Let's Talk March

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Discuss the current state of anything and everything you wish. Event starts 3/29/14 runs for 12 hours ends Mar 31st at midnight. Have at it!

 

Whoa, lol. This didn't pop up as an unread topic for me and just kinda noticed it scrolling through the forums - seems like this flopped a bit. I am kinda blanking on things that needed to be brought up suddenly.

 

So, I guess I'll start then. I've noticed quit a few things around PR that I think should be addressed.

People complaining in-game, in teamspeak, through IMs/steam, to each other, and yet, I hardly EVER see anything posted to the forums about it. I know a few times that I've been the recipient of complaints, I have to work get people to take it to the forums. THIS is where issues are going to get resolved, and can be publically discusses and arbited. If you want something to change, then bring it here, don't sit in your dark corners gossiping.

member / admin activity. I see lots of people who are apparently admins, that I am told are admins, etc. yet, they are seemingly no where to be found when there are issues, drama, or even discussions as to the state of PR. Only yesterday, since I've ever been here, have I been told that is may be the case of people who USED to be admin, but aren't now, and just keep the tags because they earned it at one point, but aren't active/or are retired. If this is the case, maybe some sort of alumni group? It seems that we have this large amount of PR admins / council members, but I can count on one hand the number I've seen actually being active admins since I've joined PR. As a result, the very few admins who are actively doing admin stuff for PR feel burnt-out/pressured/etc (from what I've heard of those I talk to). On top of that, PR member who will complain about the way that PR does something / a rule /etc. but then I NEVER see the issue brought up in the forums. Again, you can't expect change or that your viewpoint is seen if you don't make it apparent. Last i checked, this was a democracy, a community of friends trying to ensure everyone has a good time, and we can pool our resources so everyone benefits. But in a democracy, you have to actually participate.

Specialist / Admins - I feel that there is this mentality in PR, that you strive to be a specialist or admin, because there is prestige in having that tag in TeamSpeak, so that you can flaunt that you are an admin. I will be the first to volunteer to lose my PR groups if I thought it benefited my community, because that it what it is REALLY about. As a specialist, my job is worry about my community, either being PR, or being the players on my server, and I have extra permissions / privileges to ensure that they are having a good time. Move them to a channel when they ask for it, kick/ban people who are ruining their gaming experience, help them with posts on the forums. It's not about the power of being an admin, or the glory of having that specialist / council member tag in teamspeak. But the way some member talk about it, they way they create drama about it, I get the feeling that that IS what it's about. If I am wrong, then I am HAPPY to be.

 

Gorian raises some excellent points, especially about the lack of activity we see on forums. If somebody has an issue with a server (example, Tekkit) they should come here and make a ticket in the appropriate section, no matter how minor - reasons being, if it's a major issue like server lag, they can make detailed descriptions of what's going on and help us track what's causing it and fix it, if it's minor and somebody needs to be promoted and Gorian is in-game but AFK, somebody else (like me) may notice it before he gets back and promote them. Tickets are good. Alas, I believe Sandy mentioned that whenever we start posting things like discussions, we have huge wave of activity or something by all sorts of people and we need to start stuff like this, I know this may be true but this just shouldn't be the case 100 percent of the time. I'm not against having monthly discussions or anything, don't get me wrong, but if that's the only time we'll have everybody participating on the forums doing their own thing, what's the point? I would like to see members coming here adding their own stuff like, say, @Abaddon does - tons of GW2 stuff gets added all the time by him, would love to see all sorts of events get added all over the place by our members. Anything, really, just more activity here. It's pretty much becoming a requirement for everything at this point, so why not do it?

As for creating drama and stuff - like Gorian said, being Specialist/Council is meant to benefit the community, not to be higher up the food chain. We should be focusing on eliminating drama, not creating it - people have issues with dropping their grudges and due to this start issues and fabricate problems and issues, it's not at all a pretty sight. We just all need to take a chill pill and realize we're on the same team. If we can't do that, why not reform into a competitive CS:GO clan? Sound good, @Cryzark?

 

My only issue at the moment is what Supplice said about inactivity on the forums. I mean you cant make everyone read them but it sure would be nice if we could. This is a gaming website, I wanna see people posting guides, tips and tricks, game update patch notes, reposting announcements for new/future games, writing game reviews, organizing events, all that stuff that a gaming website should do to make it a community, not only an admin tech support message board.

But like I said I dont know how to get people more interested in reading the forums. I cant even count the times ive asked people in TS if they read my post about a new update etc and they always say no. So I dont tell them anything and make them read for themselves. I even set my new threads up to turn into subthreads, leave posts open ended, and add polls to get people involved, and most times its just pretty much dead. It feels like admins are the only ones posting anything, which is great they are all active, but I want to see more community input to the site. Other than that, things have been going well from my experiences thus far.

For anyone that doesnt read the forums, I have been working hard on a new DayZ servee for us all. Id like at least another week to perfect it, then its up to Saib or Sandy to sort out the server and get my files live. There's no rush, I still have a lot of work to do to get it where I want it. If things go well, we may get a second one up as well so we can make everyone happy. Im hoping this will bring all the DayZ players back together again like the good old days, and recuit new bambis!

Sent from Tapatalk on Android

 

A little pet peeve of mine, but could the style chooser be reimplemented on the forums? I use default when I'm tired and can't read all to well.

 

On Forum Activity

Some people are content creators, some are consumers. While I agree there is a general lack of enthusiasm, I also think a large part will be learning how to reach your audiences.

Walls of text will make people leave when they have multiple posts to get through.

• Make your subject succinct.
• Keep your thread to the point.
• Keep your comments to the point.
• Add media.

On Admin for the sake of Admin

This will always be an issue.

Pool resources?
How bout something like current active specialists have one shared forum where they can post an "S.O.S.". Any admin that has time can help on an issue by doing something simple like finding links or scripts etc that may help them out - whether it's their game or not.

Hidden Moderators?
Give mod powers to other specialists - if they have time they can check support and help out that way - but no one will know they are mods so they don't get hounded.

 

We'll get that straightened out very soon for you CZ.
Update:You should be able to select from the Default and Frag Zone (PR Zone) Styles now.

I really like this idea, we could just randomize the topic. What should be the frequency of the topics though? Daily, Weekly, Monthly?

Both solid ideas there Sandy, I see no issues with either of those. To speak on the wall of text topic....maybe implement a character limit on thread posts. What should the limit be if so?

 

inb4 Abaddon murders 8bit.

 

Nice deflection, Supp.

I don't know that char limits would work. I think people just need to realise that if they want people to read their posts, they need to be brief.

sent through the air using science