Unsatisfied with growth

@Sythe let me make this very clear to you. I just cannot understand how you're twisting this in your mind. We were unhappy about how you all of a sudden we're making changes and disregarding your staff's opinion. After hearing about this, you literally posted a thread along the title of "you have a king now" in the staff lounge with your god complex. You said if we didn't like it, we should resign. So we did exactly as you told us to do. We also posted our issues with your changes and why we were leaving so hopefully you would change for the new batch of staff.

1) we didn't Strike, we left and told you why we left as a favor to you in hopes you'd fix your shitty approach, attitude, and treatment of the staff.
2) we weren't starting drama. We posted our thread in the staff lounge. Once regular members saw our names no longer colored and posted in the spam forum, it was you who said we were starting drama with a reply to that thread in the spam forum. We just wanted to go, but you made an issue of it.
3) You explicitly told us to leave if we didn't like this so we did. We did as you asked
4) don't say any bullshit about activity requirements. There where 2 week periods leading up to that where I had more modscore than the entire rest of the staff team combined. Roary solo handled the recoveries. Wonderland, Cas, Entrr also continually performed well in regards to modscore and activity. It had nothing to do with activity so do not use that cop out of an excuse. If you still think it was about that for any reason, I along with every other staff member that left at that time can tell you it was not that: it was you.

 

If you don't think it can be fixed, but complain about it not being fixed, what are you doing? I'm not taking sides as this conflict does not have me be involved, but it seems redundant to complain about something not being done if you personally do not believe in the viability or possibility of change.

 

What did Roarys replies have anything to do with us not being happy with XF? Stop with the ridiculous BS excuses and actually listen to what we're saying. I prefer XF from the start: cleaner interface, notifications, easier moderator controls. That's all the reason I needed and I spent hours along with Superman activity finding bugs and trying to make suggestions. Don't pull reasons out of thin air. Don't try to just automatically be right and make up any reasoning you need to in order to be right. Don't dismiss what we're saying as salty ex mods. If I was a salty ex mod, I'd either A) enjoy reading this thread and your absurd replies or B) just not even care because it's not worth my time. I reply because I care and I put time and effort into my replies; for some reason I keep thinking if I just reply enough you'll eventually realize your faults, just any of them. Any fault that you have, just one. Just realizing you're not perfect and you are indeed able to make mistakes like every other single human being. There is no reason for a suggestion forum if you're not willing to accept any suggestion that tells you where you could improve in certain areas if you're just going to tell them they're wrong and everything you do is perfect and infallible.

 

Finally, and I'm sorry for the long string of replies I'm on a mobile, you really ought to know there is a profession for advertisement and promotion: marketing. If you can't recognize that then I don't know what else to say. Anyone who is able to draw attention effectively is an asset and that skill is worth money. Why are YouTubers paid money when they have lots of views? Social media is a form of advertisement. I'm not saying go spend $50,000 on a professional firm to advertise the website. All I'm saying is take it more seriously then "we have a PR team with 6 adolescent youth who are primarily on this team to get moderator and have posted a bunch on our Sythe FaceBook that has only 50 total likes" or something. Public Relations and advertisement should be he forefront of your business model right now. As Roary said earlier, if you want to just ride the coat tails of what we have right now and enjoy the cash flow with no effort than that's fine, nothing wrong with that. Just say so, so that we can stop trying to change your mind. But if you're legitimately interested in growing the site, as your actions suggest, then invest in it.

 

If he doesn't genuinely care about the site, I don't think he'd be sticking around responding to the likes of you and everyone else. To be quite honest it's a waste of his time to do so, but I think we take his time for granted. I don't mean to say this all in a negative sense, but there are so many other projects to be done or worked on that we don't really care or take into consideration everything we're pulling Richard's attention away from. That might have to do with not communicating in a very open sense (think news threads) what he's working on daily or things he's been able to create and accomplish, but the information is out there... I think it would be nice for it to all be in one place though.

For people who are inexperienced and incapable of thinking outside the box, then yes. The issue with community teams is people want to join for the perks and recognition instead of actually developing any skills. As such, no 'real' progress is ever made and everything remains in a circular system so-to-speak.

Kind of... sometimes... As in, he does get things done, but not always according to when Richard might want or actually need things. As a result, he probably does some of those jobs on his own. Without knowing the true nature of the business relationship between Matthew and Richard, I find it incorrect to speak matter-of-factly about it. I think it's incorrect to have this kind of approach though, because I do everything that I do voluntarily and don't for a second think, "I'm not going to do this unless I'm paid." Matthew is in a special position because of the real talents he has, the trust relationship he's developed with Richard, and what tools/code he provides which genuinely benefits the mission of Sythe and the community.

