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Inactive volunteers [serious replies only]


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1 hour ago, THEBB said:

Removing the inactive volunteers wouldn't help these departments and adding new volunteers will also not improve the situation.

How will it improve the situation if they dont want to try? Remove or whatever?

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6 minutes ago, Cupim said:

 

I think different. I see volunteers as the the users helping admins to take care of the tickets

 

The system is designed for the volunteers, in their positions, to be able to help users in a way or another 

That means, if everyone did what they were made capable of, maybe then, users would be more satisfied with the ticket system.

I could continue with a big post but I think the only way to "resolve" this thread is by replying to tickets, so I end it here.

 

Not much to discuss as we know the formula for happiness:

Users open tickets => Tickets are answered => People are going to be happy with their problems solved 

Edit:

Not much to discuss as we know the formula for happiness:

Users open tickets => Tickets are answered after 10/30 days => People are going to be unhappy but with their problems solved 

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8 minutes ago, Mike said:

You vote for contributors to be picked? Why not volunteer's?

Oh, the irony.

 

By the way, contributors are voted on amongst contributors, same as volunteers. I do recall a few exceptions in both cases though, one of whom seems to be fighting for absolute democracy. I believe admins very recently expressed their thoughts on democracy and voting on xat.

 

Your logic is both flawed and hypocritical. Sometimes I wonder if even you yourself believe the things you say, or you just say it to stir up more controversy and create unnecessary drama.

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16 minutes ago, Mike said:

And I will continue to fight for the users and the community as a whole to have this resolved for good. 

you're starting to sound a lot like @Christina:$

 

have there been discussions of having a "head vol" to keep things in order. because there seems to be a lot of disagreements happening within the team. fighting with each other isn't going to help the situation at all.

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17 minutes ago, TinkerDoodle said:

have there been discussions of having a "head vol" to keep things in order. because there seems to be a lot of disagreements happening within the team. fighting with each other isn't going to help the situation at all.

The administrators would never appoint a head volunteer because they would never trust any single individual enough for such a role. Incidents and conflicts are frequently reported, but it's up to the administrators to take appropriate action.

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1 hour ago, Cupim said:

Users open tickets => Tickets are answered => People are going to be happy with their problems solved 

I believe you misunderstood me. It is certainly not our job to manage the ticket system.

 

Specifically, it is not our job to oversee the successful completion of this entire process:

Users open tickets => Tickets are answered => People are going to be happy with their problems solved

It is our job to answer tickets, but it isn't our job to ensure that volunteers remain active or that the system is functional.

 

1 hour ago, Mike said:

It isn't volunteer's "job" to manage the ticket system no. Because they aren't paid for it. But in a way they are since they earn test powers which can be sold?

I think with this line of reasoning you're forgetting that although volunteers are compensated for their work in some form, the inactive volunteers aren't compensated. The system seems to work as designed.

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17 minutes ago, TinkerDoodle said:

you're starting to sound a lot like @Christina:$

 

have there been discussions of having a "head vol" to keep things in order. because there seems to be a lot of disagreements happening within the team. fighting with each other isn't going to help the situation at all.

 

I appreciate you mentioning me and always being there for me and looking out for me.  Truth is I am debating if I want to partake in this subject.  I also need to decide how I want to approach it.  I guess with pride.  For over a year I have fought for the voice of xat as a whole to be heard.  I have fought with Admins. I have fought with volunteers. This is no secret.   I have fought for the users.   For me...seeing the community come together as a whole, and voicing their concerns and opinions and reaching out for that change that xat needs to thrive.....makes me  proud.  Seeing the few volunteers step up and watching them grow,   and showing they care more  about the users and what is best for the future of xat, makes me proud.   This is my legacy....not some title.

 

To move forward..we need change.  This is clear.

 

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in fact, it is necessary on the part of some improve yes, no need to remove this is my opinion,
xat.com is losing many users, myself that I am only the user receives many complaints and I try to help my aptness, because I love xat.com.

Edited by truemart
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Just because volunteers won't reply to your ticket doesn't mean they're inactive.

They could be having family problems, focusing on their careers, or simply just don't have time to get to your ticket.

There could be many reasons for volunteers not choosing to answer your ticket.

It's up to them to decide whether they want to or not. Complaining about it will not speed up your ticket being processed faster.

It'll only waste your time, and volunteers time.

That's all I have to say.

