[Rejected] Admin Applications

[roux]

1) EVERYBODY EVER should always be able to give their thoughts and vote on an applicant no matter what. You can't just shut down a group of people YOU feel are inadequate. This is why we have a buffer (BD's making the call in the end) from the public directly determining the outcome through popular vote.

 

That's the key word, THEIR opinion. Not the popular, the worthless opinions. I'm not the guy who decides who posts and who doesn't.

I feel them inadequate, I prefer a person not posting rather than them going full bandwagon.

 

2) It isn't,and should never, be up to you to make the decision that someones thoughts are invalid due to circumstances upon which they are made. For example, if someone says "i don't like them because they did this a few months ago," it is not up to you to say their thought/feeling is invalid because it was made on what you think is not an acceptable experience to use in a certain situation (like something that happened months ago).

 

I never said I'm calling these opinions invalid, what I'm calling invalid is someone saying stuff they NEVER experienced, not to mention any names, but on @All Ts ' application, people were saying stuff like "you were quite something before, I heard you were an asshole, etc etc." Then again, these players were NOT on SG at that time, 3ish years ago. This is not MY decision, but this opinion would be invalid. Not because I decided so, but because this is just blatant bandwagon'ing.

3) Never make an assumption of how someone's opinion was formed

 

I don't, they're not assumptions, but seeing how they're written you can TELL this person doesn't know what they're talking about, who they're voting on. Farming 100 posts perhaps?

 

4) Kind of goes with point 3, don't assume someone is bandwagon-ing or their final vote was made the way it was because everyone else influenced them. First of all, it isn't necessarily bandwagon-ing if someone changes their mind because everyone else went against them. It is completely normal and OK for someone to change their mind based on what others have to say (I mean, that's how the BD's decide who to pick right? They make their decision based on what the community has to say in addition to their own beliefs). Secondly, everybody has a reason to vote the way they do. If they truly 100% thought an applicant deserved either a re-apply, abstain, or support, they would pick that decision in the end. If their decision changes based on others, that means there is at least SOME sliver of a doubt in what they believe, and that alone provides BD's with a massively improved sense of the entirety of the application.

You're right. In the end, it's the BDs who choose whether someone is an admin. However, if what you said was true, they wouldn't need the community's thoughts on people. We both went throught that Fluid, and because of the voters, we're both admins now. We vote for a reason, and what I'm arguing for is to make the voting more of a serious thing, making posting support worth something, cause at the moment, it's either a shit ton of support, a shit ton of reapplies, cause other's opinions are making people uncomfortable to post theirs, since it'd be "different"

 

That's just How I feel reading admin apps. Don't take my words out of context, unless I made myself unclear in my previous post.

[michellec]

@All Ts

I just wanted to say that I was actually not talking about your application, at all lol... There are a lot of other people who have asked about the same thing and I have basically repeated whatever I said the last time someone has thought about this. On the other hand, maybe I should have read the other posts haha

[Bread]

The point you made about you getting CA in 7 months is pretty much a straw man argument in the fact that you getting CA in 7 months has nothing to do with the 50 people that apply every few months.

 

His point on getting CA in 7 months is that people are more than capable of judging how a person is in a shorter amount of time than a full 6 months. Ghost and many other recent admins received admin in far less than 6 months (one being as short as one month), and losing out on the opportunity to gain these admins because some people are unable to judge a person in a shorter amount of time would be unfortunate, both for the admin themself and the community.

 

The admin system is supposed to be a smooth process and ideally, we would like to keep gaining new admins who do a good job rather than make them wait for a long perioid of time, when it's clear that they would be capable of handling it. We had such a small influx of admins with some of our older systems, and the lack of admins was one of the reasons the community got stuck in a hole. This system can't assure that an admin will do a good job, but if they don't, it's fairly easy to see and handle accordingly.

 

Anyway, I speak out as much as I possibly can but it's gotten to the point where people are so easily manipulated and uneasy to reply that making players posts not view-able by lower ranking players is probably the only existing solution.

