Revolutionize Sythe: 2007

Revolutionize Sythe: 2007​

What is Revolutionize Sythe?

Revolutionize Sythe is a string of possible solutions I've compiled to the problems I see facing the Sythe community everyday, in addition to the problems brought up to the community by other members. Most of these ideas are market-related to the 2007 community, but there are other ideas as well.

The Mission Statement of Revolutionize Sythe

Simple. To bring back old members, maintain current members, and attract new members. The reason Sythe bloomed into such a large community was for it's black market, so why not focus on that (and some other minor things, too)? In a thread posted by Blade Bro4 (found here), he discusses the declining population of Sythe. I'm sure most of you frequent Sythe users have noted the smaller amount of activity by members in comparison to what it once was. I very much liked many of his points, and have brought them into this suggestion with some revisions to them.

How do you plan on doing that?

Through an effective plan of action that we should execute as a community. Just like everything else in this world - an idea is only an idea until you put it into action. This thread needs support to be recognized, and although many of you might dispute some issues - don't simply shoot down the entire thread! All ideas you find here can and should be revised by the community! I don't think my ideas are perfect, and I'm almost positive somebody will view this thread, see one of my points, and think of a better way to execute it. Don't simply say, "I don't support, that'd never work" - tell me how to make it work!

What main points will you present in this thread?

I thought you'd never ask. They are as follows;

• Community Incentives: By this, I mean small, feasible things that could be given to the members of Sythe in exchange for their loyalty and activity. I will go into more detail below.
• Improved Trading Standards and Procedures: For many, the quitting point is a result of a sour taste of Sythe's vicious market. For some reason, trading, what seemed like a very simple concept, is an extremely hard thing to do over the Sythe market. I've come up with some ideas on how we can ultimately improve it.
• Revolutionize the Sythe Market: This would probably be the most complicated, but worthwhile idea I have. To automate the trading process.
• Reintroduction of the 2007 RS Market: A major factor that drew in so many members years ago would be the market! Currently, EoC dominates the Runescape section with small subforums for the OSRS section. However, in the near-future, OSRS will be the dominate servers and I think few of you can debate that.
• Beefing up Staff: More ranks are needed for more specific jobs to create a safer and more secure market. It's as simple as that.

Main Points

Community Incentives​

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In order to build up on Sythe's activity by users, we need to implement an effective rewards system. A sense of achievement is what drives so many users to be more active, post more, and so on. Members with aspirations of one day be a moderator on Sythe, for example, might be driven to have quality posts and threads - to help distinguish themselves. Others, might be drawn to the post ranks, such as Guru and Grand Master, and may be more active on the forums. We need to add more incentives to encourage users to be more active on the forums.

How do we do this?

• Colored Names: The advanced post ranks (from Forum Addict to Apprentice and so on) are great incentives as is. You want to try to create a name for yourself as being active, and having those higher quality post ranks near your name definitely make you feel more important. Why not simply adding color automatically to user's names when they achieve a certain post count? A Grand Master could have a standard yellow name, an apprentice could have an orange name, and so on, so forth.
• Expert Vouches: A resourceful and knowledgeable user is Sythe's most valuable asset. Many of these users go unrecognized for reasons unbeknownst to me. This is probably my favorite idea out of the community incentives - Expert Vouches. Let's say you take a user who is inhaled completely by the Fire Cape User Services section of the forums - let's use Lured Yah as an example, as he is one of the most predominate users in that section. Lured Yah has obtained over several hundred fire capes, doing so on accounts that many of us would not believe could have a fire cape. Lured Yah's continuous activity in the fire cape section and overall mastery of the TzHaar ways would lead me to believe he is an expert in the field. Why not recognize him for his endeavors? Why doesn't a high-ranking Sythe official give him a vouch or a minirank of some sort stating that this player is highly trusted in a specific field: Fire Capes. Why is this idea so important? I see too many moderators using their rank as tags in posts as if it gives them a trustworthiness that we don't have. I fail to see how a Support Mod is any more trustworthy than a regular user. It doesn't matter to new users though, they will assume that this moderator would never in a million years scam them. Greed is evil.
• Sythe-endorsed Runescape Events: Why not host a variety of community events? Have an official create a thread for bets users can place against each other! For example: Who is making it to the NBA Finals? Users can submit a monetary valued bet that will be collected by the official(s) running the thread, and put onto an account for safekeeping. (Note: These officials would have to be highly trusted within the community, or they'd just run off with high amounts of gold!)

