Community Leaders

I kinda like this idea, god knows f2p could use a little extra moderation
<
 
I haven't played retail seriously for a long time so I'm reluctant to offer an nomination for anyone as a community leader; all I'd have to go on would be a few posts on these forums which isn't the most ideal way to gauge someone's character. I would nominate myself but it wouldn't be appropriate because again I don't keep up apart from reading these forums, and also I sometimes don't see eye-to-eye with some of the current staff which would cause significant problems.



For the idea about a new forum, I think it was discussed a few months ago and the issues raised were along the lines of fear of alienating prospective new members. I'm not sure as to the validity of these concerns, but a potential solution might be to make the forum invisible to non members and crawlers. Coming up with suitable names isn't something I'm good at so I won't give an opinion about that.
 
i think certain people who know the bracket, BUT, also can deal with people, and do not have elitist views with many enemies should be these "half mods". These also need to be people who want the position for the good of the site, not for their epeen.
 
TheGameSupply said:
To that end I'm going to (re) propose that we make a "shit talking" forum where topics that are deemed as non-constructive, "best player", trolling, ridiculous, offensive, or otherwise nonsensical will be moved and you can simply continue the conversation there. It's obvious by the sheer number of these sort of threads that some parts of this community love that sort of discussion-or the rebellious nature of them. So, might as well let them have it. Label it nsfw or intelligence species and let it go completely un-moderated.
Click to expand...



Oh yes, I recommended a similar thing a few months back and still believe it to be a good idea. There's obviously a schism among forum-goers regarding what is "trolling" and what is not. And I would venture to guess that even among the staff there is a difference of opinion. I think this difference of opinion is great, but I also believe a flame forum would go a long way towards achieving general autonomy on the site by moving all flame threads (or even threads that tend to or devolve into flame wars) into that forum. I personally like the name "The Oven". It implies the incessant flaming that occurs within while being simple and to the point. But lol @ retard rickshaw, that's pretty good too.



I think Hamcake's idea of hiding it to guests would be a good compromise for those that believe it would deter prospective members.



And those are some really good ideas on the media usage. For many games now, online streaming and the communities they spawn are hugely important. I've played League of Legends a lot over the past year and a half or so, and online streaming is a *huge* part of that community. And so too do I think this could be integral to this community as well given its tight-knit and small, intimate population. It's a great way to generate excitement and discussion in a community.



A good example of a popular streaming community in LoL is CL Gaming: http://clgaming.net .  As you can see, they have a section dedicated to streaming, showing all the current live streamers and the number of viewers with an ability to chat. I would venture to say it has served as a catalyst for making LoL a legitimate competitive online game.



But, like with anything, this addition would take a lot of work, but it's good to hear of your aspirations for the site. Sounds like a great direction.
 
A certain guy had a certain philosophy on how to run a WoW niche website and he created Twink Info with that philosophy in mind. While he was not perfect (he'd say so himself) he was able to create the most successful WoW twinking site in the world. There's certainly a lot to consider here and we've often toyed with the idea of drastic changes but deviating from that philosophy too far just might be disastrous for TI and the twink community at large.



I say all this to point out that it's a lot more difficult than just creating a new forum for people to say whatever they want. Doing so would be a big shift in the philosophy of Twink Info and if the currently philosophy has gotten us this far, why change it? Philosophies need to change from time to time, however, and that's why we have taken your input and suggestions and genuinely considered them.



Ultimately it's the decision of the head Admin to decide, with input from the staff and trusted leaders in the community. We haven't made a decision on something like this but I promise you we've thought long and hard about it and spent a very big chunk of time discussing it as a staff. Once a decision has been made I can assure you we will communicate it either way.



-Ink
 
Some very strong points being made in this thread.
 
Good discussion here. And schism is a great word to describe the current challenges to twinkers. More specifically, three thoughts come to mind reading through this thread:



1) While I can support the idea of an unmoderated forum, unmoderated doesn't mean completely exempt from the Code of Conduct. As free as the forum would be, some restraints will need to stay in place (i.e. no personal real-life threats, etc.) I also think it important that unmoderated threads start in that forum. Moving trolled threads to the unmoderated forum simply offers another way to troll well-intended posts. Just because a troll responds in an inflammatory way doesn't mean the original post or discussion deserves to get jailed in the umoderated forum. Basically, if we're going to have two different parts of the site with two different sets of rules, then moving a thread from moderated to unmoderated is not fair to posters who wanted to keep the conversation in the moderated area.



2) The biggest concern I see in this discussion about community leaders is accountability. From an admin perspective, having someone with common sense, decency, and a sense of humor is ideal. But it takes awhile for community leaders to demonstrate that they can navigate the balance between leadership and accountability. As a solution, perhaps give users the ability to unhide posts from their own view. That way, if you really want to see what someone said that got hidden until moderators have a chance to make a determination, you can. Some people won't care what community leaders think, and will want posts unhidden by default. Others (like myself) don't want to spend time wading through crap, and are happy to miss out on a gem or two along the way by keeping posts hidden.



