Do Not Pm Staff

[Corey]

I'm going to inform my staff members to start handing out infractions for PMing them. It states very clearly in the forum rules to not PM staff members.

It even says in my signature DO NOT PM ME unless I ask you to.

PMing me and apologizing for doing it is not acceptable. I WILL NOT HELP YOU if you PM me and I did not ask you to. Getting 50 PMs makes it very difficult to give help to the people that I did ask to PM. I do not like wasting my time sorting through all the BS PMs from you guys.

We have a forum, use it, AND USE THE DAMN SEARCH FEATURE.

Actually, I'm so sick of people not reading and wasting the time of the staff that I will be temp banning everyone who breaks ANY forum rule. If you guys can't take 2 seconds to read or use the search feature you honestly don't deserve to be helped.

This is going into affect IMMEDIATELY.

 

[Swiblet]

Rawr =0 You tell em.

~~Ben

 

[marox]

Totally agree with you!

 

[VMKFriends]

Wow! Laying down the law. Nice, Corey. I personally read the rules. I forgot ads after I upgraded my IPB (that WILL NOT happen again). 4 Day Suspensions are kind of hard when you just make a site and many users join. I IMed one and she thought she was suspended. That would be my fault though, I'm getting free hosting I should follow the rules.

 

[Flashgear]

lol, someone seems rather edgey corey

 

[Chris73]

Yea well you guys don't receive 300 useless pm's a day about questions that are answered in the forums.

 

[VMKFriends]

Yet, I would think if this has started to be an issue, you might think about Support Staff? It is just a suggestion, because you know staff are here to make sure this hosting runs as it should BUT members are here to join and almost every member will have at least one question to ask and many will not know where to go. Be thankful they actually send it to someone who can ANSWER It. Maybe you are not willing to, but at least they know to do that. Many are unfamiliar with the search button, as many are not computer savvy. Savvy?

-VMKFriends

 

[MrTerror]

Meh, you should have a special group that answer mass questions or something.

 

[Tideas]

Corey, I wanna talk to a staff with regards to the developmental package, but would rather do it through pm or something, instead of just posting a thread.

Any idea?

 

[Frazzilla]

OMG. I'm sorry, 4 days ago, you asked me to PM you? WDF?

 

[Corey]

You can PM staff IF they ask you to. I'm talking about the 100 PMs I was getting per day of random stuff, not even all asking for help. I donate my FREE time to x10, that means it's very limited. I don't want to waste that limited time reading through BS PMs about nothing instead of helping people who follow the rules and deserve the help.

-Corey

 

[Frazzilla]

I sent the PM twice because you hadn't replied?

 

[prime_spirit]

3 PMs means you're out...:bash:
One of the commandments is To Be Patient, IIRC, but I'm as new as you in here so don't take it from me.

 

[VMKFriends]

You can PM staff IF they ask you to. I'm talking about the 100 PMs I was getting per day of random stuff, not even all asking for help. I donate my FREE time to x10, that means it's very limited. I don't want to waste that limited time reading through BS PMs about nothing instead of helping people who follow the rules and deserve the help.

-Corey

Well, like I said before, if that is your problem then why not make a staff group titled "Support Staff" who are there to answer your questions via PM and read through forums answering all the questions we have? Many people may feel that posting a question they think is silly, but they don't know the answer to, might get everyone to look at them like a fool - so they may want it confidential just between them and staff.

 

[Livewire]

Well, like I said before, if that is your problem then why not make a staff group titled "Support Staff" who are there to answer your questions via PM and read through forums answering all the questions we have? Many people may feel that posting a question they think is silly, but they don't know the answer to, might get everyone to look at them like a fool - so they may want it confidential just between them and staff.

Support Staff = members of x10hosting.

No really - the idea is you POST the question so when it gets answered, it's available to be searched. The theory there is you don't answer "how do I replace the default index" or "how do I upgrade my php version" 1000 times - you answer it once, then users search and find that topic, as well as the answer.

Not quite working because of how damn many users simply don't search, but if even half of the users DO search, then you're answering the question 500 times instead of 1000 - still better than answering by PM.


The other thing is the staff DO browse the forum and answer the questions they can. The main problem I see with using PM's to ask questions is this: its not public. Using PM means you're asking ONE person, and if they don't know the answer, you don't get helped. Posting in a public forum means you're asking every member of the forum, and should just one know the answer and post it, you get helped.

