We don't want your help because you're a cancer on this site no-one wants to take your suggestions because you're a douchebag (and this is ME saying this) who should take the hint and go away

Does that invalidate the OP? (Which wasn't entirely written by me.)

who was it written by then, probably one of you fellow banned members I assume?

and yes it does because it was written with malicious intentions (aka to try and get back at the people who rightfully banned you) and is not intended to 'improve the Interguild'

Thomas, the reason you’re posting this is because you’re bitter about being suspended. Can you at least acknowledge that? I get the impression you're trying to save face by diverting attention and trying to paint yourself as some kind of revolutionary, but it isn't going to work. There is a legitimate discussion to be had about how to increase activity and modify staff, but you (and your undeclared band of allies, who I imagine were also recently suspended) are not the people to spearhead this. If anything, you’re weakening the cause by associating yourself with it.

I don’t agree with removing staff for the sake of having a nicer ratio. That doesn't improve anything, and is really just a net loss to how effective we can be. As jell said, your suggestion that some staff aren't on a lot so therefore we should have only three of them is not logical at all.

I wouldn't be opposed to opening the staff up to some more active members, but as far as changing the site goes, I think making it more autonomous would go a long way. Blurring the line between the staff and regular members where possible. For example, not requiring video approval if you've reached a requisite amount of posts, letting members upload their own video images, etc. I think giving more power to the average member would be beneficial, and maybe it could extend as far as letting longstanding/proven members do things like add games and affect the site in more integral ways, which could be up for discussion. In any case, I think this is a better solution than firing half the staff and hoping that fixes everything.

I like this idea. Now it's highlighted for me, it does seem ridiculous that relatively long-standing members have to ask for their videos to get approved.  

No just get that out of your head. Listen, I don't care about the suspension. I had the same opinion before the suspension, and it hasn't changed after. I think that, even with new staff, I still would have been suspended. I'm not trying to change that like you seem to think.

How do you feel about other members, who were not suspended, supporting this too? Does that mean they must have been suspended as well and want revenge??? Do you consider the staff to be a close-knit team?

Anyhow, so far we've seen that all inactive staff seem to be against losing their cushy positions.

I get giving more power to ordinary members, as well as adding new staff, but what would be the point of getting rid of the inactive staff? If there HAS to be a certain staff to member ratio, then yes, we should get rid of the inactive ones and replace them, but at the moment, I don't see why that ratio has to exist.

Thankfully they aren't being as obnoxious about it as your are. Others have at least offered solutions or suggestions, you just keep complaining.
Do you think that being staff is a "cushy position"? Any fun present on the staff thread dies out about a quarter of the way through besides the occasional oddity, long gone are the days of power abuse for the lolz and editing wars. Basically, if a staff member is active, they are doing work to improve the site. The "inactive" staff you mention that are actually inactive (2-3) at best aren't shirking off their staff duties to live a life of luxury, they just aren't coming on.

I don't understand your obsession with knitting Thomas, having more staff means more different views so it is not really a detriment and if anything it makes the decisions fairer.
And that's what it all boils down to right?

Also I'm apparently allowed to ignore your questions because they don't count as an argument (by your own logic) so two can play at that game.

Sidenote:
This really isn't appropriate, I wish people could get along or at least not insult people regardless of how they feel about them that would be good. People need to actually think about how they would feel if someone said this to them before they post.

If you truly didn't have a vendetta against the staff, you would be less emotional about all this. You wouldn't be calling us a “borg collective” or a “pig trying to defend your dead weight position". Also, if improving the site was your main concern, you wouldn't have ignored the solution I proposed to help with that.


As I said, there is a legitimate discussion to be had about how to increase activity and modify staff. But to be clear, which members are you talking about, and what are they supporting exactly?


And what is so cushy about being staff exactly? It's the same as being a regular member, except we have to look up whether or not new members are neezles and sort through messes like the one you were involved in.

"You wouldn't be calling us a 'borg collective'"
That wasn't me.

well, who was it? i'm starting to think you wrote that, and you just made that up so you could avoid replying to stuff.

Who was it then? You still haven't listed the people who wrote your OP.

If it really helps to know, binary helped me write it. But that doesn't matter. You guys just want to use that in your trust system to decide whether to listen or not.

This is my last attempt to get through to you, Thomas.


This was a Red Herring fallacy. You rely on this a lot.


Straw Man. You’re fond of this one too. See also:  Appeal to Popularity (with a fictional popularity no less), Personal Attack, Ad Hominem.

You’re clearly not interested in being rational about this, you’re just arguing for its own sake. If you responded to people’s points instead of having tunnel vision and ignoring everything that isn't convenient for you, then maybe we would get somewhere. But you won’t do that because, again, you’re acting more out of bitterness than anything. (Am I wrong? I don't think you can defend that pig comment.)

It’s not healthy to never admit to your mistakes. If you can be rational and open your mind a bit then you can take part in this conversation, but if you’re going to keep acting like a troll then you'll be treated like one. This isn't an us-vs-them scenario, and we’re not out to get you. In fact, we're being incredibly patient with you right now.

