Ramblings of a shard admin

[ASayre]

Ramblings of a shard admin

Pretend this is a blog... except that it's not a blog. And it's about UO. And it talks about stuff that involves running a shard, basically my randomness of ideas from staffing issues, dealing with players, economy, whatever, however, etc.

Each post/entry that I make will be a post on this thread and this thread will be locked, for discussion if anyone finds my ramblings interesting.... Make a new thread

Ramble Ramble Ramble...

 

[ASayre]

On segregation of staff

From my experience in a number of shards, I've seen people segregate their staff.

Segregation, atleast a mild segregation, is needed for both order and happiness of the staff. The problems with segregation come from the extremes.

ex. 1: No segregation at all.
This is common in the smaller shards, ones from groups of friends and/or very trusted people. Ones where everyone who's staff is either all GM or all Admin or whatnot. (I'm not counting the owner/main admin/whatever in all of these examples.)

If there aren't differences between the staff, there's no bickering arguing about SoAndSo getting promoted above me, and there's noone above who has 'authority' over anyone else. The power games within the staff are reduced to next to nil.

The problems with this come from people being exceptional and or having abilities above and beyond the norm. Be it soemone can code and they start coding for the shard, or someone is really dedicated. If a new hire or someone with much less talent or contributions to the shard has the exact same authority and accesslevel, there isn't as much motivation to continue being exceptional.

In addition, any new hires (remember, no segregation), would have the exact same authority and pull as someone who had been there from the beginning. Resentment from the other staff, especially is said new hire DOES mess things up.

Then there's the issue of disputes. Who's right when? Some people are more assertive than others and some poeple just don't like being bossed around. Who can ask/order who around. If noone, imagine trying to get some type of event or coordination done. If everyone is giving the orders, again, same lack of focus and coordination. If only some are more assertive, then those that aren't will still be resentful even if they don't speak up or object then and there.


The above is an extreme case scenario, but I have seen it and it does happen.

example #2: Extreme segregation

Everyoine has their own 'special' role. Strict defined hierarchy with each person having their EXACT place on the totem pole. Those that have different functions are completely seperated from eachother, roels don't overlap at all, they often have seperate forums and/or chat rooms for each type of person in which people not working on that general 'function' can't see, etc.

This one I've seen in shards of all sizes, both large and small, but, this one is common in the extremes.

Large shards sometimes deviate towards this because of the large number of staff needed. A lot of staff can be hard for one person to handle without any kind of hierarchy, so they set one up similar as described above to be able tomanage each one seperately and have a general 'defer to person above you' rule.

Small shards also goto that because many times they have people that can and do only fulfill specific roles. Be it managing the web, events, master of commands or whatnot.

This type of system has the benefit of reducing the 'who's right?' arguments between the staff as everyone has their place in the shard and hierarchy. Also, situations where people are stepping on eachother's toes are more clearly defined and noticed and taken care of, less hurt feelings from that.

(Will continue this post once I get back home, this is currently incomplete...)

 

[ASayre]

Re: Ramblings of a shard admin

(I'm not gonna continue the old one, the train of thought has passed by now, though what I already said still applies ;P)

This one is gonna be a short one, and it's about Trust & Staff Members.

I trust every single one of the current staff right now with Admin powers. From our staff that've been here the longest, to our counselors which are veterans at this point & time as far as shard staffing goes.

Then, why you ask, do I not give them all Admin? For the simple fact that we don't need more peoples with > couns!

 

[ASayre]

Re: Ramblings of a shard admin

I don't get it.

I just don't get it.

Everytime an action is taken by the staff, or NOT taken for that matter, there's an objection.

We take a negative action against someone, and here's what we hear:
"The staff hate me, and are trying to run me off! I've done x,y,z for the shard, so we're entitled to bend the rules!"

We don't take a negative action against someone, either because it's a different situation or we just aren't AWARE of it, and we hear:

"It must be favoritism! How come SoAndSo got punished but this person didn't! They get to bend the rules! If you want to punish me, you HAVE to punish everyone else, and as such I will backseat moderate for anything that I find off instead of what the staff find wrong."


You see, we're damned if we do, and damned don't.

No matter what will happen, because we cannot watch the forums/ingame/irc 24/7 with 100% accuracy & attention, some people WILL slip through the cracks, and some people will get caught.

What people need to realize is this when people complain about staff vendettas:

If we really hated a person, we'd just ban/remove/delete/remove all traces. But people take things WAY too personally. If there's a 3 day suspension from the boards which in no way affect the game AT all, it's not the end of the world.

When people get a speeding ticket or whatever, it doesn't mean that the entire Govt is out to get you. It means that, you were found to break that one minor rule/law/whatever.






The way things are set up here at Demise, how they're structured, how the staff are chosen, what the staff can do, the number of staff, one of the main reasons for how things are done is to ensure there is absolutely zero corruption.

To maintain that, we need to treat, to the best of our abilities, EVERYONE the same. No matter if they're a donator, help in the RP community, all around nice guys, or whatever -> NOONE is above the rules.

EVERY single shard out there with more than 30 people have had cries of Staff Corruption in one form or another. And with varying degrees of truth behind them.

Except for Demise -> I can say, matter of factly, that we have NO staff corruption. When the worst our staff gets are FALSE acusations we're trying to run some people off, you know what, I'm proud of that. I'm proud that that's the most anyone can even try to accuse us of.

So, when we treat people the same, to ensure there's no favoritism & corruption, I see that as one of the BEST facts about this shard and their staff.

 

[ASayre]

Re: Ramblings of a shard admin

Hiring practices.

Since we're in the midst of interviews and hiring, here are some of my theories...

• People hire like minded people.

There's an old saying, something along the lines of.. 'You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep.' That is one of the truest statements I've ever heard.

You can tell alot about someone by the staff they hire, and you can tell alot about a group of staff members by the person(s) who hired them.

That's not to say that people hire clones, but, more often than not, people will hire people who share similar personality traits and values.

Take Demise for example. We try to hire well-spoken people (no u r stupid m00b hurhurhur type people) who have a tinge of insanity. Of course there are other traits, but this is a simple example and I'm no psychiatrist. And, some may debate how far 'tinge' goes as far as our sanity.

This theory also explains why there are good periods of trusty, well meaning staff, and bad periods where staff are expected to abuse their powers and be fired, and, in less than a pahse of the moon, cause problems for all the current staff.

It happens on any shard where people of vastly different demeanors have the job of hiring, or heck, even promoting. All of this applies towards promotions too. Someone who's a good CNS may not be a good GM.

• Personality is more important than knowledge

There's a number of reasons for this. One of them is that, while facts can be learned, personality cannot be quickly, easily and likely changed. Anyone can learn the various facts on UO and howto use commands and such, but you can't teach a unscrupulous person how to be a good person. Not from a staff position anyways.

Also, a bad person who knows alot can do infinitely more damage than a well meaning person who has to say 'I don't know, I'll check or ask around and get back to you', who will end up learning in time anyways.