Bring Back Community Advisors! [CA]'s

lol timing on the visit,

but yah, right? no thank u

 

i thought what we had was special

i don't think mods lead to nonsense if you look at past mistakes with mods and fix them. there doesn't have to be a boatload like before, but there are things that they would be extremely helpful for. said things would free up the gm's enough to get things done that everyone complains about, like support tickets and item distribution.

it's not a job, it's support.

 

I stumbled on a guide to what it takes to become a forum mod, if CA/CM's actually do get powers of a forum mod

http://armorgames.com/community/thread/7889562

Spoiler: to prevent page stretching

OFFLINE
cormyn
2,904 posts
Peasant
Posted on Monday, June 27, 2011 1:30 PM
Hey everyone,

In my time at Armor Games, I've seen a few new moderators come on board, and every time we promote a user to Moderator status, there's always a flurry of "why wasn't I picked?" or "I think _____ should be a Moderator" or "why is ________ still a moderator" or lots of other questions about what it really takes to be a Moderator on the site.

As of this writing, I have three comments on my profile asking for 'exact' requirements for becoming a Moderator.

I know we have information scattered around the site, but I wanted to sum up briefly a few of the core things we look for in a user in order to be nominated to become a Moderator. Hopefully this will help clear up some of the confusion.

This topic is meant to be informational in nature. I will delete any message containing text which is negative towards our current team, comments suggesting some other user be nominated, replies of "well, I guess I'll never qualify" or anything else off-topic -- even if your message contains other good ideas. This is not the place for *those* discussions.

Also, it should be obvious that this list is NOT complete, because we don't want to give away EVERY detail about what we look for in a moderator. And this list is also subject to change over time, especially when AG3 launches.

--------------

BACKGROUND

We are obviously much more strict in our criteria than other sites, but that's only because we already have the best users out there and we want to be sure that anyone being a Moderator can follow our rules, guidelines, and get along with others.


THE PROCESS

In a nutshell, candidates are presented to the entire Moderator team, and are reviewed thoroughly by an Admin. The Moderator team decides unanimously (the exception being users who are on hiatus/holidays) on whether to accept the user or not; a negative response could either be "this user should never be a moderator" (and give reasons why) or "let's check back in 3-6 months". If an affirmative decision is made, an Admin user will Email the user asking if they'll accept the role and responsibilities. If the user accepts, the Admin user will promote them to become a probationary Moderator. We guide probationary Moderators for a little while and then release them into the wild.


HOW WE FIND USERS

There are two ways we find potential nominees.

First and foremost is by daily interactions within the forums or user profile comments. That's not to say that ONLY &quotopular" people will get nominated, but we're not likely to nominate someone that nobody really knows. We've recently passed on a half dozen users because none of us really know them as individuals. We'll start paying more attention to them now, of course.

The second method we use is a piece of software I wrote which takes some of the quantifiable criteria mentioned below and scans our database looking for users who qualify. Generally, this software finds HUNDREDS of users, and then starts disqualifying them based on other factors. Once it reports the users to me, I examine the user profiles, and then present a final list of nominees to the Moderator team. Candidates to whom the Moderator team give a definitive 'no way, never', we add to a 'skip' list so the software won't even look at them next time. There's a second "skip list" for users we want to check back on in a few months.

The last scan I did, which resulted in Freakenstein being added to the team, found almost 400 users, filtered them down to less than a dozen, and we were left with one definite 'yes' (Freakenstein), and a handful of "let's check back later" candidates (who we will not name).


SOME OF THE CRITERIA WE LOOK FOR

To be considered as a Moderator nominee, here are SOME of the things we look for. This list is not complete and is subject to change at any time without notice. We may or may not alter this forum posting to describe new or changed criteria. Also, meeting all of this criteria doesn't guarantee anything, because the rest of the Moderator team still has to vote on accepting you into our small team.

- You obviously need to have an excellent understanding of our Terms and Conditions for being on the site, and know the Rules & Guidelines for both the forums and game/user comments. And you follow them yourself.

- You need to stay up to date on things happening at Armor Games, especially with Armor Games v3 coming out later this summer. Users who have been in the beta since late last year will get extra points.