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1 minute ago, Kaiba said:

ty @Mike for giving us users a voice and fighting for us. I completely agree with you , I think the users should be able to vote for volunteers , instead of vols voting other vols in (which can be completely biased). It would be a great change for xat. I think if users got to choose who they think would do a good job as volunteer it would indeed help fix xat. 

Or what about admins making a poll to decide which new volunteers should be picked?

They used to do that with powers. I'm sure this will be a better way in picking out new volunteers.

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I never really took part in these threads since they are always fun to read and watch, but I decided to take part in it and give a little input. Calling this input, Q-1 input. 

 

I saw some comments mentioned about paying the volunteers to do their "job" for free. I did a quick Google on what the word volunteer means for you: 

 

vol·un·teer

/ˌvälənˈtir

1. a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.

    synonyms: subject, participant, case, patient; informalguinea pig

                       "each volunteer was tested three times"

 

verb 1. freely offer to do something.

             "he volunteered for the job"

 

Therefore the admins does NOT have to pay any of the volunteers for anything as they are volunteering their time. 

 

However, volunteers are technically getting paid in test powers which isn't free to the community at all. Volunteers answer 100 tickets and they get "paid" in test power which can be sold for offshore currency.

 

Admins do also expect them [volunteers] to meet their requirements which is, clearing out the tickets and not delaying user tickets. This allows the admins to focus on other project, fixing issues within the system itself and not handling things like this.

 

Now that's out of the way, time for the main discussion.

 

INACTIVITY -

 

Inactivity is something that shouldn't be done as a volunteer(s) for months, maybe one to two weeks at most! But more than that is just considered sluggish and doesn't respect the community at all as they abandoned their rank.

 

This falls on top of users tickets being delayed.

 

Inactive volunteer(s) equal less tickets being done and more pressure on the other volunteer(s), along with users leaving the community. Half the community depends on these volunteer(s) to help resolve their tickets to get back in their accounts, but with current way things are going with the ticket system, things aren't going to get resolved anytime soon. Some volunteers have even mentioned to me that they answer tickets for days and months without any help from the other volunteers because they are INACTIVE or LAZY to help. 

 

Yes their "powers" are limited to a certain degree, but it doesn't mean any of them [volunteers] should not try to help the user out as best as possible, or even contacting the admins to help them resolve the issue.

 

Such a shame some of them can't work together, or come together to build the community up.

 

What can be done about the inactive volunteers? Replace them. Simple as that. Sounds easy, but it's much harder than it is since it requires admins attention. Volunteers can bring this to the admins attention and he will step in, but they don’t do it. Why is that? Friendship, perhaps?

 

Even if it takes a while for the admins and volunteer(s) to find the most efficient volunteer, it would still help shape the community up. It would also be nice to clear out the inactive volunteers so everyone knows who to go to when they need help. There might be less volunteers if this were to happen, but at least the community would know their voices are being heard and things are being changed. 

 

That being said, the community itself is on the verge of tellin' everyone off. [Maybe].

 

Enjoy the video and thank you all for reading my Q-1 input.

 

 

Edited by Maverick
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9 hours ago, Mike said:

This is exactly what I mentioned in my post and exactly part of the problem. Refusal to see the perspective of the communities view on who they would prefer to have as volunteer's soley because of the belief that the community will ONLY choose toxic candidates to me is wrong. That's like saying, when people vote for a president they shouldn't have a right to vote for who they want in office because they might choose a bad candidate? Does that even make any sense? That's like saying a president should vote another president in and have no outside say from the community. I disagree with this type of mentality full-heartedly. This is not a dictatorship and should never be remotely close to one.

 

I want to know what the community thinks regarding who they would want as a volunteer and WHY. Then, let the admin decide based on the evaluation of the entire community. People would be more comfortable having someone they specificially picked or had a hand in putting in that position than someone they don't even know or heard of before simply because a volunteer group collective thinks they are ideal. 

In my opinion, the community should NOT have the ability to form a democracy type system to elect volunteers.

 

If we are talking about perspective, then here is mine:

If users were allowed to form a vote based system on electing new volunteers, this would turn into a popularity contest. I am not necessarily stating that every user getting elected will be toxic, but the chances of these users being chosen due to 'popularity' opposed to actually being a benefit to the community would increase dramatically. With this being said, my point is not that the current system is working(volunteers picking volunteers), because I believe it is not very effective. But I believe communities picking volunteers would be even less effective.

 

Side note: Citizens do not pick the president, the electoral college does. And it is exactly for the reason mentioned above. 

 

9 hours ago, Mike said:

This is not a dictatorship and should never be remotely close to one.