 

I'm not sure where this whole manipulation argument comes from (aside from one recent application which didn't turn out well), especially considering in the past 4 months we have only gotten 2 entirely new admins, both of which seem to be doing a great job. Of course I can't speak with certainty here as no single person is capable of seeing everything that goes down, but if this whole manipulation thing does exist, then it's not working out very well for those who are using it.

 

I never said I'm calling these opinions invalid, what I'm calling invalid is someone saying stuff they NEVER experienced, not to mention any names, but on @All Ts ' application, people were saying stuff like "you were quite something before, I heard you were an asshole, etc etc." Then again, these players were NOT on SG at that time, 3ish years ago. This is not MY decision, but this opinion would be invalid. Not because I decided so, but because this is just blatant bandwagon'ing.

 

These kinds of votes have no weight at all, and will have no impact on the outcome of the application. It's also fairly easy to see when someone puts no thought at all into their vote, or votes for wrong reasons, and more often than not they get called out for it. In literally any voting system people will base their vote off of dumb reasons, but that's just something that needs to be corrected as it happens.

[All Ts]

His point on getting CA in 7 months is that people are more than capable of judging how a person is in a shorter amount of time than a full 6 months. Ghost and many other recent admins received admin in far less than 6 months (one being as short as one month), and losing out on the opportunity to gain these admins because some people are unable to judge a person in a shorter amount of time would be unfortunate, both for the admin themself and the community.

 

The admin system is supposed to be a smooth process and ideally, we would like to keep gaining new admins who do a good job rather than make them wait for a long perioid of time, when it's clear that they would be capable of handling it. We had such a small influx of admins with some of our older systems, and the lack of admins was one of the reasons the community got stuck in a hole. This system can't assure that an admin will do a good job, but if they don't, it's fairly easy to see and handle accordingly.

 

 

I don't believe you would fully lose the opportunity to get them as admins because honestly if someone doesn't stick around because they aren't climbing ranks you probably don't want them in the first place. I will change my mind on the full 6 months though, I just feel like 3 is too short and you make a convincing argument.

 

The manipulation argument comes from the fact that SG in it's entirety has a lot of extremely biased people who will fully support their friends without thought and many, many people who act very differently around anyone SA+. If I didn't want to keep this thread from becoming a flame war I could very easily put A LOT of people on blast for shit like recommendations, supports/reapplies, complete personal biases' and caring far too much about peoples view on them instead of caring about whats actually right or wrong.

 

I can see eye to eye with you on the basis of correcting idiotic, half assed posts on Admin applications but I honestly feel like there is a limit to what the BD's actually get to see rather than just hearsay. I don't believe that the information people take from one anothers posts on applications outweighs the opportunity to get unbiased, unfiltered, legitimate opinions though. It is completely undeniable that people will still discuss admin applications and many posts will be inspired by someone elses thoughts regardless.. but definitely not to the same degree if the posts were to not be seen by everyone.

[Bread]

The manipulation argument comes from the fact that SG in it's entirety has a lot of extremely biased people who will fully support their friends without thought and many, many people who act very differently around anyone SA+. If I didn't want to keep this thread from becoming a flame war I could very easily put A LOT of people on blast for shit like recommendations, supports/reapplies, complete personal biases' and caring far too much about peoples view on them instead of caring about whats actually right or wrong.

 

It's unfortunate, but there is no solution to eliminating personal bias. It will exist in any system of voting, regardless of the topic. Yes, people are more likely to vote for/recommend their friends, but this could be simply because they are friends, and get to know each other better and on a more personal level than strangers would. If someone votes "yes, he is my friend", then obviously the vote will be deleted, but for the most part, people do give justified reasons when giving their support, even to their friends.

 

I've seen dozens of applications where someone got called out for acting differently around normal players than they do admins, but this is expected when around someone of higher status than you, both online here and in person. If it becomes a problem (i.e. someone being a complete douche to other players but sucking up to admins, which usually seems to be the case), it gets called out more often than not and reflects badly on the applicant.

 

I can see eye to eye with you on the basis of correcting idiotic, half assed posts on Admin applications but I honestly feel like there is a limit to what the BD's actually get to see rather than just hearsay. I don't believe that the information people take from one anothers posts on applications outweighs the opportunity to get unbiased, unfiltered, legitimate opinions though. It is completely undeniable that people will still discuss admin applications and many posts will be inspired by someone elses thoughts regardless.. but definitely not to the same degree if the posts were to not be seen by everyone.

