Kavlar wrote:Hayden wrote:Kavlar wrote:
I don't get that part.
If the person in question doesn't want to be a staff member, why are you giving them an official rank?
Because people can want helper but not moderator, just like someone can like burritos but not tacos
Yeah that makes
Zero sense.
This is the reason why your staff team is abysmal. You hire people that don't even want to do the job. "I don't want Moderator, but I wan't to act like a Moderator and assist people". I mean seriously, if you honestly think that makes sense, you need to reevaluate where you stand as a staff member.
I'll tell you what you're right about - the staff team isn't the best it can be. There's a lot of discussion going on about it, I assume that you've been reading the forums, and you're probably the most recent addition to the debate.
The reason the staff team is lacking what it does (which is a lengthy discussion on its own) is
not because of what you mentioned. I mentioned 3 reasons that players become helpers, and if I must spell it out for you, those are the three most common. There are obviously more. However, you failed to even recognize the existence of the other two, and focused solely on the first one. It is not the largest motivator, and plays a very small role in the "abysmal" nature of the staff team.
Now that you're upto speed, here's why it's perfectly reasonable, rational, and even effective for
some helpers to be helpers without wanting to be moderators.
If you're going to be a moderator, you're obligated to dedicate a lot of time to the game doing far more than just playing it. The best staff members hardly even played the game itself, they just helped people and did staff duties. If you want to avoid doing things like reports, hack cases, scam cases, and dissolving fights, you can still answer menial questions. That's what helpers are for. They do the easiest and most densely packed part of the job. Now, I agree that doing this should also be a part of the trial process. Read some of my recent posts - I'm a huge proponent of making trials do a lot more, so that moderators do a lot more. However, the reason this version of a helper was introduced was because we simply never had enough moderators to answer everyone's questions. In hindsight, it was an alternative solution to a big problem, the big problem being that staff members were simply not as driven as they used to be.
When you were a Gmod (4 years ago, which
coincidentally coincides with the Golden Era of PkHonor and many RSPS's in general), everyone was a teen. The average age I saw in a poll ~2012 was 16. That's highschool age. Highschool is a time when you can come home from school and play a game on a computer with few repercussions. Fast forward 4 years, and you'll find that a lot of those same kids are now applying to colleges and getting jobs. It starts to make sense that people are less willing to spend their time on PkHonor. I don't blame them, in fact, I applaud them. But they're also the reason that the staff team is, in your words, "abysmal". You have to find a way to motivate people to take a bit more time out of their day to moderate PkHonor. Or you have to find the most numerous type of help request (simple questions) and create a reliable rank that can handle it in the stead of active moderators. This way moderators can deal with the cases that their trust and intellect require, and you have (theoretically) a system that is efficient.
EDIT: I re-read your previous posts and mixed up "4 years" with "4 years ago". My bad. Though the idea still applies; the futher back you go, the more free time the average player had.
But this falls short because the ways the moderators are trained (and have been for a couple of years now) has changed. The mentality has changed. People are less willing to listen because they've developed views of their own.
So many things have changed compared to 4 years ago that it's almost irrelevant to mention that you were a mod back then unless you have a very nuanced and developed stance that stems from the fact.
^
Irrelevant.
So I respect your opinion, but you don't have all the answers.
Moving on,
Ryan wrote:Wir3d wrote:This game should be about having fun. Not being a "job" of some sort that you would have to log in daily to meet your requirements, especially for helpers. They are special people who actually enjoy to help people when in need. Not many people can handle that from time to time. There will always be people on leave, for school, family or other irl stuff. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't give them a chance at it. Everyone has equal chance to gain anything in here, its how they go by doing it is what defines them. If you aren't able to help anymore, you shouldn't have the rank. If you aren't able to be a consistent mod, then you shouldn't have the rank, simple as that. It's people that make those sacrifices to help grow and further this server that makes them great at what they do. It's who will put in the extra effort to make someone's day easier or help them with something, and that isn't for everybody, only for a qualified few who can handle it. We do this out of goodness of our hearts and being online, there aren't that many people that will want to do this.
^^^^^
I think the helper team we had a few days ago was fine. They were all great people and most of them good helpers. Although i havent heard anything at all about the helper system rework so i cant really comment too much on what will/should happen to the good ones like jacob.
@Wir3d I think I haven't conveyed it properly. I don't mean that helpers will have a "job", but they will be held to a standard. It's not going to be a free rank. You have to atleast commit a little, otherwise there's no point in you being a beacon of light for players lost in the darkness. People currently do and in the future will look to you for help. Hence why activity (to a very small degree, much lesser than that of a moderator) should be an obligation. The reason this wouldn't fall short is because there are a lot of people out there that want to be helpers. A lot of them are "randoms", but they still exist, and they're willing to work for it.
For a moderator, the activity required would be much greater than that of a helper, because they'd be held to a much higher standard. Helpers are there to do it out of the good of their hearts, yes, but a lot (if not most) do enjoy the recognition as well (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that). That recognition is meaningless if the rank itself holds no responsibility or obligation.