Well, this is a business, therefore this IS a dictatorship. What the Admin says, always goes. There is no denying that, there is no going around that, nor should that be challenged. With that being said, my opinion on how volunteers should be elected goes back to the first volunteer. xat picked them..... Yes current volunteers could have opinions and suggestions on new volunteers but ultimately xat should evaluate every single user they are working with. xat should be the ones picking the volunteers. We can clearly see that xat can pick and chose who they work with, that is evident.( and I do not mean just accept/deny suggestions from volunteers as the current system is)

 

 

Too much pressure is being put on volunteers back to fix something out of their hands and that the administrators should be handling themselves(AND AS A PRIORITY), I do not understand how that is not clear. All these users(volunteers) are doing is benefiting xat by assisting them with FREE time. And NO, test powers are NOT a form of payment, or xat would need to pay taxes on these people.

 

PS. trying to speak for the community is wonderful, but the community will ALWAYS speak for itself. Volunteers should not be trying to speak for the community on a public level as to demonstrate that they are doing so... take it up with admins, you guys are the users with most influence over administrators. Actions speak louder than words. 

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I've seen plenty of users that have been purely dedicated to be volunteers, and xat staff never picked them.

Feels like to me xat staff only picks volunteers out of favoritism. There's plenty of users that go on the Help chat which actually deserve the position.

Just my opinion.

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Many here on this topic, including volunteers said that even with inactive volunteers their departments are without delays. But this is no justification to keep this person in his position. He remains inactive and if the department is without delay it's thanks to the active ones. Let's remember that the goal is, in addition to eliminating the delays, make the answers fast as possible.

Keeping inactive people on a team is useless, just makes impossible for new people to really improve the system. The volunteer's duty is help the community by being a member of the community, if he doesn't help and is inactive then he's not a volunteer, he's just another member of the community as everyone is and doesn't need his position.

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These posts generally serve no purpose besides causing uproars for a few days then vanishing into thin air. Admins need to start getting involved and stop pretending they have no idea what the issue with xat is.

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On 11/20/2017 at 10:54 PM, Brandon said:

inactive volunteers aren't compensated. The system seems to work as designed.

@Brandon Don't you think those should be removed rather quickly then? I personally am in a management field. And I've also worked with volunteer fire departments. The volunteer Fire Departments are ran similar to a regular job. You either show up or your gear gets taken down. I cant remember the exact amount, But you have to be there for so many hours a month. Or you are literally fired. And I feel like the volunteers should be answering a select amount of tickets per month or be removed. Saying just because they are Volunteer doesn't mean they are not to be managed like regular employees at a company. You get test powers, I may be wrong, But you get compensated some how. Yes it may not be much, Yes you could be making more flipping burgers at McDonalds, But you are voluntarily employed. You are volunteering your time. You shouldn't be able to just not do what you have to do just because you decide you don't want to. If you can't do what is required of you, You should be removed. As for my management, You don't show up for 2 days straight, No matter which company, Don't even think about showing up again because you won't have a job.

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1 hour ago, Phin said:

You say this, but resources have mentioned that Brandon makes the final decision on most things. If all volunteers were equal, why is Brandon the only forum admin? Shouldn't all vols have the "forum admin" status if they're all "equal"? Or at least Muffins since he is the other Help main....

I think the idea is that the more forum admins there are, the more chance there is for an account to be compromised. (At least this seems to be admin’s reasoning)

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22 hours ago, Phin said:

You say this, but resources have mentioned that Brandon makes the final decision on most things. If all volunteers were equal, why is Brandon the only forum admin? Shouldn't all vols have the "forum admin" status if they're all "equal"? Maybe Muffins, since he is the other Help main? Or someone who won't abuse their power? Someone like Mike, perhaps? :p 

And this is what makes you smarter then some.  Andre is correct as there is no title given as "head volunteer".  However, certain volunteers are given more permissions then others.  And usually 1 is given more permissions then all the rest.

I use to say it was due to trust.  Now I believe it is more due to convenience.

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On 11/20/2017 at 10:11 PM, Sydno said:

I'm not completely sure of what I'm saying but there is no "head" volunteer, it's a legend. There are simply a few volunteers able to answer an important amont of help topics because they are trusted enough for this. 

 

Many people believe there is a head volunteer because Spell used to take a lot of initiatives and was close to the admins. Brandon is able to do a lot but that doesn't make him a special representative.

 

Man what happened to Spell? I haven't seen former volunteers like him and others in a while.

Name the the ex-volunteers please because I rarely come on xat nowadays :d

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