Staff Revamp

From when I was staff, hack tests were pretty extensive and took a good while to create, so even if someone did nothing but make hack tests, I think it would take at least a month or more just to gather material for it.

Other than that, it's a fat +1 from me

 

As a former staff, I know there is a lot of stuff that goes on that the community doesn't know about. So in terms of someone being "ready for smod", there is a lot more than just what the community sees (even though most of the time the incidents that the community doesn't see, shouldn't prevent any staff member from being ready to be an SMOD). I agree with you that promotions shouldn't be taken as seriously, and that if someone is trusted to be a jmod/mod they should be trusted enough to be an SMOD.

Though I don't agree with all of your wanted promotions, I agree there is a hole to be filled and there are plenty of staff that are qualified to do that.

 

I did my part on banning cheatera when I was a Mod. Also there are something i don't think you know or see what goes on in the staff team. I recently resigned due to some of these issues and would gladly come back if they were fixed. Also a test was held rather recently as there was a good group promoted around 2 or 3 weeks ago. I was one of them and was able to round up over 400 bans. I know who is on and who isn't as you can keep tabs on that from the website and i have a feel on who could become an SMod and who might or could be demoted. I feel that staff members need more encouragement over negativey. I have seen when some are away and report it but, staff see it and players don't. I know CTf has tbe most staff on it but, not all of them should be bashed on as there are some who go on in vanish and do it silently over saying something in chat asking to be seen. I went to ever report that I saw even if it was a regular. Personally it wasn't that hard to get on war and ban someone from flying or speed. I have seen Nohox and ningeek on alot. Carno was reported away and Jeenss was away for sometime as well. I don't think a staff member needs to post everytime they are going away for a set amount of time. NickmanEA speak for himself if he wishes on being JMod. I know the sfruggle of being one as I was for quite some time and still went to reports when i didn't see a Mod+ on and if there was I would tell then to ban the player for me. I have over 200+ recordings from when i was JMod i could look for exacts but, not needed. I'm not here to argue but, I have seen reports get ignored and that needs to be fixed. I went to war reports and warZ even if i didn't see anything i waites and watched for em a little while longer. I wouldn't mind coming back at all if a main concern of mine is dealt with.

 

that sounds so good to the community that receives input we don't want, and keeps getting told all the **** we want to be updated on is going on "behind the scenes" shadow ops headass

 

i'll keep it real with you chief, if anything my chance at being smod was before I resigned, as of now I don't see myself getting anything above mod mainly cause of my activity and overall act but yah I agree with most of your points

 

Write an essay for me please.

 

I've noticed when I was uploading videos of hackers and reported them on brawl it took weeks until they got banned. Also I had some videos which got denied because of "Insignificant proof." ( There was a obvious blink ) or "Proof URL not working." but it's still working for me when I watch at it. That was the only thing I was complaining about but now it got a little bit better.

 

Some staff have preferences, I could tell you why few staff hopped on WarZ but I try to moderate the late hours when I'm on. With Smod promotions, I think the issue is people expect it to be given to them rather than approaching the manager and giving a full detail on why they should. I agree more Smods would help the server but to be given a management role, imo you gotta go get it not just get it.

 

I might have seen that video and from what I could tell the person was there in the first place, either there was a delay in your video or something. Also when it comes to videos like that it can take time to determine if it is bannable.

Maybe we were not on at the same time but, I notice that sometimes reports get ignored so people can enjoy their game. I have done it around once or twice and sometimes myself. I am just speaking from my experience though as I am sure everyone has their own of certain members. Most staff members like to stay on their server specific which is odd. I was a Mod for kit going to party, war, warZ, CTF, and then so. I agree that staff should go to reports more often over the game as it could help people from their game experience getting ruined cause of one cheater. I am not saying your are wrong on any point of them needing to go to reports over the game.

