3 Ways to Improve the Staff Team

[Jusser]

Ok I'm sorry but having Its / HD / YT / q's / in your name is the complete opposite of an OG name :/

They're not, you're right. The point is they add those things so they can try and get close to the OG names that they're wanting.

 

[Girls]

They're not, you're right. The point is they add those things so they can try and get close to the OG names that they're wanting.

what.

adding that to your name takes it further from being OG, what are you talking about xD

 

[Jusser]

what.

adding that to your name takes it further from being OG, what are you talking about xD

Perhaps saying people want OG names wasn't the right way to word it. Players dont necessarily want the rare names, they want the cool ones that revolve around PVP and being tough, which OG names can be loosely tied into. Having all the Q's and _'s and stuff allows them to mimic the cool name as close as they can, since it could be taken by somebody else, if that makes sense. The point isn't to be OG its to be cool and tough.

Sometimes I'm not very good at explaining myself :S

 

[AGFire2013]

I wouldn't necessarily say "lack personality" (I get what you're trying to say, but it's not really the best words for it), but a lot of the staff team definitely do not express themselves a lot when it comes to the rest of the community. I constantly see people avoiding discussions and debate because they're here to focus on moderation and things that are strictly related to it, and nothing else.

The problem is, some staff members don't make enough of an effort to communicate and bond with the non-staff part of the community, acting very strict and serious in places like the hub, which are meant for friendly chat and discussion. We need to be able to distinguish a line between acting friendly and professional and balance the two, which some of us don't do. Acting professional while answering questions is fine, but doing that all the time and limiting ourselves from communicating with the community (that we're ultimately trying to help and connect to) is not and needs to be looked at.

Another problem is the lack of interest and activity in the forums. Too often I see moderators completely abandon the forums in favour of Teamspeak or the servers, and that needs to change. I've even seen some members of the staff team break the rules on the forums (double posting, linking Youtube channels) because of their inexperience. For this, I'm going to try and incorporate a kind of mandatory forums training session or guide they will have to read.
More importantly though, we need to post more on threads and get to the know the community as the forums are arguably the platform in which we can freely show our opinions and thoughts on the community. The forums are excellent for settling in and somewhat learning about the servers as this is where we (the overall community) express ourselves the most.

Overall, I do see mods show a lot of personality within in the staff team on Slack or Teamspeak. We, myself included, need to work on showing that personality to others in the community and firmly show that we are nothing but another part of MCGamer, as a lot of players often see us as a whole separate faction with a long bridge of applications linking us together, nothing else. We need to make sure we're regarded as being a part of the same object, and vice versa. Some staff members do look down on non-staff, and that needs to change as we are all a part of the community.

Beardy I think I just made the Wall in text form. At least we'll be safe from the White Walkers this way

 

[Girls]

Perhaps saying people want OG names wasn't the right way to word it. Players dont necessarily want the rare names, they want the cool ones that revolve around PVP and being tough, which OG names can be loosely tied into. Having all the Q's and _'s and stuff allows them to mimic the cool name as close as they can, since it could be taken by somebody else, if that makes sense. The point isn't to be OG its to be cool and tough.

Sometimes I'm not very good at explaining myself :S

oh ok i get whatcha mean

and no one has the rare names cause theyre all taken by me

 

[Beardy]

I agree with almost all of your points brought up in OP, but this one kind of caught me off guard. Seeing as the staff team is responsible for making sure players follow the rules, responding to reports for players who aren't following the rules, organizing community events, and so on and so forth, I thought it would be expected of the staff team to act professionally. I understand what you mean by the lack of personality, but I've always figured that there's a certain way you should act around certain people (probably worded that really awkwardly but whatever) For instance, when someone is interviewing for a job, they should come dressed nicely and be polite to the interviewer, etc etc. If you came to an interview wearing sweatpants and a tank top and talked unprofessionally, you'd most likely not get the job. This goes along with staff members acting too "robotic". When we're doing our "jobs" we should try and be as concise, helpful, and professional as possible. Which in some (or most) cases, can end up sounding robotic, but that's just how it is. I'm sure that when members of the staff aren't doing staff related jobs, they act much differently than when they are pertaining to staff ordeals. I mean, I don't tell my irl friends to stop flooding chat if they talk too much xD.

