Why Sythe is Dead- A full Audit/Breakdown [Lengthy Lesson]

[I Bleed Duke Blue]

One other thing to add- I don't think the groups you made are inherently pointless, Rich. On the contrary. I like the ideas behind them. But with any great idea there needs to be some actual progress made too. I don't think you should be paying people for these positions, I don't think that should be falling on your shoulders. I don't care how much you make (which I obviously have no clue) - I don't think that's the answer. It's your website / your business at the end of the day. If the shoe was on the other foot and I was the owner I don't think I'd be funneling funds back into such risky moves either, especially when the demands were coming from people not contributing anything monetarily. Especially when the market, as I said countless times now, is still thriving. And it sounds like you've already sunk a considerable amount into certain things that had little impact on fetching us some new blood.

I don't know what your methods are for picking the members of these teams, but I would rather you personally vet all of these members or delegate it to someone you trust to make that decision if you don't have the time. Most of them are just in it for the rank or are simply too busy to actually help (out of life happenings not malice). Like your admin rotator idea, this should be applied to ALL Sythe teams IMO. Again, I don't agree with the moderator application process. But at the end of the day it's just staff. It's voluntary and unpaid. So I guess I don't really care all that much if it stays if it actually provides good moderators, which it has undoubtedly provided some.

Memes aside, bitching aside, my main objective, unlike maybe some people against you...is for the community to thrive again. I legitimately genuinely want that.

 

Countless amounts of hours spent maintaining and providing for YOUR website

I think this is your central point of confusion ... although tbqh I didn't read most of what you wrote because why would I bother?

Staff don't work for me. They work for the community. I also work for this community.

Certain ex-staff who come back here every so often want to virtue signal that they did me some huge personal favour by becoming staff. This is not and has never been the case.

Firstly staff generally make significant monetary gains off the site's endorsement of their trustworthiness. They continue to make those gains even after they cease to be staff.

Second they press hard to become staff often sacrificing much, because they want to rise to the top of the hierarchy. It is a personal goal that they achieve for their own gratification.

Finally I, like they, do my job here as best I can. I don't expect them to thank me for ordinary performance of my duties. And nor should they expect me to thank them. If they do something which I think is particularly good I will say "hey, good job" just like they would say to me if I did something particularly good. But the people from whom they should expect thanks are the members of the community.

I'll leave these comments by saying this: I could have converted this site into a gold shop in 2011 and made 100x what I have running it. And I didn't. Where is my thanks for doing you all the huge favour of keeping this community running?

 

[I Bleed Duke Blue]

I think this is your central point of confusion ... although tbqh I didn't read most of what you wrote because why would I bother?

Staff don't work for me. They work for the community. I also work for this community.

Certain ex-staff who come back here every so often want to virtue signal that they did me some huge personal favour by becoming staff. This is not and has never been the case.

Firstly staff generally make significant monetary gains off the site's endorsement of their trustworthiness. They continue to make those gains even after they cease to be staff.

Second they press hard to become staff often sacrificing much, because they want to rise to the top of the hierarchy. It is a personal goal that they achieve for their own gratification.

Finally I, like they, do my job here as best I can. I don't expect them to thank me for ordinary performance of my duties. And nor should they expect me to thank them. If they do something which I think is particularly good I will say "hey, good job" just like they would say to me if I did something particularly good. But the people from whom they should expect thanks are the members of the community.

I'll leave these comments by saying this: I could have converted this site into a gold shop in 2011 and made 100x what I have running it. And I didn't. Where is my thanks for doing you all the huge favour of keeping this community running?

I can understand you not reading my memes, but that post and the one after weren't meant as memes. I should have posted them in the growth thread tbh.

I can also understand the belief that they work for the community and not you directly. Fair enough. And true enough. I still think though that it's obviously a mutually beneficial practice.

I'd like to note as staff I can't recall ever using the market. Probably your least market using staff member of all time tbh. I had very little interest in that sub-section of Sythe once I came back. I legitimately, genuinely enjoyed helping the community, and I guess by proxy, you. Now, there is always self-gratification involved. In my (false) sense I was making a right out of a previous wrong (Ban evading). So I'm not saying my tenure on staff wasn't out of some unadulterated philanthropic motive.

I honestly don't think what Roary contributed was "ordinary". You must remember you weren't even present for most of it. So the people you're referring to (the community) do recognize what he accomplished. Maybe if you had acknowledged it a little more willingly, the complaining you talk about would have been largely avoided. Your community would have died during your hiatus without him..so how is anything he contributed "ordinary". Or did it only magically become "ordinary" when he tried that powerplay against you?

