Server Management; Rad-X

[Divine]

Hello all,

I’ll try to be brief and concise. But also, if anyone wishes to speak to me anonymously for me to speak by proxy on this thread — send a friend request and DM me at: ._divine.

The Brief & Concise Edition:

Rad-X has manipulated people and feigned ignorance or otherwise for far too long. He has used his role to promote or otherwise protect his friends in this server and it has happened not just one time. The Server Management itself is a point of reference for this - two of Rad-X's friends in positions above the Server Council and below him, one which is literally titled "The Old Guard".

The recent promotion of FungleTheBungle (and other considerations of unbanning certain people whom even the majority of the staff team would agree should never come back) was the straw that broke the camel's back for a few people. Against major pushback, Rad-X promoted his friend in a case of textbook nepotism, and this is not the first time. He also defended (no malice to these people, their situations were resolved) Rabithunter, Robert, and DeNuke in situations of either abuse in some cases, or general complaints about their positions.

A few notable people, myself included, have left over these decisions. I ask Rad-X to resign, and I also ask others to chime in with their voice. I will not return regardless, I just wish the best for those who remain so they can enjoy their stories.

Spoiler: Not-So-Brief Edition

The Not-So-Concice & Not-So-Brief Edition Which Really Shouldn't Be Read:

You may have noticed a few names dropped from the scoreboard recently. Some people have left, on good terms or otherwise — and a few people have even joined back, for good or for worse; even those who some would consider persona-non-grata have been considered for a chance to come back.

These few people who have left have done so for similar reasons, but not the exact same reasons nor at the same time. I personally resigned as the Mod Team Lead and withdrew my other hats in the server. Why? Poor management. Extremely poor management. The Server Council exists with a few decent names to its history, current or past, but the Server Management is a concept of bloat, with figures who do not even touch the server they play on, bar a few times to play special characters.

Rad-X stands atop the management of the Main Server, English. He is the Server Director over here. He is the catalyst behind plenty of stories good and bad, but recently he has gotten more into that dictator mindset. Appointing FungleTheBungle to Short Stories Manager was a major mistake. It was done, against major pushback, and with almost zero support from any of the Server Council or otherwise. Fungle is Rad-X's friend of quite some time, and the Server Council, which is meant to be an advisory body, heavily advised against it. Even non-SC figures commented on the chance and said "No". This act is textbook nepotism.

It is not the first time, I’ll add, as Rad-X has had a great many faults. We all have! But, Rad-X keeps piling them up. He has used his position to defend his friends before, and ensure they keep their roles; be it as server management, council, or faction leaders. DeNuke sits up there too, keeping a looming eye over the vortigaunt faction and a position of authority which is literally titled "The Old Guard" as a backing for his role. Robert also hardly touches the server but rests as Server Management aside from this fact. At least for them I can say that DeNuke doesn’t really overstep using this position, and Robert has a very good mind for gameplay and has tried to get on the server more frequently to be in touch with the going-on's.

Rabithunter was accused of abuse a time or two (which, again, no malice to Rabit) and Rad-X stepped in and said "Well, let’s not be rash…" again, and again. When Rabit was on the brink of removal from his Faction Lead position, who stepped in to say "Well, no…" completely overriding the authority of the people below them who were appointed to oversee factions (Purple Knight and myself at the time).

Rad-X once asked the Server Council if he should resign. I said no. I should have said yes. He has used his position to protect his friends and put them up on a pedestal, all while being the first to drop blame with dozens of insults glued on whenever somebody else even meagerly messes up. When you confront him? He brushes it off and ghosts you for a week. Unless the entire Server Council pings him and asks "Really?"

Rad-X, please resign. I believe a few other voices will want to chime in. I happily invite them to do so.

I hope I do not get banned for inciting drama or any other silly reason to censor me. People share this opinion, and it is all assorted in a reasonable and civil manner.

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

Rad-X, please resign

With respect, but that isn't going to happen. I'll do what I must, and that's it.

 

[ford-michigan]

So first, If someone leaves that usually means they are done with something. Second, rad told people to lay of rabit because points were brought but then that was it, people then started just shitposting and it was done. With fungle, I get he may have been bad, but that was years ago. And if you really wanted your voice heard or try to do change then you would not have left your position after someone is appointed and has not yet had a chance to show if they are good or bad.

While I see you may have real concerns. It just does not make sense in the context of just up and leaving because someone got a position. They are not even instantly saying slurs at you or anything, just them there makes you want to leave. If you can't control yourself then I don't care.

