Reinstitute a revised UE Team

Please, hear me out and understand the differences between what I am suggesting, and the old UE team before you just lock this. I’ll even summarize some of the major differences right now:

• No rank, only named on a list of team members in a sticky in the guides section
• No post count in private section
• Set number of team members
• One guide requirement for application
• Staff can decide who gets to select the team members out of the applicants (which means they can deny anyone they want)

And now I’ll summarize what this team will do (through a staff appointed Support Mod):

• Find and approve high quality guides to add to a sticky that lists high quality guides
• Find and gather evidence on plagiarizers and report them to the Support Mod in the private section
• Find and request that guides be moved to appropriate sections
• Find and request that high quality old guides (that got archived) be unarchived

Essentially what I am aiming for is a staff sanctioned group of normal users who care for and want to give back to the guide section (and to Sythe itself). Of course anyone could PM staff members that a guide is in the wrong place or this guide should be unarchived, but that adds extra work to the staff member who has to judge for him (or her) self whether the user’s claim is legitimate. A team would allow for a trust to be established between the staff and a group of users that will allow them to request (via specific threads in the private section) that actions be taken without the staff member having to check into them (much).

Now for reporting plagiarism, which is essentially requesting a ban, the team members would assemble the evidence in a clear, concise way that makes it easier for the moderator to verify the evidence before taking appropriate actions against the user. That way, you are only making it easier for the moderators (establishing a system for reports) without giving the team members any real trust as you would have to for a sectional moderator.

This suggestion is essentially a suggestion about the idea behind the team, not details on how the team should work. I’ve tried to eliminate the problems of the old system (and tried to make it more down to earth and less elitist) so that the guides section can be managed and kept at a decent quality without forcing the moderators to put in much extra time except for moving threads that the team suggests be moved.

I’ve also been thinking of ways to make the team members accountable for their actions so that the staff can easily audit the work they have done and easily step in to change it when they see fit.

So, give it some thought, ask questions, etc. I haven’t written down all my thoughts since it would be pointless if the idea behind them all is deemed to be garbage.

 

I support, but it has a good chance of being denied.

 

Support, would be nice to have a team to help out the guides section.

 

No support, sorry. Even without the rank, it still becomes a popularity contest. A mod would be fine to do everything you said the new UEs could do.

 

It was never a popularity contest when I was in it. We brought people no one had ever heard of onto the team all the time. You can defeat the popularity aspect of it by making applications anonymous and letting the staff decide who gets to decide who is chosen. And, as I explained to FireZ, a group of people could do much more good than a single (staff members are harder to find that "UE" members) staff member.

 

I do support. No rank, nothing in exchange, I like the idea that is people that just want to help and can be more trusted than general users to keep the section smooth and perfectly running.

 

The problem is finding people who truly want to help and have the skills required to help and keeping them helping and being able to remove them when they are non active in the section anymore.

 

I don't see how the organization does the individual helper any good. I always wanted to join the UE team because I generally just lurk until someone asks a question and I can help him. Joining UE didn't really assist me in any way, and I don't see that particular problem being addressed.

Also, 90% of all the "questions" on Sythe are directed in the RS section, not the Guides/UE/CS sections. The old system never addressed this, either.

 

Well, I had envisioned some more but I didn't bother writing any of it down since it doesn't matter at this stage. Any team could feasibly work together, if all the members were dedicated enough, on whatever problem they saw. If someone noticed that the help section was full of a certain kind of question, they could write a guide that answers that question in a collaborative fashion. Really, the possibilities are endless when you bring together people who share a common interest. The problem is, getting a group of people with that common interest together and actually doing something. It's kind of like a high school club, tbh.

 

High school club is a good way to put it. Maybe I'm just extra antisocial (c'mon, we're all antisocial to spend this long on Sythe every day), but the UE team you are suggesting would work for most of the members. Clubs were never my thing.

 

After considering your input, I have a suggestion which, if implemented, I would support. As I disagree with you on the popularity contest aspect (it was when I was around), I suggest that all members who want to be a UE can be a UE. Maybe have minimal requirements like be a member for 1 month and have at least 200 posts, but very minimal if any requirements would be ideal. To ensure that people weren't just doing it to say that they were a UE, the Support Center mod would demote all inactive users (if you wanted to add a quota, I'd be fine with it).

 

Never ever.