TW looking to hire Java coders to staff positions

[Kolar]

Such a conclusion is completely illogical; here is a refutation: I find it rewarding.

The players in this zone make all staff and bot contributions unrewarding, some can find it pleasing to do. I find it somewhat enjoyable when people aren't Spaming me saying I fucked something up but I feel I owe something to the zone and staffers, but not the people.

There's not a terrible lot of recognition for coders to begin with. Those who work behind the scenes, for example Sika (who no longer can be hired because of ridiculous cheating accusations that hold little ground in reality) are essentially ignored. TWDev coding is also for the most part ignored. Without recognition, what is left of the worth of coding for TW is the fervor of a good hack, and seeing work in action. Outside coders certainly aren't able to use their work. The point of all this being that staff coders are able to feel more reward for their work, which I can attest to from being on both sides of that fence.

There's two things your trying to solve here:

1. You feel there are not enough coders to take over higher jobs in the zone when people like you, lnx and even DoCk> decide to call it quits or just go more afk then normal.

2. You want more recognition for coders by placing them onto lower TW Staff so they'll do more work.


Yes some people will decide to end their time on TW and even Staff but having them replaced by lower staff coders would not happen in my opinion because the time needed to get to that level in staff with a quota and with the extra work involved for coding would burn them out before they could even be around for consideration. Also the way promotions are handed out would also make these players focus on their quotas and chat presence then actually doing coding work.

More reconition is needed but I think I've already proven being on lower staff does not give people any, in the short term maybe but it only lasts a week or two. Another way to involve these people in staff is needed, like adding them to staff chat, give them ZH or ER bot powers and build it up from there. I hope you, Mantra and PL will sort that out.

Access and trust are much more easily acquired through staff, in my experience. If you wish to insinuate I am a fool for believing that, I would in turn ask you to keep your opinions to yourself.

I only meant it was foolish to belive we could get more coders to take over the zone by making them lower staff. There's two ideas you have here, if you want to get more coders on staff so they'll do more work that's fine by me, just make sure you can balance it out with other staffers if they start to drop their quotas.

[Rab]

- Polite and courteous to other players and staff

o..

[RoDNeY]

y not just have pl go into pub as a terr first to kill him his 500'th time gets staff

[chi-town]

I could ask my brother...

He is a good coder and he knows the game and bla bla bla whatever qan want them to have...

Should I do this?

[Anduril.]

Looooooooooooool nooooooooooo !!
TW is gonna create even more bots ?!
The Army of Bots goes on huh ! Rofl ........
A bot to kick you when you're afk.
A bot to answer your ?help calls.
A bot to ban you when you do 3 ?help/?cheater calls a bit too fast.
A bot to detect Haxxxx0rz.
Three bots to steal your banners.
A bot to ... ionno ... too many of them.

Than people from other Zones wonder why TrenchWars is so populated .. well ... 60% of the population are bots !
Quit making bots ! Staff gets useless like this ! Why do we have <ZH>'s when we have a bot to answer on the Q's ?
Why we have <ER>'s when we have bots which host stuff ?
Why we have <mod>'s when we have a bot to disconnect us or to ban us ?

Chill out with ur JAVA stuff and use your heart and ur dedication for TW instead of ur nerd programming languages.

And Kolar .. you wrote a novel ?

[Kuukunen]

Three bots to steal your banners.

four

Chill out with ur JAVA stuff and use your heart and ur dedication for TW instead of ur nerd programming languages.

Agreed, Java sucks. Port everything to C++.

[Zerzera]

I have absolute no idea what ZH has to do with contributing as a coder. That's like hiring a manager for your company, but make him attend cleaning duties at night too.
You sound like a bunch of bureacrats, you can only innovate if it stays within the current borders, so nothing gets changed.
I don't see why these botcoders should have anything to do with the staff part of the zone. Can't be bitched to set this up properly, but then expect other people to dedicate alot of time. Isn't this the reason why you and rodge retired from staff at some point?

[Kolar]

rodge was axed. Im on my Psp. Cant talk much

[D1st0rt]

I will say this much. Coders are usually smart and/or sane people. I'd think a sane person wouldn't take a low position like a <ZH> in addition to having to write bots and stuff.

Most will not have enough time on the side of their lives to write successful code and run around answering ?help calls. In my personal opinion, this arrangement will either scare away or burn out most of the decent people that could fill the positions.

I know I've said many times that I wouldn't even consider taking a staff position of <ER> or <ZH>, and even if by some strange feat I was offered something higher I might not take it.

I realize that this doesn't apply to some people coughikritcough, but I think it does for many.

[script]

Quit making bots ! Staff gets useless like this ! Why do we have <ZH>'s when we have a bot to answer on the Q's ?
Why we have <ER>'s when we have bots which host stuff ?
Why we have <mod>'s when we have a bot to disconnect us or to ban us ?

And why do we have mathematicians when we have calculators? Staff is not useless now, and creating a more stable bot core will not make any human less valuable to the game. The worst it could do is make staff's job easier.

Chill out with ur JAVA stuff and use your heart and ur dedication for TW instead of ur nerd programming languages.

This coming from a mapmaker, I am offended at best. Yes, bots can get a little out of hand at times, but they have become an integral part of Trench Wars. Nonetheless, every bot coder in SubSpace truly appreciates your ingratitude. Believe it or not, the glamorous career of bot coding also requires "heart and dedication."

