Whats with the admin response time?

[mj2002]

3 hours ago, Zach.. said:

Then there's admins that barely contribute, and just sit in the staff team for the "perks".

 

A lot of work happens behind the scenes.

[Wuhtah]

2 hours ago, shotgun_sam said:

I waited over 2 hours+ to find out who shot me because the player was masked and I needed a /heal since I had to NPC my injuries @ Pillbox.

 

I end up having to wait 10-30 minutes to report for an admin to unlock an apartment i found on the map.gta.world because for some reason theyre always locked despite being on sale.

 

Even if an admin is on scene, it's not difficult to multi-task and answer reports that just require a PM to the player

 

You are correct, it's not difficult to multi-task, however, it depends on the Player 1 who reported, what was being reported and how many are involved versus Player 2 and their report. I can't tell you HOW many times people report for something simple, and then I end up staying 15-20 mins because they keep going "and I have another question." - This usually happens even with the easy reports. Admins who are well-known in their subteam WILL get subteam questions. Let's take honey for example, we all know that they are the big boss of IFM. If they accept a report to flip a car, that person also may have IFM-related questions and we would like to give our attention onto this, but then another player report comes in and it's hard to multi-task at that point.

 

Sometimes, some of you are just straight up ignored by me because you reported for A, now you're asking for B, C, and D - you can wait your turn lol. 

 

2 hours ago, shotgun_sam said:

A breakin request (either from warrants or criminals) should be priorotized over (M) doing bad escalation which can be reported on the forums.

 

I disagree because this can lead up to a lot of different voided situations and it gets messy. Also, these types of reports can take a long time, so Admin A accepts a DM report and it's a huge one, spends 10 minutes already, Police Player A reports for a breakin/warrant request but Admin A is still on that DM report. The roleplay reports are by far the most annoying and time consuming reports mostly because the people taking the L want to argue and bitch at us and be absolutely rude. It's exhausting, and frankly, I don't blame admins for not wanting to take them constantly. That toxic policy is set in place, however, none of the players follow it TOWARDS administrators. Do you think we get paid to deal with your hissy fits? (not saying anyone on this thread is doing so) No, we do not lol. We're human and you're (not saying specifically you, I'm  saying it to the people who HAVE) are going to treat us like utter dogshit because we follow the rules and enforce them? Why not take the L, take the punishment and staff report - makes it go a lot faster. I can't blame admins who constantly take RP reports to just not want to take them for a day or so. 

 

1 hour ago, Shaderz said:

 

Reports ID's wouldn't serve the purpose of dictating which report should get handled first, but rather how stacked up they are and how busy the administration team is with them at a certain point. If a player reports something they know for a fact that it can be handled within seconds, it's common sense that it shouldn't take long before their report gets accepted regardless of their ID (even if sometimes it doesn't), but it helps a lot when that isn't the case and their report takes a while to get thoroughly handled (i.e. player reports). In this case, if the ID is #20, you know it might take long, but if it's #3, it shouldn't and if you wait too long while you report is up there in the queue, you know administrators are most likely slacking.

 

Report ID's wouldn't solve everything, but I'm sure they would be very helpful at giving players a rough idea of waiting times. If you can't fix these, at least let players know about them, else they're just left in the dark which is what's happening currently.
 

This is something I have brought up before, but regular players should be allowed in certain subteams without the need to be administrators. I know it's easier to pick administrators because once they are a part of the staff team, generally speaking they are more capable of being trusted with sensitive information and it's easier to coordinate their subteam work with their administrator duties, but I'd argue subteams like RPQM or FM would benefit a lot from having regular players become a part of their roster, it would eliminate the need for these subteams to consist exclusively of administrators, which would free up a lot of them to focus on other duties which are often slacked off because of the burden these subteams put on them, but it would also help them thrive because these regular players wouldn't be overloaded with other duties unrelated to their subteam since they're not a part of it which means they would dedicate more of their time into them.

 

Report IDs! Let me try to make it more transparent. So, reports and tickets are on the same ID numbers. Let's say there's 12 unanswered tickets, and then 4 reports come in. Those reports are numbered after the tickets, so it's 13, 14, 15 and so on. These numbers STAY and keep rising until all tickets or reports are cleared and it starts back to 0. So, this system wouldn't necessarily work because you could be report #10, but realistically you'd be report #3 because there's 7 tickets between that 2nd report and your report - there were 7 tickets that were placed. So, let's say there's also a ticket that a developer would need to answer and instead of us telling the player to make a bug report - we just let it sit there. That can backlog us all the way so there could be a number 86 report when there's only actually 3 reports up. It could confuse the fuck out of you guys. 

