The staff...

[bluemicrobyte]

...is changing, moderators are moderating more heavily (this is good), and are starting to sound more "proffessional" (this isn't so good).

When I log on to Warboards I am always filled with the wonderful feeling of entering a caring community where everyone gets along and understands each others problems. I can freely express my views and opinions without being bashed around or ignored. I can ask for help and usually receive a good answer within a timely maner. I can rest assured that no matter what my rank (member//mod//admin) everyone will always be on the same level of authority and we will always be one big happy community. However, recently I have noticed a change -- some of this change is good, while part of it is bad.
First off, the moderators and administration seem to be cracking down on spam and other unwanted material on the forums. This is important and should be kept the way it is now.
A second change I have been noticing is the behavior of the staff -- the way these problems are handled and the way communication between members and staff has changed. Most, if not all, of the staff beleive that this is a good change; a move towards a more "proffessional" warboards. I, on the other hand, beleive that this change is producing negative side effects.
In the ideal world, your rank at Warboards would not make any difference in daily interactions between community members. Language style, and the way other members are treated would not vary from one person to another. If someone steps out of line they would receive the exact same response from anyone they questioned. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It seems today that you will receive a very different response from a staff member than from another non-staff member. Regular members usually provide sincere, casual information that is not formally written or composed with special care. Staff members are starting to provide "proffessional", or "automated" responses with less personalization or thought. A good example of what we are turning into is our very idol and founding name: Blizzard.
When you try to contact Blizzard for ANYTHING, you will receive an automated -- or highly proffesional sounding -- reply that does not directly answer your original inquiry. This "empty" reply, as I like to call it, uses words like "we", "Blizzard", and "Please" and "Customer satisfaction is a top priority" -- all which sound extremely "proffessional". When receiving these kinds of replies, you clearly feel that you have just received a reply from someone very different from yourself or the rest of the community. You feel as if you are being shut out of the truth and separated from a normal human response. Nobody wants these "proffesional" or "automated" types of messages. When emailing Blizzard I would much rather receive a reply that says

"I'm sorry but there is nothing I can do about the zeppelin problem. I've already tried reporting it to the DEVs but they haven't told me when they expect the problem to be fixed"

instead of:

"Thank you for contacting the World of Warcraft Game Master Department. The information you supplied has been added to our own. We thank you for taking the time to report this matter, and we appreciate your dedication towards making the World of Warcraft the best possible game it can be. "

In the above paragraph, I have bolded a few phrases and words. These are examples of words that set the community appart from the staff.

>>>I realize my post has exceeded its legal length so I'll finish up.

Here at Warboards I fear the same thing is happening to us that has happened to Blizzard. Proffessionalization is separating the community from the higher ranked officials. A once peacefully community where everyone was important has been segregated into two groups -- the community, and the proffessionals. I strongly feel that we should remain a single community and that there should be no way of telling who is a moderator other than the bolded name next to each post or an overall polite attitude along with role model behavior. Proffessionalism is something that should be left to Blizzard, and comming together as a single community should be our main focus. Thank you for taking time to hear my lengthy opinion.

edit: I wrote this around midnight without revising it, so please excuse any errors and or repetiveness and or other strange errors. However I think I was able to convey the message fairly clearly and I hope we will see some changes -- or should I say un-changes -- around here.

edit: I'd just like to add on to the whole "we" is bad thing: Using the word we makes it sound like the message is comming from all of the staff, and when that happens you get the feeling that you are not talking to a person, but rather you are talking to a group that thinks they are better than you. This eliminates the feeling that you are talking to a single person, which is bad.

[Demon_Child]

Well, usually when a member of the staff (myself, Schwitzer, BSTRhino or anyone else) uses the word "we" within their posts, then usually the staff (as a whole) has opted in favor of such movements or motions that pretain to Warboards.org or the entire Org network.

[Geno]

Either way, Me, myself, I, we, ourselves, etc, it's still a bang-up job. It's always fun to see you guys on doing the job, though, and enjoying it... I don't think I've seen one of you staffers having a bad day at posting... Now, of course there's bad days... But you haven't had any troubles here...

Many thanks for all you do ^.^

~Larry "Geno" Meyers
- BI's RP forum Aide

[Demon_Child]

It is a whole new story when having to deal with things away from the public eye, especially when things can get so hectic that it makes even particularly easy tasks rather difficult to handle. Believe me, it isn't all fun and games being part of the staff it has its moments where you are pushed to your wits end.

