As normal members we all have something that we can achieve, modship. Whether we want to or not varies depending on the person, but it's always there as an incentive to work towards. Once you're promoted, that incentive is gone. There is a new, albeit smaller, incentive to work towards then, which is a global promotion, and finally, when someone is promoted to global, that leaves them with almost no incentive. There is the chance of becoming admin, but that is very slim, and with around 8 or so globals on the team at a time, it becomes nearly impossible. This leaves us with a staff who are here because they want to do their job, and who do it well, but really don't have anything motivating them to keep pushing the limits, and to keep working above and beyond as someone who is just promoted might do.

I spoke with Matthew a while back, and he explained to me this predicament. The staff don't really have an incentive to keep the spark going, which is completely understandable, and is why I am writing this thread. I think it would really benefit the site to give staff incentives to work towards. For example, there used to be a competition where the staff member with the highest mod log count at the end of the month would be given a fun rank. To my knowledge, this has ended. It may still be going, but I don't think I've seen any new winners lately (and I am fairly certain months have passed ).

There are many different things that can be done to encourage staff, and it is definitely an on-going process of figuring out new and fun things to do. We need to constantly be developing new ideas, new plans, and new strategies to freshen things up to keep everyone interested. Some incentives I thought of:

Staff of The Month Thread
Similar to an employee of the month plaque that some businesses use. Since there is a lot of behind the scenes work I think it would be best to keep the voting of this done internally. For example, globals/admins can vote on the top sectional of the month, sectionals/admins can vote on the top global of the month, and sectionals/globals can vote on the top admin of the month. The winners would then be displayed on a thread in the news section where everyone could congratulate them, and thank them for the work they do. That could easily give people a little thing to work towards every month, and could inspire staff members to try and out-do each other for the top spot, which is great for the site as a whole.

Continuing the fun-rank mod log competition
Everyone loves fun ranks, and if I am not mistaken this has fallen to the wayside in the past few months. I suggest to keep it going, and to keep reminding staff that there is always this to work towards each month. That is just another way to inspire staff to work harder each month.

Swapping sectional perms
This is a more experimental idea, and is more of just a way to keep things fresh then an incentive. For this one I am suggesting that at the end of every month, or every other month, sectionals should swap their perms around with other sectionals. For example, an off-topic mod could become the new games mod, and the games mod could become the new community mod, etc. etc. This would keep people on their toes, and I am sure that if they are able to moderate one section, they are apt to moderate another. This would always keep things fresh for the staff and would keep things from getting boring.

Donation credit for staff
All of the staff are essentially the employees, or volunteers of the site. Why not offer them some donation credit for the hard work they put in? For example, someone has been mod for a month, give them $10 donation credit, at 3 months give them $25 donation credit, at 6 months give them $50 donation credit, and after a year of service give them $100 donation credit. This wouldn't cost the site anything as it is essentially just giving these users new perms and a new rank, and would be another reason to keep staff interested in their positions.


Now these aren't the only things that can be done. These are just some of the preliminary things I have thought of, and we shouldn't restrict it just to what you see here. I think that everyone on the staff (mainly the upper staff) should be constantly thinking of new ways to keep everyone interested and to keep things fresh.

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I know ya'll are probably wondering why I would care about incentives for staff, and the answer is quite obvious. When a regular user is promoted they have a spark, and with that spark they do a lot of hard work, and the site really benefits from it, but after a while that spark starts to fade. I want to rekindle that spark for the entire staff, so that everyone will be constantly working to improve the site. That can really benefit everyone from regular users, to admins, in the long run. We need to keep things fresh, and we need to keep things moving.

Thanks

I think the first two ideas are great. Not too sure about the last two though :3

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These are all just ideas, nothing is set in stone. I am just trying to get it out there that we should be rewarding the staff and keeping them interested in their position to keep that "spark" going.

I like the Staff of the Month idea. However, the other ideas don't seem like they would motivate a staff member very much.

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idk ryan fun rank sounds pretty awesome

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I could see this being implemented, and it would be pretty cool to have. Would the staff member who won get a rank that said staff of the month?


It couldn't hurt, but what if someone was to win multiple times, lets say 4. Would they would end up with 4 fun ranks or would their be some sort of limit?

I have to disagree with this one. Never having been a mod on sythe, I can't speak with knowledge, but it seems like it would just be a hassle honestly.

I don't see a reason to add this honestly. Someone would have to keep a log of how long each staff member has been staff, and it seems like there is more important things that person could be doing.


But in all honestly if the staff wanted some more incentives, they should say something. It just seems weird to me that you would start a thread trying to give incentives to the staff, no offense.

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Think that most of these are good ideas! I especially like the idea of a "staff of the month thread." Fun ranks are a good idea but I'm pretty sure this is already happening. From what I've heard staff that put in a lot of effort are recognized with fun ranks already and adding them as a "monthly" thing might make them a little more common than they are intended to be. I don't really like the idea of donation credit though, for someone to earn credit they should actually be required to donate money to the site, not just time.

I know it seems weird, but I explained my reasoning in the last paragraph. A more inspired and "energetic" staff would benefit the site as a whole. It would definitely help to keep things moving, and to keep improving on things.

Yes to fun ranks. Could care less about the others. Thanks for bringing them up and continually thinking about it however.

