[DENIED] New approval rating system for staff

It wouldn't be public until results are in. Numbers shouldn't be taken at face value. That's what the comment for rating would discourage.

 

You've said yourself that the current feedback system is mainly or often users showing gratitude for approved requests. How would this new system change that?

I believe that members of staff are the best people to monitor staff activity because they get a full picture of what's going on behind the scenes and know what staff members are supposed to be doing.

 

Similarly to the staff review system in place at current, would it be possible to implement the same system for normal users to vote on staff? I'm not sure of the technical aspect behind it, or how laborious it would be post-voting (how/who will the votes/ratings be counted?). This could be done so via the user centre, where users have the option to voting on staff members, based on the exact same scale in use at current. I.e, vote from 1-10 (10 being the highest rating/best rating), over say 5 different categories. E.g, '@FlyingToast activity', 'FlyingToasts community participation', etc etc. Whichever 5 (or however many is decided on) are chosen.

The voting would remain anonymous, and to ensure it meets some sort of activity (read: non troll) criteria, the benchmark could be set at, for example, user registered for over 6 months, minimum posts required, etc. Perhaps even it could be an added donor perk, where users whom pass a certain donor threshold, are eligible to vote.

Obviously the issue here is that, will Sythe/Matthew have the time to count and collate all these votes, alongside their statements? Maybe make it just a numerical scale, with no statements needed, as it would be anonymous to all, aside Matt/Sythe? Perhaps this could be done on a quarterly basis, opposed to monthly, to allow for enough time for Sythe/Matt to take this on.

It's important to note that being a staff member is a voluntary position, and in saying that, I don't believe publicly showing results is a the right solution.

Taking in community feedback is in itself a good idea, but how it's passed on is critical. For example, if all the community member's feedback is kept anonymous (refer to my above suggestion), and said feedback is used by the Admin team (Matthew/Sythe in this instance/example) to better the staff team, then that's all that's needed.

The notion here is that, we should be able to rely on those at the top to have the sites best interest at heart. I believe they do, and ultimately if the purpose of this idea is to ensure a well rounded staff team, then all that's needed is for said feedback to be applied/passed on correctly from the higher ups down to the normal mods. Nothing needs to be made public. It will be evident from changes taking place, or not taking place, if feedback is adhered to.

@Shin @Sythe

 

I hope I hit on each important point.

I take it that for the word of performance, we are referring to competence and activity.

We actually do keep an eye on each other. Shin himself has done audits on staff before looking for competence issues. I think he has since stopped but I’m not sure. It’s fairly more easy to address other staff without bias than you would think. Any time a member has a legit issue with any staff, it is confronted immediately. I’ve yet to see a single same issue persist that I’ve come across myself. If you have a problem, say something. I would say Admins are here as a higher bereau of sorts. Maybe there are users who believe one or some admins aren’t unbiased - it’s all personal opinion imo. If there’s actual bias, just refer to another admin, and if you truly believe it’s some or all, then ultimately Sythe is here to mediate and further action can be taken to correct this wrong behavior. I can say for myself any time I am asked to handle a more complicated or popular issue/report/whatever and my ruling may be unpopular, I will speak to Shin & video before making any final conclusion. Just the other day we had a case go thru all three of us and eventually up to Sythe himself. Sythe concluded the same thing as we did. Granted, that user claims that they will continue to dispute to prove our wrong and whatnot but they are welcome to do so - I just don’t think making a report through three admins and the owner himself will ultimately be bias. If it is, then I’ll be damned. Can’t exactly displace the owner of the site. I’d like to note that for this case, all four of us agreed on reasoning for outcome, but only two admins (video and myself) were ridiculed. This is an example of why public reviews probably wouldn’t work. If someone is unhappy or they disagree, they will just vote poorly. If someone feels they have been done right, they will vote well - even though in some instances the performance was exactly the same.

Now in regards to activity, I will say that, yes, we have had problems with this in the past and still do even today. There will always be activity problems as people do have lives and may be unavailable at times here and there, perhaps 1-2 weeks at a time, but as you know, we do have a thread for this so that all staff can stay informed. I do believe workload is being handled swiftly enough for satisfaction, but I won’t speak for everyone. Is it being handled close to equally amongst all staff? It isn’t possible. Relative to how much time each staff member is able to give to Sythe/staff duties? I’d say so.

Over the year and some change I’ve been on staff I can say that staff truly does go thru phases depending who is on the team, so it’s pretty hard to maintain an understanding with staff until they are used to being on the team. Some staff do too much and burn out for a while. No one told them to do it all, but they do. Some staff don’t do as much but for good reason. I don’t really think they should be demoted unless it’s for an unreasonable amount of time.

