The damn backlog...

[Choo]

I know staff are aware of this (which is the worst part), I know this has already been suggested once or twice before, but staff REALLY need to get their ass in gear and at least somewhat improve the horrendous backlog on scam reports. Doesnt matter if its a 10$ scam or a 1000$ scam, scams are still a big issue and if we keep scammers on the site for as long as possible then there will just be MORE scam reports that pileup and add to the backlog.

We are at the point where we are begging staff to basically inforce the rules. The scam report backlog is also getting users triggered about the selection of staff and scam resolvers, its just a pileup of issue after issue, this needs to END!

 

[Kavish]

Not only this, but more staff is needed to do scam reports. There should be around 10 staff working on scam reports.

 

[punctured]

Not only this, but more staff is needed to do scam reports. There should be around 10 staff working on scam reports.

No, they need just a couple active staff members.

 

[Choo]

Not only this, but more staff is needed to do scam reports. There should be around 10 staff working on scam reports.

I feel like a few dedicated staff members would get the job done. Bucket and Justis were efficient a few months earlier with clearing up the backlog but their activity on scam reports has died down. We need staff that will stick to the job

 

[puzeh]

Not only this, but more staff is needed to do scam reports. There should be around 10 staff working on scam reports.

I agree. Maybe not that many, but the reality is that either some of the staff are not dedicated enough, or the amount of backlog there is is too much for the two staff that've dealt with scams for the past month to handle.

 

[Kram]

So I'm confused or I'm simply missing something. Is there an actual suggestion here or is it another: "We need more staff!" and/or "they should just do them faster"?

 

[Spectrum]

So I'm confused or I'm simply missing something. Is there an actual suggestion here or is it another: "We need more staff!" and/or "they should just do them faster"?

Don't make them hidden and required to be approved so that members are able to view them and search there first before dealing.

 

[Kram]

Don't make them hidden and required to be approved so that members are able to view them and search there first before dealing.

There is the often occurrence of personal information being left in the proof section. By making them not moderated, everyone would be able to see that information.

 

[Lachlan]

So I'm confused or I'm simply missing something. Is there an actual suggestion here or is it another: "We need more staff!" and/or "they should just do them faster"?

Both... I think more staff aswell as having the current staff do the reports at a more sufficient rate would solve the situation... I understand it is a lot more easier said than done but something needs to happen.

 

[Spectrum]

There is the often occurrence of personal information being left in the proof section. By making them not moderated, everyone would be able to see that information.

Noted. Hadn't thought of that before as I didn't think users would bring up others personal information straight off the bat.

Could add a piece to the scam report form with something along the lines of "Censored Information;" anything there would not be visible to the public straight away until gone over by staff but the rest of the report would be.

 

[Kram]

Both... I think more staff aswell as having the current staff do the reports at a more sufficient rate would solve the situation... I understand it is a lot more easier said than done but something needs to happen.

There have been many suggestions with "get more staff" and I consider them all not really useful. Not many of those suggestions offer a good way viable candidates can be found other than "Look for the active people" Also, telling us to do them faster means really nothing, there is no suggestion there. It's not like we are sitting here looking for ways to make the process go on as long as possible.

 

[Choo]

So I'm confused or I'm simply missing something. Is there an actual suggestion here or is it another: "We need more staff!" and/or "they should just do them faster"?

Saying that its "Just another we need more staff thread" proves that you aren't taking the backlog seriously. When you really think about it you are basically in charge of thousands of dollars, if you have the time to reply to this thread complaining, then you have time to work on more scam reports. I would suggest doing so.
I'm hoping by making another "Work on scam reports" thread, you guys get the message that you need to work on the backlog, these threads aren't useless you know

Both... I think more staff aswell as having the current staff do the reports at a more sufficient rate would solve the situation... I understand it is a lot more easier said than done but something needs to happen.

It's not exactly the case, what we need is more dedicated scam resolvers, not just more staff. When you are first recruited for staff you are a chat moderator so that doesn't really help either (Only exception was Lion). Quality over quantity.

 

[Lachlan]

Saying that its "Just another we need more staff thread" proves that you aren't taking the backlog seriously. When you really think about it you are basically in charge of thousands of dollars, if you have the time to reply to this thread complaining, then you have time to work on more scam reports. I would suggest doing so.
I'm hoping by making another "Work on scam reports" thread, you guys get the message that you need to work on the backlog, these threads aren't useless you know

It's not exactly the case, what we need is more dedicated scam resolvers, not just more staff. When you are first recruited for staff you are a chat moderator so that doesn't really help either (Only exception was Lion). Quality over quantity.

Couldn’t have said it any better. Thanks Choo

 

[moon10k]

Back in my day, scam reports were actually fucking handled properly. Post a scam report, took a day or two to get verified, and if all goes well it's ended in a week or two. Now it takes decades for em.

 

[Doge]

This was never an issue during the time I was staff. During those 3 years, I remember maybe 2-3 backlogs of reports, but they ended up getting sorted fairly quickly, and on top of that, there was never a huge backlash by the users like this. During one of the backlogs (~700 reports) I remember one Friday night, sitting for 6 hours straight until I got the report queue to 0. BeBosny was super proud of me! If I can do 700 in 6 hours and do them all properly, there's 0 excuses why at least one current staff member can't set aside this time to grind reports as well. Justis R said a few weeks ago in chat that there are 1,500 reports. 5 moderators + Justis = 250 reports per person and they'd all be done. My rate was ~116 per hour meaning if each every mod + Justis sat down for about 2 hours, every single report could be completed. It's just an estimate, but it definitely should be around that time.

