The Staff Feedback Thread! [read the first post!]

PC isn't a democracy and tbh I like it that way. Just because you're popular does not mean that you're a capable leader; and an election would become a popularity contest. The way the higher staff pick moderators is not based on popularity. Obviously you have to not be a generally disliked person because a mod is basically a PR position, but some of the best mods we have would never have been elected because they were picked from relative obscurity, not many posts, to be a mod. People need to be decided on based on ability to handle the responsibilities of staff, not based on how many friends on PC they have. The higher staff are higher staff because they have the ability and responsibility to put aside personal thoughts towards members and assess them fairly without bias, and members are not held to this standard and shouldn't be - they're members, they shouldn't have the same kinds of responsibilities staff have because that would be really unfair to them.

Also just pointing out Syd would be re-elected over and over again in all her sections as she is a very popular mod, so you wouldn't get what you're angling for this way either.

Regarding what was said above (Sydian having moderated the same forums for four years), maybe, just maybe that's the problem right there?

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I would have been fired long ago if I wasn't the right person for the job.

Look, I take all my feedback to heart. I listen to my members. But at this point, what you're giving isn't even worth calling feedback. This ugly grudge you're holding over this one thread is just annoying. I have given you other options. So many times. Earlier in the year and in this thread. Like...are you even reading what I've said? Cause I really don't think you are. That being said, I don't know why I'm bothering to post in here and reply to you. Chances are you won't read this either.

But look. I'm done with this whole ordeal. You want to keep harping over it after I've given you alternatives to your friend's thread? Fine. Keep at it and see where it goes. Two smods have already tried to discontinue this topic, and I'm going to respect their wishes and ask that if you really want to continue, PM Captain Fabio or Patchisou Yutohru or Abnegation or whoever you want. But I'm out. I'm done.

What I was getting at is that it would force them to make promices to the community in order to maintain the vote of confidence.
Higher staff are higher staff because they own the domain name, web server, cPanel/WHM license, vBulletin license, etc.

No, that's not why higher staff are higher staff. It has nothing to do with who owns licenses. They are chosen because they are mature, driven moderators that have the ability to remain unbiased in conflicts, and can contribute constructively to HQ, where forum-wide decisions are made. I don't know where you got that misconception, but h-staff are chosen just like moderators are, licenses are irrelevant.

that have the ability to remain unbiased in conflicts,

That's something we need here real bad. Maybe it exists in some areas, in fact I know it does. However it doesn't in others.
I am sure licenses etc has something to do with it, someone has to pay your webhost to keep your server in existance (unless you have free hosting?)

Rukario handles the financial aspects of the forum. No one is promoted to higher staff due to their ability to pay for a license, or pay for anything. I can guarantee you this, 100%. You can disagree with the way things are run around here, but when staff members are telling you that you are wrong on how the forum is run, please don't argue as if you have an inside track to how higher staff is promoted. This isn't a matter of a difference of opinion; paying for licenses has nothing to do with higher staff promotions.

Do you have an example of the bias that you seem to be implying the higher staff possesses?

The person who pays the bills doesn't really participate much in PC. Please, don't comment on things if you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. It only makes you look worse.

that have the ability to remain unbiased in conflicts,

That's something we need here real bad. Maybe it exists in some areas, in fact I know it does. However it doesn't in others.

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I would just like to say that staff are people as well, and remaining unbiased in conflicts is difficult when the conflict continues on after many instances where a reasonable solution could have been achieved.

Yeah, I do.
Nothing's investigated, mods can do no wrong. Exclusion, Cyberbullying (in the case of unapproved challenges in some cases), etc. Obviously you guys are all pretty close with one another, maybe even in person, which is cool and all but evidently there's no objectivity anywhere.

Mods are of course investigated by h-staff. We've had mods be demoted over their actions and behavior. We are held very accountable and have to watch what we say, particularly in this instance. You just won't drop it. Syd did nothing wrong. She told him where to post. This doesn't concern you at all, either. You are a third party who can't get his facts right and won't drop it.

So drop it.

GenuineCorruption said:

Since the discussion did continue on through the night I figure I'd say this.

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Despite having several higher members of staff telling you to drop it?

