The growing concern with the future of the site; the absence of the Site Dev and overall inactivity of Admins/Moderators.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

37 minutes ago, mikey boi said:

a price mod

Report mod, before that a Community Mod, if i am correct.

  

37 minutes ago, mikey boi said:

Actual moderation?

Ive been warned a couple of times by Zeus here on the forums, so yeah. Moderation is here, communication? No.

[Mindacos]

1 hour ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

Thats the beautie about bp.tf that its Staff should never take for granted; the love for the site, which results in voluntary work. Ofc Price Mods themselves etc. all do voluntary work essentially, they get paid so little, however as you said, yet again, perfectly

We need to, in a group effort, really encourage new suggesters, Veteran Price Suggesters, Devs that are well-known in the community (manic :3) to contribute. We need to be more careful at how we welcome new suggesters, we need to make them really feel welcome, but that requires time and time is not what the current staff/the punch of retired Veteran Price Suggesters have, hence why new blood is so important. We need to give incentive for the retired Veterans who do have time, but just don't find suggesting worth it anymore or don't find its current rewarding fun and fresh. And if possible, we need to encourage eligible Veterans to become Price Moderators, however it be done (obviously here, people like Scourge are very much eligible, but him being on the front lines and KILLING the suggesting game is also extremely important for the site, he is of a lot more use keeping a lot more hats updated, than if he were a Mod). We need Price Moderators to stop discouraging Veteran Price Suggesters by continuously pointing out and not giving a break to some mistake(s) theive made in the past. We keep the site alive by voluntarily suggesting, we need more recognition (yes, there was a discussion about this some time ago, where Mods pointed out that they, too, don't get recognition they rather deserve from the community, but thats why the bond between a Price Mod and a Price Suggester is so important; we need to support each other, we need to give eachother the recognition we deserve, if noone else does. We all make mistakes, but we must aknowledge them and not give shit to people for them long after they were made (im guilty here too tho *coughfoamyandburninglilbiteycoughcough*). Now, i have a very good example for this... Im personally very broud of what ive achieved in the Suggesting community. Im top 10 in the contributors list, ive won a pricing event and gotten a mods choice prize in another. Ive participated in all pricing events ever hosted and been an official designated suggester all events but 1, where i was unofficial, the designated suggester switched. Ive been called the Team Captain multiple times in pricing events by fellow Price Mods. All dat shizz. And then what i get in return is, well... Stuff like this:

 

Context is me obviously disagreeing with a Mod and them not opening their mind at all, no matter what i said, which resulted to this screenshot. This particular mod's uncooperative and bigheaded behaviour discouraged me into becoming a colleague with someone this douchey. Do not forget however, that i still respect him for the work he has done for the site. Anyway, what i do known is that im not comfortable with trying out Price Moderator, cause i feel like the pressure of making a mistake so early into being a Mod will be very high. Definitely a very good job, Erik and Shuffle, in that regard. But even if i was eligible for a position as a Price Moderator, i still enjoy the fact that i can suggest way more and wanna remain suggesting even tho i don't do that much these days; ive just grown very lazy. Hopefully that laziness goes away, afterall aren't lazy suggestions better than being too lazy to make suggestions at all?
 

I felt that I needed to reply to this since it involved me directly. When I talk in either discord or price suggestions(moreso the former) with experienced suggestors like you I tend to try and joke to get a laugh or two out of people or to try and liven up the mood a little bit. But I admit that I went too far with this, and my intention wasn't meant to be hostile towards you, and I suppose anyone else for that matter. I'm sorry for what I said there. Even though sometimes it looks like I take people's work for granted, that's definitely not the case. Backpack.tf wouldn't be where it is right now if it wasn't for user-made contributions, and you've made a good bulk of those yourself.
I'm sorry for any distress that I may have caused you by saying that. Keep up the good work in your suggestions buddy!

[HarryG]

18 minutes ago, Mindacos said:

I felt that I needed to reply to this since it involved me directly. When I talk in either discord or price suggestions(moreso the former) with experienced suggestors like you I tend to try and joke to get a laugh or two out of people or to try and liven up the mood a little bit. But I admit that I went too far with this, and my intention wasn't meant to be hostile towards you, and I suppose anyone else for that matter. I'm sorry for what I said there. Even though sometimes it looks like I take people's work for granted, that's definitely not the case. Backpack.tf wouldn't be where it is right now if it wasn't for user-made contributions, and you've made a good bulk of those yourself.
I'm sorry for any distress that I may have caused you by saying that. Keep up the good work in your suggestions buddy!

