Staff Reset - Junior Managers

[Pezza 248]

Hello Everybody,

It's been a while since I've posted on the forums, I know this seems like a weird idea, however, none the less just hear it out.

I know I've been gone for a while, however it's allowed me to gain an insight on the opinions of the community and their thoughts on staff.

NOTE: If there are any staff mentioned in this post do NOT take it personally, this is just a post regarding opinions, thus going to be subjective

The post is aimed at removing inactive staff and for the Leads ( hopefully unbias ) to put "good" staff in charge of HR ( Human Resources ) and to manage the staff effectively. 
Nevetos was the best ( and only ) staff manager Straya had, however with rumors of his departure. There is nobody to fill the role. 
The current "Junior Staff Managers" ( Support Leaders ) are quite dodgy and have made decisions which previous staff members wouldn't even consider. This has changed the positioning of support within the community. It used to be a privilege and an opportunity to showcase your skills within staffing. It was a pathway to future staff, people were put into support if we could see them getting mod with the same attitude. This raised the bar of support, therefore having a higher quality.

Recently the support has lowered "I only put an app in to **** around and see if they were dumb enough to put me in" - CURRENT support team member.
The attitudes of players within staff has changed, including mods. It's become more of a "**** it" and "I'm never going to get that rank, however _____ has gotten it so anything is possible" these quotes are from people within CURRENT staff, showcasing the attitudes and the mindset.

 

Overall this post was just to give an insight to the leads and people of this community what staff is looking like. The idea about resetting staff came from the idea of cop, they kept a few key members to help rebuild to what it is now. Staff would work similarly, put somebody incharge of support who is good and people actually respect, somebody who people want to work under, that they DON'T hate. Resetting staff would remove the staff that are on and off every now and then, it would improve the mindset of staff now that these positions are now vacant. Obviously there can be some exceptions to keep staff running, however this post is to try and increase the formal relationship between the community and the staffing team.

If you're not going to comment anything constructive please leave. I'd love to have a discussion about this, please don't take any offense to this. As mentioned above this is a subjective post. This is just simply my opinion.

[McCain 126]

14 minutes ago, Pezza said:

Resetting staff would remove the staff that are on and off every now and then, it would improve the mindset of staff now that these positions are now vacant.

You really do need to consider the negatives for such a large move like this.
"It worked before it'll work again" isn't really the best argument.

A few things to note:
What if you put the wrong person in charge? Things will end up worse than they are now.
Who is the right people to put in charge? Regardless of who you put up people will complain, the community will be split, especially with its current state, and this might cause more issues than it solves.
Furthermore, with the reset of staff you'd lose a large chunk of viable members to actually moderate the server, or helpdesk which in turn would probably turn the server into more of an unmoderated RDM fest.

If there needs to be a removal of staff members, start with the ones making comments about how they don't give a shit about their jobs, or the ones with poor attitude/work ethic.
They're the reason you want the reset in the first place, why not start with them?

[Chadd 1040]

could of just tagged me

are you only putting this in because you dont like the CURRENT STL? 

Edited September 16, 2018 by Chadd

[Pezza 248]

2 minutes ago, McCain said:

You really do need to consider the negatives for such a large move like this.
"It worked before it'll work again" isn't really the best argument.

A few things to note:
What if you put the wrong person in charge? Things will end up worse than they are now.
Who is the right people to put in charge? Regardless of who you put up people will complain, the community will be split, especially with its current state, and this might cause more issues than it solves.
Furthermore, with the reset of staff you'd lose a large chunk of viable members to actually moderate the server, or helpdesk which in turn would probably turn the server into more of an unmoderated RDM fest.

If there needs to be a removal of staff members, start with the ones making comments about how they don't give a shit about their jobs, or the ones with poor attitude/work ethic.
They're the reason you want the reset in the first place, why not start with them?

Sorry I needed to make things more clear, I understand I didn't say this before however, my intention was for Seniors Mods -> Mods, Senior Support -> Support, Admins ( Dependent ) -> Senior Mod, STL -> Support Team ( Unless Moderator ( Just remove their STL ))
The right person to put in charge is a good natural person, ( was Nevetos )

If you put the wrong person in charge than you haven't done your job as a lead / senior manager. That's for them to figure out. 

If you remove all the people with an issue, you wouldn't have a staff team. You need to identify the problem so it doesn't happen again to current / future staff.

[Jack Twitch 15]

@Pezza I do think you're a real pain in the ass, but your comment here has actually got a meaning to it. I believe this should go through

[Red 1068]

31 minutes ago, Pezza said:

however this post is to try and increase the formal relationship between the community and the staffing team.

Without a doubt, the majority of our players are atleast content with the current staff team. It looks like they aren't because of a few voices, these few voices are exceptionally loud which creates the illusion that "half the community hate X staff member". This has come up countless times, whenever someone gets a position that a few dissagree with. I have long learnt to completely ignore their opinions unless I am met with evidence to support the claims. Every single time we 'lose half our community' our player count (On average) does not drop, this is because it's only a very small portion of players that leave. In most cases these are players that ruin the integrity of the game and are a blight on our community. So really... I don't mind it happening.

