Application for Server Administrator

[Wundat¡]

I have been directed to post my application on the forums, so, here we go.


Hi, my name is Wundati (Wun for short). I have given this quite some thought and decided that I would like to give back to SourceOP.

A Little About Me
I am currently 19 years old and attending college in San Jose, California. I have been playing TF2 for a little over 6 years now and have been playing on SourceOP servers for around 1 year. I have two inactive steam accounts, which I have migrated from due to account breaches:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198076776625 - Original Account (Breached)
https://steamcommunity.com/id/xXProMLGGamerXxxx/ - 2nd Account (Breached)
I also have one inactive Forum account that was linked to my 2nd account.
I have one ban on my current account (that I know of) (https://steamcommunity.com/id/wundati/) for auto balance avoidance.

How I Could Help
While myself and the SOP community look up to our admins and respect them immensely, There is a general consensus that there should be more members on the team. An example that I have personally had happen several times is the slow response time from the admins. Majority of the reports I and others have made to the discord server are not taken care of until after the user in question is long gone. I understand that SOP servers are not the sole things that our admins take care of, so I by no means blame them. I know that work and irl issues can often keep us from contributing. What separates me from other staff is that I have much more free time on my hands. I spend an average of 7 hours per week on 24/7 2Fort and am active during the weekdays. This will allow quicker response times to reports and will reduce general toxicity/rule breaking as an admin will be visible and online.

Another factor I feel will contribute to the team is my outgoing and empathetic personality. I was told that to be an admin, I would "have to be hated". I would like to break that stereotype. From what I have observed, the admins on SourceOP lead through intimidation. This is an effective method, sure, but it has its downsides. I have heard countless players say something along the lines of "I would report it, but it won't make a difference". It hurts me to see a long time player simply give up and feel powerless. My goal is to lead through respect. I want to encourage players to speak up and communicate with one another to help keep the server well monitored even when admins aren't online. I want them to feel empowered, like they make a difference. That's what got me interested in applying in the first place; I didn't feel like I was making a difference.

Finally, I keep a close relationship with other players. I have several SourceOP regulars on my friends list. I want to be the staff member who you can share a laugh with. Someone who you can talk to if you need help. I feel that if an admin had personal connections with players they would be more likely to report other players and help regulate the server.


Conclusion
I am well aware that there is a chance that my application will be denied. I am even prepared for no response at all. To be honest, I was scared to apply. I was scared about what would happen if I failed. Even now, I am still a little nervous, but I know that if I don't try now, I will only regret it later. I hope that my ideas and insight will come in handy to help build a stronger and more supportive community.

If I can answer any additional questions please don't hesitate to shoot me an email at Wundati@gmail.com, or add me on steam and leave a comment. Thanks for reading!

[scuba steve]

Hello there! Just your average player here to give my 2 cents on the matter of your application! I am in no way speaking on behalf of the SourceOP staff team, nor do my views reflect theirs in any way. These are my own thoughts and opinions.

We all look up the the staff team immensely, and we should have the up most respect for them and the job they do for us. However, i am of the belief that adding more admins won't fix the problems. I'll get into this point more later on. First I'm going to address your application.

Having a good standing from within the community is a great thing and you should be very proud of yourself if you have the standing that you claim to have. But here's the thing. People who get moved up to a staff role are hand picked because they have consistently demonstrated all the quality's that they like to see in a staff member. Now i saw that you specifically mentioned the admin role in your post, so for the rest of this section I'll use the word admin instead of staff. Being a admin isn't just about banning hackers and racists, a large part of the role is building the community. It's not a coincidence that most of the current admins were at one point in time a large voice in the community. It's of my humble opinion that just one year in the community isn't enough time for someone to grow their voice loud and strong enough for them to even be considered for a admin position. Grow your voice, lead with it along with your actions. Gain the respect of the admins and community alike. That's how everyone else has done it, from what i can tell at least.

I'll quote one of the admins, butane, here because he said it better than i ever could. "SOP has always hand picked admins who demonstrate certain qualities. As said in my PM to you, its not just about banning a hacker here or there, but understanding that you need community engagement (something you have not demonstrated yet imo). Furthermore, when I see regulars like you on and an issue arises in the server, I dont see you attempt to correct it. This has me personally believe you would just admin it how you see fit based on how it affects your play, not protect everyone on the server and dish out the rules as they are no matter personal opinion on the rule(s) or how many hours they have on server (including protecting new users from long time regulars in many cases) or if you are friends with said user(s)." I'll drop the link to this quote at the end here if you want to go read that thread for yourself.

At one point in time, i was just like you. It was back in 2013-2014, i felt like i was one of the most popular people on the SourceOP prophunt server, 95% of my friends list came from that time, and still friends with many of them today. The reason why i brought this up is just because i was popular didn't mean that i had a good leg to stand on in a staff application. Having a good standing with the community is important yes and making friends comes along with that, but getting staff isn't and should never be a popularity contest. I don't think you meant it like that when you said you had several regulars on your friends list, and this entire section wasn't really aimed at you, instead i aimed it at the future readers of this thread.

Back to what i said at the beginning, adding more admins won't fix the problems. When you keep adding admins to a broken system nothing will change. Instead we just need a complete overhaul of the current system, now i'm not going to sit here and pretend like i know how we can do that, because i don't. I just think adding more admins is like throwing a band-aid on a gunshot wound, it just won't help very much because the victim of the gunshot is still bleeding out, the system doesn't need another band-aid. The system needs surgery.

All of this wasn't meant to attack you, nor was it meant to discourage you or others like you from applying in the future. The voices like yours are the ones who will ultimately drive change. You just need to grow your voice some more, be the bigger man in heated situations on the server, and just overall display the quality's that they expect from a prospective admin for a long period of time. If you wish to go on and continue to try and apply at this time, i wish you the best of luck, i really do. I just don't think you're ready right now, and that's just my humble opinion. You seem like a nice person, and i like your profile picture. Hopefully you take this as constructive criticism and not an attack. Be the change you want to see, that's the most reliable way to get any change.

much respect and love
-another concerned citizen

LINK TO PREVIOUS APPLICATIONS:
https://forums.sourceop.com/threads/...-for-admin-mod
https://forums.sourceop.com/threads/...administrators