The problem is the clique atmosphere that exists here is reinforced by this kind of misunderstanding; unless you’re part of the small clique the staff team has created for itself you have no idea what that means and the willingness of people to want to help and contribute disappears. I also feel like this is kind of a throwaway response to bury the more pressing issues raised by crimson, j, mikey, and myself  

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

39 minutes ago, Mindacos said:

I felt that I needed to reply to this since it involved me directly. When I talk in either discord or price suggestions(moreso the former) with experienced suggestors like you I tend to try and joke to get a laugh or two out of people or to try and liven up the mood a little bit. But I admit that I went too far with this, and my intention wasn't meant to be hostile towards you, and I suppose anyone else for that matter. I'm sorry for what I said there. Even though sometimes it looks like I take people's work for granted, that's definitely not the case. Backpack.tf wouldn't be where it is right now if it wasn't for user-made contributions, and you've made a good bulk of those yourself.
I'm sorry for any distress that I may have caused you by saying that. Keep up the good work in your suggestions buddy!

I highly appreciate this for sure.

 

39 minutes ago, Mindacos said:

Even though sometimes it looks like I take people's work for granted

In all honesty, ive discredited Mods before. @Foamy the Fearsome During the extremely controversial drop to 300 keys of the Burning Lil Bitey suggestion and a few other Mods for closing my suggestions too soon after commenting additional proof for a resuggest, when i just did not have time to do so earlier, just like Mods don't have time to look at suggestions 24/7. And like i said

16 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

There is also the issue of when you resuggest something, per a Price Moderators comment and there is literally nothing left to wait on and the suggestion is still not accepted and left open for days on end. Its very ironic, cause when i don't resuggest something within a few days, its a huge issue for mods and they give your suggestion away to someone else.

 

But it all comes down to understanding. We all make mistakes and we have to be open-minded to each others points, aswell as more open-minded for change. We can't stay in this comfort zone of picking the easiest possible way to deal with a controversial suggestion, be it what i spoke of in my "Everlasting confusion of determining a quicksell" forum post or whatever. Price Moderators and overall staff need to stop giving the impression (in this case, is it then? is it just impression?) to people that between themselves, they are more likely to agree, than disagree.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

56 minutes ago, Payback said:

and got nothing for it besides some badge on my profile

+ some stars in front of your name, altho very satisfying stars, just not enough. And well, you do also get 1 classifieds listing per 5 suggestions accepted, but like... Cmon XD

 

56 minutes ago, Payback said:

Wonder why there’s been one new price mod in the last two years?

Isn't it 2? Erik and Shuffle?

[Woifi The Viking]

7 hours ago, Xergoyf said:

Now is a perfect time to look for new staff. Summer is here, and many people no longer have school consuming their time. Unfortunately I was unable to find an internship this summer due to COVID-19, but that gives me a ton of free time this summer that I can put to helping Backpack.tf in whatever way is needed. Need me to help brainstorm and theorycraft site changes before implementing them? Done. Need me to help with price suggestions? I'm down to apply for price moderator.  Need help on the dev side? I have experience with back-end development and databases if the site is willing to let me help. You don't have to pay me anything.

 

I am certainly not alone in my desire to help maintain the site, however I feel even requests to help fall on deaf ears. As Crimson stated, change is needed, and there is no better time to start than now.

 

- Xerg

We (admins) are always looking for new moderators. It's true we are not having an up- and running ad campaign that says "Apply now" and we probably should communicate that we are actively looking for new fit members of the moderation team a bit more.

So yes, we would welcome if people applied to help us out in this situation! Spots in the Price Mod/Report Mod/Community Mod team are open and ready to be taken.

 

 

49 minutes ago, Payback said:

Meanwhile stuff like this 

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5e421aed0f572134793dffe3

I have asked to be reverted four times now because it is literally the most obvious tradeback in the world and no one seems to care enough to click the button. 

We actually discussed this and decided that it's not the regular tradeback but was bought back. Keep in a mind a couple months were also in between the two trades. Is it a borderline case? Absolutely! I don't blame anyone for disagreeing with it either and it could have gone either direction but just so you know that this wasn't ignored. But yeah it seems that this was (once again) poor communication from our part, apologies for that. 