I am happy with most of the senior staff team, there are only a few that need to improve their work and i'd rather work with them on that instead of removing them.

[James32 823]

What If i told you that how much someone is liked doesn't have to correlate with their ability to do the job effectively

[Pezza 248]

2 minutes ago, James32 said:

What If i told you that how much someone is liked doesn't have to correlate with their ability to do the job effectively

I'd say it'll affect the way they do their job because nobody wants to work with them / under them. Hence resorting to lesser candidates.

[James32 823]

6 minutes ago, Pezza said:

I'd say it'll affect the way they do their job because nobody wants to work with them / under them. Hence resorting to lesser candidates.

If people cant work alongside someone else because they have some kind of personal vendetta that says more about them than the person they dislike, the expectation is people behave maturely and work together regardless of their feelings

[Connor McGregor 424]

Well obviously there is something wrong if people dont wanna work together which needs to be fixed and when it does happen instead of coming together to resolve it the staff  do nothing to fix the issue at hand so than in the future when this does happen again instead of the staff going  back to the same situation they had previously they just hand out bans because they think its gonna solve the issue but in reality it only makes things worse like Red said to me when we were talking earlier today. @James32

[Michael Steiner 603]

Am I the only one who feels like Straya is being run like a company rather than like a community of people who enjoy playing a certain game? Especially with the current staff team I think Senior staff ahs become too confident that no matter what happens the community won't die. 

I feel that we as a community have lost the sense of mateship.

[Jack Twitch 15]

+1

[geera 60]

So currently i believe the server as a whole dislikes Mitch i have had countless command, ex-command, support and countless people from cop who dislikes Mitch due to him being to harash and his punishments are done with no attempt to contact the person/persons who are at fault (I am talking about the sit today where Mitch froze a person in a heli which caused him to crash and lose all his gear aswell as the people in the heli). Also due to there being majority of people in help desk high up cops (people of snr sgt or above) there is almost always an unintentional bias towards cops. This bias can be seen in a recent case of Diz who glitched and got this reply for a command member

 "the apd would like to have no link to anyone that exploits, BUT. Seeing as you are as young kid with great potential we are not removing you from the APD. Instead you are getting the night off cop and a watchlist for exploiting" 

This is significant due to Diz on multiple occasion has been called a bad influence on people in APD  

 

And then Nuu Rushean who glitched into a house to get a person who glitched into a house when a mod sit was going on got banned for 7 days 

 

I understand what red is saying when he says he doesn't listen to people who are constantly complaining about the server but Mitch being a Deputy Commisioner and a Snr Mod makes people wonder why is a person who will have such as bias and a person who has had a history and has been removed due to to his bias got the high rank of Snr Mod when there are people more liked such as Matt Ronaldo who deserve it more and is generally considered a better more fair cop and moderator

 

So Finnally Yes i think you should get rid of all junior staff and derank Mitch to the rank or support team lead 

 

Ps: this should be done to all Higher up Cops such as the Augnov due to him unintentionally having a bias toward he will have towards cop as state in him Mod app 

 

Thanks,  

[CeeFar 585]

110% agree with what @Michael Steiner has to say.

I remember way way back, a couple months before I even registered my forums account, you'd be able to just jump in TS and have a yarn with ANYBODY. The highest of staff, the highest ranks of the APD, it didn't matter. Because at the end of the day, your positions in the staff team/on the server didn't really matter - you were still a person. We were all FRIENDS and we were part of a COMMUNITY. 

Now people hold certain positions (some moreso than others) to pedestals, and make them think it means they are more of a person, and worth more than other people. With it becoming easier and easier to attain certain staff ranks, you get people who really shouldn't be in those positions, in said positions. I have also (while browsing the forums recently) seen some macabre comments that would NOT fly 1-2 years ago (get you banned REAL quick). You also see plenty of racist/homophobic slurs in game chat now that would've got you community banned last year. 

As to what @Pezza said when referring to the cop reset, I was chief inspector at the time of that reset and I got re-set with everybody too. 

As a bit of personal anecdote, I remember when I applied for support TWICE, got denied TWICE, reapplied a third time and under mentoring from the current STL and SM, finally made green tick. I sat at green tick for about 7-8 months, and never made red tick (for good reason, I simply wasn't ready). I made a moderator application while I was green tick, it got something like 20 or so likes and like 300 views, everyone told me I would for-sure get it, but it was ignored and eventually denied. 

Point being it used to be incredibly difficult to get to a staff position, and in an attempt to bolster staff numbers, the bar has been lowered WAYYYY too far. 

[CeeFar 585]

Also @geera as much as you may personally dislike mitch, or you say the community dislikes mitch, there are two things that are not needed.

- You naming him in every post, if everyone dislikes him as much as you say, you won't need to name him. 

- you REPEATEDLY latching onto ONE example of his misconduct, and also making baseless allegations. I'm yet to see any evidence of this heli incident. 

