What has Happened and its Effect on the Future of Sythe

Even though I agree with you, the Plznate story contradicts your argument.

 

The problem I see with that is simply that he is one person and you are one person. If you try to scale any information gathering up, there is going to need to be more than one person handling the information. Then, if a problem occurs more than one person is going to need access to that information in order to resolve the situation in a timely manner. That begs the question, who should have access to this information? It could be limited to a few of the admins, but that would most likely not been enough man power unless the amount of people with personal information indexed is limited. Allowing all admins to see the information allows for the chance that one will be abusive (which is not unheard of) and the information will be leaked. If even all the admins are unable to handle it all and globals are involved the chance of leaking reaches nearly 100% which is not okay.

Now, to the larger point: Staff members get banned. Staff members leak. Staff members scam. When it happens, the staff does try their best to get to the bottom of it and do what they can to correct it. Now, I have always favored leniency and forgiving over hardlining and strictness but that leaves no incentive to not break the rules. Since there is no real way to detect scammers entering the moderation pool, there needs to be a system that allows them gradual access to the perks of being a staff member, namely the trust that it gives them amongst the member base. There also needs to be a system that rewards potential moderators for coming clean about past offenses before they are moderators instead of waiting until they have a strong chance of a pardon later in their moderating time. Essentially, you want them to come clean as soon as possible and you don't want to scare them into not coming forward by saying them will just get banned or something.

The MM system may just need some tweaking to make people less likely to scam, but that has been an ongoing discussion for like ever.

 

One thing i'd like to add is I felt comfortable with the Moderating list for a long shot, obviously this has changed dramatically after what's recently happened. However, I don't think Sythe is to blame for what happened with their OMM's. Obviously it's hard to achieve the requirements for OMM, with 25 trade's needed consisting of different trade values. Surely they cannot make it a lot more difficult than it already is? You can try and change this as much as you want but I'm sure there's still a few that can achieve it and do wrong (Plznate being one of them) I think that Sythe shouldn't have to suffer from this, they need to see what has been done wrong and try flip this around and improve on this. Personal detail is something else, if it is required so be it, I think if someone wants to become a moderator then it's essential really. It's like a job in some forms, you do middlemanning for a fee obviously. I think personally, what's done is done and we need to look at ways to improve the system if anything, and I back the Sythe staff to do so.

 

To be honest I wouldn't want anyone but Sythe to have my personal information. Who ever thought plznate would do what he did? And he was one of the more trusted ones. Who's to say a higher up wouldn't abuse this personal information? As sad as it is this past week has taught us its hard to trust anyone.

 

Good god this place is like a junior high with people acting like it's a scandal in the United States Senate. Do we all have to argue over what happened? Scams were made, shit happen, high ranking users were banned. It's not like anyone died... I'll probably get flamed&infracted for this post, but really, I feel like some of you are taking this way too seriously, especially the people weren't involved in the slightest.

 

If you took some time to read through the posts in the thread you would realize more people are collectively trying to think of a way to further prevent and improve things like this from happening again opposed to complaining about it. You don't have to be involved in the incident to have a good solution for things like this.

 

Agreed. There's a lot more to this, if you could scam a lot of dollars obviously there's a lot for it. Money is something that we need to treat carefully and if there's moderators scamming a lot of it, then obviously people are going to take different options to try and enhance their safety. We're all in this community, so we all want it to be safer.

 

I get what you're saying, but still. There isn't any sure fire method that's ever going to be used to find someone who will never have/will do somehting harmful towards the site/other members. People change, and can become corrupt. Though that's been said throughout this thread, and while everyone realizes it, it's not going to change much with more a screening/vetting process and ridding of non-existent leadership issues.

 

I feel as stated a statement should be posted with what the findings are and what has happend and how the staff are going to readress the issues and what precautions to take for it not to happen again.I also feel that the staff are doing a good job in not making rational moves in light of the current situation.

 

I'm just going to say that personal info is a touchy subject with a lot of people.

 

Thanks.

OT: You've stated some very good points, however there are many factors restraining from some of those taking into effect.

Nonetheless, we shall wait and see what happens.

