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Suggestion: Ask the Staff!

Steven

Steven

[i]h e l p[/i]
    • 1,336
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    These sections have been gaining popularity recently, their on one other forum I go to and SPPF actually just made one as well.

    This new section is a private section where you contact that staff. Only you and staff members can see it. For example, if I made a thread about name changes in it, only the staff and I could see it. No one else. But if wakachamo made one too, only the staff and him would be able to see it.

    I feel like this kind of section would really help declutter some of the questions in this section. It'd also be good for issues that only staff can answer and prevent members from post-farming in them.

    Here are some examples from another forum I go to. I am blurred out all ways of contacting me on that forum or even finding it. I just don't want to deal with people saying I am advertising. ಠ_ಠ

    From the homepage.
    Viewing the section.
    Viewing the thread.

    This section would be good for telling the staff that someone is harassing you (on the off chance you contact an inactive staff member), if you found a glitch, and so on.

    Suggestions, questions that involve members as well, feedback, and things like that would still go here. CQ&F will still be active and needed.

    Here, I will make a list of threads currently on the front page here explaining where they go and why:

    The following will stay:
    Spoiler:



    The following would fit in the new section:
    Spoiler:


    Obviously, the new section isn't going to be as active. It's not meant to be. It's supposed to be a completely private help forum, a direct contact to the entire staff in a quick and neat manner. And as you can see, suggestions can go both ways. It just depends whether or not you require feedback from the forum or just want the staff's opinion.
     
    I could see this being useful, tbh. Especially @ decluttering. Plus I'm sure there are some members that feel awkward talking directly to staff to ask them a question via VM/PM and then others might not want other members thinking they're asking a stupid question or something. I won't be crushed if this doesn't go through, but I see no harm coming from it and it could be a good thing. I support it.
     
    Ausaudriel said:
    My only concern is how useful CQ&F is as a public collection of previously asked questions/suggested things/etc.. :/ Most of the time people can find answers/information/etc. just by searching through the forum for things people have already asked. By making a private "Ask The Staff" forum you'd lose that benefit.

    Plus, feeling awkward aside, if it's a truly personal matter members can always PM us.

    It's a cool idea in theory, I just don't see any huge benefits compared to the downsides.
    Click to expand...

    Posting the thread would serve the same thing as PMing, only it would be available to the entire staff instead of just one or a few.

    Creating a thread with all the commonly asked questions would actually be a good idea regardless of this sub-section being created because it would make it easier to find what you need. So, you could just post questions and their answer in that thread.

    Most importantly though, most questions would be still posted here as other members be able to answer them. The private forum is just for questions and problems that are directly to the staff and that normal members have no business posting in.
     
    My problem with this is that I can definitely see this new forum getting a lot of threads that don't really need to exist because the members were too lazy to bother posting it in the right forum (much like CQ&F is now). And... we have PMs. In every case that it requires it, when a big concern is brought up the staff member you contact brings it up before the rest of the staff, so this wouldn't really change anything.
     
    parallelzero said:
    My problem with this is that I can definitely see this new forum getting a lot of threads that don't really need to exist because the members were too lazy to bother posting it in the right forum (much like CQ&F is now). And... we have PMs. In every case that it requires it, when a big concern is brought up the staff member you contact brings it up before the rest of the staff, so this wouldn't really change anything.
    Click to expand...

    It would just be quicker if the issue was already readily available to the entire staff though.

    No question thread, feedback thread, or suggestion thread really needs to exist. All of that could be handled completely through VM and PM. But it's not.

    The Ask the Staff section isn't meant to be a replacement for this or an active forum. It's just supposed to be an easy way for the member to easily contact the staff which isn't always easy to do. When you PM staff, there are staff members that don't reply. There are inactive staff members or ones on leave. Post that thread could completely avoid that issue.

    I feel like as long as you made an announcement for it, and started telling members who needed to be told that it would become the norm within a few weeks at most.
     
    Harlequin said:
    I see the pro's of something like this, but I feel as if PM'ing the staff would be a lot simpler. Also, imagine all the threads that the staff member would have to check. Dear god.
    Click to expand...

    Considering that there aren't that many threads here a day and all the staff would have access (there are a lot of staff members) so I don't feel like anyone would be overwhelmed.
     
    Purely because SPPf implements this, that should be a reason for caution. SPPf is vastly different from PC in many ways and thus what works for them, does not always work for us.

    I don't like this idea because as a few admins have already commented, CQ&F is a Public repository of knowledge. It allows experienced members to answer questions and allows for new members to perhaps find their question already asked and answered if they'll at least open this forum and scan the first page or two of it's index. That alone saves a lot of questions as far as I can tell...even if questions get asked and re-asked as soon as the old thread expires.

    I will say that PMing staff has it's downsides yes, but that is preferable to your idea because PMs can be sent to more than just one staff member. Really and truly there's no need to supplant the PM system for Member to Staff communications of this nature...especially not when CQ&F exists to answer questions anyway...and PM/VMs are a great way to ask staff questions anyway...especially specific staff members, like say the mod of your favorite section.
     
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