Recent Questions Regarding Support

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Hey SG, it's been an interesting few days, and I feel it's a good time to clear up some of the recent changes, and misunderstandings.

1. Where did the moderators from support go?

Everyone was removed from support the other day. It was no longer fair to the community and moderators. In short, there were too many tickets, which they did not have the ability to address. As a result, we ended up with angry users, and overwhelmed moderators. Due to this frustration, we've had moderators lose their temper at times when dealing with users in support, and complaints started to roll in about people being treated unfairly, suspensions being given for invalid reasons or personal disputes, name calling, etc. That's not the way the support section should be run, and therefore everyone was removed until it's back on course.

Yesterday there was an update to better organize user tickets, so they're easier for users to follow, and easier for moderators to organize. It's a step in the right direction, but there are still a lot of improvements to be made.

I'll be looking after all the support tickets until we're up-to-date. The next week I'll be working on them fulltime, and hopefully that'll reduce some of the backlog.

2. Why couldn't the moderators perform certain actions?

If it was that easy, and I could allow all moderators to delete and reroll giveaways, it would have happened long ago. Right now giveaways cannot be undeleted. If a giveaway is removed, it's gone, unless we get into restoring available database backups. Call it a poor judgement in coding when I first started on the site, because that's exactly what it is. The method in which giveaways are handled and removed needs to be recoded. We also need a log of all actions performed by moderators. If we have a handful of users moderating the site, and we have no idea who deleted a giveaway, why a winner was rerolled, etc, we get even more headaches. Dropping those privileges in front of an overworked and stressed group of moderators, when the above isn't setup would be a giant security risk. I wouldn't be able to sleep knowing the entire site could be deleted overnight, and it doesn't make sense to risk years of work and the trust of the community by releasing updates a couple of months prematurely.

3. Why are you focusing on browser chat and the TF2 server? The priorities for SteamGifts are in the wrong place.

The 32 player TF2 server is running on autopilot, and it's set to either renew or expire on the 10th depending on user interest. We have two 16 player servers setup for the TF2 tournament, and those are entirely managed by some of our fellow members. I've spent 3 hours working on the browser chat in the past month. You have to realize I get burnt out working day and night developing these sites, and maintaining the server. Occasionally, I need a break. Instead of watching a movie for a couple of hours, I'll code something completely unrelated, like the chat room, since it clears my mind, and it's educational. We might not need a browser chat, but it was a fun experiment to learn some new techniques, performance limitations for different methods of data retrieval, and it has a lot of potential for other Steam related projects I'm developing. We might even be able to revamp it to become real-time support, where users help users, to reduce the number of tickets we receive. If you think the chat and TF2 server is where the time is going, you're misunderstood. The site has been live for just over a year, and I do my best to listen to all the feedback from the community. Let's take a look at some of the public announcements throughout the year.

The site has come a long way this year, and the next year will be even busier, with some of the largest updates yet. I think the time was managed well, and we're heading in the right direction. However, things take a while with a development team of one, and you can't expect changes to happen overnight. The community has been amazing with all the suggestions, and some of our best features have originated from the forum. We've reached 1.2 million dollars in gifts received, 170,000 users, and 25,000 contributors. We've had the pleasure to work with a number of game developers, received tons of support from the users of Reddit, GOG, GiantBomb, Penny Arcade, Facepunch, CheapAssGamer, SomethingAwful, and NeoGAF, and our group of moderators have invested countless hours. I think we've worked together to create something incredible, and although the site has a few rough edges, I don't think that's reason to lose focus on the achievement we've reached as a community.

12 years ago*

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96 Comments

IgotElbows

Thanks for the update.

12 years ago