x339's Thoughts...

Hello everyone, it’s me again. Yea yea I know, “l0l noob I new u’d be back”, and yes I am, but only for my last little hoo-rah. Since I’ve left I have been lurking on other sites similair to sythe such as, d2jsp, ownedcore, and powerbot, and my biggest fears for sythe were realized. Sythe is lightyears behind in forum tech and activity. It made me realize that not only was I right about sythe never growing, but we are falling behind as well. How can we expect to compete with forums that have double, or even triple our activity? I am going to do my best to outline every problem I can think of, and hopefully people will finally open their minds instead of continuing to block out everything negative they hear. Please do not post until you have read everything I have to say, and only if it is constructive.

I. Admins
My last thread was mainly concerned with the Admins. I believe I outlined my main feelings about them, and unfortunatley it did not end well. Not only did only 2 of them even acknowledge the feedback, but they completely refused to even take it into consideration. That is the first main problem, threads such as mine are all handled the same way. Instead of talking to the OP, the accused will point out the smallest flaw and blow it up. Even if has almost nothing to do with the main idea, the flaw will be taken and stretched to the point where the accused can then say that everything the OP says is stupid and wrong. For example in my thread (http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1423659) I put across a majority of main ideas, and then somehow I was being brought down by the fact that I don’t know every little detail about how plugins effect the vulnerability of Sythe. Pretty specific huh? It’s kind of funny considering that was such a small part of my topic. Well that’s how things work, which leads to the next step of the process.

After a flaw has been found, that’s when all the lackies come on board. Once that flaw has been found, every single member who wants to prove themselves to the staff will instantly be against the OP. Essentially, the OP is bullied to the point where they are forced to give up. An example of this (http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1409487) . Perhaps the OP was wrong in how he approached the subject, and that can be expected considering it takes a while to become an expert in sythe policies, but his general idea was based on his experience. His post was based on what he had experienced, and what he had felt, yet the people who responded to him, insisted that he was wrong. Wrong. Apparently, people’s opinions can be wrong. I’ve noticed that’s not how things work around here. Unless you are a high ranking, well known member of the community, you’re opinion is wrong, and the staff’s opinion is right. This leads to what we have now, a staff feedback thread full of virtual high-fives, and pats on the back, and absolutley nothing negative is tolerated, which opens up all of the other problems I am going to get into.

One of these problems, as I talked about in my other thread is admin activity. Other than Finn, no other admin has been overwhelmingly active. I have heard the excuses a million times over, “admins have jobs”, “admins have to work”, “Sythe is no-ones first priority”, well that’s all well and good, but it’s not helping anyone. Countless times I have heard that admin’s aren’t required to be very active, but why not? Maybe that’s Richard’s fault for instilling that policy. Inactive admin’s may do the job, but really, are they helping anything? Sure they can do the job, but I guarantee there are plenty of people who can do the same exact things, and would be active at it as well. If you have a full time job, and don’t have the time to give to sythe, or don’t feel the need to give time to sythe, then you shouldn’t be an admin. Plain and simple. Admin’s are the highest of authorities, and yet they think they don’t need to do anything outside of the listed requirements. I also find it ironic that the general admins are stripped of many admin permissions because Matthew and/or Richard feel that they will “break” things. That is just ridiculous, if you don’t trust someone in the position, then why are they there? Richard, Matthew, and Govind are the “tech experts”, so they get all the permissions. Why? I may not know the extent of it, but if someone is an admin, they should atleast have the ability to do things admins do, such as give out a rank. This is especially important considering the “tech experts” do not feel they need to be present at all. That leaves us with 3 admins, who may put some activity forward, but what are they really other than some less active, glorified globals.

