Member interaction center

Patchisou Yutohru said:

Member of the Year has nothing to do with the Member Interaction Center, so if that's what you want to talk about and maybe get more of, please make a new thread to discuss that. :/

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Since they have nothing to do with each other, but the former is held less often due to it becoming a popularity contest, I must then ask: If the MIC starts becoming a popularity contest, will it then close? Do you feel that testing it on supporters will give you ample enough variation to distinguish if it will?

I guess that's what testing is all about haha.. but I was just wondering how strict on popularity this might actually be.

Just a bit strange to me that if it's inevitable.. that this would still be happening.

But hopefully staff can sort out some sort of scheme that will be fair to everyone (including answering/not answering personal questions.)

Well let's just hope that this pans out in the end.

But as a side note: I swear to God, if I see ANY member, (and I'm calling you out Nica, specifically, as an example because you do this too much even still, and I hate seeing it)
...but if I see you, or anyone else trying to pimp out their thread ("HEY GUYS ASK ME SOMETHING *LINK*") anywhere, including IRC and the Showdown server, ESPECIALLY before saying even a simple freaking hello to me (or anyone else that you ask,) I'm calling you out as trying to pander for popularity, screenshotting, and reporting.

I understand that maybe this will only cause whatever member to avoid saying it when they see me around, but I encourage other members to not give in to it for the community's sake (including newer members!)

I am just sick of this behaviour and I wanted to note it here.

It isn't against the rules but it goes against the very reason why MIC is being organized. If users who're already quite popular engage in something like that, this whole thing would just be a waste. Because, if I understand the concept correctly (sorry, haven't really been following this thread. was busy with rl stuff!), it is basically a project intended to bring the whole community together by allowing everyone almost an equal chance to get to know each other. It loses its 'fairness', and quite frankly, its meaning if popular members pander for even more popularity.

So yeah. I agree with Kura. This shouldn't be allowed.

Nope, but the whole reason other things were closed were because of popularity issues (like just stated MOTY) and people feeling bad about them.

When I am approached just to be a number in some thread, I feel bad about it. When I am approached again in the same way after sending PMs about the previous instances, then I feel even worse. When a member feels bad then it shouldn't be something that is taken lightly, IMO..

There's nothing wrong with reporting, and just being able to show others that this is going on, is enough for me. Mods can do whatever actions they want about it. And even if they take no action, if what happened to me is still made aware, I am happy enough.

So I will report if I see it, just to share. That's all. I personally think others should do the same, but others are entitled enough to do what they see fit when in a similar situation.

PS: I am mainly talking about promotion-abuse here by the way.. I'm not going to report measly mentions of things so don't worry, peeps.

I posted an alternate solution earlier about how this could be handled.. which was the 2-thread based thing.. whilst (trying to incorporate some of your ideas too Twilight Sky) but I think only just Droomph saw it.. haha.. but even though his post was nice as inspiration, I see a lot of cattiness on Reddit I wouldn't want to bring here.
However, I didn't see WHY we can't have what I mentioned instead? Do you all just prefer a section or something to stand out? Isn't standing out what we're avoiding?

But.. honestly? I am curious to see how this goes. And if it falls apart then something else might be a good answer to it. Hopefully it goes well (if it's still going through) and this is unneeded.


I mean to bring this all up as worst case scenarios.. but it's happened before and I rather people be made aware than not.
I'm not here just to nitpick, like you say, but I do just want to bring it up.

Hope it doesn't get to that, and hope it goes smoothly.


This whole thread just reminded me of something I need to say in the Staff Feedback thread.

You make a valid point, Derk. When I said "this shouldn't be allowed", I actually didn't mean outright making it equivalent to a punishable offense. I was basically just saying how it defeats the point and is something I wouldn't like seeing. Hadn't really thought of a way to counter the problem that you've brought up, haha.

