i feel the applications should be private , and any staff who has not been active for more then 90 days should give up there position so other people who are very active every day can have a chance of being a staff member, there are players who are on every day helping other players and they don't get chance of being staff because they don't meet one of the requirements but there always helping and on line every day, if that player at least has a title of helper so the new players would ask that player for some help,
Let's be fair to Cyk here. Unbeknownst to many, there was some change. Cyk began meeting with applicants and talking to them. I personally had a long conversation with her about my application lasting 3 hours that she requested. I'm sure once Cyk returns this great change will too.
The words "once Cyk returns" highlights the exact problem here. Fact is, community asked, we were promised change, hasn't happened as expected. Server staff team needs serious reform and we all see it. So many players have left because of this nonsense.
Ever since I last replied to this thread, the staff application process hasn't changed one bit from my point of view (that can be challenged and I am open to that ). While I do love bree and do appreciate her success there's other great applicants out here that deserve at the least a helper position. After all, that's what a helper is for right?
Yes and please cut the LONGGG WAIT like even 6 months is a lot to wait for, let alone a year or more. It just discourages applicants and we've had and still have a lot of great applicants who never got the chance and ended up locking their application.
i can see how recent promotions have caused everyone to feel uneasy. don't get me wrong, the candidates promoted are excellent in my opinion, however i think the main problem is how those promotions came into play. quite literally seems like nothing has changed from the moment this thread has been posted up til now aside from a couple new promotions here and there. having been on the team myself, i do know cyk has been trying to do her best to help all candidates, so i do not doubt her efforts whatsoever. but personally the problem to me seems as if the process of getting feedback is taking too long which is a bit of an issue because the whole application process seems like it takes centuries already. when it comes down to it, promoting people in a couple weeks while others have been applying for many many months isn't a good look to me. please just consistently try to let players know where they can improve so they can. i can already tell it's super demotivating for them to watch quick promos while theyve been applying for a while cause i've literally been in that exact same boat and despite how much i loved the team & moderating, applying for that long really is not worth it for me. i think all everyone is asking is to do what you said youd do after this thread was created. please make it seem more fair.
Almost everyone in this thread is actually right, From Marcawn himself is that the Staff Applications sub forum and official template DOES need a reform and change and it should be up to the person instead of the server's community who is applying for staff of what are the pros and cons for the server administrators/managers to see before being selected for the Staff team. There are many staff applications that were denied because they didn't follow the requirements, but there's a automatic solution for the forum to add in as you can't post a Staff Application as you don't have access to the button that will publish an application out for you until you meet the requirements for your forum account instead of actual staff members locking and archiving them. (This can work as well if you don't have 2FA on.) There are a bit of mistakes that staff applicants can make while Marcawn is reading that using the basic words that includes paragraphs as in example called "Mature", "Generous", and "Fast Typer", these 3 terms aren't really necessary to put in while applying for staff, there should actually be advice that donating (ranks is already on the guidelines, talking about in-game items), being extremely serious, or replying fast doesn't have to be required to do, should just use interesting backgrounds with paragraphs on what you have as in the pros side. From what in the past when Bert and Archer applied, It took so extremely long that they had to put their applications into archive because of a long wait how it is and if they could change their minds on applying though, 1-3 years isn't acceptable it should be shortened and the maximum limit up to 6 or 9 months to decide on the staff applicant. bERYbERRY and archerexpert777 feel sorry for both of you two.
