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Whats with the admin response time?


Zach..

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Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of your own actions.

 

As much as the staff are regular players like everyone else wanting, to roleplay, with lives of their own, etc., they brought this upon themselves. They painted themselves into this corner by adding pointless rules upon pointless rules for years on end in an attempt to enforce "standards", "quality" or whatever the favorite buzzword was at the moment, only to realize they didn't have enough manpower or time to possibly enforce them all until when it was too late. Every time a prospective admin joined the staff and called for more regulation instead of less, they contributed to increase the workload for themselves and all their fellow staff members.

 

Maybe if admins were spending less time on the forums reviewing a 500 words application to decide whether someone has the correct background for a single-story house in Mirror Park or were less busy denying players from owning a golf cart because they didn't articulate correctly the need for it on the UCP, they'd be able to facilitate things IG and find time to roleplay themselves. 

 

You are all just prisoners, here, of your own device.

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1 hour ago, Cleveland said:

Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of your own actions.

 

As much as the staff are regular players like everyone else wanting, to roleplay, with lives of their own, etc., they brought this upon themselves. They painted themselves into this corner by adding pointless rules upon pointless rules for years on end in an attempt to enforce "standards", "quality" or whatever the favorite buzzword was at the moment, only to realize they didn't have enough manpower or time to possibly enforce them all until when it was too late. Every time a prospective admin joined the staff and called for more regulation instead of less, they contributed to increase the workload for themselves and all their fellow staff members.

 

Maybe if admins were spending less time on the forums reviewing a 500 words application to decide whether someone has the correct background for a single-story house in Mirror Park or were less busy denying players from owning a golf cart because they didn't articulate correctly the need for it on the UCP, they'd be able to facilitate things IG and find time to roleplay themselves. 

 

You are all just prisoners, here, of your own device.

 

Right so, who you only pointed out are administrators within Property Management that take up probably.. 15% of the staff team.

 

I don't deal with house requests, so I will not comment.

 

As for leases, if you have paid attention to other posts, there has been many changes with this already. It takes me 5-10 mins to deny or accept a vehicle request unless the player is literally asking for a rare car.

 

If you check out the forums, you can see that we left vehicle requests open to combat the need to try and get leases out there more often for some vehicles that are gatekeeped behind requests (again, not property managements decision, so please don't even). 

 

We're also re-advising a program that allows for players to request for vehicles that are not in the car dealerships and not within the lease request itself. However, I wasn't happy on how long it was taking and the amount of effort needed and the random ass supercars keep getting requested, so I removed it temporarily to fix it.

 

We're not backing ourselves into a corner. Every day, for the past week I have seen 10-15 new forum reports pop up. 40% could be handled if players respectfully talked to each other and treated each other like human beings. Yet, you guys aren't like that. You guys like to be toxic and rude and bitchy towards each other for God knows why. It's seriously a sorry sight to see.

 

As for adding pointless rules, go ahead to the rule suggestion area and see how many players want to add more rules and enforce it more harshly. 

 

What we brought upon ourselves is helping the playerbase, server, and whatever else grow. We brought it upon ourselves to help you guys achieve fun.

 

What I did not bring upon myself:

- People bitching me out because I said no.

- People calling me names and whatnot because they disagree with my decisions.

- People being undeniably rude and toxic towards me because I have a different color name and they think they can.

- People calling me on discord randomly (at 3 am in the morning) to state they are in a crisis and they need immediate help (IN A VIDEO GAME).

- People expecting me to be online 24/7 and get angry when I cannot and will not. 

 

I promise I could probably list off many more and other administrators could too. You guys literally abuse us behind the scenes and then expect us not to be burnt out.

 

It's honestly a joke, it's saddening. The playerbase needs to grow up and realize we're all humans. 

 

And before you go off saying: "Well why don't you enforce Nervous' 0 toxicity policy" - why? Well, we are a teaching community and I understand the frustrations players have. I do, I hear you and I do. Most of you don't mean to do what you do in the heat of the moment and it's all brushed under a rug by me because I don't hold grudges. I understand the frustrations, but believe me, if I go off on ONE of you the way any of you go off on an administrator, I'd lose staff and probably get banned. I would never do this anyways.

