Server staff

[Lindsey]

The duty of server staff is to keep the server clean, friendly and everyone abiding by our rules.
If those people are not abiding by our rules, we must quickly find those people and deal with them.


How do we find those people? Well we spec people who we think might be breaking rules, or we respond to /admin and /report reports.


How do we do this? Well, we stop working, spectate the player for what can take 5 minutes, then go back to our truck.
Upon landing back at our truck, usually our trailer has flown off somewhere stupid, or has vanished.
There is a 30% chance we will lose that mission.


Now, move to Wet county. The chance to losing mission when specing on WC is about 75 - 80%. The only way to avoid it, is to find a certain "spots" where we can spec safely, however i can't mention where as people will abuse admins positions to do stuff when we aren't able to spec.


Why do we have a massive chance of losing a mission on wc? Well when we /s people, we "teleport" and "hover" invisibly, behind them. Then when we /s we sometimes respawn in the "chose a place to spawn" option, or back into our trucks. If we land in our trucks on WC, the road isn't there. for about 1-2 seconds (longer with higher ping!) this is enough time for our trucks to fall through the THIN land, and what happens if it lands in the water?


We lose our mission.


Now think of it like this, everytime someone /reports we have to try to /spec. if someone uses /admin we have to try and help if someone gets muted, it's nice to /unmute them (WE DO NOT HAVE TO UNMUTE PEOPLE WHO GET MUTED, I HAVE PERSONALLY ASKED MICK).

Now, proof. If we warn people, we usually need video or good screenshot proof incase someone reports us for false warnings.
This can take up to 30 minutes to upload, which is a lot of our FREE PLAYING TIME to do, remember, we get NOTHING for doing this!

If we ban people, WE MUST have GREAT proof, there is NO "boundries" proof or the player is unbanned, proof of some cheaters can be anywhere from 1-10 minutes long. Think how hard it is to "video" people farming police. We do it, but it can take a lot of our time up putting it on youtube or xfire so that we don't get in trouble / they don't get unbanned, we do it for you, so the server is fair.


If someone asks us to restore a truck, we have to /tr ID.


Now this seems like such a litttttttttttttle thing to do, but ommgggggggggg there are 95+ players on the server a lot of the time, thats a possible 95 people asking for admins to do stuff. Sometimes things taking more than 2 minutes to do, add that into the fact that wet county is a pain in the ass to spectate on (AND TOO MANY DAMN MISSIONS GO THERE, ESPECIALLY THIEF) and you can finally understand how hard being a staff member is.


It is NOT a job for all people, and it's really hard at times, stressful and really not fun.


We lose :


A) Time
B) Mission money
C) Friends


From being staff.


What do we get for being staff?


Nothing, I've never even had a "Thanks for all your hard work lindsey" from mick.


Actually, speaking to mick is like speaking to a mystical beast, I'm not bitching about not getting a pat on the head, but we do it day in day out, trying our hardest to not make a mistake for hours and hours, for NOTHING. It's because we feel that we should, it's because we want to help you.


So take a moment, and think about how we feel, and how much work we do behind the scenes. It's so not easy being staff, and it's not for the feint hearted, but me? I've been staffing here for 14 months, I've never gained "free money" or "super cool house" I'm still a normal player, doing an extra duty to make the server i love, a better, more fun, and safer place to play.


Be kind to us, and if we're rude, or offensive. Tell us, if i ever offend someone in my /admin message or you don't understand, just say. We're here to help, but we're also human beings.


We will say sorry if we do something you don't like

Love from lindsey.

[Rubber]

This is why when I became mod I had something like 1000 hours in game and maybe 4500 score. I now have 2050+ hours and only 5800 score...no telling how many missions failed, but I don't really care. I like what I do. I just wish people understood how much work it really is. Thanks for the post lindsey.

[Lindsey]

Thank you for replying. Admins lose so much time having to respond to players, we sometimes do not have fun.

Players must understand that we are humans and make mistakes as well.

If any staff would like to add their experiences as staff (no abusing staff members allowed to post their experiences, if they do, posts will be removed) please do.

I actually love what i do so much, i'd probably quit if i was demoted and removed from server staff.

It's hard work, but i love it, i feel i'm here to do good, and i do good.

[TheSandman]

I don't know what to say really, everything Lindsey has posted as absolutely true.
I've had people say that I shouldn't be a staff member, (or player in fact), here just because I have a higher ping that everyone elses.
It is not my problem, I cannot make it down to say 50 that Europeans have, while I'm living in Australia, its not ever going to be 50, or anything close to it.
Not much else to say from me really

[Lindsey]

I think Staff need to be more involved in the community, we aren't a mystery, they want help from us, so they should see why sometimes we can't help.