I would be in favor of staff rotations once problems have been identified. I’ve brought this up recently but I’m not sure I have a lot of say to the actual outcome - the most I can do is suggest who I think should be rotated and why, but ultimately it’s what Sythe himself would choose to do. Something I think is necessary, may not be in his eyes with his idea of how his staff team should operate.

I am not opposed to change however I do believe using FB threads & admins is an easy way to get to the same end goal (at least currently). Obviously if the right idea is laid out, then why not? I’d be all for it. Nothing is wrong with public accountability HOWEVER I really believe having potentially hundreds of users weighing in on individual staff members will be less than accurate a majority of the time.

And I know you said this is step one. I get that. But atm I just can’t see a foreseeable outcome that we could actually fairly implement.

I will keep an eye on thread for more formed ideas though.

 

It doesn't necessarily have to be a poll. Hell, I don't think it should be a poll at all. It should be a requirement to have 250+ words per valid staff feedback to even be looked at. I'm sure users like myself and @A Broken Man have no problem writing that if it makes something right.

 

As of right now I don't believe sythe staff are in a bad place, compared to the past at least. Everyone seems to be thinking something needs to happen to feedback. In the long run if someone has a problem with staff you can bring it up to an admin, charlotee shin and video are all more than willing to cooperate with you. And when it comes to positive reinforcement, personally message them. Sure it looks nice when everyone sees it, but it is individual feedback for a reason, you help the individual person learn or show them they did good. No support, #RoastMe.

 

Polling the public for staff reviews is nothing more than a popularity contest + public perception does not equivocate to accurate representation; there have been plenty of staff members who are active in staff discussions, investigations, etc. which are not seen by general users.

If you have concerns about staff performance, approach the user and work your way up the chain.

 

1. It is more of a survey than a poll.
2. Results wouldn't be public until the end of the month.
3. "public perception does not equivocate to accurate representation" But votes from your peers, do? A little contradictory. You're more certain to get an accurate state of staff production from the community than you will your peers (bias). I was staff too. I know what goes on.
4. "there have been plenty of staff members who are active in staff discussions, investigations, etc. which are not seen by general users" That's not an excuse to not have your production rated. There is more to a staff members job than "behind the scenes" activity. This excuse has been rolled out many times.
5. It is clear you haven't read most of the thread because I've covered most of this already.

Edit: I really doubt this would be done officially. I can host this unofficially however.

 

1. Survey/Poll = semantics; you are actively asking people their sentiments about x.
2. Public/not public is trivial, I do not think the data would be useful in the slightest. Various mods have periodically gotten attacked by the community for what they perceived to be a wrong-doing (Sythe's "let them steer the boat and it'll crash comment fits well here).
3. Yeah, staff's peers were selected and voted through by staff... that is a bit higher standard than anyone who wish's to rate x performance after they saw them handle y scam report and are pissed off. Decisions made are not always popular ones. There is already an anonymous survey for staff who will have a better grasp of what other staff members have done over a period of time. While I have not been on the team for some time, I thought the staff team was pretty good at sharing what they found to be issues with one-another (perhaps that's my bias coming out).
4. Perhaps it is consistently utilized due to its accuracy? I can tell you I dropped off a bit from in-community participation, meanwhile I was on every staff thread and heading investigations into a variety of now-banned members. People have different amounts of time to dedicate to Sythe and it seems ridiculous to stick staff out on a bigger limb then they are already on to appease the desire for a public poll.

The only situation where I would support a "public poll" of staff members if the participants were randomly selected from a volunteer sample group (i.e. a thread is made, everyone that is interested posts, random dice is rolled to select a percentage of the users, said users are sent a survey), but even then, I think its a waste of time. Why?

Staff have individual feedback threads, there is a massive feedback thread, a majority of staff desire critical feedback as it helps them improve, and if someone cant bring up the issue directly, maybe they should think about whether it should be brought up at all. It's a forum and mods are just people; have an issue? Talk about it. Oh, is it a really really big issue? Talk to someone above them and let them address it.

 

Rate the Staff of Sythe (May 2018)

Made it unofficially. This doesn't need to be official. I'd respond to your points individually, but I don't think it's necessary at this point.

 

I like the system you've recommended Wonderland. I voted already, and it's nice to see someone in the community who cares what mods do. I hope you get taken seriously on this.. there's a few mods I never see doing anything.

 

This suggestion has been denied.

There is many resources available to voice your opinion if you believe a staff member is slacking / not doing their job properly.