Tempest Posted December 28, 2003 Report Posted December 28, 2003 Well, we've been getting a lot of anti-staff and 'the zone is dying' threads again. A lot of people seem to have some objection with one or more parts of the zone, whether it be staff, settings, map or something else altogether. It seems to be an interesting idea, then, to hear some of the proposed solutions to these complaints. So far, we're arguing over 'who is right', or 'which players speak for the zone' but not actually talking about the possible solutions to these perceived problems. A lot of these ideas may have merit and be beneficial to the zone, and it would be folly to ignore them altogether. This, then, is a hypothesis: if you (and I'm referring to Delic here) were in control of the zone, from staff to settings to the smallest details, what would you do to change it? The format for this is simple. We'll begin with your first action (and one action only, please). I will then post possible problems to this action, and we can then discuss methods around these problems. After these are resolved, we can continue to the next action, and so forth. When we reach a point where it is deemed that the hypothesis no longer has merit, or has grown out of its constraints, we shall end it and evaluate its success. Remember that this is simply a method of allowing us to understand each other's opinions more fully, and not some kind of flame war or similar thread. If you find my objections to be too unreasonable, please tell me and I'll review it. So, without further ado, let's start. Quote
Delic Posted December 28, 2003 Report Posted December 28, 2003 Hmmmmm well first of all, I would try to train the ERs to host properly, and the moderators to follow the mod protocol to the fullest.And I would set an age limit on people who can be hired to staff. Quote
Tempest Posted December 28, 2003 Author Report Posted December 28, 2003 The idea is without doubt beneficial. A stricter emphasis on the protocol and further training may be very useful to the zone as a whole. But these ideas need to be developed with a practical emphasis, and these questions spring from it: Objection 1: The mod protocol is slightly out of date. The protocol is somewhat old and may require updating. Who would you choose to update the protocol? Objection 2: Enforcing the mod protocol may be difficult. It's very difficult to enforce an adherence to the protocol. If someone complains a staffer was verbally abusing him or her in PMs, but has no proof to back these claims up and the staffer denies these claims, what would you do? Further, you can't be online to monitor the activities of newer ERs and Mods all the time. How would you ensure that the protocol is followed? How can you make sure that new staffers read the protocol? Objection 3: The extent of training. When would you consider an ER to be trained? Scenario: A well-trained new ER hosts an event but forgets to *timer, *scorereset or *lock. Players complain. What would you do? EDIT: What would the age limit be? (It'd be great if you could add some practical methods to integrate these ideas into the zone, cos then the objections'd be shorter) Quote
Tempest Posted December 28, 2003 Author Report Posted December 28, 2003 To be honest, I think some of the objections I made in that last post were somewhat irrelevant. Please feel free to ignore them. The relevant ones were those commenting on practical methods to implement those actions into the zone. It's too early in the morning and I'm not thinking straight Summary: Further, you can't be online to monitor the activities of newer ERs and Mods all the time. How would you ensure that the protocol is followed? How can you make sure that new staffers read the protocol? When would you consider an ER to be trained? How would you ensure all new ERs are given adequate training? What would the age limit be? Quote
Delic Posted December 28, 2003 Report Posted December 28, 2003 Further' date=' you can't be online to monitor the activities of newer ERs and Mods all the time. How would you ensure that the protocol is followed?[/quote'] To me it would be obvious if he follows it or not, just by observing his actions. How can you make sure that new staffers read the protocol? By observing his actions. When would you consider an ER to be trained? When he is able to host the events that he was trained to host' date=' smoothly and knows how to handle any situation that might occur. How would you ensure all new ERs are given adequate training? Well, I would train them myself, then I would pick the best ER(s) as trainer(s) (when I see that he/they knows what everything's about. What would the age limit be? I'm not sure, but the staffer should be mature enough to not be biased, not start any foolish arguments, take responsibility for his actions, know what actions to take, respect people.Basically just understand and follow the mod protocol. Quote