To be honest, you called us fake and that we don't actually possess any valuable skills. However, I think you're trying to speak about certain Admins that "exist" perhaps, but don't really contribute much to the site. Or maybe those who appear from a community standpoint to use their position as a way for personal gain in the marketplace instead of for the benefit of the community. I feel like I could have written that much better.

That's like creating a viral video and then being salty for the rest of your life because you'll be labeled for that one thing and completely irrelevant otherwise. It's actually quite remarkable you continue to speak about the same thing over and over and over for so long now, as if you need confirmation that you did something which potentially helped Sythe in the slightest. Or maybe it's that you feel you're the only person that's ever done something productive for the site and nobody else can compare. I'm not going to try to understand your thought process though because it might kill me.

I think online forums being a thing of the past is far from the case. All I see in your slippery slope argument is a "what", but it fails to mention the "why".

Very constructive feedback this is (sarcasm btw). How/why are all teams useless? How would the best PR team in the world who is actually paid not be able to effectively market Sythe? If they fail to accomplish that, then it's safe to say they aren't the "best PR team in the world" by not being able to do their job correctly. Contradiction by reason.

From all of the arguments listed herein, there were a few things I gathered. In a general sense, users are the problem with the site. Now, I won't say users don't care, but there will always exist a percentage who don't care. About what? Well, the flourishing of the website. If every user we have tries to refer one individual to Sythe on a weekly basis, it's very difficult to argue Sythe won't grow or flourish, but somehow the blame for that falls on Richard and Richard alone. While it's twisted or perverse in a sense of moral significance, this shouldn't be the stance by the community as each user bares responsibility in their own right. Users might donate to the site because they support it or want access to certain features/perks, but they don't care enough to be a part of a movement which supports growth for the site. What I'm trying to say is that some users feel that by donating to the site they're serving a purpose of helping it exist, but don't care so much if that donation is used to help the site grow and flourish. I find that to be deeply troubling.

Furthermore, real problems have been argued ad infinitum for years, but they fail to be appropriately addressed in my opinion. Proposed solutions to current issues are wild, unfeasible, or argued without proper reasoning to back them. You can talk about how PR has failed to meet a certain objective, how Richard has failed to mention items of relative significance, or how consistency among the staff team has struggled, but without providing an argument consisting of what should be done to correct these actions or behaviors or what we should look to do in the future (think research method), then complaining does no good. If you're genuinely interested in helping Sythe be the best that it can be for you and everyone else, then come with actionable solutions to real problems. Otherwise, I'm going to read what you have to say and not care enough to acknowledge your thoughts and ideas, as I already know nothing productive will come from it based on personal and historical experience(s).

 

It's not our job to give you the specifics. We'd be in these teams or staff if we wanted to get in to the nitty gritty details. Don't expect us to do your work. We're telling you what doesn't work and why, and you even agreed that the community teams don't work very well with "The issue with community teams is people want to join for the perks and recognition instead of actually developing any skills. As such, no 'real' progress is ever made and everything remains in a circular system so-to-speak."

Read what I said above. All you did was put it in fancier terms. So we're on the same page. You know they're ineffective and have been since inception in terms of PR, and for years in terms of CDT. Do something about it. We brought attention to the issue, it's not our job to come up with solutions and a pro/con list for each. I don't want to put that effort in. It's just painfully obvious what's wrong and Sythe doesn't want to admit it. So do something about it instead of waiting for "feedback" on how to do your job. Just do it, get a competent team or do it yourselves.

 

Explain it as you like and somehow misconstrue my very direct post and give meaning to it that wasn't there whatsoever in my post. Anyone who actually knows me knows I don't care about power, I care about right and wrong. That's the difference: you're on top so you're the only important one and I'm not so why should I matter? I'm expendable and can be replaced in the next day. So who is really the one who cares about power? I digress as that's a tangent you brought up. Until you'll actually reply to my points instead of coming up with bogus reasons and picking at straws to dismiss us because you just want to be right, I'm left with this: you're hopeless.

 

This may be the stupidest thing you've ever said. The fact you offer it as a lead-in to what I finished my post with is mind-blowing. What you're saying is you have the freedom to complain, which I have no problems agreeing with, but that you aren't responsible to offer an explanation as to why your complaints are relevant. In that, everything you say irrelevant and isn't worth the time to read. More or less, "I present to you an argument about X based on nothing because I can." What?