GenuineCorruption said:

Some of the staff responses to those last few posts are, as stated above quite shalow. To not give someone or something a chance, and to just say it has no potential with no supporting evidence of such is to say that it is not worthy of being here, which is to say that the person in question is not worthy of being here.

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I'll just comment on this.

Yes, the thread is question was different, and there's no precedent for whether it would have flourished or not. However, we have imaginations, which we can use to guess what the thread's outcome would have been. My imagination, for instance, says that it wouldn't have even taken off, because it wouldn't at all concern the vast majority of users, and any responses it would have gotten would have been pointless "I support this idea" messages with nothing actually done about it. I'm sure that's what Syd's imagination told her too.

The thing is, staff are in charge of their sections; that's how PokéCommunity works. It's up to each mod to decide how best to run their sections, which means quite often they will have to rely on their imaginations to decide whether a thread or challenge or ROM hack or whatever is suitable to be in their section. Some sections are more suited for short threads for quick questions than others, and some sections are primarily for decent discussions. Syd's sections are generally "decent discussions" sections, and in this case she decided the thread in question wouldn't provide any kind of discussion, so she closed it. That's fine; that's one of the things she does in her role. She offered explanations and alternatives, which is more than she needed to do.



In any case, it was not your thread. Aaron accepted the decision, and for some bizarre reason you're taking offence on his behalf months later, as well as whinging and lashing out when you're not getting your way. You're ignoring the explanations and alternatives provided, and publicly berating a decent member of staff. I fail to see why anyone should pay attention to you when you're simply not being reasonable and receptive.

Yeah, I do.
Nothing's investigated, mods can do no wrong. Exclusion, Cyberbullying (in the case of unapproved challenges in some cases), etc. Obviously you guys are all pretty close with one another, maybe even in person, which is cool and all but evidently there's no objectivity anywhere.

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I would argue that this situation has been extensively investigated by a number of people on multiple occasions, taking into account every detail and viewing it from both a professional and personal level. Solutions have been offered. You calling Unapproved Challenges "cyberbullying" indicates a lack of experience with the real deal. Nobody is being discriminated against; if you had better knowledge of the forums I believe you would see next to no discrimination and zero tolerance for those who do discriminate. So please, do refrain from making these accusations.

A post I didn't want to be unseen given the effort, so deleted and added above ^

I enjoyed the irony of "staff are not objective" being an argument posted within a thread which contradicts just that. GenuineCorruption, you have your answers. This is all off-topic, and any further off-topic posts will be treated as such. You have the Simple PC Questions and Answers thread for further questions regarding servers and so forth. Now please allow the thread to permit others to put forward feedback, step back for a while and get some air. No more off-topic posts now, please guys.

Hello yes I'm going to throw in my thoughts here (and hopefully lighten the mood after previous events in this thread.)

I think overall the staff here are good, I have very few issues with them and I have good relationships with a lot of them, but I would like to reiterate a few things said earlier on in the thread about staff behaviour and a few other things, while I won't name names because really this isn't a regular occurrence and I can completely understand and empathise with the staff members who do this, because we all have bad days, but I do feel that all staff members can on occasion be very very rude, or, that's how I (and others) read it, I feel especially towards newer members who ask questions which seem obvious to those who have been here a while the staff can answer the questions in a very snarky way and it just really bothers me the way some staff brush people off and appear to not really care about the members. Obviously I think this thread is a great step forwards in terms of member-staff relations and I have noticed a few staff members making a concious effort to come across in a better way to members, but I think this is still an issue and while I don't expect it to go away I just want to highlight that staff (and regular members) can come across as pretty rude in the way they speak to other members and it's certainly something everyone needs to think more about.

My big issue though is staff transparency, yes we now know a little more about what the higher staff and just regular moderators do now in part thanks to feedback in this thread but I really feel that iron curtain is still very much there and this is definitely a contributing factor as to why members don't want to approach the staff. I feel it could be beneficial for members to have a little more of a say in what goes on with the forums, I've seen a few threads involving removal of features and members have had an active part in helping decide what stays and what goes but I think something that would really help relations across the board would be not to tell us exactly what's happening and what's being discussed but perhaps if a new feature is being discussed in the HQ or the Lounge or whatever if the staff do decide that's something they'd like put into the forums to perhaps get member opinion, perhaps a select group of people (The supporters perhaps? As they put money towards the forum perhaps they could have some role?) or just to put it in the announcements or wherever and just see if the feature that's being considered is something the memberbase want. I really feel that a bit more transparency with what's happening behind the scenes could be really helpful to the forums.

