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[PMC] Suggestion: Trusted Player positions


MasterCommaThe
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Sometimes I think we pass over certain nominated moderators because we have questions about their character/integrity/whatever. Would we ever consider creating a new classification of player used to trial candidates that have a questionable history by giving them a limited set of Moderator powers (e.g. Region creation, invisibility, chat muting, trace, coal ore, notes)? The intent would be to trial test their ability to act responsibly without the ability to cause serious problems for other players (logblock, ban, lava, water, portals).

From the player's perspective we are simply offloading work. From staff perspective we would then informally use these players as a selection pool to consider for moderators.

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Ohh ohh yeah lets do this:

 

Visitor: See but no touch

Player: Free to do whatever

Veteran: Shiny name tag

Trusted: Low mod powers

Mods: Super-duper mod powers

Admins: Super-duper-super mod powers

 

I think the word for it is... ranks? Yeah lets have ranks guys!

 

 

 

/s

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If course we would emphasize that "Trusted Players" are not above any others.

I'm almost exclusively a C moderator, so please forgive any oversights my suggestion has with regard to our other servers. And also please suggest any better ways this idea could be made to fit into all of our servers.

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Guest Former Staff

Personally, I feel that our selection pool is at 100% currently in terms of us viewing the entire community as potential new moderators. We don't get to see that entire percentage and through our own interactions with players, topics submitted to applyformod we see a fair number of people.

 

If we focused our attention on the small number of people who might fit in for a trusted player position, as per your proposal above, our potential pool of candidates would shrink.

 

I can see that it would help for us to build up trust more but to quote your first post Master, "Sometimes I think we pass over certain nominated moderators because we have questions about their character/integrity/whatever." We just need to spend more time on the servers around these people, to get to know them at least a bit better.

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This may cause more problems than it's worth. who decides who is "trusted" and who is not? what about people who play for fun and never cause problems but maybe aren't considered for moderators for whatever reason - why aren't they trusted? I think the social implications of this far outweigh the benefits.

I would support something similar to what I saw on s, where you could "buy" a flowing water bucket (with heavy misuse penalties). Maybe some sort of criteria to allow player who have never been a problem to flow their own liquids, but region creation and chat commands I would not be comfortable with. Without proper training those are murky areas.

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I like the idea behind it, trying to get to understand how players would use their powers a bit better. However I wouldn't like to go about it with a trusted players group for the reasons stated above it'd look like a rank which wouldn't be the best image to set for our players and could make some players feel a little bit disheartened that they weren't put into the group. Perhaps we could discuss other approaches to achieving a similar effect?

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I really think the best way is to get to know the players and interact with them as if (shocker) we also were players (try not to fall out of your chairs). Giving certain people trial privileges could be easily misconstrued and I don't see that as a good thing for us, especially when people already view it as "us vs them."

(Hypothetical: what happens if someone is given test powers and then they are taken away? What image does that send? Or someone is modded with no test powers)

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How about once we've put them through a brainstorm post, and checked them out to ensure they are fit to be a moderator as in haven't been xraying. We could then give them sort of a mini interview. We tried this out when selecting cadmins a while back and I think it could be a useful thing to do to get to know them a bit better. Might not give us a 100% idea on the player but it should help.

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I think the current gameplay (eg. players who need help, ability to get along with other players) and social (eg. forums, subreddit, and all the discussions on there) environment provide enough opportunities for potential moderators to prove themselves (for example: [redacted] and others); there are quite a few who have shown their suitability for the role through their handling of these situations.

Edited by Barlimore
Redacted individual used as an example.
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No. It absolutely would divide the community and trample on our egalitarian philosophy, just like paid ranks. Even the term "trusted" leaves a bad taste.

Additionally, I'm definitely not comfortable giving anything even slightly resembling moderation tools to somebody who hasn't passed the staff vetting process. We have just process in place for a reason. Poor moderation or abuse of power reflects poorly on the staff as a whole, and handing that power to someone who is arbitrarily labeled as "trusted" but apparently not trusted enough to make it through a mod nomination is...well...asinine.

