Forums → The Tavern → One Dilly of a Pickle, ain't it?
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INTRODUCTION
Thread Background
Coming from a long-time lurker born in 2008, I have noticed that Armor Games is facing a recent "slump" of activity. In other terms, Armor Games is becoming inactive. In my quest for answers, I've contacted several Armor Games users, ranging from new users to veterans. Thinking that I gave people something to think about for the day, Ernie15 gave me a bold idea to convert these ideas into a thread where one can give his/her ideas on the matter instead of letting this issue be small-talk. In many's minds, this is an issue that needs to be addressed to immediately. There have been threads like this, but this is the central HUB of what we view of Armor Games today.
Armor Games, I give you The User's View.
Armor Games Background
AG3, a major update to the Armor Games world, has been in development for around 2 years. There are tons of beta testers for the website. Prior to and starting at the development of AG3, Armor Games was once a bustling "city," if you will, of ideas traveling by means of public forum posting to comments to one another, or "small talk." Many of these users have left for reasons we will discuss and are being replaced by users we will later discuss.
Staff Changes
Late 2011, Cormyn, a very popular admin, resigned from his duties and became a regular user. He was somewhat replaced with Justin Royster, aka username jroyster22.
Part 1: Cormyn
Cormyn was undoubtedly known for his ability to be publicly active within the community and was often described as strict. As strict as he was, he kept the trash out and helped shape our modern-day Armor Games. He wrote code for the community, laid down a lot of the rules, appointed moderators alongside the moderation team, and, short and sweet, held Armor Games together. In many people's opinions, he was the administrator's community face of Armor Games. Once Cormyn left, jroyster22, alongside his duties with AG3, became the one to contact if you needed help. Justin Royster had big shoes to fill, and so far, he's done a moderate job. He prefers to contact via email, taking away from that on-site communication charm. In my opinion, Justin Royster has been a little vague with his duties. I and others have complained that Armor Games needs a new head, and if Justin Royster was a little more open, we'd have that strong, great leader. I am not criticizing his work- I understand he's busy. I'm just asking that he showed a little more of his face.
Part 2: Inactivity
Sadly, many of Armor Games' moderators have been caught up with daily life to successfully fulfill their duties on a daily basis. Similarly, admins are busy preparing AG3 for its release and have a lot to do. I understand they have lives as well. Many other new members have complained that it is impossible to get in touch with anyone on the staff team. Cormyn had written moderator-selection software, and many are thinking, if it is still available after Cormyn's resignation, perhaps it could be used to find another addition to the moderator team. Freakenstein has been a fantastic addition, but I feel as though we need more. I'm not going to name names because I respect what our moderators do; I feel as though we need more. Maybe it's time we eliminated the "small staff team" tradition for the time being until we recover. As for admins, we don't need a lot, but just one public face to get contact with would be fantastic.
Migration
I know AG3 is going to be very different. I know forum activity has sunk. I know your friends have left. Because of multiple things, many users, newbies and veterans alike, have moved on to different websites. This is not going to help our inactivity problem. It will only make it worse. I am not only asking you all to stay, but I am asking you to help out. We can't sit around and let our users leave. Part of it is our problem; we can make things interesting again. We can make people want to spend all of their time here. We can show people Armor Games is the best darn website out there!
Generation Transition
Jeol brought this to my attention and it struck me. What if the reason so many people are leaving is because they are older? Now, some people will never change, but others will grow and move on. And, who replaces them?
Part 1: Veterans
It's summer. You've finished school and want to enjoy the outdoors. You've finished school and have to work. You've finished school and want to try something new. Whatever it is, whether you've gotten too old for Armor Games, or have something else taking up your time, you can't visit your favorite website in the world. You know what? That's quite OK. Just remember to drop by once in a while and talk to your old friends. Many users are finding that they are having difficulties connecting with new people if they leave right away. Sadly, this leaves many users bored and craving for a good conversation.
