12-23-2020, 11:25 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-23-2020, 11:28 AM by Gabe. Edited 2 times in total.
Edit Reason: typo :)
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(12-21-2020, 12:49 AM)Jammin Wrote: I picked this post cus I found it most relevant but I edited most of your post down: The most important things are under the "suggestion" thing bullet points which I left
Ok, I'll make a serious and unnecessarily long reply now since this thread is getting more attention than I thought it ever would. I still stand by my comment that no one checks that thread on a regular basis and is not worth overcomplicating it. The TLDR is that this list should just be kept simple and not overcomplicate something so small when there are so many other issues and bigger things that need more focus. There is also a major obstacle or two in the way in accomplishing what you want to accomplish, which unfortunately won't change.
Small Note on Emeritus
I was the one who made Emeritus so I suppose I should be the one to explain why I added it. I made it as more of a memorial for two staff members, Drew and Sugam. Drew has been an Admin since 1PS days and donated(?) for it when it was available at the time, but is now extremely inactive, and well.. We most of us know what happened to Sugam but this isn't the place to talk about that.
I'll also talk about the issue of demoting inactive staff and how it is a good idea, and I've tried to do something similar before, but won't happen in this community below in the suggestion list (bullet #4). For all you new people out there who don't know me I had the unfortunate and sometimes good pleasure of being an Admin for a little over a year thank u
But in general for something like this I think the simpler the better, this is making it way too complex and has many obstacles in the way to make it a reality, which again I'll talk about below. The way I manage this staff thread is I checked it twice a month: around the 15th and at the start of a new month. On the 15th I wouldn't post an announcement on the thread but I would subtly update the inactive/active list based on 10 hours of activity within the first two weeks of the month. the start of the month I would do the same thing but make an announcement, I think I was pretty consistent with this but as time went on I got a little lazy with it because I had other bigger things to worry about than this silly little list.
Ok Here's where I be the realist
-Creating a historical staff thread (or add it to the staff thread)
There is an "unofficial" one here, if this is what you're talking about although the person that made it doesn't seem to be around anymore. But as I explain in the last bullet point we don't want an extremely cluttered thread with everything jampacked in there. depends on how long it is and the formatting
-Contact all active staff to see what their preferred name is (e.g. Two Rats Kissing, Cryptic Salsa or Slightly Sweet Salsa, etc.)
Nicol can just make an announcement saying if anyone has a preferred name to contact him or just update their name if it changes when the list is updated or if its a long-term name change, that's what I did. Would be a hassle to contact everyone, especially if some won't reply.
-Contact all inactive staff as listed below to see what their situation is and their plans moving forward
This would be a lot of effort for something that doesn't need that much effort, especially with the limitations with what can be done with "inactive" staff... Yes, I'm finally getting to that in the next point.
-Those who don't respond within 1 month, or indicate they are not going to return to any active level get demoted to regular (or donor if that is known)
See, demoting staff for long-time inactivity sounds really good on paper but the reality is that it won't happen around here. Believe me. When I was Admin I tried to propose this at least twice, obviously not just a month but similar idea. The reason why it won't work most long time player will know but to put into simple terms is that Dink is really reluctant and hesitant to demote staff, especially for inactivity. Not to mention Donor TMods/Donor TMods that got promoted. Not to mention how a Donor TMod didn't get demoted for harassing a child in-game and getting banned for ghosting with a friend on the same day... but that's irrelevant ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I'm not trying to trash on Dink here but the optics for it and the way things operate in the upper staff realm are just extremely bad for something like this, which makes it impossible to do. The "reapplying" idea you had sounds good on paper too but again wouldn't work as well. Ik I and other admins at the time with me had a rule that if you resigned that meant that you resigned. At the time, there was a trend where staff would "resign" and try to come back a few days, or weeks later. We made it so, to the best of our ability, that if you resign that meant that you resigned and would have to apply at the bottom of the ladder again no matter what staff rank you were. But the relevance of me saying this is that we ran into problems actually enforcing this standard because as you know, promotions as well as demotions take forever to get done. Some people don't receive their promotions for weeks and people who resign don't lose their ranks for sometimes up to several months even tho Dink was notified. Again, no offense to Dink because ik he's busy and all that, slow it is for people to even receive promotions or be demoted when they resign, some people have had their ranks for months after they resigned even after Dink was notified. Also no, Admins will never get the ability to demote/promote, believe me I've tried to go down that dark path with a few other admins before in regards to doing promotions and demotions with Dink's explicit permission. So yea, that won't work either because it'll be hard to keep up with, would require Dink's constant attention which is already limited, and the optics are bad. So in short, there are many deep rooted problems that aren't easily fixable to enforcing a long-time inactive staff demotion.
I tried to do something similar to what Dakota did a few years ago here but to no avail. With that said, doing what you propose for 1 month would be even more impossible. So again, demoting long-time inactive staff sounds good on paper but it will never happen in this community unless something dramatically changes in regard to this stance.
-Those who indicate they are on a hiatus or have IRL stuff should go into Inactive as approved by Nicol, removed from committees as appropriate, but retain on-server ranks
Again, this is doing something that puts too much effort and complexity into something that doesn't need it. The approval is an unnecessary extra step, its not like you can deny them from going inactive anyway. When Dink tasked the Admins with coming up with something like the committee system due to yk admin tyranny. more staff inclusion, blah blah blah etc, Queef and I made it with the intent that if you don't have 10 hours of consistent in-game time within 2 weeks then you weren't allowed to formally do anything in the committee such as voting, and this was actively monitored when I was around, I hope it still is. This was the standard Admins were held to by Dinkleberg for voting eligibility, which is a good thing. If they were inactive and they had any prior past interactions with say, someone applying for trusted, they were more than welcome to share it with the committee but they had no part in a final decision. We also made the committees with an intent that those with the with the most relevant experience, skill set, preference, etc. would sit on a specific committee rather than arbitrarily placing people in committees, which is why it was so selective at its inception especially for Mod and Test Mod committees. But anyhow, this is getting off topic for how committees work and is for another thread and for Nicol to deal with how he sees fit
-Also we may want to consider consolidating the staff list and committee list to one thread.
Could work depending on how long it is and if it is formatted right, no one wants to read a gigantic cluttered thread especially with the amount of people that even bother to read it, some might be turned off from reading it if its all cluttered.
thanks for coming to my ted talk, I did not miss making serious replies and am going back to making shitposts