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Perhaps we could discuss other approaches to achieving a similar effect?

I think at this point we've pretty well identified that my original proposal isn't viable, and have had some good discussion to clarify people's feelings on it. I'm open to carrying the discussion on to any other ideas people have that could make our moderator induction process more effective.

While I personally don't support it, it was suggested in another forum that moderator candidates have their chat logs audited to ensure they don't have behavior that might lead to aboos. Staff reprimands, even when private, can be potentially embarrassing for everyone. So I'm open to hearing any suggestions on ways we could avoid it.

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Guest Former Staff

While I personally don't support it, it was suggested in another forum that moderator candidates have their chat logs audited to ensure they don't have behavior that might lead to aboos. Staff reprimands, even when private, can be potentially embarrassing for everyone. So I'm open to hearing any suggestions on ways we could avoid it.

 

Part of the risk with searching through chat logs of potential candidates is not having the context of their environment at the time and amongst private messages / clanchat channels, people may react a little differently simply because they can trust those communication methods to be more discreet. We could end up finding a line of text that, out of context, raises warning flags and as much I enjoy spending time for the community, I wouldn't like to spend hours of time trawling through chat logs to find out what type of person we're discussing, when instead I could just log onto the servers and play alongside them / check out their builds to open up discussion (etc).

 

There is without a doubt a feeling amongst staff at the moment that we need to be more cautious. We can address this through a number of ways.

  • Being more thorough with our feedback on mod nomination candidates. In terms of a couple of important points to mention for potential candidates are: activity, helpfulness and interactions with the community. I could describe candidate A as "active on P with 125 hours, witnesses them helping quite a lot of new people find their way from spawn and hosted community events on P" and we can certainly expand upon this kind of description too. More importantly, I would like to see us providing feedback that is not in favour for candidates in a constructive manner. It is not a forum section for being insulting, we need examples of behaviour that reflect their current persona.
  • Not rushing to put forward a candidate for voting. Should we put someone forward when it is too early for them, then there is a likely outcome from the vote and this could lead to a negative outcome for staff and the candidate in question. Instead, let's discuss candidates even when it is too soon for them to be voted on but allow for a considered amount of time to pass for a more opportune moment for the indivdiual to be included in the voting topic.
  • Staying vigilant with people who are helping in the community. These people may quietly(?) be trying to be noticed by us and we need to be a little better at spotting those signs. Typically (although not always), people who are helping in the community without a thought for themselves will have good personal qualities that would serve our community well as a moderator.
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While I personally don't support it, it was suggested in another forum that moderator candidates have their chat logs audited to ensure they don't have behavior that might lead to aboos. Staff reprimands, even when private, can be potentially embarrassing for everyone. So I'm open to hearing any suggestions on ways we could avoid it.

 

I did that once, because at the time I sought potential staff members who I would work well with as opposed to someone who was then about to step down that I had major problems working with.  Depending on how much weight you give your findings with regards to candidate selection, it can be psychologically taxing and has the potential to raise your (our) standards artificially high - I would not recommend doing this unless the need for someone who is close to being that perfect is great enough to justify it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Creating "Role Variety" will be called ranking regardless of what it might designate.  it will create an implied structure and devolve into class warfare that will eat the server.

 

I will play as I have since the beginning, helping where I can, regardless of role.  this is an open community, and should work to stay that way.  I have changed my player name in an attempt to stay unnoticed, this allows me to help players without being accused of abuse.  imagine the player environment when "modlist" is run and we see players listed that cannot do certain things?  I got roasted earlier this month playing off my "normal" hours by a player that expected me to "just fix" an admin issue.  once I sorted it all out and elevated the request, i was heckled  with questions regarding when the request would be filled, until I logged.  i would not like to have that happen to a "trusted Player"  or anyone for that matter.

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