Now with over 3000 words! If i missed anything Let me know!
Also do you know how hard it is to do a nearly 3000 word suggestion on this forum software? Should try it some time it'll drive you crazy (not counted in the word count)
Suggestion Name: Redesigning staff designations. Suggestion Description: The title... Any example images: Nope Why should it be added?:
Hi, welcome to tonight's novel. Please grab a nice hot cup of cocoa (or tea, coffee if you feel drowsy) and enjoy, it's going to be long And Font sizing is broken(just too lazy to do anything with it now)... Eh
Edit: Total word count is approx 2250 3000 words have fun
To start things off, what no-one here knows is what I went to school for after high school. It was business administration, I dropped due to 2 situations, family and financial (one caused the other). The course was also complete garbage and even friends who completed it still don't have jobs in the field. Anyways, I self taught what I needed to know during the 6-8 months of unemployment and got involved in a game called virtonomics (referral link warning) , but it'll also give you a breakdown of the game). After those months I got involved in a startup, they wanted my advice on various things including but not limited to: location, marketing, pricing (it was a service) etc. They ignored my suggestions (every single one) and I warned them of the eminent doom of the company in doing so, and 6 months later they closed their doors leaving me unemployed again after 1.5+- years. After another 7 months of no work I got a temp job than my current one. Three years later the company's GM (general manager) is listening to my suggestions, giving me a "higher" position (figuratively) and it's getting me involved more I every aspect knowing my past.
Appendix
The Current setup, it's issues, the future
I) Current setup
II) The issues
III) The future of TruckersMP in current state
Possible fixes and outcomes:
I) Rearrange admin status into 2 categories
A) Outcome
II) Create a enrollment application server side that never closes
A) Outcome
III) Seek players as well as request applications
A) Outcome
IV) Seek and enlist veterans before others.
A) Outcome
V) Remove one person voting
A) Outcome
VI) Blackmail Bad Drivers
A) Outcome
Closing statement
The Current setup, it's issues, the future
I) Current setup
The current setup how admins are selected are as follows; Wait for application, usually moderation. Apply, get accepted, do a good job get promoted. Once promoted you have to accomplish approximately 150 bans/reports a month (https://forum.truckersmp.com/index.php?/topic/25326-do-mp-ban-appeals-really-get-looked-at-correctly/&page=2#comment-223199) to stay active, or about 5 a day. I know no minimum hours in-game requirements for IGA's. Regular rules apply to IGA's, and punishment is usually worst for any team member than us normal users.
II) The Issues
The issues with the current setup is it takes a long in becoming a admin. I have actually gone through the whole TruckersMP Team thread and I have counted a +5 admin count since its initial topic creation. Just 5 admins in over a year. At the rate of users registering vs. the rate admins are joining, MP will become flooded with Ban reports to the point admins will likely quite due to excessive workload. Last 3 online reports I have done have had fulfillment in 1-3 days, the last 5 reports in game went unheard. Those last 5 where done in the last 2 weeks vs. last 45 days.
The real issue is you currently have 31 30 admins (3 should not be included as they have more important duties), 7 servers (used to be 8 ATS EU1 down). Assuming every admin was able to do 4 hours each in a consecutive time line, you would have a average hole in coverage for all servers of approximately 6.5 hours. (Math: ((7*24)-(4*31))/7= 6.28 hours). These Admins do a killer job but they cannot cover all servers. More admins or less servers, because who says those low number of users are not breaking rules right now on HK US(ETS2)? Not to mention you're literally wasting money on servers that few use. I understand lag and the trolling it does on national users, however unless those few are donating the servers should not be running.
In order for 24 hour admins to happen we would need over 200 admins (now), we have over 900,000 registered users (I got 911K went no further). This is not a 24/7 coverage request however, but numbers are in need of increasing drastically.
https://forum.truckersmp.com/index.php?/topic/22163-admin-timetables-not-updates-to-the-mp-itself/&page=2#comment-186743
III) The future of TruckersMP in current state
As mentioned in the above section I predict you will be overran by year's end. You celebrated 600K users in November? I do, how about the 750K in January? Yup, I remember that one too. By year's end if those numbers keep going you will be looking at anywhere from 1.25 million to 1.5 million users. That's assuming your (already) over worked admins don't just quit on you. You will likely see a spike in reports and users when ATS or (likely) ETS2 goes on sale. ETS2 was in a humble bundle not too long ago which may account the sudden jump. To put it in avg for you, during the x-mas season you got 75K users a month avg, during the last 3 months you got 55K avg.
Will your admins be able to handle another jump to 10K users? Would they be able to handle a consistent 4K user count for 22 hours weekends and 8 hours weekdays? You serve the world, not a small region.
