• Our Minecraft servers are offline but we will keep this forum online for any community communication. Site permissions for posting could change at a later date but will remain online.

DISCORD Moderator Voice Channels

Do you think this is a good idea?

  • Yes

    Votes: 22 88.0%
  • No

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • I don't care

    Votes: 2 8.0%

  • Total voters
    25

Alyssa

Fabulous
Joined
Sep 22, 2014
Messages
1,113
Reaction score
1,530
I know staff like to have their privacy, however I think in the case of discord this might be a good idea and some people might agree with me.

I think Moderator and Sr. Moderator voice channels should be visible to see who is currently active and available in the discord.

A few reasons:

1. In cases of emergency or need for a staff member quickly, you can see who is actually present on the discord, and won't waste time @'ing each mod until someone sees it

2. You obviously won't be able to join it, but being able to see who is online will be helpful for direct dm's as well to staff members, rather than just seeing who is currently on discord via the list

3. Will reduce the number of staff that have to present as 'do not disturb' on discord, as only the current staff that are online in voice chats will be the ones more likely to be pinged

Overall will reduce no. of pings to staff, will reduce response time to help wanted, and improve transparency between online staff and the community :D
 

Mooclan

Forum God
Joined
Aug 19, 2012
Messages
6,358
Reaction score
12,666
I'd like to bump the thread. The poll has quite favorable results so far but I think the thread could benefit from further discussion and bringing it to the attention to the staff.
 

LoganWayne

Survivor
Joined
Oct 20, 2019
Messages
19
Reaction score
20
Currently there is not separation of mod and senior mod channels, when we converted over to the team system they were removed. Since each senior moderator is currently a member of a team, we have access to those teams channels and chats. Currently the staff operate on a separate discord to "clean up and organize" the amount of channels we had access to on the main discord; everything was very cluttered and hard to filter through. In the future I think it could be looked into to add a few moderator channels on the main discord and make them viewable to the public but I do see the need for the staffing discord and do not think we will ever move away from it completely.
 

GetRidaHim

Career
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Messages
638
Reaction score
515
but I do see the need for the staffing discord and do not think we will ever move away from it completely.
You missed the point, the point is to move the voice chats from the moderator Discord onto the main Discord, and to make them visible to the community members so that people know who to go to in order to get the fastest help possible.
 

Alyssa

Fabulous
Joined
Sep 22, 2014
Messages
1,113
Reaction score
1,530
Currently there is not separation of mod and senior mod channels, when we converted over to the team system they were removed. Since each senior moderator is currently a member of a team, we have access to those teams channels and chats. Currently the staff operate on a separate discord to "clean up and organize" the amount of channels we had access to on the main discord; everything was very cluttered and hard to filter through. In the future I think it could be looked into to add a few moderator channels on the main discord and make them viewable to the public but I do see the need for the staffing discord and do not think we will ever move away from it completely.
Im not saying to just ditch the staff discord all together, I completely agree that a lot of channels must be hard to look at and become cluttered. And I also understand the need for team specific channels which by having them would make heaps of channels. However, I think on the staffing discord, it should be left for the text channels and a meeting room for each of the teams. And all other general discussion and staff chats should be on the main discord and viewable to the public. This will allow for more players to see exactly who is online and active at the time to reduce the amount of staff that get tagged in questions, as the players can see who is active. And like Rida said will allow people to get the fastest help possible.
 

Col_StaR

District 13
Staff member
Joined
Mar 10, 2013
Messages
1,260
Reaction score
6,722
We had something similar to this idea on the old TeamSpeak, namely Staff Help and Staff Chat channels. The idea was pretty much the same: the Mods who are inside are meant to be active and available to help players at a moment's notice.

The problem is that the channels never really worked out as cleanly or as responsibly as we had imagined. We had people who would commandeer those channels to become private hangouts, and repeated warnings at staff meetings never seemed to fix that. We had players join to troll, namely throwing screamers into public channels or intentionally leading mods on wild goose chases with false reports. And lastly, many staff would just sit AFK or non-responsive in those chats in spite of our insistence. Eventually, the chats were so misused that active mods no longer used them. So now players would see those chats full of either non-staff, AFK staff, or no one at all, while the active staff were doing their jobs somewhere else. Square 1 indeed.

