Posted by Higbey

Id like to point out many people who have "rallied" with me are now on the staff team, and some of us aren't so different.

Maybe we could get more scripters if players were shown scripting is the only way to get hired, instead of being friends.

Secondly, the all being friends is bull.
I've seen the chats, seen the arguments, you sell eachother out, it's funny how suddenly those "friends" drop from your favor when fired. The idea that so many different people could be "one big family "
Is ridiculous.

Third of all, in most jobs you need to work with people you don't like, if you put working with people you like before people with skill then your just being selfish and hurting the players.

It's not if you get along well, it's how it affects the server.

That's pretty ****in' neato.  

Posted by Godzilla

people theyve hired: NYN, ellybelly, lady gaga, etc.
why: friends with admins

people they havnt hired: ifuzzy(who applied over a year ago)
past experience: was a moderator on runescape, beta tested many iphone and PC games, had played iclassic since it first came out, was a talented LAT, who worked for GK iphone for a while. but he wasnt hired because he didnt know a lot of admins.

Please bare in mind that iClassic is a COMMUNITY game. People just aren't going to be hired because "i wunt 2 heklp." People are hired because they are well known around the community.  

OMG I FRIKIN HAET ADAIMS THEY NEVR DRAG MEH OR GIVE ME LIGHTSABERS AND I NEVER WIN EVENTS SKREW ADAIMS I HATE GRAAL

lol  

Yeah twinny with your admin messages thing: te staff have made absolutely no visible effort to stop spam to their accounts. Like I said to sklyd, you really have to experiment. Tell the staff to remove pms from friends only and then send out a mass on saying something like "you can now pm an online staff member directly if you need any help or have a question. Please note that all spam messages such as asking to be staff, or asking for a hat will be ignored, and persistence will result in the respective staff member blocking you. All PMs to staff should be important matters." my guess is the horror of having an admin block them would stop a lot of players from doing it. And seeing that the staff are pretty ban happy with feedback. I know a ton of people who are banned from it, so it makes using the tool pretty hard. How about you guys remove the bans, and give abusers limited Time bans and after multiple offenses will get perm bans. I got banned for asking them to remove the zanza base from azraels treehouse since its not fair to the other guilds that they get this secret base.

And at the hiring friends thing I'd like to start off by saying who do you hire first in the work place: the guys who's super qualified, has tons of past experience, went to a good school, however doesn't know anyone from work, or toms friend who he says is really cool?

You should be doing things the other way around. Looking at applications and if no ones good enough then turning to friends. If someone is qualified and has staff friends then that's great but most of the people I see are unqualified with staff friends.

You say that the people have to get along with other staff members and I agree. They should be friends. However you don't give people the chance to get to know him. In the case of my friend ifuzzy who I mentioned earlier as a very qualified person who wasn't hired, he was mature enough that he didn't run around trying to make Frieda with every admin he saw. Most of the people who are Friends with admins these days are friends with them for the sole reason that their an admin. now I'm not saying that everyone who is Friends with a staff member doesn't like that staff member and is only there for leverage but that's probably how it began. Someone sees a staff member on their iPhone account and says hi, strikes up a conversation, etc. the reason they started it was because they were an admin. then you have friends of friends who join staff guilds because they have Friends there and then become friends with the admin. the point is ifuzzy didn't run around trying to strike up conversations with them. He was open to making new friends but it was usually through being friends of friends or them striking up a conversation with each other. He never went up to say hi to someone just because they're staff. I'd think youd want someone like that. Who sees the staff position more as a job. The people who say hi to the admins worship them, and look up to them, and want to be their friends because they're admins. Then when they are made admins because of their friend they're one of the gods who gets to run around and be worshipped. They're not really qualified though they're just friends.

Even then most admins put themselves on this big pedestal and see themselves better than all the players and therefore don't really try to make Friends with other people because everyone wants to be the admins friend. This is mostly because they're unqualified . but it makes it hard to actually make friends with a staff member which it's become apparent is the only way to get hired.  

Posted by Higbey

Id like to point out many people who have "rallied" with me are now on the staff team, and some of us aren't so different.

I can't imagine any person who insulted every staff member and the game using 'evidence' pulled out of their arse as a viable staff member.

Maybe we could get more scripters if players were shown scripting is the only way to get hired, instead of being friends.

I've had a few requests but on inspection, the players have either not been skilled enough or just not right for the community (god complex, self-serving etc.) The requirements for this server are quite high. Need to understand efficient coding practices and ability to confirm to existing standards.