 

I understand staff is held to a high standard, in which I agree, we should be. But man, some of you guys need to hold yourself to a high standard too because it's just pathetic to see someone who claims to be a grown ass adult act like a toddler when told no.

 

I apologize if I offended anyone here, but I did lay out the firm truth within this post. The burn out DOES come from handling so many things, but the 70% bitching 30% thankfulness also comes much more into play than handling things.

 

Disclaimer: Not speaking for the entire staff team

Disclaimer: not saying the entire playbase is like this either.

Edited by Wuhtah
I can't spell today sorry
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Can we also talk about why support staff doesn't get to handle any sort of in game reports with the exception of /helpme tickets? It's something I never really understood why. Are they too busy handling server applications to the point passing more responsibilities onto them would add insult to injury? Are there more /helpme tickets than meets the eye which takes up most of their duty time? If so, I suppose I can understand why they don't handle certain in game reports to some extent, but that's nothing recruiting more people wouldn't help fixing.

 

Still, the majority of support staff members eventually work their way up to the administration team, so why not allow them access to certain commands and assign them minor responsibilities when it comes to handling reports? I'm not talking about having them handle interior break-ins or player reports, but surely they can help with vehicle fixes/teleports or player teleports, to name a few? It would not only help free the administration team up to more pressing matters, but most likely reduce the time it takes for certain reports to get handled, and better prepare support staff once, in due course, they make it to administrator.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Shaderz said:

Can we also talk about why support staff doesn't get to handle any sort of in game reports with the exception of /helpme tickets? It's something I never really understood why. Are they too busy handling server applications to the point passing more responsibilities onto them would add insult to injury? Are there more /helpme tickets than meets the eye which takes up most of their duty time? If so, I suppose I can understand why they don't handle certain in game reports to some extent, but that's nothing recruiting more people wouldn't help fixing.

 

Still, the majority of support staff members eventually work their way up to the administration team, so why not allow them access to certain commands and assign them minor responsibilities when it comes to handling reports? I'm not talking about having them handle interior break-ins or player reports, but surely they can help with vehicle fixes/teleports or player teleports, to name a few? It would not only help free the administration team up to more pressing matters, but most likely reduce the time it takes for certain reports to get handled, and better prepare support staff once, in due course, they make it to administrator.

 

 

 

From my point of view, we don't want to overwhelm them. I believe @Wally who is head of supports now can give more information here.

 

Currently, you go through 3 months of support now. You focus on apps and in game tickets and you can get into SOME subteams as either your first month of support or second. 

 

TAs already cannot handle most reports on their own (roleplay reports). Flipping cars, unlocking properties, etc are the ones they mainly do. If we have supports doing this, then TAs are sorta just there until an admin can pick them up to train them and we have limited number of admin trainers.

 

Before you go: "Well, shouldn't every admin be an admin trainer?" Yes and no. As I said before, if I handle a roleplay report, I usually can make it under 10 mins, stretching it to 15-20 if people type slow or if I'm waiting on evidence from them.

 

With a new admin in training, it can stretch pretty far and I simply don't have the time to train them VIA in game. I don't mind picking up player reports on the forums with them, but in all honesty, I do a lot of training within Property Management that I don't want to train other admins in other areas. We have enough trainers and staff management to do so.

 

Basically, TAs would be sitting ducks if the supports could handle reports as well, and yes, we can probably restrict supports to only have access to TP and flipping cars, etc, but supports are to support the admin team. Mostly with applications, discord, forums, and tickets. If they were given report access as well, they would probably focus moreso on that since most admins do not focus on apps or discord anymore simply because we're too busy with reports in and out of game.

 

This is just my two cents, I don't know if it's correct or not. But I'm sure Wally will give more insight to you when he's available to.