- You need to have an exceptional grasp of the English language (excellent spelling and grammar) but being fluent in one other language for support purposes may help your chances. You don't need to be an English professor, but 1337-speaking / textmsg writing styles, or writing styles which are difficult to read/understand will disqualify you.

- You need to be able to take criticism, from Admins, other Moderators, and especially other users. And you need to humbly accept this criticism when it's "constructive", or learn when it's "destructive" and deal with it accordingly without losing your cool.

- You need to be at LEAST 18 years of age; if you don't share your birth date on your profile (at least the year and month), you'll never even show up on our radar. And we have backups of our user data, so don't go changing your profile birth date trying to cheat the system -- we'll ask for proof.

- You need to have been an active, consistent member of the site for a minimum of 12-18 months. Big gaps in your login/posting history will generally reset this timer.

- You must be a genuinely helpful person within several forums. We watch where you post, how frequently you post, how many times you've posted in each forum, whether you're posting just to jump in on the conversation or genuinely getting involved in the topic, etc.

- We look for well-rounded users who also have good communication via user comments, but not to an excessive (spammy) degree. As such, users who carry on really long conversations back and forth (technically against our rules) will probably get passed on.

- We look for a minimum participation level from forum posts AND user comments. We need to see that you don't just focus on one type of commenting. Obviously we won't quantify these "minimum" values, because we don't want users trying to cheat the system.

- We look for a minimum number of rated games and game comments, and *recent* game ratings and comments, because we need to know you're actually playing the games and having fun too, not just hanging out in the forums 95% of the time. If you never participate in game comments, how will you recognize bad game comments versus merit-worthy comments?

- You must not have excessive quantities of user/game comments removed as spam. "Excessive" is subjective, but we can see how many comments you've had deleted, and we weigh that as a ratio against your remaining active comments.

- Generally, we tell users that even a single temporary ban will disqualify you. A temp-ban for flaming, spamming, harassment, fighting, racial comments, excessive swearing, or blatant rule breaking like hacking will certainly disqualify you. But if the temp-ban happened a long time ago (more than a year and a half), while we never "expunge" them from your history, we may treat them lighter than if your temp-ban was more recent.


WHAT DO WE EXPECT FROM OUR MODERATORS

New Moderators will start out working on cleaning up game comments and forum posts, and looking for merit-worthy game comments. They'll also continue to be helpful in the forums and via user comments to offer help and support, making sure other users are aware of the rules of the web site (and follow them).

We understand that life throws a curve-ball now and then, and while we certainly don't expect Moderators to be on the site every single day, we do expect that you're on the site several times per week. We also expect Moderators to take a break/holiday from time to time. This isn't a paid job, you're doing it for free, so don't feel guilty if you need to step away for a little while. Excessive absences may get you demoted back to regular user status.

And of course, you can always turn us down if you don't want to be on the team, and you can leave the team at any time as well.

----------------

Hopefully that helps clear up some of the confusion about what kind of users we look for as Moderators.

Oh and I also discovered that this guy actually got demoted back to regular forumer status (Peasant) after 1 year of serving as forum mod. I'm not sure why, but that's also an interesting turn of events

 

I can do it?

 

As long as it's not based toward favoritism, I wouldn't mind having few volunteers helping this game. They'd need to pick the right people, people who actually WANT to help the community instead of players who just want to wear a special title. As Ithaca said, they don't need to do the actual work [GM]s have to do. They're support staffs who want to do this voluntarily.

But yeah, it's understandable that some of us wouldn't want any more [CA]s considering the past events.

 

Not to mention that being a CA is itself a taxing job, because you are blamed whenever anything goes wrong/GM related issues, overlooked for anything you resolve, and are the prime target for general direction of hurt feelings. You pretty much give up your freedom as a player in exchange for a big flag that says "you're free to be annoying to this person, any issue they take with you can be deflected to "favoritism" or "power abuse", so that you can make the game better for the people who both treat you fairly and unfairly.

And at that point it doesnt really help the GMs, because now their focus is responding to the whinies that take offense with you and also moderating you to make sure you're doing your job properly.

You have to really love the game to do it. The moment you get jaded it shows in the quality of your responses.