Tempest Posted December 28, 2003 Author Report Posted December 28, 2003 Okay, that seems fine but for one more objection: is it possible to observe all of staff's actions like you suggest? Would you advocate, for example, that old system in which all new ERs had to p!@#$%^&* a test based on the mod protocol? Anyway, with that done, on to your second action. Quote
Hece Posted December 28, 2003 Report Posted December 28, 2003 What this zone needs is complete zone rules, now staff is making the decisions weather something is illegal or not and giving out random punishments to players. The problem is that we dont have a set of rules which players might read and obey, seems like even staffers dont know the rules, they are just doing what they or theyre fellow staffers think is right. The rules would be an agreement between players and rule enforcers. The only bits of rules that players and staff can agree and obey are the 10 commandments and mod protocol. Staff has a problem obeying mod protocol, and 10 commandments do not cover much of the rules there should be. Imo a good age limit for staffers would bee 18 years. And still there are childish powerhungry abusers that are 18 or older but those can always be axed from staff. After all staffs job is to serve the players and keep the zone playable, not to start fights and abuse their powers. About mod protocol: Every staffer should be told to read and obey it, if they fail to obey it the will get a punishment, if they contignue failing to obey the protocol they should be axed. Thats enough of a motivation to read it atleast.And how to monitor this? Players should always ?logbuffer meepmeep.txt when a mod is abusing them and contact higher staff. And ofcourse everyone else can report abuse to higher staff if they see it happening. -Hece Quote
NBVegita Posted December 28, 2003 Report Posted December 28, 2003 See the problem that commonly occurs with trying to watch the staff, is your mod/er is not going to break protocol(normally) with an upper staffer present. That is also why a good majority of the upper staff may not be "away" when you think they are. But I do agree with hece, the second something starts to seem like mod abust, log it, then send it. It's tough for us to do something about a he said, she said situation. Because even if we are watching, we can't watch pm's. The age thing, well I'm not completely sure about. Well it just so happens that everyone who is now in upper staff is over the age of 18. But I do believe I started staffing here when I was 14. I have never had any complaints against my at!@#$%^&*ude, or saying I didnt do my job. But I do agree that certain things need to be done in restriction to who we hire. But hey, who would have guessed that Cencil, would be working out so well in staff, and would also be a mod? And another thing, it would take a few months, but I want to bring back modscore so we can tell who is hosting, and monitor that. Quote
madhaha Posted December 28, 2003 Report Posted December 28, 2003 How about you just record what decisions are made whenever someone is banned/*killed/staff suspensions/staff termination with a log/good summary of what they were doing. That way, you could use old cases as legal precedent and ameliorate the rules to make things clearer. Or would that make too much sense? On to the next thing that needs changing. Please ARCHIVE the news and make it publicly availible. Especially since important things (the changes to the score system for instance) are not being permanently recorded or displayed. I am happy to help sort the news and format it for the web but I need the source. Quote
Hece Posted December 28, 2003 Report Posted December 28, 2003 How about you just record what decisions are made whenever someone is banned/*killed/staff suspensions/staff termination with a log/good summary of what they were doing. That way, you could use old cases as legal precedent and ameliorate the rules to make things clearer. Or would that make too much sense? On to the next thing that needs changing. Please ARCHIVE the news and make it publicly availible. Especially since important things (the changes to the score system for instance) are not being permanently recorded or displayed. I am happy to help sort the news and format it for the web but I need the source.The rules we need so players can read them and decide weather to obey them or keep away from the zone, and for staff also to have clear knowledge of rules. I wouldnt want 17th staff contignuing its mistakes and abusing. The rules are one of the most important things that this zone lacks. About the zone news: Why the -*BAD WORD*- are they updated daily? Its very annoying to get that popup just to read that its christmas tomorrow or pernille got a new bf.Update it when you have something IMPORTANT to add to it, and by important i mean things that everyone should know (like changes of zone rules). And keep the inside jokes and stuff in your staff chat, not in zone news. Thx. -Hece Quote
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