Kurva Gaming
Kurva Gaming is an online community that hosts SCP: Secret Laboratory servers and is 1 of 3 community-hosted maintainers of the US East official servers.[1]
 | |
| General Information | |
|---|---|
| Established | ~2018[2] |
| Owner | Alby (2018-2021)[3] Cookie (2021-Present)[4] |
| Registered Members | 7,257[5] (as of July 13, 2023) |
| 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.[6]
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.[6]
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.[6]
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.[6]
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[7] 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.[8]
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.[8]
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 61 patrons donating $534 per month as of July 9, 2023.[9]
History
Chronology of events
2019
On May 20, Kurva announces that the servers are offline, citing issues with PayPal.[10] The servers returned 3 days later.[11]
On August 3, a bot attack was launched against SCP: Secret Laboratory[12] which interrupted a community event scheduled for the same day.[13] A workaround was attempted by using a direct connection IP address[14] which was unsuccessful[15] The event would later go on due to a reprieve in the attack.[16]
2020
On March 8, staff member Cherry announces that community servers are down due to insufficient funds, that a temporary server had been established, and asks members to consider pledging on Patreon.[17] 4 hours later, Alby would clarify that community funds were sufficient, and that the servers went down due to a personal mishap.[18]
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.[19]
On May 16, Cherry announces that the Patreon is raising $203 monthly and thanks the community for putting Kurva in a financially stable position.[20]
On May 19, Kurva calls for artists to create a new logo for the community.[21] Compensation offerred was a $20 STEAM Gift Card.[21] The result of the call, taking place on May 27, is the now current logo.[22]
On May 28, Kurva announces the hosting of an SCP: Secret Laboratory tournament.[23] It would later be cancelled due to a key organizer, TechStar123, being unable to attend.[24]
On July 19, Kurva announces that a staff member's account had been hacked and to not join server invite links they may send.[25]
2022
On April 13, Kurva announces that they now own the SCP: Secret Laboratory community Chaos Theory.[7]
On October 13, CTCookiie makes an announcement that Alby has stepped down as the owner and that they are taking over the position.[3]
On September 27, Kurva announces that a rouge staff member performed a myriad of unjustified bans and that the issue was resolved.[26]
Controversy
On January 14, 2019, Alby made an announcement calling attention to Wendy Williams who allegedly made fun of a "facial deformity" that Alby had. Alby asked members to "investigate" an attached tweet and that they were "outraged by the fact that someone could do this".[27] Alby would later clarify that they do not endorse attacking Wendy.[28]
On June 6, 2020, Alby announced that there was a situation where there were numerous "bans, mutes, and general fuckery" on June 4 and apologized for the behavior. They state that all future major events in the community will be ran and monitored by themself.[29]
On August 24, 2020, Kurva announces the termination of TechStar123 due to their failure to maintain confidentiality and "[trying] to recruit spies for other members and used promotions to essentially bribe them".[30] TechStar123 made a ping in the official announcements channel on September 18[31], and then made a server-wide ping on October 16.[32]
References
- ↑ List of maintainers of US East official servers
- ↑ File:Kurva 3year operation.png
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 File:Kurva Gaming29.png
- ↑ File:Kurva network owner.png
- ↑ File:Kurva usercount.png
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Kurva Staff Roster
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Announcement from Cookiee regarding ownership of Chaos Theory and shutdown of Unlimited SCP
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Announcement from Pepticdiamond93 regarding Kurva's new ownership of Chaos Theory
- ↑ Snapshot of Kurva Gaming Patreon on 7/9/2023
- ↑ File:Kurva_paypal1.png
- ↑ File:Kurva_paypal2.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming8.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming9.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming10.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming11.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming12.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming16.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming17.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming18.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming19.png
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 File:Kurva Gaming20.png
- ↑ File:Kurva_Gaming21.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming22.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming23.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming25.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming30.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming14.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming15.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming24.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming26.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming27.png
- ↑ File:Kurva Gaming28.png
