Community-run

[Whispered]

Just trying to gauge support for this:

Do you think the forums should be completely community run (i.e. community elects/chooses/has some say in the original staffing [the original admins/mods, who would then make staffing decisions themselves]), or do you think the forums should have staffing and other decisions (rules, etc.) made by Amy/Grizzly?

(adding poll shortly)

 

[vause]

Forums should be mainly community run, in my opinion, especially when it comes to staffing.
But having Grizzly, Snow, and Amy on the forum staff is helpful when it comes to posting game news and such.

 

[Whispered]

Forums should be mainly community run, in my opinion, especially when it comes to staffing.
But having Grizzly and Amy on the forum staff is helpful when it comes to posting game news and such.

True. The poll more asks about the non-Amy/Grizzly staff, who should choose them, and what power they should have. Amy and Grizzly of course would still have the power to post in restricted sections (i.e. Announcements and likely the private moderator forums such as name change requests) as part of their in-game staff duties, however to be full on moderators/staff the same rules as for other forum staff would apply (elected, chosen by current staff, or kept as it is depending on what poll option you support).

Basically, assuming they will always be able to do their current game-related work on the forums, how would they relate to other staff on the forums?

 

[Jasmine]

Well you already know my opinion about the whole thing, since I've been saying it since the game was MMK instead MyVMK.

Forums for games should always be community-run because it never fails that internal disagreements between staff and members on said forums always end up causing issues within the game itself, leading to its demise.

However, I do think Amy and Grizzly should be involved with said forum, just not with actually running it, if that makes sense. They should have accounts for announcement purposes, but not for any other reason.

Separation of church and state... separation of forum and game. It's a simple concept really.

 

[vause]

True. The poll more asks about the non-Amy/Grizzly staff, who should choose them, and what power they should have. Amy and Grizzly of course would still have the power to post in restricted sections (i.e. Announcements and likely the private moderator forums such as name change requests) as part of their in-game staff duties, however to be full on moderators/staff the same rules as for other forum staff would apply (elected, chosen by current staff, or kept as it is depending on what poll option you support).

Basically, assuming they will always be able to do their current game-related work on the forums, how would they relate to other staff on the forums?

As far as administrative actions on the forum, I feel like Hal does the majority of it while Grizzly and Amy focus more on the game (but I could be wrong, because we don't know what goes on behind the scenes). I don't see much of Eliz and Shane, but they could be doing things also, and same goes for Snow.
I could be completely wrong though - I don't know who does what. But that's just my take. We have a good staff team right now, I believe, and they're all doing a pretty good job.
I like the idea of a community elected staff, but I feel like it'd be based off of favoritism. We could do a sort of anonymous voting, you know? Like, post people's applications (not the full thing, just why they want to be a mod, how they would handle situations, etc) and have voting based off of that. It's just a rough idea, but it's something to think about.

 

[WHO]

I'd say community run and elect staff, but there's a lot of immature popular~ people here who would burn the forum down to the ground and a lot of people would leave if they were elected. I just think it's time for a few staff members to resign.

 

[Tomlinson]

I like the way it is now. Someone needs to be in charge, I may not like all the staff members, but it works.

 

[Ranch]

I voted "other" in place of, "Go make your own forum."

 

[Whispered]

I like the way it is now. Someone needs to be in charge, I may not like all the staff members, but it works.

This isn't saying don't have anyone in charge, the options either say the community elects who's in charge or it's chosen by Amy/Grizzly.

----------

I voted "other" in place of, "Go make your own forum."

This poll is about this forum, thus you should've selected "keep as is now" if you really feel that way. But whatever.

 

[Exodus]

I definitely don't think it should be community run lol. Why? Because not even half the members have the capacity to elect someone who would genuinely be fit. It would entirely be a popularity contest. I understand the original admins/mods would get to evaluate the elected ones, but just no. I personally find the current staff fit. Of course there will always be a select few who have sour experiences with certain staffs, that's completely normal and unfortunately unavoidable. I feel like if it was community run, the most active posters/popular members could easily overshadow other potential candidates for the position. I know I personally would not want them to get an upper-hand in consideration from the original admins/mods. Through the application process, every applicant has an equal chance and consideration by the main admins. Long story short, this community is not mature enough to have it community ran.

 

[Dhalion]

I think everything is fine the way it is now. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Jasmine]

I definitely don't think it should be community run lol. Why? Because not even half the members have the capacity to elect someone who would genuinely be fit. It would entirely be a popularity contest. I understand the original admins/mods would get to evaluate the elected ones, but just no. I personally find the current staff fit. Of course there will always be a select few who have sour experiences with certain staffs, that's completely normal and unfortunately unavoidable. I feel like if it was community run, the most active posters/popular members could easily overshadow other potential candidates for the position. I know I personally would not want them to get an upper-hand in consideration from the original admins/mods. Through the application process, every applicant has an equal chance and consideration by the main admins. Long story short, this community is not mature enough to have it community ran.

