[Jokhah]

Thanks @BlackDog  and @"ForceGhost"  For helping me understand things I didn't previously understand about said topic.

[John Jong]

Considering that staff are volenteers with real lives of their own, I'm not sure what you hope to achieve by pointing out that some are inactive.  Even if they were removed, the activity wouldn't increase.  Increasing recruitment for the staff team seems logical, but looking around the house there aren't many who I feel would maintain anything better than what we are seeing now.  They would simply be at the start of their life cycle, meaning that they would be a bit more active then the average admin, but would burn out fast too.

Not saying you can't ask the question, but I don't see what the overall purpose is beyond drama.

I predict that if they say they are working on it, it'll turn into a "you've said that before"

If they say they aren't: "You're lazy, you should resign"

Ultimately this always feels like an attempt to weed out inactive staff in hopes of either making staff or having preferred people make staff, but in the end these things always led right back to this discussion.

You can't fix the problem with graphs, pointing out activity levels, trying to stir a pot.  You can fix it by being the guy that fits the model they are looking for and getting the job.

My two cents.

They may have a life of their own and be a volunteer but st the end of the day they agreed to become an administrator so they should fulfil that role and not slack and if they need to be inactive for a long period of time just resign so the spot is opened for more active staff members and then when they are active again they can speak to HR like Rocket did.(or whoever he spoke to)

[Nudel]

So! After no response to the last activity report, a request by @"Nudelsalat im Panzer" has launched the segment into full swing once more!

So before we see the meat and potatoes I'd like to preface this with a question,

"Has staff activity improved since the last report?"

The answer to that question is below.

Staff Activity in the last two weeks (These may be ABOVE the time spent on the server but never BELOW)



So, the answer to the above question is a resounding "No" with a 37.5% decrease in staff activity since the last report. While this report doesn't speak for activity over the entire duration of the past few months it does give us an insight into what a month of staff activity can look like in reality.

Getting fancy I've even created a fade below so you can more visually see the difference in staff activity.



We're still awaiting a response from HR on the last graph posted, maybe we could get one in this one?

@Enzyme @Overlewd

Are we ever going to receive a response? The last graph got ignored entirely.

[Overlewd]

As demoting inactive staff members does not directly benefit staff presence on the servers, we instead focused our efforts on finding new moderators and coming up with better training systems. This has improved the hours of active staff coverage on the server.

Now that we are better off in that regard, we (HR) would like to hold off until the next planned big update(s) which should be coming Soon™ and see what kind of effect that will have on the server and staff activity in particular, and focus more on addressing older staff members' activity issues then.

[greg]

make staff applications

[Hungames]

make staff applications

community picks #bismo2k18

[Project]

make staff applications

community picks #bismo2k18

community would like to have a word with you

[ForceGhost]

As demoting inactive staff members does not directly benefit staff presence on the servers, we instead focused our efforts on finding new moderators and coming up with better training systems. This has improved the hours of active staff coverage on the server.

This doesn't seem true at all. Since recruiting new Moderators the overall staff activity hasn't improved, it's declined. 

You can't fix a bucket with a hole in the bottom by adding more water to it but I am glad that you're planning to address inactive staff members in the future.

[Overlewd]

As demoting inactive staff members does not directly benefit staff presence on the servers, we instead focused our efforts on finding new moderators and coming up with better training systems. This has improved the hours of active staff coverage on the server.

This doesn't seem true at all. Since recruiting new Moderators the overall staff activity hasn't improved, it's declined. 

You can't fix a bucket with a hole in the bottom by adding more water to it but I am glad that you're planning to address inactive staff members in the future.

I was specifically talking about staff coverage: i.e how many hours a day is there at least 1 member of staff online. Not overall staff activity.

[Doctor Internet]

To expand on Overlewd's answer a touch, this was one of the key problems which was identified prior. A fair amount of time was put into identifying the key metrics (staff hours, average hours per member, time periods without coverage).

Identifying Issues
For this, I ended up writing a script to parse logs, check ranks, and give a list of sessions; running through in 10 minute increments, building a list of who was online at a given time (and their ranks). It takes a while to run, so I don't run it often, but it ends up spitting out a graph of activity over time.

This is an old one, so lacks other player's activity and tended to bais towards higher levels at later times, however it does provide a rather clear image.

Staff activity was poor, major dead-zones and even with staff, there were often limited numbers. This is one of the key issues you've identified well @Forceghost, a lack of coverage on the server.

Compare that to a more recent graph.


Staff activity is higher, with average staff numbers going from 1/2, to 4/5. The peak staff numbers have risen from 4 to 8.
The dead zones are smaller (with staff staying on later, and coming on earlier).

Some of this comes down to inactive staff being more active. Most of this comes down to new staff members.

What are we doing?
Well, we're constantly monitoring staff activity, through monthly reports, through manual tools, through staff reporting their own inactivity. Could we do more, which is what we've aimed to do. By developing monitoring tools, we're able to monitor staff activity in various statistics. For instance, a tool recently worked on was our voting graphs. For administrators, a key part of their role is to particpate and be active on the forums, join in with votes and such. We can break this data down to the day, though normally we use weeks or months. For example, here is my voting graph, broken down by month.

We use these graphs to ensure that even if administrators aren't as active ingame, that they're still doing their part.
Speaking of activity ingame, we also have general activity graphs. Again, mine, by month.

Both of these graphs, along with other tools are used to monitor staff, ensure that they're still doing their bit, pulling their weight. To go along with that though, we also need to ensure we're actually doing what's best for the community.

So, you're tracking. Why not demote people?
It's a difficult question, which we've had to bound around before. We could just demote anyone who ever fell below a certain threshold. However, it's trying to find the best outcome for the community, and often inactivity demotions don't improve the issue for the community. With inactive staff, there is no potentional for activity there, and less chance of them returning if they're ready. To go along with that, getting new staff, especially for more senior roles is difficult, takes a long time, and not everyone is expected to get there. By demoting the problem away, we would end up draining the pool of people we have, whilst also reducing the pool of veterans we could have return. Look at @Brynn, who recently returned after resigning due to his inactivity. He freed up space on the team, allowed in new blood, but also was able to return. Do we encourage staff to resign if they're inactive, if it's in the best interest of themselves, the team and the community? Of course. Is removing someone always the best option? No.

To interject from myself and my own opinions here, it is a difficult balance, between keeping an extremely active staff team and an experienced staff team. Experienced staff have played longer, so are more likely to go inactive. They are also older, so tend to have real life commitments. Whilst I used to be a proponant for "just demote them all", in hindsight, a more nuanced approach is required.