Should extra members be hired purely for re-roll and other purposes pertaining to support tickets?
You need to create a new class of moderators to check those new empowered users, then.
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cg is the one who maintains and appoints the support members by himself. I'm just saying it would be easier for him to appoint people with the aptitude to handle only these tickets than to hire full fledged moderators with more permissions.
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Ok, I get it.
So reading other posts here, you actually suggest different moderators for different subset of moderations.
Why not :-)
They would need to set some standards. And they are already working on improving the support workflow. So let's hope they will consider your suggestion if they think it can help them.
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Just same as the feedback removal function that we have now under trades. Once a few members vote yes for reroll or deletion it can go through it too many people vote no it doesn't.
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I was going through a lot of previous suggestions regarding reroll tickets, and in most of the points that recommended giving users some control over the process, there was always rebuttal by stating the potential for exploitation. And with trade feedback, it is somewhat more trivial and simple since it pertains to rep points, and it can be easily seen which feedback comments are just frivolous/revenge/fake. But with rerolls, there's an element of interpretation - what you believe to be fair grounds for a reroll may not be another man's viewpoint, so I do think that if users are given any control whatsoever over rerolls, it could lead to more trouble and exploitation rather than what it aimed to achieve. Support users would arguably be a legitimate authority on the subject on the other hand, since they are appointed by the site's creator himself, and although the process in appointing new mods is not very transparent, we can see that almost all of the support team members have been really effective in their roles.
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+1 Giving the users that power would not work well. A couple of trustworthy people that only look at those tickets is a nice idea though!
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From the change log
January 17, 2017
Improved the layout of the standard operating procedure pages for staff members.
Minor redirect enhancements for staff members.
The process of adding new support members seems to be in the works.
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That's pretty cool, I guess it could be to streamline or familiarize the newer members with an enhanced rulebook, and at the same time allow more privileges to the moderators already present.
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Well, cg has said that he plans to add 5-10 new support members by early 2017, so the wait isn't much longer now! (...hopefully...)
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Well, that depends on what he means by "early 2017." It could mean the first two months, but it could also mean before summer. It's a pretty vague term (I totally get why he wants to be vague though)...
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cg doesn't even know what year it is.. https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/uA2jig7
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Lol. Well, I guess that explains why the tickets are not getting answered. He thinks they're made in the future! :p
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Any regular SG user would be able to work on them.
no!!!! i'm okay with where you were heading with the new role/group of users solely for re-rolling, but that sentence counters all you said prior.
Should extra members be hired purely for re-roll and other purposes pertaining to support tickets?
none of them are paid, so "hired" isn't the word i'd use.. more like "selected"
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The main question you missed, my dear chap, is the fact that you forgot the person who selects the people for this post. And only one person has the ability to do that.
My point was to make a clear analogy between the requirements for a moderator and requirements for a class like this: for a person to be selected as a moderator, they require a considerably greater number of merits. With a staff just for tickets, you only need basic knowledge of what quantifies as acceptable grounds for rerolls, and what grounds do not. So cg would have a much easier time selecting the people he wants to act as ticket-support members, mainly because he would have a lesser number of points to evaluate about the users he'd like to appoint.
I agree with your second point, it was just a mistype on my part since English is not my first language and as such, I tend to use some words which do not fit in the context well.
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Reroll issues are very new thing - we have reroll delays for month or two only - because of all the developer software DLCs in bundle loads of people purchased to boost their CV (jatan stated himself that current block of reroll tickets is purely due to Spriter DLCs, over 2k reroll tickets for these only). It does suck, but it's a temporary problem, long problem is lack of support altogether. I see no need of adding more ppl to rerolls only, as it will only solve current problem and all these people will have nothing to do for next few months if not years (depending when problem resurfaces), what we need is more of actual support stuff - to deal with all kinds of tickets (you think rerolls are bad? user reports are pending for months if not years!), not just reroll tickets, as even without additional support reroll problem will end in 1-2 months max, but overall support problem will remain.
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I didn't say it's purely the fault of Spriter, but it is a big part. You go into a reroll queue, see the entire page filled with them, don't feel like doing them anymore so you go somewhere else...
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I'm surprised, I thought Clickteam Fusion would be reason behind the massive reroll ticket spikes (I've heard cases of above 6 rerolls for one giveaway)
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I just gave the reroll situation as an example for the problem plaguing the main support team: tickets. Their job is to moderate the forums, hand out suspensions for rule breaking which occurs pretty frequently here, have a look at the discussions every now and then to close inappropriate posts, and at the same time deal with the hundreds of tickets that all take some time to get resolved. And this is what they do free of cost, and on their own time. Having someone purely for fulfilling or dealing with the backlog of tickets would allow moderators to devote more time to their "moderation" duties because even if they don't deal with the tickets every day, there would be other support members dedicated only to the tickets and nothing else.
as it will only solve current problem and all these people will have nothing to do for next few months
Which is what brings me to the point of permissions and privileges - granting them only the appropriate privileges to deal with tickets would restrain abuse of power since they would only have the ability to answer tickets, grant new winners, delete new giveaways and any other task that falls under the ambit of tickets. And honestly, not having anything to do would actually be beneficial for them, I believe, because it isn't necessary to only perform their duty, they can enjoy using the SG normally as well like our other mods do, and if there's a sudden influx of tickets, they'd be dedicated only to that task and help cutting down on the backlog.