Anyway, back on topic:  there used to be staff tiers, where some mods had limited abilities. It’s been brought up again recently, and I think it ties into what I was saying before. What do you guys think of member tiers on a more basic level? Members would start out without many abilities, but as they prove themselves to be mature and trustworthy they can bypass video approval, add games, use the competition interface, maybe use HTML on the forum (to embed things and whatnot), stuff like that. Some of these powers could be distributed based on a metric like post count and/or karma, but I imagine others would require staff approval. We are growing up though, and I think the site should reflect that.

I'm not gonna read that but I don't care what name you put to certain actions or how I respond. That doesn't change the flaws in the staff. The point of this is in the OP.

I won't bother to address the ongoing hostilities right now (if at all) because it will probably start another argument. However, Sefro has a good point here:


I agree that giving trusted members more powers would be the right way to go. If you've been a member of the site for a long time, there's no reason the regular restrictions should apply to you. (To some extent) Obviously, the basic rules still apply; like no spamming or flaming, etc., but like what Sefro said, HTML code or skipping the video approval process and such would be cool perks that said members could take advantage of. If you upload videos often, or you made one for something special like a holiday then "bypassing security" would come in handy pretty often. I suppose there would be a Staff-only poll or something to vote to promote someone, and said user would have to meet certain requirements; Karma maybe, posts, join date, etc. Perhaps depending on their stats they would get certain powers and not other powers or whatever.

Vote: Thomas


In all seriousness, act more civilized, or at least act like you're trying to help the cause. Something I've been wondering for quite a while now is this: Why do you act so differently on the MC server? Every time I talk to you there, you're pretty chill and laid back. Then I come on here and it's like a freakin war. I don't understand.

So I have a job where I change oil in cars. I'm trusted by the management, etc. They trust I won't steal their profits when I handle money. But today, I woke up, and I thought "it's winter break and all, I'm not going to go to work today" so I simply didn't put on my coveralls and show up. So there's nobody to change the oil and business can not be done. But I should still be able to keep my job, right? I should still be paid for the hours I was not there.

Take that and apply it to the staff. Volunteer or not it's unacceptable.

That's what I'm naturally like. Plus, Livio bought me minecraft and I don't wanna stab him in the back or anything but I may have already.

But I'm gonna respond this way if the staff (not all of them) are gonna be so naive and misrep the OP. Sefro you need a new pair of glasses. The OP did say the active member to staff ratio is horrendous, but a stronger argument was that it's not working as a team and you completely failed to address that. If you want me to come clean about stuff then you should come clean that you don't want to lose your cushy position. You leave for a month unannounced. Harumbai leaves for nearly two months, apparently. No indication in advance. I sometimes skip my soccer games without letting my coach know it advance, too.

Also no worries about flashmarsh he's actually got the correct views here about you guys.

Thomas, I want you to clarify a few things. What exactly is "cozy" about the staff position? You don't actually get any benefits over ordinary members, just a whole lot of extra duties. And again, how does removing staff actually improve it? All you are doing is reducing the staff capabilities without doing anything to compensate for it?



The problem with this analogy is that the staff doesn't get paid. There is absolutely no cost related to keeping the staff on. The problem with adding new staff members is that there is the question if we can trust them. They get a lot of new powers that they can abuse. However, the current staff has shown that they can be trusted to use these powers responsibly. There is no risk and no cost related to keeping the current staff on.
If you can make an argument suggesting otherwise, please do, because right now all your argument basically boils down to "We need to remove the Staff because I want so."

I think that Thomas is going about this the wrong way but I do support his ideas. The fact that stunt pilot 2 was sitting waiting to be approved as a game since the summer while there are so many staff is absolutely ridiculous. Now, I'm not staff, and I don't know what a game has to go through to be approved, but it should not have had to sit there for months, when Yaya came on and approved it in two days.

Jorster: games are not videos. approving them takes time - playing them, examining their content etc. it's not an auto-approve-in-a-minute thing - if you submit BFME2 for example, how can I know if I should approve it or not?

It takes maybe 20 minutes to play a game.. And its not like we care about the quality that much with the number of games we have

well, let's see if this is true


the cause of inactivity is not the fact that it's not updated. it's that everybody here is busy. so, INVALID


- oh no, we have no hope of anything bad happening. INVALID
- that is because only one person is needed for most of the stuff. INVALID
- oh no, people want to be educated/have an income. INVALID
- what bias? i don't see it INVALID


Yaya, doing all the work? he added 2 or 3 things to featured content, and made 2 news posts for added games. he also accepted one game. SLIGHTLY VALID
so, being inactive is illegal? i've never heard of this. INVALID


but USF doesn't have rules. INVALID


I'm pretty sure punishing someone for breaking 3 or so rules is mature. INVALID
Bang_Jan does make topics to break the rules. just because they were made 5 years ago, doesn't mean they don't matter. INVALID

So, i have came to the conclusion that the first paragraph is INVALID