 

When you join a subteam, you still need to do your regular administrative duties. As a level 3, you don't have a 'quota' anymore persay, but if you are not doing shit in your subteam, you should be doing forum work or in game reports. 

 

1 hour ago, Farrell said:

 

Feeling this as well. While being an admin is a completely volunteer, it's exactly that, volunteer. Some of the teams are seemingly too small to deal with their workload, IFM for example. Had reports sitting open for over a month that have been untouched, only for them to be handed off to one specific person in the team who again, after waiting weeks, says they'll get to it when they can. 

 

I can appreciate how often the staff team opens to try and combat these sort of issues but is it actually working? Size of the Support team (which tends to be aspiring admins) is always small and this is something I've never really understood as I imagine the amount of applications in comparison is high. Obviously not everyone can get in but is it really gatekept to the extent that the team is so small? 

 

Simple ingame reports can go untouched for hours on end despite there being 20+ admins ingame. Example being that I was bugged in TTCF yesterday, something that an admin could (and eventually did) fix within literally two minutes but my reports went ignored for two hours or so. I had to contact an admin directly and ask that they help out because of the complete lack of response I was getting. 

 

I don't know how much I can speak on this without leaking, and I do not want to get the orange names on me. You would be surprised - there are lots of applicants, but ... hardly ever any GOOD applicants. There is ALWAYS something that is unburied, something that has happened recently, the RP not being up to server standards, etc. Getting 4-5 is fantastic as it is and it's also on us to train those 4-5, so remember, we have support trainers and admin trainers on top of our regular admin work and on top of our subteam work. So having NUMEROUS supports all come in at once and then most all get promoted to Trial Admin - some of those people will be lost and not able to get the training that they NEED. We had numerous great admin/support trainers in the past, and we still have good ones now - but you need to be exposed to a lot as a Trial Admin in order to actually feel prepared / be exposed - all in the course of a month. You're only given a month for this and it's still panicky even to me in some situations and I've been a staff member for a year now. 

 

Before you say 'well make TAs go longer than a month then!' TA's can't handle reports on their own and tend to take double the time trying to handle/solve reports that a regular level 2-4 admin can solve within 10-20 mins. However, this IS needed to allow them to learn. So, I rather have 2-5 TAs that can be trained appropriately, rather than 10 TAs with the bare ass minimum training and then having them eventually kicked off the staff team because they have no idea what they are doing and always make the wrong choices.

 

Also, some reports cannot be handled by all admins. If it's a Property related report, it's most likely going to need a Property-Management administrator to handle it.. However, that doesn't sound like an issue from what you're describing in your report, and I am sorry you had to wait. 

 

1 hour ago, Fancy Toothpaste said:

I once attempted to change my business' script name to match up with the exterior signage. An admin responded to me after about 20-30 minutes and told me they needed to check to see if I was allowed to have that business name or not (even though it was the name on the signs outside). I waited two hours. They never got back to me. After that, I decided to report again and got it changed in under 5 minutes without any hassle.

This anecdote is an imperfect representation of the system. Still, I can't help but feel as though sometimes the administration is plastered so thick with red tape and bureaucracy that things take far longer, and are far more complicated than is reasonable. It's hard to say, because the administration isn't particularly transparent with the community, in regards to how they go about their duties. It might be good to reexamine existing policies when handling /reports and figure out which ones can be easily simplified and streamlined. 

 

This is a prime example - that first administrator probably was not a Property Management admin, they did not want you to wait any longer. You reported again and most likely got a property management admin and that's why it was changed without hassle. Some businesses, like leases - need to go through me to get the business/property name changed. Usually, when this happens, the admin handling just shoots me a discord PM and if I'm available at that time, I say go for it if it makes sense of course. Other times, I am busy as I have a lot of IRL responsibilities and it goes unanswered, so you get SoL'd. When I do get to the DM, I change it VIA the UCP whenever I am able to. (usually within a hour or two). 

 

We try to tell you to /report in game for a quicker response, but it seems that the Property Management administrators are dwindling in game, so we can take a look at that and see what's going on and we will. We have a damn good team when it comes to the UCP.

