Staff karma system

Hey everyone 

(tldr at the bottom)

I was wasting my life on the forums a bit and i noticed this thread. (note: i dont support what they say there, its just what got me thinking on the topic of report handling)

It got me thinking that perhaps we would need a staff karma system. Sometimes we can get responses that seem insufficient or not reassuring enough (i once reported that i thought one of my API keys had been compromised somehow and the answer was not reassuring at all and only faintly related, i worried for days after despite the answer), or reponses that make our days a bit better, from people who are really nice and polite and obviously care. 

I thought an anonymous karma system (assigning a number id to each employee for impartiality and real karma that cant be made up, or even no ids that players can see, all contained in the system) where we can upvote/downvote karma. This would help (i hope) make torn more friendly to players, especially new ones who are still learning the ropes. Also, perhaps reports that have been given a bad rating can be reviewed by someone with higher karma to see if they agree or feel it requires rewriting or more explanation.

Just to be clear, i think staff are doing a great job, but since some of them are working with the actual players, maybe a system to make sure that reports are handled in the best way possible (especially since most players report wanting to help the game be a better place, its only fair to repay them in kind). 

Thanks :)

EDIT: Some of you have mentioned problems you see with this system, ill write here the explanations in different posts down below.

As for it being easily abusable, if i report idk someone hacked into my account and my report answer looks like this:
"Think of a better password." Was this helpful? Yes/No

(Not a real example just an exageratedly bad response-this never happened that i know of)

Im definitely not gonna be less worried after that answer, and if the name of staff doesnt show, how could someone manipulate their karma? Only way i can think of is people tracking staff movementes and online times and deducing 1. whos handling reports 2. when each person handles them, all to then submit a bunch of fake reports from 2-3 accounts and downvoting every one- just for a small chance something happens, which would even then be 0 because of filtering. 

These people would then be blocked from staff karma system, meaning the chance of it being manipulated being basically null and anyone who tries would get banned from the system (and then theres motive- i doubt there are many people who hate a specific report handling staff member).

Last time i asked staff about something related to rules directly, it took them several days to answer. for an example like the one above that would mean several days of worrying over my account security, which could be so easily prevented if we made a karma system to make sure that responses are always up to standard.

And again, for any staff to be affected by negative karma they would need a lot of justified downvotes from lots of legit users and lots of different times, which im sure u would agree is reason for bad karma.

TL;DR: Anonymous staff system that cant be abused if its made properly and will ensure that responses are up to standards (on both reassuring the player and solving the problem), as well as rewarding staff who deserve it

I mentioned it in the other thread but I do think that this is a great idea and a much better alternative to the professional training I proposed in that thread.

At the very least, it can show upper management if there are issues with particular mods or staff and encourage them to improve the system all together.

Not to mention the natural benefit coming from giving the players a little bit of power means that in the presence of perceived power, people tend to behave better.

um bump? am i supposed to bump these things?

Those people that give good responses on one day, may give replies that arent reassuring or faintly related on others. Staff are real people that have real people problems and emotions. Personally, I think most of them have an incredible amount of patience to deal with all the criticism and whining from this community. 

I dont think this karma system is necessary or would even give a accurate representation of certain events. If someone reports a player they suspect as a multi, and that person sees the suspected multi not get fedded, then that will be an automatic down vote, regardless of the quality of investigation, or the professionalism the staffer portrayed when interacting with the person that made the report. 

It wouldnt be long before certain groups organized and started to file fake reports just to downvote staff they don't like. 

That’s why it would be anon

and we could make it so that they need to provide a valid reason

run some cheap slm analysing reasons and make it dismiss any that aren’t substantial enough or just plain lies

Like if I downvote and say they didn’t bother to check the issue or they were rude or smth and the ai says I’m full of shit it dismisses the downvote, if I do idk 3 of those I’m not allowed to up/down vote and there’s a 1 week cooldown regardless of what number I’m on

First of all, obligatory "stop letting new players post to Suggestions"

But more to the point, it should come as no surprise at this point that I'm going to have to agree once again with JackKelly on this. There is simply no need. We have a pretty fantastic staff on Torn in my experience (Amph, you're still a staff member in my heart), and they're held to a pretty f**king high standard by bogie. If a response you got on a report or when talking to a staff member was a concern, and I mean truly a concern, not a "vague and unhelpful" response, you should put in a self report including the report ID where the response occurred or a timestamp when the message was sent and let bogie handle it. I specify that it should truly be concerning because "unhelpful" is pretty easily fixed. Just talk to one of the staff members directly. Ask for more information, let them know what happened. We don't need a Reddit karma system that can and will oh so easily be abused to high hell.