 

Something that could really benefit the network in general is if staff members were to branch out of their comfort zones. Play some of the gamemodes they have never or have rarely tried. This would make it much easier for a staff member to simply hop game modes rather than have to mull it over because they aren't comfortable on that server. I was often guilty of this, not wanting to go to CTF or other servers because I didn't understand the gamemode enough to be sure someone was hacking. That being said, with the number of staff members now, staff need to be more versatile than ever. There aren't enough staff members now where there is at least one from each gamemode on at all times. Staff need to cover more servers, and be able to compensate if a server needs a staff member at the time.

 

I know what you mean, I was a Kit staff member and played CTF not much but, every now and then. Now I play War, and CTF more often, and sometimes WarZ. Raid was also another gamemode I got into due to joining other servers and checking things out. You never know what kind of fun you can have on a gamemode until you try it. Staff members should try each gamemode even if its to just understand and know the mechanics of it more. Like on war there are UAVs which could make some staff members not know what that is (pretty much makes the name tag visible) and how certain gamemodes don't have that.

 

I would report a cheater once or twice in succession and nobody would get on for around the same time, but I knew there were mods on. So I'd spam /support and instantly get muted/banned, which has happened many many times. Yet the cheater, the one actually ruining the server for everyone would get away because the staff are lazy. The quality of the staff team in general has vanished too.

 

Seeing as I've had my own personal experiences with the staff team and promotions, I feel I should comment on this.

I've been away for too long to know the behind-the-scenes look at the staff team, and being staff for longer than I've not been staff is a very weird experience. With that said, I can't say for certain if the staff are working on things they say they're working on or not, and it isn't my place to say one way or the other. However, from my viewpoint, there are a lot of old staff members and not many new ones. I'm unsure if this is because there have been no good candidates that have applied, or if Brawl is becoming increasingly pickier, but I like to lean towards the latter. From my time on the staff team, I know that the higher ups like to take a more "if we aren't 100% sure, don't accept them" attitude. This has been changing slowly with promotions, but I do agree with tallscot's statement that things should be more fast-paced in terms of promoting staff members to smod+.

Whenever discussion came up in the staff chat about the promotion of more managers, the argument always put forth by the admins was that smods would have access to IPs and would therefore be a risk to promote, should they turn against the staff team. I always felt that this was a little strict, especially considering how strict the requirements are to get staff in the first place. However, we also can't just give people smod once they've hit a certain milestone (such as time spent on the staff team, number of hours spent catching hackers, number of bans, etc) because that could be used as a means of abusing the system (even if it wasn't intended). This brings me to Mafia's point about making an argument for why someone should be smod. As biased as this opinion may be, this hasn't appeared to work in the past. This was shown through my repeated attempts to ask for a more integral part of the server, as well as Anonymous's and many others. As for my solution to this problem? A different staff manager; someone who hasn't been in a position of high power for very long. I'm referring to a mod, or a newer smod.

The community, not just the staff team, has expressed interest in many people being promoted. Some of the higher up staff members have been here for so long, in my opinion, that their traditional promoting methods are holding the server back. In a time when the server was full of thousands of new players every day, it was completely reasonable to be strict about promotions. However, with the decrease in playerbase, regulars are well-known amongst the community and are typically easy to judge about their abilities to help the server. I feel that with the replacement of the staff manager, a newer, more liberal ideology about promotions will begin to take over. Having someone not accustomed to power would likely mean they understand what it's like to not have any, which would make their decisions to promote people be more based on ability and less on power itself.

I understand how hard it is to let go of old traditions, but times change and getting rid of roles on the server because of the fear of giving someone else power means that eventually there will be no roles at all. Everyone has given good input so far and I agree with parts from every one. Although admins don't typically answer threads like this, I know they at least used to look at them. I'm almost positive they still do, so please consider taking a little bit of everyone's advice. It's well-known that many times a solution is easier to see when taking an outside look, and much of the community on the forums have been here for a long, long time with no connection to the staff team. With that said, they don't see behind-the-scenes. They have no duty to keep quiet or risk upsetting higher ups and facing demotion. If there are many regulars making a call to action, it's because they see something that maybe the people on the inside can't see. Thoughts?

 

There should be a requirement to be global staff instead of just not being on trial.