Solve, don't bury problems.

Before my long winded suggestion I would like to say if this gets me banned, then so be it. Since I resigned from the staff over Syed's ban I have and will always continue to voice my opinions and stay true to my values in an attempt to make the community and site that I have come to love a better, fairer, and happier place to be. I sincerely hope that my "tell it as it is" personality does not negatively impact this suggestion.

Lastly, if you do not throughly read my entire post, do not post as you will not understand what I am saying.


In response to Finn’s statement in Sin's feedback thread:

Finn claimed in his statement that he would “wholly address the legitimate concerns voiced by Sin”, but this sadly did not happen, whether it is for misunderstanding the presented issue or for purposely ignoring it does not matter. The overarching issue is not the fact that ban reasons for predominate members were withheld; it is that the administration seemingly actively represses feedback against itself that is not positive. The key word that I would like to emphasize here is “seemingly”. This is important as it creates a clear divide between the users and staff that ultimately creates most of the drama that occurs within the site. I would have to assert that Finn, and the administration, do not agree with me on this. Their position would be that issues are discussed in a location in which actual progress can be made without all the bickering that occurs in the public. This would mean that the issues are not being repressed but rather are being handled in a closed door situation for the best of everyone. However, the community cannot see it this way as the removing of public threads without insider knowledge looks like repression no matter how you do it.

The administration fails or even refuses to see this relationship between perceived censorship and public discontent. The assertion that these drama filled threads are the work of trolls is completely and utterly false and I will show this through Finn’s own opinions. I accept the fact, based on personal experience, Finn’s opinion and data I gathered that the majority of those who post in the community section do not identify themselves as market users who make up the majority of Sythe. I would also have to agree that many of the current and past staff members have been a part of what Finn calls the elite. The question that one must ask: Why? To answer this I am going to again turn to Finn and his opinions as he presented them in his thread about staff structure and how staff members are chosen. From this thread I am taking a few of the qualities that good staff members have. Activity, Quality of Posts, Helpfulness, Attitude, and Honesty. All of these qualities can become extremely apparent while posting in the feedback or suggestion forums in support of an idea or action. Helpfulness and attitude also become extremely apparent in the off topic forums as well just because of the nature of the posts being made in these places. I would also like to note that during my time as a User Educator, a large portion of the team was promoted to the staff during a short amount of time.

What does this mean? It very clearly shows that the people that are chosen to be moderators are very similar to the people that post in the drama filled threads that caused Finn’s major statement. In addition to this relation, there is a high percentage of ex-moderators that post in these sections as well. This means that the “trolls” who are continuing this drama are actually people who would make good moderators. These people are not here to cause trouble, but rather to voice their opinions about matters that they feel strongly about. The real overarching problem that is facing Sythe is the administration’s idea that the community activist’s opinions and ideas are useless and not worthy of their time. Normally, this does not create mass discontent among the users even in cases such as a great, widely supported suggestion sits unanswered for months. As I stated above, the seeming repression of these people’s thoughts and voices is what ultimately causes them to lash out in a much more emotional, dramatic way. This has time and time again been shown to be true.

The repression does not even have to be of an elite speaking out. The entire tiny chat issue shows this fact to be true very effectively. By attempting to silence the advertising of places for spam dumbasses to chat the staff repressed them and thus caused an emotional discontent within the forums. Now, in this case the spam forum was filled with people attempting to fight this reform through whatever means possible. This drama was created by non-elites and was much more destructive than drama by elites. Although I took advantage of this situation in the end to create change, it does not diminish the fact that non-elites can cause drama just as elites can. The only fundamental difference is the actions taken by the staff that makes people discontented. This means that it is entirely possible that some action by the staff could cause the market users, the majority of the users on Sythe, to have discontent. Finn has stated that the amount of attention that the “elite” need is too much. Based on his statistic of .1% elites compared 99.9% market, I would have to state that an event that caused discontent within the market users would be catastrophic to handle based on the strains a small one causes.

Based on this entirely likely event the staff has completely missed the mark in the way it deals with these situations. Preventing them from happening, as Finn has stated will be happening, is necessary. However, the way in which he proposes controlling them is flawed. He has essentially given a dictatorial solution of disallowing all speech of discontent which will, and has already lead to causing more discontent that will inevitably be voiced in one fashion or another. Based on this flaw I would like to propose a different way of dealing with these dramatic, hurtful threads and voices. Prevention. Instead of waiting for these things to happen, do not allow them to happen by proactively making sure they do not. This requires no more than allowing people to openly question the staff and having someone on the staff commit to real public relations when something dramatic pops up. If the strain on the staff or the skills currently present on the staff do not allow this then find and promote someone who the “elites” trust to have active and open dialogue with the community. The amount of work that someone in this position would have to do would be less than what a global would have to do in a day and if the person is one of the “elite” the work would be enjoyable and thus that person would most likely do a lot of it. Of course this has the chance to fail but so does complete banning of discussion and banning those who oppose. This should be given a chance and if it works, then everyone benefits and if it doesn’t there will be no harm done.

 

Honestly, SuF, the smell of burning torches and the noise of an angry mob is starting to get on my nerves. I'm very pleased to see these threads "censored."

Edit: I'd like to point out that I feel the reason for these censored threads is absurd, and that is why I'm glad with the censorship. As soon as these.... four , now?.... threads have popped up regarding how corrupt and dictatorial the situation is, I've been itching for someone to just bite the public outcry and close them. It takes a lot of balls to unconditionally make so many sheep hate you. We can all whine, but we need a reason to whine in order to do so.

