled this as anything other than a "complaint," because this was really what I was after. Achieving this sort of dialogue is really difficult with our polar-opposite timezones, especially, and my own schedule sucks ass sometimes. It makes sense that even after years we'd still be at odds on these topics, but with the stuff you've said here, I feel myself seeing a hell of a lot more reason and nuance to your takes on this.

8 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

• Porting sprites from other servers and when to do it.
• Revising the spriter guide/palette stuff.

This is, like above, exactly what I was after yes.

[MattAtlas]

Okay. If everything here is resolved, then this thread will be locked in 24 hours. You two really need to talk to eachother about the problems I underlined (make it work even with timezone issues, if Discord doesn't work then make a forum thread) and then bring a combined document about what you decided to me.