If this thread gets locked, well fuck you whoever locks it.

^_^

[Deff]

i understand they cant play specially when just 1 of them is online and 96 players there in server..

Players just wanna play fair and have fun in the server. And this can be done only when staff does its work. So staff is doing a very good work for the server, they may have too much work to do, but atleast they are making the server fun for other players

And I appreciate that. Goodluck and keep doing the hard work (with help from smokey xD).

[Joshy]

If any staff would like to add their experiences as staff (no abusing staff members allowed to post their experiences, if they do, posts will be removed) please do.

I've been here since April 2011 (12 months), and I left CT during that time too. I got promoted to admin in July 2011 (3 months). Some time around the beginning of February 2012, I just totally lost it. I just left, I gave away everything and pretty much told everyone to "go fuck themselves". You know why?

Bullshit. Little stuff like people /report'ing for non-sense. If you know me to some extent, you should know I live in the South Wales valleys. Just let me say this, parts of where I live is poorer than Eastern Europe. I'm not begging for sympathy, but I hear people on the streets shouting shit like "you idiot" and just little things like that. People around here just take it as a joke, push and shove over it at most.

Then you get CT. People reporting and expecting a warn for someone saying "<player> is an idiot". In my head, that is fine because of my surroundings. But people expect warns, and if I don't warn or whatever, it's a case of "another staff member warned me / someone else for 'blah blah blah' me complain about you on forum". My mind got messed up between CT and real life...

Also at the time, the amount of forum reports coming in was simply too much considering I'm a 15 year old who has exams (GCSE) in the near future.


Then you get the lack of support... to be honest Mick... I don't ever think you've said "thanks" to any one of your staff members. I did actually mention this when I left in my "rage-quit topic". It does go appreciated. Otherwise your own staff feels unappreciated, and stuff like this can happen (a few days ago when I raged over cop respawning / a ban reduction):

[22:31] konali: i dont like this joshy
[22:31] konali: sorry but thats my opinion
[22:31] konali: you rage about every little thing
[22:31] konali: you cant give people chances
...
[22:34] Joshy: anyway i'll tell you as i said to lindsey:
[22:34] Joshy: [22:32] Joshy: i got a feeling none of the admin team like me anymore and i'm going to be demoted...
[22:32] Joshy: i just feel it.
[22:35] Joshy: and yes, i do truly feel that
[22:35] Joshy: zacco was against me in the beginning
[22:35] Joshy: mick is just "meh"
[22:36] Joshy: even you're disliking me (because i rage a lot)
[22:36] Joshy: everytime i post in that staff board i practically shit bricks because i think you'll think "joshy is cocky. too immature. demote"
[22:37] Joshy: noticed how i haven't posted that "update rules" thread?
[22:37] Joshy: it's because of this.
...
[22:41] konali: mick shouldnt waste such efforts brought into you  by the server
[22:41] konali: the admin loopup thing you did
[22:41] konali: mick should say atleast: nice i like it

In addition you have the issue of spectating in WC which makes many things difficult. For example being in a convoy is not far from impossible if you're the only staff member online.

Also you have numerous people begging you to get their rig out of the water. So I go and do it, knowing that it's their fault and they should suffer the consequences of not driving carefully (failed mission fee). At times, I can't always type /summoncar and /tele and whatever quick enough to save your mission. But at least say 'thanks' for fuck sake. Don't just drive off saying in the chat "damnit failed mission". I tried, I gave the effort. You should appreciate it. I talked to Konali a few days ago about this. You can call me what you want (copycat whatever) but I agree with this quote from Truckmania.

requesting help in getting out of water will be ignored or will end in setting heath to 0 to respawn - it is NOT admins' duty to help you when you fail in driving - we can help when stuck in a wall or other objects but not when you fail at corner, and this kind of request is about 90% of the cases and is absolute waste of admins' time. There were even cases of players raging at admins for lack of help, which is unacceptable. You can't drive - you fail the haul, simple!

So you know, I might just try this out.

I have been practically dedicated to CT when I've been staff here.

[03:59] konali: dude your taking it to seriously:P go /duty play less:) your playing till late always:P its not healthy:P
[04:00] Joshy: Simply because of the stress, and the fact I don't give up on it.

Considering my life routine is either this on weekends:

wake up > go on CT > drink and food > go on CT > get pissed off on CT > sleep

Or this on weekdays:

wake up > school > go on CT > drink and food > go on CT > get pissed off on CT > sleep

^{"wake up" includes breakfast, brushing teeth, shower and so on.}
As you can see, there's no typical 15 year old "go out with friends" activities there. At all. Because I practically dedicated 12 months to CT. And shit's my thanks.