3) If "Community Leader" is too inflammatory or provocative a term, go for something simple like "Community Guide". I don't see a problem with giving community guides the ability to hide posts in any forum. As long as they practice discretion, it should work out fine; I'm open to evidence to the contrary. I imagine community guides won't hide posts with bad math or wrong facts, or even questionable ones. That's fodder for good, healthy debate. But being an ass to someone, regardless of bracket, is a lot easier to pick out and stop.



Just thinking out loud.
 
TheGameSupply said:
The problem with F2play is, how can I put this diplomatically......



It's a new bracket and possibly I am missing the posts of the person(s) we are looking for over the cacophony of everyone else in that bracket. I asked a couple long standing members of the community for suggestions and received none for this bracket. Nor has anyone else suggested anyone. I personally thought in looking through this users posts/content: Arknoodle that he might be a stable f2play user for this Community Leader roll, but look @ the size of that cranium. Can a cranium that large really be trusted?



Seriously though. Finding the right people is the important job for this and we have a standing post in the staff section for nomination discussion. We might go into the brackets and poll the members on who would be best suited for this-democratically, I like democratically- but then we run the risk of having to weed out people that are nominated as a farce. Trolling seems to be a major occupation for some people on this forum and my time to deal with bullshit is short-as it is for your staff here. I don't set the policies here-I just provide idea's that have worked for us in the past. I think that promoting user's quality content and rewarding those that take the lead is the responsibility of Admin's and moderator's everywhere. You can see how hard user's make that in some communities though I am sure?



If we can get beyond dealing with the massive trolling, recognize when things are done in fun, and have the right people in the right places to assist their peers and co-ordinate enjoyable activities w/out feeling the need to dump all over their peers-we'll have made real progress. When we get beyond this little growing period and get the right people, (selected? nominated? Elected?) to promote their selected playstyle/bracket then we can move on to new things.



There is very little "new" in the twinking community and I for one think that to keep things enjoyable for those that enjoy playing @ below max level the community is a huge deal. Having a community that promotes quality content and rivalries via various media seems to me to be where it's at. However, the staff here are kept busy answering report after report of.....well quite frankly bullshit. This user's sig offends me, this post is nonsense, and of course, your favorite and mine-trolling to the nth power.







To that end I'm going to (re) propose that we make a "shit talking" forum where topics that are deemed as non-constructive, "best player", trolling, ridiculous, offensive, or otherwise nonsensical will be moved and you can simply continue the conversation there. It's obvious by the sheer number of these sort of threads that some parts of this community love that sort of discussion-or the rebellious nature of them. So, might as well let them have it. Label it nsfw or intelligence species and let it go completely un-moderated.





Once we get all of that sorted out and the proper people guiding their peers I'll get you guys a media section set up like so many have PM'd me for and try to dig up the old screen-shots and what not on the old TI server. I think maybe I made a mistake in selecting this software for this forum, (it's too "business" like for a gaming community I think), and in rethinking this I think something like: http://swtor.us/foru...ndex.php?media/ (We are only just building this so it would be awhile in the future yet) would be a nice feature for you guys. The media program there allows for individual members to make play-lists based upon his/her video content and will allow your peers and staff to select video content to featured based upon community likes/votes. Once this community site is completed it will also have the ability to feature live streams from ustream/justin/twitch as well-displaying online users as well as offline streams. I've received quite a few requests for this and I think it would be a nice feature.



On the flip side of that coin, there are quite a few lurkers who think that web based proxies keep them anonymous and they can come back over and over and troll. To me this is the largest part of the problem. I have seen 2 individual's in the last 2 days who seem to have nothing better to do with their time than make new accounts. This is your notice. I am no novice and proxies can be blocked with minimal effort. It is not a good move as some legitimate entities connect in similar ways and having to go through and unblock libraries, some universities, some corporations will cause us more work than good. I will do this though, and merge all of the multiple user accounts and ban them wholesale. I'm not one for a lot of verbiage about things. This is your first, last, and only warning. Make an account you want to keep, we'll delete the others in time and do your best to keep from pissing people off.



Hopefully in creating a place where people can say whatever they want to un-moderated, (and other users that don't want this sort of activity can avoid it), that this will not be a necessary step.





Ps. What should we name this new anything goes forum? In one community I was part of it was called the "Retard Rickshaw" and I can vouch for the fact that in that particularly community the members took trolling to an entirely different, (Dare I say Reddit worthy?), level. It actually became very interesting reading in some cases.
Click to expand...

Would you like to hear nominations? either here, or possibly in a private message?
 
A rants and raves section that's unmoderated was one of the first suggestions I made and wanted to implement when I first obtained Twinkinfo but it never happened due to strong opposition when I opened the suggestion to the staff.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Top