Semi Staff Ranks

Firstly, thank you to @Canoodle for rating my post optimistic. Testing the ability for me to avoid the thread getting heated but nevertheless thought it would be good to point out the sarcasm in that gesture. On with the thread:

Even if the consensus is far outweighing in one majority, it's still good to question these things in a civil way, there are always going to be potential flaws in any staff system. The idea of the thread is to try and bring up one that could potentially be/become one.

The basic answer to this is make it clear on that list they're semi staff ranks then. Right now they're on the staff list with no indication otherwise, and so of course people are going to think they're staff ranks. The only other way it would be easy to tell we're not staff is if we were to change the titles under our forum avatars to say we're only a semi staff rank (I might do that, see what happens).

Thank you, I definitely will. Please tell me what you mean, it's important that I understand these things so I can get the jist of your argument!

I won't campaign for that purely because other people see it differently. I don't personally see being able to tell other people how to improve an application on a thread to be that much of a benefit, but others do and that's fine. Doesn't change how I personally see it though. It also doesn't change the fact the semi staff are voicing their opinions on people who will ultimately make decisions, but the same semi staff can't voice those opinions on these decisions directly in the same way. There's a bit of a deficit in logic here.

Forever destined in this role, not forever destined as players. I placed the attachment on the status, not the player. Of course the individual player can change that, but not without changing the role they perform on the server (or adding to it, you get the idea). You can't always apply for certain positions, for example CTF Jmod at the moment so this is also not strictly speaking true in a temporal sense.

I think we can only agree to disagree on this as I'm not sure either of us are going to convince the other.

I know you can't control what players think, but you can control to a certain extent what players see. You don't show them the staff chat for example. If you were to put something on the staff list calling the ranks below semi staff ranks, that would at least define the ranks as not fully staff. Right now nothing is being done to distinguish the two, and it must be confusing for new players.

If Jmods leak plans then they must clearly want more transparency in the system and I can't blame them for that. I wouldn't approve of such leaks if it is against staff policy, but I can definitely understand the point of view. Being told nothing in my eyes is far more frustrating than having a promise broken and something not going according to plan. It's something that other players in the community feel as well (check out the CTF survey in particular I finished off the other day here to see what I mean on a smaller scale with the CTF committee). Nevertheless a thread advocating for transparency is for another time, I digress. Having a more thoroughly connected staff would get the information passed through sooner and updates could be written/built/etc faster. Mind you this is a question of trusting the teams not to leak information, screening them would help...

Then why are you making no effort to the contrary. You're basically asking for them to think we're staff, if not staff that deal with moderating duties.

Really because I was almost demoted today for being inactive (which was wrong, thank you for correcting this) and then criticised for not doing enough after 2 weeks when some staff are allowed to get away with months of inactivity in-game before being demoted.

A tag would be useful for sending wiki links to people without them screaming it's some kind of malicious virus.

Agreed, different roles for different teams.

No i was denied for something else in 27 words. For anyone interested you can read about it here. Again, digressing from the actual topic, and no they weren't closed.

Again, another debate for another thread (3 in this posts, wow). This would make an interesting follow up, as some teams are big but relatively inactive in-game (CTF still doesn't have an active moderator for a good portion of the day)

Absolutely but to prove a point here, if the application isn't actually open you can't apply for it! It's not just as simple as applying for staff if you want it. The staff have to be dedicated to that gamemode, know their way around it, and most importantly willing to work under you so that the community benefit, it's not like they get paid for what they're doing. Not only that but from what I gather there are quite a few people breathing down their necks (see JaydenChadd's outro post, for example)

@Dankmastr_Memesn haven't forgotten about you, I just can only do so much in 1 go!

 

@Dankmastr_Memesn promise I haven't forgotten you, I just need some time to respond more substantially.

Except they are supposed to be representing brawl, because they tell us that right at the start (If they didn't send you some kind of message telling you that, then obviously you've been treated differently to me because I did).

If you want to think about yourself being treated as sub-staff even if you personally think you're not, then that's fine. I would say however it can be very confusing for a new player to see these ranks on the forums which look very similar to staff ranks only in a different colour (grey). Given there's a different colour for jmod, mod, smod etc it wouldn't be too hard to link the two and come to the conclusion they're just a different staff rank, rather than substaff or anything along those lines

See one of my earlier responses, but basically I nearly did (for something I wasn't guilty of, and again thanks to them for correcting this). I was also "punished" for the same reason another staff member would, only based on what I've seen and hear in a less lenient way.

 

The rest of your post is your opinion and that's fine, however:

I'm not fully aware of the terms of this but I'm going to look into it. It seems very strange to me a staff member can simply file an inactivity report and then get away with months of activity. Sure, there are obviously terms where a staff member should be allowed to be inactive without being demoted for a completely legitimate reason and I have absolutely no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is when this runs on for months on end, which is what I understand can end up happening (again I will look into this). If this is the case, I'm guessing staff inactivity requests do not apply to semi staff members and so we can just alert someone? There doesn't really seem to be a legitimate written system with how to treat semi staff members anyway so I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of these grey areas.

