Does any work actually ever get done here?

I do think it is a good feature. Perhaps make it so normal users can also use it as well, but not tag admins/mods. I think it would be a nice addition.

I had not intended to use it in that function, I was using it mainly in the place of quotes. I will refrain from doing so in the future.

No. Reasons:
- There is no way to "exclude" ppl from being tagged.
- There is no reason why normal users would really need such.
- As the tagged person gets the posted message by the Admin/Mod per email, we do not want them to be able to look "legit" with some message on their email with whatever content.

hence it will never happen.

It's a handy feature, but really addresses an issue that this forum does not face often.

Feel free to do it, you don't have the 'privileges' to activate the BB code that tags us, I just had thought you were actually trying to tag us. But I understood your intent, and feel free to continue it.

Either way the use of the @ function isn't especially important right now. We have sort of digressed from the discussion at hand.

That happened a long time ago :3. Anyways why isn't there a thread or area for suggestions it would be quite useful rather than completely hijacking this thread. And also to do with various points made earlier about making CAs help out with reports, why not just ask for them to volunteer, give some training in handling reports and then set aside a few dozen reports a week for the CAs to sort through? Wouldn't this solve some of the backlog (i.e allow the SR mods chance to handle any new reports and getting rid of some of the backlog that is still pending) and also it would mean that there are more people who know how to handle reports, are clearly willing to handle reports and this would help with the fact that there seems to be a lack of people who are deemed capable of handling the roles of an SR mod.

To get back on topic.
Actions speak louder than words. I would like to see an official statement from the admins telling the community what they are going to do about it and the timeframe it's going to happen in. If this doesn't happen then this entire discussion was pointless. The current situation is quite dire and should be addressed, otherwise your being arrogant and foolish.

So, here are my thoughts and suggestions on this little issue. This is coming from someone with some administrative, military, and ~other~ experience. I am used to horrible backbreaking bureaucracy and have seen the worst of it in real life.

Understandably, the issue here is that the key to being a steamrep admin is very narrow. The requirements are strict, for good reason, and the requirements for being a mod are almost based on working job hours for no pay. This is demoralizing for those in it, and impossible to break into for those out of it. Even those who may have the most time to invest into doing reports (teenagers, ie, 16-18, and NEETs) would hardly want to consider it a 'job', and wouldn't want it. The only people who do apply would be people horribly under qualified because they're the ones who can't hold a steady job or school and spend all their time on TF2 or the internet (sorry if this offends anyone, wait actually I don't give a s✿✿✿). I would prefer someone with a job and less time for an administrative position over someone without one with more time. It shows a semblance of responsibility and cause to action and initiative AND makes them more trustworthy as a result.

Thus, those with the qualifications don't have the time to invest- and those without do. It's a simple issue and normally I would say keep a small and focused admin base as I'm a firm believer in small government. But when bureaucracy issues like this it becomes important, if not mandatory, to start expanding the admin base. Yes, Steamrep admins, this means your oh so powerful and influential positions in the community may be challenged as higher numbers of you make the title less important. The question they then need to ask themselves is:

disclaimer: jabs imminent

is it okay to open the amount of admins and take out a few of the restrictions to make business run more smoothly, or should we keep our influential status and still be backed up? are we willing to let people in who won't work as much, but have enough of them to outweigh the issue?

There is also the wonderful effect of newly promoted officers- they work harder simply for that fact. They want to prove themselves, and they want to help their community that just gave them status and power, so they work harder. Corruption and apathy only sets in later. There are plenty of motivated members of Steamrep who would do well as admins and, with less work on everyone's shoulders, everyone will be more motivated to work effectively. Instead of 2500 reports to do, there's only 200. That's a huge difference and it sounds like a more tacklable obstacle.

So a simple solution would be to, just throwing numbers out here, appoint fifteen more admins. Do not worry about the amount they can work, only their trustworthiness, work in the community, and experience in knowing and identifying scams. Community admins are a good choice, but I've seen a lot of insistence in here on FORCING them to do this, or delegating responsibility to the associates to force their admins to do it. This is bad. It will just end up with unmotivated, lazy admins who probably don't give a s✿✿✿. They are dedicated to their community, not steamrep, and while the head admin may be dedicated to Steamrep, that doesn't matter to the delegates.

