Kurva Gaming
Kurva Gaming is an online community that hosts SCP: Secret Laboratory servers and is the current maintainer for the US East official servers. The community's servers have at one point held 20% of all concurrent players for SCP: Secret Laboratory.[1]
 | |
| General Information | |
|---|---|
| Established | 2018 |
| Owner | CTCookiie |
| Registered Members | 6,186 (as of December 9, 2022) |
| Joining Process | Participation |
| Website | Website |
| Social Media | |
| Discord | Discord server |
| Patreon | Patreon |
Structure
Governance
The community makes use of a non-linear rank structure where each service has a hierarchy of staff, with the head of each hierarchy reporting to the community's owner. The top of the hierarchy is referred to as the head of the service, and they presumably make all decisions relating to it's operation. Immediately below the head are supervisors who oversee groups of base staff members. Each service has multiple groups with the staff members in each group directly reporting to their assigned supervisor.
Staff members also have ranks in the order of trial moderator, moderator, senior moderator, administrator, then senior administrator. These ranks appear to represent levels of access to a service and do not represent authority (e.g it is possible for a senior administrator to report to a senior administrator). Because of this, it is possible for the same staff member to have a different rank for each service.
Separately from the hierarchies are 3 named positions: chief technical officer, community manager, and director of communications. These all appear to be positions that are lateral to the head of a service, and so all presumably directly report to the owner.
Also separate from the hierarchy altogether are various committees that perform specific functions. The committees are player relations, staff processing, interviewing, training, and ban appeals. The player relations committee has 5 sub-committees which are events, rules, outreach, development, and media. Each committee has a similar hierarchal structure to services, but the supervisor position is instead called a vice head. Each sub-committee has a single titled position called lead.
KurvedNetwork
Kurva runs a small network of other entities that are under different names and have their own dedicated ownership and staff. These entities are Chaos Theory and KurvedMC.
Chaos Theory is the successor community to UnlimitedSCP, an SCP: Secret Laboratory community which unexpectedly shutdown[2] in the 2nd quarter of 2022. To facilitate in Chaos Theory starting up, Kurva's development staff (alongside official representatives of Northwood Studios) helped re-create or obtain the plugins that UnlimitedSCP originally had. Also, during Chaos Theory's original Discord launch, Kurva had their Discord staff team assist in server moderation temporarily.[3]
KurvedMC is a small community Discord jointly run jointly by Kurva and Chaos Theory for the purpose of maintaining Minecraft servers.
While Kurva and Chaos Theory both refer to the mutual assistance as Kurva having gained ownership over Chaos Theory, Chaos Theory has it's own owner and staff team. It was publicly declared during the initial announcement of ownership that Kurva would not have influence over community direction or governance.[3]
Finances
The primary method of income is Patreon, encompassing 11 tiers from $1 to $100. The total number of patrons and received income is made public, being 38 patrons donating $254 per month as of December 11, 2022. All funds are directly manipulated by the owner. How funds are used, aside from paying for hosted services, is not documented. It is also not documented or disclosed whether Kurva sees all or portions of donations made to their network entities or how such funds, if available to them, are used.
