Sorry to be negative, but...

[Canen Darkflight]

(with the fear of incurring moderative wrath, I post this)...Well, I can't help but notice that the judging times have gone way, way up.

It's not like me to complain about such things, in all honesty. Usually I would get on with it and just let things happen as and when they do. But what's annoyed me to some extent is that some of the moderators moan that they have no time to judge a thread because of offline issues ect, yet seem to spend a lot of time making new threads in the Flying Stone Tavern, or whatever.

I have a Citadel thread going back three weeks now that, as far as i'm aware, hasn't even begun being judged (and I quote "I imagine this will be scored sometime by Sunday." This was three weeks ago.) Another thread of mine only ten posts long is waiting judgement, and I can't continue the story until this is judged as the spoil I requested is part of the plot (ok, maybe in hindsight I should have thought that one through, but still...)

IF the judges are really so busy, Althanas should get more staff on the books. I don't mean to tar y'all with the same brush, but please, can we get our acts together and either get more staff to cope with the demands or simply sort it out?

I am a patient guy most of the time but three weeks for a Citadel thread is silly. At this rate it will take years for me to get anywhere.

[Wraith]

Well, and I know I'm going to cause a ruckus, but the reason your Citadel battle is taking so long isn't because of "judging times" going way up. It's because Santh took it, out of order, and has yet to do it or even update the information on it.

Now, if Santhalas gets angry about this, well, that's too bad. He dropped the ball big and he needs to make amends to you. Now.

Of your other quest, I'm not sure. We do have a bit of a backlog, yes, but not so much that it should take forever to complete.

I'd like to apologize for any inconvenience on behalf of the moderator staff; but remember Santh's not a moderator.

[Canen Darkflight]

Thanks Wraith, that's answered that then. Skie and Avery has taken the other one, i'm sure it'll get done soon.

I understand Althanas is a busy place, don't get me wrong. Just wanted to make my point known.

[Amaril Torrun]

Everyone gets one of those threads that takes a while to get judged at one point in their Althanas "career". We're all people after all. Like my citadel battle that was finished near the middle of June, which I've kind of given up on even though I know the reason behind the lag.

[Canen Darkflight]

Like I said, I can understand it. Althanas is a massive site with many people submitting things for judging, and most of the time they cope well, it's just the odd occasion when something gets missed as Wraith says.

[Elijah_Morendale]

It could also be that the mods have real-life problems they have to contend to...

[Canen Darkflight]

I knew that someone would mention this. Now, I am human, and i've had offline problems as well. So...

So, re-allocate the thread to someone else, or get more staff, would be the effective solution to that, surely? Or perhaps stop posting in the FST and perhaps spend a little more time on the commitments that they have undertaken for their members? Or else resign if those commitments cannot be met?

In general, if a member of staff does not or cannot meet the commitments they have taken on, perhaps they should be replaced with those that can for a site this large, and with this amount of submissions?

From the moderators point of view, as well, I'm not suggesting this is or should be the case, i'm speaking hypothetically of course, but I feel angry when I hear that moderators are having offline issues, and yet nothing is being done to help them by easing their burden either, which in turn has an effect on us all.

[Amaril Torrun]

I know for a fact that it is a real life situation that is affecting my wait. I'm patient though. I could wait for another two months if that's what it takes. I'm not going anywhere :p

EDIT: And they do trade threads from time to time, if they can't take on any more jobs.

Double EDIT: I think the mods. do a great job. Don't forget, this is a free site, and they are mods. because they want to help the site progress (and do it for free!).

[Canen Darkflight]

I am not doubting that, as I have said. I like Althanas, I like the staff, I like the majority of members, I just think that as with all things, there could be improvements to streamline judging. If a mod has an issue, help her/him out. If a mod is being lazy, sort them out, get them into gear. Remember, there are always people who would give a lot of their time to help out that are not staff when perhaps they should be.

[Wraith]

Real life situations are taken into account before someone takes a thread. Santhalas hasn't even given a "Oh, sorry, I meant three weeks." He has given no edit to his first statement and thus Falcon is completely in the right for this thread. If a moderator cannot finish something because of real life, that's fine. But even then, they should explain their actions and edit the note.