As far as the very last comment - did I not personally thank you when you instituted DNT? I have thanked you for your hard work before, thanked you for this website before. Told you how impressive it was you kept Sythe around while places like Neoseeker and Miniclip died, and apologized to you profusely for knowingly accepting a staff position when I should have been banned + pardoning instead.

So while I find a lot of validity in this post, I think a lot of it doesn't apply to me. Which is a good thing, because I think it should add credence to the fact that at the end of the day I want to HELP you, not HURT you. The memes are for the community. I put this thread in the Spam Forum for a reason.

 

This was interesting to read. I regret coming to the party so late, though I did not expect to be in this story and even considered a positive addition. Cheers.

 

[I Bleed Duke Blue]

This was interesting to read. I regret coming to the party so late, though I did not expect to be in this story and even considered a positive addition. Cheers.

Thank you Worturtle. Just trying to integrate some stale memes with some fresh memes like the old times. If people still created some good/gook memes I wouldn't have to be the story boy.

 

I honestly don't think what Roary contributed was "ordinary". You must remember you weren't even present for most of it. So the people you're referring to (the community) do recognize what he accomplished. Maybe if you had acknowledged it a little more willingly, the complaining you talk about would have been largely avoided. Your community would have died during your hiatus without him..so how is anything he contributed "ordinary". Or did it only magically become "ordinary" when he tried that powerplay against you?

From my perspective there were a lot of things wrong with staff and the rules when I regained the time to take an active role in administering the community. Instead of assisting me to fix these problems they organized a staff strike.

Roary and several others have told me he put in absurd hours to keep the community running. Is this good? Should I be impressed? Thankful? Why did he not hire more staff and delegate the tasks? If I go absent again will the admin team dwindle down to 1 or 2 people who overwork themselves doing the work of 5 people? Is this a positive outcome that you think is good and praiseworthy... an outcome that signals that the admins are doing a good job?

Doing more work is not the same as doing the right work. There's more to being an admin than putting in hours.

 

This whole ongoing witch hunt just drifts my attention away from the site toward my other projects. It happens more and more these-days.

 

[Xour]

This will all change in the Age of Xour, when all civilians shall live in harmony and the terrors of decades past are forgotten.

 

[I Bleed Duke Blue]

This whole ongoing witch hunt against me just drifts my attention away from the site toward my other projects. It happens more and more thesedays.

This wasn't a witch hunt thread, just a meme. Then it kind of segued into some serious discussion, but the OP is basically entirely a meme with spliced factoids from over the yrs used to add theater to it. Surely you know through my previous correspondence to you I have genuine respect for you.

From my perspective there was a lot of things wrong with staff and the rules when I regained the time to take an active role in administering the community. Instead of assisting me to fix these problems they organized a staff strike.

Roary and several others have told me he put in absurd hours to keep the community running. Is this good? Should I be impressed? Thankful? Why did he not hire more staff and delegate the tasks? If I go absent again will the admin team dwindle down to 1 or 2 people who overwork themselves doing the work of 5 people? Is this a positive outcome that you think is good and praiseworthy... an outcome that signals that the admins are doing a good job?

Doing more work is not the same as doing the right work. There's more to being an admin than putting in hours.

I agree with pretty much all of this here's my 2 cents - First things first - Agree with your first point. Also think the staff strike was not the right way to go about things. Contrary to what you seem to think I am actually on your side on that part of the issue. I'm also on your side in not shelling out your hard earned money for risky ventures, ESPECIALLY when your members aren't offering anything from a monetary standpoint. And people just blindly throwing money at things in a dumb or reckless manner and then demanding you praise them is also not really sensible or logical.

As far as the absurd hours thing, I don't think it's too far-fetched to seek appreciation. Yes, I think it was a good thing that they were so dedicated to the site. Only a handful of people are both willing and able to do so. I understand the strike/powerplay really pissed you off, and I can never fully put myself in your shoes to understand all the intricacies and caveats involved to make you feel the way you do. So I do sincerely apologize if I cannot put myself in your PoV enough to legitimately understand why you think they deserve no praise at all. I mean fuck..even if you just PRETENDED you felt that way, maybe all that drama never happens. And maybe it still does..which in that case I'd side with you even further..

And yes, they can use their position for profit and high levels of trust, but opportunity cost must also be factored into the equation. While they're sinking hours into making Sythe productive, they are very likely sacrificing other things, both monetary and personal. So in that regard yeah..it should be lauded.

