Involvement with the Forum

[Razor Leaf]

So, I've been doing some thinking and talking to some people about how we balance the involvement and contributions of all of you in this forum against those of the mods. Other staff, I'm not trying to undermine ye guys by posting this here first; I just wanna pose it as a hypothetical to see if it's worth taking higher. You might as well as also know that my opinions here don't strictly represent the opinions of the whole staff.

Basically, I want to know how interested ye'd all be in having a deeper involvement with the forum than straightforward posting. I'm talking stuff like minor forum events, competitions, and generally you guys having a greater amount of responsibility around the forums. As it stands, a lot of stuff is handled almost purely by staff. Which is fine, but I feel like we're not giving you enough opportunities to make stuff happen around here without being staff members yourselves. And of course, not everyone can be staff. I feel it's sorta black and white (lol) as it is; either you're a member and you don't have responsibility or you're staff and you do have responsibility. Personally I don't much like a gap that wide and feel like members can be trusted with a bit more responsibility than we give you right now. How exactly this could hypothetically be implemented, I don't know, but it's still a baby idea. I just wanna know how interested you guys are really. :]

So yeah, yes or no to more responsibility and organisation from members?

[Forever]

I've been all for it since we discussed it. :)

[JNathan]

I'm all for this idea to be implemented. You guys can count on me.

[KriegStein]

Sounds good. Especialy for those who want to be little more than "just posters". :D

[Hikari10]

I'm all for this, because it helps promote activity in especially the less active sections.

[Harlequin]

what sort of activities are you proposing exactly

[ForeverDash]

This sounds good. Like what Hikari said it'll help promote more activity in the forum other than just people posting.

[Bloodex]

Was this really the mindset with everyone, that if you weren't staff, you didn't have responsibility? I never looked at it that way. :c

That being said, and my ignorance come to light, I totally support this idea. If members are capable of doing the work, then they should be meant to have their ideas and stuff come to life. It'll make the place more fun.

[Harlequin]

Originally Posted by Bloodex

Was this really the mindset with everyone, that if you weren't staff, you didn't have responsibility? I never looked at it that way. :c

the only time i see members getting involved with the organisation & execution of forum events (not counting prettiest profile and the like) is the annual get together thingymajiggy, and that's because they get to have a little green bar under their name & a fun event to run
members (as a whole) don't really have any responsibilities at all except to be the lifeblood of pc

[tigerBLADE]

Yes, I do agree that this would feel like we're giving out more for the forums, than just posting. I'd be up for this idea!

[Curious.]

I'm all in favour.

How would we give members more responsibility?
In what form? What would they be responsible for?
How is one chosen to complete a certain task? Do people put up their hand/sign up?

[chaoticlapras]

Uh. Im all for this idea. How are members going to do this though? It would be easier to promote active/supporter people to a baby mod position? Just an idea.

[EternallyAnna]

So... train of thought here, might not be quite what you're looking for but yeah, that'd be good, I think. Posting is all well and good, but it's often a bit passive? Like in a lot of places people take the post-and-go route rather than discussion route and yeah then it's just kind of passive as opposed to making threads and going back to threads to discuss things. If people would get involved with creating and maintaining threads and events, I think that'd probably help out staff a bit and also give them (members) a stronger tie to the community? I dunno I've got vague ideas in my head and I'm not even sure where I'm going with them.

[Toujours]

Originally Posted by chaoticlapras

Uh. Im all for this idea. How are members going to do this though? It would be easier to promote active/supporter people to a baby mod position? Just an idea.

I don't think it would be related whatsoever to modding. If we're going to do that, we might as well mod them, right?

That being said, a different rank would make sense to me. This could be a rank you applied to, like a permanent EO, but without a badge because we already have so many especially when GT rolls around. It could give you access to an Events/Competitions forum, where you can plan out events in whatever section, see if other people want to help you with it, and get the final okay from the mods of that section/hstaff.

[dbp]

I wouldn't mind seeing more involvement. I've been sort of put off by the very same post-and-go vibe PC seems to have, as EternallyAnna put it. Anything meaty gets shot down or ignored outside of the one serious discussions forum, and it's not very stimulating. Maybe that's just the nature of the audience? In that case, perhaps we should start doing activities that would actually excite the audience enough to do more than post in/start another list topic(s)?

[Forever]

Just replying on behalf of Razor given we've discussed this quite a bit. In regards to what members can do, there's a lot of things other than just get together's people can become involved in, PC has a social media community (and a few other things that were brought up but shouldn't be mentioned just in case anyone gets their hopes up and it doesn't go ahead) but there's some actual ideas. The thought was more to inspire a sort of way to reward good posters, and those who encourage discussion, and those would obviously be the ones looked to, to be involved in this kind of thing. If this does go ahead, and is agreed on, there will be more than just get together hosting (as Harley mentioned), and rather a whole lot of other ideas.

I also love the idea that Toujours mentioned of a planning sort of rank. :)

[Cassino]

Originally Posted by Razor Leaf

[...]

I can't think how that would work, but go on.

[Harlequin]

if this thing does go ahead, would it be too hard to allow those running the event to be able to make an announcement or whatever in that section?? like, the ones staff put out whenever they want to showcase a new rule or event in their section
naturally this will be in conjunction with blogs (should they have one) and advertising in signatures and what not

[Patchisou Yutohru]

So pretty much make event organizers a thing for everybody to be at any time?

[Kura]

I've already tried doing this an i think it's a great idea! I welcome more events and boosting excitement in the community!
I've spoken to toujours before about boosting th irc but i now have other ideas for it and going to speak to Fabio about it too! I'd love to see people boosting the forums especially whwn people are enthusiastic about it like that member who made a thread recently wanting to boost the lp section :3 so nice to see!