[Elijah_Morendale]

From what I understand, it takes an awful lot to be a judge 'round these parts. It's not as easy as saying, "Here's your mod badge, now go raise some peoples' EXP." You have to know what you're talking about (read just about any of the mods' quests, and you'll know what I mean. They're no slouches when it comes to writing), read quests multiple times to catch things you might not have the first time through, and then be able to critique the quest thoroughly and fairly, and give honest opinions on how the people who wrote the thread can improve and where they should go from there.

Remember, this is just my thought process, and I have no freakin' clue how judges are really picked. But I think I might be on to something.

Personally, I'm happy with the judges and the job they do as it is, and I'm patient when it comes time to get my stuff looked over. Like I said before, real life comes before Althanas, no exceptions.

As for handing off quests to other judges... Let's assume for a second that each judge takes on the same number of quests. One has problems in RL that they have to deal with, and hands off a good portion of their due judgings. The remaining judges then have to add those to their to-do lists, and you'll effectively be waiting longer, because you have less judges working on the same number of quests.

[Letho]

Here's the thing. Calling out to hire more people is the easiest thing, and one that I have heard so many times it's coming out of my ears by now. The truth is that competent judges, like money, don't grow on trees. If we want to uphold the quality of judgments, we can't go hiring just about anybody. And pretty much all that showed interest in joining the judging staff and that are deemed competent are already on the staff. If there is someone else who thinks he can do the job, don't hesitate to fill out an application form. We'll gladly take it into consideration.

The backlog is a bit large right now, yes. It's not catastrophic, though. I once waited for two months for a judgment, but just like in your case, Falcon, and in Amaril's case, it's not what usually happens. In these specific cases, the judges that claimed the threads failed, not the collective staff and not the system. But as Amaril said, keep in mind that mods and admins are volunteers. Now, I'm not saying that this means they are allowed be irresponsible, but some leeway must be allowed. People go to school, have jobs, deal with real life. They can't deal with writing and reading and evaluating 24/7.

In your specific case, Falcon, the judgment isn't really stopping you from continuing your story. The cases where judges don't approve the spoil are very, VERY scarce. You can continue with the story before the judgment and play it out as if you have the spoil already. Chances are that by the time you reach the half of your subsequent quest, the judgment will be in.

[Karuka]

All right, I see whining.

The back-end is busy, as people who are leaders in Althanas tend to have responsibilities IRL. We're also working on keeping Althanas up to speed. Like Letho said, we have a backlog.

Your Citadel fight...well, like Wraith said, Santh took it. Manda is generally pretty prompt.

And the active judging staff is working their asses off. The most help you could be now is to let them do their jobs and work on your other stuff without distracting their attention by whinings like this.

And please keep in mind -- most of us are players FIRST, mods SECOND. If we had to do all this junk and not play with our own characters, Althanas would become a chore instead of fun really fast. We just take on other stuff, too.

[Atzar]

Alright. Against my better judgment, I'm going to post here.

Let me tell you a little bit about what I do here, Canen.

I run the Althanaversary. Since it's already regarded as a complete failure, this is an utterly thankless task. As most of you know, it has been dropped twice, and I'm the only one that gave enough of a shit about it to pick it up again each time.

I'm helping Max Dirks run Gisela. My real work in this area won't start until my return from vacation, but given the complex nature of the tournament, that's not likely to be a very easy (or, might I add, rewarding) task.

I run Scara Brae. Most of what you see there was made either by myself or Osato, who was Scara Brae mod before me.

Karuka and I run the Dajas Pagoda. This includes making sure everything runs seamlessly, fixing it quickly when something does go wrong, keeping everything up to date and - oh - juggling two battles apiece that both have a pretty stiff activity requirement.

On top of that stuff, I've managed to judge several threads in recent weeks. Each one of these threads can - and usually does - take in excess of three to four hours.

Might I also mention that I'm in four threads of my own? Or are you going to suggest that I stop writing to better suit your needs?

I apologize if I come off as rude or angry in this post. But, in the face of all that I and the rest of the mods do (for free, too) for you guys, it kinda pisses me off when we get nothing but complaints and bitching in return. Shout out to Ataraxis for being the only member who is not currently a moderator who had the decency to thank me after I judged one of his threads.

[Canen Darkflight]

This is what pisses me off, you see. I make a point, which I am entitled to do as a contributor to this forum, and whichever way you cut it a long time one, which is what this little section is all about, and everybody assumes im just having a little bit of a dummy spit because one of my threads doesn't get judged within three minutes of me submitting it.