 

29 minutes ago, nwah_ said:

"Oh you have X problem, OK I'll handle it when I have the time." (2 weeks go by) "OK you're going to actually have to file this report with the assistant head of blablabla" (2 weeks go by) "Actually the head of blablabla is reviewing it now" (2 more weeks go by). "Anyway do you still want to pursue X?" or the classic if it's a report that no admin has looked at in like 3 months. "Still want this dealt with?" 

The bureaucracy on this server is insane, with the countless subteams for admins (which a lot I feel are pretty pointless). RPQM for example; I'm of the belief that every admin should be able to determine what is or isn't good roleplay, doesn't need a subteam for it. Every admin should also be able to do simple things like change a business name or what have you without having to consult PM for a response which might take forever to get back.

I get being an admin sucks and it's very tiring to deal with constant complaining from a large playerbase (Why I would never be an admin ever), but it's literally what you sign up for when you apply for staff, it being volunteer work usually implies that it's something you WANT to do. Personally I think the Panda needs to start dishing out some paychecks, but maybe that's just me.

 

I'm sorry for the juggling as well in terms of your first sentence. We try not to do that and I can't talk to with other subteams. We have to be consulted with a business name change because then it could be a concept change that we don't know about and then all of the sudden, the server has 500 bars and 1 unique item store. It doesn't take long to tell us - and to be fair, you can reach out to any PM admin on discord and we can change it pretty quickly through the UCP. 

 

I signed up to help people, you are correct. However, I didn't sign up for this to be a full time job with constant bashing to my name lol. Volunteering IRL is usually 1-2 hours once, twice a week? This is literally.. a full time job. I probably spend 4-6 hours every day to keep up with subteam work and regular administrative duties - and I don't roleplay anymore. I don't have the time with my clinicals, classes and personal life (and that's okay). However, whereas someone may have a full time job and a personal life, they can still be able to roleplay and do less admin work but still maintain their quota - I don't think they should be given shit for this. Ya'll a bunch of toxic mfers sometimes! 😞

 

 

I tried to answer everything in the best I could - I know some of you will not agree on how things are handled. And guess what? That's perfectly acceptable. It's okay to disagree, it's not going to make me hate you - it's not going to make me think badly of you. Sure, some things need to change to keep the ball rolling, but that's going to take time and suggestions. 

[Mistery14]

My take is that the problem is absolutely not because of the administrators themselves, it's partially the fault of an over-reliance on them and the player/admin ratio.

 

Even with 10, 15 admins on/off-duty, you're still talking about a playerbase that is of several hundreds of players. This is a great amount of work to have on your hands. And it's not a matter of "why did they chose to be admins if they can't deal with my issue it's their job.." - Here's the thing, reports are almost a constant if your RP game needs external, OOC actions from admins, like needing them to write a command/approve a player's actions on request.

 

Someone gets stuck, someone needs X item from Y container, two people are having a disagreement, players crashed for OOC reasons, someone was downed without RP, someone needs to break in a door, someone has a specific RP that can't be achieved without external help like breaking a window -- You get the gist. It's a lot and I can't list it all.

 

My final point however is that apart from that, admins here seem to be expected to be involved with a lot more things than they can really need to be, it's not because a lack of competence. Far from it - But, the mere fact that players are supposed to /report for an admin in case of an OOC car crash baffles me. This stuff eats a tremendous amount of time when stacked together with other issues and I think this sort is stuff is specifically why some admins would chose to outright ignore those kinds of reports, they simply have more pressing issues to deal with and therefore have to prioritize. I think players should have the capacity to gauge a situation and do things that would be possible without admin presence, allowing the self-voiding of OOC car crashes is a great example of a time saver.

 

Let's say police needs to urgently kick a door down. Why not have a command that allows them to do so? /kickdoor, for example, only available for LEO faction. If a door is reinforced IC, maybe then it should require external admin help. Not absolutely every little thing needs admin presence. However if a player in LEO decides it's funny to go around and doing /kickdoor to every door they see without reason or RP, then it should show up in the logs and that player should face punishment.

Edited June 20, 2022 by Mistery14

[Shaderz]

1 hour ago, Wuhtah said:

Report IDs! Let me try to make it more transparent. So, reports and tickets are on the same ID numbers. Let's say there's 12 unanswered tickets, and then 4 reports come in. Those reports are numbered after the tickets, so it's 13, 14, 15 and so on. These numbers STAY and keep rising until all tickets or reports are cleared and it starts back to 0. So, this system wouldn't necessarily work because you could be report #10, but realistically you'd be report #3 because there's 7 tickets between that 2nd report and your report - there were 7 tickets that were placed. So, let's say there's also a ticket that a developer would need to answer and instead of us telling the player to make a bug report - we just let it sit there. That can backlog us all the way so there could be a number 86 report when there's only actually 3 reports up. It could confuse the fuck out of you guys. 