[A Delicious Cashew]

16 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

As a side note, what exactly is going on with the Price Moderators? Life? School? Work? Have mostly all of them grown up and have yet to officially retire and move on and they just tag along atm? Is there then a serious lack of younger Price Mods, who can dedicate more time into suggestions? Why are mostly all of the Price Mods so in-active and the backlog so huge? Offline's spam aside, the days where we rarely saw a suggestion up for over a month and a maximum of a month are long gone. Now the norm is open for 1 month and the maximum is a whopping 3 months! The same time a hats price, by the rules, literally goes out of date. There is also the issue of when you resuggest something, per a Price Moderators comment and there is literally nothing left to wait on and the suggestion is still not accepted and left open for days on end. Its very ironic, cause when i don't resuggest something within a few days, its a huge issue for mods and they give your suggestion away to someone else. Its quite crazy, really, and very concerning, yet again. More and more you see Veteran suggesters disappear, retire (and we can't really expect a change for suggesting to be more rewarding, if everything is kinda just... on hold) and since there is such a lack of Price Moderator activity, the newbies rarely get the concrete help of a Price Mod to get them into suggesting. That help is mostly given out by other suggesters and some just go completely the wrong way about it and scare the newbies away. Without newbies growing into Veteran suggesters, there can not be new potential Price Moderators, who are a bit younger, hence have a lot more time on their hands to deal with suggestions.

Regarding this, I think for most mods it is a combination of the above. There's a few mods who are college students who recently were finishing up their exams/school year. Others have jobs and possibly life stuff that keeps them busy. I personally had a few weeks off in May in which time I handled more unusual suggestions than I'd done in quite a while, but now I won't have anywhere near that amount of free time anytime soon. But I think in general, it is true many have grown up and don't have as much free time as they did when they were hired. Instead, we dedicate whatever little free time and energy we have towards the site. Sometimes that isn't much and that's why you'll see suggestions build up and then eventually see a lot get handled over a weekend or few day period.

 

If you see a suggestion that was resuggested per a price mod comment and hasn't been accepted, feel free to ask them on discord. It's likely they haven't seen it, although it is possible the suggestion is being left up for more information. Either way, it doesn't hurt to ask about it when you see one of those.

 

But of course, it was never meant to be a static set of price mods for years at a time - some people move on and dedicate their time to other causes while others discover their passion for helping the community. As Woifi said, we're always looking for new moderators, so anyone that is interested should apply!

 

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

17 minutes ago, Woifi The Viking said:

So yes, we would welcome if people applied to help us out in this situation! Spots in the Price Mod/Report Mod/Community Mod team are open and ready to be taken.

 

14 minutes ago, A Delicious Cashew said:

But of course, it was never meant to be a static set of price mods for years at a time - some people move on and dedicate their time to other causes while others discover their passion for helping the community. We're always looking for new moderators, so anyone that is interested should apply

Well, this is where my

3 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

We need to, in a group effort, really encourage new suggesters, Veteran Price Suggesters, Devs that are well-known in the community (manic :3) to contribute. We need to be more careful at how we welcome new suggesters, we need to make them really feel welcome, but that requires time and time is not what the current staff/the punch of retired Veteran Price Suggesters have, hence why new blood is so important. We need to give incentive for the retired Veterans who do have time, but just don't find suggesting worth it anymore or don't find its current rewarding fun and fresh. And if possible, we need to encourage eligible Veterans to become Price Moderators, however it be done (obviously here, people like Scourge are very much eligible, but him being on the front lines and KILLING the suggesting game is also extremely important for the site, he is of a lot more use keeping a lot more hats updated, than if he were a Mod).

 

3 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

To continue; We need to seriously, in a group effort (community ambassadors, moderators and admins) notify the site Owners (pretty sure without their cooperation, hiring a Dev or making changes so that more voluntary code work could be done, is not possible), that there seriously IS need for a new Dev.

came from.

 

New staff members are very obviously welcomed, but in this case that fact alone isn't quite enough, we need to welcome new suggesters and potential staff members in open arms; a warm welcome. Before hoping for anyone to apply, we need to fix some fundamental issues; the ones brought up above and possibly even more.

[HarryG]

14 minutes ago, Woifi The Viking said:

We (admins) are always looking for new moderators. It's true we are not having an up- and running ad campaign that says "Apply now" and we probably should communicate that we are actively looking for new fit members of the moderation team a bit more.

So yes, we would welcome if people applied to help us out in this situation! Spots in the Price Mod/Report Mod/Community Mod team are open and ready to be taken.

 

 

We actually discussed this and decided that it's not the regular tradeback but was bought back. Keep in a mind a couple months were also in between the two trades. Is it a borderline case? Absolutely! I don't blame anyone for disagreeing with it either and it could have gone either direction but just so you know that this wasn't ignored. But yeah it seems that this was (once again) poor communication from our part, apologies for that. 

Out of paybacks entire post you choose this one low hanging fruit to respond to? It seems obvious to me that the staff are just picking the easy answers to respond to and purposely missing the overall point of the thread. I’d love to see the more pressing points addressed but it seems clear the staff just want to sweep this under the rug whilst giving the impression they addressed community concerns.

