Staff Feedback

Finn, I dislike how you emotionally revealed your personal financial situation to the community, which helped you garner donations, or semi-donations in the form of an overpriced eBook, and then proceeded to buy a Macbook Pro. If you really needed the $2000-3000 for college that you said you did, why did you proceed to spend over $1500 more than you needed to on a laptop?

You keep complaining about not having the books you need to start the year, but surely the money spent on the laptop could have gone towards those... The community was guilt-tripped into paying for your continued education, and instead paid for your shiny new laptop. Just my 2 cents.

 

Anon, I don't think the way Finn spends his money should matter at all. I personally bought his eBook because the man deserves some compensation for his hours and hours of dedication to Sythe, not solely because he needed to buy books. Besides, it's not like he bought a useless item. You try going to a university these days without a laptop.....

 

I am going to be upfront about everything, and not hide behind an anonymous wall.

Finn, like the above poster said, I dislike the fact that you used the donations that were (in all honesty) intended for your university, for an expensive macbook. A $500 HP/Acer/Dell laptop can do as good as the Macbook can, so why would you need it? You could've saved quite a bit of money for uni fees, textbooks, and other required items for your classes. You told us your story, and clearly many people opened their heart for you, by written support, eBook payments, and donations. But, I believe you also emotionally manipulated everyone by pouring your story, (which if your father did lose his restaurant, my condolences) and end up going on a "shopping spree" with the money. I'm sure if you told people your intentions from the get-go, you wouldn't get as many donations.

I've been here long enough to sort of know the personalities of a lot of staff members, not through personal-relations, but through their posts. I honestly never expected this from you, and when I heard about this I was shocked. What also startled me was from your "How much would you trust me with?" thread. You asked, and the people delivered; unfortunately they didn't deliver what you wanted to hear. You seemed dismayed at the fact that someone told you that they wouldn't trust you with anything of theirs. You don't have that much "trust" in the sense of market trading, but you assume that since you're an admin people should lower their guards and trust you? Like the Admin title is some kind of insta-trust factor?

I'm sorry if you, and anyone else, get offended by my previous comments. For anyone other than Finn, do not bother defending him; I'd rather hear it from Finn himself. I understand if you feel the need to direct any collected emotions towards me, seeing as I'm the only one who has identified themselves beforehand and posted something about this common issue we face. I'm also sorry to anyone whose view of me has been in any way significantly swayed, since I don't normally speak my mind.

 

I know you did say that you want Finn to defend himself. However, on one note it would be inappropriate for Finn to "toot his own horn" and explain how he is trusted. He shares an inordinate amount of trust that all of the Sythe admins share. They can change the password of basically anyone at the drop of the hat. The fact that they don't and never will says a great deal about their characters. Consider this hypothetical situation:

Let's say one rogue admin organizes a bunch of GP trading deals under false MSN names to be associated with highly trusted gold sellers like R2P, King Tijn, Viou, etc... These trades add up to well over 10b worth of trades. The admin then changes the passwords to these accounts and changes their listed MSNs and sends the requested PMs to prove they are "legit". In a matter of a few minutes, this admin now has over $5000. Surely he'll be demoted and banned once the rest of the admins find out; however, $5000 is quite a good retirement for a few minutes of work.

I understand that you are feeling frustrated with Finn's "splurging" (and I won't comment on that matter because you asked not to and because it's not my business), but these admins at least deserve a lot more credit than they get for their outstanding integrity.

 

Alright I need to bring this to light, I was in the IRC and saw everything Finn was saying about this. He blatantly stated that he had made so much money off his ebooks and that he needed to go on a shopping spree. So then he started showing us his new shoes and jeans that he was going to buy. I am pretty surprised by this considering he used the emotions of many to garner money for his supposed university needs and then turned around and spent it all for his own personal use.

I know IRC is unofficial but I feel this is something that needs to be addressed, because many people who spent their money on his book will probably be upset over the fact that they were pretty much deceived.

 

@Kero:

I've read your post and I understand where you're coming from. I know the admins/mods have a lot of pressure on them when they are on Sythe, and I am content knowing that this is the top RS black-market website to date. This achievement is clearly due to the outstanding effort the admins and mods put into Sythe, which I can guarantee is tiring work. Thank you for having the respect to listen to what I have to say, and replying accordingly.

 

Well, on a different note:

The RaS section is looking very good, only 3 reports. Great work all those that helped out, and in particular cosrob, who, from my observation has done a stellar job over the past weeks in that section.

 

Because they asked for those perms >.>

 

Like I said, I had asked for them before too and had to wait before I received them, lol

 

Lol it's not a constant or fixed system unfortunately. Sometimes there are inconsistencies, like the Wolfdog15 (is that right number?) changed his name to Wolfdog even though he was a $5 donor, whereas many $200-300 donors never even got their names capitalized after requesting them to be done so.

