Criticism on staff is something we should take very serious, correct criticism that is. Several complaints are based on wrong perceptions or misunderstandings. The statement in the article title is one of those, and I can see where the confusion is coming from: the current Elite Guard is off with regards to the traditional roles.
Let’s go back to the beginning of the round where we started with one administrator, one head moderator and three moderators. Each performed tasks that belonged to their given role. The administrator’s primary task is management of the technical aspects required to run the game. This, among others, includes maintenance, releasing and updating features, fixing bugs and the game’s lay-out. A moderator’s primary task, on the other hand, is enforcing the rules. This, among others, includes investigating players, managing the forums and the moderator part of the Help Desk.
Let’s delve a bit deeper into the moderator position, what do we, what do I actually do? Two critical parts of the moderator position are investigating players and managing the Help Desk. We investigate players to make sure the game is played according to the rules and have several tools at our disposal to do so. Furthermore, we deal with all sorts of Help Desk tickets on moderator level, bug reports, feature suggestions, TOS violations, dupe reports and others. We also have an important say in policy and rule decisions within the game. Nowadays, most changes are discussed with the entire team, an example being the design of the new crew feature which was done in six two hour sessions with all EG staff involved (including former moderator Riserva). Moderators often have a good view of what goes on within the community because they are the ones digging into it. A different debate entirely, but that is the reason why I don’t think that Administrators should know every single detail, as long as he has people reporting (reliably) to him; a matter of information aggregation.
Next to these tasks, not normally open to public, moderators also have public tasks, most importantly management of the forums. This involves the known tasks of moving, locking, deleting and muting when necessary. Next to management, we also try to participate in debates, discussions, explaining why some decision were made. In the current situation we also bear the responsibility for the Help Desk in general. Although BSF2000 has the power to overrule any decision, we select and evaluate Help Desk Operators. We participate in conversations on the High Rollers Forum and organise appraisal rounds for evaluation. Next to the Help Desk the current team also bears responsibility for the Bootleggers Buzz. This involvement is limited as the Buzz system is self-sufficient, but it is our responsibility to have an editor. Normally we only get involved in critical decisions or when the editor decides to resign.
From the tasks above you’ll be able to observe that a large part of the work is not open to the public. The only people able to make a complete judgement on the functioning of moderators are moderators and administrators, as they have access on all the information needed to judge a moderator on his work. And while that will undoubtedly result in some shouting that this is an easy way out, it actually isn’t. This is the situation, whether you like it or not. Critically, however, this does not mean that moderators are not accountable for their (public) actions. Part of the output is still visible to players and the community should be able to judge moderators on it. After all, a moderator should function both in public and closed parts. However, I struggle with people who judge us on all of our tasks while not having access to the information needed to do so. Apart from based on a clear misunderstanding, the article title is an example of what I mean.
In practise, the tasks between administrators and moderators overlap some times. Administrators also perform moderator duties, and vice versa. For example, most bug reports are first filtered by moderators before they are reported to administrators to avoid loss of time due to incorrect or already known reports. However, key tasks barely overlap. You won’t normally see an administrator manage the forums, or a moderator code – although both create a beneficial situation provided core tasks do not suffer. And this is where things are sometimes different in Bootleggers.
Last year, BSF2000 granted Sky administrator access, changing the nature of his work to that of an administrator and a moderator, yet he was not granted the administrator position. Although Sky still performed moderator tasks, the majority became the work an administrator would traditionally do. The result? Some people started judging his moderator position based on administrator tasks and following that other moderators in the team received the same judgement, rendering three out of the four moderators useless from the moment this happened. There’s a clear tendency within the game to render moderators useless if no directly visible output is observed, completely ignoring the fact that a large part of it never will be.
Now you may wonder if it’s all this black and white, and it definitely isn’t. The ability to code, and to a smaller extent, the understanding of code are definitely beneficial in the moderator position. But we shouldn’t forget that a team full of coders is not going to change the nature of the work that is to be done. This game cannot survive without administrators and moderators in their traditional position and work. And I, for one, would appreciate if we can start judging moderators on their moderator position again rather than something else. Thank you.
As next issue is released after it, I wish you a great Christmas.
