IMPORTANT: The Future

[Flowerchild]

We have a public feedback thread of course, but I feel like it would be good to have one here as well so we can discuss how this went, what we've learned from it if we end up having mostly the same group of GT staff for future events, and most importantly, whether there will even be future GT events and if so, approximately what form they will take. I've heard rumors that some of the higher staff are tiring of the GT and against seeing it in the future, and if that's the case I'd love to hear some of their thoughts on the topic as well.

Obviously it's far too early to start the actual planning for future GTs (if they happen), but laying down groundwork and feedback while the events of the past two weeks are still fresh in our minds seems like a boon.

So, thoughts?

 

[colours]

First of all, this is probably the best GT we've had participation-wise in years. Even when we've had a bigger userbase in the past, there wasn't much motivation to really participate in certain events; some events had ridiculously lackluster participation (I'm talking like the amount of entries you can count on one hand), and for the most part, the participation in this Get Together has been rather excellent.

For this reason, I'd really like to propose keeping the House system for future Get Together events. Not only does it promote friendly competition, I feel like it's the best way for the community to actually get together; new members mingle in with the older members of the community, get to know them, and work with them as they solve trivia questions and the like. This is what the spirit of PokeCommunity should be like, and to be honest, this is far more evident this year than in prior years.

Personally, what I would've liked to see more of is House-specific events. Things like the lore contest I feel are really good examples of how different members can get together and creatively think of a decent backstory for their house. The meme competition was just lighthearted roasting and fun; things like this I think should be more prevalent in future GTs if we keep the House system.

I've also brought this up in the GT Management channel, but in regards to trivia: after observing how the trivia events went, I'm wary whether or not, in future iterations, whether it'd be wise to have them to continue issuing points. Obviously they're clearly knowledge based, and if your house doesn't have members that know the material that's being asked in trivia, that's hundreds of points that are being lost out by not participating day after day. I would know after all -- I personally felt burned out after like... the last few days of VG Trivia, and I wasn't the only one. Several members of Doctrina just didn't really bother, because they didn't know the answers, and they were demotivated because of it. I don't know if any other houses were like this, but this was especially prevalent in the Doctrina channel. People just didn't really bother anymore and had bad burnout during the last few days. This can prove seriously disadvantageous to houses in which members just aren't that particularly gung-ho on trivia quesitons, so I thought it'd be something to consider.

 

[Charlie Brown]

To make things clearer / so we can have a consolidated output for next year's team to look at, proposal to use the Start / Stop / Continue format in this discussion? Maybe the OP can serve as the place to consolidate it in that form, and we can all list out our feedback that way? To make things super clear and easy to take forward.

 

[Tsutarja]

I'm astonished at the amount of people in the open feedback thread that are continuing to complain about us crossing into other houses' channels on the Discord server. The point Anna brought up though about that seems kinda valid, and I agree that maybe next time, we should really try our best not to cross into other channels (such as what we all did on the first day as a joke), but still, I think us having access to all channels is necessary as well.

 

[colours]

I'm astonished at the amount of people in the open feedback thread that are continuing to complain about us crossing into other houses' channels on the Discord server. The point Anna brought up though about that seems kinda valid, and I agree that maybe next time, we should really try our best not to cross into other channels (such as what we all did on the first day as a joke), but still, I think us having access to all channels is necessary as well.

It isn't really a concern, IMO. Simply put, if you're Get Together Management, you should have the integrity not to abuse your privilege of viewing other team members' channels. I can understand why it would make users feel wary, but otherwise I've never seen joking around or whatever in them that much of a problem.

Instances of these lessened throughout the duration of the GT anyway; the only instances that I'm aware of Get Together Management posting into other team channels is to answer pertinent questions when the respective house leader isn't around. There isn't anything wrong with that.

 

[Flowerchild]

I was hoping I'd get some HQ responses in here so we could ascertain the existence of a GT next year before I make this proposal, but I don't want to wait so long that this section gets archived before I can finish this post, so for now I'll just assume a yes. If Hstaff don't want to do a GT next year this can be ignored.

Personally I think the GT went really well. Participation was much higher than the previous years, people had a ton of team spirit, and a lot of events use the Houses concept in creative ways. I too would like to keep the Houses for future events, but take the time to elaborate on them and write some of our lore (and/or adapt the lore submissions we got to be internally consistent). We've got a good framework here and the time to develop it further.

However, I think lack of time was a huge issue for us this year. If we'd wanted to organize a regular classic-style GT we probably could have done it easily in the months we had, but something large-scale like the Houses definitely requires longer. We didn't have time to discuss some of the issues people had with the quiz questions, didn't have time to extend the House backstories like we wanted to, didn't have time to plan Josh's Tri-Wizard Tournament idea, didn't have time to properly vet all the Event Organizers to ensure their points distribution or minigames wouldn't have to be changed partway through the event (which we ended up having to do several times), and didn't have time to do many more things we hoped to do in the beginning. If we want to continue this style of GT next year, we have to start work a lot earlier in advance. Hence, the following proposal.