 

[Krieger]

 

[Stanford]

I have NEVER known RAD-X to act out of nepotism. Have there been times where I questioned his judgement? Sure, everyone's an individual and we all have different thought processes. But EVERYTHING this man does is with his heart and best intentions towards the community. And yet, he is once again under attack for these decisions... And why?

I too understand you may have concerns regarding the new Short Stories management, but at least give them a shot first before you go out calling nepotism or even go near saying RAD is abusing his position. Like I said above, I've only known him to act with the COMMUNITY's interest at heart. If you are unable to at least give them a chance then I just feel sorry for you.

 

[Omega]

and I also ask others to chime in with their voice.

I will gladly chime in with my voice. As someone who has directly butted heads with both Rad-X, and the server staff as a whole. This 'manipulation' of others Rad-X is supposedly doing is barely even a fraction of what I've seen staff do for each other. I have seen others and myself witch-hunted for several years, unable to attain any higher ranking in the server outside of 'player' or 'banned' due to your group and y'all's actions and- quite frankly- y'all's conspiring. Now I understand, I am not perfect, nor is anyone, however I have witnessed staff such as Hayden, Neonity, Liam, Hoki, Sachimii, etc. all bend and break rules and their definitions to their own liking. Some of these people only just recently having been banned (after YEARS of complaints). What Rad-X is doing now is well within his rights as a manager/runner of this community. To me, it's clear you do not care for the success of Willard, but more for your group's continued monopoly over it. One (1) person that y'all dislike is in an (altogether) minor position of power, and you up and resign over it? Because finally the people y'all have been targeting and attempting to shun from this community are finally able to rise above and help out? You don't actually care about helping out the community, you just care about having a space that you and only you want to be in.

 

[Furnaxx]

 

[Taliazure]

In Defense of RAD-X


I’ve been part of this community for nearly four years. I’ve seen it evolve through multiple phases, from the days when Atle was active both in-character and out-of-character, to when Orwell Benjamin led the MOC and Heartwick was CA. I’ve witnessed serious issues in the years: clear examples of abuse of power, nepotism, biased decision-making, player targeting, inappropriate behavior, and even racism and bigotry — some of which I was personally subjected to, and only recently had the courage to speak up about once said individual is no longer a holder of power within the server, it's quite horrible when players have to keep silent about things in fear of being targeted...


That being said, I want to make it clear: none of that ever came from RAD-X.


Over the years, I have seen RAD-X put in a tremendous amount of effort, not just in day-to-day server upkeep, but in holding things together during times of internal chaos. While others were busy creating cliques or working against the community’s, RAD-X often stood as the person keeping the whole thing from falling apart. He’s brought us compelling events, engaging narratives, and above all, he’s cared deeply about the quality of the server. One could say he was Sisyphus



Is RAD-X perfect? No, and I don't believe anyone here is. He’s made mistakes, he’s been too forgiving at times, slow to act in certain situations, or overly optimistic about people changing. But these are flaws rooted in humanity, not in malice, even when we fucking hammered him about it...
They come from wanting to give people second chances, to believe in redemption, or from trying to keep the peace in a place that hasn't always made it easy.


The accusations of “textbook nepotism” fall flat when you actually look at the patterns of behavior. Favoritism isn’t promoting people who you trust and who have proven themselves capable, it’s ignoring all standards to protect incompetence. In my time here, I’ve never seen RAD-X act in bad faith. If he supported someone’s promotion, it was based on something: trust, reliability, or their past contributions. You can disagree with a decision — but calling it manipulation is an unfair misrepresentation of intent.

And look, I’m no stranger to accusations of nepotism myself. When I was the CMRU faction lead, I did promote my own brother’s vort character after his previous one was PK’d. On paper, yeah, it looked like favoritism. Many didn’t understand it, and I was criticized. But the reality? The CMRU at the time was falling apart. Angela had left the faction in chaos. It was understaffed, disorganized, and teetering on collapse.

I had to pickup the pieces...


I needed someone competent, someone who was willing to spend hours crafting the supplies needed to keep the unit functioning. And that was during a time when the CWU leadership (driven by OOC spite, let’s be honest) was actively sabotaging our efforts. I didn’t have the luxury of waiting around for a perfect IC character to come along and try to join— I had to keep the faction alive. That’s not nepotism out of laziness or favoritism — that’s triage. It’s leadership under pressure.


So when I see people lobbing the same accusations at RAD-X, I get it, I really do. But sometimes, what looks like favoritism from the outside is actually someone making the hard calls to keep things afloat when no one else is stepping up.
That context matters. Leadership often involves tough choices, especially when it comes to balancing community opinion with fairness.


If anything, RAD-X has been the person fighting upstream, trying to do right in the face of constant internal conflict. Maybe not always perfectly but with integrity.