[22:47] Joshy: as i said yesterday "this server will become the death of me"

[03:45] Joshy: It ruined my social life totally. (me referring to CT)
[03:45] Joshy: Why don't I just leave.

So I hope this explains some things.

Oh yeah did I forget to mention I typed this up while I'm on holiday, where I should be taking a break from CT and going out and so on? But instead I'm back on CT.

[Xero]

Being a staff member on the server is a completely different world, and most people don't have a clue what it's like, I like what was written from each of you and hope that this will open up some eyes and make people think before asking for help all the time with stupid things.

I like that part about truckmania's rules on driving into the water, I think that all staff shouldn't have to help you if you make the mistake and land in the water. I personally have never asked an admin to help me out of that kind of situation because I knew I was only to blame. This might actually help players drive better knowing that if they do this, they won't get any help.

Players that make such ridiculous reports should be verbally told not to make useless reports that waste staff time when there are more serious things to worry about then being called a noob, or when someone accidently hits their car only once and they report it in forums. A big problem is the fact that, I would say, %90 of the players on the server don't bother to read the forums at all so they have no clue.

And it's true, mick doesn't thank you guys for what you do and all the hard work you put into policing the server when you could be doing something better. Imagine if you all went on strike, what do you think would happen? Would mick change? Would he demote you all and rehire a bunch of other people? And if he did could you imagine how much that would affect the server. It would destroy itself, CVT would bomb and people would leave. It would be unrecoverable and anarchy would reign and CVT would look like a mad max movie.

You've all raised some serious concerns here and they shouldn't be ignored. How do you guys veiw mick as, a boss or a leader? Remember the difference between a boss and a leader; a boss says "Go!" - a leader says "Let's go!" - E.M. Kelly

[Lindsey]

haha, if we all quit, you think this server would survive? Yes it would, but would it suffer? Absolutely, for many weeks.
It takes a lot of time to promote staff to high ranks.
There is A) finding the right person, B) checking and watching the person C) make sure they have good english D) make sure they are really good with the server rules E) make sure they know how to pass the information to other players in the right way F) make sure they know how to take good proof all the time G) make sure they can upload the proof, otherwise why have a moderator that can ban but not get proof?!?!

There are SO many things to look at.

If all mods quit now (we aren't like that...so we wouldn't) then the server would suffer big time.

And maybe this is why mick should show us appreciation

[Xero]

You forgot one thing that should be including if being accepted as staff, emotions should be left at the door. If you can't control the way you feel then you shouldn't be online moderating.

[Lindsey]

Yes, you must be 100% in control of yourself, and also be 100% confident in what you do and say.

If you are even 99% confident, 1% doubt can really effect you / other players can use that to influence you to make bad choices.

[Brian_William]

Yes, you must be 100% in control of yourself, and also be 100% confident in what you do and say.

Emphasis Mine, and like I said if you aren't 100% in good frame of mind, you can't lash out at players reports and berate them.

This goes for anyone serving as a mod or admin. I don't just speak from the other topic but rather from experience doing professional grade MMORPG server management (google EverQuest) and of late i've been hired on by a SAMP RP server to manage things as a Head Admin.

It's customer service whether you like it or not. Doesn't mean the customer is always right, but there is 1 right way to respond and 9 others on how NOT to respond. Keeping attitudes in check means you pick the right 1.

[Lindsey]

Don't bring another argument to this thread, further posts in relation to the recent report against me will be deleted. I have the right to clean my own threads.

You're warned on that matter.

If you have something to share on your administrative qualities by all means, share them here.

[SeraMondialu]

Ooooh, Lindsey .
Just words, why dont u apply them on server ?
You hate lot of players, and when we /report you dont spec the reported player. And if we make 3 /reports you kick us .
I just want to tell u something, if you say words, apply them .

And if you cry cuz beign an staff member isnt fun, why dont u quit and let someone else in youre place ?
You should enjoy what you do, not to cry .

[TheSandman]

You hate lot of players, and when we /report you dont spec the reported player. And if we make 3 /reports you kick us .

You dont know that she/said admin hasnt stopped to spectate, there is no feature telling you that they have.

Here is an example of what you and LOTS of other people do;
-Someone accidentally rams you, you /report.
-We stop, and spectate reported player.
-We see nothing happening, he is driving normally.
-We spectate you, you are fine/crashed, we have no proof, we cant do anything.
-We unspectate, and continue playing.
-You /report player again, even though he is no where near you.

MORAL1: Dont report for something THAT HAS HAPPENED. Report for what IS HAPPENING.
MORAL2: Take your own proof, + report player on forum.

Simple?