What do I propose to do about this? Make Govind/Matthew soley the tech experts, having them in the admin position just makes the admin group more crowded, which leaves people with the feeling that there are too many admins. That is of course unless they decide to start become more active. I understand your skills are necessary, and very beneficial, but unless you’re going to fill the entire role, don’t bother. Next, require the current general admins to be a part of the community. If you can’t do things the other admins can do, then what is your role? Handing out bans, closing threads? Sounds like a global’s job to me. If you’re not going to have the power to do other things, then what’s the point of having you? It would be very good for everyone if the admins were more involved. Participate in contests, post around more, do your best to support and grow the community. That’s what you need to do. Don’t sit back and just do the minimum requirements, you’re not helping anyone by doing that, there are plenty of people who can do that. If you have a job and can’t do that, then resign, you’re not helping anyone by doing what you’re doing. As I have said a million and one times, the admin role is a huge role to fill on a forum, so if you can’t fill it, you’re not doing anyone a favor by doing only what’s required of you.

I’d like to hope that instead of just doing the bully-until-it-dies tactic you will take this all into consideration.

II. Forum Tech
Lately, as I stated in my opening paragraph, I have been browsing other forums similair to sythe such as powerbot and ownedcore. I can honestly say I was blown away by how much sythe is lacking, and how far it is behind other forums. One can compare powerbot to Sythe and see how horribly behind Sythe is. (Please don’t bring up the people on powerbot because that is not what we are discussing, and I know it’s going to be one of those nitpicky points that people will try to use to make me out to be “wrong” in my opinion). The overall styles and features far surpass sythe. For example, a simple feature such as the bump timer:



Think about how big of a problem bumping is on Sythe, and think of how a majority, maybe not all, but a majority of those problems could be avoided by using something as simple as that feature.

Another feature we could talk about is the feedback system. It always confounds me as to why everyone is so against it. I think it’s probably because at some point someone said no, and so from now on everyone will defend to their grave that descision. Why? Well because a staff member said so. Why do ebay, amazon, and many other big market websites use a feedback system? Because it works. It keeps things organized an proffesional. So why is Sythe so against it? It goes back to my point from before, it has been denied at some point, and so it will never happen. Everyone is convinced that our system works, and so it doesn’t need to be changed. These are just a few of the features that sythe is lacking on. There are plenty more things that could be added to make things run better.
On my previous thread I was told:

You know what that is? Lazy. Lazy, and ridiculous. This is directed towards the “tech admins”, if you think something is going to be a vulernability, then you work to protect it. Avoiding adding new things because you don’t want to put the time and effort into protecting it is just plain ridiculous. How can you expect to grow without change or adding things? There are plenty of features that the site could benefit from, and if you want to avoid those because it could open up a vulnerability that you should be protecting, because that is your sole job after all, then why are you on Sythe? If you don’t care, and you don’t want to help it grow, then why are you here? WHY is Sythe being run by people who simply don’t care! It’s mind boggling, and extremely frustrating.
You can look at the VB4 upgrade as another example. VB4 brings many changes that are highly beneficial to the forum, and why don’t we have it yet? Because no one wants to put in the effort to making it happen. 3-4 months ago we heard “it’s almost done”, yeah well, that’s all well and good, but where is it? If you want to continue growing and flourshing, you have to put the effort in, or atleast put someone in charge who will.

III. Effects & Conclusion
I continue to stand by what I said before, Sythe is in a never ending state of limbo. We neither decline, nor grow. People move on, and new people come in, but really, we never grow. Eventually that will end. What happens when the runescape market, or runescape in general, dies? People can say it never will happen, but eventually it will. What will we have left over? People will leave in droves and sythe could collapse. How do we stop that, we grow the community. If we grow a community that is big enough to sustain far more than just runescape, well then we have a much more successful, much more profitable, and much more sustainable forum. Sure we can just stay where we are, and be in the constant state of limbo, but why not grow? I guarantee that when Sythe started, as any other forum does, the staff and the userbase did their best to put time, energy, and effort into making the site grow. I am an administrator on a new, growing forum, and I can see first hand right now all that is put into the site. We, the staff, and the userbase, are doing everything we can to grow, and it’s working. We don’t think “Eh what we have works”, we think “What we have is good, but how can it be better”. The lack of that feeling on Sythe is all to prevalent. We should be doing what we can to grow, so that instead of being like this:



We can be like this:



I want everyone to see that I am not trying to be the bad guy here. Why would I put this much time and effort into this if I just wanted to spite someone. PLEASE just take what I have into consideration, I have no interest in debating why my opinion is right or wrong, I just want to do my best to help the site grow. This is my last little hoo-rah, and maybe this time around it will work.