 

Thank you for your response Finn, it's good to know that work is being done behind the scenes to take control of the situation.

I believe that, as a requirement, moderators (and maybe OMM's as well) should be required to release their personal information to the Administrators. Since they are taking the position as a leader of this community (and the information will be given solely to the Admins), I think that they should have no problem with it. By being promoted, they already are showing that they have a strong commitment to this community.

I do understand that people desire to be anonymous on the Internet, but it would simply be an added precaution to protect Sythe from malicious intent.

 

My thoughts are this....

If a member has contributed so much to the sythe community which all of the mods who have received pardons have, they do deserve a pardon and here's why. not because I feel bad for these mods not because there friends of mine but because there presence betters our community. Is there corruption in the sythe ranks I really don't think so ! We have a great staff and a great community and just the fact that sythe or any mods haven't simply closed this thread shows this.

 

In reality though, knowing someone's info means nothing (legally) if they decide to scam some runescape items. Unless you plan to personally hunt them down in real life.

I think everyone needs to remember this is a black market forum. Nothing is absolute. Anyone of trust can turn around and scam for any reason. You never know when the most trusted trader just got fired from his job and is desperate for cash. All you can do is use the information at hand to make the best decision possible when trading.

I don't see any immediate cause for alarm because I don't see any link to the recent bannings, just coincidental timing. What Nate did was horrible but it goes back to my first point and really there is no need for that user to have given him over $2000 in rares in one trade.

Also people are treating the n4n0 ban like it is a huge deal because he was HOMM, Global etc. He scammed 4 years ago before any of that, he wasn't even the same person. The Global and HOMM that he became had more integrity and trust than almost anyone on sythe. The fact that he came forward and admitted to it (and not because he was ever going to be caught) is even more of a testament to his integrity.

To actually contribute to this discussion though I would like to see a rule for OMM's, to avoid Louis situations, which is a set pm structure which includes msn's etc.

 

Whenever I buy an RS account I require their personal info because I had so many scammed from me. I would rather be safe then sorry and I probably do miss out on some legit people by doing this, but I would still rather be safe then sorry. I'd rather not trade then gamble at it.

 

All that happens is they recover the account back. Then what do you do?

Having someone's personal info won't get your runescape items back and it won't stop them from getting on a proxy and ban evading on sythe. I just don't see that many people willing to give up personal information over the internet to people they don't know.

 

There is one, they're required to include their msn, buyer's msn, seller's msn, type/value of trade.

 

Perhaps this should be made public (I've never known about it and I don't see it written anywhere). If a member is using an OMM that does not use this PM format, the member should report the OMM.

 

I have always promoted the fact that I conduct myself at the highest level possible when using the market here. Although I have no intentions nor ever will to scam, in a situation such as Sin's, where she was framed and was unable to prove my innocence I would be torn to pieces. Bottom line is shit happens; the only things we can do are be selective when choosing staff, be upfront and honest always, and gut shit out when it happens. Giving away personal info gains no trust or safety whatsoever, look at Nate, half the active market users on this site have his address and cell #. The only thing I would like see changed is OMM reform and a new HMM.
I'd like to see a HMM that isn't a global, as the only person on staff that is global+ who could fit the rank well is Giddy. If Nick would come back (as he stated in the spam forum someplace) he or Sin would be the only and ideal candidates.

Earlier in this thread I think either rsaccounttrader or Viou brought up a point of letting sectionals in on the global promotions; I like this idea a lot. This would clearly benefit this site in numerous ways
1. If sectionals know that everyone has a say in their promotions, if ever, then they will always be nice and hardworking to earn others respect.
2. If sectionals have a say in promotion, you'll most likely get a very good global moderator if all of it's co-moderators agree that they deserve to be global.
3. If sectionals have a say in promotion, promotions will be less biased and based on friendship with superiors, and more about hard work.
4. With 3 actively involved admins, and only a handful of globals left, this would drastically increase fairness in voting.

Keep in mind those are all theoretical, I don't really feel like making a huge argument over those very reasons.

 

HMM has to be a staff member, they need access to Staff Lounge for polls and have to audit the Applicant.