Firstly, no it isn't, it's considered a semi-staff rank. The key wording here is that it's "considered" not that it "is" one. That instantly changes the meaning slightly in that it's seen as a staff rank, without legitimately being one. It's a small difference but with a key change in meaning. Roke put it more visibly on the wiki team post:

"Wiki Team members have a special Forums tag and are thus technically members of staff. Although you do not have any ingame privileges, you represent Brawl."

Although this is much more clearly distinguished than Doges, it effectively means the same thing- your tag means that you're considered a staff rank, but you aren't actually a fully legitimate staff member. The key thing here is you're expected to represent brawl like a staff member without actually being one. The thread should be updated to be clearer, I agree (if that is indeed what Doges said, Roke put it much more clearly in my opinion)

No, please do criticise current media team permissions if you feel like there's an inconsistency here. The point of the thread is to get people talking about how you think each of these ranks stand in the current system. Right now the admins aren't even attempting to distinguish between the two (I'm doing more by having my title set to this. You could argue the grey colour of the rank makes it look like semi staff but I don't relate a semi staff rank to a colour. Colours change as you move up the staff system anyhow, so it's fairly easy to get staff and semi staff confused anyway). The point is to give an opinion of where you think the current semi staff ranks stand, and if that means you think they should be treated as regular players with less "benefits" than they currently have, then please say so! Media team is another major problem as they represent brawl, but not necessarily have a robust application system to make sure they're capable of doing so. Probably a good idea to do as @SoCool21 said and only allow people in that you trust (which I'd have hoped is what they're doing already, but I guess not).

 

You can choose to see this however you want. I explicitly said that it is NOT my intention to ask for more power and nowhere in this thread so far have I explicitly said I wanted any. I have said that I have wanted explicit clarity for the rank being semi staff rather than seen as full staff. Either that or a change in the system so that they're seen as either full staff ranks, ranked underneath Jmods, or not seen as staff ranks at all. If I was begging for power, I would have put this in the suggestions section. The idea of this thread is to get people talking about it, which it seems to be doing. If you think it is a plea for power after everything I've attempted to do to avoid it, then there really isn't anything I can say or do that's going to convince you otherwise. Nevertheless, the argument that you can just apply for more power is crap, on 2 counts:
- You can't always apply for any rank all the time, it simply doesn't work like that.
- Power doesn't equate to responsibility in the role of a junior moderator. You have a lot more responsibility given than any power you receive. It's a job you volunteer for, not a promotion in my eyes. This is getting into a more shallow conversation for another thread, but I'd be happy to PM you to answer more on that issue.

In no way am I saying the Moderators have an easier time of it than we do. It's pretty damn clear they have a hard job to do, that's why they screen for it. I'm also not asking for equality with the Jmods. I'm advocating for a more clearly defined role for a Semi-Staff rank on how they're treated exactly, seperation from the full staff rather than to be expected to act like one but with less of an input. That's the double standard we have here. I'm asking to be treated like staff if we have to act like staff, or treated like a regular player if we act like one. A power grab is irrelevant to me, or I wouldn't have even chosen to apply for the Wiki rank in the first place (it's pretty damn clear the power of a wiki rank is pathetic in comparison to anything else, you have additional responsibilities). It was written on the application thread itself. I'm here for the community, not for my own benefit, just as it's why I put in effort in other areas. As I said above, if you want to think of it as a power grab, then that isn't my intention or concern, but I'm not wasting my time trying to convince you otherwise

So good news, I went and spoke to a couple moderators on this, and I have to thank you because you raised an issue I can talk about in another thread. The system is silly for quite a few reasons. Before I do list them though- it's fair for a moderator to be inactive for a little whilst as they have lives. You can't be expected to do this job all the time with all the other pressures and activities and that's fair. However, there are limits, the reason has to have limits, and from what I see, it's not quite as robust as I'd like it to, for a number of reasons:
-You can leave for as long as you'd like. The example I was given was Ikemulti (who is gone for a good reason, don't get me wrong) He hasn't been around for months but is still counted as a legitimate staff member. Whilst inactivity is necessary in some circumstances, when you get into a timeframe of months rather than weeks, it gets a little bit ridiculous. Nobody can call that a small break.
-Reasoning can be pretty much anything. This doesn't just include really important legitimate reasons, which is what the system ideally should be for. There are reasons why staff won't be around, but the reasoning behind it isn't limited so in theory it could be anything. You'd hope common sense would prevail and certain reasons would be denied, but bring this on to point 3
-No one in the experience of the mods I talked to (whom I won't mention for the sake of confidentiality) has been denied an inactivity report so far that they've seen, whether the reasoning has been reasonable or not. That's worrying given there must have been a questionable reason before that has been accepted at least once in all that time. I trust the staff to have common sense, but I doubt there are no less than reasonable requests at all.
-In some cases these inactivity report guidelines have been worked to the letter to say the least. There is of course flexibility, but from what I gather with school, when most of the staff that use this reason (which is again, reasonable) and go over this 2 week grace period by quite a way, it begins to become questionable as to can they keep performing the staff rank to the best of their ability. It's not like school is going to get any easier as you get older!