People leaving over disagreements is their right, but calling for resignation without recognizing the years of effort, patience, and care that RAD-X has put in feels reactionary and undeserved. Let’s not erase the good just because of a few tough calls.

"You can rule by fear or by love..."

 

[ford-michigan]

And to add on, you and others have blown up over recent things. But rather than say 'sorry I overreacted' or 'I don't like it but I will discuss it privately or in other times' y'all just full sent it and then either got removed or left. Like commenting after you leave on a thread questioning something with the response that the thread author is stupid is not human kindness, it is not human understanding, that is not the standard people collectively hold themselves to.

ALSO. If something bad was really happening, leaving and 'giving in' does not really help at all. Like in current situations in the U.S. there is bad stuff happening but then people just give in and surrender. If you really were fighting something you would not have left.

 

[MrTuki]

Ruling from the heart is broken.


Simply put:
Doing what was seen "Morally" right for the server led us here. Give the man a chance to do what he thinks is right.​

 

[Pierrik]

" O B E Y Lord Rad-X, his voice is the truth, his words are law."

 

[Divine]

I will gladly chime in with my voice. As someone who has directly butted heads with both Rad-X, and the server staff as a whole. This 'manipulation' of others Rad-X is supposedly doing is barely even a fraction of what I've seen staff do for each other. I have seen others and myself witch-hunted for several years, unable to attain any higher ranking in the server outside of 'player' or 'banned' due to your group and y'all's actions and- quite frankly- y'all's conspiring. Now I understand, I am not perfect, nor is anyone, however I have witnessed staff such as Hayden, Neonity, Liam, Hoki, Sachimii, etc. all bend and break rules and their definitions to their own liking. Some of these people only just recently having been banned (after YEARS of complaints). What Rad-X is doing now is well within his rights as a manager/runner of this community. To me, it's clear you do not care for the success of Willard, but more for your group's continued monopoly over it. One (1) person that y'all dislike is in an (altogether) minor position of power, and you up and resign over it? Because finally the people y'all have been targeting and attempting to shun from this community are finally able to rise above and help out? You don't actually care about helping out the community, you just care about having a space that you and only you want to be in.

If you were part of the server for the better half of the last two years, you would know that I filed complaints and BEGGED for action against multiple of the people you listed. I have turned my back on some of these people several times, because I thought what they were doing was wrong or entirely illogical.

I reported Hayden and Liam in a public voice chat, I cried for Rad-X to remove Liam from staff, I immediately asked for Hoki to be banned when the chance popped up — so, tell me about this monopoly of mine a little more.

 

[Divine]

I would also like to add that the masses congregating to shitpost on this instead of making actual arguments is yet another point to take note of. These are staff, server leadership from our sister server acting with impunity because they know nothing will come of it.

I would expect the shitposting to be stopped, but I also somewhat expect it to run rampant.

 

[Astro]

As I no longer have to walk on eggshells, here are my thoughts with just about two years of experience with Rad and co.



Rad is great at de-escalation between aggressing parties. He makes banger events. He is great at administrating. But what he is not good at is managing. He is not a fit for server director. Time and time again, his mismanagement of Willard Networks has rammed its head. Believe it or not, there is a documented history of most of his mismanagement in the staff categories. The exodus that happened today is a result of the reinstatement of Fungle (despite having been denied twice for a staff position in February). The people who left, including myself, feel deeply uncomfortable with his reinstatement. He will call this witch-hunting, as he has many times in the past. This is not the case. Just two to three years ago, he openly spouted hate speech to the faces of those he opposed, driving people away and resulting in his eventual removal. I know he still holds on to these beliefs, but has developed the capacity for doublespeak to obscure his bigoted speech. Yet he is reinstated anyway, and for what? You lost multiple staff members, and may continue to lose more, because what? Because he is your real-life friend? You would rather push away more people than you can shove back into these positions for your nepotistic ideology? You have made a lot of bad decisions, Rad, but I think this takes the cake here.

But this would not be the straw that broke the camel's back without heaps more to back it up.

Despite many criticisms over the years of past and present staff members, with those most recently voiced to you directly, you keep making the same mistakes over and over. You make an announcement saying "I'll do better", or "don't do xyz", and do not do anything meaningful. Rabit was able to hold on to council for so long despite many of his shortcomings. Your "reformation" of the council did nothing new, and it still retains its structure to this day, except for splitting it to become even more hierarchical and bureaucratic. You champion yourself as being a "neutral" party, but I have seen you take sides more times than anyone else on this server. You removed Creekmando after a single fuck up, even after people voiced their issues with it. I have made significantly larger fuckups than Creek and was able to hold my positions for years. How about DeNuke, who still to this day still has a position in management despite doing NOTHING AT ALL. Even when many people, including myself, have voiced concerns over his retaining a position in council, and his "resignation" from the Vortigaunt faction. Then there are several highly sensitive cases that you interjected into and severely mismanaged, which pushed several people away, including some members of management at the time. For the sake of your reputation, I will abstain from sharing any screenshots and from discussing further.

