I don't think the suggestion means these moderators would do complaints.

 

Putting every term that accurately describes these people's roles in quotes doesn't really help your argument. Why should in game moderators be recognized on the forums, but forum moderators not in game?

Two hours is a pretty bad response time that some active forumers could shorten completely.

These organizations are not made out of the kindness of people's hearts, but rather to become a staff member.

 

Why should they not be recognized in-game? Because they have no power in-game. That's why they shouldn't be recognized in-game. Why are staff members recognized on the forums you say? Because they have power on the forums, that's why. If they had no forum power, then they wouldn't be recognized on the forums. Unless you're directly associated with it, then you shouldn't be recognized. A great example of this is forum gold members. Are they recognized on the forums? Yes, but how about in-game? I don't see a nice shiny tag saying that they have "forum-gold" now do I?

Two hours is not a bad response time. Two hours to lock a thread is good. Can it be long at times? Yes, but it is quick enough to be effective.

Exactly! It's for the betterment of themselves, not the community. If you want to join staff just to be a moderator, and not have the intent to help, then you should really re-evaluate your reasonings...

 

Just because you want them to become "easily recognizable" in-game still doesn't necessarily mean they will come to you. I can guarantee you that people will not go to you as a "forum moderator" in-game if they need help, as you basically say "don't say that", give warnings, and lock threads. It's fairly negligible because if there is a true problem on the forums, a real staff member with real powers is going to step in, not a forum moderator who doesn't have access to '/ban' and '/kick'. The fact of the matter is is that until you can solve a problem with '/ban', you really have to power at all. 2 hours is good, I don't see the issue. If there is a true problem, the player that wants the thread locked can go in-game and ask a moderator to lock it for them, and they happily will. If you cannot wait that long to have a thread locked, then do what I just suggested. Contact a staff member that is currently on the forums. You're basically suggesting a tag in all honesty. You don't see a lawyer, and then a lawyer of that lawyer now do you? Basically the same concept. Also, I've been quite calm, so it's clear that you know there's something wrong with you're suggestion, like how we know if someone is active for however long they need to be active for. So, how will we know if some is active for the time required, and how do we know that they were active the entire time? If you can answer that and give me logical reasoning behind it, then I /may/ change my mind.

 

Do you see a nice shiny tag saying "Extcmds+" or "Multihome"? No.

Forum gold contributes (I'm pretty certain) to the $$ next to your name, which is recognition in game.

Two hours is not a good response time, people in a heated flame war will just bounce back at each other for two hours. I can tell you now you're wrong, though, moderators have a much less response time then 2 hours. It's not bad, but it's not good.

It is for the betterment of themselves normally, just because they want the rank. My point is people who want forum moderator and people who want moderator will almost act the same, a few will do it to actually help the community but the majority for themselves.
And if your last point was for me, well:

1. I could care less about moderating a community of 5 year olds who write complaints when they get called a noob, stupid or foolish or when people accidentally say something twice.
2. I am not nearly active enough for either position.

 

Using this lawyer analogy (which is not the same concept btw) you could easily argue for forum moderators.

Why are there injury lawyers and divorce lawyers? Why not have just one type of lawyer to do all kinds of work?

 

As you have already said, staff lacks communication, guidance and synergy.

And it isn't necessary to stay up to date as a forum moderator. They would handle things like necro, talking on ban appeals/complaints, changing thread titles, locking threads and responding to flame. For these I do not need to know who is the most recent scammer.

As it stands, doing anything wrong on the forums does not produce a large enough punishment. This is probably partly because staff have bigger things on the actual server. I feel if we appoint a few (their own team) people to secure the forums, to end the flaming, the trolling and what seems to be a land of leniency and no punishment we can develop a better forum community which is something we don't have.

 

On this note, I'd like to inform you that our blue moderators have little to no forum work to do. That is the only kind of forum work a forum moderator would be able to do without having access to in-game commands, so by doing this, you are taking off nearly all the workload new staff members get in order to familiarize themselves with the complaints and the staff as a whole.
-1

 

Even handling those things, they need familiarity in-game. A lot of flaming starts because of in-game relationships, problems, events, etc. Handling a flame thread without knowledge is a bad idea. Even a little knowledge is better than none. Even talking in Staff chat in-game keeps you up-to-date on users who are troublemakers, bad relationships among users, etc. And actually, knowing who is a recent scammer could be very important. People with bad reputations (scammers) often get pulled into flames. Same with any user who has a bad reputation, often from something done in-game.

Staff are not lacking on the forum due "bigger things on the actual server." They simply lost touch with the forums a long, long time ago (I would know, being Staff myself multiple times and chatting with recent past Staff). Staff are not monitored based on their forum work, so they are never encouraged to do it or stay on top of it (excluding contracts/complaints/appeals). As well, the majority - even higher ranks - were never really taught. And last I knew, there were none - or very bad - guidelines for how to handle forum work.

Above are reasons why Staff response time is bad (skimmed posts, people saying 2hrs is long or w/e), and why adding a new team would be pointless. They would have no guidelines, no motivation, and no help.

What needs to happen is changes in Staff, that regard strictly the forums. In the past I tried to fix the issues, but no one on Staff wanted to listen. Why? Hell if I know...

Also, when it comes to all the flaming and trolling on the forum, there is a ton in-game, too. It is one of many reasons why I do not get on very much. It is often a nasty environment everywhere, even subtly if you know what people are hinting at or referring to. The community in all ECC environments needs to improve, and the Staff need to work on their forum guidelines and monitoring. If that is even possible, then things will get better. Adding a new team will not change much.

 

Because the current "in-game moderators" are moderators throughout the EcoCitycraft service, ie. Minecraft Server, forums and TeamSpeak.

 

What you describe here is exactly what the forum staff team would be- they would be motivated to do their jobs on the forums because thats 100% of their duties, they don't have an option.

Constantly saying "there is no guidelines" is not helpful either, because even though it may take a bit, it is worth the time. I trust the current Server Admins+ to make reasonable guidelines and be able to assist those who are beginning.

And on the beginning topic, will the quality of moderation improve as there are people with good experience to pass on? Yes. There will be no guidelines in the beginning, however as time passes they will evolve to come to be.

But then why not have a forum moderator? Pointless? Well, there is a point- and thats to moderate the forums with motivation. Is there any actual negative that could from this?

 

1. People have power go to their head
2. Incompetent members that do a sub-par job/not up to standards
3. Just another addition to an ailing staff team
4. People do not take them seriously
5. Confusion between actual staff members and these "forum moderators"

The list goes on. As well, how about we revamp the entire concept of forum consequences and rules before we even think of adding an addition to the staff team.

 

1, 2, 4 are all things that can be problems with the current staff members, so lets just not have a staff team altogether if that's a massive problem.

3- If they're having troubles why not remove work they have to do?

5- On the forums? Add a tag that says "FORUM MODERATOR"

The new forum moderators could help revamp the entire concept of forum consequences.

 

-1, while I was staff you could see that any forum work and ingame work was being fought over because there is so little, taking away even more forum work from staff members will end up in having staff members demoted because they are unable to get enough forum work or ingame work in. There are plenty of staff members to take care of everything. If you cant get the ingame time in then you just arent fit for staff.

 

What Vintage said