Delegate some of Matthews responsibilities to other staff.

This is kind of a combination of a suggestion and feedback, so feel free to move it wherever appropriate.

This is directed at Sythe, Roary, Govind, Matthew and anyone who can bug rich about it.

Matthew is a busy person, and it is well known that if he's manually required to do something it'll take FOREVER or you simply will never get a response. When I look at some of Matthew's responsibilities I see that they could be delegated to other staff or automated in some way. Here are some of the obvious areas that could be improved.

(UI/UT/rank requests): General admins could be given permission to view the requests in the user center/the area of the ACP to modify user images. If this isn't feasible it should simply be automated. Upper staff sees the request in the user center, approved it, and a script handles the request.


(bold holders): I've contacted Matthew multiple times expressing interest and I've never received any kind of response. There is no indication in the user center what the status is concerning bond holders (Not accepting/Accepting/Accepting people who can provide x payment method). Recently someone became a bond holder and had to wait ages (and hassle staff) to get their minirank applied. Someone else could easily handle this responsibility of selecting the bond holders (based on a criteria of some kind, need for bond holders, and what they can provide) and simply PM Matthew when the list needs updated or permissions changed. This would free up some of his time. Alternatively if Rich wanted to get creative certain people could manage bond holders through the user center and it'd automatically apply their minirank and give them the ability to put money into their bond & credit people.

(General support): Things that are broken (such as prize boxes that are glitched) or suggestions directed at Matthew (slightly increased UI space to accommodate longer names) either take forever, don't happen, or are met with a lack of communication. Hopefully freeing up Matthew's time would help with this.

I can't think of any other areas that directly have to do with general use of the site, but I'm sure it'd be about the same. Slow or no response.

This isn't a jab at Matthew, its alright that he's busy. I acknowledge that he volunteers time and effort towards the site. I'm merely suggesting things that he's too busy to do could be handled differently. No more waiting, no more reading warnings that requesting changes too often will get you ignored, no more silence when you have an issue. Fix it.

If someone (Like Rich) wants I can condense into a concise list of small suggestions to fix the problem.

 

I'll hit on a couple things.

Username images - I've pushed for this several times. He feels using an automated system where other admins/staff can upload the images would create a security risk and outright refuses to allow it. I've pushed the matter with both him and Richard with no avail.

User titles - this used to be accessible by admins in the Admin center of the usercenter and for whatever reason, whenever he updated the usercenter, he removed it. I have no idea what his reasoning is.

Rank requests - falls under UI's

 

See: http://www.sythe.org/13791048-post54.html

 

Appreciate it, in that case I'll respond to him directly.

Keep in mind this isn't his whole quote, I just responded to things which were relevant imo.

This is essentially just acknowledging the delays.

Anyone on staff is more than capable of understanding the guidelines around UI's. I understand why it cannot be self service.

Release the template, and let people submit the rank directly. Then it can be approved by staff through the user center.

Any admin here is more than capable of understanding how to do this, hell I have very limited experience with VB and I could do this regardless of how heavily edited your ACP is.

The other option is to do everything automated through the user center, so all they're touching is the options that you've setup.

All admins simply having the ability to do it couldn't hurt, as long as you setup their permissions correctly.

Again, alternatively open it up to all upper staff through the user center and give modscore for it. Anyone who can understand the color system, size guidelines, and that it needs to be kept sfw can handle it.

I've sent you 2-3 PM's and never gotten a word response. Needs to be more clear whether you're accepting bond holders in the user center. What kind of bond holders you're looking for. And you have to make sure you remember to apply the minirank

Without them you likely wouldn't receive 1/5th of the donations. Having a good perk system that runs smoothly is in everyone's best interest. If it runs terribly you're alienating your biggest supporters.

You're obviously busy and burdened with a bunch of responsibilities. The simple fact is things run at a snails pace, communication is poor or nonexistent, etc. Ideally I'd like to see you make yourself more available OR find solutions/delegate wherever possible so you can focus on things that really need your specific attention. If you don't want staff tinkering around in the ACP try and open up as much through the user center as possible. I can't force anything, obviously just a suggestion but the site would be the better for it.

I'm sorry, but I really disagree with this attitude.

 

I really just can't see an Admin uploading malicious code in this manner. I can see a couple potential scenarios but they aren't really all that difficult to work around.

Hoping this could get restored.

Sorry for my walls of text, I'll leave this open for others to comment.

 

Wanted to comment on this directly

He's referring to the servers themselves. Not the ACP or anything even close to that.

I've dabbled with one of Richards servers (when I was running the teamspeak and the terarria server) and I can attest to this fact - any normal user would be lost as fuck migrating the protocols they have in place to protect the servers, or even the servers themselves. Me having an IT background, I was able to figure it out pretty quickly. Any general user, without such a background, doesn't stand a chance.

