Darn you staff for foiling my event! (disclaimer: Shell has been on SMP8 a lot more than normal recently so weird side effects are to be expected this evening) More seriously: first of all a congratulations to both Toade & Elfin for going mint. But this also leaves this event with an dilemma: I excluded seniors for a reason. Now, I'm not going to do this all over again (much too lazy for that) so we'll just continue this and see what happens next. Who knows: did we start an upgrade period event here? Either way... we're going to continue this full force. We'll see where this leads us. Voting should be taken seriously. And since many players voted and shared their thoughts and opinions we're going to keep this going. BUT... because of the recent events I shall also give you guys a sneak preview! A preview on the favorite staff member so far: And as you can see, the runner up position is still undecided:
And the event has ended! Was planning to do this yesterday but then figured: "one event per day helps keep the stress away" This will be a multi part post, one now and one tomorrow. There is a lot of information to process here. 27 players responded, and the winner is.... Like last year it's kind of hard to ignore. So just like before some random comments: "Idk he's chill and I like him and he's not biased as hell" "He always is kind and has a good attitude to making EMC a better place for all newbies and oldies alike " "Great staff member, Good friend and always around to provide assistance." "Active, and is a cool person to just talk with." So who was our second favorite? Well.... There was a tie. Can you spot the other staff member? Some random comments: "Slvr is one of the newer staff members but she has already done an amazing job! She is really helpful and always helps keep smp8 under control I could say a lot more positive things about her but I'll stop here~" "She is down to earth and is super nice! " "Carol has always been so helpful and sweet! She acts much like how you'd expect a normal player to act. She doesn't act superior because of her green username, but rather sees it as just her job. She's always there to help my friends and I, even if our requests are occasionally silly or straight up odd. I like to consider her a friend, and not just my superior, much like I do with <bleep>*. I wish I could have gotten to meet her before she was staff!" "She has supported me so much. Even though she gave me my 1 and only 1 day ban I respect her more for being fair and just." * Apologies. I don't want to apply censorship but when I share comments my self-applied rule is not to share anything which could lead up to someone recognizing the commenter (at least not making it too obvious). I wanted a 2 - 2 and I had no other options, so I decided to add the comment but bleep out the name which could give your identity away. So last year some people commented how favoritism was a huge thing with this event, and they felt it somewhat 'tainted' the whole thing. You may think this to be overly negative but I do think they raised a fair point, so I tried to work on that this year and add some fail saves. Well.... So 40% went for "all of the above", so they encountered their pick(s) in nearly every given situation. Right behind that (11.1%) responds with: "I consider them my friends", so some mild form of bias seems to definitely apply here. What were the questions you ask? Good one! (3.7%) I've only encountered them as staff (so: you needed help from staff, they helped). (3.7%) I sometimes see them during events. (11.1%) I consider them my friends (so: you're also hanging out and doing things together). (40.7%) All of the above (in no specific order). (3.7%) None of the above; they just seem really cool to me. 1 ALT escaped from his main and tried to take the questionnaire and therefor got disqualified Now... I asked a lot more, and there's also stuff going on, but I need a quick time-out to sort a few things out. As you may know our own Eviltoade got promoted to senior. Which means that he can no longer participate in the economy and the game we play. There are also runner-ups to consider. See: I got 10k worth of rupee donations, 28 emeralds, 1 God pick axe and 4 stacks (16 pieces) of remote shop signs. That makes it my obligation to ensure those go to the right players. I know what some of you might be thinking: just /sendmail it off and you're done. Yah... So what if there's a rule amongst the seniors to always /dev/null (= destroy) any donation you get to avoid bias? Then there's also the issue of multiple staffers winning: 3 in total. This is a message written on a whim, and I need to sort all of this out first before we can continue. Tomorrow I will share more statistics as I also work to make them more representable in an Excel sheet and who knows where we go from there. Now.. if you'll excuse me I have a game to play
Hello, first do we have 3 to split it among still if EvilToade cannot participate in the economy?? Not that I want to leave anyone out for sure and I think he's much deserving of the title and any reward. Either way, if so or if there is an imbalance, let me know, I will donate to create a balanced award. You can contact me in game, pm me through the inbox or if I'm online (and there) in game with what is needed.