So in this, you're saying community teams and the staff are responsible for the current state of the site (which is?). We don't make expectations for you to do our work (whatever that means), but when you try to bring about an argument you should at the very least explain why it is relevant, what conclusions can be drawn as a result of what's currently being done, and what might be a solution to whatever the problem is. Establishing your credibility is important.

You're not telling us the why and clearly stated it's not your job to give us the specifics.

I stated an issue regarding community teams, but I wasn't agreeing with anyone. It looks like you left some words out of your sentence as well. When responding to Buyacc, I was calling him (and others) close-minded in the sense some PR members feel the only things they're capable of doing is posting on Facebook or Twitter.

No, you will not take credit for the things I've said. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish here, but you came in asserting Richard wants to always be right and the smartest person in the room, but you're speaking from a position that only what you have to say is the right thing. I was constructing my post for roughly 4 hours, trying to read through everything as I trained Charlotte and responded to various requests on the side. I wasn't taking what you said and rewrote it in my own way.

I'm assuming you're talking about community teams here? Let me ask you this. If I were to remove all of the community teams tomorrow, what would Sythe gain from it? What would they lose? Would you say that's not a solution despite my "doing something about it"? If not, I invite you to present some ideas on how to move forward. Otherwise, you're better off saying nothing at all.

Yeah, you're right. We were not aware of there being any issues what-so-ever for all this time. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

That's just a pathetic way of saying, "I don't know what to do."

Well maybe you should relate what's so "painfully obvious". From the arguments presented above, you're central claim seems to be that Richard is the problem with the website in every possible sense. However, you're spending all this time talking about PR and ex-staff, which distorts the perception of what you're really trying to get at.

Why are you attacking me? You want us to engage with the community, but not ask for constructive feedback on how we can change current policies or processes? You really make me feel like you have no idea what you're talking about and just came in to mindlessly rant about common, known, on-going issues.

 

First you make a contradiction and then you make a conclusion without actually reading into it, strong argumentation there. To elaborate.

First you quote my post saying that the PR cant do anything without funding and then you quote my posts which actually confirms that; the Rocket League posts which is me talking about how I needed to invest my own funds to benefit Sythe as Sythe was unwilling to. Coming back to the point that I find it disturbing that Sythe relies on money from outsiders to keep his site alive. This isnt a charity site, it's his company.
Also, like I said to Richard, making claims based on nothing is easy. "Think outside the box", make a concrete example of what a PR leader can do when Richard is rejecting to give any funds.

Then you quote my Rocket League post and talk about how big of an ego I must have. If you actually read into it I wasnt even going to mention it but Richard decided to make every possible attempt to dodge my question and instead went for a small part I edited out of my post. He still hasnt answered the question which I just layed in front of you as well: what would you do without funds as a PR leader, other than spamming social media which has turned out to be a complete failure. Are you going to pull a 'Richard' and not answer / go off-topic, or are you actually going to answer?

 

Is this you repeating all the things I already mentioned in this topic we tried when PR was under my leadership? I mentioned joint events and a fundraiser. To go more in depth.

The joint event will never work without funds. What we did was try to get a big Counter Strike blackmarket forum to make a joint event. We chose for this as we thought promoting Sythe on another Runescape forum doesnt have any results; people already know of Sythe. Of course the Counter Strike forum asked what we had to offer for the event and we had nothing. Why would gold sites promote such an event, most arent very active in Counter Strike and the once that are were hesitant about the return on their investment. Of course plenty of blackmarket forums also just said they werent interested, like 9/10 did that and the other 1/10 we couldnt progress due to lack of funds. So instead of repeating me, how would you fix that?

The next 2 things were tried but were unsuccesful because you didnt care / didnt support the ideas or because the community werent interested. A fundraiser was made, which failed so that isnt going to work. Also take in mind the PR should focus outward, the CDT makes raffles/fundraiser the PR should not. A good plan for a tournament was made; Pixelmon. But guess what happened, Grave got the permissions over the Minecraft server and did nothing with it. Eventhough I contacted you a dozen times you wouldnt support it.

Now I ask you again, this time a bit more detailed. What would you do as a PR leader without funds and without real backing by the big boss when you make events such as a tournament, while knowing there already is a CDT team for events on-site?

 

Why would a Counter Strike forum, or any forum that isnt involved in Runescape, want to support an event evenly that they hardly benefit from? Also, I never said it was us paying for it 100%, it would be nice if you could stop making things up. Even when we split things evenly we need funds.

Your posts keep being nonsense, the same with the second quoted part. I asked for Grave to be kicked out of his permissions as SuF was willing to do it. The very smart Richard guy kept saying that he wanted to give Grave a shot.