No.

I'm aware of the scale of activity on here, and how busy it can get. I used to co-run the Grander's Order, so I should know.

I'm aware that RL takes priority. You guys have no idea how much shit I take on at times in RL.

I'm aware that I, myself, probably couldn't do the job, and don't claim to be able to do so. I know I don't have enough time to do so, and the one time I did, I was turned down anyway.

What I think you should do, Karuka and Atzar, with all due respect, is go back and actually read what I have posted. I don't think the points I have put forward are all that unacceptable. If they are, then please call an administrator to comment.

The fruits of your hard work and the staff's hard work are pointless if the members cannot enjoy it for what it is supposed to be.

Wraith was kind enough to answer my question politely, with little fuss, and Letho came in and said what he needed to, hopefully clearing things up.

Generally, I like Althanas, I like the staff, I respect the work, I love the experience. I appreciate it ain't all flowers and rainbows, and I do have a lot of good to say about the mods. But please stop assuming that I am here to complain. If I didn't like this place or the staff, I would have fucked off a long time ago to Alleria or some utter pile of shit.

But what I don't like is this whole mentality whereby I post in the suggestion forum, ask a question, and have a bunch of staff come in, not read my posts and just bitch about me. I have always been a supporter of Althanas and im tired of being made out to be the bad guy!

[Ther]

Yeah, my apologies, Canen. Things came up and we're low on active staff at the moment, so there's no way to pick up spare threads that are taking awhile.

[AdventWings]

Well, as I said in the other thread, Speaking out: The Althanas Suggestion Thread, your proposals are already in use. The only reason why this hasn't helped that much is the general lack of man-power at the moment. Letho summed up the situation in his first paragraph. :)

EDIT: Ack! Santh, you had to ninj4 me when I wanted to look cool, aye? :p

Yeah, what he said.

[Canen Darkflight]

Thank you guys. Sorry about all this Santh, it got into a bit of a debate when it shouldn't have, but hopefully it's sorted now.

Like I said, I like Althanas, wouldn't trade it for anything else.

[Atzar]

What I think you should do, Canen, with all due respect, is go back and actually read what I have posted. Never did I say that you don't have a legitimate cause for complaint. But calling out the entire mod staff as you did in you first post irritates the shit out of me and, quite frankly, makes me wonder why I'm here.

And my post wasn't so much about the complaint as it is the lack of common courtesy. I don't know you, so you may be an exception, but as a general rule, members on this site treat judgments as something that is entitled to them. You'd be surprised how much a judge appreciates a two-sentence PM thanking them for taking the time to judge a thread.

It's fully within your rights to voice your complaint when things aren't taken care of as they are supposed to be. But it is fully within my rights to expect some sort of gratefulness for what I do.

[Ther]

Well, Wraith's hapless and ill-omened attempt at trolling and playing forum politics aside, there are some good points that have actually been made in this thread.

Letho is right - we've hired as many people as we can, we're always on the lookout for more staff, but we can't just willy-nilly add judges because good readers and writers aren't always available. We can train judges, but it takes a significant amount of time to do this (it takes me a semester to train Ivy League students to do this, for example), and there's few people qualified on staff who can in fact train.

[Canen Darkflight]

I take it Atzar ignored all my comments above.


Generally, I like Althanas, I like the staff, I respect the work, I love the experience. I appreciate it ain't all flowers and rainbows, and I do have a lot of good to say about the mods.

So, where is my lack of courtesy?

[AdventWings]

Whoa, guys. Chill.

I think the problem's been sorted out, so no need to blow this out of proportions. ^_^;

[Atzar]

I take it Canen ignored all my comments on the other page.


I don't know you, so you may be an exception, but as a general rule, members on this site treat judgments as something that is entitled to them.

First of all - I have a habit of not taking comments like that seriously. As far as I know, you could be saying that just to cover your ass and make yourself look better. It's easy to say things in retrospect when being called out for them - I'd know, I have a girlfriend. ;) But, for the sake of not arguing any further, I'll assume you're being honest.

But like I said, my words weren't necessarily at you. I want everybody to know how I've been feeling about Althanas lately. As a general rule, my role here is thankless.