 

 

but I don’t fuel the site with suggestions, so nothing I say will he responded to at all while accomplished suggesters j58 and crimson are given responses that don’t even scratch the surface of what they are conveying with their criticisms 

[Slam]

11 minutes ago, Woifi The Viking said:

we probably should communicate that we are actively looking for new fit members of the moderation team a bit more.

 

8 minutes ago, A Delicious Cashew said:

As Woifi said, we're always looking for new moderators, so anyone that is interested should apply!

 

I'd still love to be a community moderator with specific focus for the forums and the website itself in order to help out, this is where I spend 95% of my time within this community and the area of the community I feel has the least staff involvement and communication. Even if I had a couple of slip-ups in the Discord server in the past, both of which I apologize again for, I still feel that I'm capable of doing a good job.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

9 minutes ago, A Delicious Cashew said:

If you see a suggestion that was resuggested per a price mod comment and hasn't been accepted, feel free to ask them on discord. It's likely they haven't seen it, although it is possible the suggestion is being left up for more information. Either way, it doesn't hurt to ask about it when you see one of those.

Sure thing! You made clarification here and gave me a range to resuggest off of: https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5ee641854b359a079b36bc5e

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

7 minutes ago, HarryG said:

the staff are just picking the easy answers to respond to

Or perhaps the harder answers will take a bit more time, right? @Teeny Tiny Cat @Mindacos @Woifi The Viking @A Delicious Cashew Riiiight?

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

What would you like me to answer that I have not? I can have a go at any specific questions you have.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

3 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

What would you like me to answer that I have not? I can have a go at any specific questions you have.

 

Well... This entire thing is prolly the closest to an TDLR of the biggest action needed to be taken so far:

 

Quote

 

31 minutes ago, Woifi The Viking said:

So yes, we would welcome if people applied to help us out in this situation! Spots in the Price Mod/Report Mod/Community Mod team are open and ready to be taken.

 

28 minutes ago, A Delicious Cashew said:

But of course, it was never meant to be a static set of price mods for years at a time - some people move on and dedicate their time to other causes while others discover their passion for helping the community. We're always looking for new moderators, so anyone that is interested should apply

Well, this is where my

3 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

We need to, in a group effort, really encourage new suggesters, Veteran Price Suggesters, Devs that are well-known in the community (manic :3) to contribute. We need to be more careful at how we welcome new suggesters, we need to make them really feel welcome, but that requires time and time is not what the current staff/the punch of retired Veteran Price Suggesters have, hence why new blood is so important. We need to give incentive for the retired Veterans who do have time, but just don't find suggesting worth it anymore or don't find its current rewarding fun and fresh. And if possible, we need to encourage eligible Veterans to become Price Moderators, however it be done (obviously here, people like Scourge are very much eligible, but him being on the front lines and KILLING the suggesting game is also extremely important for the site, he is of a lot more use keeping a lot more hats updated, than if he were a Mod).

 

3 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

To continue; We need to seriously, in a group effort (community ambassadors, moderators and admins) notify the site Owners (pretty sure without their cooperation, hiring a Dev or making changes so that more voluntary code work could be done, is not possible), that there seriously IS need for a new Dev.

came from.

 

New staff members are very obviously welcomed, but in this case that fact alone isn't quite enough, we need to welcome new suggesters and potential staff members in open arms; a warm welcome. Before hoping for anyone to apply, we need to fix some fundamental issues; the ones brought up above and possibly even more.

 

 

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

I agree with you. What is your question?

[HarryG]

1 minute ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

I agree with you. What is your question?

For starters entirety of my posts and paybacks post (the real part not the suggestion thing). Everything else that wasn’t addressed in xergoyf crimson and Mikey’s posts would also be great. I think that’s what people mean when they say respond to the stuff that wasn’t responded to unless you want me to type out my entire posts again for the staff to reread and respond to. I don’t understand, is the problem that it’s not phrased as a question? I think a lot of people didn’t so much have questions as they wanted concerns addressed or at least acknowledged

[Woifi The Viking]

 

12 minutes ago, mikey boi said:

I'd still love to be a community moderator with specific focus for the forums and the website itself in order to help out, this is where I spend 95% of my time within this community and the area of the community I feel has the least staff involvement and communication. Even if I had a couple of slip-ups in the Discord server in the past, both of which I apologize again for, I still feel that I'm capable of doing a good job.

Discord is where 95% of community interaction happens which is why our focus is so hard on that. Current community mods should probably take a look at the forums more often although forum reports are handled just fine, and if you see something that is out of place, please make a report. So a community mod for forum + site only seems not ideal is what I'm getting at.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

I'm not really sure what you want me to respond with to multiple very long posts. If you have specific questions, I am happy to answer them.