The overall support problem will always remain till more moderators are added, but like I have stated numerous times in this thread, I think that appointing users for this position is less rigorous than appointing users to the moderator position.
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not only reroll tickets as suggested by fubarnocaps below but vast majority of tickets require more thqan just reading them and answering to them. Most of tickets are about as you said rulebreaking - ppl reviewing them thus would need access to view suspensions history, activation logs in case of private profiles, previous tickets, check all reports for said user in the past and so on and on. Just viewing all these data gives massive harrassment opportunities, but even more - what would it help if there were people available only to read tickets and answer to them? As like I mentioned most of these tickets requires higher support abilities anyway new support members you propose would only waste time, reading ticket and forwarding them higher. Forward system makes sense when vast majority of tickets do not require higher support members to answer, on SG they do, so what we need the most are no even lower level support members who can only read and answer tickets, what we need is at least twice as much as we already have if not more higher support staff in the first place. There lies real issue, your proposition would maybe help to deal with 5-10% of problems while we should now focus on dealing with most of the problems, not small part of trivial ones.
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Well, you also raise fair points. From my side, this was just a suggestion, with an emphasis on rerolls, because the user report ticket situation is frankly much more alarming. I just wanted to convey that selecting fully-fledged support members takes a lot of time, and the number of permissions given to a Support user would be indirectly proportional to the number of points on which he or she would be evaluated i.e the lesser the permissions the lesser the number of things to consider for their appointment leading to quicker selection. I personally feel that forwarding is somewhat more effective, that hiring a competent team of ticket only users and their forwarding the requisite tickets requiring mod intervention to the mods, because mods would not have to deal with the trivial tickets, and would focus on the parts where the user requires suspension., like a judiciary system with higher and lower courts Then again, it may not be effective at all due to the points you raised. We'll never know for sure, because it has to be implemented before anything can be said for it, to be honest.
This isn't a very concrete suggestion from my end, just an idea which can adapted, modified and changed to suit the Support needs if it is deemed useful, and at the same time placate the user-base. Depending on the want or the facts of the situation, it can be applied accordingly if it is needed so, because if one thing is certain, it is that more support members are needed, preferably as soon as possible.
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like I said - forwarding is most efficient in most cases but not our SG cases, because majority of tickets on SG are not your usual support tickets which basically mean "I Don't understand how stuff works, help me" but rather specific tickets.
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which only has the ability to read tickets and request new winner only and delete giveaways?
No, because there's probably a lot of rerolls where the winner needs to be suspended because of unactivated wins, or their suspension history needs to be checked. So in those cases they need to contact a mod to suspend them, etc., creating more paperwork
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Fair point, but
a) I've already stated in the thread about limiting or increasing the scope and number of privileges to suit the need, and rerolls are just an example on my part for the broader topic of tickets.
b) You assume that the people selected for this post will be incompetent to deal with such matters
Which is not the case here. The main point I've been making ITT is that there are a significantly lesser number of criterion which need to be evaluated when appointing users to this post, because unlike fully-fledged moderators, their permissions are limited. And I do feel that the people who would eventually be appointed to this post would do their job very well, as the person who appoints them has a history of appointing extremely competent people for their post.
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Support members already spend the vast majority of their working time doing rerolls, so there's no need to have an extra category just for rerolls, but just having more support.
If there really was an extra category added below support, then I'd have them handle "Other" tickets. They have always been backlogged, most of them don't require any particular permission, and not much damage can be done since answering them doesn't trigger any action.
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Have a special moderation role to answer people asking about points and CV!
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When I made my post, it was with reference to your post only, because I noticed the distinction between Support and Moderator. My idea was that reducing the number of permissions in your class would create posts that would be filled much more quickly, and provide some support to you lot, since even though all of you people work really hard, there's always that user in every other thread who has a complaint with the delay in support response.
How many 'Other' tickets are there? The way you've said it, it sounds like it's a category with the least number of responses, which I thought was the case with User Reports.
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About 1500 pending tickets in "Other", and they are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. There are all sorts of questions, requests, complaints, frequently not very comprehensible, or time-consuming because the conversation goes back and forth for days. We try to address whatever we can but it's not our priority.
User reports are the priority for moderators, but there are so many of them coming daily that it's hard to bring the numbers down (also because they didn't have access to it when they were first introduced and over 30 000 reports were already pending when they got access to them).
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Oh man, I can understand your frustration with the lack of organization in such tickets, because as you said it, there'd be a whole variety of stuff to answer and not a lot of comprehensible material being given for it. Having been an organizing member for an event where I was in-charge for answering all queries, I've had my share of such moments, too.
