Thoughts on current state of things?

i'm all for transparency on most things, but staff votes are sometimes hard to explain simply. i think the shortest summary is that shall skill was recently demoted, an old staff member asked to come back, and richard (and most of the rest of us) thought we could give him a trial period run without much risk. generally, ex-staff have an unofficial "you can come back if you've left on good terms" kinda clause they can trigger whenever they want.


i agree that recent activity is important and was obviously not the strongest part of DS's application. that said, ex-staff are generally allowed to come back, and as mentioned above, if things aren't working out in the trial period, i think demotion is totally an option.

I feel that should be changed personally. Okai if he's applied, yes he's an ex-staff member and most likely knows what he's doing, but if there is a lack of activity then his ex-experience isn't going to help nobody. Activity is the only way anything really gets done and that should be a focus & priority when looking at applicants ex-staff or members. I don't feel the unofficial you can come back just because, should be acceptable if their activity is not on point prior to applying again. Rather than wasting time with promoting inactive members/ex/staff and then having a trial period of lets see what you can do, knowingly their activity has not been consistent at all, and then going through a demotion etc.

The people that have applied before, but staff have been worried about of activity may actually be a better option to have rather than someone with very stagnant activity.
(I don't know the specifics, but from what I've read here and there it seems there have been some options of applicants that could of been a better choice for promotion)

 

the expectation is that activity will pick up rapidly post-promotion. if that doesn't happen, i think we'll be quick to demote as we have been recently. and, as mentioned, ex-staff can come back with more than one section


i agree that recent activity is important and was obviously not the strongest part of DS's application. that said, ex-staff are generally allowed to come back, and as mentioned above, if things aren't working out in the trial period, i think demotion is totally an option.

I don't want to make a public display about this, but then why was my application denied? If it is expected that activity picks up post-promotion, then why is the reason why applications were denied on the basis of lack of activity? And if they are generally allowed to come back, how come a majority of ex-staff's applications were denied?

 

but then why was my application denied?

You can find your mod application and the denial reason in this forum: Moderator Applications Archive

how come a majority of ex-staff's applications were denied?

No idea where you got that data from

 

I don't want to make a public display about this, but then why was my application denied? If it is expected that activity picks up post-promotion, then why is the reason why applications were denied on the basis of lack of activity? And if they are generally allowed to come back, how come a majority of ex-staff's applications were denied?

Im fighting for ya fam. I've been questioning this for the past 3 days now man. Makes no sense.

 

[Cas]

The rotator sure has stalled after the staffpocalypse.
In all honesty the site hasn't improved at all, the community teams are still fighting publicly and I only see upper staff posting in the community sections.
It seems the spam forum has become the usp for Sythe, which is awful for any website.

Meh

 

The rotator sure has stalled after the staffpocalypse.

I've wondered about this - consider this a working point for @Sythe from me as well

 

The rotator sure has stalled after the staffpocalypse.
In all honesty the site hasn't improved at all, the community teams are still fighting publicly and I only see upper staff posting in the community sections.
It seems the spam forum has become the usp for Sythe, which is awful for any website.

Meh

Community Teams like to cause drama; #OperationDrama.

 

[Admires]

If people had "lack of activity" in their denial reasons, then how can you promote somebody who had no activity within the last four years?

My honest opinion on the state of things, however, is that the site is getting worse. I really enjoy this site, but I used to be a lot more active a while back. The community teams are arguing, there's only around two or three actually active staff doing all of the work while the rest just sit back and are inactive, the community teams are still at each others' necks, and ever since school started, activity seems to be at an all time low (even though I'm part of the blame on that one).

I know that creating more teams like the TC and PR teams and taking moderator applications were supposed to help the site, but I see no improvements. I feel like the website is definitely going downhill which shows through an increasing rate of users generally being inactive. I hope this website's community won't die anytime soon, but its death is looking inevitable.

If you take a look at even our most popular non-market section, the spam forum, it has the same 4 or 5 people posting on every thread when this particular section had a lot more variety of users. The other non-market sections are just straight up dead.

Even Richard stated he's looking for work right now. What does this tell you about the health of this website when its owner is starting to look for work because he can't live off minimum wage that this website makes him?

 

I don't want to make a public display about this, but then why was my application denied? If it is expected that activity picks up post-promotion, then why is the reason why applications were denied on the basis of lack of activity? And if they are generally allowed to come back, how come a majority of ex-staff's applications were denied?

Don't worry mate, I got denied in a poll after I offered to help a few months ago. They said my activity was lacking too. Heh. Guess I'd just have to post a few times a month in the market next time I decide to offer my time.

EDIT: Super, it used to be like that. Those were grand ol' times.

 

[Felix]

I stopped caring honestly.

I find myself writing rants and praise then just constantly backspacing it now adays.

Perhaps its how busy I am, I don't know anymore, I just don't feel like its worth while to bother writing anything supportive or constructive anymore, all it does is cause me problems.

I guess my only short feedback is that we were going uphill there for a while, the site had a sense of life and a lot of activity, this seems to be decreasing due to a variety of factors, I do believe staff is one of them, although the situation improved a lot, it seems like were going backwards again.

but your rants have a following lol keep writing them dont be a quitter rofl

what are some of the factors that are negatively impacting the site?