The problem wasn't the intention of making a space to easily find help; the issue is that the execution of the idea left too many opportunities for exploitation and negligence. The end result was that active mods were no longer active in those channels, leading to people complaining that we had no active mods, and we eventually shuttered those channels; this process repeated at least twice to my memory, and I would bet a dollar it would occur again here too.

I think that there is a genuine need for a way for players to easily contact active Moderators, and for Moderators to be responsible and active while they are online on our Discord. It's just that the execution that needs to be refined with some new ideas to change the dynamic without changing the intent. I'm currently thinking about a Staff Dispatcher idea, but I'd love to hear other ideas as well!
 

Alyssa

Fabulous
Joined
Sep 22, 2014
Messages
1,113
Reaction score
1,530
We had something similar to this idea on the old TeamSpeak, namely Staff Help and Staff Chat channels. The idea was pretty much the same: the Mods who are inside are meant to be active and available to help players at a moment's notice.

The problem is that the channels never really worked out as cleanly or as responsibly as we had imagined. We had people who would commandeer those channels to become private hangouts, and repeated warnings at staff meetings never seemed to fix that. We had players join to troll, namely throwing screamers into public channels or intentionally leading mods on wild goose chases with false reports. And lastly, many staff would just sit AFK or non-responsive in those chats in spite of our insistence. Eventually, the chats were so misused that active mods no longer used them. So now players would see those chats full of either non-staff, AFK staff, or no one at all, while the active staff were doing their jobs somewhere else. Square 1 indeed.

The problem wasn't the intention of making a space to easily find help; the issue is that the execution of the idea left too many opportunities for exploitation and negligence. The end result was that active mods were no longer active in those channels, leading to people complaining that we had no active mods, and we eventually shuttered those channels; this process repeated at least twice to my memory, and I would bet a dollar it would occur again here too.

I think that there is a genuine need for a way for players to easily contact active Moderators, and for Moderators to be responsible and active while they are online on our Discord. It's just that the execution that needs to be refined with some new ideas to change the dynamic without changing the intent. I'm currently thinking about a Staff Dispatcher idea, but I'd love to hear other ideas as well!
Yeh I completely understand this side of it. Staff would use certain channels as theres, and overrun certain areas. However, in regards to AFK staff, that problem isn't one on discord as theyll just get moved out of the channel to AFK channel if there was no activity from them for 5 minutes (or so I believe).

In regards to community members causing issues for staff, I don't think whether or not being able to see staff would affect that anyway. People will troll if they want to. But also in comparison to teamspeak, a lot of players use their own discords. As you have probably noticed, it's not like every day the discord is flooded with people chatting. That was more common on teamspeak as you had to pay for that, so people would use the ones available leading to more issues. I don't foresee the staff chats being viewable leading to more trolls or people on the discord than there already is.

I also think making them hidden at the moment can be seen as a barrier to the community. As it either makes the staff feel like they're worthy of the privacy and can hide from the community, and or make the community think they aren't worthy of the ability to see the staff (which being able to see them could be helpful as I have stated already so I won't go into that).

I think if another idea can be organised so players know which staff are online and active for MCSG related things, that would be a good idea. Possibly a rank they could assign to themselves like "available staff" or something along those lines, which will list them separate of their regular category (but that also relies on staff using it properly and taking it off when they aren't active). But also with this I think the staff using it would have to come of DND on Discord so if they are messaged they get a ping for it. That's just one idea that could possibly work. But yeh I will keep thinking, and see if other people can come up with some ideas as a compromise to reduce the amount of old issues that used to happen, reoccurring on the discord.
 
Last edited:

Mooclan

Forum God
Joined
Aug 19, 2012
Messages
6,358
Reaction score
12,666
Ah, finally some active discussion on the thread. I'm caffeinated so I'll contribute a few sentences*.

* - we all know what this means

To recap:
It has been recognized and agreed upon that there is a need for improvement in staff accessibility/visibility. See: Col's last paragraph, every one of Alyssa's replies, and the poll.