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I support staff of the month and fun ranks, but i think staff of the month should be based on peer votings.

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hate to burst your bubble but this 'more incentive for staff' isnt a revolutionary idea. it's something that has been discussed, particularly amongst staff, for years. it's hard to understand from your perspective never being apart of staff but this is something that should really only be discussed within their walls.

nothing different to member of the month. sure it's a fun idea but it doesnt really encourage staff members to go hard for the entire month. cool, you get voted and acknowledged as the best but that's it, there's nothing more to it.

this competition doesn't work. it heavily favours others while leaving others in the dust. i can't go in to detail, but it's just flawed.

a spam report is still a spam report regardless of which section it came from. changing perms does nothing.


just as it wouldnt cost the site anything, it doesnt gain anything for the staff.


believe me when i say the staff have tried pretty much everything that's worth trying - from team leaders to fun rank incentives. the desire to remain on staff pretty much comes down to one thing: doing it for the love

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. This isn't a set-in-stone system that has to be followed precisely to achieve something. You say that the staff have "tried everything"? That doesn't make sense to me. I am merely trying to give ideas to reward the staff more, and to give the staff more incentives to keep pushing limits. To say they have "tried everything worth trying" is like saying "I tried to buy myself a new car, but I just couldn't do it, I just really didn't want a new Ferrari", it's just preposterous. There is always something that can be done, so you can't look at it as you would look at most systems on the site. It's not an exact yes or no, it's a how.

Wouldn't work, and it's essentially who ever has the highest mod score is the member of the month.

Basically: Extremely high mod score + hard work = fun rank of your choice.

So it's kind of done already.

An Off-Topic mod who mods the Off-Topic section for one month will have experience in the Off-topic section, for example on what to lock, what to infract and what to ban for and such. If they are suddenly switched over to Games, then it's essentially starting off on a whole new section where they probably won't have as much experience modding in.

By the way, Sectionals can apply for a second section to mod after three months starting from promotion date. They can swap them out at any time for another section if they wish.

Not sure Richard is interested in paying the staff money each month for doing work and such, remember funds need to go towards the servers for maintenance and upgrades also. Modding on Sythe is completely voluntary, normally when you volunteer to do a job or role you do it for free.

yawn

Im tired of hearing this when people suggest things to benefit the site. You don't know until you try, and being so pessimistic isn't helping anyone. As any good website owner knows, you must constantly be trying new things and keeping things fresh, you can't just settle for what you have and be like "eh it works".

And as I said before, these are merely a few ideas I have presented, they aren't the only things that can be done.

^Why is this? A simple thread giving some recognition and possibly a temporary fun rank or UT would be something cool to work towards.

^Yeah, that is what I thought.

^Agree with you here, switching around sectionals wouldn't be the best idea in the world

^Even though I don't like this suggestion not sure what you are talking about, how would giving them "donation ranks" take anything away from the server? He is suggesting giving them donation credit which is just pixels. It obviously is completely voluntary but its never bad to give incentives to keep volunteers happy and productive.

@x339 I think it is a good idea to come up with some kind of motivation for staff to put in that little bit of extra effort, even if that isn't necessarily measured by the count in the mod logs. I think we should hear some staff feedback about some other possible ideas/incentives. This is a good start thought!

Staff can set their own UTs, and as for fun ranks they already have fun ranks through high modscore and such. There's not really any motivation for 'staff of of the month'. Sure you get a little praise and your own thread, but to be honest it doesn't motivate anyone.

I read it wrong, misread it as staff actually being given money for working on the site. Either way, I don't see how they should get donation credit just for being a staff member without actually donating any money to the site, that's just stupid, and if anything gives them an unfair advantage over non staff donators and such.

When did it become your decision on what gets staff motivated or not? Instead of just thinking "Oh this won't work please stop posting", try to think instead what will work?

Also without the staff, the site wouldn't run, so donation credit seems fair enough. And since when did higher donators have "advantages" over non-donators? What does that even mean? It seems you're just looking for a way to take this negatively.

Not true, high modlogs do not make a good staff member, it isn't hard to handle spam reports.

Nope.

I believe the mod log fun rank system is still implemented but the modlogs to get it is pretty high and for a sectional it is an all month effort to be honest. It is good this way but I found once you receive your rank you're not as motivated anymore the only thing which currently keeps staff going is positive feedback. I do agree there should be more incentives to put in more effort but gaining that trust as a mod is also a long term incentive.

I could see number 1 working but I'm sure it would be based on a mix of modlogs and staff feedback or something of the sort, unless something major happened where the mod was a huge asset. Number 2 is still implemented I believe, and 3 + 4 wouldn't work as there would be huge opposition against number 4 from the community and way too much effort for number 3.

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Isn't retaining a staff position enough incentive for some individuals, I mean being a staff member apart from the delegated tasks which you must complete has perks within itself. If not for the enjoyment of the community, staff members can also financially gain from their position, they have a much better buying and selling point when purchasing RSGP due to their trusted title, they could sell accounts for better prices etc. I think that needs to be factored in also.

However I do agree with some of your points, for those moderators who are not involved in any markets it would be nice to see them maybe receive some extra perks for their hard work and dedication to the site. Nice ideas x339.

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