 

I looked at powerbots site for the first time. Granted they have more members, but in terms of aesthetically pleasing sites, i far prefer Sythe. Its also hard to compare powerbot to Sythe in terms of activity, as Powerbot actually offers a runescape service (botting) that people use/want, and hence go to their site and end up joining the forums.

Acquiring members for them is far easier.

 

Sigh I figured someone would try to say that, lets take a look at d2jsp then:

 

The thing with d2jsp is though its mostly based upon discussion rather than a market place, and even there it caters mostly to Diablo rather than Runescape (which most people want)

Also: Are you going to face me in Virogrid or forfeiting or what? I've been trying to get in contact for ages, if you are forfeiting you need to post on the thread.

 

Erm I am pretty sure all forums are based on discussion... Again can we please not stray from the topics I presented.

 

Diablo 2 - Posts: 269,319,239
Runescape - Posts: Posts: 5,771,198


Enough said really.

I do feel that yo overplay this 'issue' a little, and copying other websites won't ever solve any problem you think Sythe has.

Are you suggesting that adding in a timed bump for the disabled users would increase Sythe's popularity to that of Powerbot's?

As before stated, the reason for Powerbot being more popular is so obviously simple, it's a forum where people go to get tonnes of free scripts.

As for d2jsp? Well it's in the name. It's an established Diablo forum, not a RuneScape one. RuneScape is not even nearly as popular as Diablo, go figure.

 

I'd love to update to VB4. I'll attempt to get more information/an update but I can't promise anything.

 

I wanted to avoid the senseless debates such as these, but it appears I have no choice.

Getting up to speed with current forum tech is not nearly considered "copying" other forums. That's like saying all cellphones copy each other for getting similar features.

It doesn't matter what the forum specializes in, the concept is the same, so why aren't we doing our best to grow to that level? As you said Diablo isn't as popular as runescape so why are we smaller? You're logic is contradicting.

 

If you dislike Sythe so much why dont you simply leave (as your previous threads had indicated)...? Sythe is different than other sites. The admins have a different role here, and each tier of staff fills its own objective. I doubt it will change, so why continue complaining about how much better other sites are? You are free to walk away.

 

I don't dislike the site, I wouldn't have written all this if I did. I believe that sythe is a great site, with loads more potential, and I want that potential to be reached.

 

Hello all.

For a start, I'd like to say good on x339 for voicing his concerns. On this site, there is a culture of asskissing and treating those that do not conform like dirt. I am more than ready to acknowledge that, during my time as staff, I did little to challenge this approach. I'm older & wiser now and have the benefit of life to say that merely because someone has a different attitude, this should not make their opinion redundant - rather they ought to be lauded for their willingness to step aside from the crowd and say what they think.

Having said that, I don't necessarily agree with everything x339 has said, but, again, this does not mean his suggestions shouldn't be held with as much regard as those put forward by staff members. After all, this site caters to more than 300,000 people - not a select elite few. Anyway, I'll point out the concerns that I think are valid and those that I feel are less so.

This is correct. If you were to promote any old individual to Administrator, you would witness great activity - indeed, activity disproportionate to that displayed by our current Administrators. However, and this is key to note, you would also witness diminished quality. As an Administrator, your most important characteristic facets are your articulacy, judgement, and sharpness. In all honesty, any idiot can sit and do spam reports all night. Administrators are where they are for a reason - because they have displayed superior judgement and a willingness to tackle and dealing situations that Globals are otherwise characteristically unable or unwilling to tackle.

In light of this, the concept of ''activity'' when applied to Administrators ought to be considered. When thinking about Globals & sectionals, it is easy to point out who is and is not inactive. This is largely due to the extent to which these staff members post and tackle various reports. Administrators do not, and should not, be doing these. For this reason, their activity ought to be considered on a separate scale. The activity of an Administrator largely cannot be gauged by an average user. This is simply the case, and protestations regarding things ''being behind the scenes'' are futile considering that this is frankly the way it must be regarding certain matters, and it is in these matters, as my experience allows me to indicate, that Administrators are not only active, but also display decisiveness and leadership.

