A New Era of ZHing in TW

[Spider]

It is my opinion that the quality of help that people receive from TWs Zone Helpers has degraded. I believe a change in attitude and in the way ZHs are taught to handle things has resulted in a decline in the service that they provide and I think it is time we changed the way we think about ZHing. There are a number of changes we should make.

1. Turf RoboHelp.

Since the creation of RoboHelp ZHs have simply become ‘Bot baby-sitters'. This results in various problems that must be addressed. ZHs have become lazy and unwilling to take a help call that can't simply be answered with a !tell statement from a bot. One ‘on it' point is just as good as another so why take the call that requires you actually explain something? This is why we have had such arguments in the past about the !tell host/nohost and whether or not they should claim those type of ?help calls with ‘on it'.

When people do get help from the bot it is far inferior to the help that they could (and should) receive from a ZH. Quite simply, one sentence from a bot doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to solving a real question from a newbie, the people that ZHs are supposed to serve. A bot cannot go over things step by step or clarify anything. I know from years of experience that more often than not the people with questions need clarification and a bot cannot give that.

RoboHelp is useless, however its database has an incredible wealth of knowledge... Unfortunately it is locked away in a bot and not available to the general public... Unless of course a person uses ?help.. But if we had a system that worked ?help would look up an entry from a database it would solicit an answer from a knowledgeable person. Before the bot is turfed someone should go over the entire database and put the data in categories on a webpage. Not every ZH knows everything, so it would be useful if the ZHs had a place to go and get the information. It should also be available to the general public, which means not putting it on the yahoogroup but instead to make one little html file on tw.org with the information. That would also eliminate the annoying screen where a staffer has to enter their password before they can view anything, and there would be no hunting for the file in the midst of all the folders in the yahoogroup.

2. Adopt official procedure for ZHs to follow when responding to ?help calls

I've said time and time again that RoboHelp is not the correct way to help newbies with their questions.. But what is? During my years of experience as a ZH I think I found the answer. To effectively answer a question the ZH must go to the arena of the person that asked the question. This is to ensure that the ZH gets any response from the person. If someone doesn't know how to change ships we can't guarantee they know how to message people in other arenas. I've had times when I've been helping someone where they reply to me in pub chat... a ZH must be in the same arena as the person asking the question. Messaging from another arena doesn't cut the mustard.

Going to the arena also gets the ZH focused on the person.. I know that if you just type out a quick answer when you're in the middle of an elim match the quality of the answer really suffers.

The ZH must also confirm that the person understands the answer they have received. A ZH must offer to clarify any questions the person may have. In addition to that, naturally, a ZH must be friendly and know the answer to the question. We have many staff so surely at least one would know the answer and all staff must help the others out. We also need to put the RoboHelp database on a webpage so ZHs and players both have easy access to any information they need.

So..
-Go to the persons arena
-Explain nicely
-Confirm they understand
*Must all be done One on One*

ZHing isn't supposed to be as easy as we have been trying to make it. It can be tempting for a ZH to try and answer as quickly as possible so they can get back to the game but that isn't good ZHing. It's also tempting to take a pile of calls at one time and just message people the answers (or !tells) from elim or where ever a ZH might be, but that doesn't help someone that truly doesn't understand something.

3: Test ZHs on a consistent basis.

An experienced staffer should logon to TW with a newbie-style nick name and ask questions from time to time with ?help and make sure the ZH follows to correct procedure and is helpful. If a ZH doesn't do it right then tell them how they can improve. It would be impossible to test every ZH, we might want to test joe but have bob take the call instead, but as long as we keep testing as many as we can we can create an atmosphere on mod chat where people know that there are people out there testing them so when they do something they ought to do it right.

4: Have one person tracking all complaints about ZHs

One person should track and personally reply to every complaint about ZHs. If we get one complaint about a ZH it could be bogus or the ZH might have had a bad day. If we get two, well, lightning doesn't usually strike the same place twice. One person needs to take all complaints and make contact with the complainer and the ZH every single time to get everyones story and make sure everyone feels justice has been done, the situation has been investigated, and the ZH learns something from it.

One person should take care of all complaints about ZHs and test and train every ZH. There aren't too many ZHs and if one smod told every single one that this is how we do things now I believe service would improve and ZHs would start earning the respect of TW players. If the ‘trainer' also tested them and took all complaints that person would get a good feeling on who is doing their job and who isn't very quickly and we would see a major improvement. My thoughts, thanks everyone!

***At very least, turn off RoboHelp!!***

[Kolar]

People don't know how to use ?help msg in pubs at least from what I have seen. It's for pretty simple things like "how do I cloak" or "how do I fire". The answers there getting are "Esc Q".

I think having ZHs closer to the public population would be a good ieda, but getting rid of robohelp I don't know since I've never been offered a staff position. Having people who really want to help TW and not just have the ZH tag or the power of other players I think is the key to making staff more respectable and more helpful. I think some ZHs might need to think to themselves am I really helping tw or just taking up a space for another person who would do better.

[Troll King]

While I try to answer peoples' questions as much as I can, I often find myself pressing f1 and checking before answering. Of course, they could have done that themselves too, but telling them such tends not to garner a positive reaction.

The one thing I find people need help with often, and is not readily found in the help text (you have to press f1 THREE TIMES! OMG!!!!!) is how to use team chat. I remember that it was one of the first things I learned when I started playing, but these days I find people doing this less and less. Go into any pub arena at random and you will surely find someone asking people to attach with pub chat. They've been playing long enough to know that terrs are attachable but still haven't gotten used to team chat. I think learning how to "speak yellow" will help those who need help because people tend to be more helpful to those on their team while being rather more abusive to those on pub chat.

