Musings, and choosings

It's been a pretty long while since I've blogged about anything, on PC or otherwise. I've had it in my mind for a while to give an insight into where the hell I've been, and why I've not been posting recently. As some of you guys know, I was a Super Moderator here, then all of a sudden dropped off the face of the Earth with little explanation. With that in mind, I want to give an update as to what I'm up to, and what I plan to do in regards to my PC activity. Sounds exciting right? Pfft!

I quit staff some time back in July for a myriad of reasons. The most of which were loosely tied to me "being too busy." Truth is - I'm always busy. My mind doesn't let me just stop and not work on something, both to my determent and productivity. That said, ambition tied in quite significantly this time, there was a lot I wanted to get on the right path in my life. Which I can say, I managed to do...somewhat successfully. There's plenty more things that will be eating up my time and attention for quite a while now, though. So I suppose the question remains: should I come back to PC staff?

Without getting too existential, I hope to be back soon. I have a lot I want to offer, as always, and while I never want to see this forum "change" I think there's always room for improvement. I know if I do come back, I won't be extremely active in the public forums. However the more I'm starting to look at PC from an outside perspective, the less I think that's actually something a Super Moderator or Admin should need to worry about. HQ remains one of my most active forums, boasting a large percentage of my overall post-count in just a year or two. That in itself leads me to feel that while I was never the social butterfly of the forum as a Super Moderator, at least I was making a significant contribution in the background. With that said, I feel that I can make peace with returning and not being so concerned with being a public figure, so long as I maintain the same sort of dedication in seeing improvements sought for the forum itself.

There are things about the staff I want to see restructured, and while that means little to some of the members who either have no interest in the on-goings of staff matters, or have never witnessed them; it should hopefully reflect on the forum positively. To be more specific, I've always wanted Moderators to be more involved in how we shape various aspects of the forum, and not simply worry about their section alone. There are plenty of Mods who care about the forum as a whole just as much as any S-Mod or Admin, but are limited (to a degree) in policing their own section. I have some ideas to try and expand staff into a more cohesive and collective team atmosphere whereby discussion garners more attention and ideas, while retaining the same speediness of voting and eventual implementation of whatever conclusion is realized. Moral of the story: I hope to see Moderators included in more discussions on staff by means of restructuring the staff forums slightly.

To attest to that, I do have some other ideas that will remain hidden until they potentially see the light of day. I also want to fix up any themes I've made for PC and make them function a lot better. Most of the styles I've made weren't thought out as well as I would like, and I rushed aspects of them and their release. While I'm happy to go ahead and release something functional and update it as bugs are discovered, I could have avoided some holes in their quality with some more patience and cohesive planning. That's just my mind running through it's own flaws though, not very interesting reading material. Perhaps if I do come back, I would also jump into coding some more "in-depth" features for PC also, rather than just styles, because that would be awesome.

All in all this is an announcement of a tentative return for me. When I quit initially, I wanted time away from staff, but I didn't know if I would be back. The case is that I'm still not entirely sure when I will be, but I've given a date for now, so I very well may stick to it. As always, I hate to leave something half done, and I'm pretty sure I'm not finished being a staff member just yet.

If I leave you guys with a question, maybe you might be interested in answering it, as it may open my eyes too. Do you feel that public activity is a necessity for HQ-staff members? Or do you think that so long as they pop their head in every now and then and work hard in the background, that's all that's needed? I hope to see you guys out on the forums soon.

Peace,
Gav

I definitely think public activity from the higher staff is a necessity. Maybe not so much of it, but from a perspective of a normal member, I would at least be interested in knowing that the people that help run the forum are a part of the community, and not just some person that makes decisions that the community may like and/or dislike.

That's some nice words from our Gav!

I always admit higher staff weren't very active in areas outside of the staff forums (although Sheep, Went, Sydian and maybe one other that's escaping me still seem to post publicy on a consistent basis) so I think it'd be cool if the PC staff of the future get more active in various boards while still doing their job at the same time.

Zach pretty much sums it up there, it's always nice when staff involve themselves in public areas because that makes PC feel more like... well, a community.

I also agree that hstaff should have a public presence. Hstaff doesn't have to have my absurd post-per-day count and time spent logged in (cuz, ya know, most people actually have lives). While we are staff, we are also still members as well, and having colored usernames doesn't change that. Staff having a public presence lets members know that we're people too and not just robots created by Rukario to police the forum.

Not saying that all hstaff members should be forced to post on a regular basis though. No one should have to post more than they feel like/are comfortable with.

Something like that.

I feel like h-staff should want to be involved with their members and active in the forums. It always bothered me in the past that several h-staff team members were never present in the public forums or even in the staff areas (minus HQ). It always felt like they were just hanging onto their colored name and had no interest in the forums or their activity. Granted, things are much better with the current h-staff, but I always wish that the admins and s-mods would be as active as some of the mods and members are.