From my recollection, they did hire more staff and were attempting to delegate tasks...but that staff team had a lot of people not pulling their own weight. 2015 Sythe was crazy man. Very active. And maybe you don't agree, but it seems to me like the job of mod in 2017 is a lot easier on the simple personal opinion of mine that there's just nowhere near the volume to moderate at the moment. At least not that I can see on the surface level.

I think at the end of the day, the genesis of my argument is this: I do think they made tangible contributions that could be classed as correct and productive work. I don't necessarily agree with how they went about it, but I don't think that should invalidate their prior contributions either. I think that's where a lot of animosity lies.

 

[I Bleed Duke Blue]

This will all change in the Age of Xour, when all civilians shall live in harmony and the terrors of decades past are forgotten.

As Xour lifts his blade from Finn's lifeless corpse, he raises a glass to the new gods and the new disciples of Xour.

Xour removes his mask and reveals his previous account...

HURR

 

Last time I witnessed something that long is when I requested my username image

But honestly can we get a tldr in here? Oldfags tend to forget that newfags aren't used in such quality post

 

I think at the end of the day, the genesis of my argument is this: I do think they made tangible contributions that could be classed as correct and productive work. I don't necessarily agree with how they went about it, but I don't think that should invalidate their prior contributions either. I think that's where a lot of animosity lies.

Their strike doesn't invalidate their contributions. Surely the community continues to validate their contributions? I don't know why they're seeking validation from me. As has already been pointed out: I was absent from the community, doing the minimum work at the time to keep the servers running while attacking the third year of my physics degree. How can I provide feedback to them about their performance at that time given my absence? I can't. I was not here to manage them. If they want my honest evaluation of my own performance at the time, that's easy: very poor. I was busy with other things and did not fulfill my duties administering the staff. However I can't give an honest evaluation about their performance on any grounds except the state I found the site in when I resumed control. That state was not good. Maybe this is unjust, maybe they did a good job and the site was in ruins through no fault of theirs? Striking certainly didn't help. Regardless I work with the facts I have and I have always given my honest opinion. My opinion is that the staff who quit were doing a bad job, that I was doing a bad job, and that the combination of these two were the reason the site was doing poorly.

 

Okay I gotta clear something up..

We didn't strike. There is no Richard vs Roary. He can do what he wants with his site and I simply had my own views on where time and resources should be spent: as the forum owner he has more expertise and idea than I do, but I have differing opinions.

I got fed up as staff members do and decided I was leaving while I disagreed with the site's direction, personally. DNT was a tiny fraction of why I left at that moment in time.

I wasn't enjoying any aspect of it any more besides the friends I had made and so rather than be responsible for scraping the barrel and promoting fuckpuppets like BLEUSKITTLE to staff to make do I left.

It just so happened that a group of us all wanted to leave. We didn't strike because there were no requests for anything given, no public message; it was all done in the staff lounge and we quietly left. We simply stated the reason for our resignations as all staff members who resign do, in hopes that our collective opinions may be listened to for the next lot of staff.

I don't know where the whole Richard v Roary thing came from but it isn't that, we just differ in opinion on many bases.

 

But this was a 10/10 read is there an audio book

 

[Vlad]

uynkjnk'';/.;'

 

[Yousuckv2]

10/10 would skim again

 

[PRO]

Wow, so much effort was put into this. Appreciation is the least I can do.

 

[I Bleed Duke Blue]

Wow, so much effort was put into this. Appreciation is the least I can do.

It wrote itself really. Was bored. Needed a new SF meme.


Also Derik's Testimonial:

"Duck chill"

 

[I Bleed Duke Blue]

10/10 would skim again

Hopefully you skimmed over your relevant lines

"Yousuckv2 was banning more vaders than there are whores in a crackhouse."

"We basically lost our most powerful defacto moderator Yousuck. Wonderland, Roary, Entrr, Jack, and Dunworry all essentially peaced the fuck out. Their hard work gone. Their blood sweat and tears all for naught. Their accomplishments and changes to the forum extirpated by a savant. Gone quicker than Farcast's GP once Tmoe stumbled upon it and discovered it was his"

 

[Heads447]

This is all wrong - before dickpic gate there was big rich banning half of spam forum for being trolls, salty, and disrecpting/hurting staff feelings, grieving gate (2012).

#freemarrow
#freedelta
#free punkerpunk
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#free punjabi
#free candarin