So back then, this wasn't really a problem, but now it is. The question should be: what's different?

Well, we don't have M6Gaming anymore. I remember every night seeing him do like 75% of the reports and every day approve many scam reports. It would take 1-2 days for a scam report to get approved. On top of this, things would just get sorted normally and the upper administration was responsive.

I mean, as long as the upper administration doesn't get things sorted, there will never be any real progress made. If a simple issue like an image proxy that had an ETA of "a few hours" hasn't been fixed, like what, weeks later(?) then that should say a lot. Same when emails wouldn't send out and it took weeks to get sorted as well. Honestly this forum's users deserve a lot better than this but all have been grossly neglected.

And obviously the users are going to complain, even I'm getting super annoyed because I've had a support request open for over a month now. So I think it would be most productive to get things done rather than tell users to stop complaining about the very serious issues this forum has.

The solution was supposed to be hiring more staff, that happened and there's been no noticeable difference and everyone is still upset. I mean we're the "customers" in this situation. We notice a serious issue with our reports/support requests/scam reports and we want it fixed. But then we're told "Oh yeah?! Well stop complaining and give us a solution!" Well, the thing is, that's not our job and we don't fully know how everything works behind the scenes so we can't really do that. If things were fine a year ago, the administration needs to find a way to make it that way again. Imagine if people at McDonalds had to wait hours to get their food, began to complain and then the employees just started saying "Stop complaining and tell us how to fix it!!" People are going to complain naturally and if you want to save your business, you have to diagnose the issue based on feedback from the customers and fix it. And that's an issue that the upper administration needs to tackle and not the staff alone.

Personally I believe the answer lies in the upper administration. Notice the image proxy and email server example from earlier. If simple things like that are taking weeks to a month to fix, there will be similar issues in all lower chains of command and reports/support requests/scam reports certainly won't be done faster.

I hate to be Negative Nancy over here, but it's the truth. I (and every user on this forum) want to see everything being handled efficiently and effectively and that should be the goal of every business. Personally I haven't spoke much of this until recently. It's just gotten that bad and it would be nice to see it fixed.

 

[Kram]

Saying that its "Just another we need more staff thread" proves that you aren't taking the backlog seriously. When you really think about it you are basically in charge of thousands of dollars, if you have the time to reply to this thread complaining, then you have time to work on more scam reports. I would suggest doing so.
I'm hoping by making another "Work on scam reports" thread, you guys get the message that you need to work on the backlog, these threads aren't useless you know

It's not exactly the case, what we need is more dedicated scam resolvers, not just more staff. When you are first recruited for staff you are a chat moderator so that doesn't really help either (Only exception was Lion). Quality over quantity.

I'm going to be blunt here, I am not going to spend every moment on this site doing scam reports. That simply doesn't make sense. I only do scam reports when I have the clarity of mind and the time necessary to do them correctly because like you implied, they are quite important. I spend my time on this site mostly doing scam reports for sure but when I'm on my phone, or when I'm doing other things and I just want to be on the site, I will not be doing scam reports, I will be on threads or the shoutbox. As a scam resolver, you would think I should put my thoughts into this suggestion thread but instead what you are saying is I should only do scam reports. I say it's just another staff thread because that is exactly what it is, not because I don't take the backlog seriously, because I do take it seriously, and if I didn't I wouldn't bother with doing them. I wouldn't mind these threads if there were new suggestions and solutions to the problem that is here, but there isn't it is the same thing over and over again. We are aware of the problem and you know this so these threads make little difference. These work on scam reports threads or do them faster threads are basically saying we don't work on the backlog, but the fact is we do. So saying that means close to nothing. I hope my point comes across clear enough.

 

[Misfit]

should have accepted my staff application and taught me how to do scam reports smh i have plenty of time to work on that

 

[1337]

There is the often occurrence of personal information being left in the proof section. By making them not moderated, everyone would be able to see that information.

competitor forums do this quite often and even at a similar scale as MCM (think *gu), I rarely see them exceed 10 open deal disputes (their version of SRs). MCM clearly isn't comperable so yes, the suggestion of "do it faster" is a valid one. There is a several month delay on SRs which is just plain unacceptable. anyone could go on a scamming spree for months and as long as they're not stupid or blatantly admit it, they'd get away with it just fine. this is a huge issue and should be given the utmost priority, Kram is basically the only one that handles SRs anymore, and BucketOfSloths seems to have just dropped off the grid for them. It doesn't really matter if/how much work is done "behind the scenes" because there's still a good ton of issues that are affecting your userbase heavily. Maybe stop worrying about breaking image proxies after a small disciplinary issue (which is a 30 minute task and hasn't been fixed for WEEKS! it also heavily affects loads of users who's threads/signatures are now broken), and focus on not letting a queue several months long pile up and allow this marketplace to be overtaken by scammers. It's honestly ridiculous, and Mick has once again dropped off the grid for weeks at a time. Every staff says the sites' activity hasn't gone down but it obviously has as well.

TL;DR: For the 500th time, either get this shit together or see the site wither and die due to incompetent ownership and improper handling of community requests. It's very clear that whatever this site has been doing for the last year isn't working, and by refusing to listen to user suggestions (or pretending to do so and "forgetting" about them for months at a time) and insisting on staying with now-outdated protocols that clearly don't work, a perfect storm is being made for MCM to fade to obscurity and be a failed project after years of work, and is in the process of happening this very minute.