I'd like to suggest keeping the GT Management Team as a full year-round team akin to Social Media, Discordia, etc. rather than a temporary one created before the events and then dissolved. This Management Tent section could be relocated to Backstage. We don't need a whole year to organize the GT, but we certainly need more time than we had this year, and the remaining few months of the year could be spent working on House lore and other minor elements that we didn't have time for this iteration.

I'm proposing this for three reasons: firstly, it gives us much more time to plan everything we need and, even if it's at a time that's ages from the GT, still be able to bring up and discuss ideas. Secondly, it doesn't require us to re-recruit the team and re-create the GT forums every year, losing our previous discussions and ideas. The process for joining the team would be the same as before - if we're low on people, ask in the Staff Hub to see who's interested - however we would already have the existing team members ready to go each year as well.

Thirdly, I'd also like to give the Event Organizers much more time to organize their events. This year, we gave them a month and a half, and while again, that may have been sufficient for a regular style GT, it was not enough for the Houses setup. Many events had unbalanced points, confusing rules that we hadn't had time to check over properly, or systems that were designed for individual players and had to be changed mid-event because we hadn't accounted for just how much teamwork there would be. If this plan goes through, I'd personally like to give the EOs two to three months.

I've already brought this up with a few of the GT staff in private and gotten very positive responses, but I'll assume the creation of a new team would also require an HQ vote, so it would be lovely if this could be brought up there. I'm not married to the exact specifics of the idea so suggestions on improvements would also be great.

 

[Sheep]

Going to be honest in that I really don't see the point in a permanent GT team. There's no telling where someone will be a year from now and putting them on a team responsible for hosting a yearly project makes little to no sense, even with the rework/addition of houses. I'm absolutely fine with giving everyone two or even three or four months to plan this out, but it's not something I want to make a full team with long-term responsibilities out of. Planning and organizing is one thing, but the true work comes from being there to host, and you can't say the people you recruit onto this team will be staff or even on PC by mid 2018.

Many events had unbalanced points, confusing rules that we hadn't had time to check over properly, or systems that were designed for individual players and had to be changed mid-event because we hadn't accounted for just how much teamwork there would be.

I wouldn't jump to assuming you didn't have enough time -- if anything, this seems more because it's our first try hosting a team-based GT system. No one knew how many people would participate and how things would turn out, nor what the best way to assign points would be. Trial and error.

We don't need a whole year to organize the GT, but we certainly need more time than we had this year, and the remaining few months of the year could be spent working on House lore and other minor elements that we didn't have time for this iteration.

I think you answered yourself there. A full year is not needed and thus we don't need a permanent team. I'd much rather start planning a little earlier than usual to account for the extra work that goes into this new houses setup. Three months before is a solid time where you can assume all team members will still be around by the event's release to manage it. Anything more than three or four months seems like it'd end up with people grasping at straws to find something to plan. The unanimous HQ decisions appears to be a no for similar reasons.

 

[Flowerchild]

Eh. Okay, ngl I do see where you're coming from. Thanks for talking it over at least.

 

[Charlie Brown]

I'm going to go through the feedback the members left, and try collate here over the next day or two

 

[colours]

.

yo what's going on? :o

 

[Charlie Brown]

got busy with uni, end of semester rn, haven't had a chance to collate yet

 

[Charlie Brown]

Ok not sure if I'm blind lol but where did the public feedback thread go? Can't find it in the GT section rip.

As for my personal evaluation, sticking to the start/stop/continue framework to keep things clear and simple.

Start

- Specific roles for GT Management team. Personal opinion here but I did feel I was more of a consultant on the team (chiming in for discussions and bringing ideas) rather than having a specific responsibility. Think it would have been good to have each person on the team having a specific responsibility in addition to their team roles, for better engagement of the GT Management team and to ensure we stick to deadlines and do all the big things we want to do.

- Clear Daily plan. If we go the Points route again, would be cool to do write-ups on Daily like how you do Sports write-ups, just need someone (or two people) from Daily to be final responsible for doing that on a daily basis.