But all in all, I definitely think you bought up some strong points here, and I'm personally going to try and improve on these aspects of my staff position



Ok I'm sorry but having Its / HD / YT / q's / in your name is the complete opposite of an OG name :/

I like your example of a job, and you're right about how you have to act professional when going for an interview. As much as this may seem like a job, you have to remember you're volunteering your time, you're not paid. Thus, try and lighten up. When I do community service or help out someone else on my own time, I try to have fun with it. When it comes down to it, this is just an online community for a video game that in my opinion shouldn't be taken too seriously. It's a fun game to play with friends, not your number one priority, "I'll lose the house if I don't do this right" job.

 

[MaestroZeN]

#bringbacktheforums

Haven't actually read the thread because I have to leave in about 2 minutes, but I got the tag alert, saw the wall of text, and I approve already.

I know you're a forumer worth your salt, so I'll put in the effort to return to this thread and read it over when I come back home.

+1

 

[RetroRain]

Too much nowadays has the staff position turned into something of status. Considering we have all of these ranks like mod of the month, people will do all they can to impress the Sr. Staff in order to be considered for these positions. While things like mod of the month do inspire people to help out and do work, sometimes it's taken the wrong way and moderators try too hard to stand out, which can be observed rather obviously in certain situations.

On a certain note, not every default response is given because we're uncreative robots, sometimes it's because these things are the most suitable responses to best answer the question or situation at hand (however the thing that some people don't realize is that there is always a way to spice it up and make yourself be a more respectable individual.

Either way you slice it, being a staff member is more than just hosting as many community events as you can and getting tons of bans, which is something I believe a good lot of our staff members could do a job of fine-tuning because there are platforms such as the forums that are either neglected by a lot of us, or handled inexperiencedly (yes, that's a word now. I made it up)

The forums are a platform too. All moderators must be able to handle forum situations. I see moderators a lot saying "Well, the forums were never really my strongsuit." or "I'm shy."

Well, what if I said. "Nah, I don't want to go and ban hackers ingame because I don't like Minecraft." Either way it's unacceptable because moderators are supposed to have experience and knowledge on all three platforms, something that seems to be extremely neglected as of late.


My memes are always dank what are you on about mate?

ILY!

 

[GeckoGoggals]

I know that like 30 mods have posted super long replies already so I'll try to keep it short.

First, as for the Robotic Personalities, I agree. We say the same thing over and over and OVER. I hate that but people ask the same questions all the time. I try to mix it up occasionally, but not everyone can come up with something as creative as "Dont flood the chat it drowns the kittens ;-;". Also, when it comes to things like report abuses and locking threads, I like to change it up for each time, but there are some that do it a lot more than me and may get tired of writing a different response every time.

I am guilty of not interacting with the community, but I'm also guilty of rarely being on teamspeak. It's really easy to become friends with the staff team quickly because in slack (our communication) we have a chat room that is all just random talking, and as a new mod, its really easy to get to know people fast through that kind of communication. There are a lot of nice people out there waiting to meet us though, and I'll try my best to work on this.

At the beginning of the summer, I'd agree with the third one, but now I'm in the middle on this. I've seen mods that were hired within a month of joining do exceptional things, but I've also seen people try to take on the role too soon, without knowing enough about our community, or just to get a title. I do feel like getting to know what the network is like before applying is a good idea, but I know there are also people out there who can just accept the job and be great right away.

Well that wasn't as short as I wanted but that's my take on this.

 

[HuggaBear]

I understand what you mean about the personality thing. As a moderator, I do try my best to be humorous and have a personality around regular members and staff members, not just to be liked, but because that's the way I am. And I don't think that it's a "popularity competition" between staff, but I think it's more of a personality thing as well, some like some mods more than others. And as for the interaction with the community, I know I try, and k think some mods should try too.

