Reporters Staff (?)

[SteampunkWolfdog]

As good an idea as it sounds, if this idea was approved off, it would take a long time to get it started. What Lord Suragaha said about trust; we'll need trustworthy people for the job - people who won't abuse their privilages by banning any randomer on sight. And it's very difficult to trust someone who you can't put a face or a name to and only a character and made-up alias.

But I'm not sure we really need it. No, mods aren't on all the time and it's likely that they may miss something from time to time, but we can't expect them to be either. Like the rest of us, they have lives to deal with too. But what they do do, they do a pretty good job of it.
It's not the type of moderators or staff members that we have that's an issue, but in my view I think it's the amount. But as we can see, the staff team is growing, Lord Suragaha and WhiteLightHeart are proof of it, and I think that's what we need. With more staff members, the team can cover more maps and at a variety of time periods too.

[Ruby1234]

As said, pretty much everyone is their own "reporter," because if you see something that shouldn't be happening, take a screenshot that includes usernames that you can see clearly, and then just send it to a staff member and they'll take care of it.

Are mods on all the time? No. Should they be?
Actually, no.
They should be on often, yes. But all the time devoting their very lives to an online game? I don't think they have to. Staff are people. People take time off to sleep. People get sick. People have lives. People go out to dinner or the movies with friends. Some people even have jobs. And personally, I don't think they should spend every waking hour worrying about FeralHeart. Let them take some time once in a while.
It's hard enough to deal with people always saying "You banned me for no reason!" "You banned me!" "It wasn't me, that was my sibling!"
It takes time and patience to deal with and explain to these people, and then to want to stay online and do it again, and again, and again.
People give the mod/admin job more credit for being fun than it actually is. It's a job, not playtime.

Personally, I think FeralHeart could do with some more staff members. It has been growing rather rapidly as of late, but I still think it could use more. FeralHeart has almost, if not, 1000 members online at time during certain periods of the day. And there's what, 10 admins/mods that actually get on, and they're not all on at the same time, so maybe more like 7 or 8.
That would mean that, theoretically, each mod would have to watch over 140 users each. That's quite a few for each mod to be watching over.
Whether or not they think they can handle it though, is not my business, and if they think they got it, then fine. But this is just my opinion.

Sorry for the novel. xD

[princerainbow]

I actually think that this, as a general concept, is a good idea. I think it would just need some fleshing out between the admins and current moderators.

The "reporter staff" wouldn't even have to have the ability to ban players on the spot, even. Because giving people that kind of power does require a lot of trust (more so because they are handing it to a faceless stranger). I would suggest finding dedicated players who can volunteer for such a position, to have an admin or mod screen/interview them and perhaps put them on a trial process.

During the trial process, they could have them patrol the maps and simply look out for people who might be breaking the rules. But instead of just reporting it like regular players, perhaps they should remind the offenders of the rules, and point out what they are doing that is wrong (or simply put, against the rules). If they don't stop or the problem becomes worse, then screenshot and make a report of it. But a report that goes straight to the mods, to deal with ASAP.

Should they do a good job of warning and reporting, then take them off trial and put em on full time, as well as giving them the ability to simply kick a player offline. Set it up so if a player gets kicked off three times, they get a 24-hour ban.
Of course with this kind of responsibility, they should still warn players first and remind them of the rules. Have them file reports with every 24-hour ban that might happen, that way the admins will have an idea of what was going on.

By full time I don't mean all the time of course, people still want to enjoy this game instead of spending all of their time policing it... But let people take shifts, take turns. That way they can still do what they want as far as exploring or RPing goes, instead of feeling like they're the only ones who have to do this.

[wolffox]

Regardless of whether we have more staff or not, we still have to find trustworthy people to hold such a position. I don't see what's so hard about being a normal user and reporting things if you truly care that much (which people do). It's all about the rank, the name. People who receive that job could just as easily abuse their powers which is exactly what we, as the staff, try so hard to prevent within our little force.
Dedicated users don't become "reporter staff" they become mods.

Shifts are for jobs.
We are volunteers. Pay us some and then we'll talk about devoting our entire lives to a game, eh?
Pretty much agreeing with what Ruby has said here already.

[princerainbow]

Regardless of whether we have more staff or not, we still have to find trustworthy people to hold such a position. I don't see what's so hard about being a normal user and reporting things if you truly care that much (which people do). It's all about the rank, the name. People who receive that job could just as easily abuse their powers which is exactly what we, as the staff, try so hard to prevent within our little force.
Dedicated users don't become "reporter staff" they become mods.

Shifts are for jobs.
We are volunteers. Pay us some and then we'll talk about devoting our entire lives to a game, eh?
Pretty much agreeing with what Ruby has said here already.

It seems enough people share the concern that there doesn't seem to be enough staff present in the game, so is it so hard to find more staff?

Yes, we all have the ability to report something but not everyone knows how. Neither is everyone willing or wanting to. It's far easier for people to go "oh just ignore them, they'll go away." So it makes a person wonder how more often people are likely to ignore things rather than report them.

The point, at least I think, of this thread and OP's post is to get out the concern that maybe there aren't enough staff members about? Because I don't think any of us really expect you guys to devote your entire lives to a game, at least not for free! So why not gather together and find some trustworthy floofs to help you guys out?

[BigSkippy]

Regardless of whether we have more staff or not, we still have to find trustworthy people to hold such a position. I don't see what's so hard about being a normal user and reporting things if you truly care that much (which people do). It's all about the rank, the name. People who receive that job could just as easily abuse their powers which is exactly what we, as the staff, try so hard to prevent within our little force.
Dedicated users don't become "reporter staff" they become mods.

