Hello again everypony! Thank you again for noticing my community post. While I prepare for more community based news and thoughts in the next community post, I thought I'd clear something up first. You see, after the last community post, I was told by a fair few members that they didn't know or understand the staff roles or what they did, or who to come to for a problem or issue. To help set things straight, I've written up a list of staff roles, who has them and what they do. If there are any more questions or issues, please feel free to contact me and I'll do my best to answer! Lead Admin - Foxytail The top job, the lead admin is the head of the team and the site and is responsible for the staff and their behaviour as well as keeping the site on track. They have full privileges for the site, chat and radio and oversees any moderation and issues that arise to ensure the staff follow their roles and perform their jobs adequately. They are the one who makes the final decision in any big decision as well as being the one to come to with ideas for the site and issues regarding the staff and their actions. Technical Admin - Grey Knightmare The brains behind the system, the technical admin is the one who keeps the site running as well as gets involved with major site decisions. The one who implements new styles, features and generally keeps us going, they make sure that the site runs smoothly and tries to fix any bugs. When they're not keeping it running, they're at the forefront of any talks and decisions made and often makes sure the ideas we have are possible or not. Global Moderators - Zephyr, Viperbait A global moderator's job is to ensure that the members of the site are following the rules and keep the admins aware of any bans, warnings and deleted posts that may have occured. They have full moderation privilages on all areas of the site and do their best to maintain the rules are followed. If there are any issues and the admin's not available then they are the ones to go to. Community Manager - Foxytail The community manager's job is to be aware and present in the community, to talk to and listen to the community and make sure that their opinions are being heard. Often the bridge between staff and users, they explain what the staff are doing and thinking as well as making sure that the members of the site are active and aware of any changes, taking in ideas and suggestions made by the users. They also deal with any major community issues and/or drama and try to maintain a peaceful forum atmosphere. They have full forum moderator privilages to aid in their duties. Community Patrol - Merriweather, Poetic Pony Members of the community patrol help the community manager maintain peace as well as listen to the users and dealing with any minor community issues. They also have full forum and chat moderator privilages to aid in their duties and help enforce the rules whenever needed. Communit patrol are the members to go to with your problems, whether they be issues with members, staff or personal problems and they'll do their best to make you feel better. They may not be able to help, but they'll do their best. Chat Moderators - Fluttershy, Saikyo Brony Chat moderators keep an eye on the chat and make sure that everyone follows the rules and acts respectful towards each other. They also ensure the chat topic follows the rules and doesn't drift towards anything that offends or makes others feel unpleasant. They only have privilages within the chat and will ensure that the chat stays friendly and open to everyone. Fanfiction Archivist - Aynine Fanfiction archivists pre-read and approve fanfictions for the fanfiction area, as well as helping to critique and advise writers on how to improve on their works. They have the power to approve and reject fanfiction applications, as well as delete and edit them if necessary. RP Forum Moderator - Tyro The Fox The RP Forum moderator moderates and helps direct and control forum RPs, as well as talking to the staff about deciding new rules and changes to the RP forum area to ensure the best and most suitable practices and rules for RPing within the forums as well as keeping it appropriate. Their privileges allow them to fully moderate the RP forum only, including moving, deleting and renaming threads when needed. Radio DJs - Flash, Bounty, Berry Punch, Zephyr, Zephyr Haste, Viperbait, Foxytail, Fluttershy Radio DJs cue songs and moderate the livestream radio, uploading and taking shifts to play music outside of autobrony. Their privileges allow them to moderate the chat as well as perform their radio duties only. I hope that clears a few things up and helps direct any future questions to the right people. This list (and any additions to it) will be made available shortly in a dedicated staff thread in site discussion to be made over the coming week. That's all from me for now. Before I close off, I would like to ask if anypony has anyone they'd like me to give a shoutout to for being a good friend or doing something that really made you smile, feel free to PM me their name and deed and I'll post their name for all to see! And don't forget to use our Community Praise Thread in general discussion if you want to thank any number of people for helping you out. That's it from me this week everypony. Have a good one! ~Foxytail
There is one thing I don't agree with here. The system needs Checks and Balances. Having a Lead Admin having an absolute say, -especially- when there is only -one- head Admin, is severely flawed. While the staff -do- collaborate on some issues, saying that you have the final, outright decision in an outcome is severely imbalanced. I do believe a set system should be created that makes it more obvious that you aren't the -only- one who has a say in things, Foxy. For starters, the community -needs- to be more involved in what happens to the site and to themselves. This includes both minor and major NON-STAFF issues. I'm not talking about the EP Review Team here, because that serves an entirely different purpose, which is to find out what's wrong with the site and how to fix it using only certain members of the community. An entire system devoted to the entire community; yes, the ENTIRE community; needs to be established so that nobody feels that they are inadequate and don't have to feel that decisions are being shoved down their throats without any say in what happens.
