- Joined
- Apr 22, 2005
- Sythe Gold
- 23
- Messages
- 7,825
A frog in a well thinks he’s the king of the world.
This is the best analogy I can think of that explains how “behind the scenes” activity works, and why it might be hard for those users posting in the Whole of Staff Feedback thread to understand some of the stuff I am doing that they can’t really see.
When it comes to Sythe.org, I would say that the ultimate goals of the staff are:
1. To enforce the rules and keep the forums clean
2. To ensure the staff team consists of active, trustworthy, and mature members
3. To ensure official middlemen applicants are screened carefully
4. To ensure the rules are appropriate for maximum user satisfaction and safety
5. To ensure the site itself is secure, speedy, aesthetically pleasing, and contains all the features needed for user satisfaction
Item #5 on that list is my main priority these days, but I still carry out duties #1-#4 as necessary.
Ordinary users won’t often see me posting outside the Spam Forum, and even non-Administrative staff won’t be able to see many of my contributions.
I’ll give two examples of things I’ve done behind the scenes that are not really “private” or “classified”, and safe to share:
1. Ban Lookup Script
vBulletin was not really designed with a forum like ours in mind. The default banlist page included in vBulletin displays all banned users on a single, non-searchable page. We have over 35000 users in total currently banned, so that wouldn’t work well! Though we added pagination before, the only problem that really solved was that we could now load the banlist without our browsers crashing: it still took ages to determine which page a user might be on, and staff may need a quick way to look up all bans set by a current or former staff member in some circumstances.
To that end, I added the following script to the Moderator Control Panel:
How does this help the site in the long run?
· Disputes can be processed quicker
· It is much easier to keep an eye on staff members if we feel they are getting too “ban happy”
Again, these tie into user satisfaction, and bring a net benefit to the site, even if ordinary users can’t see it.
2. Staff Activity Gauge:
Near the end of 2011, Matthew and I developed a new system called Mod Scores that replaced the older, inaccurate system of counting a flat number of number inline moderation actions each month. This system was used extensively until September 30, 2011 and had many problems including the fact that bans and infractions were not counted at all, it was very, very easy to cheat, and it discouraged staff from doing the actual important work (scam reports, ban requests, etc).
So, we added Mod Scores, which gives each staff member a “score” each month based on the following scoring criteria:
· Every Scam Report solved = 4 points
· Every Dispute solved = 2 points
· Every Ban issued = 2 points
· Every Spam Report solved = 1 point
· Every Infraction issued = 1 point (you can’t get more than 50 points per month for infractions)
For example, this is my Mod Score from Dec 2011:
This system is the reason the scam report section has almost never been more than a few pages long for the past 2 years (literally, before that very day, it used to be much, much worse; trust me).
Recently, admins have wanted to analyze the past six months of ModScores. Because the scripts currently in the Admin Control Panel only show data for the current and previous month, I had to write SQL queries to dig up the past 6 months of data(both individual for each month and a cumulative total so far).
The point of this thread is to remind everyone that I am working behind the scenes even if you don’t see me on site. I understand that you may not see me do actual admin-ing that is visible to ordinary users, but I hope this thread has made it clear that I am still doing work that ultimately benefits the entire site in the long run.
This is the best analogy I can think of that explains how “behind the scenes” activity works, and why it might be hard for those users posting in the Whole of Staff Feedback thread to understand some of the stuff I am doing that they can’t really see.
When it comes to Sythe.org, I would say that the ultimate goals of the staff are:
1. To enforce the rules and keep the forums clean
2. To ensure the staff team consists of active, trustworthy, and mature members
3. To ensure official middlemen applicants are screened carefully
4. To ensure the rules are appropriate for maximum user satisfaction and safety
5. To ensure the site itself is secure, speedy, aesthetically pleasing, and contains all the features needed for user satisfaction
Item #5 on that list is my main priority these days, but I still carry out duties #1-#4 as necessary.
Ordinary users won’t often see me posting outside the Spam Forum, and even non-Administrative staff won’t be able to see many of my contributions.
I’ll give two examples of things I’ve done behind the scenes that are not really “private” or “classified”, and safe to share:
1. Ban Lookup Script
vBulletin was not really designed with a forum like ours in mind. The default banlist page included in vBulletin displays all banned users on a single, non-searchable page. We have over 35000 users in total currently banned, so that wouldn’t work well! Though we added pagination before, the only problem that really solved was that we could now load the banlist without our browsers crashing: it still took ages to determine which page a user might be on, and staff may need a quick way to look up all bans set by a current or former staff member in some circumstances.
To that end, I added the following script to the Moderator Control Panel:
How does this help the site in the long run?
· Disputes can be processed quicker
· It is much easier to keep an eye on staff members if we feel they are getting too “ban happy”
Again, these tie into user satisfaction, and bring a net benefit to the site, even if ordinary users can’t see it.
2. Staff Activity Gauge:
Near the end of 2011, Matthew and I developed a new system called Mod Scores that replaced the older, inaccurate system of counting a flat number of number inline moderation actions each month. This system was used extensively until September 30, 2011 and had many problems including the fact that bans and infractions were not counted at all, it was very, very easy to cheat, and it discouraged staff from doing the actual important work (scam reports, ban requests, etc).
So, we added Mod Scores, which gives each staff member a “score” each month based on the following scoring criteria:
· Every Scam Report solved = 4 points
· Every Dispute solved = 2 points
· Every Ban issued = 2 points
· Every Spam Report solved = 1 point
· Every Infraction issued = 1 point (you can’t get more than 50 points per month for infractions)
For example, this is my Mod Score from Dec 2011:
This system is the reason the scam report section has almost never been more than a few pages long for the past 2 years (literally, before that very day, it used to be much, much worse; trust me).
Recently, admins have wanted to analyze the past six months of ModScores. Because the scripts currently in the Admin Control Panel only show data for the current and previous month, I had to write SQL queries to dig up the past 6 months of data(both individual for each month and a cumulative total so far).
The point of this thread is to remind everyone that I am working behind the scenes even if you don’t see me on site. I understand that you may not see me do actual admin-ing that is visible to ordinary users, but I hope this thread has made it clear that I am still doing work that ultimately benefits the entire site in the long run.
Also great work!