Secondly, the all being friends is bull.
I've seen the chats, seen the arguments, you sell eachother out, it's funny how suddenly those "friends" drop from your favor when fired. The idea that so many different people could be "one big family "
Is ridiculous.

I've seen ex-staff logs and they don't look pretty but most of the time I don't remember those events actually taking place...hmmm. Besides, tiny snippets aren't representative of RC as a whole.

Third of all, in most jobs you need to work with people you don't like, if you put working with people you like before people with skill then your just being selfish and hurting the players.

If every admin hates every other admin: it's just not going to work. If a new employee is unable to get along with their colleagues at a job, it does not reflect well on the new employee. More so here since it's a community role.


So Higbey (or anyone else), suggest a complete hiring procedure that can deal with thousands of applicants without taking too much time per review. Since you don't like admin recruitment, you have to take into consideration a lot of time will have to be spent into accessing the applicant since an email with some 'details' only weeds out illiterate people. You will have to decide how much information they will provide per stage taking into account time spent per applicant per stage.

Go!  

Posted by Godzilla

Yeah twinny with your admin messages thing: te staff have made absolutely no visible effort to stop spam to their accounts. Like I said to sklyd, you really have to experiment. Tell the staff to remove pms from friends only and then send out a mass on saying something like "you can now pm an online staff member directly if you need any help or have a question. Please note that all spam messages such as asking to be staff, or asking for a hat will be ignored, and persistence will result in the respective staff member blocking you. All PMs to staff should be important matters."

How would you find an admin that's easily online? What if the player spams the service straight up but decides he wants to do a truthful one later? Would one block be all block for admins?

Now, we have an offline system that's perfect for support called an email system. We do not have the man power to handle everything single PM that pops up in game as that is a completely ridiculous request. PMs are a sequential system: messages as they come. How can staff expect to handle 10 or more separate support issues when they are all interwoven?

Emails provide a system we can handle, that provides a history regarding an issue (what if admin went offline half way through an issue? you'd have to talk about it all over again!). This is a system that a handful of volunteers can handle efficiently and easy.

Talking to admins is not and I doubt it will ever be a guaranteed method of support and you guys need to understand it for all the damn obvious reasons.

And at the hiring friends thing I'd like to start off by saying who do you hire first in the work place: the guys who's super qualified, has tons of past experience, went to a good school, however doesn't know anyone from work, or toms friend who he says is really cool?

Good thing I already mentioned we look at people who we know are qualified and we know could potentially fit the role quite well. Again, this is the whole far less resources fitting a role thing.

You should be doing things the other way around. Looking at applications and if no ones good enough then turning to friends. If someone is qualified and has staff friends then that's great but most of the people I see are unqualified with staff friends.

However you don't give people the chance to get to know him.

Give me an efficient and accurate way of getting to know people considering the sheer amount of applications we get.  

Posted by Apple

I adressed this while on magic tag talking to ari and nick and other staff and they instantly kicked me because I brought this subject up.. things need to change..

That is a good thing... It means that there nervous and dodging the subject means they know its true

Posted by TylerMysTe

There's nothing wrong with the staff. They do their job and respond to reports and questions. I keep my pms open to anyone in case they have a question about something. I do block people who spam me over and over without giving me a chance to reply. Just because there's many GP's, doesn't mean they're all on at the same time. Usually only a certain amount are on at a time. Azrael already explained that LAT's are welcome. I think there's just not enough people experienced enough to take on the job.

Lets get honest theres three/four types ofGPs
Experienced good ones who do there job
Corrupt denyful Ones that this forum is bassed on
And inexperienced noobs who arent qualified and are picked on because there up in the higher graal community and have many refrences
And then theres the same but these are expered and qualified  

Posted by spades of feare

That is a good thing... It means that there nervous and dodging the subject means they know its true

No, it means it was annoying and nobody wanted to hear that. Also, how is that true? Twinny and many others have already answered you guys. I honestly don't see what anyone is trying to accomplish in this thread. You got your answer, what more do you want?  

Posted by Yephenpeace

what more do you want?

A large earthquake in Paris.  