I completely agree with you.

When I say community run, I mean it should have been (from the beginning) a fan forum. Examples include Wizard101 Central, VMKMagic and VMKForums, VFKForums, HabboHut, etc... The majority of successful (and professional) MMOs don't deal with the hassle of trying to simultaneously run both a forum and a game because of the issues between members and staff, one of the two things being neglected, and overall, I suppose, because it's just not worth it. When you compare how fan forums are run to official forums, there's a noticeable difference. The community stress level is much lower and I believe the overall atmosphere is more fun for everyone involved. I like how they've started running forum events and contests on here, but even those are different on fan forums.

I certainly don't think this forum should just be handed over the community for them to decide who should be staff members. I'm not sure if anything can be done now, but the above is what I believe should have been done from the start. But I do know that this community surely isn't mature enough to decide something that important. That would be disastrous.

 

[Chill]

Separation of church and state... separate of forum and game. It's a simple concept really.

Love this analogy.

 

[philitup]

Option three or four, it would be a disaster to let the community pick mods.

 

[Halcyon]

Should any member wish to open a forums for MyVMK that is their own and/or community-run, then there is absolutely no problem with you doing so.

I believe there is/was already a fan-forum for MyVMK, so I suggest checking this out if you wish.

Other than that, this forum in particular will not be 'completely community-run'.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MagicMatt]

When I say community run, I mean it should have been (from the beginning) a fan forum. Examples include Wizard101 Central, VMKMagic and VMKForums, VFKForums, HabboHut, etc... The majority of successful (and professional) MMOs don't deal with the hassle of trying to simultaneously run both a forum and a game because of the issues between members and staff, one of the two things being neglected, and overall, I suppose, because it's just not worth it. When you compare how fan forums are run to official forums, there's a noticeable difference. The community stress level is much lower and I believe the overall atmosphere is more fun for everyone involved. I like how they've started running forum events and contests on here, but even those are different on fan forums.

Not sure why you think that... Wizard101 has an official forum, along with WoW, Second Life, Smallworlds, IMVU, and Puzzle Pirates to name a few.

This is exactly how it should be.

Oh, and I visit the WoW and Smallworlds forums quite often. There are people there with the same issues. It's not a problem that's exclusive to MyVMK.

 

[Jasmine]

Not sure why you think that... Wizard101 has an official forum, along with WoW, Second Life, Smallworlds, IMVU, and Puzzle Pirates to name a few.

This is exactly as it should be.

Oh, and I visit the WoW and Smallworlds forums quite often. There are people there with the same issues. It's not a problem that's exclusive to MyVMK.

Wizard101's forum is hardly even considered to be a forum... it's mainly used by the staff members of the game for announcement purposes and actual issues with the game. (Players hardly use it and I'm sure their staff is aware of that, which is probably why they advertise the fan forums so well.) Wizard101 Central is used more (or should I say most?) often and is considered the "forum" by most players. That was the point. (I guess I could have mentioned Pirate101 as well, because I know it also has a fan forum.)

I've never played WoW or SL, so there's no way I can comment on those. I haven't played IMVU in years but it's definitely not as successful and popular as it used to be. And I've never even heard of the last one, so I can't exactly call that successful either. As for Smallworlds, it and its forum both have a terrible reputation (for being "wild"), lol... which kind of proves the point I was trying to make.

Meez is a game that does have an official forum but theirs is run so differently, it's hard to explain. Like their forum accounts are also tied with in-game accounts. For the most part, it seems to have worked for them, but I've even seen issues over there, so I don't really know.

As for the last part of your post, I guess you proved my point, which is that there's less drama and issues when there isn't an official forum. I wasn't saying it was exclusive to MyVMK in the least bit. But we're getting way off topic now xD

 

[MagicMatt]

You said most successful MMO's don't deal with having their own message board. That's not true, and there's a reason they do. There's also a reason why they are successful.

People complain when they don't get what they want. That's natural. Making this a community site won't change anything.

 

[Whispered]

You said most successful MMO's don't deal with having their own message board. That's not true, and there's a reason they do. There's also a reason why they are successful.

People complain when they don't get what they want. That's natural. Making this a community site won't change anything.

"There are people there with the same issues."

That doesn't sound successful, and it seems to further me and Jasmine's point.

[MENTION=858]Halcyon[/MENTION] could you provide some reasoning why it is not possible to turn control of the forums over to the community, maybe in a phased approach or with some oversight?

 

[MagicMatt]

That doesn't sound successful, and it seems to further me and Jasmine's point.

WoW is probably the most successful MMO to date... but unfortunately there will always be people complaining on the internet. It's the easiest place to do it.