Well keep in mind that the decision is VERY rarely mine alone. I always ask the staff what they think and more often then not the decision is one agreed on by at least Grey and myself. That being said, I can see why me having the final say in something can be flawed, but I can assure you that just because I have the final say doesn't mean it's one only I have a say in. A lot of effort goes into making decisions and I've made decisions I didn't like or actively opposed because it was the better choice. Still, it's not perfect, and that's something we're always trying to improve. This is something often discussed but rarely decided upon because so far we've not found a system that is fair enough for everyone to satisfy what we think is right. You are quite right, I'm not the only one to have a say in things, and I do my best to include everyone relevant, but it can't always go that way with what we have right now. Now that you're a member of staff, I'm looking forward to more active discussions about stuff like this and I can assure you and everyone else that we're doing what we can with what we have.
I simply think there's too many roles for the main forum-y bit. Many forums have a simple three-tier (maybe four-tier) system of Admin -> Mods -> Users. Global Moderators and Community Patrol have precisely the same privileges in the forum, yet 'Global Moderators' sounds higher tier than 'Community Patrol', wouldn't you say?
Community Patrol deals more with user-based issues while having permissions on the forum, While a Global moderator deals with more rule-based issues while having global permissions just short below that of an admin. Simply put: CP are your human resources.
My point is this: The community is constantly left out of decisions that affect the site. The decisions that are made never reach public ears until the final say has already been done. The community have both the right to know what decisions are being made, and the ability to protest/support such an idea, should it ever even come to light. I will not be part of a regime that allows it's members to go blind or deaf to potentially important changes. If something is being debated via the staff, the community has the right to know what changes may or may not come before a decision is made. This way, the community cannot be outraged by such decisions (The New Rules, for example.), and they can speak out against them if they disapprove WITHOUT it already being set in stone. The system is simple. Let the community decide what happens to THEM, not just WE decide what happens to them. I am disappointed by how the people who run the site keep changes secret until they are publically announced. This has to change, for both the benefit of the site, and it's users.
And this, my friend, is one of the points of these community posts. I'm going to do my best to ensure that the community are aware of what we're doing and keep them informed of ideas or potential areas we'd like to improve in some way and get some ideas. While there are probably better methods (which we will talk about), I feel this is a step in the right direction to help towards that goal of getting the community involved. Such as right now. You've been made aware of the system, the roles we perform and what we do in them, which has shed light on something you've seen as a potential problem, and we are now openly discussing it in a way any are free to join into. At the end of the day it's all about making sure the users are happy and aware, and that's something I'm hoping these posts will help in.
News goes in top. Discussion goes in bottom. Stuff is sorted out. Multiple threads aren't made. 'Tis the season to be jolly?
The problem I see with this is that there are only 4 pages of news, but 29 pages discussing it. This would make it harder to keep track of what was discussed say.... 3 months in the future, having to search through a huge thread to look for a certain point or idea that someone may have posted. Plus, if I did these all in one thread, the new ones wouldn't show up on the front page. We can't have that now, can we?
But why would we want to browse to 3 months old posts? Raise your hand if the front page is always the first thing you see when logging in.
For future review. I still browse various news posts from time to time. My page is saved to the forum main page.
I'd like to thank you for clearing up and defining the roles of the mods/admins. I also think there does need to be a singular head person to make a final decision in the case of contested ideas or whatnot. Someone needs veto power or things would never get done and will hopefully protect minority ideals from the tyranny of the majority. Things can and will be tweaked in the future, but complaining about every single step the admins try to take forward is not really productive. Believe it or not, I think they are trying to work with us and have not earned the cynicism they seem to be bombarded with in these posts. Anyways, intermission over. Back at it I guess. /All statements above are purely my humble opinions. //I'm done with arguing for the day, too. ///slashies!
You mods are all doing a fantastic job. With the community getting a larger say, good things are sure to come! Why yes, I am a huge optimist.
People WERE given plenty of warning about rule changes and when we finally posted them we actually declared that they were open to feedback and "not yet implemented/enforced" - So I won't indulge discussion relating to this. While I agree the community needs a say, I'll be damned if we go down a communism/democracy route and start "electing" staff or voting on whether we change a forum's description. It just doesn't work... That's why the US has a president, the UK has a Prime-minister. They don't make the decisions alone and the people do get some level of say, but ultimately someone needs to be able to call veto if things aren't going anywhere. Not to mention I personally, when head, had quite a few issues with members not bothering to give their opinions on site developments even when I did propose them; some people just don't mind or don't much care.
I frequent the forum and saw no such warnings. If they were communicated better, there would have been much less of a fuss. As I said. Staff Matters are for Staff Members. This includes new staff being added. Foxytail and I discussed this at great length. The forum is now at least 450 active members strong. A mere group of ~15 people is not enough to govern what happens to this place and it's people. Let those who care, not just the staff, voice their opinions on subjects as well, as I have done, even while not on staff. It isn't fair, nor is it right, to leave important decisions unnoticed until the last second.
And I quote: As for the matter of additional staff, I have trust issues and high standards, so go figure... It's one of the reasons I put/let Foxy be in charge, I don't/won't and most likely can't make much useful input on staff expansion and recruitment. Sorry. Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2
You misunderstand what I'm trying to say here. (I could have worded it better, admittedly.) I already explained what I meant by all of this earlier. These Community Posts, given time, shall be used to gauge community interest in changes once they are suggested.