Improved Trading Standards and Procedures​

As I said above, the majority of Sythe members join for the market and have 5 posts before quitting. They post a thread in the market section, reply to it 4 times by people offering on it, and once it's sold they just disappear (until they want to sell or buy another account). I have some ways we can help draw in and maintain an active community through our market;

• Post-related Markets: I do not support the idea that our market should have a post requirement to use. I do, however, believe that as users have higher volumes of post, new markets should be open and available to them. The longer you are around Sythe, the more connections and friends you build. You may not know everybody (not even a fat chance), but you certainly build an opinion on many frequent users in the market. As players post counts increase, there should be specific markets opened up to them to allow them to trade only with 'familiar faces' they possibly know and have built a relationship with. I would much rather trade with a user who has seniority rather than a new user - it may not be fair, and it may not necessarily mean they are trustworthy, but it allows me to create connections through a more established member base.
• Contact Verification: I'm still not quite sure how this would work out. However, I see many people post a method of contact in a thread, scam players, and then go edit their thread's contact details to another form so they can continue scamming. I think it'd be a very useful tool to have a section created in the Market Tools forum, where members can submit their Skype/MSN/whatever, and an official contact member (will be discussed below) can verify that "[email protected]" is connected to "y" 's account. This can be done by the official adding the listed contact method and speaking to that user. They will then have the user send them a PM with a very specific message, and then take pictures of it, followed by documenting it in a hidden forum for reference. A minirank could be added to the user's profile or something along those lines, saying "Contact Verified" or something, allowing potential traders to know that "y" has gone through a process to establish credibility, and that their Skype or whatever it is, is in fact theirs. Note: If "y" wants to change their contact method, simply post a new topic and go through the process again. If somebody is scammed and you claim your Skype was hacked, but you failed to post a new topic - tough luck, you are at fault for not covering your own ass.
• Random Vouch Checks: Similar to a random police stop - your vouches are checked by an official (new rank, discussed in a later main point below) at random to verify their authenticity. For some reason, when presented a vouch thread link, users will simply scroll through the vouches counting how many they have - not the quality of the vouch. By clicking that little blue square, it redirects you to the actual post by the person they state vouched them. A very straightforward idea.

Revolutionize the Sythe Market​

This is hands-down going to the the hardest point to turn into an executable plan. I see many Gold, Item, and Account Sellers using PlayerAuctions (PA) for their sales, which is why their website is constantly packed with users and new members on a daily basis. Why not have a similar concept on Sythe? The phases of this automated system would go as follows:

• Step 1 - Listing: The Seller or Buyer would list an account, item or gold value they are looking to sell or buy for a specific or roundabout amount. This would go into an automated system, which would give the buyer or seller a personal link to use for reference.
• Step 2 - Personals: The Seller would then create a thread containing pictures of either proofs of the account they claim to own, gold they own, or items they own. The Buyer would post a thread asking for an account with certain stats, gold amount, or items. Both the buyer and seller would include in their threads, their personal link they received from completing Step 1 - Listing.
• Step 3 - Trading: If the seller finds a buyer, or if the buyer finds a seller, that party would click a "Buy Now" button found by clicking on the personal link provided in the thread found as a result of Step 2 - Personals. It is not necessarily a "Buy Now" feature, though. An Official Middleman will receive an automated PM in their messages, with the link to the listing found from Step 1 - Listing, along with the buyer and seller's information. The OMM will then contact both parties, and go over the terms of the trade. The trade will then be conducted in a typical manner, with no choice but to use an OMM, who will receive standard fees that they will automatically tax into the trade (there should be a set rate voted on by the Sythe community that they feel is fair, as this process automatically creates business for designated OMMs in this process, meaning they have to do less work to find trades to arbitrate).
• Step 4 - Finalizing: After the trade is officially executed, the OMM would remove the listing, contact a Market Mod to close the thread, and receive a vouch, as well as any fees (which should be regulated).