Also, I forgot to post this in my reply to Jatan, so I'd like to know that if you keep seeing Spriter and Clickteam reroll requests, does that mean that the tickets you get specifically for rerolls are not from the bottom of the list? (aka oldest ticket first) Since I've seen quite a lot of people who've had pending tickets asking for rerolls for weeks, I thought that oldest first would be the status quo, and newer requests like for Spriter would show up at the end of the queue, thus (ostensibly) saving you from having to deal with those first.
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Also the GA limit thing, waiting for more 2 days to create a train after deleting the GAs for modification purposes is inconvenient..
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Current situation do suck balls. Not only you have to wait for a while you wont even be getting a reroll in some cases if support doesnt feel like it.
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can you elaborate? I never was denied the reroll when requested reroll according to SG rules (and I rerolled way over 100 GAs, more than you created ;p), only in cases when I requested reroll for let's say non-activated wins but someone already served suspension for it and it was more than a month.
Maybe you request rerolls when rerolls are not applicable according to rules and thus support deny you them, not because they just feel like it.
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Rules are easy to bend one way or another. I've asked for a reroll because person didint follow group rules ,support replied that they dont give a donkeys ass about what's going on in groups. Yes they followed the 'rules' but exception (with legit case) should be also made.
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Well, that is because of the nature of re-rolls in SGV2, previously special grounds were given due consideration, but now that we have blacklists implemented on the site rather than a pastebin list, and that Sgtools is included in every other private giveaways, Support is not obliged to grant you a reroll for any other external factors (though I agree that exceptional cases can arise every now and then)
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even before SGv2 you wouldn't be allowed reroll on basis of "he broke our group rules" - someone breaks group rules, kick him out of the group. If he's kicked and still win you will be granted a win, otherwise - only rule for group GAs has always been "be a member of the group" - both in SGv1 and v2.
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That was the exceptional situation I was referring to :P
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yes, because it's not support work to administrate groups. If someone breaks group rules admins should kick him from the group. If someone get;s kicked by them b4 your Ga ends you will be granted a reroll, and yes I did request successful reroll in such a case in the past.
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And if someone gets kicked after i GA ended they wont because reasons :)
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because otherwise it would be extremely exploitable. simple as that.
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Even thou i presented all the evidence that person wasnt following any of group rules before making my ga/him entering my ga.
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sorry but external evidence means nothing. SG staff has no access to out-of-steam data, so for example admin log of steam group, one could easilly fabricate data, for example change group rules so someone who was not breaking them suddenly is breaking them, fabricate date of changes and report to support requesting reroll.
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In other words im forced to give game to scumbag now:)
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if said scumbag didn't break SG rules - yes. Or just don't give and get "Not Received". Same Way someone with 0 games given away yet 1000 trades and 300 Wins win your public GA - it's shitty, someone whoi just leeches from community, while he could easilly give back, but it's now valid reroll reason and you have to give him the game or get "Not Received" on your profile. Same as you have ways to avoid such people via let's say blacklisting, level requirements or SGT gates you have way to avoid scumbags winning group GAs by kicking them out of the group.
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I apologize if this has been brought up earlier, and I did not want to class this as it falls under a discussion much more than a recommendation.
So, cg has already addressed the support issue recently, and I fully support more moderators. However, there's also the fact that most of the complaints regarding support aren't about their moderation, it's about the pending support tickets. And nowadays, it's usually about one particular support ticket, or rerolls.
Since Sgv2, the number of reasons for which rerolls can be granted, has been considerably cut down i.e blacklist feature is now integrated in the site, SGTools has been recognized as a valid ground, and mostly there is a decline in 'special rules' which could be enforced earlier (post a picture of your fridge if you want to enter, etc) So it's an easier job to have a quick look at tickets and accept/deny reroll requests accordingly. But as of now, there are only a limited number of members in each user bracket (Bundler, Support, Moderator, Super Moderator and Admin) and the ability to answer tickets and request new winner begins at Support
So instead of appointing new moderators members in the future as stated in cg's post, why not appoint users to the Support Category purely for the purpose of handling tickets? Or if the Support class has a bit too many permissions than what you'd like, how about creating a new class of Users altogether, which only has the ability to read tickets and request new winner only and delete giveaways? I feel that a benefit of such a system would be that rather than scouring out the most suitable candidates for the post of moderator (which in itself would be time consuming), appointing members to Support or this new class would be comparatively faster, since it does not afford many positions, is an easy job and does not require an advanced level of comprehension regarding rules, since the only thing they need to be aware of are the rules pertaining to rerolls and deletion. Any regular SG user would be able to work on them. This would reduce the number of complains regarding rerolls, delay on part of support and also clear the workload of existing moderators who would be able to devote time to other tickets not covered under the aforementioned class.
(I also wanted to suggest something similar for user reports since they dominate the majority of pending tickets, but user reports are usually frivolous, and I don't know about the state of such tickets)
What do you think?
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