 

I agree that people will always be influenced by others, but I wouldn't say it's always a negative thing. Seeing others opinions on someone can help you realize/notice something you didn't before about the applicant, then you play with them again and realize that it's true, and vote accordingly. I haven't seen any recent examples at all about someone receiving admin solely based off of what others said, and bandwagonning on a support train.

 

Yes, some people may let other's opinions influence their vote, but I have yet to see an app that was decided solely off of this idea. If anything, I would imagine it being more of a problem with applications which get reapplied, but in the end, there is a valid reason for them receiving the reapply votes, as long as the votes are justified.

[All Ts]

It's unfortunate, but there is no solution to eliminating personal bias. It will exist in any system of voting, regardless of the topic. Yes, people are more likely to vote for/recommend their friends, but this could be simply because they are friends, and get to know each other better and on a more personal level than strangers would. If someone votes "yes, he is my friend", then obviously the vote will be deleted, but for the most part, people do give justified reasons when giving their support, even to their friends.

 

I've seen dozens of applications where someone got called out for acting differently around normal players than they do admins, but this is expected when around someone of higher status than you, both online here and in person. If it becomes a problem (i.e. someone being a complete douche to other players but sucking up to admins, which usually seems to be the case), it gets called out more often than not and reflects badly on the applicant.

 

 

 

I agree that people will always be influenced by others, but I wouldn't say it's always a negative thing. Seeing others opinions on someone can help you realize/notice something you didn't before about the applicant, then you play with them again and realize that it's true, and vote accordingly. I haven't seen any recent examples at all about someone receiving admin solely based off of what others said, and bandwagonning on a support train.

 

Yes, some people may let other's opinions influence their vote, but I have yet to see an app that was decided solely off of this idea. If anything, I would imagine it being more of a problem with applications which get reapplied, but in the end, there is a valid reason for them receiving the reapply votes, as long as the votes are justified.

 

It's definitely not always negative I just think the negatives outweigh the positives. People would still definitely discuss applications, but I don't think we would see it to as extreme a level.

[Caution]

I'll jump into this discussion when I got off work in a few hours.

[Caution]

 

BIG PARAGRAPH OF COMPLAINTS

 

Admin applications have created a giant rift in the community recently in attitude, opinion and has created so much unnecessary separation due to its extremely controversial nature. Undeniably in the last 6 months the servers have seen a clear upwards draft in people trying to get admin for the complete wrong reasons and for the most part this has been thwarted by everyone but it still remains as an issue.

 

This is, and has always been, something that happens. Not everyone wants SA for good; some people just want to watch the world burn. Seriously though, I would rather us have a shitload of people trying to apply for admin than nobody applying for admin. As BD's, we go through and choose who is selected - and while we definitely take community input into consideration, we will ultimately veto the application if we do not feel comfortable with it for whatever reason. It's pretty rare for us to do that though, we've only gone against the general community-grain a few times.

People have been regurgitating the same shit out of what seems like either laziness or dick sucking and the public nature of the applications has promoted people to bandwagon and pick and choose ideas instead of being an individual.

Always will be a thing - see above.

 

One of my main concerns is that due to the somewhat detachment of AO, and BD's from the servers people will simply manipulative and act their way to admin for months while people struggle to get a hold on who someone actually is.

 

While I don't deny that this has happened in the past, it's pretty rare nowadays. We don't tolerate admins acting like idiots and are pretty swift with dealing punishments if need be, which have included admins being malicious dicks for no reason. Like I said - it happens, but if someone wants to fake who they are for one month, three months, or six months, eventually the truth will come out and we will deal with it.

 

By the time someone gets SA it may take weeks or months to realize that they've been doing things wrong such as banning for petty or otherwise bullshit reasons while they could overall make SG a less enjoyable place to be.

