I figured I’d chime in before this topic derails even more.
While I like the sentiment that you think we should be paid for our work, it does goes directly against the notion of being a volunteer.
Having said that, I, personally, enjoy being a volunteer for EVE, and I, personally, think volunteering for EVE is worth the time and effort I invest in it (and the time I have invested in it over the past decade+). It not only helped me grow as a person, it has also greatly expanded the amount of personal connections I have made through EVE.
Now reading between the lines I feel the crux of this proposal is aimed at our presence in the help channels, and that you would like to see more ISD (or CCP) presence, so that we can help more people.
To get the cheesy answer out of the way first; You can help!, by joining ISD ( https://volunteers.eveonline.com/ ). It might take some effort, but it’s also a very rewarding experience. It also takes a lot less time than you’d think.
If you can spare ~5-10 hours a month, we’d already be more than happy to have you - many hands make light work.
Also, if you know of people who you think would be an asset to the program, let them know about us, and perhaps suggest that they sign up. Don’t worry, we don’t bite unless asked.
Now the light-hearted answer aside, what you can do to make our work that much easier.
Don’t hesitate to tell people you think they are doing great. It might sound very cheesy, but especially for STAR and CCL, where moderation (and as such, toxic behavior) is part of the curriculum, hearing a “Thanks!” or “You’re awesome” really helps. This goes for everybody, not just ISD members! We know there are a lot of regulars in the channel, and they too should know that they are being awesome.
Don’t hesitate to contact the GMs if you see particularly bad behavior in the channels when nobody is around. It might happen that the GMs cannot deal with the issue directly, but it does give them information to take action against repeat offenders.
Come find us at events, say hi, shake our hand. We might not be as visible as CCP developers during events, but we are there.
The fact that they volunteer means they can stop at anytime without really losing anything. If they dont like it they wont do it, and those that do enjoy it do it. Nothing agaisnt ISDs but i do understand the reason for their rules.
I think the problem of not compensating ISD boils down boils down into two distinct issues that shouldn’t be confused:
Staff-side: The ISD are being used as unpaid labor by CCP. The more ISD STARs that moderate chat and answer questions, the fewer work hours paid CCP staff have to dedicate to addressing these issues via support tickets, which helps pad out their profit margins. (The practice of using unpaid volunteers or interns to do staff work (for no pay or education in return, outside of registered charities) is normally illegal in most first world countries, due to its inherently exploitative nature. Yes, even if done voluntarily. Minimum wage laws would be meaningless if it were legal to work without pay.)
Community-side: The almost complete absence of CCP staff in-game means ISD STARs are inadvertently becoming the only authoritative presence in game to manage problems in a timely fashion (e.g., not several hours to weeks after the fact via support tickets). Given how few active ISD STARs there are, it would greatly benefit the game if they were more active – and not having them lose income to do ISD work is likely the best way to do that.
Of course, merely compensating volunteers aren’t the only solution. There are other options, but they require actual effort on CCP’s part:
Hiring more community staff to handle things, so unpaid labor isn’t being used to replaced paid labor. (CCP won’t like this as it cuts into their profit margins)
Expanding the ISD membership – or, at least, not having the application processing take 12+ months, as reported by one ISD. Having more available means the community won’t suffer even if each ISD is barely active, so there’s no need to incentivize them to work more often. (CCP won’t like this since staff work hours will be needed for vetting candidates. Also only solves problem #2, not #1.)
Expanding in-game tools to address moderation problems; instead of only being allowed to right-click to report bots and ISK sellers, expand it to include abusive behavior or other rule violations. This could take the burdens of moderation off ISD STAR. (Again, addresses only problem #2 and not #1.)
Most of these alternatives require more effort on CCPs part than merely spawning and sending some ISK each month, or fail to address both problems. They’d be nice to see, but I don’t expect CCP will implement them given its history so far.
It is known that ISD, just like CSM, must sign an NDA when they join their respective ISD teams - that’s very scary to some people, as NDAs have real-world legal consequences if not followed. And that would prevent a lot of people from volunteering to join.
But, because of that NDA, there are likely many things the ISD get behind the scenes as some form of compensation that they are simply not allowed to talk about.
Consider - if it were broadcast as public knowledge that the volunteers actually get some sort of compensation, let’s say, free plex every month or something, then there would be a lot more people banging on the doors to be let in, and that would make it harder to vet through the applications to get people who are likely to actually be a good fit as ISD.
So I think your entire rational is based on the assumption that ISD’s don’t get any compensation and they very well might, but they just don’t talk about it.
I suspect the bit you are missing here is that moderating chat & answering questions is likely not in any paid CCP employees job description. I would guess that it was an extra duty beyond job scope they were voluntarily taking on, and in that case it would be leading to fatigue issues with Devs doing too many hours working, and burn out.