 

The report system needs a major rework if that's the case.

 

First of all, it's very chat-based, there's a lot of clutter and it's super easy to miss admin warnings and other stuff that pops up. I'm aware you can re-read reports, but that isn't the point. I'm sure you can agree it's an eyesore sometimes to look at your in game chat when you're on admin duty. So, hear me out.

 

Create a dedicated report panel, easily and smoothly openable with a hotkey or command, and effectively get rid of report spam in your chat. All reports and tickets are neatly displayed on this panel, and administrators can accept and respond to them through it. Perhaps open a separate tab in this panel which displays the report you're currently handling, so you don't have to scroll through an abundant list of other pending reports if you wish to recall what exactly the player reported. Include a small note section at the bottom where you could type stuff in, which I'm sure would be very useful during player reports, or other types of reports where you need to remember a lot of things. So, you needn't to use your notepad anymore. Simple quality of life change for administrators.

 

For players, create another report panel, also easily and smoothly openable with a hotkey or command. Obviously have a box where players can type in, but the biggest change comes now. Create a category section for each type of reports. Here are a few categories off the top of my head:

• Player Reports (for all player vs player reports)
• Item Issues/Requests (for all item related things)
• Vehicle Issues/Requests (for all vehicle related things)
• Property Issues/Requests (for all property related things)
• Interior Break-ins (for all break-in requests)
• General Questions (general support questions)
• Developer/Mapper Issues (developers/mappers questions, bug investigation, etc.)
• Other (for everything else)

Assign an ID to each report, separated from other categories. So, let's say there are a total of 10 reports (2 Player Reports, 3 Vehicle Issues, 2 Item Requests, 2 General Questions and 1 Developer/Mapper Issues), and a new Player Report comes up. Instead of becoming ID 11, it becomes ID 3, and it shifts to ID 2 once Player Report with ID 1 (or 2) is handled. To avoid giving the wrong idea that there aren't many reports up when there are, the total number of pending reports could be included in the message you receive upon submitting your report, as well as the number of on duty administrators. If you want to go above and beyond with this, the script could even calculate how long it's taken for the last reports in each category to be handled the last 2 hours on average. So, it would look something like this:

• "You have submitted a Player Report with ID #3. Please wait patiently for an administrator to respond. Keep in mind there are currently a total of 11 pending reports and 5 on duty administrators. The estimated wait time is 20 minutes based on reports from the same category in the last 2 hours."

Every time a report ID shifts to a new one, players would get notified with a message in the chat, so they know reports are being actively handled.

 

This is more or less how it used to work on the server I came from, with a few additions by me, and from personal experience, it was great. This won't completely eliminate issues related to waiting times, but trust me, it will help a lot. It's a more transparent process, it helps administrators prioritizing reports whilst offering them a tool that keeps reports in a neat and organized place, and allows regular players to know how busy the administration team is, how stacked reports are, and how long they have to wait.

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Shaderz

[Wuhtah]

1 minute ago, Shaderz said:

 

The report system needs a major rework if that's the case.

 

First of all, it's very chat-based, there's a lot of clutter and it's super easy to miss admin warnings and other stuff that pops up. I'm aware you can re-read reports, but that isn't the point. I'm sure you can agree it's an eyesore sometimes to look at your in game chat when you're on admin duty. So, hear me out.

 

Create a dedicated report panel, easily and smoothly openable with a hotkey or command, and effectively get rid of report spam in your chat. All reports and tickets are neatly displayed on this panel, and administrators can accept and respond to them through it. Perhaps open a separate tab in this panel which displays the report you're currently handling, so you don't have to scroll through an abundant list of other pending reports if you wish to recall what exactly the player reported. Perhaps include a small note section at the bottom where you could type stuff in, which I'm sure would be very useful during player reports, or other types of reports where you need to remember a lot of things. So, you needn't to use your notepad anymore. Simple quality of life change for administrators.