Reintroduction of The 2007 RS Market​

This is a very simple idea that does not need bullets necessarily as above to explain in order and detail. I sincerely believe within the next few months EoC will die out, making OSRS the dominate server. Even with the future increase in payment to maintain membership for OSRS accounts in September, I have extreme reason to believe that it won't die out for several years. The best course of action would be to capitalize on the growing community of OSRS, and structure our market around it.

Beefing Up The Staff​

I strongly believe that our staff does a fine job - yet there is always room for improvement. With that being said, I think we should create more specific staff ranks, to try to ease some burdens by the preexisting staff. Some of these ranks were discussed in points above, but without further ado:

• Official Contact Conductors: As said above in the Contact Verification bullet under the Improving Trading Standards and Procedures section, we need to have a rank that's designated to verifying user's contact details. This would increase security and credibility tenfold, and would only create a safer trading environment.
• Designated OMMs: In the above Revolutionize the Sythe Market section, I stated that OMMs would be involved in the process. By this, I think we should have very specific OMMs for Runescape-only trades that can handle being online for large portions of the day, the administration aspect of the ordeal (contacting both parties, verifying account details, removing the listing after the trade, documenting the trade, and contacting a Market Mod to close the thread (Look at Step 2 - Personals for more information), and etc.).
• Experts - Again, as I said above in the Expert Vouches bullet under the Community Incentives section, I strongly suggest creating an expert rank for specific matters. No, I do not think these members should be considered staff. Yes, I do feel that in some shape or form, their expertise is vital to the community, and they should be recognized for that.

That is all I have to say for now, hopefully you have all read my full thread and agree with my points. At the top of the topic, I asked that anybody that disagrees with my points - do me a favor: Do not shoot them down immediately! Help me revise them to something that would work. Telling me "that's a dumb idea" doesn't help. Saying "That wouldn't work, but why don't you try doing...blahblahblah" would help.


I can be contacted via Skye at heart.n.sole if anybody has any questions or concerns, or any suggestions on things I should alter to this thread.

Support The Movement!​

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Thank you all,
Philosophic

 

In terms of Sythe Endorsed Runescape Events:

We have the CDT (community dev team) hosting as many events as they can. However of late, the interest in those has died down, due to an overall lack of motivation in all members, sadly.


Restructuring the Market:

I agree here. 07 Runescape should be given priority over EoC at current, and in correlation have it's respective sections displayed as so. Basically a direct swap of how EoC and 07 are at current.



In terms of offering 'Expert Vouches', and awarding those said individuals with mini ranks:

It would have worked in the past, but not at current.

Currently mini ranks are trivial and as such overlooked and not deemed anything important. It's disappointing to see that they were treated as such and made far too easily attainable and available. There is no coming back from that, as they already have that stigma.

I do however think people deemed as 'Experts' in their specific field should be awarded a fun rank, if it were to be implemented.


In terms of revolutionising the Sythe market:

There was a lengthy discussion previously about introducing iTrader; however the idea was shot down as it was deemed more of a hassle that it's worth. I can see how it would be a good idea, however personally I see it far to late down the track to adopt a new feature such as that.

 

Community Incentives
Coloured names
This is a staff feature, yellow = administrator, etc etc. Having tonnes of colours everywhere just wouldn't work.
Expert vouches
Mini-ranks are trashy.
A whole stripping of the ranks needs done. Too many useless ranks mean that people overlook them as 'jokes', and the important ones don't have as high a status as they should.
Runescape events
Any ideas you have for events can be brought to the CDT.
We're always awaiting input and ideas but none is ever given. If you, personally have ideas then contact me about them

Improved trading standards
Post-related
Never going to work. Posts should never be a requirement for anything, this is how people get the idea that posts = legitimacy.
Contact verification
Again, shouldn't be required. People want to keep their information private, fine. With the new scam report requirements, a PM is required as is and so a thread post is redundant anyway.
Random vouch checks
With the amount of members active on Sythe, this is simply useless and an endless task. Wouldn't be efficient nor useful to implement.

