x339's Thoughts...

I don't see admins being the problem at all, personally I believe the admins duty is to monitor the staff and be the final decision makers of a topic, if an admin wants to participate in community events, contests, or threads it should be up to them, they shouldn't be obliged to hold a "community" quota or be obliged to participate in the community if their role is solely to be the decision makers and maintainers of the site. Also I personally don't see having more admins being a problem, if they can display the maturity and trust then there's nothing wrong with it. The admins should be portrayed as a somewhat of a "role model"

Actually as a previous staff member I know how much help admins are than globals when it comes to helping with staff related issues, the admins are there to support the staff, the globals represent the upper staff in community involvement and the sectionals moderate the forum along with the globals. There's been multiple times where an admin has had to help a staff member with an issue, also general admins aren't required to be community involved.

I do agree with you that they should have some abilities such as more permissions and the site does lack technological features. One feature I would love to see is a website messenger but I don't know if that is possible.

I've also looked at other forums and their administration team generally only posts about as much as Sythe's staff. I personally believe better technology and communication methods will bring a bigger community to sythe.

 

Yes yes I have heard that a million times and I've replied to it a million times. Please refer to my other posts on the thread that explain this.

And who do you think is going to make those changes? I can't make those changes, you can't make those changes, a sectional can't make those changes, and even a global can't make those changes. Who do you think can? The admins. Yet you think that them sitting back and observing, making things run the way they do every other day, is fine. How are these changes going to come about? The admins have to make it happen. That's what I want to bring about, I want the admins to get involved, and make things happen. It's good for everyone if that happens, and if you personally believe that better technology and communication methods will make Sythe bigger, than you have to understand that to make that happen, we have to work for it.

 

I think that's a little unfair to the admins. The only people who can effect the sort of technological changes you want are Sythe and Matthew. Yes it would be nice if they were more active, but that's not something anyone else can control, and merely keeping the site running takes quite a bit of their time. The job of the rest of the admins is to manage the staff and keep things running smoothly, and take care of the day to day admincp tasks, which they do a great job with.

 

Fine then.

1) Admins need to be more active
2) Admins need to have more powers

A) Giving out ranks​

3) Get rid of Matthew and Govind

A)People who will do tech work for free are OH SO EASY TO FIND that we can simply ask them to do whatever we need whenever we need it
B) Oh and they do nothing even though I can't see the server files nor do I have access to the staff lounge to know about any backend stuff that they have written nor do I know what is going on with their lives that may have made them less active over the last couple of months​

4) Make admins post more and run contests, because only admins can do that.
5) Bump button (DNS list and I don't support it because it's a dumb idea)
6) Feedback System

A) LOL I'm quote an admin defending our current position instead of laying out the pros and the cons of a feedback system and why it would overall be a good thing to have. Oh and I'm not going to go do research for ones written for vb4 so that the admins don't need to code one or look for their own since they do so little they can do that for us. ​

 

Exactly. Sythe and Matthew, and probably Govind, are the only ones can make those kinds of changes, and they need to make those changes. However, I think the general admins have a little more sway than you give them credit for. I have no doubt that if the general admins pushed for something, then there is a much higher chance it would be taken into consideration then if someone such as me were to ask Sythe or Matthew.

You have got to be kidding me. I realize your trying to make me sound like an idiot, because that's what you do. I CLEARLY explained what I wanted in my thread, you can stop trying to make me look like an idiot to "prove me wrong".

 

Are there any traffic statistics for Sythe? Showing what year/time was most active?

 

No I'm really just explaining my thoughts in a easy and non-formal way that supposed to be light hearted. >_>

 

I'd make a to-the-point list, but it would only be used against me. No one would bother paying attention to any of the details in my thread and everything after that would be useless.

 

You're picking a battle when there shouldn't be one. If people want to attack you they will no matter what you say. Get on with the suggestions and those who actually want to improve the site will focus on the suggestions and their pros and cons instead of your motivations behind suggesting them.

 

Who is it exactly that wants to improve the site? So far it seems no one has gained anything constructive about this. All I have gotten is 30 different people telling me I am wrong, and when I refute their statements, I am still just wrong. Everyone is treating me as though I am personally attacking the admins for something. I don't understand why people are perceiving it that way. Why would I be going through all this trouble to bash the admins? There is no reason for it. Also think about this, would any of these points be even comprehensible by me if they weren't at least somewhat true. If Sythe was being updated and expanded and progressing constantly, would I be upset over that not happening? Probably not.

It's frustrating how people handle it. SuF is telling me that the admins "perceive" it as an attack. I don't understand why. People need criticism otherwise they're going to think they're doing everything perfectly. That's what I fear has happened here. Everyone has fallen into a rut, they feel they have done everything perfectly, and so no one wants to do anything different. You all do your job, and you do it well, but no one wants to go above and beyond and really help the website, you can sit there and do the TwC's, and handle important decisions, but what we really need is someone who is going to go above and beyond and work to make things better, and it seems that no one has any interest in doing that.

 

Its an attack because (I'm paraphrasing)

Yes I'm making you sound worse on purpose but that is so that you can see how people take it if they don't think you're being a perfect helpful angel standing up to the man.

 

Well I don't know what I could do different to make them "perceive" my message in a different way. All I can do is say what I have to say and back it up, it's up to them to receive it in a mature way, or to just take it as an attack and do nothing about it.

 

Make a list the way SuF just demonstrated, outlining what you want changed - People who only look at the list are people who didn't read your whole post anyways and it allows everybody to digest the issue one bit at a time

 

bumped

 

HUGELY agree with a feedback system!
It's SO MUCH better than vouches.
MMOExchange has a WONDERFUL example of a great feedback system.
One person initiates transaction, other person accepts transaction, they do the transaction, they leave feedback for each other.

You can see each persons Feedback (# of vouches) near their username by each post, and can click it to read each and every one of the vouches.

Saves a lot of work of asking for vouches etc, making a vouch thread, organizing it to look pretty, numbering it, etc etc. It also lets everyone very easily just click the FeedBack by a user's post and see all the vouches!

 

I love how you're ignoring the multiple requests to make a list of your concerns. My best guess is that it's gotten to the point that you can't make any more valid arguments and you're just bitching for the sake of it. Or for pride.
(Make the damn list.)

 

There are more important things to deal with than a feedback system. That is probably the last thing that needs changed right now.

What I see that needs changed the most:

Forum Tech and Donations.

 

How are donations handled now, how do you want them to be handled better?
What specifically do you mean by forum tech?

 

The current donation dilemma can found on this thread: http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1429370

 

Donations are handled through third parties that have to go through a bonding process. Then when you finally get your first $5 donation through RSGP you can donate via PP, the only thing is that the PP account for donations is messed up. I digress back to the bonding process though the third party has to then resell the gold and it can take quite some time to get your rank if Matthew is backed up. How can it be fixed? I don't know honestly, re-instate mail/WU donation option straight to Matthew, look into other payment methods such as possibly BTC or some system similar to paypal that doesn't charge ridiculous fees because things like onebip has really crazy fees associated with it.

By Forum Tech I mean we finally need to get vB4 that has been promised to us for several months now. Then look into other things to improve the board - new plugins, new themes, just things to make the site look and function up to par with modern boards. I am not expert on vB but I am quite experienced with different forums and I know that there is much more that can be done with the boards.