Admin-ing is a learning experience. In 100% of the admins that I have seen here at SG, it does take them a few weeks or a few months to get a hang of how to handle it...nobody starts out as a perfect admin lol. Some people ban too little, some too much, etc. Either way, that's part of our role here - to guide admins into being a good, overall admin. While it's important for other SA's to act as peers and keep each other in check, it's our job here as higher ups to sometimes be the bad guy and tell people what they're doing wrong.

 

I'm basically saying that peoples admin applications should not be decided off of the first page of posts (which go ahead and check because statistically its genuinely a real thing)

 

Well, since you're presenting a strawman as a possible fallacy here, may I bring up the 'false cause' fallacy? The first page of posts has nothing to do with whether or not someone gets admin, save for if someone presents certain reasons that others may not know about. While I have no doubt that your claim of first page of posts vs. acceptance is true, that doesn't mean it's the reason nor even a remote factor as to why people get accepted. I could say 'People whose names start with a consonant instead of a vowel get accepted more than people whose names start with vowels.' While there may be actual merit to my claim, just because one thing is true does not mean a randomly grabbed cause has to be true as well.

 

and I'm honestly tired of watching people fall in line behind straw man arguments and clear personal biases because they're too afraid to try to think outside the box. Recommendations while they're nice have, has turned mostly into a friends helping out friends system which again brings me back to the point that people that act for a few weeks/months can quite easily climb ranks on SG.

 

Well yeah, personal biases are going to exist in any and every system that we can ever create. We try to squash it the best we can if it gets too ridiculous, but it's going to happen, whether it's good bias or bad. The friends helping friends thing hardly exists, however, like it did back in the voting system. If I go into an app and see 20 subs and regs saying a certain guy is an angel, but I have 2 SA's, 3 CA's, and an AO saying 'absolutely not, this guy is an asshole and here's why', I'm probably going to take more weight into consideration with the people who are higher ranking. Higher ranks don't necessarily get 'more say' in who becomes an admin, but they have generally have been around the block a bit longer or know what is needed when it's pertaining to admin ranks. As I mentioned, personal bias has happened and will always continue to happen - just call people out in a generally respectful way if it seems shady. Hell, I've called out AO's for having bias.

 

To say that this system promotes manipulation would be an overstatement, but to say that it's definitely become something to be concerned about is just a fucking fact. In my personal experience on SG many moons ago I think the BD's selected the best staff for the community and although that system worked well I think it would be horrible if implemented now. Most of the AO's and BD's are not active enough on the servers to get a clear read on someone to make the SOLE DECISION to give them SA, which is for the most part why I think quality community input is important.

I think it would be an overstatement as well, and I don't really think this current system is a problem. Yeah, it has its issues, but ultimately it isn't that bad. I'm not sure what system you're talking about where solely AO's and BD's selected people. I could be wrong, but the only system that even sounds like that is when the CA's+ where the ones who voted on apps.

 

 

 

SOLUTIONS TO BIG PARAGRAPH OF COMPLAINTS

 

 

 

• Don't allow Mems, Regs, SAs, CAs, to see everyone's posts on applications. This will prevent people from feeling nervous about maybe saying something negative about their friend while still leaving a system where people are supposed to put forth their personal experience. This would also would stop my previously mentioned issue with people simply regurgitating something someone else has already said out of pure laziness or for lack of a better word. Dicksucking. I'm not entirely sure whether the forums has the foundation to facilitate a system like this but if it could be done that would be terrific.
  

 

If you can't post publicly what your opinion about somebody is, you shouldn't be posting your opinion. I can somewhat understand the merit of where you are coming from, but sometimes people also have good insight or personal experiences to share about an applicant, and it should be divulged publicly.

 

 

 

• Remove the 100 post requirement (or lower it) because there is actually a lot of players on the servers who dislike the forums and just want to help out the servers. While posts on the forums helps gauge someones critical thinking and personality I think it shouldn't be a requirement and should be treated more like an accolade. This will also stop people from spamming the forums with shit posts constantly.
  

God no. No, no, no, no, 10000000 times no. It has much more to do than gauge critical thinking and personality, it's also to ensure people will be active on the forums to read rule changes with adminship, server rule changes, inquiries about bans and complaints, community input, etc. The spamming happens, but it is easily rectified by an AO deleting the post or by leaving it and letting the guy get publicly shamed (lightly).