But yeah. You're right when it comes to the fact that it may not really be possible to segregate PC members into groups like 'popular' and 'not-so-popular' as there's no yardstick available for us to measure popularity by. It ain't black and white. After all, a member that's considered popular in a certain part of PC might not be as popular in other areas and different people have different views about their popularity, as a result. We're aiming to give everyone a fair chance. But we aren't doing that if we're basically letting some people ask others to post in their thread while denying a few others based on something as arbitrary as the 'amount of popularity' the person is associated with. That's what you wish to say, right?

The only way to deal with it, I think, is to go with what Kura's suggesting. Reporting cases where some members feel as if a popular member is trying to pimp out their thread would bring it in the staff's notice. And it isn't as if the report is immediately acted upon by a single staff member and we call it a case closed. We, quite a lot of times, have lengthy discussions regarding what sort of action should be taken in case there's a situation that's a little difficult to deal with. All of the staff team ponder over it and provide their thoughts. And then we go with majority.

This wouldn't work if something like this happened
>Kura reports
>Dero sees report
>Dero punishes the person concerned since they're "Popular" in dero's eyes
>closes report so that no other staff member notices it

But that won't happen, in my opinion. Because we all do talk on lengths about cases where things are unclear. Blurry lines, so to speak.

I honestly see no reason for anyone to be punished no matter what their popularity levels are.

To be quite frank I think that there really should only be punishment when there is clear and present abusive promotion of the thread in question. Perhaps prohibiting all members from linking their thread too often would be fine. Two or three times in the normal course of a casual 4 hour conversation window is fine. More than that would be a bit excessive. No one should be punished or discouraged unless their thread is seriously dominating the section and there's clear and present evidence that the promotion is causing too much traffic.

Because advertising IS after all, a rule here, but gosh, even if it was "Bro, don't let me see you do that again" to avoid this sort of behaviour, then we are all cool. Let's just try and make it fair to everyone ok? That is what I want.

So any opinion to the 2-thread version of this?

Twilight Sky said:

In that case, I feel that going with Pachy's suggestion here would be more plausible. But in that sense (at least in the showdown server) that rule is already in place. If you advertise a link too much, you're bound to get muted and/or banned anyway, given enough persistence. If it's a once in a while thing, then fine, but it gets annoying if you do it every single time.

I personally feel that there shouldn't be a numerical limit on how many times a MIC thread should be promoted, as it's sort of common sense (lol sorry if this sounds rude) that you know you're going too far when the link to your MIC thread is dominating a conversation.

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Agreeing here too, really, with Pachy. I think it's a good compromise.

Either way, if I see abuse, I'll report it. I admit my tolerance level is a lot shorter than many others, but I'll definitely try my best to be liberal too :3

Twilight Sky said:

Yes! Somewhat, yeah. I feel that the line is actually very blurry, because I feel that context should be taken into /extreme/ consideration here, which is why (not that reporting is a BAD idea , per se) if a report were to be made, caution should be taken as far as the staff is concerned, because it's very easy to misunderstand members and wrongly punish them when in fact, they didn't intend to hurt anyone's feelings at all. Basically this.

> Kura reports
> Dero sees report, discusses it with other staff/h-staff
> Comes to the conclusion to deal with said member
> Member decides to appeal punishment; decides that staff misunderstood.

As rare as that possibility is, do keep in mind that (as far as I know, anyway) it's not like members are included in any way in report discussions, so they can't really defend themselves as far as whether or not they intend to do something, or whether staff have really messed up. In that sense, it becomes a huge slippery slope that I think no one wants to deal with, haha.

Y'know, the more that I think about it, if people are seeing this, I feel that a lot of people are going to be a lot more hesitant in "advertising" their threads, because the actual real possibility exists that people are going to be reporting things left and right, taking things out of context and then it just becomes a mess. .___. That's a worst case scenario thing anyway, and I hope this doesn't happen.

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The thing is...the chances of that happening are very low, imo. We discuss stuff quite a lot. People like me don't really comment much apart from cases where things are really black and white (y'all know I'm st00pid :p) but there are quite a few others who really engage in long discussions and consider almost everything about the case in question. I can't really provide proof since I'm...not really allowed to reveal what goes on behind the curtains but...yeah, I can just provide reassurance that something like that has a very low chance of happening.

