Alright so first of all, #RipWqlk, we'll miss you bud. Now onto the real thing, a few days ago he got demoted right? Today is the date they open up Staff applications AGAIN, when they just closed them last month and the Trainees barely already passed their trial (congrats btw!). Now, I'm not one to make these type of threads because I generally prefer looking at the good of a server rather than the bad, but in Invaded's case, it's better if we bring the bad side to light more often because there are some other issues that are getting overlooked everytime.
Disclaimer: I do NOT want to see any sort of "If you don't like the server just leave lol" on this thread. I'm making this thread as I CARE for the server and I LIKE this server, hence I wish for the betterment of it.
Why open up staff applications again?
I'm pretty sure you guys are aware that, most of the candidates that were outstanding and should've made it past the application stage last season pretty much either left, or isn't going to apply again. Why's that? Because
your requirements are easy to sum up as: "Zero mistakes or denied". What that means, the smallest, the most microscopic mistake that you do on here, will cause your application to be denied. Most of the amazing candidates last season had really dumb denial reasons, such as "Lack of activity (even tho they were online basically everyday more than an average player, actively on the forums etc.) or "Lack of maturity" and we're not even told what we're doing wrong by the Managers (unless you get denied by Zelkam, he expands on his denial reason) like what?? If you want us to improve you should give us some info as to what we're doing wrong.
Another point to mention is that, this server may have over 2k people on average daily now because of COVID-19, however, going back to what I said above, opening up staff applications with the "Flawless" requirement is a dumb thing considering 90% of this server's population are people q-ing for Skeppy's events, they don't want to partake to staff OR they do not meet the minimum requirements. This is easily fixable if you guys stop being so flawless on analysing the candidates that are applying, this is just a minecraft server you can literally coach the Trainees into becoming good staff members even if they have "average staff experience".
So what can you get from that point? Simple, make your requirements less flawless so that you can get more candidates into the staff team, I don't think it's THAT hard to allow more average people into the staff team because this is literally a Minecraft server, anyone can be a good staff member if you coach them in the right direction, and this is why you got Moderators and Senior Mods on the team, they can coach the Trainees for you.
Allow staff members to reach "Community Management" positions
This is something that I've seen different servers do (big example being Minemen Club), but staff members should be allowed to reach a "Management" position without having the actual "Manager" rank. What does this mean? Simple, a rank like "Platform Admin" that allows staff members to scout staff candidates and bring them onto the team after discussing with other Plat Admins or the Managers themselves, it's that simple if the Managers don't like said candidate they can just outright demote them and that's it, I don't see how this would bring any harm to the server, but rather it would help it improve the Community - Staff - Management communication better. This would also mean that you should actively promote staff members if they're outperforming, not once in a full blue moon, as well as trying to hire further AGC Admins, ban appeals STILL take unreasonably wrong to be reviewed, and it's wrong. Oh also, since we were talking about the Community Communication, let's hop onto that for a second!
The Management and Community bridge
This is quite obvious innit, the communication between the Management and the Community is done by Staff right? Well no, not really. From back when I was a Trainee, I haven't seen much communication happen between the Management and the Staff team itself, I know for a fact that Mega Zelk and Neon are secretive about literally anything they do, including adding things to the server, as well as staff candidates and you name it. Sure you can contact the Staff easily either through the main Invaded discord by pm-ing them, or here by tagging them in a thread or pm-ing on the forums, or hell even the Player Council discord, but can you really contact the Management? Not really, this is something that is gradually gonna damage the server if it doesn't get fixed (Again what I say about this may be outdated, anyone that knows this differently is free to correct me but as a player and previous "staff", this is kinda what everyone sees/saw). Please I beg fix this one at least communicate with your staff team and update them so they can keep US updated.
Money money money
This isn't anything too big, HOWEVER this is a major issue that can affect lots of people. The Ban/Blacklist appeal limitation. You have 5 ban appeals and 2 blacklist appeals that you can do, no more after that. Which is really wrong in my opinion, especially in cases like
@Weirdillusions's case where he got false banned and appealed each time, and now hes technically FORCED to buy an unban to play on the server again. That's just wrong, please either remove the limit itself or make it not count for ban appeals that are false, not everyone gets false banned on purpose you know, so you can't really say "well they did it to themselves so why should they be able to appeal", no that's wrong. Either that, or you know, you can update to the latest version of AntiGamingChair, I'm pretty sure it would be no trouble for Neon to get that.
And finally, the McDonalds thread
Final point of this,
@McDonalds's thread, by far the most visited and liked forum post on here. This is something that basically points out every related Invaded issue, I'm only expanding onto it in a different thread and I expect this one to be kept and debated about in a different manner than that thread is. Here's a link if you want to check it out:
https://invadedlands.net/threads/are-you-seriously-questioning-why-people-are-leaving.17394/
So, in summary of this thread:
- Make Staff requirements less harsh and more acceptable for average candidates as they can easily be coached into becoming fit moderators.
- Implement the idea of "Platform Admin" so that staff members can reach "Management" positions and basically aid the Managers further.
- Management should become more communicative with their staff and the community.
- Ban appeals should NOT be limited if they're false.
- Stop folding everytime we make a thread about you guys, you know stuff is wrong if the community makes these things on you and folding from it isn't gonna make anything any better.
And I know I pretty much wasted my time writing this thread as the Managers will ignore it, but, well, at least I got my word out on some things that I saw as wrong.
Also please don't fold and close the thread, you're just gonna further prove our points.
