TOPIC: Your opinion

I'm not going to give my opinion on the subject, but I want to see what you guys respond to the following question:

How should a staff member act?

Or break it down into smaller questions like; what should their attitude be to rulebreakers, what makes a good staff member, etc. Just make sure it answers the original staff member.

Let's not jump on the bandwagon of bashing staff members or whatever, I just want to hear what you guys perceive as the best way to act for a staff member.

EDIT:

This is general staffing, so this attitude applies to all servers.

Someone that follows the rules, enforces them, can separate friendship and staff duties, but has a unique and fun personality that can get along with the users in a way others can't.

A staff member, in my opinion, should try to remain calm at all times, be respectful even when being disrespected, should try to be mature, and fairly deal with rulebreakers e.g giving out the same punishment to two people who break the same rules.
So basically the opposite of me

Stratiic wrote:
personally, even though i haven't got much experience as staff, i would say:

Someone that of course follows the rules.
Someone that isn't too harsh, but isn't too easy, is friendly, doesn't censor, is constructive and listens to the users.
Someone that is not bias.
Someone that isn't easy to win over.
Someone with a good personality.

a staff member shouldn't backstab everyone else just for super admin

Not following the falsehood of the correct staff member criteria.

A Staff member should act professional and respectful to the community, a staff member should never discriminate or hurt another. a staff member should let the players speak and listen to them, a staff member should always ask for advice if he needs.

My opinion.

Staff member must not favor any side he is there simply to stay calm and decide if the accused did break a rule and if he has enough evidence to warn him, in case he does warn him explain to him what he did wrong.

Staying calm in all situations is a must for a staff member, there is nothing more annoying than a squeaky mod yelling at a rule breaker. (no offence to all who's voice has not mutated yet)

Scammers in the staff team, now i'm not accusing anyone but i have heard a staff member on duty scammed someone now again not saying names but this is unacceptable.

But to be honest being a staff member is hard and the f1's that you have to deal with sometimes make you want to kill someone so staff members have my respect and thank you for keeping the community clean.

Proffesionalism isn't key, confidence is when handeling F1's. When you have childs crying in F1 you must be ready to take multiple punches a day from immature people. Most resign because they're too weak and gets smashed on too quickly (myself included).

I think all staff should know when to act professional, and when to be more laid back and casual. For example if you're dealing with an F1 on SSRP you should be acting professional during the discussions because by answering that F1 you represent not only yourself but all SSRP staff, and Zarp as a community as well. Also while playing any other Zarp or Friendly Players server, whether they're staff on it or not, they should be following the rules and being respectful at all times. The same goes for both community's forums and teamspeak servers.

Talking to someone over Steam or Skype is a situation where you can be more casual and be able to say/act however you please (with some limitations - a staff member shouldn't be harassing other community members over Steam for example) because they aren't necessarily connected to Zarp/FP.

Aspect wrote:
Thats why i resigned i had enough of ppl yelling at me "WARN HIM HE BROKE A RULE CHECK THE LOGS!!!!" and the other one screaming back "NO! I! FUCKING! DIDNT! WARN THIS GUY FOR LYING!" this kind of f1's are super annoying and no one has any proof of anything happening.

So a good staff member has to be prepared for this kind of shit.

BigQuattro wrote: This is very important and is something not a lot of people expect from becoming staff. You have to be able to handle chaotic situations calmly and not let your emotions make your decisions, and be able to brush off the insults and other rude comments rule breakers are inevitably going to yell at you as you try to do your job. Being staff is not an easy thing to do for some people to do, and can take a lot of time to get used to.

See what %80 of the staff is doing atm and then do the opposite

Someone who has good intentions.
Someone who knows the rules.

Loaded question, but ultimately it's someone who can ensure users of the server are having fun. He shouls be able to disregard the rules in some small aspect if the situation contributes towards RP but breaks a rule, while not harming anyone else.

Someone who isn'd afraid to put the collective user experience over the rules in some cases.

I think the main thing you need to be to be a "good staff member" is to be reasonable and understanding. Just because people break the rules you don't need to necessarily punish them for it, they need to be able to have a good read on situations. I think the best traits of staff members is when they're approachable. Somebody that you're not afraid to speak with in confidence or just to chat with.

One of the side reasons as to why I resigned is how serious people got with everything, people turned this from a voluntary staff position to some sort of judge, jury, and executioner thing, staff started being way too strict than needed, forgetting that this is a game, not a government job.