[Zerzera]

rodge was axed. Im on my Psp. Cant talk much

Yeah, "You can't quit, you are fired".

The reason is because I feel TW is being run badly, due to lack of participation and communication by the upper staff.
This is not ment to start a discussion, but to inform you to please not contact me anymore about TW issues.

source
That didn't sound like being axed. You should be less of a lapdog.

[Anduril.]

rodge was axed. Im on my Psp. Cant talk much

Kolar not writing a novel for once !! Marvelous !!

[qan]

The most heady opposition to this sort of idea seems to spawn from the observation that coders occupying both a staff position and a coding position will become burned out.

However, dual roles are not unusual in TW. For example, we have TWDOps who do enormous amounts of work (far more than would be required of these coders, for example). On top of all this, they are also expected to maintain their cheater call quotas.

Essentially there are two kinds of staff on TW: those that do just the standard duties, and those that accept the standard duties and also contribute in additional ways. In some cases, the secondary duties become so significant that the requirements for the standard staff duties are reduced. If this occurred with one or all of these new hires, we can make arrangements. For example, PL did this for me when I was an ER. It's not uncommon, or written in stone.

The reason that I say they need to perform all typical staff duties above is because at the moment this is a requirement for staff. There is no such thing as coding staff on TW. You're staff or you're not. And if you're not staff, you're not tied in to the loop of what needs to get done, nor are you trusted much. This is why I've got to chuckle when you say, Kolar, that you think it's foolish to believe we could get more coders to take over the zone by making them lower staff. It's far from foolish -- in fact it is the SOLE way in which they can, given our current organization. However, this does not preclude that we can't change the organization.

If we were able to hire coders outside of the standard duties, with their own requirements for staying "active," perhaps we would have better luck. I'm not going to lie in saying that part of my ulterior motive in introducing this kind of hiring practice is to draw attention to the fact that coders may be overworked in this respect. But at the same time, many people enjoy being a ZH, ER, and Mod, as I did, regardless of other obligations. So in response to ya, dis, I don't believe I'm sane by your qualifications, nor are any of the applicants. But coders are often willing to take the short end of a stick in order to get an opportunity.

Bottom line, just shoving them off as "non-staff," if you have a strong understanding of how TWStaff as an organization works, or perhaps more appropriately, does not altogether fluidly work, is a terrible solution. If we can hire them on as staff but in a different way, sure, all the better. But I'm taking the material I have at current to work with and doing the best I can with it. We can sort the rest out later.

[Kolar]

Yeah, "You can't quit, you are fired".

source
That didn't sound like being axed. You should be less of a lapdog.

For doing what he did, if Rodge didn't leave then he would have been axed. I see it as he was removed from staff for abusing, even if he formally gave up his position and really I don't think DoCk> and LNX were going to trust him again even with Mod or Bot powers. There are far worse things to do with the level of access he had but it's still abuse of the SYSOP password.

Edit: I still like and respect Rodge, he was trying to help the zone with what he was doing which is kinda ironic but he ignored DoCk> once already on this and shouldn't have had/used the sysop password, no matter how he got it.

Kolar not writing a novel for once !! Marvelous !!

I'll write as much as i need to convey my opinion and ideas here Anduril.. The PSP keyboard used on the Wipeout Pure browser hack is the one used for text input, kinda like on a cell phone. All of that took me 5 minutes to type out.

...

Thank you for admitting that it is not the best solution here, for either of the problems you wish to solve Qan. Throwing them into the lower staff pool and hoping they stick around long enough to take over I think is a little bit off, I don't see it working out well. I have no problem with them being part of staff if they're helpful but a better solution is needed, IE changing the way we get coders on staff without them effecting our population or quility. I don't like the "sorting it out later" mind set though, maybe you should try brain storming a better solution before rushing into this. You could start with a TWPS thread...

[qan]

Thank you for admitting that it is not the best solution here, for either of the problems you wish to solve Qan. Throwing them into the lower staff pool and hoping they stick around long enough to take over I think is a little bit off, I don't see it working out well. I have no problem with them being part of staff if they're helpful but a better solution is needed, IE changing the way we get coders on staff without them effecting our population or quility. I don't like the "sorting it out later" mind set though, maybe you should try brain storming a better solution before rushing into this. You could start with a TWPS thread...

I certainly hadn't claimed or intended that it was the best solution. To be honest it feels like you're pandering to me here, and that doesn't make me feel very good.

I hardly think that coders are going to affect the quality of staffing on TW. If they do, I'd only imagine they'd raise it for the better. Often they are intelligent, resourceful and knowledgeable individuals, though some are slightly bitter, haha. But such is often the natural leaning of a person who rejects many parts of society, and coders nearly always do.

I've had many ideas regarding this issue since I joined as a 'staff coder,' and only recently have I had enough sway to do much about them. Personally I enjoyed both coding and serving as a member of staff. To be perfectly clear: this isn't the end of this idea, has never been intended that way.

From a couple quick conversations we had before I posted this, Kolar, and now this most recent post, I'm still willing to bet you're questioning whether these people will be good enough members of staff. I guess all that I can say in return is that I question whether people who are hired just based on a couple of recommendations, often without much or any interview process, will live up to a standard of high quality. I don't think that adding on "proficient coder" to the list of qualifications in this instance will put us any worse off!