Shifts are for jobs.
We are volunteers. Pay us some and then we'll talk about devoting our entire lives to a game, eh?
Pretty much agreeing with what Ruby has said here already.

It seems enough people share the concern that there doesn't seem to be enough staff present in the game, so is it so hard to find more staff?

Yes, we all have the ability to report something but not everyone knows how. Neither is everyone willing or wanting to. It's far easier for people to go "oh just ignore them, they'll go away." So it makes a person wonder how more often people are likely to ignore things rather than report them.

The point, at least I think, of this thread and OP's post is to get out the concern that maybe there aren't enough staff members about? Because I don't think any of us really expect you guys to devote your entire lives to a game, at least not for free! So why not gather together and find some trustworthy floofs to help you guys out?

First of all I would like to point out that we do look for new staff members quite regularly and if you hadn't noticed just recently two new Mod's in training have been selected. Point is we dont just go picking up random people off the street to become staff members. The fact of the matter is if users joined the game read the rules read the terms and conditions and hung around on the forums for a bit instead of jumping straight into the wild world of FH then they would know how to Report they would know how to stay out of trouble and they would know there is a perfectly capable staff team already formed.

[princerainbow]

Regardless of whether we have more staff or not, we still have to find trustworthy people to hold such a position. I don't see what's so hard about being a normal user and reporting things if you truly care that much (which people do). It's all about the rank, the name. People who receive that job could just as easily abuse their powers which is exactly what we, as the staff, try so hard to prevent within our little force.
Dedicated users don't become "reporter staff" they become mods.

Shifts are for jobs.
We are volunteers. Pay us some and then we'll talk about devoting our entire lives to a game, eh?
Pretty much agreeing with what Ruby has said here already.

It seems enough people share the concern that there doesn't seem to be enough staff present in the game, so is it so hard to find more staff?

Yes, we all have the ability to report something but not everyone knows how. Neither is everyone willing or wanting to. It's far easier for people to go "oh just ignore them, they'll go away." So it makes a person wonder how more often people are likely to ignore things rather than report them.

The point, at least I think, of this thread and OP's post is to get out the concern that maybe there aren't enough staff members about? Because I don't think any of us really expect you guys to devote your entire lives to a game, at least not for free! So why not gather together and find some trustworthy floofs to help you guys out?

First of all I would like to point out that we do look for new staff members quite regularly and if you hadn't noticed just recently two new Mod's in training have been selected. Point is we dont just go picking up random people off the street to become staff members. The fact of the matter is if users joined the game read the rules read the terms and conditions and hung around on the forums for a bit instead of jumping straight into the wild world of FH then they would know how to Report they would know how to stay out of trouble and they would know there is a perfectly capable staff team already formed.

I noticed at least one, not sure how long it took to pick a couple of new mods but its understandable considering the amount of trust one puts into them. Don't put words in my mouth though, never said or even suggested using random people as mods :3

Fact of the matter is we don't live in a perfect world, online and offline. Not everyone reads rules, not everyone comes to the forums. I mean, you've probably signed up for a program or service before without reading the ToS. Everyone has at some point. So to expect -everyone- who plays FH to is kinda...silly and unrealistic, ain't it?

I feel like this is starting to go in a very circular argument, though. A whole vicious cycle of us crying "more mods please!" and the 'staff' going "Nope, no problems here!" I would think that part of being an admin or moderator of any site would be realizing that you are always going to have people who don't read the rules, who might or might not abide by them, as well as having people who are just clueless or even ambivalent about reporting troublemakers.

I don't think anyone is saying the staff team isn't capable of handling things. I think it is more about trying to make their lives (at least where FH is concerned) easier by suggesting a more full staff to split the work load between.

[Feareh]

My gosh, so much quoting.
It think it's evident that if you just want to help out your community that you need to just help out. For sure I know they made the right choice in picking Whitey and Lord. They are the most trustworthy people I honestly know and they do devote there time in helping floofs here and making them feel welcome in game. If you just truly want to help the Feral Heart community, then be nice to people. Offer a paw when they need help. As small as they are, they still have a very large community who still send in reports.

I think perhaps this trend should be locked, you know to prevent for more conflicts

[Redlinelies]

It's a cute idea and all, but as already suggested it's not a good solution for anything.

What a "reporter staff" would be, is just like any other user, they would be able to take actions like any other, and help like any other. The difference is that they would be enlisted as a "false" staff. In my case this honestly sound more about a matter being on some sort of staff list and being able to receive more recognition than it is about actually helping with reporting and finding rulebreakers, and simply because of that, it isn't a good idea at the time.

Some of the posters must realize that "Wanting more staff/mods" in this matter is not equal to having "Reporter staff/mods". What we eventually would get is a staff/mod title that cannot do much more than a user could help with, and could live under the false impression that they actually could, if you want to help, it's just to be your own staff reporter as mentioned and we will be thankful.

Now to add on what has been mentioned, this game is not getting that much bigger user count wise inside of the game, nor is it getting that much worse than it has been. During the time I have been here and spent both time on the site and game, I do not find it getting worse, only better, and the online user count is roughly about the same for the time being with some peaks once in a while, but nothing that has been there before. I do feel good confidence in the staff team, and I know that it's not handling matters any worse at all than how things used to or could be handled a few years ago.

Could we use more mods?
Yes

Are you aware?
Very much so.

Are you trying to make a more effective staff?
Every single day.

A good and trustworthy staff that can do work, feel well, get along, in feralheart, is something that takes time and energy to achieve, it has been a long road already, and most likely a longer road to come, whether it's from Raz, I myself, or the rest of the staff.

So I gotta say no, this idea is not what we are looking for, input never hurts though but this is really how it is.