 

[Buyacc]

Even Richard stated he's looking for work right now. What does this tell you about the health of this website when its owner is starting to look for work because he can't live off minimum wage that this website makes him?

Didnt Richard leave his job to work at Sythe full-time? Not keeping up with Richard's life but that is the last thing I heard.

The rotator sure has stalled after the staffpocalypse.
In all honesty the site hasn't improved at all, the community teams are still fighting publicly and I only see upper staff posting in the community sections.
It seems the spam forum has become the usp for Sythe, which is awful for any website.

Meh

I can reply to this by quoting a previous post of mine:

Sythe should make someone his spokesperson as he seem to have no time.

We can make ideas and concepts but if I already tagged Sythe a thousand times, PM'ed him a hundred times and sent him 50 messages on Discord regarding something without getting feedback from him that will help the community (for example the Pixelmon server which could bring a lot of Minecraft players to Sythe if we were able to finally get it set-up and promote it by making videos / cool content like I planned) there is not much I as a simple PR member can do.

 

[SuF]

i don't think the last two years have been a failed experiment in staff moderation or structure. will write out a more thoughtful reply to this post since i haven't done that yet

Been more than two years, I just pointed this out two years ago and it has only gotten worse.

 

[SuF]

Don't worry mate, I got denied in a poll after I offered to help a few months ago. They said my activity was lacking too. Heh. Guess I'd just have to post a few times a month in the market next time I decide to offer my time.

EDIT: Super, it used to be like that. Those were grand ol' times.

It's almost like the polls are entirely subjective and very biased popularity contest and the reasons they give are just bullshit, just like they have always been. Years ago most of the staff would have agreed that the polls were just popularity contests. It's disgusting that our current staff team won't admit any fault in anything ever.

 

[Admires]

Didnt Richard leave his job to work at Sythe full-time? Not keeping up with Richard's life but that is the last thing I heard.

Yeah, he did. But he stated he's looking for a job again. I don't know the reason, but I would guess it's because he stated he was only making minimum wage through this website.

 

I've demoted dark spark for failing to show for a whole week after his promotion.

To be fair if he had turned out to be extremely active no one would be complaining.

 

[Tyler]

I've demoted dark spark for failing to show for a whole week after his promotion.

To be fair if he had turned out to be extremely active no one would be complaining.

Maybe it would be beneficial to see proof of activity rather than people saying they will.

That way this dosent happen again.

 

Maybe it would be beneficial to see proof of activity rather than people saying they will.

That way this dosent happen again.

Well I didn't put him in on fiat, the staff voted for him, I also voted to give him a chance. So it didn't work out? Big deal move on

 

[Pain]

I've demoted dark spark for failing to show for a whole week after his promotion.

To be fair if he had turned out to be extremely active no one would be complaining.

Would like to see a controversial promotion.

Atm people follow the same steps to all get into staff, get to know staff, be friendly for a month, post a lot, apply to CDT & PR team, post in sythe support, and skype/discord chat with staff & repeat until promoted.

Just once would I like to see someone promoted who goes against the norm, I know you want to change Sythe and move it forward and you've made a lot of progress, I just wish that would translate to staff choices.


Unfournately the current structure is staff vote new staff in, so this method is tried & true to work, Staff pick other staff.

Just once would I like to see you say fuck it and give someone like SuF or something staff just to see what happens.


Gotta try something.

P.s- Current staff team has improved 10 fold to the old Nazi's, Truly Firez and stuff have seriously become some of the chilliest/coolest staff on this site, I would just like to see more change , I don't think the current people on staff are the problem at all, I think the systems are.

 

[Aroxez]

Well I didn't put him in on fiat, the staff voted for him, I also voted to give him a chance. So it didn't work out? Big deal move on

It's not entirely a big deal, I think what the point is, how can we prevent this so it doesn't happen again? There's a lot of "shit getting stirred" because of this situation, it's really degrading towards the sites image and all the newcomers possibly trying to be a part of the site seeing this much drama online. So what I am trying to approach is a solution on how we can prevent something like this to happen, so that the "shit" doesn't get stirred again.

 

[Superfluous]

I don't want to make a public display about this, but then why was my application denied? If it is expected that activity picks up post-promotion, then why is the reason why applications were denied on the basis of lack of activity? And if they are generally allowed to come back, how come a majority of ex-staff's applications were denied?

globals can't see archived staff voting threads so you'll have to ask an admin for details.

It's not entirely a big deal, I think what the point is, how can we prevent this so it doesn't happen again? There's a lot of "shit getting stirred" because of this situation, it's really degrading towards the sites image and all the newcomers possibly trying to be a part of the site seeing this much drama online. So what I am trying to approach is a solution on how we can prevent something like this to happen, so that the "shit" doesn't get stirred again.

agreed, that would be ideal. sometimes i think it's simply the fact that bad things happen which acts as a catalyst towards future change (or lack thereof, if we're talking unwanted promotions). i think we made a mistake that we can think of as something not to do in the future - that's learning!