Nobody should be forced to post, but I think if you want things to reflect positively on the forums, there needs to be some kind of community from the top to the bottom and that includes h-staff.

I feel like the current higher staff does a great job of making their presence well known and not hermitting in HQ or other staff forums. When I was a member and a beginner moderator, I felt like our higher staff was just nonexistent outside their own forum and their business.

I like to think I do a good job of mingling with members and other staff members as well as posting around a bit. I never wanted to be someone that just hid away in my forums I modded or in staff forums and I think I've done a good job in not being like that.

Of course, you can't force people to post everywhere. It just looks a little more...sociable when we do. Plus I feel like you know and understand the community much better if you post around in a lot of places. And if you're gonna be making decisions for the community, you need to know it, haha.

Edit: Holy **** Klippy, we look damn good posting right after each other haha.

with the disappearance of the... frankly useless admins like arcanine and parallelzero, i think a lot of the perceived seclusion of higher staff disappeared
plus with the promotion of dearest sydian and live and what not, higher staff appear to have human face for once instead of all belonging to some pokemon forum version of skynet

however i've only been actively been posting for this week in 2014 and i have no insight into the inner workings of staff so my conclusions may be suspect

I agree that public activity is a necessity, but is high public activity really important for HQ-staff? Once again keep in mind that HQ is a commitment in itself that takes a lot of attention and work. I would say things as they are currently are reasonable to a degree. In regards to activity that is. However I wouldn't be too sure on how things are going behind the scenes now.

abnegation;bt100684 said:

I agree that public activity is a necessity, but is high public activity really important for HQ-staff? Once again keep in mind that HQ is a commitment in itself that takes a lot of attention and work. I would say things as they are currently are reasonable to a degree. In regards to activity that is. However I wouldn't be too sure on how things are going behind the scenes now.

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Depends on what you mean by "high". I don't think that hstaff members absolutely have to post as much as Syd/Went/Janna do, unless they want to, but it'd be better if y'all don't just stick to HQ and only very rarely post in public areas. I know that you guys have important things to do on both PC and irl, but we want to see you guys around and have fun with you on the forum too. If you want an idea of an hstaffer that's active in the public sections but not super active, look at Marcin.

I figured at least someone should respond to yer question. Might not be the best response, but there ya go.

Zekrom;bt100687 said:

Depends on what you mean by "high". I don't think that hstaff members absolutely have to post as much as Syd/Went/Janna do, unless they want to, but it'd be better if y'all don't just stick to HQ and only very rarely post in public areas. I know that you guys have important things to do on both PC and irl, but we want to see you guys around and have fun with you on the forum too. If you want an idea of an hstaffer that's active in the public sections but not super active, look at Marcin.

I figured at least someone should respond to yer question. Might not be the best response, but there ya go.

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I would agree that his posting levels are satisfactory and what you would expect from a HQ-staff member, if not, a little less (he posts in the public eye nearly twice a day). Numbers don't matter too much, but the main thing I'm concerned with is if people understand that HQ is actually a large commitment, and that there's more going on than just posting. For example, those who work on the site.

I think a conscious effort to interact with your community is key to making decisions for the forum at large. It's hard to implement and change the way things are/improve on them if you spend little, if any, time interacting and exploring the areas your members go into - they can't see HQ. If you're out there (and posting), you get a better sense of their interests and needs, rather than if you spend all your time in the staff forums.

Not to say that you need to post a hundred times a day, but as staff members, we ought to be focusing on the community and our members. Isolating yourself to a small area that few members will ever see feels counterproductive. I don't think "HQ is a large commitment" is a valid answer when debating activity because it's part of the entire deal you accepted the promotion with and interacting/participating in the things members do is also part of that deal.

Klippy;bt100690 said:

I think a conscious effort to interact with your community is key to making decisions for the forum at large. It's hard to implement and change the way things are/improve on them if you spend little, if any, time interacting and exploring the areas your members go into - they can't see HQ. If you're out there (and posting), you get a better sense of their interests and needs, rather than if you spend all your time in the staff forums.

Not to say that you need to post a hundred times a day, but as staff members, we ought to be focusing on the community and our members. Isolating yourself to a small area that few members will ever see feels counterproductive. I don't think "HQ is a large commitment" is a valid answer when debating activity because it's part of the entire deal you accepted the promotion with and interacting/participating in the things members do is also part of that deal.

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I completely agree, for what it's worth. I don't think HQ is an excuse for inactivity. It is something that does suck some public activity out of HQ-staff, but that's as far as I meant to push it.

Personally I don't think I'll ever be on par activity wise as say, Sheep or Went. That's what I mean by being less active. Currently I'm sitting in the top four in terms of activity from H-staff. It's around there I would like to remain.