Over the years it has been suggested several times to create some sort of Volunteer/Player enforcement system.
Generally, this suggestion has not received positive feedback from other players.
After giving it some thought, I think that rather ironically that is already the system that is in place.
Currently the onus is on a Player to document a violation of the Terms and communicate it to staff via Zendesk.
So, Funcom staff are not proactively seeking out violations of the Terms. They wait for the Player base to communicate potential violations and review them. After a review of the information provided by Players a decision is made by Funcom staff
We are the volunteers at the front lines gathering information.
XIV is like that. GMs don’t do shit unless something is reported by a player. It’s only after that point do they investigate the matter, see if there is a ToS violation, at which point they do something.
I don’t think players are against that at all. What they are against is the idea of other players being granted GM/Admin privileges, because of the inherent nature of people to be jerks when they are given power.
Plenty of cases of abuse like this. Happened in XIV, with a GM slapping out bans for people roleplaying, not even bad or publicly, just any RP. It was a big deal.
Exactly. Every single one of those suggestions so far has proposed giving players some admin privileges. Let’s not pretend that these two kinds of “volunteering” are in any way equal.
The status quo? Not very well. Imagine how much worse it would be if Funcom gave admin privileges to players.
Agreed that admin privilege needs to remain in a neutral FC officer or beholden to them at least but it does stand that the current system requires player initiation
“We are sorry it has taken so long to respond to you. We have been very busy. We hope the issue has resolved it’s self by now. You have a good day”.
Giving average players Admin privileges on an Official Server is more than likely asking for more trouble than it’s probably worth.
However, if I volunteer my time to document, and report an issue, even without any enforcement authority, I am an integral part of the process for resolving a Terms of Conduct violation.
Without Player input, nothing could be accomplished under the current model of support offered to Official Servers.
I also agree that the efficiency of the current system leaves a lot to be desired in terms of response turnaround time.
I’m pointing out that it’s not, because that’s not what anyone has requested or even talked about when they called for volunteeer admins.
Yes, it’s a clever conclusion, but it’s a non-answer to a different question. People who ask for volunteer server admins will read your post and say “That’s not what I meant.” People who don’t want volunteer server admins will read your post and say “So what?”