I believe a few common-sense changes will make the staff application system better and faster. My idea for a new system works in a set of steps. 1. apply same as the current application 2. After a said time say 3-6 months the staff team has 2 options deny (move to step 4)or move to step 3 3. Interview the candidate. Talk or dm the candidate an interview lasting 10-30 ish minutes at this point the decision will be made by the interviewer eighter the applicant becomes helper or is denied and move to step 4 4. deny the applicant move to denied applications with the following note Thanks for applying but at this time we have decided not to accept your application. For more details dm (insert staff discord here) please do not apply again until at least 3 months have passed. The staff members should have some simple or complex feedback based on the applicant eg. work on being helpful, being kinder, and have like 5 mins with conversation material to send for tips. what does this change 1. make a start point so staff must be dedicated and apply for a time before being promoted 2. end the infinite application where applications remain open for an unnecessary amount of time 3. give staff thought and feedback directly to players and not in a public forum so applicants know what to work on reasoning most recent accepted applications Bree less than 3 weeks Pancake 9 months closed once Mai 11 months app closed 3 times Boba 1 month Eunice 4 months Frez .5 month Megan 2 months bunny .5 month Bdark 1 month Geo 1 month Now let's turn out attention to some withdrawn applicants xethorias 6 months trin 13 months Bert berry 12 months phr33z 11 months Ursusmaiorus 11 months Justinhealy 8 months tog 13 months vortexram 13 months I am not endorsing these applicants at all I'm just saying if they are willing to spend more than 6 continuous months applying they at least deserve an outright rejection instead of this demoralizing waiting game. also, it seems staff have chosen by then. applicant should be entitled to a responce
one of the main reasons I withdrew my application is because feedback from staff felt impossible - while I had support from the community no staff could actually tell me if I was essentially chasing after nothing, i was never told if I had improved etc.. Any sort of feedback during that period would of been appreciated- or if I wasn’t gonna get promoted even a denied application would of been fit. But instead applicants just never get a reply. I really think that Ursus is right.
WOW, 13 months never realized that the app was open that long. Being one of the people on that list, and being the one with the longest I completely agree, I would've just prefered a decision from the staff team at that point, even if it was a no then I would've waited a few months and reapplied. The crazy part is that the app could've been open for another year and probably still wouldn't have an answer, the only reason it closed was due to the ban.
I guess for me, I would like to see players outright told the reason they have not been chosen, like in the real world. I feel like there are alot of applicants that are not suitable, but their applications are left open(potentially as to not hurt their feelings) when I think they deserve to be told why they are not suitable, how they can improve, and that they are welcome to reapply once they have demonstrated appropriate improvement
I haven't read past the first page here, but I have to say I like the OP and the meticulous thought and wording that went into it's creation. Even when I was promoted the game felt to be rigged as a popularity contest. After becoming staff and being one of the people trusted to give my own input into who was promoted I tried to place in some transparency into our process. While we took into account people's opinions of the applicants then we, or at least I personally, tried to watch the applicant in game and see that the stories matched up. I would do research into the player's behavior on the forums as well, ensuring that they represented who we wanted as leaders in the community before moving forward with my approval/disapproval for promotion. I rarely, if ever, took into account length of responses. Grammar and spelling were both important to me as they were requirements to be capable of acting in official capacity for us in my own mind. Being able to communicate concisely and clearly to the users and being able to get a point across in as few words as possible were seen as ideal. The approval of peers in a mod application was always only used by me if they provided reasons for or against the applicant becoming mod. IF you just said "support" or "no support" I ignored the post. If you critiqued the mod application itself instead of the applicant then I ignored it. You had to actually convince me that you truly believed the person was worthy of the space and why. Also, being active to me was important, but only to a degree. Everyone has a life outside of the server and I will defend any staff member's right to be moderately active or to take time off, even long periods. Being active on so many platforms can be discouraging and I feel that the act of having dedicated mods to each platform increases the odds of activity on any one. Some people may be the perfect candidate, but most won't be. All in all, I'm in full agreement with everything posted here.
It still is, almost every applicant that gets accepted is always liked by the entire staff team, mainly the higher ups who often weigh in whether they should be promoted helper or not. Some of the staff members can disagree and sugarcoat all they want but in the end the people who have been here the longest can tell the same thing
No system of control exists which is immune to the creeping corruption of control that becomes apparent only once it is too late. The only way to fight this oppressive system is to do so from within it and most of the time those that try don't survive the effort, successful or not.
I agree with this. Im an Eco player, I only go over to SB to trade grass for eco bal. So if I'm not active on SB that is one of the main things that determines that I won't be a staff member any time soon? I hate that social status is a huge factor! I have a few friends on Eco, I try being nice to everyone on there and involving everyone, but not everyone is interested in being friends, so just because I don't have 50+ people commenting under my staff app means "nope don't add her to the staff team"? How does that one make sense?? Also with the Discord thing, I rarely use my Discord, I have the notification muted because there's always way too many messages coming at once. So I need to be super active on there to be considered too? I think Noob and the other higher-ups need to sit down and maybe reevaluate what they are looking for in a staff member. (I think I am just going on and rambling here so I apologize.)