The third part is nonsense as well. I already said that gold sites werent interested. If you could make a simple logical 1 - 2 connection you would be able to realise that those gold sites are the sponsors for the CDT their events.

All in all your posts show a complete lack of insight.

 

Yikes!

 

- Doesn’t want to admit there is a problem and/or hes at fault.

- Everytime someone calls you out and lists points/arguments you never address all their points/arguments when you reply. You tend to pick out one thing and attack them on it and fail to agknowledge the rest.

- You aren’t here replying and participating in this thread with intentions of being constructive to the forum, you are here to defend your public image and feed into this character of yours that ALWAYS has to be right/the smartest person in the room. Have you ever admitted to being wrong and at fault?

- Instead of having a civilized discussion your in an agressive ‘defense mode’ always trying to bring people down.

I’ll take a different turn now and focus on problems with the site and not you. You had an argument earlier to which you said “The rule reform is what the community wants”. Well with that same logic, the whole community wants change. Everyone is trying to help and give you a hand but all your doing is spitting in their hand and walking away.

> Remove all these community teams and start fresh. Shin made an argument earlier saying what would we lose and what would we gain. Benefits to starting fresh? You put people on these teams who know what their doing and have the knowledge/skill set to be in that position. You know how redundant these community events are? Every week the CDT doing the same thing, picking a cartoon/miniclip game with an intended audience of 12 year olds and putting a prize on the line. It’s repititive, same people participating every week, doesn’t get new members and is a waste of time. All these people on PR/CDT or whatever are on these teams for clout. None of them know fuck all and all of them pipe the shit out of their funrank. A main problem is that YOU yourself aren’t interacting with the teams/leaders but at the same time I don’t blame you, you don’t have time for it. Appoint someone who isn’t a clueless dustpan and you know isn’t wasting time and running a circus.

> Make it easier for banned members to return to the community. Simple as that. Earlier this year you said that blackhat offenses are no longer punishable, yet staff ban for it all the time disgregarding the ‘new rule’. Hell I don’t even think the official rules were updated when the announcement came. Sythe is arguably the hardest forum to return to when banned. Just compare how other forums handle banned members to Sythe and you’ll get a grasp of it. 6 months to pardon... Pardons gets denied and the person who pardons doesn’t know why. What does that person learn in the 6 months he has to wait to re-pardon? Why don’t staff tell them why they voted no/pardon denied? It’s just like taking a test in school but not knowing what you got right/wrong, what have you learned?

> What is the benefit of having 20 people on the staff team? What is the benefit to having 6 globals? Why are there never no demotions? Sythe is honestly one of the only forums I’ve encountered that when a staff member gets a position it’s almost as if they are bound to it as long as they don’t abuse it/ post every so often. There are tons of members on the staff team that aren’t staff material. They have this mindset of quantity > quality and if they keep their activity up their good for it. They act out of bias and have their own little circlejerk partnerships within the staff team. Thats not how it should be. A main problem is that you aren’t interacting with these staff members or watching them yourself to know the behavior, you depend on your admins. You checking in the staff chat on Discord isn’t doing your homework. Do your homework.

- Updates, we rarely see them. Whether it’s a small update or an update improving QOL of the forum, they don’t happen.

- You don’t follow through. Reddit/Youtube/Twitter/RSPS/Sythe Gold. Recent example, your programming classes. You put a hault to them and said this was a result of lack of interest. Rather than you attempting to bring interest you shut it down.

- The ratio of newcomers to members who get banned is 1:4, perhaps even worse. Now this isn’t necessarily the fault of the staff team but I see cases on the daily that adhere to it. Members who have no debt, time has passed and all their pardons get denied. What do they resort to doing? Ban evading. Now don’t try to riddle me on with that DNT bullshit. It lacks a backbone and we rarely see it work. Richard you made an argument earlier saying that most people have already heard of the forum and choose not to join it. Instead of saying that, why not try to pinpoint the reason why they choose not to join? I’ll tell you, Sythe has a bad rep and known for being triggerhappy when it comes to banning people. This is personally coming from me when I ask members on HF why they aren’t a part of the forums. It isn’t even that but it’s that there is no incentive to join.

I'm not here to make you look bad or tell you what you have to do. I'm trying to help. You can let it go through one ear and out the other. Your choice.

 

Funny, I say it's not my job to give you a detailed report of an issue, suggestions to fix the issue as well as a pro/cons list to ge this site going (which is your job to make the site successful. I'm just a regular member and I have no responsibilities in that matter) I'm told I'm ridiculous. Now you're saying it's not your job to make sure things are running smoothly. You are the manager of this site in a sense. The reason this site is where it is is due to you not managing well or at all.