The suggested solution and corresponding pros/cons so far:
Move [some] staff channels or create new channels in the public discord that are visible, so that players can see who is actually online (staff) and available to reach out to.
+ Increased staff visibility and reach-ability* (The main goal)
+ Encourages Discord activity all-around
+ Reduces unnecessary staff pinging/messaging (a benefit to both players and staff)
- Risk of clutter or confusion (if too many channels are moved)
- Risk of improper usage (historical precedent)

And a few points I'd like to reiterate for easy reading:
If implemented as restricted-access (staff join only) channels, people will not join for the sake of trolling.
Using Discord's automatic AFK timer, it'll be possible to reduce AFK mod presence in the channels.
^ From what I've read and remembered so far.


Edit: Not sure where to insert this, so...
"Poking" was a great feature on TeamSpeak, and the nearest similar option on Discord is @ pinging. But if we can't be sure that we're @ pinging someone who's actually online, then we're left with the less than ideal options of either mass-messaging in #staff-help and hoping someone sees, or bothering staff that we know one-by-one until someone's available.


My own thoughts on the matter:
The way I see it, the current situation is an opportunity. If MCSG can generate greater amounts of traffic and activity on the Discord, it will lead to larger amounts of players on the server, and in turn, greater inclination to donate for perks. I think of it as an opportunity to generate a cascade effect.

Everybody knows that big names attract interest. In this community, there's two types: Content creators and staff members. Right now, content creators are not the focus; it's beta, we all know that. Staff members, however, are not in shortage.

Right now, I imagine most of the player base is from existing, community-loyal members. If they see that their old mod buddies are online and available to chat on the MCSG Discord, they'll be a lot more inclined to hop on this Discord rather than their private ones - something that I know is happening, and is likely to be a much larger issue with Discord than it was with TeamSpeak with time, considering it's free to make servers.

To me, I don't even feel like the "Staff accessibility" factor is the main problem. My personal take is that the server is partially dependent on the Discord, and the Discord is partially dependent on staff presence + activity.
Meaning: If there's no staff active, then the Discord is dead. And if the Discord is dead, then so is the server. (I say "dead" but I really mean "less populated/active than it could be")

Ah, darn, I got into a discussion about the speed of light in Nitro Chat and lost my train of thought. Found out how time travel works, though! #Worth

But of course, it's not like the Staff -> Discord -> Server thing is a one-way street. For the time being, however, MCSG doesn't have the online playerbase to push back onto the Discord all that much and flow up the stream of my little cascade theory, forcing staff members onto the public Discord. And even if it did, then we're back at the original problem of: How do we reach the staff members, if they're on another Discord with DND turned on? (Not that DND is a bad thing to have)

Okay, well all that speed of light, time travel, Einstein's special theory of relativity nonsense has gotten me to forget what else I was going to say.


I'll finish with this:
The Discord has been around for almost half a year now, and I do think it's time to address the lack of visible staff presence. It's a different platform from TeamSpeak and needs to be treated and adapted to accordingly. There is no equivalent to

If the suggestion of moving some channels from the staff-only Discord to the public Discord is inadequate or problematic, then I strongly suggest finding another way to accomplish two goals:
1. Generate activity (both general public and staff) on the Discord voice channels.
2. Clearly delineate which staff members are or are not available, so that players do not mistakenly contact/bother unavailable staff.
 
Last edited:

Ceroria

Mockingjay
Joined
Aug 20, 2012
Messages
11,024
Reaction score
13,943
It seems the root of the problem here is that the staff voice channels are on the separate staff discord rather than the general one. Since discord essentially offers the services of both slack and teamspeak, the staff team no longer uses a separate slack for written communications and one shared teamspeak for voice communications because the staff discord has its own voice capabilities.

Back then, all the mod chats were visible to community members so all the staff members in those were relatively accessible. Yes there were some issues with staff AFK, the staff help TS channel, etc but the basic strength of this was everybody came to the same platform to talk. We don’t have this anymore, all we have is a staff help channel on discord but it produces less efficient results than being able to see who’s available and messaging them immediately. This tended to work pretty well cause the staff member would see the message immediately and if they couldn’t take it on themselves they would just ask someone else in the channel to help them out.

I agree with Alyssa and the other people who have supported this that the main staff voice channels should be moved to the community discord and used by staff members. The staff discord can be used for staff meetings, team meetings, or individual meetings and other staff business but when staff members want to hang out and talk or play MCSG or whatever it would be a lot better if it was done visibly on the community discord.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
242,193
Messages
2,449,633
Members
523,972
Latest member
Atasci