Fungamer wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 1:06 am
I'm saying neither should get rewards.
I can't name a single player who has come to or stayed on PKH because they saw a youtube video. The server doesn't
need youtubers nor does it really benefit from them. The audience simply isn't there. The recognition in form of a rank and letting them post their content in a special discord channel is nice for them. Previewing content and what not would be nice too but I guess something like that is up to the supers to decide (and a bit useless since we have test server previews for most major content releases anyways).
I mean... Ain's videos did precisely that. I couldn't name them, but I know there were quite a few.
If I'm totally honest, if not for the blatant negligence that some people in power had towards Ain's contributions to the server (back when we were all kids and took that shit personally), I wouldn't have been arguing in favor of a Youtuber rank as much, if at all. Dude racked up atleast half a million views on PkHonor videos alone (you can actually count, I got bored after 400k but there were still a lot of PkHonor videos to tally) and sometimes got as many messages from new players as mods did.
The current rank, in my view, is a compromise of what I once believed it should've been and nothing at all.
The idea that staff members or ranks don't deserve rewards is a hard stance of the following idealism:
staff members and ranked individuals should not seek rewards from their ranks, they should be motivated by passion or their ideals/personalities. Often we are jaded by years of experience in seeing people fail to meet this ideal, and we just assume that because there exists a reward, people will seek it out rather than commit to the true purpose of the job. So it's natural to bifurcate into one stance or the other.
However, rewarding their efforts (which are legitimately efforts a lot of the time, it can feel like a job) is not inherently bad. Staff members should/did get a boost in ::skilling, and also should be allowed to get a gift on Christmas (which I believe they often do). I don't think Youtubers, who
have brought people to the game (I don't know if that still happens, but it certainly did and served as a strong motivator for the rank in the first place), should be exempt from in game rewards either. The problem is, I can agree that the influence of individual YouTubers seems lower than the past, and many of the popular RSPS Youtubers are exactly what we DON'T want in an ideal Youtuber - they seek out the servers that reward them over ones that wouldn't, like PkHonor.
Don't get me wrong - it's still fantastic that we do what we do. I don't want this to seem like the YT rank is inadequate - the idealism is removed from the reality of the situation and there is a ton of value in simply being recognized for great work on this game. But when juxtaposed with other RSPSes, there is an obvious difference, and we can attribute both benefits and detriments to our selection.