Twinny, admins could make themselves more available like hanging out in graal without gold names and on the ground with everyone else. If they see anyone with a question they can answer, people can ask them, they can chat and get more in touch with the community, etc. then people can add them, etc. if things start getting to crazy then they can leave. But as long as they're not advertising the fact that they're staff things should be fine. If someone spams them then they get blocked. Sucks or them if they have a REALY question later. But it's better than having it so you just can't contact them. This way if they lost it it's at least their fault. Your getting rid of the people who spam, and the ones your trying to avoid. The reason your not doing it you claim is that there'd be too much spam. So you cut down on it by blocking people. And one block wouldn't go for all the admins. Because then it'll just be like feedback and wouldn't work since someone sends one message to some abusive admin and boom banned. Little more flexible this way. But really you have to experiment with it and try it out before you can say that it's a bad idea. Give it a try discourage spamming, block people,give it 2 weeks and if it doesn't work then get rid of it, telling the community why you had to. But honestly I dont see why era can and we can't. Sure we have a larger player count but a larger staff team too probably.

Email will only get you so far. Pming someone is much more accessible.

And lol then why are there so many unqualified staff members? It's pretty obvious that the current system doesn't work because a lot of the staff members are pretty bad and many of the ones in the past had been pretty bad. I mean you could have had some true gems that would have helped improve the server if you actually paid attention to applications. Applications are just cruel. You ask people to fill them out teasing them with the opperatunity of getting hired but no matter how qualified they are unless they're friends with a ton of staff members then they won't get accepted. PiX who's actually a scripter and knows GS2 applied and you didn't even accept him! What's even the point of them! A person applies who says he has a skill which the server could use most but nope because he doesn't know any staff members! The server would probably be a lot better if you hired people from applications who had skills that could possibly help the server. If it doesn't work out you fire them. But honestly I think the server would be a lot better if you hire people from applications. Because like I said people who are friends with admins probably want to be admins for the fame.

You want to know how to get to know them? Hire them then chat with them and see how they do. If they're abusive fire them if not then keep them on. And for the love of god hire PiX!  

Posted by Twinny

So Higbey (or anyone else), suggest a complete hiring procedure that can deal with thousands of applicants without taking too much time per review. Since you don't like admin recruitment, you have to take into consideration a lot of time will have to be spent into accessing the applicant since an email with some 'details' only weeds out illiterate people. You will have to decide how much information they will provide per stage taking into account time spent per applicant per stage.
Go!

Staff should simply read applications and be willing to set trials (with limited rights) outside of their comfort zone.

All currently successful Graal servers often do open applications and actively hire from them, so Classic iPhone should, too.

I know it's not your fault, Twinny, but it isn't blameless. I don't believe the entire team is corrupt, but I do believe a small handful of individuals are causing problems for the server.  

Posted by Godzilla

Twinny, admins could make themselves more available like hanging out in graal without gold names and on the ground with everyone else.

Bow is usually in Graal city, on her 65 AP when she isn't patrolling.
Not everyone uses their Staff AP ALL THE TIME. Get that through your head.

Posted by Godzilla

Email will only get you so far. Pming someone is much more accessible.

It's more convenient. To the player. Who wants a hat.

Emailing shows a sense of formality, which shows that they have a serious issue with another player or Staff member.

PMing Staff is just pointless. Report whoever the heck is annoying you.  

I don't see why staff need boots and "Staff AP."

On Classic PC, I rarely use boots because I can just warp, and I only use God Mode if I'm in a level with monsters while I'm working.

In fact, we don't even give FAQS staff tools because they are supposed to be answering questions, not running around with staff boots. And, when staff members are not on tag, they cannot even use stall tools. Being on places players cannot get to, like on trees, buildings or cliffs, is also frowned upon.

The way iClassic handles its staff is just asking for them to abuse their powers. You cannot trust every 15-year-old to be able to handle the responsibility to uphold an image of professionalism when the goal of the game is to have as many hats as possible to show off to your friends. Not to mention that there are thousands of players constantly bitching at them for any reason.

How can abuse be prevented (to a point)? Only give staff tools to staff who need them. Only allow staff tools to be used on tag. Log the actions staff members. (time, level, and to whom drag was used on for example)

It's clear that the conduct and integrity of staff members was not in thought when the iPhone servers were in development, but maybe now is the time to look into it and do something about it.  

Skyzer you obviously know nothing about graal if you don't understand that the staff need boots to get to places where players can't go and show their authority over them. Psshh. I mean how are players suppose to take the staff seriously if they're not hugging on of their friends on top of a building?  

All that matters is that they're doing their jobs, which they are. Does it really matter if they stand on trees? You guys find odd topics to rant about.