[Ther]

We can't ignore the fact that Althanas has a disproportionate amount of staff on sabbatical/vacation/overload right now - looking at the judging staff alone, Atzar needs a vacation and is rightfully taking one, Moonlit is brand new and still getting acclimated, Elrundir and Storm appear to be winding down this go-around in their Althanas staff careers, Witchblade is on vacation, Sighter's dropped off the face of the planet (probably due to some work/volunteer issues, and he could probably use a vacation as well), and of the Admins who can judge, Serilliant is in the process of moving and I'm running AllRPG AND Althanas as well as working and teaching.

That pretty much leaves Letho and Manda.

[Bleater]

Maybe a bit off topic, but there's two things I saw in an earlier post that I wanted to personally touch on.


I run the Althanaversary. Since it's already regarded as a complete failure, this is an utterly thankless task. As most of you know, it has been dropped twice, and I'm the only one that gave enough of a shit about it to pick it up again each time.

I don't know how anyone could regard it as a failure. Any shortcomings have been on the part of the participants (I should know, I was guilty myself), and anyone who would call it a failure has obviously not been arsed to read some of the very good matches for the Conference Championships or the round before.


I'm helping Max Dirks run Gisela. My real work in this area won't start until my return from vacation, but given the complex nature of the tournament, that's not likely to be a very easy (or, might I add, rewarding) task.

I don't know what your idea of "rewarding" is, but if it's as you indicate- simply a matter of appreciation- well... I can only really speak for myself, but I have a feeling that among all the active participants, that we greatly appreciate the work that has gone into/will go into this by yourself and Max Dirks.

Okay, enough of that little sidebar. Back to the fight. :p

[Atzar]

Advent judges, and I believe Storm said something about returning to activity sometime in the near future.

Bleater, it's considered a failure on the grounds that it's been running for nearly eight months.

And thank you for the post.

[Karuka]

Advent's in the middle of midterms right now, though.

We're lucky that the Bazaar still runs (and MR is doing a wonderful job as a new Bazaar mod. :) )

[Ther]

I also think that people should take a step back here and look at both sides of the coin. Yes, we all would like to get our threads scored ASAP - that's human nature and I can understand that desire. But you also can't forget how much energy one must put into closely reading a text, especially creative work - there's a reason that many editors in publishing houses or fiction magazines, even those that deal with short stories, can take up to 3 to 4 months to comment.

[AdventWings]

Actually, my Midterms were done about two days ago.

Back to the normal hectic Mod life! :D

[Letho]

Here's a good news for all those who are getting impatient about the judgments. It has come to my attention that Shyam aka INDK aka a lot of other usernames has offered to join the staff on temporary basis and help us deal with the backlog. I added him to the staff, so the judging should run a little smoother now.

[Ther]

Another thing to think about is this - if you really feel like you can be a judge, and you feel you're qualified to read threads critically on Althanas, you can always go to Letho and make your case - if you really want to go the distance, you can even do your own scoring of a thread as an example. He's not going to treat anyone unfairly or shoot anyone down personally for caring about the site.

[Cyrus the virus]

I don't know how anyone could regard it as a failure. Any shortcomings have been on the part of the participants (I should know, I was guilty myself), and anyone who would call it a failure has obviously not been arsed to read some of the very good matches for the Conference Championships or the round before.

I have to say that it was a failure. Rather than try to scrounge up any kind of respectability it could have had, some of the staff were more focused on moving forward with Gisela, a decision that made me feel personally alienated and rather angry - it seems that we abandon things too often in order to try something new and shiny. I can't speak for anyone else who was in Althanaversary, but being given up on and seeing Gisela being worked on at the same time was very, very frustrating.

As for judgings, well, co-running the Grander's Order is nothing like it. Santhalas will say judgings should take 15 minutes to do, but I know I never wrote one in such a span of time.

It's also thankless. Completely, and totally thankless. For every 1 PM you'll get saying "hey, thanks for judging my thread", you'll find 5 cases of someone bitching about their judging in an OOC thread or IM conversation somewhere. Mods get nothing but frustration for their hours of time spent reading something they might not even enjoy. Thankless and frustrating, done for no reason but to benefit others. Judges are fucking saints.

Now I leave to go to class.

EDIT: I see now that I'm in the finals of Althanaversary. Is this even a 'canon' tournament anymore? My apologies if I seem too frustrated, but can you blame me? I make it to the finals of a tournament and it happens to be one that's stuffed away.