History
2019
On May 20, Kurva announces that the servers are offline, citing issues with PayPal and obtaining funds. The servers returned 3 days later.[4][5]
On June 1, previous community owner Alby makes an announcement on the official Discord server with a server-wide ping which is an advertisement for IcedHost.[6]
On August 3, a bot attack was launched against SCP: Secret Laboratory[7] which interrupted a community event scheduled for the same day.[8] A workaround was attempted by using a direct connection IP address[9] which was unsuccessful[10] The event would later go on due to a reprieve in the attack.[11]
2020
On January 14, Alby makes an announcement calling attention to Wendy Williams who allegedly made fun of a physical disability that Alby has. With a server-wide ping to 2,000 people[12], Alby asks members to "investigate" an attached tweet and that they were "outraged by the fact that someone could do this".[13] Alby would later clarify that they do not endorse attacking the subject.[14]
On March 8, staff member Cherry announces with a server-wide ping that community servers are down due to insufficient funds, that a temporary server had been established, and asks members to consider pledging on Patreon.[15] 4 hours later, Alby would clarify that the servers were actually down to to their inability to go to their bank and pull the funds necessary to pay the server bill.[16]
On March 26, Kurva announces that their 2nd and 3rd SCP: Secret Laboratory servers were being turned off to make space for the Rust server which had accumulated 119 concurrent players.[17]
On May 16, Cherry announces that the Patreon is raising $203 monthly and thanks the community for putting Kurva in a financially stable position.[18]
On May 19, Kurva calls for artists to create a new logo for the community.[19] Compensation promised was a $20 STEAM Gift Card.[19] The result of the call, taking place on May 27, is the now current logo.[20]
On May 28, Kurva announces the hosting of an SCP: Secret Laboratory tournament.[21] It would later be cancelled due to a key organizer being unable to attend.[22]
On June 6, Alby announces that there was a situation where there were numerous "bans, mutes, and general fuckery" on June 4 and apologizes for the behavior. They state that all future major events in the community will be ran and monitored by them.[23]
On July 19, Kurva announces that a staff member's account had been hacked and to not join server invite links they may send.[24]
On August 24, Kurva announces the termination of a high profile staff member due to their failure to maintain confidentiality and the abuse of elevated privileges.[25] The same individual would later make a ping in the official announcements on September 18[26], and make a server-wide ping on October 16.[27]
2022
On April 13, Kurva announces that they now own the SCP: Secret Laboratory community Chaos Theory.[2]
On October 13, CTCookiie makes an announcement that Alby has stepped down as the owner and that they are taking over the position.[28]
On September 27, 2022, Kurva announces that a rouge staff member performed a myriad of unjustified bans and that the issue was resolved.[29]
References
- ↑ File:Alby_20percent.png
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 File:Kurva_chaostheory.png
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 File:Chaostheory ownedbykurva.png
- ↑ File:Kurva_paypal1.png
- ↑ File:Kurva_paypal2.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming6.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming8.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming9.png
- ↑ Announcement from Alby about workaround for bot attack by doing direct connection in August 2019
- ↑ Announcement from Alby that bot hackers abused access to direct connection information
- ↑ Announcement from Alby that events server was functional in August 2019
- ↑ Announcement from Alby thanking the community for their support, indicating that membership count in November 2019 was at 2,000 or more
- ↑ Announcement from Alby about Wendy Williams in January 2020
- ↑ Clarification message from Alby denouncing any attacks against Wendy Williams in January 2020
- ↑ Announcement from Cherry regarding insufficient funds to maintain servers in March 2020
- ↑ Announcement from Alby clarifying why servers were down in March 2019
- ↑ Announcement from Alby regarding the temporary turning off of SCP:SL servers 2 and 3 in March 2020
- ↑ Announcement from Cherry thanking community for monetary support in May 2020
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Announcement from Alby calling for artists to create a new community logo in May 2020
- ↑ Announcement from Alby declaring the new community logo in May 2020
- ↑ Announcement from Cherry regarding Kurva's first ever SCP:SL tournament in May 2020
- ↑ Announcement from Cherry regarding event cancellation due to TechStar123 being unable to attend in June 2020
- ↑ Announcement from Alby regarding staff incident in June 2020
- ↑ Announcement from TubbyMuffin regarding hacked staff account in July 2020
- ↑ Announcement from Alby declaring termination of TechStar123 in August 2020
- ↑ SCP:SL ping from TechStar123 post termination in September 2020
- ↑ Server wide ping by TechStar123 post termination in October 2020
- ↑ Announcement from CTCookiie regarding retirement of Alby and his ascension to ownership in October 2022
- ↑ Announcement from CTCookiie regarding a rouge staff member in September 2022
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