Pachy said:

I honestly see no reason for anyone to be punished no matter what their popularity levels are.

To be quite frank I think that there really should only be punishment when there is clear and present abusive promotion of the thread in question. Perhaps prohibiting all members from linking their thread too often would be fine. Two or three times in the normal course of a casual 4 hour conversation window is fine. More than that would be a bit excessive. No one should be punished or discouraged unless their thread is seriously dominating the section and there's clear and present evidence that the promotion is causing too much traffic.

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The thing is...I never meant to say that the member should be punished. It was more along the lines of the staff members telling the member to cool his jets since s/he's going overboard. :p

Kura said:

Because advertising IS after all, a rule here, but gosh, even if it was "Bro, don't let me see you do that again" to avoid this sort of behaviour, then we are all cool. Let's just try and make it fair to everyone ok? That is what I want.

So any opinion to the 2-thread version of this?

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I actually like it, tbh. It'd work, imo.

Derozio said:

I actually like it, tbh. It'd work, imo.

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Thing is.. the big main thing has apparently already been voted on without it's consideration so.. is there any chance that it actually would be considered? Or are you just going to follow through with the huge shebang?

A bit disappointed though. Would've thought that it would work, and if it seemingly got too popular (obviously it'd be popular at first but if it kept booming over the next few months) THEN that's when we can upscale it to having it's own section.

I don't know, Kura. Projects like these are taken care of by the hstaff. I've no idea about the progress of MIC or if the two thread idea has even been considered. But let us hope that it has. =(

Wait really? Regular mods have no say in that? I know they predominantly look after their section but I would've thought they had more voice than that.. especially since this suggestion was opened up to everyone on PC and not just left to staff. Why was it opened to us when all that really mattered was the opinion of yes/no of 12 people anyhow?

Well either way, I'm just hoping that good will come from it, whatever ends up happening. Thanks for listening, Derozio (and others, too.)

Naah, we have as much of a say as other non-staff members when it comes to these things. :p But it would be wrong to say that the opinion of all the moderators and other members isn't considered while making a decision. They do look at the general consensus, I'm sure. So our opinion does matter, you know?

And no problemo, Kura! This is probably the first time I've ever participated in a discussion that's related to the community as a whole. I actually felt like I was, you know, somewhat useful. Because all I've been doing since I was promoted was look after my own section and post in the staff threads. The fact that I could contribute, however little, makes me really happy. I should be thanking you guys, instead! So yeah, thanks! <3;

^Although I'm still not the biggest on the section, I said yes to a trial because people here in general supported it.

I do agree that in general people shouldn't try to advertise their threads obnoxiously - I don't mind people asking for it in say irc the once, just not going on about it or only going on places to just advertise it. Not something I'd suggest infracting for straight up if it happens too, a reminder would I hope do if it does happen. As for popularity issues, although it will be impossible as said to stop it from happening, it sure is possible to try to limit it to some reasonable amount imo. Or I hope, anyway. We will see!

@ 2 thread idea - I'll point it out in the planning and see what others think. I'm not made up my mind on which I prefer myself... I do think though that 2 threads is a bit harder to keep track of? And double the threads might get messy (say someone reads a question they're interested in hearing the answer - they then have to go and find the answers thread and shift through that to get the answer. Which is at worst a minor annoyance, but nonetheless!). Granted it does

Maybe we can also help keep it uncluttered by saying that each person can only ask one question per week so we dont get a flood of possible questions, too.

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Sadly this sounds like it would be a bit annoying to keep track off. Maybe better as a suggestion... but then I don't see it being too necessary either (clutter is just going to be hard to avoid).

bobandbill said:

^Although I'm still not the biggest on the section, I said yes to a trial because people here in general supported it.