Myself and @Mitch may not have gotten along very well in the past, but like I said in my previous comment, at the end of the day he is a person, he deserves the same respect as anyone else. If you don't like the way he staffs, runs the APD, or acts, do what others have done for different moderators in the past. Get evidence, make sure it PROVES what you are asserting, and then SEND IT TO HIGHER UP STAFF. DO. NOT. POST. IT. PUBLICLY.

In regards to his style in running the APD, yes it is harsh, yes he may not contact people that get punished, but he has plenty of experience and I don't doubt that without him as dep. commissioner that APD would probably be in tattles at the moment. 

 

[Woolie 74]

I fully commend and applaud @Mitch for doing his job even with the amount of hate he receives. And yes I’ve been banned by him twice but he’s doing his job. I believe Mitch needs more respect in this community, he’s worked day in and day out to what he has achieved. @Mitch keep up the good work **** what other people have to say about you, good luck with all your future endeavours.

- Woolie

[Nevetos 511]

If you think 'rank resets' work everywhere because it worked in some specific situation, please think again...

HR is more complex than you might think.

As for the comment of run like a business, not a community, I will put my two cents to that after work.

[Boulter 139]

[Wex 429]

48 minutes ago, Nevetos said:

If you think 'rank resets' work everywhere because it worked in some specific situation, please think again...

HR is more complex than you might think.

As for the comment of run like a business, not a community, I will put my two cents to that after work.

I wouldn't say a complete reset but just remove people who aren't putting in the effort or care in their job. Surely you're still doing the thing with non-issues and issues where you can monitor what each support team member is doing and there must be some way of monitoring moderator activity. 

[Fitz 1239]

I don't have anything to do with AL, but a lot of this stuff is triggering or just wrong.

 

On 9/16/2018 at 5:47 PM, geera said:

So currently i believe the server as a whole dislikes Mitch i have had countless command, ex-command, support and countless people from cop who dislikes Mitch

As you've been asked a few times already, where are all the complaints with evidence from these people? 

A lot of AL players record their gameplay, surely someone has something if it's that bad...

 

10 hours ago, nclem said:

I remember way way back, a couple months before I even registered my forums account, you'd be able to just jump in TS and have a yarn with ANYBODY.

Pretty sure there's nothing stopping you from talking to anyone who wants to talk to you 

9 hours ago, nclem said:

Now people hold certain positions (some moreso than others) to pedestals

I think that's more of a problem with the person than the community/"company" as a whole.

9 hours ago, nclem said:

I have also (while browsing the forums recently) seen some macabre comments that would NOT fly 1-2 years ago

Don't know what comments you're referring too. The community guidelines in place over the last ~11 months have been stricter and more specific than they ever were before.

1-2 years ago we had a few forum nazis moderating, I would definitely say it is an improvement not having them around...

9 hours ago, nclem said:

With it becoming easier and easier to attain certain staff ranks

What ranks are easier to obtain?

Two months ago people were having a fit about applications sitting there too long, now there's apparently no problem?

There are still moderator apps sitting there for at least a month and only being accepted when appropriate.

If you're referring to help desk positions, then that is obviously expected to be relatively easy to obtain as it is an entry level position and an easy way to see how suitable they will be for higher roles.

9 hours ago, nclem said:

I made a moderator application while I was green tick, it got something like 20 or so likes and like 300 views, everyone told me I would for-sure get it, but it was ignored and eventually denied.

As we've seen recently, likes and views don't mean anything on an application and don't effect the decision to accept or deny. It's not a popularity contest, if you demonstrate that you are suitable for the role, then you'll get the role, simple as that.

9 hours ago, nclem said:

Point being it used to be incredibly difficult to get to a staff position, and in an attempt to bolster staff numbers, the bar has been lowered WAYYYY too far. 

If the bar has been lowered so much, then where are all the staff complaints against the new staff???

Just because your app was denied or you were stuck at green tick for too long, doesn't mean everyone that has been accepted sooner than you isn't suitable or that the bar has been lowered. That would almost definitely be a problem with you and not the height of the bar...

If more staff are needed, then obviously more people will be accepted; can't fill roles if there are none to be filled. 

 

If there are problems with staff, then use the resources available to you to do something about it, otherwise you can't expect things to magically change or a "reset" of staff to fix anything.

[Matt Ronaldo 112]

If you feel a staff member has wrong done you, just record 24.7 and when they do you wrong, lodge a staff report, Red and James have been frequently checking it of recently, and if you ever wanted to feel heard, i'd suggest doing it now.
It's obvious Mitch isn't a community favorite nor will he ever be one, Personally i feel he has been put in as the one person of the staff team to take the heat and keep on moving, in every community there is that " one guy " and as far as i can see, it's him, if he does his job incorrectly obviously he'll be dealt with, if you want anything to be done, get evidence, report him and move on, if you've got nothing, just chill out and put down the pitchforks and just play the server.
Enjoy the rest of the night.

[Red 1068]

Locking the thread because the witch hunts annoy me.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Red
I can't spell