 

[Beardy]

I think the reason most moderators are so concerned about being robotic and alost reading by a script is the wish to impress and meet the expectations of the staff team and more precisely, the Sr. Staff team. I'm a mod so I can understand that when I first started out almost 2 months ago, I basically would act like I was much older than I was and act much more professional. What much of the staff team has taught me is that being a mod doesn't mean you have to become a different person. I think though that the expectation or stereotype of a staff member has been set and everyone has their own idea what a mod is. When I first joined the forums I saw mods as people who acted more professional than my parents and all read off a script. I think that each staff, while still being respectful and professional, needs to keep their own individuality. Great points though, also it's a great idea to get more involved in the community. I myself have been trying to make more friends outside of the team because Mister Ceroria and his memes aren't always dank.

Great points, I agree. You have to act professional, I mean, that's what's expected, but you also have to stay yourself. If you act like a completely different person, I don't believe you can be the best mod you can be. Hopefully it was you who got accepted, not some false identity of yourself.

Inspring

Insummer

Too much nowadays has the staff position turned into something of status. Considering we have all of these ranks like mod of the month, people will do all they can to impress the Sr. Staff in order to be considered for these positions. While things like mod of the month do inspire people to help out and do work, sometimes it's taken the wrong way and moderators try too hard to stand out, which can be observed rather obviously in certain situations.

On a certain note, not every default response is given because we're uncreative robots, sometimes it's because these things are the most suitable responses to best answer the question or situation at hand (however the thing that some people don't realize is that there is always a way to spice it up and make yourself be a more respectable individual.

Either way you slice it, being a staff member is more than just hosting as many community events as you can and getting tons of bans, which is something I believe a good lot of our staff members could do a job of fine-tuning because there are platforms such as the forums that are either neglected by a lot of us, or handled inexperiencedly (yes, that's a word now. I made it up)

The forums are a platform too. All moderators must be able to handle forum situations. I see moderators a lot saying "Well, the forums were never really my strongsuit." or "I'm shy."

Well, what if I said. "Nah, I don't want to go and ban hackers ingame because I don't like Minecraft." Either way it's unacceptable because moderators are supposed to have experience and knowledge on all three platforms, something that seems to be extremely neglected as of late.


My memes are always dank what are you on about mate?

I understand that it's the best response in the situation, but my issue is that that's the only thing some mods due. They come into the forums to do that. What I really meant was that when there's even a little bit of criticism towards MCSG or its staff, all the mods come into the thread and pretty much say the same thing, maybe worded differently, but sometimes they don't even do that much.

Also, you're wrong. Sometimes your memes aren't dank.

I don't know if you've been in other communities such as Mineplex's, but the staff here are way more open to giving feedback than the staff teams elsewhere. Of course in every staff team there will be people who fake their personality in fear of being warranted a demotion, but that doesn't mean the entire staff team does it. Rather it's only the minority.

As well, during the short period I was staff, I've observed the actions of some staff members and have noticed that those who usually try very very hard to impress aren't usually successful. The moderators who were offered trial senior moderators are those that act natural and show their true personality, whereas the moderators who do every report abuse and basically fitting into the definition of a "perfect moderator" are those that do not get the position.

Regarding your point on moderators only being willing to open up to new moderators and not other community members, I would have to agree with you on that. I find it quite hard to get to know a moderator for the basic reason that most of them do not use Skype. Apart from that, since the staff team is a way smaller group of people as compared to the forum community, it is easier to make friends within the staff team than outside the staff team. On teamspeak I often see moderators in staff only channels, and I found myself doing just that as well when I was a staff. That's mostly because the teamspeak users often cause a lot of trouble, yet they are smart enough not to break rules, making moderation extremely difficult.

You raise very good points. This staff team is better than the Mineplex's staff team, but there is definitely room for improvement regardless.

No, I haven't gotten to participate in any other community, that's why I'm trying to be extra critical and make my favorite community as great as possible.

On to what you said about those pesky trolls I want you to make friends with. Obviously, if they're trolling you, don't bother. However, you could run into some really cool people and it will be visible that you aren't hiding away in your private channel, but making friends and interacting with the community.

Edit: I was going to respond to as many people as possible until my writing enthusiasm ran out. As you can see, it kind of ran out...

 

[Akame]

I was bored to read all the replies but great thread! I really hope something could be change to improve something in the staff team!