I feel maybe it might also be beeficial to hav a community events subsection that has mod approved threads only would be cool and i had contemplated mentioning it before but figured i may as well say it here!!

[Shiny Celebi]

I do like this idea :) I think it would be nice to help out the staff in this way, and could be a great way to get members more involved in the forums and it sounds kinda fun actually.

[LilJz1234]

I think it's a great idea for people to start feeling more than just the average forum posters and they can feel like they're really helping in contributing something to the forum.

But what kind of responsibility and organization are we talking about here? What do you guys have in mind?

[Squidchan]

Originally Posted by Toujours

I don't think it would be related whatsoever to modding. If we're going to do that, we might as well mod them, right?

That being said, a different rank would make sense to me. This could be a rank you applied to, like a permanent EO, but without a badge because we already have so many especially when GT rolls around. It could give you access to an Events/Competitions forum, where you can plan out events in whatever section, see if other people want to help you with it, and get the final okay from the mods of that section/hstaff.

Sorry if this is a bit to read, and maybe too much irrelevant information involved, but this suggestion has brought on a bout of nostalgia and made me miss a couple of responsibilities I had a few years ago.

I was a long time member of a gaming forum, in which I eventually got position of Mod and SuperMod. Eventually, I was also given responsibility of running the Event Section, and then after that, I quit my SuperMod position but kept the Event Section, effectively seperating it from the Mod Team permanently, except in cases where moderation of posts and the like was needed, as I didn't get to keep my moderation abilities. We had a 'Judge Team' that was a hand-picked group of dedicated members that would assist in perusing entries of Events and Competitions and, using set points... Umm, wow this bit is harder to explain than I thought. Let me give an example. As the leader of this Judge Team, it was my job to organise and help the judges in their decisions. I would set up a discussion thread, and a seperate judging thread for the event in question. In the judging thread, I would give the judges a form to fill out. An example would be, if the event was a writing event:
Name of Entrant:
Link to Entry:
Grammar and Spelling: (out of 5)
Ease of Reading: (out of 10)
Depth of Writing: (out of 10)
Fulfills Rules and Event Requirements: Yes/No (out of 2)
Then the score would be added together (out of 27), and an average found of all the judges scores for an entry, leaving out the lowest and highest scores (similar to the Olympics, to help with any bias). In the form itself, I would help the members fill out each section by supplying a few questions, like 'How easy was the writing to read?', 'Did the writing flow smoothly, or jump around a lot without direction?' (for Ease of Reading) and 'Did the writer set the environment and characters well?' (for Depth of Writing). It was also my job to tally up the scores, announce the winners and provide general entertainment for the judge team when we were low on work (and/or to provide more incentive to keep coming back).

Although bias is difficult to completely stamp out, I would like to think the team was mostly unbiased and intelligent, and any bias that did show would have been cancelled out with the above methods. The main job for the Judge Team was to judge events created by the gaming company (so the admin didn't have to do it on his own), but eventually, other members that created their own events would ask the team for help, either handing over the judging to us completely, or working with us (they would choose the winner, and we would judge the runners up).

I know this sounds like a lot of complicated, hard work, but for me, it was the most fun I had for a long time. I would go back, if I knew anyone that was still on that forum. But I do see that the Judge Team is still going strong, and it makes me proud. I miss all that quite a lot, actually.

Hmm, after all that writing, I'm not even really suggesting this idea for this forum, because different things work for different forums, but I just wanted to spill a bit and give an example of how giving more responsibilty to members can really do wonders for a community. (This forum also had a correspondents team, a group of people that wrote articles about the game and forum, did interviews with popular members and other such things, I haven't really had a good look around here, so I don't know if there is something similar..)

Thanks for powering through all that...

[Red's Hawt Chibi Pelippers]

In the particular section where I am active, the Roleplay Corner, we already do this I think. The mod is responsible for modding (of course) and keeping the rules fresh and letting us know when new threads are accepted.

But we also have Roleplay Awards every third month that is usually mainly managed by another member (Skymin helps though) and I myself am responsible for a Roleplay Library to keep track of active RPs. And now and then during holidays or special times, members can be allowed to hold special competitions, and we are at all times allowed to submit guides to Skymin, to help people understand how to RP and write and things like that.

Then again, a roleplay section gives a lot of responsibility to every member by default, especially those who manage and contribute to the roleplays as Game Masters.


I just want to explain why I feel like members can already be as responsible and active as they want to be. Again, my view is in much due to me hanging around a very interactive section. But even in other sections, I've always felt like if you do have a great idea for something like Razor Leaf suggests, you can pitch the idea to the mod and there is every chance that it becomes reality. Things that may up activity in sections are mostly always welcome, right?

So imo, this is not a thing that deepens some sort of cleft between staff and nonstaff. Mods mod, admins administer, and all staff - just like any member - can help the section by events and activities. It's just that, as a mod, you are also somewhat expected to be active in extra stuff apart from modding.

[ClumzyTrainR13]

Imo, greater member involvement is great. Similar to others, I kinda feel like we should be more active as a group, and participate in more large-scale events on the forum. Members here seem to singularly take part in their own activities and interests, and it's what I think sort of separates us as a whole. So, in the end, I would recommend maybe some events that could seep into the interests of near everyone one the forum? Something that could become a large-scale event that everyone talks about and discusses? I don't know, it could possibly be some form of a competition that gets the entire forum excited and everyone loves that could set us apart from other forums of a similar purpose? This is my point of view on this topic, and I just think it would be awesome if we could do something like this :D