 

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200 IQ FIX:

 

stop letting people rack up 13 admin record entries before they get perma banned (but then they get unbanned 1 month later via appeal, and are re-banned a few months later)

start banning people instantly for malicious rule breaks

 

it feels like this server's management prefers quantity > quality in the playerbase at the moment - which isn't a huge surprise given the regular peak player count is down ~400 players from where it was last year. due to this approach, people are given WAAAAY too many warnings, resulting in more reports on a regular basis which make admins sad because they sit on the list and hope someone else takes the annoyingly complex tickets and reports

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3 hours ago, Cleveland said:

Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of your own actions.

 

As much as the staff are regular players like everyone else wanting, to roleplay, with lives of their own, etc., they brought this upon themselves. They painted themselves into this corner by adding pointless rules upon pointless rules for years on end in an attempt to enforce "standards", "quality" or whatever the favorite buzzword was at the moment, only to realize they didn't have enough manpower or time to possibly enforce them all until when it was too late. Every time a prospective admin joined the staff and called for more regulation instead of less, they contributed to increase the workload for themselves and all their fellow staff members.

 

Maybe if admins were spending less time on the forums reviewing a 500 words application to decide whether someone has the correct background for a single-story house in Mirror Park or were less busy denying players from owning a golf cart because they didn't articulate correctly the need for it on the UCP, they'd be able to facilitate things IG and find time to roleplay themselves. 

 

You are all just prisoners, here, of your own device.

 

This first line could apply to what you just said, actually it could apply to all of us. Any player, including you and me are more than welcome to apply for staff ourselves if we feel like admins aren't doing satisfactory work - But we don't. Why? Most likely because we want to RP, have fun and not having to deal with each other's bullshit to a greater extent.

 

Remember that at the end of the day, none of them are obligated to do what they do and it's something we should be grateful for. I'll throw an assumption here and say that none of them are being paid for it - Staffing is supposedly purely voluntary work. 

 

On top of that you state that admins are responsible for writing the server's rules. I don't think it's true, correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I'm aware, they enforce the rules, not every admin makes them. 

 

To me, to problem is ultimately the rules themselves if you're seeing a server-wide problem, it's not the people enforcing them. The rules create the RP quality standards, players follow them, admins enforce them. And taking a quick glance at said rules will show you that a good deal of it relies on common sense as a pillar for these standards, common sense which is going to vary greatly the more your playerbase grows, the powergaming rule is a great example of a rule is that probably worked great when everyone had more of less the same idea of it when the server was smaller, but could now use a rewrite/additions and clarifications, examples, etc.. But what do your regular admins have to do with any of that? To me, some rules are obviously outdated and it shows, and that's where the problem lies. Adding more rules will never do the server any good if they're not supported by decent foundation rules that set an RP standard to begin with.

 

Edited by Mistery14
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10 minutes ago, joshua said:

200 IQ FIX:

 

stop letting people rack up 13 admin record entries before they get perma banned (but then they get unbanned 1 month later via appeal, and are re-banned a few months later)

start banning people instantly for malicious rule breaks

 

it feels like this server's management prefers quantity > quality in the playerbase at the moment - which isn't a huge surprise given the regular peak player count is down ~400 players from where it was last year. due to this approach, people are given WAAAAY too many warnings, resulting in more reports on a regular basis which make admins sad because they sit on the list and hope someone else takes the annoyingly complex tickets and reports

 

We're working on this. And when I say we're, I mean management is discussing the handbook as a rule suggestion thread was brought up roughly because of this. 

 

I appreciate the feedback, I personally do listen to this to some extent unless I am questioning it. I try not to permanently ban or temporary ban unless I have such firm proof that the player did XYZ wrong which is usually easy to collect. Final warnings - I have a few players that have them. One I unbanned because he was banned for 7-8 months and kept appealing and appealing and appealing. I gave him a shot under a final warning, he was permanently banned with no chance to appeal (unless I retire) within a week. Another player, same time line, I unbanned them and they are doing amazingly well. No punishments for the last 3-4 months. 

 

It truly depends on the player and their mindset - sometimes you literally cannot tell until they spit in your face that one last time. 