But other than that you're all doing a really good job and I am really happy with the way PC is staffed and the staff members and uh keep up the good work, I guess!

~Kawaii~ said:

Hello yes I'm going to throw in my thoughts here (and hopefully lighten the mood after previous events in this thread.)

My big issue though is staff transparency, yes we now know a little more about what the higher staff and just regular moderators do now in part thanks to feedback in this thread but I really feel that iron curtain is still very much there and this is definitely a contributing factor as to why members don't want to approach the staff. I feel it could be beneficial for members to have a little more of a say in what goes on with the forums, I've seen a few threads involving removal of features and members have had an active part in helping decide what stays and what goes but I think something that would really help relations across the board would be not to tell us exactly what's happening and what's being discussed but perhaps if a new feature is being discussed in the HQ or the Lounge or whatever if the staff do decide that's something they'd like put into the forums to perhaps get member opinion, perhaps a select group of people (The supporters perhaps? As they put money towards the forum perhaps they could have some role?) or just to put it in the announcements or wherever and just see if the feature that's being considered is something the memberbase want. I really feel that a bit more transparency with what's happening behind the scenes could be really helpful to the forums.

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I just want to address a few things here actually. When I wasn't a super moderator, I assumed there was so much going on behind the scenes that higher staff did not tell us about. However, I'd estimate that well over half of what higher staff deal with is actually Human Resources and member relations. You'd be surprised how little we don't share with members. The thing is, most of the features we implement are actually suggested by the memberbase, and thus, already known by them. If there's things we wish the memberbase to have a say on we tend to ask them, other times however, we just need to get things done. If there's anything in which could been seen as controversial we'd probably ask within PCQ&F, which has been done on occasions before. I'd love to say "we should certainly tell you more and have you all involved with more decisions!", but there's little to actually discuss with the forum as a whole, given that as I say; most of what higher staff deal with is relations. We also like to sometimes add neat features as a surprise. Furthermore, this is why we have PokéCommunity Questions and Feedback, to let us know what you like and dislike about the forum, from where we can hopefully improve it.

We're also not extremely keen on supporters having more of a say than members, Supporters are not paying for the use of the forum, but helping us keep it running, and that's why it's a donation. So overall, there's not so much going on behind the scenes as expected, especially in relation to features being added. In saying that though, we like things to get done, and as staff we try to do them to the best of our ability. What most people seem to forget is that before I was orange, or Sydian was blue, or Morkula was red, we were all just members who care about PC. And still are and do. There's over 30 staff members to discuss what's best for the forum, and there's thousands of members to give us feedback on the features and whether there's something we can improve upon. Staff don't tend to make the wrong decisions with features very often, however too many voices discussing on where to put a table in a room can make it too loud, they're better off coming in once it has been placed as a lot more voices will be appeased with the decision.

Continuing this thought, I feel like PC has become more and more democratic over the past... months? Some people probably automatically think "democracy is the best, everywhere and anytime!" but I don't think that's completely true. When leading a country, it might be.

But when leading a forum online, which isn't really specifically bound by laws of democracy or people's will or anything but rather is a place that some people started and let others join in on, total democracy might not be the best at all.

What I mean is, I'm fine with the H-staff members taking care of important business behind the scenes. I've always assumed they do. Mod members as well, albeit not as large questions perhaps. While we non-staff members can browse the forum and feel carefree (not careless!) as long as we follow the rational rules the staff set up for us all.

But I believe what Abnegation says and I think it works fine this way :3

(uh, I hope this was relevant in this thread)

I've always viewed PC as an Oligarchy and never really saw any signs of it becoming more of a democracy. All the decisions are still made up of a small group of people (when it comes to the internal affairs of a forum, it's more of a Monarchy since the decisions fall entirely on one person), but all of the major decisions that affect the overall state of the forum are still made by a small group of people.