The relief that a staff member gets from doing a job well done is certainly humbling. :)

[Black.Ice]

Haha, BMB, I have a feeling you're referring to me in that post. :D

Seriously though, I understand what you mean but there are a few differences. For example, the responses you get from Blizzard are automated, meaning that they will be bland. No one here on WB uses automated responses, so the responses are always customized and fine-tuned to your needs.

Blizzard is also representing a professional company. I'm a staff member at the ORG Network, and it's (becoming) a professional organization. I guess it's a responsibility to speak professionally.

This also carries over from a few years of experience I have from customer service when I was running a business. When you represent a company, you must sound professional, and I learned how to do it. When I became a mod here at WB, I decided to make it a little more professional - and I thought it was a good thing to do.

But thanks for bringing up the concerns. I'll see what I can do. If you have any suggestions for me, feel free to tell me. I'm always listening.

[Schwitzer]

Thank you for taking the time to post. Your opinions are important to us. Please know that we will take everything you've said into deep consideration as we strive to deliver the best possible services we can to you, and to the rest of the community.

Now that that's over with... You see, the thing that sets us apart from an automatic response system employed by companies like Blizzard is that we have personality, and you've gotta love it. Or else.

Seriously, though; the WarBoards staff members are held to a very high standard, and a large part of that standard is indeed being able to act professionally. The alternative to a professional staff is an unprofessional staff; a bunch of singularly-driven individuals who are all striving for their seperate respective goals.

Using terms such as "we" and "us" is just part of the professionalism - a wording that represents the close teamwork that each and every WarBoards staff member strives for. If you feel that it lacks a "personal" touch, then maybe you should realise that each response you get as been written uniquely.

At other forums where teamwork and professionalism are not so highly regarded, the staff tend to be self-absorbed tyrants. We could do away with the professionalism and just act like a bunch of juveniles, doing whatever the hell we pleased at your expense. I've seen forums like this, and the experience doesn't seem to be pleasant for the average member.

[Nuts]

Think of a moderator or administrator as a police officer. They are only empowered so long as you continue to patronize the website, just as a police officer only works in the county or city where you reside. Additionally, moderators are here for a reason, to enforce the rules and regulations of the website, and these rules and regulations almost always endorsed and/or supported by the majority, otherwise they would not patronize the site. In a sense, moderators serve at our discretion, more or less. For that matter, this site exists at our discretion, for without the members, the moderators would simply curl up in the fetal position and delete threads at random for fear of going insane.

Bottom line, don't expect moderators to always be friendly, but you should expect them to keep this place neat and clean, while making it a pleasant experience to intereact with your fellow members. If a moderator befriends you or goes out of their way to be overly courteous, I would consider that a bonus, not the status quo.

Yeah, it sounds like a load of crap, but it makes sense if you think about it long enough.

P.S. Schwitzer, where is this "other" forum you speak of? Sounds awful. ;)

[Geno]

At other forums where teamwork and professionalism are not so highly regarded, the staff tend to be self-absorbed tyrants. We could do away with the professionalism and just act like a bunch of juveniles, doing whatever the hell we pleased at your expense. I've seen forums like this, and the experience doesn't seem to be pleasant for the average member.

Hey! I'm not bad... >.<

Actually, I've brought new, fresh ideas to the table over at Blizzforums, and they're thinking of implementing them... That, and the members over in the Diablo forum love me, apparently... o.O

~Larry "Geno" Meyers
- BI's RP forum Aide

[DragonPaladin]

Don't you just love the love that's going around here?

[AJ]

Thank you for taking the time to post. Your opinions are important to us. Please know that we will take everything you've said into deep consideration as we strive to deliver the best possible services we can to you, and to the rest of the community.

[DragonPaladin]

Aww...automated AJ service. How nice!

[IceFlare]

damn... AJ that one was good lol
but on another note..... professionalism is GOOD as long as the personal touch has been added.... its why people put their signature on letters, to show that they actually spent the time to write it. you cant do that in the net bcuz of copy and paste would mean no effort @ all

[AJ]

I think that the level of professionalism at WarBoards it not one to really worry over. We have some of the best staff, if I do say so myself, and each knows how to best handle himself.

[bluemicrobyte]

Wow a record number of replies in under 24 hours....

I think I may have conveyed the wrong message...my main point was that in some cases proffesionalism in communication between staff and members (regulars, not newcommers) tends to create a sense of segregation between these two groups of people.

I don't mind proffessionalism towards outsiders or new members, but when you (a regular) talk to the warboards mods and you get a "proffesionalized" reply it makes you feel like your not a member of a community but rather a visitor of an organization.