Sythe market
Sythe is and always will be a forum board, having a new, automated system just defeats the whole purpose of Sythe. It would be a site like PlayerAuctions - with no user interaction because everything's automated and there's no communication besides orders. Very heavily market orientated.

2007 market
If it ends up the case that OSR overtakes EOC I'm sure the forum structure will be adapted as necessary like it was to begin with.
Changes are always happening to suit the market.
But we've not reached that point, yet.

Beefing up the staff
Contact conductors
With hackings, changes to contact details, variety of contact methods - this gets tiring and impossible to manage. Basically what I said above.
Designating OMM's
It takes a lot to OMM/MM the current MM'd trades, never mind all trades. I think it's just out of Sythe's league, and in most cases just unwanted by traders. People want ease of trading and quick buck - not a complicated, middlemanned process (more so the users who're experienced and know how to trade - involving someone else becomes inconvenient).
Experts
More ranks there are, the less important they're perceived to be. More ranks aren't necessary. As above, the mini-rank system needs to be stripped back down to what it was made for.




It may look as though I've brought down most of the points above, but most were related to one thing: the market. Rather than more restrictions, processes and staffing to hold back current users of the market, including the legitimate members and experienced market traders, we need to focus on introducing/educating the newer members to what they should be doing anyway. If new users, or any user for that matter, followed proper, safe procedures when trading then scams wouldn't happen.

Mini-ranks as a concept opened so much room for improvement, incentive, community involvement and participation. They're overused, mostly spam-forum related and overall just ignored. I think we need to focus on making improvements to the system.

I'm not saying your suggestions are bad or wrong, but personally I feel the problem lies in new members not knowing the procedures etc etc.

 

While some of these ideas are valid, how do you expect to trade using your automated system while there are a large number of inactive OMMs, and what about when none are online. It is a hindrance and removes the "free market" aspect. I ask that you reconsider this point.

 

I think it's fair to say after reading Roarys post, and based of mine; mini ranks are totally useless, overlooked, perceived in a negative stigma and hold no value as intended.

 

nice ideas. Automated system wouldn't work unless we had like 50 OMM's from all different time zones lol

 

This idea is well thought out. I think before it is over taken, then simply 07 needs to have a 2:1 ratio fan base compared to EoC, until then I see no point in going through all the work

 

Bring the UE back with a rank and give the community dev team a rank and a way to join it so people have something to do and a reason to stick around.

 

Was never around for UE, but from what I've heard, it sounded great. I was around for Community Assistant, and that was quite good aswell. I'm down for both, or either. Whatever works tbh.

 

I couldn't agree more, as OP stated, incentives like that is what makes people stick around, makes people want to contribute.

 

op needs to be appointed to sythe staff.
op is smart, and looks like he's in it for the benefit of the community
op wrote a professionally constructed thread.

 

1) Meh. Staff doesn't do you much good. You moderate and get to chit chat but in terms of getting stuff done its still hard.
2) Yep
3) Needs better colors.

 

The market is a brilliant system as it is, and the vouches system works very well. There is no real need for changes to something that isn't broken, and a iTrader wouldn't work tbh (Automation). The 2007 RS market isn't needed to be made the main one at the moment, as it's perfectly equal to the EoC, which infact has more players than the 07. They ought to be left how they are for now seeing as RS3 has been announced. The current staff team is more than big enough, as they get shit done. There is not a lot that can be done tbh to make the market safer and more secure, skype hackings aren't a fault on sythe's side, and scammers will always scam as long as people are dumb enough to fall for imposters etc. The only way I could see this being prevented was a implemented sythe chat that could be used to trade through and saved all chatlogs that are only viewable by an admin. That'd be a perfect idea but could also leave open windows for massive admin scams (hundreds of bills). There is always faults with systems, but hey-ho.

Colored names are used to distinguish between staff members and normal members, I could never support a change as it's a signficiant part of sythe. Everyone knows what most colours stand for, yellow-admin, red-global, brown-market, cyan-offtopic, green - support, pink - rs, purple - wow and so on and so forth. Expert vouches are an idea which would be overlooked. People don't look at the miniranks as a serious matter, so that'd never work. There is a highly trusted and highly respected rank, but they are given out VERY rarely, by Richard himself to those who he deems worthy. There are community events btw, that have taken place recently, and more in development by the CDT.