[HarryG]

3 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

I'm not really sure what you want me to respond with to multiple very long posts. If you have specific questions, I am happy to answer them.

So In a thread about poor staff communication, your response is that the posts are too long? I don’t think I could have even summed up the post for you better than that, honestly. 

 

But ill try anyways:

 

1. What are you doing about staff inactivity re. Changes in staff

 

2. What are you doing about rudeness of staff towards new members/veteran contributors/anyone?

 

3. What are your thoughts about the fact that I said it seems like the staff are sweeping the legitimate concerns under the rug here and your reply was literally that it was too long so you didn’t read them? 

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

5 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

I agree with you. What is your question?

Oh, well technically you just answered my question then. Now i have no more questions left, now i propose some more discussion about what can be done to bring life to these brought up matters, especially the ones of equal agreement.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

Just now, HarryG said:

So In a thread about poor staff communication, your response is that the posts are too long? I don’t think I could have even summed up the post for you better than that, honestly. 

 

People respond to long posts like that when they wish to post their thoughts or debate or debunk them. I think you all have a lot of valid criticism and I don't really have anything in particular to add to it right now. Not quite sure what you're after here. Again, if you have a specific question, feel free to ask.

[HarryG]

2 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

 

People respond to long posts like that when they wish to post their thoughts or debate or debunk them. I think you all have a lot of valid criticism and I don't really have anything in particular to add to it right now. Not quite sure what you're after here. Again, if you have a specific question, feel free to ask.

What I’m after is a real response. Why are you still an admin if you don’t care to post your thoughts or debate or debunk anything out of the mounds of valid criticism that have been added? Your attitude seems to convey that you just don’t care about the site right now. Maybe it’s time for you to step down? 

 

And i posted three questions, if you’re really going to answer the questions maybe you should do so

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

5 minutes ago, Woifi The Viking said:

Discord is where 95% of community interaction happens which is why our focus is so hard on that

Well the point is that the Discord is where a large % of community interaction is idle chat. Forums is more for reporting important matters, as i spoke of here too:

17 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

Now, i understand that while the Dev is not at all active on the bp.tf Discord (atm? lets hope? idk been a mild year or so), atleast the Admins and Moderators are. However with the big plus of preservation and compactness of bringing awereness to an issue here on Forums in mind, you'd think there to be more Moderator (using this word here to group all site staff together as all of them do moderate the site afterall in their own respectable ways) activity here too, but well... There isn't.

 

7 minutes ago, Woifi The Viking said:

although forum reports are handled just fine

Yes, that is true. But what is not handled fine is communication, the very post were on right now is the reason my others posts finally got looked at. Another fitting snippet:

1 hour ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

Ive been warned a couple of times by Zeus here on the forums, so yeah. Moderation is here, communication? No.

 

[Slam]

Just now, Woifi The Viking said:

Discord is where 95% of community interaction happens which is why our focus is so hard on that. Current community mods should probably take a look at the forums more often although forum reports are handled just fine, and if you see something that is out of place, please make a report. So a community mod for forum + site only seems not ideal is what I'm getting at.

 

I can and want to provide service to the Discord as well, I'm not saying I don't want to do that at all, what I'm saying is that I would want to help bridge the gap that a lot of users here clearly feel exists between the staff and the community within the forums by trying to actively communicate with users of the forums. I do not know how the staff-only channels operate or what they discuss, but I feel as though that there has to be at least some kind of staff response to the huge amount of threads within this forum asking for staff attention or responses that ultimately go unanswered for long periods of time. Just simply posting a non-meme/stupid suggestion thread to a staff channel and having the staff team read it, quickly give their thoughts, and decide upon an answer or response would be better than the silence so many users get. I understand that there's only one site dev, and that they're very busy and often times can't even be reached, but that doesn't mean that the staff team can't at least give their own thoughts and opinions into a single concise post that can serve as an indication that "your suggestions and ideas matter and we actively discuss them."

[Zeckatz]

It really hurts when you're working on suggestions on a daily basis and make a mistake and get yelled/laughed at by mods, hell some people even made a meme for it.
I agree, none-unusuals are easy to make but they do help don't they? if they didn't, why can people make suggestions for none-unusuals?
Most people start making price suggestions by suggesting none-unusuals. If people laugh at them like this, they wouldn't wanna spend their valuable time making none-unusual price suggestions which they will gain nothing from.....
They wouldn't wanna learn making unusual price suggestions.
And there are people who list their items at backpack.tf price, i don't think none-unusual prices are worthless.