 

Ah, thank you for pointing out. Regardless, I'm sure especially technical admins (Govind and yourself) could be instructed pretty simply on how to do it. Or some interface (user center) is devised to let it be done without risk of error.

 

Yeah the problem with this goes back to his initial post. Richard and Matthew refuse to give server access to anyone else, regardless of their backgrounds, which I can completely understand from a security perspective. As for creating scripts to automate the process, I've also fought for this in the past on a few occasions and got shot down each time.

 

Been replying from cell the last several posts, but I just got home from work. DD if you have any other questions, let me know. I can jump on TS if you want and answer the ones I'm able to directly.

 

Still worth mentioning, maybe more people talking about it will inspire a change. I bet you anything if either Matthew/Govind/Sythe cared enough to spend an afternoon or two working on it, what I've described could be securely accomplished. If not, something needs to happen. A second person taking on half of Matthews responsibilities or Matthew getting paid to be more readily available, etc.

Can't because my room mate is around, don't have any specific questions per se just getting my thoughts out there for consideration.

 

Fair enough.

I've sent this thread link to both Matt and Richard on Facebook, so maybe they'll weigh in soon. I can't guarantee the response will be any different from http://www.sythe.org/13791048-post54.html but they've both been asked for input.

 

I'm fine with some updates to the bond process, I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to have another admin become a "head bond holder" or something of the sort to help with the process of selection. One of the things we are missing is a guide for new bond holders on holding bonds, processing donations and communication for that type of thing.


Obviously i'm involved in this so I can comment, Seeing as I dont know much about servers I'm inclined not to tune in on the other points Darkest makes.

 

Appreciate it, I just want to re-iterate I'm picking things apart because I see areas of improvement. I'm not trying to bash on Matthew, I can see how manually doing shit stuff for years on end could get tiring and repetitive. These are all suggestions to try and lighten his to-do list so he can concentrate on other things.

 

I was handling UT's for a short while when the option became available to but when Matthew removed the option he just said there wasn't a build up and he could do it in his own time, to answer that part. Although; sometimes I have been having users PM me and having me change them manually - so access to this again would be alright IMO.

Images requiring server access probably wont ever happen and I can understand why.

 

The delay between approvals are both a blessing and a misfortune to some degree. Being the picky person I am, my indecisiveness will lead me to cancelling most of my requests. If my requests were accepted faster, I would probably be left with unwanted/incomplete materials. I had the same as you attitude towards the approval wait for most things when I first gained access to upper level perks, but over time it's something you will get used to and appreciate inadvertently. Still, I wouldn't mind other staff also handling perk requests.

Matthew, please read this if you haven't.

 

In this example, waiting a week or longer isn't really a good thing. If you need to request a couple times until you find what you like so be it, I'd like to see a system where this isn't a hassle to do for either party.

I'd encourage you to continue testing and in the meantime double down on these requests whenever possible. Ideally n4n0 and govind would be given temporary access to help speed things like this along but if you're capable of getting them done in a reasonable time that'd be better.

I think I acknowledged here that these get done fine. If they're being approved through the user center global+ could be able to handle this but if setting it up is a pain I'm mostly indifferent.

You didn't actually address my issue. The problem isn't that I wasn't selected but rather that you didn't take 5 seconds to respond to any of my messages inquiring about it. Either you don't care or you're too busy, and I'm choosing to believe its because you're too busy. There is no information in the user center or mention of this process whatsoever. No staff seemed to have any information on it.

I'm really not trying to pick at you, but the minirank is a necessary part of the bond holder system. If you don't apply it you've put of money and time with no way to show that you're an actual bond holder.

That's perfectly fine, I'm suggestion things to eliminate as much of the repetitive and mundane tasks from your responsibilities so you can spend time doing this kind of thing.

Again, not bashing on you but you're notorious for taking ages to respond or not at all. If something directly related to you comes up I'll give it a shot.

Really dislike this attitude. It isn't 5 minutes, its days or weeks or never. In my experience, never being more likely.

Sythe is a business afik with a responsibility to cater to its users. If something is slow or inefficient fix it, don't blame your customers for being impatient when things can take ages.

I can't really speak as to whether or not its an improvement because the user center has been here since I've joined. I'm sure it has helped speed certain things along, which is a direction which I think you should continue to pursue.

All of this text can be summarized as.

• Get UI's approved faster
• Be more transparent/post more information on bond holders and make sure to set them up correctly
• Try and improve your communication and response times and if its just too much for one person find a way to delegate some of the work load

I appreciate you considering my suggestions/feedback.

 

matthew's a good friend of mine and i don't appreciate him being talked down to by a jumped up little runt like you

watch your mouth

 

Thanks.