After seven years of being on this site as a community and data mod Ive come to the decision that its best to part ways with the team which is a decision that doesnt come lightly given how much time and passion Ive poured into the site since graduating high school. Theres many reasons as to why Ive come to this decision which have accumulated over the years but for now Ill try focusing on the more prominent ones. To be honest Ive grown tired of the lack of communication between the staff an issue that I dont feel has improved with over time. Whether it be voicing concerns that the staff has communicating to one another to find a solution to a difficult problem or even addressing ideas that could benefit the site theres almost always been a push back on this with some advocating for the idea to not even voice these at all and to keep it to ourselves. For these reasons I feel theres a lack of cohesion in the group that further perpetuates these issues which tend to build up over time and cause tension within the mod team and prevents us from moving forward. In the defense of the admins theyve put some recent changes in the group to try to mitigate this but given how historically its always been difficult to juggle all of this at once I am not the most optimistic about the site improving in this facet. This extends to the handling of the user base as well where some people have gotten comfortable with the idea of not letting a user know that they have broken a rule when their post has been deleted or even telling a user that restrictions have been placed on their accounts on various occasions. To focus on the community more theres always been push back in regards to how unfairly certain marginalized groups in the community are treated and an uphill battle to allow such a space for people of any race gender sexual orientation disability etc to be themselves without the vitriol of those who are against their place on the site. Whether it be allowing hateful language against this group to exist on the site or trying to punish users who continuously engage with this behavior certain members of the team have taken an apathetic approach to it that I feel allows such toxic behavior to flourish.This is even taken further when members of the mod team past and present have done this themselves with little to no consequences for their actions which is something I can not idly sit by. What even further perpetuates this situation is the fact that admins have vocally stated that they tend to prefer the moderating style of those who choose not to confront issues head on and are inactive in their job as opposed to those who actually spend a considerable amount of their free time moderating the site and making sure the community runs smoothly. One last point Id like to discuss is the lack of appreciation that comes from the team. Weve had many individuals on staff who have poured hours and hours of their free time to make AniList the best site that it can by continuously working hard to add to the database moderate the user base and do roles that far exceed what is expected from them with little acknowledgement and appreciation from other upper members of the team who end up looking at them as expendable and easily replaceable.This has understandably caused past and present members to feel undervalued on the team and it would be disingenuous for me not to mention that this is also how I currently feel with a lack of trust afforded to me that comes attached despite how much of my soul Ive poured into the site. This is something that was spurred by the most recent mod meeting we had where my contributions to the site felt very minuscule and that I was not trustworthy enough despite how much Ive always tried to do how consistently professional Ive been and how little problems Id ever caused for the team. All this is not to say that every member of the staff is complacent in all of the above theres many hard working individuals on the team who put their all into finding solutions and addressing these problems head on so much energy and passion is put into conversations in these heavy topics and any time we have included facts or evidence to support our points the response is usually a quick dismissal to engage with them and just met with the repeated idea that they wont budge on the issue without offering a counterpoint to it... and after seven years Ive become rather disheartened about continuing this uphill battle when the direction of the site seeks to just prioritize the numbers and sticking so close to how other sites function instead of offering something different that can be more inclusive to others. To not end things on such a dour note let me just say that Ive met some wonderful people on this site through my years of work and Im very fortunate for that. Given that Ive met my significant other and made good friends through this site I will always have an attachment to AniList and will always be very appreciative of the mods and users whove done their best to help out the site and have been vocal about their feelings on it all so thank you. 500https://i.ur.com/6MYdw1L.gif