 

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them" - Albert Einstein.

Just because Sythe has operated with the so called "elites" voicing the opinions of everyone else does not mean it should continue that way. If it does continue this way, then it is only a matter of time until Sythe becomes the new powerbot.

 

Read the post. Although I never directly said it, mops cause censorship which cause mobs which cause censorship. Its a circle which has a way out that is fairly simple if you understand what is really going on.

 

What kind of fucking community do we have here? People of the higher power and their corruption piss me off. They make the situation even worse when they blatantly give faulty information to the public. Yes, this is mainly directed at FINN. Though they can be deemed as assets, I currently view them as corrupt evildoers. Their malevolent, arbitrary, and juvenile actions are commencing a shit load of drama which can easily be avoided. They are bringing this community to the shits. They dig up random information that leads to the unjust ban of various good, loyal members here at Sythe. Instead of taking responsibility of their actions they decide to hide. They hide behind their position of power. If they were in any way attempting to better Sythe (as Finn stated) they would take full responsibility of whatever they (mainly Finn) have done in the past and do their best to fix the issues. Instead of confronting these feasible issues the staff decides to take the easy way out by banning innocent people. Job well done.

 

What is being done is done. Questioning it will just cause trouble. This was made to outline the problem and present a solution that satisfies everyone. I do not want this thread to turn into a shit hole. I want this to be a serious consideration of a possible easy try to fix a problem that has plagued Sythe for years. If I get banned for going against Finn's ultimatum, so be it but I don't want others to lash out with anger due to my thread I intended with the best of intentions.

 

Why did you assume I didn't read it?... I understand what is going on. Note that I edited my post to point out that I have always considered this outcry to be childish and absurd, and that's why I was glad for the censorship to happen. Your point is valid but, really, contextually null. It's like if I was to come up with a "suggestion" that we need to consider making a system for allowing scammers to be reported. The "suggestion" has been provided for long ago.

Thank you for proving the point that the smell of your torch is really getting on my nerves. Hiding your vulgarity and baseness with SAT vocabulary isn't really helping your case, by the way.

 

I, too, am only wanting the best outcome possibly. However, it angers me to see this kind of shit go on here. People need to own up to whatever they have done and have some kind of decency. I don't want to go off-topic and end up getting reported for spam so I'll leave it with one last thing - I could care less for a ban. If I am banned it will only further prove my point as well as everyone else's who believes the higher power is banning loyal users due to speaking against them.

Edit:

SAT vocabulary? Though my vocabulary selection isn't the best there is no need for insults. Thank you for proving SuF's idea of how trolls have the ability to hold a staff position. You are a perfect example of an immature troll at work.

 

I don't know you, and you don't know me.
You can call me a newcomer or noob if you would like.

My simple "problem solved" answer would be; "If you don't like it, leave. No one is keeping you here"

Sorry if I sound like an ass, but I back up that statement I made.

The current staff is a little shorthanded, but they are trying their best.

inb4 modasskisser. I'm not.

 

I do agree with what you say but I don't think that your suggestion can be implemented. It just seems so, big. I find that your suggestion is wishful thinking - just like the times when you used to wait for Father Christmas to climb down your chimney, but he never came. It's a massive change and these people hate change.

 

You don't get it. This is about so much more than what has happened recently. It's about changing the way the staff interacts with the users so that the closure of the dramatic threads happens in a way that doesn't upset anyone. It's entirely possible if you understand what's going on in people's minds.

 

Shorthanded in what sense?

 

I think he might mean that the power is very top heavy, in the sense that only the admins+ Sythe have any power to change anything, and there not willing to do so.

 

All I am suggesting is that someone focus on dealing with community issues and public relations so that a single person becomes good at it and can handle shit storms better and more effectively making their toll of the staff minimal as it is impossible to eliminate them.

 

If I have a problem with this site, I would simply ignore it, get over it, or stop coming here.
I don't see why other people do not do the same.

 

Could also be referring to the fact that Tyro's thread and what it caused has taken a ton of the staff's attention away from other aspects of the forum. I'm just trying to solve this dilemma in a way that doesn't add to the circle.

 

The fact that you bring up someone's vocabulary as a gateway to insult their intelligence makes you look quite stupid. Beat them down because their arguments are faulty, not because in which the way they were presented makes them seem uneducated.

So you agree that things need to be changed, but you're simply hiding behind the idea that because they're shorthanded, it's ok to fail. That is poor logic my friend.

 

Would all the angry mobs exist if it wasn't for all the censorship?

 

True, but you should probably know it won't help. Hopefully this does though.

 

Well, my point was this: Your system of improving transparency and public approval already exists to the fullest extent that it can exist. Heading back to my previous analogy, there are a few dozen threads each month about the flaws of the Report a Scammer section, but the response is always that the system we have now cannot be improved. I feel the same way about this suggestion: the transparency/approval of staff cannot be improved by having a public relations moderator or committee. There are things that are kept "secret" (so to speak) for very good reasons in any sort of bureaucratic/gubernatorial/etc. system, and I also feel that the staff is fairly transparent as it is. If anybody ever wanted to ask me anything, I'm always more than happy to respond truthfully as long as it doesn't breach confidence.

Yes. The simple truth is that we make a lot of unpopular decisions, and somebody is always going to be out there hating us. Consider, for example, the nearly constant strain of DDoS attack Sythe.org experiences.