Holding mentors accountable?

[Kurando]

Having crafting mentor status doesn't allow access to mentor roulette. I have crafting mentor status and I cannot do mentor roulette because I haven't done all of the dungeons.

My point really was that you only need one DoW/M to complete the relevant duties to unlock the roulette, (which a lot of it can be steam rolled by going through unsynced, i.e. like HW ex primals). So you unlock your Mentorship through Crafting, unlock your roulette using a single job only (e.g. WAR) and voila suddenly you have access to everything for little effort. The Crown lies by suggesting you can mentor everything and/or provide assistance (which is what it says when you turn it on), which unless you're on an alt account you really can't advice much at all.

[BillyKaplan]

So you unlock your Mentorship through Crafting, unlock your roulette using a single job only (e.g. WAR) and voila suddenly you have access to everything for little effort..

Roulette was there to help queues, not get teachers into duties. And Mentors are required to answer questions, true, but nowhere does it say that the answer can't be "I'm sorry, I don't know".
#WorksAsIntended.

[Ilan]

I could just as easily argue that the meme that the NA/EU communities are rolling garbage fires convinces most would-be mentors and people who would otherwise participate in the Novice Network to not even bother. If all you ever hear is how bad NA/EU is, and how bad their NNs are, chances are you're going to believe it and not even try.

Basically what I'm saying is, repeating this idea that NA/EU is just garbage and needs the man to come in and fix it is just as bad as whatever may be going on in the NNs themselves.

EDIT: Also a self-fulfilling prophecy. People who hear NA/EU NNs are bad won't want to participate and add what "good" to that community that they can.

I was exactly 2 hours mentor when it came out. I read all that crap they wrote, instead of helping new players, and left again. Now i would only join the NN if i would level another character to have some laugh or facepalm moments.

[Freyt]

Sounds like the problem here wish with the Novice Network.

[Kurando]

Roulette was there to help queues, not get teachers into duties. And Mentors are required to answer questions, true, but nowhere does it say that the answer can't be "I'm sorry, I don't know".
#WorksAsIntended.

Always a pleasure when someone attempts to put words in your mouth....
No one said anything about having to be a teacher, you can say you don't know, we are all human and make mistakes or don't know things, but to quote in point what you agree to when turning on your mentor crown;

"As a mentor, you are expected to actively perform the following:
1. Provide gameplay advice for new adventurers and other players.
2. Be an exemplar for players etiquette.
3. Invite new players to the Novice Network, and answer their queries in the chat channel."

Alright once or twice you can can say "I'm sorry, I don't know", but if you are regularly using that excuse then any mentor is not activity performing part of their expected duties. So in actual fact although it doesn't explicitly state your argument in words, there is a degree of expectation. Unfortunately some players are just pure lazy and have no intention to provide any help whatsoever, and as some have mentioned the crown is purely a status symbol.

If it was #WorksAsIntended the mentor system wouldn't be broken how it is. Cute to use hashtags though, original.

[AxlStream]

As a regular user of the NN for mentoring purposes... You guys must have some really f'ed up players in your servers. All the negative experiences I see here, I never seen on Faerie. Sure NN is mostly mentor talking to each other most of the time, but that's because the novices are mute. They can go hours without asking any questions. Although when a question does pop up though, plenty of mentors answer.

[BillyKaplan]

Alright once or twice you can can say "I'm sorry, I don't know", but if you are regularly using that excuse then any mentor is not activity performing part of their expected duties.

You contradict yourself in your own post. On one hand you acknowledge we're all humans, then you go on to expect a lot out of mentors regardless of their level of skill, explanation abilities, or even mental capabilities, when SE themselves don't care about any of that. These days you can be a Mentor after 3 job potions (2 if you got SCH or SMN) and some 300 odd commendations you got for having nice glamour. That's because it's all one big ruse to get queues going, like 90% of what SE does in this game.
Furthermore, what you quoted does not, in fact, demand that much out of mentors. Gameplay advice can include "check out this youtube channel for extreme primal guides" and "this site has good rotations". Otherwise, every mentor would be expected to know every last mechanic of every duty in the roulette - and let me tell you, there's a lot of duties in that roulette. People also expect mentors to know everything there is to know about jobs, when what is actually required to be a mentor is one job of each role to be at 60. Anything else is expectations inflated by the community, who don't care how bad your typing skills are or how bad your social anxiety is to keep you from typing in chat.
So despite it all, so long as I don't tell people off rudely when they ask me about DRG rotation at 70, it's perfectly fine to say I don't know.