Unless you get your admin count up to 50+ (preferably 75+) before ETS2 goes back on sale (or ATS, or it gets a map update...), TruckersMP might as well become TrollersMP, simply because trolls would take over.
Possible fixes and outcomes:
I) Rearrange admin status into 3 categories (originally 2)
I prefer this method along with another further down.
What happens is you split admins into 3 categories, In-Game Admins (IGA), Site-Game Admins(SGA, rename is in order), and Ban Appeal Admins(BAA). What's the difference?
IGA's primary objective is to be "in game", filling reports are mandatory only in game as they come in and what they can handle, on the site is optional. They should not need a mandatory report count (however there should be some), they should however require a min number of hours in game. Say something simple 25 hours a month, less than one hour a day. on the popular servers that means you will need 62 admins (20hours*3 servers*6.5 days*4weeks/25hours). Sounds like a lot of admins? let me put it like this: Avg currently: 2-2.5K players, over 3 servers, that's 20 admins each server over 16-20 period. During peak times admins will need backup, that's where SGA's come in as well...
(moved it around a little)
SGA's primary objective is to be on the site's report system fulfilling the reports that come through there. They do not have IGA abilities and do not come up red (perhaps a different colour, F* MS Word I'm Commonwealth) , They do not require to be in game in any way, they don't even need to own a specific game.
However they can fulfill a new report on the site as long as they have sufficient evidence(*), any "questionable" evidence has to be looked at by a second SGA or IGA before approval, a check box or radio button option will be used for notification(does not make it top priority but becomes a normal report with a notification of the event requiring a second look), not using this feature when it is needed means (going threw normal report function is fine over this) removal of being able to make and fill your own reports. First offense puts you back into the 3 month probation period or longer depending on the situation, second is complete removal forcing the SGA to fill out the report form like everyone else, as well the likelihood of never becoming a IGA.
Note3: After 3 Months, is to protect online users from bans that have no meaning by SGA's, basically for the first 3 months if they can output equal or greater reports on the site they will be able to fill out and ban users from their own evidence that have happened in game without another SGA having to look into it. After 1 misuse of this feature they will be banned from filing their own bans without a second SGA (In other words they will have to file reports). A higher up has to enable this feature, so if ban reports are low it may take longer than 3 months if ever. All SGA's initially will not be able to fill out their own bans. @legocube Better i hope?
BAA's only have one roll, Ban requests, they do not have the permissions of either SGA's or IGA's. They can have a colour in game but not required. May contact original SGA/IGA about ban. Both SGA's and IGA's can do BAA's job when they have time. If IGA's have not uploaded images or videos for bans they have 36-48 hours to do so after being requested by a BAA(tho should be a habit of uploading evidence anyways), SGA's are required to have physical evidence available already for any ban (self made or site fulfilled).
Note5: If a BAA is found unbanning a user w/o reason (this applies to IGA and SGA as well) they face not only removal from the team but possibly MP in total. This can be avoided if the suggestion made by @heyhococo was implemented, quoted below:
(cleaned up your spelling ) +
(notes below have nothing to do with BAA's)
Note1: If a user to become a admin is deemed possibly untrustworthy, a trial period of being a Mod can be used to determine trustworthiness. Else they can have a set limit of bans per day they can issue as a SGA (IGA would be hard to enforce i'm guessing)
Note2: Forum posts can be superseded with 200+ convicted (not appealed or if appealed, declined) ban reports and no ban history on the user or no greater than 3. In-game hours need to be minimum 3x more or minimum 20 hours for BAA.
Requirements:
BAA:
50 useful posts
16+
No serious bans and/or ones exceeding 1 month (in-game or forums)
SGA's:
50 useful posts
Min 6 months MP member
16+
No serious bans and/or ones exceeding 1 month (in-game or forums)
One month BAA preferred w/ no complaints.
Min 10 hours in game
IGA's:
50 useful posts
25 likes
Min 6 months MP member
16+
No serious bans and/or ones exceeding 1 month (in-game or forums)
Min 1 month SGA, no complaints.
No complaints about wrongful bans. (already existed but redundancy )
Min 20 hours in game + 30 min unedited video showing driving skills during peak hours. If bans are required time in video and reason.
Note4: someone (Tuxy) brought up Videos and such, if this becomes a reality I will make a how-to guide (possibly as easy as click/drag), that will convert videos from 60mb to 10mb or about, I've done it years ago and will try recreating it. No quality loss should happen or minimal loss.
A) The Outcome
The outcome of doing this would split the admins up to their preferences. This shows you where your gaps are. My prediction is you will need to do a mass recruitment. Not all at once but that's why it would be a good thing to implement the below one as well to make your lives easier (not the one I wanted combined with this one).
If you make it so you have 60 IGA's 25 SGA's and 10 BAA's you not only have a huge team (really it's not that big), you have a team that covers the servers likely 16-20 hours a day 7 days a week over 3 popular servers.