What makes a good staff member?

A staff member that can get along with the community members while at the same time deal with rule breakers, a staff member that never forgets that in the end, this is a game, I've seen admins that have gotten way too caught up and started some sort of I'm better than you attitude.

And the reports, staff members are supposed to look over users, not their fellow staff members, I'm not sure if this has stopped, but the amount of staff that spent hours to find the silliest things on other staff members is simply amazing, they somehow think if they get a staff member demoted then that's an instant promotion to super admin.

All in all, a staff member that can have fun.

What makes a good staff member is listening to everyone around you and knowing when it's time to act and when it isn't. I see far to few staff members that are willing to fully interact with certain users as much as the user would need. Some users learn far more from being spoken to on teamspeak and taught how they should respond to stuff. Given that I'm required to keep an eye on the staff team I notice that a lot of the people don't take the time to do this and instead focus on harsh punishments being given out quickly in hopes of cleaning up the rule breaks instantly, sure it works to some extent but there are often far better solutions to the situation.

Other than that the ability to interact in a professional but still friendly and humble way is important, being cold and harsh tends to scare the users and this is a gaming community, we don't want people to feel scared or miss-treated as most people are here to hopefully enjoy the servers and have a fun time.

Just as blocked touched on in his post a good staff member shouldn't constantly try to get everyone demoted for minor things, they work with the rest of the team in order to figure out a functional solution that satisfies everyone, sadly at times this isn't possible and in those cases it tends to end with a demotion or a warning from the lead team. Sadly a lot of people seem to forget how important the team dynamic, even the lead teams are subject to issues regarding team dynamic at times.

I literally just typed a five paragraph essay about this shit and when I went to post it, it said that "My session has timed out."

Fml

In my opinion, there is not only one thing to describe a good staff member so I will break it down to separate points. This is just in general and this is just some points and not all of the aspects of being a staff member

Attitude

A staff member needs a certain attitude to be friendly and welcoming when it is good to spread a positive vibe across the server but still can be serious and act in a serious manner when on duty or when the time is right . As well as this a staff member also needs to be able to separate their out of staff duty friendships from their in duty roles. Another key aspect of this attitude is that a staff member needs the right attitude and needs to work with the user to try help the user out and not just try find ways to punish the user because there is no point punishing the user if he isn't learning what to do right or what he could have done differently because if you don't take the time and effort to try to improve the user he most likely won't and continue to get punished when he wants to learn but isn't getting help he doesn't know he needs.

Teamwork

Similar to blocked's point is that one aspect of being a staff team is that you need to work as a team and not against one another. I have seen this a lot over my many months of being a staff member and I am seeing this more and more now and this is that people don't work as a team and instead try to report other staff members and bring them down . I have seen this mostly with people who try to push for super admin but they don't have the right mindset needed for the role because they try to demote other staff members for minor rule breaks but in fact that isn't how this works. I'm not talking about people reporting for massive blatant abuse and disregard but I'm talking about on the small scale , for example, if you accidently break NLR or if you accidently no-clip into other people's bases (This is for SSRP). What a staff member could do is just remind them hey you broke NLR or hey just be careful next time and this is especially for new staff as they are more prone to making mistakes because we are all human and we all make mistakes and a way to improve is to learn from our mistakes

Helpfull

One other aspect of being a staff member is the ability to be helpful , approachable and willing to help , This is being approached by a user as well as being approached by another staff member. Being helpful is a big part because as a ranked member of the server you are seen as someone who is there to help the users of the server as well as staff. The approachable part is the ability for members of the community having the confidence and feeling that they can approach you to ask you a question or for advice and you are willing to help out and not steer away.

Knowledge

one other aspect is the knowledge . This can be portrayed in many ways but having knowledge is a part of the staff member wich spreads over all the other points I made as well as points I did not make. This can vary from haveing knowledge of the rules to having experience and ultimately adds up to all the other aspects of being a staff member because having the knowledge of what attitude to have , how to deal and interact with people , good knowledge of the rules , know how to work together ad a team and how to be helpful to name a few.

There are many many many other ways and qualities that make up a good staff member and I could go on and on for even longer but to save your sanity as well as mine I will leave it here but if you want some more of my opinions you can message me on steam or come talk to me on team speak.