[UnHoly-Assassin]

each knows how to best handle himself.

Careful there...DC might be lurking around...

Nobody likes staff that can easily be replaced by robots, which noone is of course. As long as there is a flexible yet strong line/boundry, there shouldn't be a problem...

[bluemicrobyte]

/sigh

For now I'll let this go but in the future I'll personally point out every example of this and possibly revive the thread if the situation calls for it.

[BSTRhino]

I understand what you mean bluemicrobyte. The other day I went on Active Worlds (http://www.activeworlds.com), which is a live 3D chat program kind of thing. This guy flamed and in response he got a recorded message from the live moderator person. Then later on I asked how to reconfigure my keys and I got a recorded message from the live moderator person. The funny thing is, the person is live and chats away with other people, but doesn't seem to want to take the time to give you proper attention, all you get is recorded messages instead. In that case, it just seems like they might as well replace the person with a robot, like unholyassassin said. I would've had an entirely different view if the person took the time, or at least looked like they weren't using a recorded message.

I'd never do that to any of you, connecting with members is very important to me, maybe even the most important thing about me even visiting this place. Sometimes it's even too important and it causes me to be lenient where I shouldn't. But you know, if you feel like you're not getting to know your staff members because we're distancing ourselves with robotic responses, then just go along and talk to us and tell us about it. However, like AJ said, I don't think you've got much to worry about there.

[Demon_Child]

I think that the level of professionalism at WarBoards it not one to really worry over. We have some of the best staff, if I do say so myself, and each knows how to best handle himself.

*ahem* "Themselves" would be more politically correct. :P

Careful there...DC might be lurking around...

Nobody likes staff that can easily be replaced by robots, which noone is of course. As long as there is a flexible yet strong line/boundry, there shouldn't be a problem...

I am always lurking about, always. ;)

And we (the staff) are going to make sure that there will always be a flexible, yet strong line. There has to be enough flexibility to allow some character from the members of the forums, but we also have to be stern enough to make sure that the rules and guidelines are still in effect whenever it is needed.

[hammocksleeper]

I don't think I'm clashing with any of the other staff members when I say this, but...I agree with much of what bmb has said as far as the dissatisfaction that comes along with canned respones. Ever since AJ made me staff here I have done my very best to keep the exact same behavior that I have always had in the forums, with the exception of spamming less (this goes hand-in-hand with the crackdown on spam). I hate it when y'all get impersonal responses that pull rank and talk down to y'all. I know that I'm nothing more than an over-glorified normal member, with a little more responsibility but I'm not more qualified for your respect, admiration or regard than if I were a normal member.

The staff here are authority figures but that doesn't mean that we have to act like stiff, dry pieces of cardboard. I think in general the staff here do a damn good job of keeping people happy here, but it's always nice to get feedback. Feel free to PM any staff member whose interpersonal relations you think could be improved. I'm sure it will be well-recieved. And if not, tell me and I'll give 'em the old 1-2. :)

[bluemicrobyte]

I understand what you mean bluemicrobyte. The other day I went on Active Worlds (http://www.activeworlds.com), which is a live 3D chat program kind of thing. This guy flamed and in response he got a recorded message from the live moderator person. Then later on I asked how to reconfigure my keys and I got a recorded message from the live moderator person. The funny thing is, the person is live and chats away with other people, but doesn't seem to want to take the time to give you proper attention, all you get is recorded messages instead. In that case, it just seems like they might as well replace the person with a robot, like unholyassassin said. I would've had an entirely different view if the person took the time, or at least looked like they weren't using a recorded message.

I'd never do that to any of you, connecting with members is very important to me, maybe even the most important thing about me even visiting this place. Sometimes it's even too important and it causes me to be lenient where I shouldn't. But you know, if you feel like you're not getting to know your staff members because we're distancing ourselves with robotic responses, then just go along and talk to us and tell us about it. However, like AJ said, I don't think you've got much to worry about there.

Thats exactly the message I'm trying to get across...I think.

Between members and staff there shouldn't be any proffessionalism, but between anyone and a visitor proffessionalism will show them that we are a proffesional community. Think of proffesionalism as a large wall -- we don't want it between members of the community, but we want it around the community to separate us from the rest of the internet. (note that "community" and "us" refer to warboards as a whole, members and staff alike)

[AJ]

professionalism is not a bad thing. an immotive, emotionless automated message is.
i prefer that my staff is able to conduct itself with some level of professionalism, with all members.

i rather enjoy seeing a more intelligent and thought out environment which is a side-effect of so-called "professionalism"

[bluemicrobyte]

What you say is true, but I still think there shouldn't be a "wall of proffesionalism" between staff members and regulars. In a way, that is saying that mods > members which is exactly what I'm fighting against -- segregation of our community.