If it was #WorksAsIntended the mentor system wouldn't be broken how it is.

There are two things that are broken about the system. One is that the Roulette and its alluring prize are tied to the Mentor system. Two, the Crown icon. Change these two things and the problem will fix itself.

[Usho]

Alright once or twice you can can say "I'm sorry, I don't know", but if you are regularly using that excuse then any mentor is not activity performing part of their expected duties. So in actual fact although it doesn't explicitly state your argument in words, there is a degree of expectation. Unfortunately some players are just pure lazy and have no intention to provide any help whatsoever, and as some have mentioned the crown is purely a status symbol.

If it was #WorksAsIntended the mentor system wouldn't be broken how it is. Cute to use hashtags though, original.

Those "expectations" you described doesn't really apply to most mentors. As I stated, people have a lot of reasons for wanting to become a mentor, but for a lot of mentors, they just want the gold crown, a extra chat room, the mount, and for some, access to newbie lists for their own purposes like blind invites to FCs (yes it does happen and not all for good intentions). Only half of players become mentors to actually "mentor" new players. SE made it like this, and there are no consequences for not performing these "expectations" you described. You'd be surprised how many mentors use Novice Network as a means to hook up with other players (relationship/s*x), chat about private parts and troll other players. Even Newbies aren't immune to the mentors trolling them. Some even use NN to voice their religious beliefs, bigoted views, racism, homophobia, etc.



Mentors in NN think they have this authority in NN that they can sh*t all over people and kick them out cause of dumb reasons like debating about a crappy piece of gear or w/e.



So no, mentors aren't expected to be "teachers" cause a lot of them join for a lot of selfish reasons and have no intention of actually being a mentor. If SE has some note about giving advice in the joining process, players will simply ignore that cause they really couldn't careless and SE will allow that cause they ALSO couldn't careless. You even have players who, even on newly released content, want the mentor to explain the mechanics, then though the mentor is also new to the content, and as a result the other players use that to harass the mentor, on NEW content to everyone.



Like I said, I'm not trying to defend bad mentors, but I believe you people expect too much from them and for some god forsaken reason, you hold them to a higher standard when it's become clear that you really shouldn't. Instead of b****ing about bad mentors so much, go to Yoshi-Pee and SE and ask them to revamp the system. But even if you do, it's become obvious, that they don't really care.




/2 cents

[Ilan]

Always a pleasure when someone attempts to put words in your mouth....
No one said anything about having to be a teacher, you can say you don't know, we are all human and make mistakes or don't know things, but to quote in point what you agree to when turning on your mentor crown;

"As a mentor, you are expected to actively perform the following:
1. Provide gameplay advice for new adventurers and other players.
2. Be an exemplar for players etiquette.
3. Invite new players to the Novice Network, and answer their queries in the chat channel."

Alright once or twice you can can say "I'm sorry, I don't know", but if you are regularly using that excuse then any mentor is not activity performing part of their expected duties. So in actual fact although it doesn't explicitly state your argument in words, there is a degree of expectation. Unfortunately some players are just pure lazy and have no intention to provide any help whatsoever, and as some have mentioned the crown is purely a status symbol.

If it was #WorksAsIntended the mentor system wouldn't be broken how it is. Cute to use hashtags though, original.

But if you give advice as a mentor be sure it is the right one. Seen enough mentors who hadn't a clue what they are doing or said something completly wrong. There are not only bad mentors but the good ones are most likely not in the NN or just don't read and write in it.

[Rymm]

There are not only bad mentors but the good ones are most likely not in the NN or just don't read and write in it.

Dear god in heaven... To echo a previous poster, how bad a state must your server's NN be in to elicit blanket statements such as this? It makes me sad for your sprouts.

Maybe if the "good" mentors would join the chat or speak up with the correct advice (not advocating starting arguments with anyone, just suggesting they provide factual information and leave it at that) then maybe some of the other NNs wouldn't be such dumpster fires? I keep seeing it repeated in this thread, over and over, how people "took one look at the NN chat" and left right away. Well of course, if all the good players leave without trying all that is going to be left is the bottom of the barrel. In such a situation, what else could it end up as besides terrible? It takes effort to cultivate a positive, helpful community.

For clarity, I'm not suggesting that everyone who qualifies as a mentor is obligated to jump in and try to fix up their NN (should it be one of the ones in a poor state.) But if it's such a pervasive problem and you feel strongly enough about it to voice your opinion on it and push SE to take some kind of action, why not try to take some kind of action yourself rather than just sitting by and cursing the dark?