Reported Post by Laptop65

Laptop65 · Jul 12, 2012

Laptop65 has reported a post.

Reason:

Maybe just move this thread to the suggestions section seeing as he is incapable of knowing which is which? Either way, these are starting to get quite annoying.
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Post: 3rd times the charm
Forum: Feedback
Assigned Moderators: Superman

Posted by: x339
Original Content:

I wonder what it is that is making the Admins want to avoid this thread so hastily. To me it seems as though you realize what I am saying is true, and you don't want to accept it, so you just wait and hope I'll go away. Perhaps I am wrong, but we'll never know until you voice your opinions.

Unfortunately my last thread was closed by FireZ due to the fact that he believed that it was a "waste of time" and that it was "going in circles", which is of course because the staff refuse to participate. I can debate with other members all day, but it's the staff participation that matters. Instead of closing the thread to try and silence it, I wish that you would engage in the discussion. I do not wish to hurt feelings, and I do not wish to put people down. I hope that I am not silenced any further. So here I will repost my thread, and if you want to read any replies to this thread please look at my original post: http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1428326

Hello everyone, itâ€™s me again. Yea yea I know, â€œl0l noob I new uâ€™d be backâ€, and yes I am, but only for my last little hoo-rah. Since Iâ€™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 donâ€™t know every little detail about how plugins effect the vulnerability of Sythe. Pretty specific huh? Itâ€™s kind of funny considering that was such a small part of my topic. Well thatâ€™s how things work, which leads to the next step of the process.

After a flaw has been found, thatâ€™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, peopleâ€™s opinions can be wrong. Iâ€™ve noticed thatâ€™s not how things work around here. Unless you are a high ranking, well known member of the community, youâ€™re opinion is wrong, and the staffâ€™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, â€œadmins have jobsâ€, â€œadmins have to workâ€, â€œSythe is no-ones first priorityâ€, well thatâ€™s all well and good, but itâ€™s not helping anyone. Countless times I have heard that adminâ€™s arenâ€™t required to be very active, but why not? Maybe thatâ€™s Richardâ€™s fault for instilling that policy. Inactive adminâ€™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 donâ€™t have the time to give to sythe, or donâ€™t feel the need to give time to sythe, then you shouldnâ€™t be an admin. Plain and simple. Adminâ€™s are the highest of authorities, and yet they think they donâ€™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 â€œbreakâ€ things. That is just ridiculous, if you donâ€™t trust someone in the position, then why are they there? Richard, Matthew, and Govind are the â€œtech expertsâ€, 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 â€œtech expertsâ€ 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 youâ€™re going to fill the entire role, donâ€™t bother. Next, require the current general admins to be a part of the community. If you canâ€™t do things the other admins can do, then what is your role? Handing out bans, closing threads? Sounds like a globalâ€™s job to me. If youâ€™re not going to have the power to do other things, then whatâ€™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. Thatâ€™s what you need to do. Donâ€™t sit back and just do the minimum requirements, youâ€™re not helping anyone by doing that, there are plenty of people who can do that. If you have a job and canâ€™t do that, then resign, youâ€™re not helping anyone by doing what youâ€™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 canâ€™t fill it, youâ€™re not doing anyone a favor by doing only whatâ€™s required of you.

Iâ€™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 donâ€™t bring up the people on powerbot because that is not what we are discussing, and I know itâ€™s going to be one of those nitpicky points that people will try to use to make me out to be â€œwrongâ€ 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 itâ€™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 doesnâ€™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:

Plugins aren't something that can be played around and tested with. They open exploits for hackers and ultimately lead to site vulnerabilities. I'm not sure if you're aware, but Sythe.org is a massive target. Our users exchange tens of thousands of dollars per day
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You know what that is? Lazy. Lazy, and ridiculous. This is directed towards the â€œtech adminsâ€, if you think something is going to be a vulernability, then you work to protect it. Avoiding adding new things because you donâ€™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 donâ€™t care, and you donâ€™t want to help it grow, then why are you here? WHY is Sythe being run by people who simply donâ€™t care! Itâ€™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 donâ€™t we have it yet? Because no one wants to put in the effort to making it happen. 3-4 months ago we heard â€œitâ€™s almost doneâ€, yeah well, thatâ€™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 itâ€™s working. We donâ€™t think â€œEh what we have worksâ€, we think â€œWhat we have is good, but how can it be betterâ€. 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.
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Quatakai · Jul 12, 2012

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