Staff Communication

By Spydreigon and Blitzamirin. Art by asgdf.

Introduction

Do you ever wonder about how the PS staff keep such effective control over the server? The answer is simple: communication. No, the staff are not secret agents that can contact each other within a moment's notice; they are normal people just like you and me. They do, however, have many different outlets of online communication to discuss the issues that arise within the server. With this, all the staff members as a whole can make decisions on what's best for the server, not just a few of them at a time. It's such a simple yet vital part of PS; one must wonder about the different methods that the staff use and how they are specifically used.

Global Staff

It's imperative that global staff communicate and are constantly in touch with one another in order to easily assess a situation the moment it crops up as efficiently as possible. Many forms of communication have been formed to tackle every kind of situation with ease.

PS Staff Forum: Dubbed a nonsensical name, the staff forums are incredibly important in their function in that many discussions are built there with the presence of every staff member. Yuyuko Fan Club's name comes from Zarel's obsession with the ghost princess Yuyuko Saigyouji from the Touhou series, and it serves to help new staff members settle in on recurring discussions pertaining the afterworld, danmaku, and shrine maidens. In all seriousness, these discussions range from server-side policy and promotions to topics that affect the Showdown community; anything can be neatly organized here, which allows fluidity so that everyone's voice can be heard.; The nomination threads are of note, as they gather most of the staff's attention. Voice nominations are simple and straightforward; they take place in one megathread where a staff member brings up a user by discussing their contributions to the PS chat and their positive traits. The promotion happens after a large amount of support has been given to the candidate, with the worst-case scenario being a rejection that can be brought up again at a later date. By extension, Driver and Moderator threads are stricter and go into more detail, discussing the candidate's room staff positions by evaluating their moderating ability and policy-making skill.; For the most part, the culture in the forums compared to the chat is also more serious. This forum also serves in documenting logs and situations that may be of use at a later date, ensuring that each resource is available when needed. Room Suggestions and Discipline Appeals can fall under this category by extension, as they are both subforums that are managed by the auth that address specific issues, the former affecting the server as a whole, and the latter regarding the userbase.
PS Staff Room and IRC: Found on PS itself, this room is set to autojoin every time a staff member logs in with a ranked account. Its usefulness is due to real-time chat. This allows staff to discuss current and ongoing events in the simulator and act as carefully and swiftly as they can, or allows staff to simply interact with one another because of a more laidback atmosphere. This is also where they get updates on what is going to be added on the server, such as bug fixes, battling formats, and important features like updated or brand new commands. It's important to note that the auth do keep each other informed on the appeals, suggestions, and problems that users report, so fabricating lies or falsifying evidence is a huge waste of time.; By extension, the IRC chat functions in a very similar way, and is primarily used immediately after the server is down for maintenance. Once the hub for staff interactions, the chat has slowly changed to a place where discussions are centered around coding and programming. It's interesting to see the insight behind many of the decisions made, and offering suggestions is always an option in order to enhance the accessibility and performance of PS.

Room Staff

Unlike the global staff, room staff have to create their own means of communication so that people don't get left out of these important discussions. They have less to discuss, as they only focus on a single room rather than the entire server like the globals do. The methods used are:

A Smogon PM conversation: This is the most common method of discussion, where a room owner will create a PM conversation on the Smogon forums and invite all of the staff members to discuss policy of the room. Policy refers to room promotions/demotions, issues that pop up, ideas to increase publicity, and much more. A benefit of this system is that the messages stay up there for everyone to see, so anyone from any timezone will be able to comment on the policy discussions made. However, as a notification is received on Smogon for every message, staff try to avoid casual discussion and leave it for the important matters.
A live conversation: This type of communication is much more helpful for immediate responses. A conversation using Skype or chatzy is made, and all staff members are invited to it. It's used for when a smaller or more pressing matter occurs that needs to make itself known to the staff almost immediately so that discussion can ensue. It is also a good outlet for social interaction between staff members to bring them closer together in order to ensure they can cooperate. It can be related to how the PS staff room and IRC works for globals. However, as it is a live chat, messages will not be seen by all staff members, so the most important affairs should stay in the Smogon conversation.

Conclusion

All in all, being a staff member comes with a lot of responsibility, and one of them is ensuring that the server/room is always a fun place for new users to come and enjoy themselves. Everything flies around the sim very quickly thanks to these forms of communication. It helps make a community that's up-to-date, with the people constantly staying in touch with both themselves and the present. In the end, getting to know those peers that people work with may develop strong friendships, some that extend further beyond PS. No matter how they discuss room issues, I can assure you all the auth are doing their very best to make the server an enjoyable place for all.

« Previous Article

Home