As for the issues Spider brought up, I've always believed that the concept of a ZH was counter-productive. You have a job to be done, so you give it to people who's primary goal is to stop having to do that job. A more dedicated system would be a good idea.

[za gophar]

which is why i never cared to be staff

[Spider]

RoboHelp is terrible, but you have to be on staff (or asking a question) to realize how much of a problem it is. We have gotten to the point now where we have RoboHelp commands so we can just make RoboHelp say 'yes' or 'no'... So now we have people asking questions and getting ONE WORD answers. For example if someone asks "Were the scores reset" they get either "Yes" or "No". What kind of BS is that? Back in the day when ZHing was done correctly they would get an answer like "No, they are reset every second wednesday"

I firmly believe that RoboHelp is both not nessecary and it is not better, in any circumstance, than a good knowledgable ZH.

Troll King, I would like to know what you would do instead of having ZHs... Have the mods answer questions or just not answer questions at all?

[Cig Smoke]

Spidy i agree somethings on Robohelp are bad, but some are also good when ppl ask "what is X" and the bot automaticaly answers him with probably a better answer then some <ZH>'s can give...but as for ME myself since becoming <ZH> i dont even know any !tell commands off the top of my head really and never use it...i also usualy always go to the same arena as them (unless i know the person can pm me back)...so i must be a good <ZH> in ur book

[Mandagorian]

I can't remember the last time I asked a question using help and a person actually responded to me, <ZH>s shouldn't have the ability to use robohelp. It's a good idea, I mean a really good idea but <ZH>s should be learning how to deal with players because one day they will be dealing with players as moderators.

[Rudy]

?help Are ZHs supposed to help people? I was under the impression they are all just ERs on probation.

[Troll King]

Originally posted by RudyH
?help Are ZHs supposed to help people? I was under the impression they are all just ERs on probation.

That's what I meant, Spider. ZHs aren't in it to be zone helpers, they're in it to be ERs. If I remember correctly, you're probably one of the few I've seen who volunteered to "drop" a rank and go back to ZH. I have no problem with ZHs if their role is to answer help calls. I do have a problem when they have other motives that cause them to forget that.

[Dim]

I often go aliased on names like: SUPERDUPERWARBIRD*2383

and ask newbie questions, I've done this a few times I think I recived one !tell (I made sure RoboHelp couldn't guess what I was talking about) but the rest of the answers were fine and were PMed, Leaf was the best :P

[Tigerex]

I agree with Spider, i have plenty to say about getting rid of Robohelp and organising the whole <ZH> system slightly differently. I also disagree with the way in which <ER>'s are trained to learn how to host the events they want to learn and not taught one event from each category of gameplay (there are only 8). Afterall TW is popular because of the variety and there is nothing in place to pick out those people who hosted 30 prodems in a month like there used to.

The unfortunate thing is that all suggestions seem to fall on deaf ears when i suggest them to upper staff as will this. Which is another problem which should be dealt with.

[REDLIGHTS]

hey

Well i hate to use robo help it sucks he doesnt even talk back to me when i start a conversation with him how rude is that.
lol anyway i wont use robo help and the next ER to help me with a !tell can go jump i dont use tells and i refuse to if i know the answer to a help call i will help that person myself the best way i can if i dont know the answer i will ask a staffer who does but i would rather they dont reply with use !tell.

So yea spider is right as per usual i totally agree with you on this one buddy.

Peace -Red

[Demonic]

Robohelp does a good job for what it is, would be nice to see zh's checking on some of the calls to make sure the people got the answer they wanted rather then just assuming that they have. Bots can be very effective, if used correctly, if not we might as well just chuck them. As for what tig said about ER's, all events are damn bot hosted now, who needs em guarenteed if you sit there and watch the events that are hosted, you will see lots of prodem/hunt/enigma/zombies etc etc all where the bot does 80-90% of the work so host can be lazy, rarely will you see events that dont really use bots much, these have become the extinct events because you actually have to work to host them.

[Dim]

Originally posted by DemonicTW
Robohelp does a good job for what it is, would be nice to see zh's checking on some of the calls to make sure the people got the answer they wanted rather then just assuming that they have. Bots can be very effective, if used correctly, if not we might as well just chuck them. As for what tig said about ER's, all events are damn bot hosted now, who needs em guarenteed if you sit there and watch the events that are hosted, you will see lots of prodem/hunt/enigma/zombies etc etc all where the bot does 80-90% of the work so host can be lazy, rarely will you see events that dont really use bots much, these have become the extinct events because you actually have to work to host them.

I am not a big fan of using bots to do prodem, I occasionyl host prodem (if thats what you call it, more like BotOperating) if I don't have time to host a proper event, and people are bored.

I find hosting COMPLETELY manual loadsa fun. But Bots do make life easier. Especially RoboHelp, but people are getting lazier and lazier like Demonic said not to check up on people, to see if they recieved a satisfactory response. If they don't they can use !summon but even then a tired ZH will just !tell them again.

To be honest this is a matetr for the SMods and shouldn't be discussed here, although it is nice to see what people thnk of the system, because it is in place to help you.

[Tigerex]

Yeah Demonic hosted Matrix today which was nice because its a manual event which a hell of a lot of people came to play because it is so rarely hosted. Thats what we need. I mean so what that Demonic Screwed it up royally, at least she tried and we need more <ER>'s willing to jump ship and see if they will sink or swim!