[Black.Ice]

I understand what you're saying BMB, but do you really think that a few responses that represent the staff as a whole are segregating the community? Do you feel that I, or the other staff members, have alienated themselves from the community? And if so, in what way?

[bluemicrobyte]

No, I don't think the problem is THAT bad as of right now, but I'm saying that I've noticed a recent trend and it is making warboards seem slightly segregated. For now, we're fine but I'll mention anything I see that should be changed.

[Geno]

No, I don't think the problem is THAT bad as of right now, but I'm saying that I've noticed a recent trend and it is making warboards seem slightly segregated. For now, we're fine but I'll mention anything I see that should be changed.

I personally don't see it I've spoken to Shwitzer, BSTRhino, Black.Ice, and a few others one on one, both with messanger and IRC. I have no trouble talking to them openly both about forum and non-forum stuff... What really gives you this impression, if I might be so inclined to ask...?

~Larry "Geno" Meyers
- BI's RP forum Aide

[bluemicrobyte]

You know, as I was thinking about specific examples I could give I couldn't remember anything at the moment, just that I was starting to feel like warboards was turning into a proffesional wall. Thats why I said for now we can ignore it but I'll bring up the issue as soon as I see a specific example.

[Schwitzer]

The fact that you need to wait for a single example to present itself makes me inclined to think that this really risn't a problem...

[Ecthelion]

I think there is a very slight segregation, almost like a chain of hierarchy. The more experienced members and mods tend to place themselves above other members. I remember in one thread kidneythief said something like "What do you know? You got less than a hundred posts." I think the problem exists, but isn't prominent enough to warrant immediate action. Just know that it's there.

[DragonPaladin]

N/o, but Kidneythief isn't exactly a prime example of a Warboards member.

[Ecthelion]

Most definately not. I was just sighting an example that came into my mind.

[bluemicrobyte]

With that example kidneytheif will eventually become a regular member, however in my case members never become mods (with few exceptions)

[Neo]

Most of those kind of people are uhm... well I don't know how to put it nicely, rather slow.

You can have only 500 posts and have joined right from the beggining and be a well respected member. Post count doesn't mean that much. To me its the way you post.

-Neo

[hammocksleeper]

And once again another thread devolves into a discussion about how post count doesn't matter, an issue on which there is no debate and an issue which has been beaten to death...many times over. ;)

[bluemicrobyte]

Here is how I rate members based on postcount and other relevant data:

<250 posts OR <2 weeks = newcommer

>500 posts & >1 month OR >2.5 months = member

>1000 posts & >3 months OR >8 months = veteran / regular

>15000 posts & >1 year = forum guru (no one has reached this status yet )

NOTE: that no where does your status (member/mod/admin) play any role in determining your "rank"

KEY: My explanation is this: if someone has been an active (reading) member for the said amount of time, they should have a feel for how things work at warboards OR if they post the said number of posts they should also have a feel for how tings work at warboards but only if they have been here for at least said amount of time. I realize that some guy with 2 weeks and 100 posts could be better than some guy with 3000 posts and 6 months, but that new guy still doesn't have as much experience than the old guy. sort of.

* bluemicrobyte thinks he will be scolded by hammock for the above post
* bluemicrobyte hides the above post
/me requests that hammock not go looking for the above post :P
/me thinks he has said too much
/me retreats to WoW for a while.






================new post================


In closing, I would like to remind everyone that the Warboarders are one community and should all be treated the same. The wall of proffesionalism should not exist between Neo (staff) or ZDS (member), but rather, it should exist between Neo+ZDS and the outside world. Staff, when writing/talking to veteran members please write to us as if you were writing to a good friend, not a customer or visitor. Members and staff, let us band together to appear proffesional to the outside world, newcommers, and other forums alike. The algebraic warboards formula should appear as follows (Staff, Members) (Outsiders) as opposed to (Staff) (Members, Outsiders). Thank you for your time, and may our community thrive to it's fullest.

/me politely requests threadlockage / no more posts

DISCLAIMER: Neo and ZDS were random examples and are not to be singled out in any way. the term "Neo" represents a staff member, and the term "ZDS" represents a member.

[Demon_Child]

* bluemicrobyte politely requests threadlockage / no more posts


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