The market restrictions straight off are a bad idea as restricted markets would been less customers for those in them, which doesn't even make sense. Post counts also are a bad idea for letting people access new markets, as some people have a high vouch/post count ratio, BRSG in his prime had over 300 vouches with just over 250 posts. Contact verification is all well, but hackings can always take place. It's nowhere near as safe as having people request PM's, as if it's said that it's verified to be their account, then they won't even think twice about checking for hackers. No support on that one either. Random vouch checks are a good idea, but the problem with that is that the majority of high users vouches are all legitimate, and it would be a very small group that haven't. Users with less than 50 vouches are more likely to have committed vouch crimes, and therefore should be punished that way. It's the best idea so far, and would be a good way to catch self-vouchers/ban-evaders/vouchfrauds.

This seems a lot more complicated than it reads, as I'm guessing an OMM would have to be used for every trade, and it would take ages to code. It would require a lot more OMMs and Market Moderators, and they aren't ranks/privileges that are just thrown around. No support.

Contact Conductors - Bad idea, PM's work fine as they wouldn't want to check everytime a user logged into his skype whether he'd been hacked or not (would need a massive team dedicating 100% of this for hours a day).

Desiginated OMMs - There are already OMM's, they are earnt via a application process. it works fine.

Experts - Idea that would get overlooked and could be used as a potential to scam. How does one become an expert at something, doing it over and over again. Changes can cause massive problems to experts, and they could cause a lot of damage with just one update. Not too bad of an idea, but not too brilliant either.


Hope that you take it as constructive criticism, and not as a harsh comment. You've got some good base ideas, they just need developing.

 

Thank you guys for all the (constructive) criticism! I honestly appreciate it.

This kind of brainstorming right here is what is needed to help us move forward on Sythe - we need to be proactive in our attempts to reclaim old members, maintain our current ones, and draw new ones in!

The CDT should be completely revamped, seeing as how nobody has anything (really) positive to say about them as of late - and that is extremely unfortunate.

As far as UE goes - I had an account on Sythe years ago, before this account in 2009, called Sinful_Thoughtz, and I had received UE on it by posting several guides in the appropriate sections. Not only was it fun to be known as a User Educator, I had a ton of fun posting guides! I had an incentive, a reason to participate so actively on the forums, because of this prestigious rank. I was respected, people blew up my MSN/Inbox with questions, and many people wrote guides in attempts to try to get this rank as well!


Also, why not create a focus group? An assortment of both members and staff alike, where they look for ways to get the community more involved, deal with the Town Hall section exclusively, and so on? I know that kind of falls into the same category as CDT - but something needs to be done to fix this problem.


Thank you guys for the lengthy, well-worded responses! I sincerely appreciate them.

 

I wouldn't be that harsh on us, nobody has anything positive to say but that's because they don't care rather than we don't do anything. Motm, sythemonthly, gaming events, currently a scam prevention program.. all in the works and constantly being worked on.

What sort of re-vamp did you mean anywho?

 

Let's be realistic, the Sythe population is directly related to the Runescape population. Upon release of RS 2007, the population flew up about double in-game. This correlated to a similar increase on Sythe. Since the release of RS 2007, the population has now returned to similar pre-release levels. The rush that was RS 2007 is now dying out.

Is the problem really how the forum is run? Yes and no. New users that come here expecting to make easy money are always going to be targets for scammers. People who get scammed are likely to leave, or become scammers themselves. Despite your elaborate solution to the scamming problem, you are in effect taking away the freedom that makes Sythe so popular with its current userbase. If we wanted an automated trading system, we'd use PlayerAuctions. No matter how much work you want to put in, you're not going to beat them at their own game.

Sythe is a unique place where the smart survive and the dumb perish. Smart people will not be tricked more than once. The foolish will not have a good time in the open marketplace, and yes, they may not return. But at the end of the day, we cannot appeal to every person at once. It is a balancing act, and users who refuse to educate themselves and expect risk-free trading have quite simply come to the wrong place.