II) Create a enrollment application server side that never closes
This is going to be a small one. Every time I have seen a enlistment it uses Google. By using a 3rd party it makes things harder. How if only one person is recruiting? What if something happens to that one? While I have no idea if the Google account has others able to use it or if it is able to be associated with other accounts but by having it on one site (here) you minimize any issues. Plus you can also do your own logic lookup including ban info, count post count, and age if given on the forums. The whole process can literally be automated making not only making registering easy but also by removing all the ones that should not even apply, but do.
User list of applicants can be sorted by Date Registered to become a staff member, Site Registration, Post Count, Number of Bans, etc. This can easily be done in any Database using the proper sorting option.
If the list gets too large said staff can reject those less likely to make it using a reconfigured rejection reason (perhaps a recent ban etc)
A) Outcome
As stated it would make lives easier. With it never closing the users name is in the list regardless if you need them now or later. If later one can always PM the user to see if they are still interested.
III) Seek players as well as request applications
Say a admin sees someone who looks like Mod/Admin material, and like their posts etc. A place like here should never close their doors on staff possibilities. Why? Someone who would be willing to stay for a while as a Mod or Admin might leave within the first few months not even bothering with requesting to become one.
When seeking players they should at least fit the requirements of BAA (w/ or w/o post count, substitute stated above takes over in such case), or current requirements
A) Outcome
This one is a little bit tricky as trial and error happens however if those who have the power agree on the user in question (CM PM Etc) there is no harm in letting them try esp. if they (the user) agrees to it. The user is not obligated to continue if they dont wish too(example too hard or too much work), however if they misuse the privileges full punishment will happen.
IV) Seek and enlist veterans before others.
Seeking veterans who have clean records on the forum and in game in the sense of no major offenses, should be preferred and sought after. This is because they already know the rules and Abide by them (most of the time) and not causing issues with others.
Said users should have all requirements needed to be a BAA as a minimum as stated above or the current requirements.
A) Outcome
It shows TruckersMP is grateful that they have stayed for so long and played by the rules, it gives users more incentive to post more enticing topics, better quality content. If someone with the sole purpose is to become a admin here and was willing to do anything, doing this would get them to post quality stuff over random posts for 6 months dragging down your forums post quality (can result in more work for Moderators). It will keep them more active with hopes of a better chance of becoming a team member as time goes on.
V) Remove one person voting
One person (maybe 2) have the final say who becomes admins? I understand quality, but who says one user who acts like a creeper on the forum would be a bad admin? If there is a single person to be held responsible for all the lack of "admin" issues it's sadly @I<3VODKA, esp. if @Clarkinator does not have a say. Though I'm sure Vodka hates my guts, however I don't care about that... *hands a truck full of Vodka to Clarkinator*
A) Outcome
Next to me now having to run from Vodka... It might speed the process up if more than just PM's have say in who becomes admins. Tuxy Kat and J-M along with the 3 CM have great decision making what I have seen.
VI) Blackmail Bad drivers
More of a back joke on @MrCreeper than anything. Here's why: He has all but one ban from perm ban, meaning one wrong move he's gone. By making him a admin is going to do one of 2 things, make EP a safer place or by making EP a safer place basically If he becomes a admin players will behave, if he gets banned EP will have one less truck. Seriously though if someone was to hand him admin abilities and he messes up he's gone, destroying something he loves. he's less likely to "screw up" as a admin because it would mean no longer able playing MP.
This suggestion is to be used is under the better judgment of CM's or higher, if they think the user be better off being banned or left alone to mess up again resulting in a perm ban than so be it. Also this was not meant to have someone with minimal hours becoming a admin. Like i said more of a joke, than a serious option
A) Outcome
MP will be a safer place with or without said players. Could also be seen as community service for all the issues they caused. This would go well with the first suggestion forcing them to be BAA's over IGA's or SGA's
Closing statement
At the end of the day it's the Dev's mod. The question is would you rather TruckersMP or TrollersMP? Without doing something drastic (Vodka killing/banning me won't make things better, though might make him feel better after me giving Clark a truckload of Vodka )
Trust me when I say this, even if 5% of the million projected users in the next 2-3 months register their games that's still 50,000 players as a minimum. Come years end if you have not doubled your admins at least (esp. if server usage doubles/triples), your poor admins will be so stretched to their limits they wouldn't be able to play any games.
One last number: based on my bans the avg daily ban count (a ban is a ban) is 308.25 bans per day issued. Or basically 10 a day! That not including the hundred or more lost every day.
Admins keep up the great work. PM's Please Fix Things.
Edit: this has nothing to do with this in any way, this was my idea that i have had for a while (never knew it has been suggested before, well more or less...):