I bitched about this once more, and for it to happen again upsets me. No offense, Dirksie.

[Ther]

Well, the reason I say it should take "15 minutes or so" is because there have been studies done in composition theory that show the average writer will respond only to 2-4 points made per story/essay/assignment. That's really a bigger restriction in my eyes than time, ultimately.

[Wraith]

Well, Wraith's hapless and ill-omened attempt at trolling and playing forum politics aside, there are some good points that have actually been made in this thread. No, that wasn't trolling. It'd be trolling if I hadn't posted in the moderator forum mentioning this very thread two days ago.

This is me calling out a mistake you have made because it already was drawn into attention.

If I ever drop the ball by not judging a thread on time, I hope someone will do this very same thing to me. PMs are a good first warning, but three weeks is too much of a wait.



We can't ignore the fact that Althanas has a disproportionate amount of staff on sabbatical/vacation/overload right now - looking at the judging staff alone, Atzar needs a vacation and is rightfully taking one, Moonlit is brand new and still getting acclimated, Elrundir and Storm appear to be winding down this go-around in their Althanas staff careers, Witchblade is on vacation, Sighter's dropped off the face of the planet (probably due to some work/volunteer issues, and he could probably use a vacation as well), and of the Admins who can judge, Serilliant is in the process of moving and I'm running AllRPG AND Althanas as well as working and teaching. Not noticing my name here Santh. See, that's politics; the eliminating names and whatnot.

[Karuka]

I'm going to agree with Wraith here, Santh.

At the very least, you should have had the forwardness to post an update in the thread you claimed stating that life was getting in the way and that you'd have it done as soon as you possibly could. It would have been the polite and responsible thing to do.

We know you're busy. We're busy, too. But three weeks is ridiculous, and he DID post a reminder a couple of days back -- just before he stepped up to help out, himself.

[Ther]

But, of course, the reason you're both wrong (and the reason Wraith is a hapless troll) is because Canen actually sent me a PM a few days ago asking what the problem is, and I told him I was sorry for the delay, that offline issues had come up, and that I'd get to it as soon as I could.

You should generally avoid jumping to conclusions.

[Wraith]

Then why didn't you update the message in the judging requests forum? That could've taken care of a lot of confusion and anger.

[Ther]

Probably because I cleared it up with the interested party via PM, so why would someone be confused and angry over something they could figure out the answer to in 10 seconds with a PM or an IM?

[Karuka]

But, of course, the reason you're both wrong (and the reason Wraith is a hapless troll) is because Canen actually sent me a PM a few days ago asking what the problem is, and I told him I was sorry for the delay, that offline issues had come up, and that I'd get to it as soon as I could.

You should generally avoid jumping to conclusions.

Please read the first paragraph in the "submitted threads" section.

[Ther]

Please read the first paragraph in the "submitted threads" section.

Touche - I missed that, but you shouldn't rely on that page as the sole source of information and one CERTAINLY shouldn't border on trolling other staffers when a simple IM could clear matters up. I'll make sure to edit that in the paragraph.

[Kially Gaith]

And to cheer up the situation, I come bearing cookies, beer and pizza.

Anyone want some?! ^_^

On another note.

Squirrel Eating Hobos.

Yeah. That made you smile, damnit.

[Ther]

That actually makes me feel really bad for the poor hobos...:(

[Kially Gaith]

Well I officially failed then...

How about... Taco smoking llamas?

[Ther]

Yeah, all fun aside, this thread is pretty much settled - I'd like all moderator discussion on Submitted Threads etiquette to be moved to the staff forum. Once more, apologies to Canen, and I assure you all we'll be making some staff and judge application changes in the next few days to address this issue.

[Serilliant]

I'll abuse my powers to add a closing comment here:

In spite of some of the reactions displayed in this thread -- reactions which I apologize on behalf of the Althanas staff for -- we do welcome and encourage any suggestions for improvement that anyone may have. It is important to remember that this site is built and run entirely on the effort and ideas of Althanas members past and present. As I hope is evident from the amount of member suggestions that have recently been implemented, we do truly listen to what you all have to say.

If you have any concerns that your ideas will not be well-received by the community at large, you also always have the option to send me a private message. I am more than happy to discuss any suggestions or comments that you may have.

Thank you all again for the wonderful ideas we have been receiving. Please keep them coming.