 

For players, create another report panel, also easily and smoothly openable with a hotkey or command. Obviously have a box where players can type in, but the biggest change comes now. Create a category section for each type of reports. Here are a few categories off the top of my head:

• Player Reports (for all player vs player reports)
• Item Issues/Requests (for all item related things)
• Vehicle Issues/Requests (for all vehicle related things)
• Property Issues/Requests (for all property related things)
• Interior Break-ins (for all break-in requests)
• General Questions (general support questions)
• Developer/Mapper Issues (developers/mappers questions, bug investigation, etc.)
• Other (for everything else)

Assign an ID to each report, separated from other categories. So, let's say there are a total of 10 reports (2 Player Reports, 3 Vehicle Issues, 2 Item Requests, 2 General Questions and 1 Developer/Mapper Issues), and a new Player Report comes up. Instead of becoming ID 11, it becomes ID 3, and it shifts to ID 2 once Player Report with ID 1 is handled. To avoid giving the wrong idea that there aren't many reports up when there are, the total number of pending reports could be included in the message you receive upon submitting your report, as well as the number of on duty administrators. If you want to go above and beyond with this, the script could even calculate how long it's taken for the last reports in each category to be handled the last 2 hours on average. So, it would look something like this:

• "You have submitted a Player Report with ID #3. Please wait patiently for an administrator to respond. Keep in mind there are currently a total of 11 pending reports and 5 on duty administrators. The estimated wait time is 20 minutes based on reports from the same category in the last 2 hours."

Every time a report ID shifts to a new one, players would get notified with a message in the chat, so they know reports are being actively handled.

 

This is more or less how it used to work on the server I came from, with a few additions by me, and from personal experience, it was great. This won't completely eliminate issues related to waiting times, but trust me, it will help a lot. It's a more transparent process, it helps administrators prioritizing reports whilst offering them a tool that keeps reports in a neat and organized place, and allows regular players to know how busy the administration team is, how stacked reports are, and how long they have to wait.

 

I'm pretty sure we have this now? Not in categories, but it's on a UI that pops up if you don't want to type /reports. I think @valelele made it? maybe @St3fan[NL]?

[sparky]

1 hour ago, Wuhtah said:

I end up staying 15-20 mins because they keep going "and I have another question."

I don't see how this is a problem though, you can always say "contact me through forum PMs for those questions" and leave. It's nice that you're willing to stay and answer, and at dead hours I get it. But at peak times getting reports handled is the worst. Things should be made more effecient and streamlined. Player needs car flipped? Flip car and leave. Player needs door opened? Open door and leave

Edited June 20, 2022 by shotgun_sam

[Wuhtah]

Just now, shotgun_sam said:

I don't see how this is a problem though, you can always say "contact me through forum PMs for those questions" and leave. It's nice that you're willing to stay and ask, and at dead hours i get it. But at peak times getting reports handled is the worse. Things should be made more effecient and streamlined. Player needs car flipped? Flip car and leave. Player needs door opened? Open door and leave

 

It's easier said than done in all fairness. You have players who stated they waited 3 days for their PM report to be answered (who knows if this is exaggerated or not), so they see a PM admin handle their flip car, they want to go quickly on their other character to get it handled. I can't really blame them for this - I'm going to take them at their word even if it may be exaggerated because then I have yet another angry player that is mad at the system and administrators taking a long time. 

 

It's truly a lose-lose situation.  

[Shaderz]

4 minutes ago, Wuhtah said:

 

I'm pretty sure we have this now? Not in categories, but it's on a UI that pops up if you don't want to type /reports. I think @valelele made it? maybe @St3fan[NL]?

 

Do you mean the admin report panel? If so, that's great. I'm not sure if it functions exactly as I described, but any panel is arguably better than a cluttered chat, so... awesome.

 

What about the rest, mainly for players?

[Noir]

I been banned for 3 weeks, done my ban appeal 2 weeks ago, still hasn't been answered and I'm apparently not being taken seriously in an RPQM and the bureaucracy is in maximum levels.

 

Admin who banned me said I'll get a response in the ban appeal soon, and that he is collecting some stuff...

 

 

[Wuhtah]

4 minutes ago, Shaderz said:

 

Do you mean the admin report panel? If so, that's great. I'm not sure if it functions exactly as I described, but any panel is arguably better than a cluttered chat, so... awesome.

 

What about the rest, mainly for players?

 

We don't assign things... but uhh - I mean I guess that could help? But generally speaking, it's honestly not a huge deal to us to read all the /reports when they come up. At first, yes it's an eyesore, but as you continue to do it, it just becomes second nature at that point.