Crowded? How can an Administrator group be crowded? Is this a suggestion that it looks distasteful on the Forum Leaders page? Unless the Administrators deem themselves to be an unsatisfactory and ill-functioning group, they cannot be deemed a crowded group.

Historically we have had cases where Administrators have went further than intended, so they have been stripped down to the necessities with which they need to function. This is not problematic - there exist tiers for a reason; if an Administrator qualifies for advanced privileges, they will accordingly find themselves advanced in the tier system. This is natural and applies to all Sythe.org staff.

I agree.

As far as I can see, the General Administrators are very much part of the community. Their role, as defined by the thread, is to deal with matters such as IP bans. Whether people like to hear it or not, Administrators mainly exist in a behind-the-scenes capacity; this is inherent to their role. Again, speaking from experience, I can say with confidence that the general Administrators, at least those that I experienced - Govind & Giverny - at least contributed to important staff discussions with their points of view.

I agree.

As I outlined in your past thread, I consider this a subjective and emotional perceptive. Objectively, since joining in 2007, I have watched Sythe.org's member base triple.

Again, good on x339 for voicing his views - he shouldn't be victimised or hounded for doing so; his thread ought to help facilitate discourse. Again, though, I'd distance myself from saying I agree with all points made. There are a great number of people that give a large amount of time to help this site function.

 

He said, Runescape isn't as popular as Diablo.

 

Misread the post, not that big of a deal though, his logic still hardly makes sense. Again I am not going to stray any further.

 

Runescape is insanely huge. The reason we aren't as active as we should be, has been addressed by x339. Take a look at player auctions (Runescape section), please. I'd love for you to. That just proves how active Runescape is. Runescape has been going for 10 years, and has been strong for as long as it's been going.

For as many people who black market on Runescape, a fine number should be interested in cheap services, gold, etc.. It poses the question, why aren't they on Sythe? Why do they go to Gold4Fun, RSORDER, etc, and not to our market base? Riddle me that ~

 

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I would contribute that more to the insufficient advertising more than anything else.

 

That's is one of the many things that need to be addressed, but right now we need to take baby steps.

 

I agreed with the previous thread and I agree with this in full. Been here on and off lurking and posting since early '07 and people come and go, but there isn't an active base. There are enough constantly active members to count in probably a moment or two, the rest are leechers who will be here for a few days and be gone. We see a constant influx of members but we don't retain members well at all.

I would also really love the technology of this board increase. We are in the stone ages of message board tech, and it is really a huge detractor for the site. Why would someone come here and sell when they could go to a much better looking and functioning site. Spoilers, a basic staple of nearly any site, we lack. I know there is a way around abuse because there are numerous other sites with spoilers active and I don't really see them complaining....


I want to see the board grow and flourish, but I think there needs to be some reform and I hope to be here for it.


Edit: Oh yeah, welcome back.

 

I agree with most of what you are saying. I've also witnessed during my time in Sythe that people are afraid to voice their opinion. Like you mentioned, if you step in the feedback section, all you see is "pats on the back" and ass-kissing. Once in a while you will see someone voice their true opinion like you are currently doing but that person is usually outnumbered by so many ass-kissers which leads the person to not bother anymore. No one then ever treats the person the way they use to anymore. This goes for whether the feedback was constructive or not, the outcome is always the same.

 

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=runescape

Actually, RuneScape has been dying since 2007, as demonstrated by Google. RuneScape never recovered the 60,000 subscribers it lost after removing free trade, and since it's re-established it, the game is horrible it's all about scamming, stealing, phising ect, as someone that was an active player for a long, long time, I've seen all of my friends quit for LoL, WoW or Xbox, or simply because they hate what the game has become.

Also, I agree with the other guy, that's primarily down to advertising, and quite simply that people are more inclined to be trusting of established "businesses" over other players of the game, of which most are inclined to scam given the chance.

 

Ok so you're saying runescape is dying....which is one of my main points....Thats why sythe needs to grow, because when runescape goes down, sythe will go with it.