Part II Sorry for the small delay, had a harddisk breaking down on me this weekend on a LAN server, and that had to be fixed (although this is a hobby server it still manages my e-mail & VPNs). Was set in RAID (= all data gets copied onto multiple hard disks in parallel) so no data loss, but because this is a hobby server it's also not state of the art with hot swappable stuff. Ergo I had to do some manual repairing. Anyway... In the mean time the prize dilemma has been sorted out. I asked Toade about it and he was very specific: the main symbolic prize (the signed book) will be sent to him while the rest of the prizes (the donations made by players) are to be spread amongst the other winners (Carolmoss & Slvr). So that's easy. Now, I'm not going to share all the results in every little detail here, but there are some which I really think are quite interesting. Also because they proved some of my assumptions to be somewhat wrong. So... What do we do when we need help from staff? The default answers: I use /staff and ask them for help (either immediately or when staff members show up).. I wait for my favorite staff member to show up, then ask them for help. There's never staff online in-game, so I go to the forums and PM my favorite staff member for help. There's never staff online in-game, so I go to the forums and PM staff who are online at that time. I don't need help from staff. I don't want help from staff. I'll be perfectly honest with you guys: I was seriously wondering how much votes number 3 and 4 would get, because that's a comment you sometimes get to hear when an issue arises. Of course in the heat of the moment, and some of those can't always be taken too seriously, but still... Well: 63% (#1) uses /staff and either gets help right away or waits for a moment and gets help when staff comes online. 11.1% (#2) doesn't need help from staff and the 3rd pick is basically spread out amongst multiple answers. I think that's an interesting and healthy result! Up next: what do we need help with from staff? I honestly think this is pretty impressive: 19.2% (#1): Road edits & Minecraft problems ("Had a Minecraft problem, asked staff"). 15.4% (#2): Griefing (stealing, destroying builds, etc.). I think it's fair to say that the anti-griefing update has definitely reduced some problems a bit. I don't base this on these results alone of course, but also the shrinking amount of requests which has been sent to GRIP (though that could have multiple reasons of course, we don't exactly advertise very actively) and the things you hear around you. Last but not least, overall impression Once again I think this is a very impressive but also honest score. Of course that's just my opinion of course but I always consider scores of 10 not very realistic. No one is perfect, so to me 10/10 scores are always a bit weird. In my opinion a 9 is really the highest honest score one can get and well... See above Rounding up.... This concludes the whole thing. Prizes will be mailed (and paid) this week.
As Toade also said, I am honored to be helping out among old and new faces alike. I can honestly say I haven't regretted my decision to apply in the slightest and certainly don't foresee it any time soon. Helping the community as I can while keeping it fun and interesting is something I enjoy immensely... And, don't mind me getting a little sappy here, but I love you all. Without EMC, I really don't know where I'd be right about now.
I definitely disagree there. A 10/10 doesn't mean something needs to be perfect and flawless; to me it means it's heaps above what one would expect, and astonishingly well-done, intricate, and complete. (Note: I am not implying anything here with regards to my own vote in this specific case; this is just a general statement.)
Like everything in this process this is mostly opinion which will root it self in to things like can you really get a 10 of 10 also. Each persons definition will drive that. Though I think this is great to see and I do agree with the general findings of this I have to say the flaw in it is that it rarely incorporates newer players and never those that do not use the forums/website. I know there is little that can be done about that but it is important to note both those things. I do think people found online in the forum sections will have slightly higher overall ratings due to time in game, knowledge of EMC, more interfacing with various staff members and just due to server love.
WOW! Thank you so much everyone! Totally unexpected! but very much appreciated and extremely happy to be playing minecraft here on EMC with you guys!!!