I believe every piece of feedback from that form back in February remains applicable now.

To the people responding as I write this, your reactions are understandable, but not valid. You have not had to deal with the internal strife that many others have had to face, including myself. I understand outwardly that everything seemed fine and that Rad is a guy who triumphed over all odds, but this cannot be further from the truth. It is one big PR stunt. He is a man who has thrown around his power when it benefited him and his friends, or his hand is forced by the entire community. When it comes to actually directing, he has failed multiple times to the point where it is damaging the server.

When we spoke in voice chat and over the council's discord, discussing whether you should resign or take a break, I supported staying. I will admit, I minced my words because I felt like admitting straight to your face that you should resign was too harsh. I made a mistake. I firmly believe and have believed that you should take your leave for the betterment of the server. Where we would go after that, we will cross that bridge when we cross it. You will leave the server in a worse shape than you found it.

 

[ford-michigan]

Also this shows that y'all can't control yourselves. First, this is not real life, you can just not talk to someone, they are not in a room with you. And second, you can't handle different people, in real life you got to deal with hard to deal with people. And third, I myself don't like certain groups or people, but does that mean I insult them every time I deal with them in the server? No! Instead I ignore those feelings and realize some of them are rooting in the basic animal instinct of making a group and rejecting outsiders. If me, a young man that just recently starting doing more involved stuff on the server, can figure out it, you should be able to.

 

[Stanford]

To the people responding as I write this, your reactions are understandable, but not valid.

I've seen a lot of things in my time in this community. I know many of the situations you speak of. To call our opinions and reactions invalid is a low I didn't expect from you Astro.

 

[Divine]

Also this shows that y'all can't control yourselves. First, this is not real life, you can just not talk to someone, they are not in a room with you. And second, you can't handle different people, in real life you got to deal with hard to deal with people. And third, I myself don't like certain groups or people, but does that mean I insult them every time I deal with them in the server? No! Instead I ignore those feelings and realize some of them are rooting in the basic animal instinct of making a group and rejecting outsiders. If me, a young man that just recently starting doing more involved stuff on the server, can figure out it, you should be able to.

I will say that you are right: This is not real life. This is not a job, which is why I can remove myself if I feel uncomfortable. Is that not the adult thing to do? I do not need to speak to Human Resources, I can just leave instead of working with someone who thinks I should burn in hell. I did not insult Fungle once, this is all very cordial.

Fungle has insulted and attacked groups of people; and if you think this is an insult — Fungle literally a player in this community cry in voice chat with his actions.

I did not delete all the code and nuke the content pack like Robert did when he was upset at a decision on the server. I just said "I am resigning".

 

[Astro]

I've seen a lot of things in my time in this community. I know many of the situations you speak of. To call our opinions and reactions invalid is a low I didn't expect from you Astro.

I speak primarily to the individuals posting reaction images, but frankly, most people are commenting from an outward perspective. Hence why I believe them not to be entirely "valid" because they have not had to engage with Rad on the same levels as faction managers, heads of staff, event leads, community leaders, etc.

I am not here to diminish opinions or whatever, but to say "all is good, nothing but positive experiences" without having to actually talk to the man as a subordinate is not particularly helpful when speaking to his ability to manage. Again, he's fine as maybe a senior position, but not a server director.

 

[ford-michigan]

(response to divine) Well okay. You are not going full send, but still making this thread and lashing out a bit at the one other guy does not help. But see, this is a more human connection, looking a both sides and comparison. I just personally don't like the 'I don't like this so I will leave but then still act like I have to change a bunch of things as if I was still in this position". Also I mean personally like it is my opinion, not the server's.

Also to indulge a little. Astro is being a little FIB right now with his first post.

 

[Divine]

(response to divine) Well okay. You are not going full send, but still making this thread and lashing out a bit at the one other guy does not help. But see, this is a more human connection, looking a both sides and comparison. I just personally don't like the 'I don't like this so I will leave but then still act like I have to change a bunch of things as if I was still in this position". Also I mean personally like it is my opinion, not the server's.

Also to indulge a little. Astro is being a little FIB right now with his first post.

Willard is not a job to me, so I should not have to put in extra effort to make it enjoyable for myself. I did not threaten to leave, I just left.