I'm sure you know that the inconsistencies aren't personal... just a fact of life.

 

I've actually stated this quite a bit, and have made suggestions about it. I agree with Alt and I am pretty sure Alt would know, Mod is more than a bottom line of a shop and mod logs. A Graphics Mod is a teacher and I don't see Kina teaching.

 

I have mixed feelings about the Sythe staff at the moment. Firstly, I want to say that I am very happy with the most recent batch of promotions consisting of n4n0, Kero and Wulf. I feel that having 3 Ex-Global Mods in a section that needs the most attention is a good idea.

On another note, where is Josh0is0here and Pokemonrs? I see josh0is0here when i tend to pop in the IRC but I rarely see him moderatate the off-topic section. There are many other users that would be perfect for that section and would be much for active.

To keep on the topic of promotions, I strongly believe the main reason MohtasaUnique was promoted because he was close friends with Finn. I have nothing against him and I don't think he'll do a bad job but as said above, there are many other users that deserve that position even if they are not close with Globals/Admins or spend time in the IRC.

 

Sin666-Thank you for running this Anonymous Feedback system; an amazing idea that will surely help staff see honest feedback and from that improve how they act.

 

Pokemoners is suspended. Josh= No idea.

 

Since there's a lot of confusion about the system we use to give sectionals their additional sections, here's what we do:

If a new moderator has been on staff for 2 months or more and expresses interest in moderating an extra section, they just request the permissions from an administrator.

If an ex moderator returns to staff having previously been a moderator for 2 months or more, they can just go right ahead and request the extra section permissions.

Hope that clears things up for those that are confused! If you have any feedback or suggestions regarding this system, please post them in a separate thread.

 

Sin666- I'm really liking this Anonymous Feedback. It helps the staff see what the community really thinks.

 

Finn: a little consistency in how you treat people may help your image. At times you are a great guy, helpful, kind to people, funny and whatnot. Then, all of a sudden, it seems like you have the urge to bring people down and refuse to help out.

 

I personally haven't noticed him do the second part, he only acts negatively towards people who do the same towards him, who wouldn't? It's perfectly fine to act that way towards people who act that way towards you.

Just my opinion though.

 

I'd first like to say how disgusting, libellous and offensive I find the remarks that have been made here without asking me about the situation at hand. Not only do the aforementioned posts have nothing at all to do with the way in which I fulfil my role, but they make a number of false allegations.

The notion that I have bought a ''shiny new MacBook'' with money that I EARNED by writing two long & well-received eBooks is completely and utterly false. Had anyone asked me about this before assuming I had bought my new laptop with funds I made, I would have explained the situation; instead, and, as ever, feedback has been made baselessly. My mother paid for my MacBook with my own money. When my grandmother died in 2003, she left behind a small amount of money to be used to cover some of the expenses which would be incurred during my time at university, which my mother has kept in a bank account under her control since my grandmother's death, seeing as I was 10 when she died. As I've said, the amount she left was small, and my mother and I agreed that I should buy a competent laptop with it for university. My old laptop simply was not adequate - not only was the mousepad well and truly broken, but the screen was becoming increasingly disconnected from the body of the laptop. To make matters worse, the fan was broken and so the laptop could not be moved at all - instead, it had to remain on my desk at all times - HARDLY suitable for university, where moving your laptop around in order to take it with you to seminars and lectures, for example, is necessary. Furthermore, I didn't make nearly enough money to buy the MacBook, and the money that I did make has so far been used to buy various necessary items for my place of accommodation - namely cutlery, plates, bedding, and various other essentials. This weekend when I arrive, I'll be able to buy the assortment of textbooks I need from a second hand bookstall.

Now, given that this feedback has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of my site administration, and also given that what I spend the money I have EARNED has NOTHING to do with anyone but me, I would not usually respond to such character assassination attempts. However, given that many of the aforementioned comments are not only completely off-the-mark but also libellous, I felt the need to clarify. I am offended & shocked by the assumptions some of you have drawn and would advise those that have jumped to conclusions to reevaluate the way they act - some very grave remarks have been made here.

Although I hope I have dispelled the false and baseless assertions made above, I would say that, in future, you have absolutely no right to comment on the way in which I spend my money.

 

Finn, instead of getting angry and defensive, and accusing those who supplied said feedback of being "libelous", I do think you could be more understanding and at the very least acknowledge, "I can see how that may have come off." Ie, how would you have felt if someone expressed their financial difficulties to you, you helped them out, and a week later they were talking about their new computer and shopping spree?

Not to mention, you're insulting those who did purchase your book primarily in an effort to help you out by implying that you don't recognize their contribution, because - after all - they weren't being generous, you simply earned it.

You ask for honest feedback, but you can be very defensive - even aggressive - when you receive it.