New head of donations

Before I get into my actual reply, I want to address this. Don't go on about things you have NO clue about. The user center has, since version 4, had permissions which allow giving other staff access to approve donations and different types of perks.

Now for my actual reply...

I understand the frustrations you all have and realize that delays can be inconvenient. I'm not going to pretend like it doesn't take me some time to get to things... it does. I've tried to automate as much as I can and put self-service options in place where possible to make things quicker and easier for everyone. Don't forget I've now written five versions of the User Center, trying with each revision to add more automation and self-service. I'll try to address what I can here. I'm not making excuses, but giving insight into how things work.

Username Images / Custom Ranks
Unfortunately, some tasks and requests do not lend themselves to self-service. Image processing is a good example (username images and custom ranks). Username images require human approval because they need to match a user's user group and conform to our guidelines regarding size and transparency. I would guess that 20-30% of username images submitted for approval are rejected because they do not adhere to these guidelines.

Similarly, custom ranks have to be individually created in Photoshop. We have a standard rank template we use across the site to keep them all consistent. Every time a custom rank request comes in, we have to create the rank image using this template.

Image Processing/Server Access
In both of these cases, the images then have to be uploaded to the Sythe.org servers. There are currently two people with access to the Sythe.org servers: myself and Sythe. The configuration of our servers is very complicated and people without systems administration experience aren't well suited to interact with them. Sythe has worked VERY hard over the years to get Sythe.org as stable as it is and, understandably so, he's very cautious about who he gives server access to.

Delegation
Over the years I have given others access to the administrative components of the user center only to be disappointed. People either abuse the privileges or simply don't do anything, the latter being more common. At one point, we gave all admins donation and user title approval permissions but guess who still ended up doing the approvals... me.

Bond Management
Bonds typically don't require much management from my perspective. Once I set them up, they're supposed to take care of themselves. It's only when someone does something they're not supposed to that my help is needed. (Or perhaps when a change to the bond is needed which shouldn't be often.) I used to have to approve all donations made through bonds but have since updated the user center to auto-approve donations when the bond has sufficient balance to cover them. This, in my opinion, was a big change because it made bond donations more or less instantaneous.

SytheVerified
SVU is very tricky because it involves people's personal information. I'm a very strong believer in privacy and trying to protect people's personal information as much as possible. For this reason, only myself and Sythe have access to the SVU data. This is for your own protection and benefit. Do you want all of our staff to have access to this data whenever they want? I suspect not.

A comment on trust and our staff...
Just because someone is a Global or Admin does not necessarily mean we trust them with our servers or financial information. Our staff are like handy men (and women) who tend to Sythe.org and keep it in order. Would you give your gardener or plumber your bank statements? We trust our staff to behave with integrity and enforce the rules of the site, but when it comes to the site's infrastructure and financials we tend to draw a line. There's simply too much room for abuse. I don't mean to belittle our staff or demean them, but they are volunteers and they do come and go often. I've been here for near 10 years now and have earned the trust I have with Sythe.

Conclusion
Sythe and I are very much vested in Sythe.org and, whether it's always visible or not, put a lot of work into the site. We have a mutual interest in Sythe.org continuing to function and for that very reason keep very tight controls over donations and SVU. Donations are a vital part of keeping Sythe.org alive and that's why I have put so much effort into developing the features you all use today: user center, username images, fun ranks, miniranks, sythechat, and so on. I would also like to remind you all that the perks we award you for donating are simply that: perks. We're awarding you these things because we appreciate your support.

I suspect many of you will have comments on what I've written and will likely disagree with parts of it (or all of it for that matter). I'm not one to sugar coat things or beat around the issue at hand. I think the main issue is that people are impatient. One way or another I do handle requests, it just may not always be as quickly as you like.