Permanent solution to the response time of administrators on forum reports (SLA Time + Grace Period)

[ThatDutchPerson]

Detailed Description

So lets be honest to ourselves here. This topic has been brought up numerous times over and over and over again, yet its never fully solved; response times to reports. Lets take a good luck at the problem from an analysis standpoint, and the opinion on both sides.

 

The current problem is reports that mostly take up weeks or even months to get even a ''handling'' response, which indicates an admin has picked up the report. Some reports even become completely obsolete, or the reporting party no longer feels the need to pursue it; because they don't feel heard or listened to. Reports start piling up, more pages get added to the report section, leading up to a clogged and messy report section. Some people even forget they got reported or have made a report. In severe cases, reports are trashed because of their age, and some players get punished for offenses a few months old.

 

On the other hand, administrators are volunteers. They put their free time into a game they also wish to enjoy for themselves. They did not sign up to be an admin 24/7; that is a fact which is understandable. They are players too and also wish to enjoy their game like anyone else. Some reports take ages to go through, some reports are controversial, some reports are simply left there by other admins with the thought ''someone else will handle it''. Point making: it is a huge burden that doesn't neccesary add to the great expirience some might expect from their position. Sure, admins want to help players, but the workload is sometimes too high.

 

Now that we laid out any arguements, we need to seek out a permanent solution to the matter. I am proposing the following:

 

Set out a fixed time for a report to be taken into ''handling'' status; lets say for the purpose of this thread; 1 week. A report must be picked up in 7 days maximum, before a so called timer expires (SLA Timer as we call it in the business world). What happens after that, is that people may file a complaint towards management.

I also suggest a grace period. If reports get so dated to the point they're months old and people get punished for things they barely even remember (like a ban or AJail) the report should be trashed still, but it should also reflect back on the admin's record and the reported party, if actually guilty, should still face an administrative warning.

 

Will this put more strain on an administrator's duties? No.

After ''handling'' is posted, the admin can take aslong as he or she wants. But atleast then the involved parties have a point of contact.

The current policy leaves everyone invovled in the dark and in uncertaincy. For instance, why should I personally keep expanding and growing my IC business when its uncertain if I'll even be in the server in a few weeks?

 

How will it benefit the server?

Reports wont be ignored anymore because they look less appealing to a volunteer.

Edited December 8, 2021 by ThatDutchPerson

[.George]

Either make all reports be handled on basis of first in first out, or simply have report priority.
It's highly discouraging to have your report marinate for 2 weeks when others get picked up within 8 hours, even though both reports are around same on difficulty scale.

I don't blame admins for not picking up 1000 words reports where people argued back and forth in walls of text tho.

[Hendrix Jackson]

Yeah you're right. Salute to all the admins taking their free time to correct players and contribute to the server with handling reports. 

Let's say someone reported me for instance and right after their complaint, the thread would automatically get locked. I see some reports where people go back and forth for two pages before it gets locked by an admin, and that's a lot of reading to do, considering no admin asked a question and I could imagine, the sole reason for some reports taking that long is because of that. 

Maybe if players didn't go back and forth for two pages and it locked instantly after the report, it would be more organized and it may or may not be more efficient and faster. 

I can definitely see your troubles with this, and to every problem there is a solution.

[ThatDutchPerson]

52 minutes ago, .George said:

Either make all reports be handled on basis of first in first out, or simply have report priority.
It's highly discouraging to have your report marinate for 2 weeks when others get picked up within 8 hours, even though both reports are around same on difficulty scale.

I don't blame admins for not picking up 1000 words reports where people argued back and forth in walls of text tho.

 

There is a function on the forum permissions called auto-lock. It auto-locks a topic untill an admin unlocks it.

[joaoivis]

Things should be more straight forward when handling reports. I believe the handler should lock the thread, tag the reported party to present their defense and evidences, then after that he locks the thread and tag the reporter to present their answer to the defense and then both present their last evidence to the case and admins can lock it to make their veredict. So, people are restricted to only post what the admins tell them to do so and avoid that back and forth.

[Mahitto]

The biggest problem here is that the playerbase has greatly expanded while the staff team hasn't. There are too many issues for too few people to handle. Let's say that, hypothetically, we had five times as many admins and support members - would there still be such long waiting times in-game and on the forums? Probably not.

 

That and also because the punishments are too light. If someone breaks a rule and ruins ten people's role-play, for example, then after three weeks receive a warning or a 15-minute admin jail, why would such people even fear or care about it and at the same time, why would anyone even report it?

 

I do appreciate the suggestion, I think it wouldn't hurt but the way to fix this issue is to address the root issues.

[Mecovy]

Time to put my brown name to work, when reports go down admins do look at them. Sorry nervous if I'm leaking this but admins don't instantly do it because 9/10 times they will consult one another, consult logs if needed and there's normally others who will DM us providing us evidence not included or statements from their POV. Unless your Scarlett Johansson in Lucy, this level of information takes time. Then you gotta factor in those who you are asking for advice from may be busy. 

 

Then comes the "real world" factor. They're busy people, think that a lot of them have friends (except @Moe :>) or they have jobs etc which they're also attending. Life comes first, always has and always will. That is why these reports take time. Now another thing people may not know, if your report exceeds a certain timeframe then you will literally get moaned at to get it finished, then asked why it takes so long. Normally when these reports go a long time, its either one of two things, someone's fucked up more than once and admins are trying to dig up where the same incident has occurred, or they are just that unlucky 1/10 who gets forgotten about. 

 

Having not been subject to it in recent times, idk if they've changed the process but in my day that's how it tended to happen. Its why I don't think something like this will work, because its literally already in place but the HF (human factor) will always cause some amounts of delay's.

[Moonsong]

So you're suggesting to pass the burden on to management who (along with all their other duties) already have to deal with 90% of players who receives anything from a forum warning, an administrative warning, an ajail, ban or just a stern ticking off for doing stupid shit but still file staff reports out of pure spite? Yeah sorry, not supporting this. It places a totally unfair burden on management.

 

There's nothing wrong with reaching out to an admin on discord if a report isn't taken within a couple of days, or if it's taken and the handling admin appears to have forgotten you're allowed tag the handling admin ONCE in the report itself or again reach out to them on discord. Most will be grateful for it if you as long as you don't spam them constantly about it or come across as needy/entitled. This is something that's only going to get worse with the holiday season and new variants of covid doing the rounds but it'll resolve itself for a while once the last batch of support staff become TA and join sub-teams specifically focused on handling reports and forum work.

[Jax]

Make less reports, less work for admin, ez lol

[Mecovy]

1 minute ago, Jax said:

Make less reports, less work for admin, ez lol

king