For Sythe to truly grow, the market needs to spread itself to more areas. Runescape is simply not growing. There are literally countless virtual markets out there online, most of which do not have a hub like Sythe to do trading. Yes, we've put in some effort in crossing over into other games, etc., but we need to do more. Sythe has found some success with LoL markets, they are currently the #2 games market on the forum. This is with 0 advertising. I think if some money was put into smart advertising, this section could easily balloon. LoL has a massive population; it has surpassed WoW in terms of its userbase. Forums work in a snowball effect; once you get enough people using them, the word spreads naturally.

If you want forums to grow, find new reasons for people to come here. Stop focusing on ways to alter the system for a game that we already dominate. Start looking for ways to bring this popular trading model over to fresh new games. We already have the systems in place, we know that they work.

 

But what about 05 people :c lol. But I agree with R2 that we should focus on expansion not regression

 

I actually really like your ideas. Thanks for keeping them concise. Personally, I'd like to get some of these off the ground and get Sythe back to where it really should be. The link to this thread has been passed on to Richard so he can decide what we can do and how to go about it.

I've been watching these types of threads with great interest and it's nice to know we have a vibrant and dynamic community that are dedicated to helping restore Sythe to its former glory.

 

07 market should be given subsections, just like the EOC market, but neither should have priority over the other. OSRS popularity has already started decreasing with the new skill being announced in one of IGN's post. Also the graphical overhaul is bound to bring back people back to EOC.

IF anyone thinks that EOC is going to die out in a few months, you really have no idea what youre talking about, simply because OSRS, is not going to get any major updates, and sooner rather than later, people will get bored of pking. Unless Jagex brings in PvM updates, which the whole pk community is against, OSRS will have no appeal in a couple of months.

EOC on the other hand is getting graphical updates, and skill updates later this year, one of which, as i said has already been announced on IGN. So again, even though 07 is more popular than EOC right now, there is no way that Jagex will let EOC die out.

I provide powerlevelling services, in EOC, and you need to remember, that people might not post in that section, and rather just add/PM because even though there has been a decrease in EOC powerlevelling, it is NO WHERE near dying.

Give them equal priority.

 

Thanks, but as RwmRS2 said, I don't really see the point in being staff. I'm not looking for it, I'm simply trying to energize the community to be more proactive in restoring Sythe to what it once was.

Sorry >_<, I didn't mean to come off offensively towards CDT at all. I don't really know how you guys operate, so I can't be 100% accurate in terms of a revamp, but in my head, I picture it as: Establishing a CDT section in the "Our Community" forums, with subsections of different variations such as CDT-Hosted Events, User-Hosted Events, CDT Suggestions & Feedback, etc. Making CDT popular on the forums is important - as you saw in my OP, I didn't even know there was a CDT. Getting the community involved is vital, so therefore we need to step back and look at it from a realistic perspective and go "This is why people aren't active, what can we do to solve it", and hopefully find solutions. The CDT is an important factor of the community, and certainly contributes to solving those problems.

That's Social Darwinism to the fullest - saying that only those intelligent enough to avoid scams should be allowed on our forums. I know that's not what you meant 100% by it - but it's paraphrasing. I think that it's Sythe's responsibility to the community to offer ways to avoid being scammed - not simply saying "If you get scammed it's your own fault because you lack common sense." We, as a community, must give each other the tools necessary to succeed. Eliminating scamming is a long-shot, and almost virtually impossible, however, through our efforts as a community - we can reduce the percentage of scams significantly.

As far as an automated trading system goes - I am not trying to remove the liberty or freedom aspect of trading from Sythe. We all know how players reacted on Runescape with the removal of free trade. However, I feel that if we introduced a system that allowed members to register their transactions on a database officially, it would aid in reducing scamming because an OMM would be officially notified of the trade, and would always be involved. I'm not saying we should take away the option to be able to post threads for trades - simply that we should introduce an alternative.

Thank you for noticing my thread and passing it on to Richard! I hope only the best for the forums, and would love to see some of these ideas to come to life.



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Again, thank you all for the feedback, and hopefully you do not automatically dismiss my suggestions - look at them from different angles, and if you have any questions on them that you would not like to post publicly, you can always PM me or add my Skype (heart.n.sole).


Thanks!