Hell, if people wanna take a shot at being magical RF girls, go for it though. Just don't go all Madoka Magica on us, kek.

I hope Toast, Gourdy and the other GMs who may be mulling over this idea have some insight or records of how this went behind the scenes and in the public at OGP. Because the group of us that were working were getting exhausted, and any attempt to reward us for that exhaustion led to people crowing. If this is a course you are considering, it needs to be done correctly.

 

yeah having thick skin is a really important one

 

nice

what's your opinion on the CAs in the OGP era?
have they worked out?

 

no thx

 

The task itself was pretty easy.

Moderating the forums: This was an easy task, all I did was close down inappropriate threads and moving threads to their respected sections. The only problem was when I closed down someones thread who believe that his thread was unrightfully closed down. We would settle the issue through DMs though and if I felt as if the person was right I would unblock the thread. Sometimes other CAs would step in to solve the issue.

Moderating the game: Tales Runner [CA]s did not have in game moderation abilities, but since we had close connection to [GM]s we could get someone punished pretty easy. It wasn't that easy though since we needed proof and [GM]s were reluctant to ban people. I didn't really report to many people because I don't get offended when people curse. Only if someone has cursing excessively at me, someone else, or if someone is doing something like hacking.

Planning and Running Events: We used the private [CA] section of the Tales Runner to post and plan events. This was probably the funnest part about being a CA. I got to run events, pick the date and the prizes. Only thing is, every prize I suggested got rejected, changed, or lowered in quantity. This goes for Rumble Fighter to. [GM]s can't give out items that are to good in events. Running the event was fun and easy, I just had to play the game and take down the names of winners and participants (Like fistcuff fridays). Planning and running events was really fun

Dealing with other CAs: Dealing with other CAs was probably my main issue. We sometimes disagreed on certain stuff (For ex: what event to run) but we later on became good friends because of the time we spent together and we did the best we could for the game.

Influence on patch content: When [GM]KorKor was still a GM CAs somewhat had an influence on update content. We would give [GM]s ideas ahead of time for what to ask for. Our voice wasn't heard all the time but it was sometimes.

The [CA] system worked out for Tales Runner. Tales Runner had more issues than Rumble Fighter tbh. The community was as toxic, there were more annoying hackers and ddosers (that's actually why it closed down). Being a [CA] isn't even that hard as long as you love the game you are playing and you are informed on what the community needed.

For anyone doubting if I was a CA here is my channel..

 

I can imagine this being a legit issue for the future CA/CM positions

it's hard to be a team when differing opinions get in the way

 

If you didn't know OGP actually removed the CA system from LaTale and the game closed months after.

 

was there a reason they removed it?

I'm missing something here lol

 

Idk I didn't see the early CAs and how they worked together, Smug is the best person to ask about that, but when I was there it wasn't that bad. Of course there were differences in opinion, but most people were professional about it. A few of the CAs that were there after I left were hotheaded, and of course you had the ones who were only there because of Beba and could do no harm. I don't know how their communication was, though.
Our first team of RMs on GC worked extremely well together, and Rev knew how to utilize us. Eventually, more people were added and the chemistry was effected and eventually everything changed. Before we knew it there was a forum sh**storm.
The way the moderator interacted with the player(s) was the hard part, as Smug stated. You had to really know how to bite your tongue hold your fingers. Players did their best to get a reaction out of you or find a way to get you into trouble because that's how petty RF players can be.

 

you were a CA as well? this is getting interesting

also, I think @Flamekiller really hit it home with thick skin as a serious requirement for a CA

When it comes to making decisions, I think overthinking could also be a potential issue here

Not enough decisive decisions, but a bit of back and forth, unsure what decision is the best, and could be the cause to certain content being delayed or poorly executed

 

Think he was [CA]Yoshi. Not liking Redfox and you asking for CAs everytime you see Gourdy doesn’t help you. I see players do that all the time.

 

I think because of alot of disagreements with the new gm.

 

ah this is probably why @KingxD put most of his concern on dealing with other CA's

 

[CA]Yoshi and [RM]Brock

 

video about OGP La Tale removing CA system. The new La Tale actually brought back the CA system pretty fast.