Doing some simple math, 15 admins doing 10 reports a day each on average (at max) will get all 5000 reports done in a little over a month. That's not bad. You can always add more admins to lessen the amount per, or make the policy to tag stricter (causing more easy rejections).

The current admins can work on reports that come in daily rather than old ones to try and stem the tide, or appoint others to do this.

That's my take on the situation on what should be done, more admins is what is really needed here. There is also the potential of 'wipe all and start off at a clean slate' but that might cause too much anger at the community itself and compromise the integrity of the system.

If you have any suggestions or questions, ask away.

I don't think it is up to you to dictate that this conversation was pointless, nor do I believe you are in a position to demand an "official statement". Your demand seems quite arrogant and foolish, this thread has obviously been kept open to hear discussion and ideas, I don't believe that makes the SR staff either of those two things. I really suggest that you work on how you word things. No one wants to listen to a chest beater and his bombastic rhetoric.

You don't have to wipe all, just move it to another section(archive section or something) and ask the reporters to repost with as much proof as possible.
Any scammer that has multiple reports against them could be looked at first.

How do you even propose to begin cutting down the current backlog without bringing in outside help? You do not have the staff capabilities to do it. Without a somewhat radical change in SteamRep's structure, this database is only going to go in one direction. Do you not realize you're actually hurting the people you claim to exist to help? By staying this course, you are doing the exact opposite of what SR was originally intended to do.

How do you rectify this divergence from your original purpose with yourself? At what point is restructuring going to be an option? I do not mean to sound offensive, I have the upmost respect for what you guys do. But as an ambassador for the site you just called people trying to make suggestions "morons", instead of actually countering the argument. Is this truly the approach you think is best?

YATO was addressing one particular suggestion, the idea that we'd give all the reports out to community admins and force them.

We are discussing changes and ways to improve, however, at the same time we also have to factor in that many of the volunteers are busy with rl, work and commitments, myself included, and that if we take time out to 'change' something major and work on SR, then we're going to get even more complaints and insults about not doing reports.

It's not a simple change of gears here, it requires discussion and planning.

Why do people keep Mis-quoting me and twisting my words. I said I would like to see, and neither did I dictate a conversation I expressed my opinion. I said it would be arrogant and foolish not to act on this. Your not listening to a chest beater either if you've got a few people saying to you in this discussion that you must do something. Why do you constantly defend steam rep? if you have people saying there's a problem there is a problem simple as.

I quoted you directly. And how your posts are interpreted are how they are judged.

I literally have no idea what this means.

Examples of me encouraging discussion instead of locking the thread/defending SR:

That's from the first few pages of this thread. If you look through my posts, you'll find more, in fact there's an entire thread I wrote about how SR could do better.

Is this like saying "everything on the Internet is true"? I'm not saying there's not a problem, but I don't think someone saying there is a problem immediately creates one.

Sorry, if my responses seem inflamed, I like the idea site a lot and think that it is very helpful to the community, however needs to function correctly.

How on earth is that analogy appropriate. I'm saying give the people whom you place enough trust in to be associated with SR, more power in dealing with reports. This absurd secrecy and ambiguity seems more suspect all the time. We're talking about a community. In my opinion SteamRep shouldn't even be it's own independent community. It's already in no small way inter-dependent on it's associated communities. It should be more akin to the UN of steam trading, where all the pertinent communities have a voice and hand in. If made transparent enough change and work could happen rapidly. If you're so afraid of scammers "knowing" what's going on I think you're afraid of a boogeyman that doesn't exist.

[sarcasm]Because the UN is a model for streamlined action. [/sarcasm]

As far as your post went, YATO actually said the things you just countered with.

Just to explain:

• Greatly expand SCA. -- These are trusted Associated Community admins who do reports/have the power to tag with their own community's tags.
• Making more SR tools available to regular community admins. -- Was brought up.
• Adding more SR staff. -- Was Brought up
• SR leadership delegate out more to SR staff. -- Was brought up.
• Allow SR mods to do more in terms of processing appeals/reports. -- Was brought up and directly addresses "I'm saying give the people whom you place enough trust in to be associated with SR, more power in dealing with reports."
• Streamline the submissions of reports and appeals. -- Was brought up.

Please read your posts before posting them. Read them out loud if you have to.

You didn't quote me directly, you interpreted what i said. And also there obviously is a problem and needs for improvement because you think there should be.