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54 minutes ago, Shaderz said:

Can we also talk about why support staff doesn't get to handle any sort of in game reports with the exception of /helpme tickets? It's something I never really understood why. Are they too busy handling server applications to the point passing more responsibilities onto them would add insult to injury? Are there more /helpme tickets than meets the eye which takes up most of their duty time? If so, I suppose I can understand why they don't handle certain in game reports to some extent, but that's nothing recruiting more people wouldn't help fixing.

 

Still, the majority of support staff members eventually work their way up to the administration team, so why not allow them access to certain commands and assign them minor responsibilities when it comes to handling reports? I'm not talking about having them handle interior break-ins or player reports, but surely they can help with vehicle fixes/teleports or player teleports, to name a few? It would not only help free the administration team up to more pressing matters, but most likely reduce the time it takes for certain reports to get handled, and better prepare support staff once, in due course, they make it to administrator.

 

 

Hello! We get on average 70-80 server applications and 250-300 in game tickets daily. A server application can take anywhere from ten to thirty minutes to review. We aim to not let a server application sit for more then 24 hours and so far this month we have been able to accomplish that goal. Ontop of tickets and applications some senior supports may have sub team work and basic forum moderation work. 

 

To answer your question, we are trialing a program that will allow us to give select senior support members more responsibility and access in game, it is still in its infancy stage and more will be announced when we have everything up and running.

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I'll go ahead and give a little insight into what my average day has been like lately to give people a slight look into what I do on the daily and touch on a couple of points I saw people bring up in the discussion.

The first thing I do after waking up and doing my morning routines irl is check both Discord and my forum PM's, I answer everything here that I need to and usually catch up on a few Discord channels to keep myself in the loop of any ongoing discussions, this usually takes me anywhere between 1-3 hours depending on the current workload. The next thing I usually do afterwards is open the game and check reports and tickets, if there's some outstanding I'll get on them, this can take around 1-2 hours usually, but if during my cycle this was later in the evening, could take 1-3 hours on average, but often times during the evening reports don't stop flooding in and people need a break. Following that, I'll either start working on something within my subteams whether its PM or LFM that I have pending, this doesn't really have an average time spent but I would say around another 1 hour, again depending on current workload. After all these steps are complete with my routine I need a break by then, so I'll usually either spend some time roleplaying, watching something or spending time away from my PC. Usually I come back to all things GTAW a couple hours later and check up on reports and tickets, working on some if needed, then going back to roleplaying while chipping in on more reports and tickets throughout the evening. Give or take, this is what my average day is like, adding things in the mix like forum reports, refund requests, player requests who reach out to me, and all that jazz, the time I spend can and usually is more than listed when everything is added up, overall I would probably say I average around 5-7 hours per day doing admin duties, which is not something every admin is able to do.

 

I read a couple of things that I can touch on, such as allowing search warrants to not be supervised, and I don't believe that this could ever be a thing, its ultimately the same as saying we could allow unsupervised breakins. We need to do a few things while doing search warrants, the first is to supervise the quality of roleplay to ensure people aren't just typing things like /petme Dog searches the entire kitchen. We also need to view /stashinfo's and go off of what those say and make sure the search goes smoothly and pass along items they find. Search warrants should also be interactive, I can't speak for other admins, but personally I like to get players more engaged with the roleplay, for example - if players are actively roleplaying thorough searching and showing high quality roleplay doing so, maybe they'll find extra, things like that which require someone in this position, I think comparing this to something like d&d is a good example, I often have players do /roll 1 20 when appropriate and I've found that players have much more fun with these type of engagements.

Why can't supports have access to commands like flipping cars and unlocking properties? There's a whole number of reasons why, but its not really my place to touch on this question, but what I can say, is that supports do have a lot to handle in their role already, and further adding to that, like Wuhtah said, would definitely overwhelm them.

The bottom line is that currently the staff team is a bit understaffed for the amount of work required, if becoming a staff member is something you believe you want to do, then I encourage you to apply when recruitment is open to help combat the issue and help the community thrive even further, even if you're not sure if the staff team is for you, you can always give it a try and step down should you decide that it's not.

 

 

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