I guess in that sense everyone on x10 is a Support Staff member, but I still think the whole idea to a forum is you get help from anyone who knows the answer, not just the guys and gals with the pink, red, green, or bold usernames (account managers, admins, senior staff, or super mods in case you're wondering the colors).


Oh, and did I mention the staff aren't being paid? I say we keep the workload down for them so x10 can stay running - can I get an Amen on this?



Edit: Also forgot, making some staff members who answer by pm and browse the forums could make the problem worse - new users could mistake the non-support staff for Support Staff and send them PM's.

It's easier to just say "Don't PM staff unless explicitly asked to BY staff," than it is to say "Don't PM staff unless they're support staff." New users also wouldn't realize that Support Staff would likely have their names in a different color like the account managers, admins, sales, senior staff, and super mods

 

[QuwenQ]

Corey said that he got 100/useless PMs a day.
Now then, assuming he has 4 hours a day to devote to x10, purely on support and that it takes 5 minutes to read and respond to each PM, then it will take him:
48 minutes to read/respond to PMs each day.
336 Minutes every week,
1440 minutes a month (that's a day.),
17280 minutes every year, or 12 days every year.

 

[jensen]

Corey needs a secretary to filter all his PMs. Searching is getting harder because some people just post without searching. So we have to go through junk to get to the answer.

I must say that the account panel is very helpful, where we get all the most important news. When even one clicks on new post, it's all about unsuspension and unsuspension. Used to love clicking on new posts because there was so much going on. Now it's just unsuspensions and stuff you can get from the FAQ.

You don't have to be a staff to be helpful like LiveWire said. Just asnwer if you know the answer or direct the person to the correct thread or stikie. If you then want to apply for staff positions, then the admins could just do a search to check your track record of helpful posts.

I have not used the PM more than twice in two years. That only to respond to staff questions. So people don't abuse the PM. Else it may be removed? Maybe.

 

[DefecTalisman]

Just a query, when I mark a post as spam witht the nifty little red cross. What happens to that from there ? Is it a bother or is it the right thing to do?

Also a idea, maybe a bot that could answer silly usless questions. Have a notice in the forum to ask the bot first please !
Edit:

Corey, I wanna talk to a staff with regards to the developmental package, but would rather do it through pm or something, instead of just posting a thread.

Any idea?

Try posting in the Upgrades/Downgrades forum. There are rules and just like any rules if broken things dont run right. Go on break the rules in your coding and the same affect occurs, broken code.

 

[Livewire]

Just a query, when I mark a post as spam witht the nifty little red cross. What happens to that from there ? Is it a bother or is it the right thing to do?

Not positive on how X10 does it, however other forums I used to mod on as well as one I won't name here due to questionable content (torrents) did it in one of two ways:

1) Email. These were the crap forums that never changed defaults; a report sent an email to every mod/admin on the forums. Obviously these didn't last long - those forums tended to recruit all their friends as mods, so it was sending out 20-30 emails per report. Not healthy.

2) Subforum. This is probably the best option available; rather than sending an email, there are modifications available for most (if not all) forum softwares that change it from sending an email to posting a topic in a forum only mods and admins can see. This is the best one because once a report is taken care of, it gets erased.

The GOOD modifications recognize reports for the same post/topic and dump them all into one topic, so you don't need to erase 20 reports once you take care of it.


I'd bet X10 does it the Subforum way. Theres just enough mods/admins that email could be bad on resources (the mail queue in particular), but on the other hand x10 doesn't seem to have as many posts requiring reports.

Still betting Subforum. Keeps stuff organized, plus you can clear it out every month with a few mouse clicks, so if it got filled with a bunch of duplicate reports, they'd just get cleared every month



In any case, it's ALWAYS the right thing to do if a post violates the rules. Short of the mod/admin happening to be browsing and seeing the topic/post that way, the reports are the fastest way to bring something like spam to the attention of those who can fix it.

Obviously don't do it for things like "I don't like soandso" or "soandso smells," but for legit problems like spam or abuse (read: direct insults/flaming) it's probably the best way



Edit: Quick note, SMF might not require a modification to do the subforum method; I seem to recall there being an option somewhere in the administrative configuration to post reports in a subforum. Might even be the default option. Erased my forum last week, so I can't login and check or I'd give you a more precise answer

 

[eagleeyed]

When I was an account manager for x10 they did do it the email way, I have not heard of that sub-forum method but it seems incredibly efficent.