Staff in Gangs (Brought from Discord)

From the Community Meeting channel in discord.

A community member suggested having a rule implemented preventing any Staff from being in a gang. The reasoning is that they believe it shows favoritism toward a gang when Staff are members.

I thought I would make a thread here to discuss, because anything gang related automatically involves the majority of the player base and we should discuss those things in this forum to keep track of how we can improve.

First off, gangs are vital to a community and since NCN is a new community, your Staff start gangs to create RP and you promote those within the community to the level of Staff because they show commitment to quality RP, helping others and being involved in the advancement of the community through means other than RP. To summarize: Staff tags aren't thrown around without the group analyzing that member of the community and studying their behavior in city and out of city. Furthermore, there are a couple other "ranks" to be achieved prior to being named Staff.

My own opinion: I'm not Staff. I know the Staff members because I've been proactive in the community which means you have more involvement with Staff than others. The Staff here are from all walks of life, varying ages, varying skills and varying cultures. Staff are held accountable for their actions and if there are concerns about Staff in gangs being treated differently, than a ticket/complaint should have been made so the group can address it. Conjecture in an untraceable manner, like a Discord channel, doesn't ensure the concern is noticed by Admin/Leaders.

Removing Staff from gangs, to me, would be a massive detriment to RP. Staff within a gang keep things within the rules as best they can be. Gangs have members that get out of hand and can be dealt with, but when Staff are in that gang they can correct the behavior and help create better RP.

I think of a gang in city where no Staff are a part of the gang, but the gang has maybe 90 percent of their members being excellent at RP and following the rules, the other 10% have skirted the lines of breaking server rules on several occassions. I know the 90% of that gang have tried deescslating the situations involving rule breaks with their members, but the message isn't being received. 

Now, when that happens in a gang with a Staff member, an RP scenario is created that involves letting the other players know that the behavior isn't cool. The members of the gang know there is a staff member in their ranks and their suggestions are understood, or they are removed from the gang through RP. Thankfully, this hasn't happened often.

Bigger picture: Staff within a gang are removed. What about D8? EMS? PD? COSA? Althought WL jobs aren't gangs, the structure and frienship is the same. To allow Staff A to be in EMS, but force Staff B from a gang, isn't equality and you'll create a huge rift in the community by forcing valued members out of their line of RP.

If gangs with Staff are treated differently in some way compared to those without Staff, we should gather information, video clips and submit that info through the right channels to become a better community.