There are just better solutions that are already available to you. Give staff some credit. They've got a lot to do and I cannot stress this enough, they are volunteering their free time to help you.

i think the whole point of having a report system in a business where the game is the product is that customer service should do just that, serve the customer

if someone reports something and they dont get a helpful response over something that obviously worries them, because they wouldnt have reported if not, whats even the point of reporting?

and yes the staff are human, so they can have good and bad days, but this is also their job

im not trying to say that staff dont do their job or they do it wrong, i actually think torn has a great staff and most of the time they do their thing really well, i just want to make sure that they keep doing that.

if you think this system wouldnt be necessary because all the staff would get upvotes, why not let it happen? theres nothing wrong with the community praising staff

as for it being easily abusable, i daresay you havent read the rest of my posts in this thread. if i report idk someone hacked into my account and my report answer looks like this:
"Think of a better password." Was this helpful? Yes/No

(Not a real example just an exageratedly bad response)

im definitely not gonna be less worried after that, and if the name doesnt show, how could someone manipulate that? only way i can think of is people tracking staff movementes and online times and deducing 1. whos handling reports 2. when each person handles them, all to then submit a bunch of fake reports from 2-3 accounts and downvoting every one- just for a small chance something happens, which would even then be 0 because of filtering. these people would then be blocked from staff karma system, meaning the chance of it being manipulated being basically null and anyone who tries banned from the system

last time i asked staff about something related to rules directly, it took them several days to answer. for an example like the one above that would mean several days of worrying over my account security, which could be so easily prevented if we made a karma system to make sure that responses are always up to standard

and again, for any staff to be affected by negative karma they would need a lot of justified downvotes from lots of legit users and lots of different times, which im sure u would agree is reason for it

We don’t need this.

I agree with pdk, You should update your first post with some of the clarifications 

See, thats the thing, this isn't their job. This is something they do in their spare time, for free, to help out the game. I see no need for a way to critique people that are performing a task for free. Honestly, I wouldnt even expect them to be as nice as they generally are. 

Your example is a prime reason for this not to be implemented. You're implying you would give this person a negative mark, for what? For not helping you quick enough? Maybe that person didn't know the answer to your question, but instead of just ignoring you or instead of risking giving our the wrong information, they reached out to others until they found someone that did know the answer. This could've taken several days depending on how long it took people to respond to them. Maybe that didn't happen, but you don't know. We never know what goes on behind the scenes. So of what value would a karma system be, when the people that control it have little to know information of what is really going on? All they would have to vote about is their satisfaction of the outcome. 

in the past if a staff member didn't know something I was asking they would clarify they were reaching out and it would be a day or so till they got back with me, so encouraging staff to communicate that doesn't sound horrible.

Shoutout Jynnx btw W staff member

Yeah that makes sense, and that was the experience I've had with them too. In fact, thinking about it, the situation pdk mentions seems odd all the way around. If he got zero response whatsoever for several days, then why didn't he contact a different staff member?. Any time I had a question, I just messaged one that was online. 

Im curious what method was used to contact as well. Mail, chat message, forum post, etc.I feel like we arent being told the full story. 

i asked julie first if a script idea i had would be allowed. she told me to contact IceBlueFire for questions about that. i mailed them and it took them a couple days to respond.Load image

im not accusing them of anything, idk if they missed my message, was doing smth else, theres infinte reasons for them to take a bit and im not blaming them. im just saying that if we report smth its for a report answer, if we have to go asking staff we could just do that in the first place.

its a prime reason for it to not be implemented? so if my account gets hacked fck me ig thats ur opinion? if i volunteer to handle reports rn and answer every single one with "f**k u idgaf" its perfectly fine? just bc theyre volunteers doesnt mean they dont have to do it right, no one asked me to play this game and im not a bitch to everyone i meet.

even if they are volunteers they still need to handle the reports right or let someone else do it. if theyre not sure how to handle it, they can ask someone else to do it or to help them.

and ur constantly ignoring the positive karma. i doubt there would be many downvotes going around except when they are actually necesary, and theres no problem with rewarding staff for doing their job right is there?

Great idea. Staff should be evaluated by users.

#ChangeTORN

Let us clarify this point.  Karen has issues with accepting no for an answer even when given it by dozens of individuals.   

So, to the OP, what suggestion do you have for these individuals who continue to only support themselves.  What prevents them from just going back to the General Forums to again try and rally the masses?

Yet another reason I can't support this concept.  

This individual plays victim, then claims they like it, then practices it, then complains again.

How does the system prevent him from, again, running to the forums to create drama (which he has not hidden) if he, again, does not like the response?

I encourage you, the OP, to keep looking for ways to improve TORN with less focus on how "victims" can abuse said tool.

Devs looking at this feature like... "Am I a joke to you??"

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