I do agree that in general people shouldn't try to advertise their threads obnoxiously - I don't mind people asking for it in say irc the once, just not going on about it or only going on places to just advertise it. Not something I'd suggest infracting for straight up if it happens too, a reminder would I hope do if it does happen. As for popularity issues, although it will be impossible as said to stop it from happening, it sure is possible to try to limit it to some reasonable amount imo. Or I hope, anyway. We will see!

@ 2 thread idea - I'll point it out in the planning and see what others think. I'm not made up my mind on which I prefer myself... I do think though that 2 threads is a bit harder to keep track of? And double the threads might get messy (say someone reads a question they're interested in hearing the answer - they then have to go and find the answers thread and shift through that to get the answer. Which is at worst a minor annoyance, but nonetheless!). Granted it does
Sadly this sounds like it would be a bit annoying to keep track off. Maybe better as a suggestion... but then I don't see it being too necessary either (clutter is just going to be hard to avoid).

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Well, I'd say a whole section takes a lot to keep track of too. If we're getting a new mod anyway for this whole new section, why don't we instead just mod someone else in Other Trivia to help look after this and help keep track of it? 2 threads is easier to look after than.. hundreds.

If it is too much to handle, 2 threads being closed is MUCH easier to do than shutting down a whole section.


I am also a bit peeved that this was apparently agreed upon on popular vote.. but I see no poll in this thread.. so why didn't you let us decide instead of just assuming "people in general supported it" when I look back and I just see discussion about concerns rather than "I see no problem with it." So did you vote based on us, or based on your own opinion? The first is unfair to us, and the second is unfair to you IMO.. but this is a whole other matter.
Felt it was already for it to begin with, so it seems like this thread is here just to appease us. That's how I feel, anyway.

Well, I'd say a whole section takes a lot to keep track of too. If we're getting a new mod anyway for this whole new section, why don't we instead just mod someone else in Other Trivia to help look after this and help keep track of it? 2 threads is easier to look after than.. hundreds.

If it is too much to handle, 2 threads being closed is MUCH easier to do than shutting down a whole section.

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I don't follow - shutting down a whole section...? If by that you mean thread moderation or somesuch I don't think it's very hard. Also we're not yet fully decided on the location/etc (by that I mean we'll fully decide after the trial, and it's something to worry about after we see how it actually goes in the first place), so worrying about if we get a new mod or not is something to follow after said trial.

I am also a bit peeved that this was apparently agreed upon on popular vote.. but I see no poll in this thread.. so why didn't you let us decide instead of just assuming "people in general supported it" when I look back and I just see discussion about concerns rather than "I see no problem with it." So did you vote based on us, or based on your own opinion? The first is unfair to us, and the second is unfair to you IMO.. but this is a whole other matter.
Felt it was already for it to begin with, so it seems like this thread is here just to appease us. That's how I feel, anyway.

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Nick wanted to bring it up here first, so he can explain why he did that. =p I don't see why there's too much to be peeved about though... I'm not massively opposed against the idea (I would be if there hadn't been some way to keep some handle on some threads dominating the forum too much - as a way was suggested that got my approval. And then me being on the fence isn't reason for me to deny it a trial run - ie a way to better gauge how it would go rather than going 'well maybe ___ would happen'. In other words - I didn't just vote myself because other people liked it, don't worry about that. (I took a while as I gave it a fair bit of thought actually...)

And I saw all those posts about concerns - I can't say I don't see the majority of people who posted though weren't at least interested in the idea however. I wouldn't say that we just assumed it - I followed the thread throughout for one. *motions to earlier posts within it which included me posting my own concerns*

Fair enough, Marcin! I think I am just overthinking it all and making myself frustrated lol..

I am adamant that my idea can and will work. Why don't.. while you guys are beta testing this in the supporter lounge.. I will take it upon myself to create the threads in Other Trivia and look over them. After a couple weeks/ a month, it can be closed.

I just want to see this happen properly, and I see too many problems doing it the other way so let me show you a solution. You guys wanted members to host events more right? Let me do it.

I'm okay with you trying that after we have the trial period.