- Evaluation structure. I do think we should be getting more in-depth evaluation from the key parties involved with the GT. Not saying I'm not to blame because it's taken me three weeks to write this lol but atm we've really only got thoughts from colours and Rainbow, so still missing evaluation from 4 of the other management team. In hindsight, getting specific feedback from the EOs would be handy as well so we can understand how we can better support them as a specific stakeholder/body. I also do believe that the evaluation process should be facilitated by the project leader (in general) so I reckon Jake would've been good to guide us through an evaluation structure

- Quantitative surveys to measure quality of events and GT. A quick NPS survey for each event or the GT as a whole and a space for any comments would be sufficient imo ("How likely would you be to recommend this event / this GT to a friend? 1-10"). Yeah it's a business-y thing but it works so could be useful here so we have more useful evaluation to use in the future

Stop

- Responding to feedback negatively -- saw it a bit in the public thread. I think there will always be things said that we don't agree on in feedback threads, but responding to the feedback only looks defensive and makes it look like we are seeking feedback in a tokenistic rather than genuine way. Rather, I think it would be better to just let them share their feedback and then consolidate it ourselves in private, taking forward what we see as relevant but also remembering that we're doing things for the memberbase and they are the ones who experienced the event, so their concerns should at least be heard (not necessarily listened to all the time I guess haha)

Continue

- Team-based challenges/games, definitely helped bring people together

- Innovation, especially on the dev side. Really cool things were made for this GT, great work turning ideas into tangible output. Things like the quiz and scoreboard were great

- Quick communication: communication and decision-making imo was quite quick for the most part which was really good. The discussions that needed more time took more time, but we otherwise didn't waste time on things that didn't need everyone's opinion on

- Actively participating ourselves, I thought that was really nice for everyone involved

- Integration with social media, where relevant. There were a few posts (mainly points updates) but I feel that's all that was needed - the social media integration wasn't forced or there for the sake of it.

 

[colours]

- Responding to feedback negatively -- saw it a bit in the public thread. I think there will always be things said that we don't agree on in feedback threads, but responding to the feedback only looks defensive and makes it look like we are seeking feedback in a tokenistic rather than genuine way. Rather, I think it would be better to just let them share their feedback and then consolidate it ourselves in private, taking forward what we see as relevant but also remembering that we're doing things for the memberbase and they are the ones who experienced the event, so their concerns should at least be heard (not necessarily listened to all the time I guess haha)

Gotta type this really quickly before work aaaa

One of the things that really bothers me as a consumer about most businesses and corporations (actually, a large majority of them) is that I'm not a fan of the whole "Thank you for your feedback! We're not going to let you know what actually happens with it, but thanks!" system where you communicate a certain issue through some feedback form or through some other medium in but it may or may not be listened to, and as a result sometimes it feels like a waste of energy and effort in a way. It makes the business ultimately look like they really just set up feedback for the sake of appearing transparent when they're really not and as such it all really appears superficial just for the sake of self-image, if that makes any sense.

This is not the kind of image that I really want to project into the greater userbase. PC isn't a business (nor am I saying you're implying the such, generally speaking haha), we're a volunteer-run site that puts a heavy emphasis on our community structure and environment, and I strongly believe one of the best ways to facilitate that community environment is responding to feedback appropriately on what we agree and disagree with. The realistic fact of the matter is that some people's feedback may be misguided, but I strongly disagree that means that we should just all keep our thoughts in private without attempting to communicate our thoughts with the greater userbase on our disagreements appropriately; this might even clarify some misunderstandings. But without that communication and clarification from GT Management, it feels like we're not really actively listening and engaging with the userbase on what some of their concerns might be, even if some of their concerns might be misguided and as I said, that's not really the kind of image I want the userbase to develop an impression of.

As a consumer, even if it feels like my thoughts are disagreed with, at the very least I'd like to be notified so I can figure out where I went wrong, or why the company disagrees with my feedback. It (hopefully) helps build understanding between the consumer and the business, but that's really in a perfect world and that's essentially almost non-existent to my knowledge.

 

[Charlie Brown]

Hmm maybe I was too extreme. For sure I think we should engage with the feedback, I do feel it devolved to "this is the answer/solution/whatreallywentdown" in the thread too much, rather than a genuine engagement with the feedback. Would pull up specific examples but dunno where the thread is rip

In the grand scheme of things it's a more minor concern though so it's g if people disagree with this, just my opinion that's all

 

[Charlie Brown]

Ok so should we go through that list now and just colour-code it accordingly?

Let's advertise spots for the EOs this week. Any objections before we do?

15 days is what we should go with. 10 is waaaay too short and would cut the enjoyment of the event short which is key here. 15 is enough for it not to go stale but give people that little extra they need to really love and remember this event. Plus yeah, it's our 15th anniversary. C'mon.

I'm good with 10~15 days. Around that span seems fine to me. o:

Dates sound good to me. 15 is a strong number that gives enough time as well as will give the average user an easy way to remember how long the event will actually run.

Tagging the GT staff we haven't heard from yet if you guys have any other points to take forward? Otherwise I guess we can wrap this up

 

[Charlie Brown]

One last bumppppp