The inactivity system is absolutely a godsend to keep track of all of these potential inactivity reasons and periods. I'd question the flaws in the system on another thread, but at the very least I agree with you in that

Well when some of the pages have about 5 words on them (yes I really did have to edit a wiki page with 5 words on it) it's fairly clear that at the moment the wiki needs an overhaul anyway. With that said, absolutely, no page needs constant updating and changing, other than to keep up with updates. It's not as necessary, but I still think an inactivity system would be helpful in keeping track of them, just as it does with the mods. We have reasons to be inactive too you know!

Same as above

That's actually a really good idea for slack. It doesn't help the players distinguish between the staff and semi staff on the forums, but it helps distinguish on that medium.

Firstly, what is that opinion? Is it I had a choice to apply for a particular rank? Full staff members can also be semi staff members and vice versa so is it that I could have applied for a staff rank and chose not to? If so, see above for that answer. Either way, not asking for power, but more clarity between the 2 very distinct groups of people, or the semi staff ranks to be classed as one or the other rather than in this in-between state

and finally:

Roles are clearly different, that's not what I'm interested in. The very fact it's on a staff ranks page suggests it's a staff rank when in fact it's not defined as such. That's adding to confusion not trying to clear it up.

Section on the staff page labelled semi staff ranks under it? Tags that don't make us look like other types of staff ranks? It's pretty clear the 2 are very confusing still

Hey, if that's how they want to screen for semi staff ranks then that's their decision. I wouldn't accept that but that's on them not me. As for being asked questions relating to stuff moderators cover, then I wouldn't expect you to. Wiki team is clearly labelled, so you're not going to be expected to talk about moderation. Still doesn't mean people don't see it as a staff rank, just it's not that type of staff rank.

As I said above, but a lot of kids just see the cool tag and think "damn that guy/girl must be a staff member, it's an important tag". I'll be honest, I have had a couple questions in-game about stuff about my responsibilities because I have been seen with the tag on the forums. It has happened to me and I don't even have an in-game rank. I wouldn't be surprised if someone else has. It doesn't help the tag looks identical from a staff tag (different coloured tags for different staff ranks).

Agreed, you don't. With that said, you could be nice and actually answer the question if you can to help them out!

In my opinion, they've got a tag and look like staff and so should act like it, that's something that applies already. With that we're not full staff acting like one, it should be clearly defined at the least.

Except we're not, we're semi staff. We're not on the staff team, we're on the semi staff team. We're still being put forward with pretty much no distinction to that of a staff member, so people think we're staff. The most distinguishing feature at the moment is my title telling everyone I'm semi staff, and that's quite sad when you think about it.

Handing out wiki links to kids on the forums without a tag will make them think you're sending them virus' regardless of what the name of the link is. They don't trust us, so a tag makes sense. No reason to get in-game power though absolutely. What if we wanted to help someone out by sending them a link because they're confused, how d'ya think that goes right now (spoiler alert, I tried it, you can guess the result).

2 EU CTF mods, both inactive in-game. There's a good portion of the day where the game isn't covered, and to be honest it would be a really good thing for an EU player to step up and take that responsibility. I wish them the best of luck finding someone who can handle that, because right now whilst the mods from other gamemodes can somewhat cover, it's lead to a lot of regulars banned for hacks they don't actually have.

Agreed you can prove it, although it's very unlikely.

Given the lack of active in-game EU mods right now, I think we need one, obviously they think otherwise. Hopefully by raising the issue in the recent CTF survey that opinion can be changed.

Different roles don't necessarily mean they shouldn't be treated like only semi staff members. I've seen servers before where these ranks are treated as full staff, and also places where they're not treated as one at all (for the love of god don't ask me to remember the names of these places, they were all ridiculous and I have a terrible memory for names). They just have different roles to moderating that's all.

Suggests they're either being lenient or operating an inefficient system. Whichever way you want to look at it isn't really my concern, as you still need people to fill the void.

We're not being treated like even the basic staff members, which is why I dubbed it semi-staff. Hell we're not even allowed into the basic staff chats, which I'd say is fairly clear evidence to counter your argument. Our opinions do not matter in the same way as other staff do (hell roke told us earlier in the thread he basically couldn't care less if we replied to the staff apps even though it was helping the applicants in question, or provided information to help them make a decision). There's more to talk about here but given I've already been told I'm grabbing power I'll spare the lecture given I'll just be made to look even more shallow.

Agreed, different role, doesn't make us any less than staff, although read above as to why that's controversial.

Well it would certainly make updates for the wiki faster, for one. Again going to spare this given I'm told I'm already being shallow and power hungry.

If the job get's done better/faster/more efficiently then I'd argue it's worth it. I looked and saw the changes you made. Also saw your discord ones (5 words, really.)

No but being told ahead of time certainly helps. I don't like being behind personally, and I'd rather have something up ASAP. The longer it's delayed, the more people are kept waiting. As for the argument "well nobody reads it" I've been working on putting messages in game so that people know it exists. It's also been read several thousand times a page and I expect that to go up when the messages in-game are added. Also updating it with more useful information will make it more useful for everyone, but again I digress