 

Increase the time for people to apply to 6 months to allow the ENTIRE community to get a good handle on their pros and cons. This would stop people from running around acting fake and nice for 6 months and let everyone get a good read on how that person actually acts. I'd say an increase to 6 months would probably stop 50% of the people who are getting admin for the vanity and don't care about SG or it's players.

 

 

I actually (almost) entirely agree with this and would love to have this. I think there should be a 4-5 month wait.

 

 

As far as I know, none of these solutions have been tried under the community's opinion under the same circumstances. It's not about 100% satisfying the community, it's about creating a system that doesn't lead to drama and discourage good regulars from applying for SA.

 

'Same circumstances' is a pretty variable term, where the meaning could be entirely different based upon the person's definition. Right now, I can tell you that we have tried all of those things you suggested, and they have worked out horribly (save for the 6 month rule, imo).

 

I think hiding other posts would be a great idea. Many just lazily write "this^" (don't feel bad, no one is to blame for that) and/or giving fake/shitty reasons to support since "the majority voted support, ima be cool too". I don't see any downsides to this. People will have to give GOOD reasons to vote, cause I don't see a quoted "this" post as valuable as the guy who wrote it all, who gave the initial feedback.

 

Completely agree with this. I was outvoted on this, however. The opposing argument wasn't necessarily invalid, I just didn't agree with the reasoning.

 

Honestly, I want to see other people's posts. Especially on certain apps as of recently, when seeing someone post shit that's absolutely absurd to be holding against people. People should be allowed to call out on that shit, and some of us here actually are capable of doing so without devolving the application into a pissing match between two people.

 

Absolutely an important factor as to why we don't make the posts private.

 

 

 

-----------------------------------

 

The rest of it seems to be a mixture of BD's not being able to see everything and people favoring their friends. Obviously, we aren't going to see everything - we're 5 people in a community with hundreds and hundreds of people. We do the best that we can, but obviously get bogged down by real life or other things that take a higher priority in the community. I can go on and on with examples, but it's hard to explain unless you have actually been in the shoes of a BD, or any higher rank at a community where there are a ton of people. We have spent entire days doing nothing but responding to PM's, forum threads, and having teamspeak meetings. And that's on a good day / week / month / whatever where our personal lives aren't interfering as much. The best thing I can say is that if you look at the BD description, it says '...anything else that needs to be done.' That can encompass so many things, and usually it does. It's just not a practical use of our time, which is why we allow the entire community to tell us their stories of the person applying for admin.

 

Personal bias is also something that will always continue to exist. There is absolutely no way for us to be able to go through and try and decipher every post, determining whose experiences are real and whose aren't. The fact though is that all of the BD's have almost a decade of time here at SG under their belt. Collectively, we have roughly 20+ years of experience as a high ranking member of a gaming community. While I'm not saying it's impossible to fool us long enough just to get admin, it generally does not happen. The quality of admins we have right now is pretty high, with very few getting strikes or even misusing their admin powers. We do the best that we can to squash bias when we see it, but it's going to exist in every possible situation - "Perfect objectivity is always impossible..."

 

At the end of the day, I can tell you that an overhaul of the admin system is extremely unlikely. The system we have now works extremely well when put in comparison to old systems. If anyone thinks they have a better system in their head, I implore them to send me a PM - because we have collectively yet to find one. Some minor tweaks may occur here and there, but the system we have now is going to be around for awhile.

[All Ts]

big wall' o text

 

Your post was great but I just wanted to clear a few things up. I talked to @XeNo about the 100 post count a few hours after I posted this I've very much changed my opinion on it since then.

 

The only thing about your post that confuses me is that you disagreed with me here?

 

 

but here you agreed with @RouxQuiDecalisse post here

 

 

Maybe it was my wording/reasoning but thats basically exactly what I meant to say.

 

Did you mean to disagree with the point or just the reasoning behind it?

 

 

-

 

 

By the way. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for staying on topic and actually not turning this post into a complete shit fest. Kinda happy to see some actual forum discussion rather than just memes and flame.

[Caution]

I disagree with you as far as making posts private

 

I agree with Roux as far as not allowing people to just type "this ^"