Part 2: New Users
The size of Armor Games' user list is rising exponentially- it's skyrocketing! Most would think this would create more activity, wouldn't it? Frankly, no. Many games require an account for online saving to work, and the new generation replacing the previous one seems to be filled with people who join, stay active for a day, and quit dealing with the forums, leaving a large gap to be filled by no one.
Armor Games v3
As mentioned earlier, AG3 is being developed. By my count, there are currently 5 admins developing it. Unfortunately, users are complaining because there is little or no status updates on what's going on. Not to sound demanding, but more frequent updates could make the waiting all the easier. Also, the new achievement system may scare veterans who are used to and have gained recognition by the current AP system. AG3 will also result in a clean slate for the forums... By deleting all of the material there. Of course, much of the material is repeatable, but many veterans have good memories of posting here.
Conclusion
We've lost the face of the admins, Cormyn, and would like to have another public face again. Many moderators are busy with their lives and some more help would be fantastic. A lot of people have given up on Armor Games and have outright quit. Old faces are being replaced with people who aren't as devoted the site. AG3 is coming with big changes, but has gone very quiet recently.
~Salvidian
Those who contributed to this information in some way, shape, or form
-jeol
-Ernie15
-daleks
-Skeleton_Pilot
-Cenere
-GhostOfMatrix
-MrDayCee
-johnmerz
- 339 Replies
On the matter of Carlie: She was promoted. I think it would be a good idea to promote any mod willing to take on the responsibility, but that was talked about a bit while Ian was around, so it seems rather doubtful the staff would make such a proper and good decision. Instead I am sure they are going to remove some of the rules or start limiting the amount of bans a mod can make or something progressive and innovative as those things . . .
It would loosen up some of the related stress about moderating, it would give some kind of security to the community at large and it might give some leverage to force in some of the other changes to how things are run.
But it seems unlikely, and if they wanted a community admin, or thought of the mods as anything but slave scum, they would probably have brought it up with the moderation staff somewhere around... What, the time after Carlie left?
Other points, that might be outdated by half a year, but:
If there were suitable candidates, they would have been mods by now. The staff does not as such have a say in whether or not more mods are needed (considering their limited to entirely lacking interaction with the community), and will usually mod any candidate brought up by the moderation staff.
Mods are paranoid creatures that doesn't like to put others into their misery, but in times like these with two and a half active mod, you can all be pretty sure they are trying their best to come to some kind of agreement on modidates of any kind, because they know people complain for no particular reason, and they actually want to have a bit of summer holiday as well, instead of feeling obligated to sweat through game comments that multiply faster than rats on viagra.
And lastly: Expanding the team does nothing. I agree that cutting out the inactive mods might be a good idea, but they tend to pop up every once in a while and do a good job then, giving the rest a well deserved break. In times where we... they had been four or more active mods, people were still complaining about the game comments and lack of information and lack of activity. The first because you are all ungrateful pri... Because you can't actually see the decline, the second because of the staff and the third because that is how the internet goes. Be happy the activity doesn't spike in the summer due to trolls like everywhere else, and instead hope it gets better after the supposed launch of the next AG version, sometime in the year 3001.
The following should be included in the e-mail:
-A suggestion to rename the "Community" button to "Forums".
-A suggestion to add a link to forums in the registration form.
-A suggestion to read this thread as well as a link to it.
-A suggestion to add a community admin that is active and visible.
-A suggestion to de-mod the inactive mods and find good replacements.
Good suggestions; easily implementable, but I think I'm going to wait on the community admin thing. I really don't want to make a suggestion that I know won't get implemented. Getting a new admin hired doesn't sound too nice to me because we really need someone who is familiar with how AG works, its history, its people, and its current state.
If they are looking for a new person instead of one of the current admins or mods, I imagine it being difficult to find someone who has never used this forum to be willing for the job. Why not just make one of the current mods a community admin? Didn't they do that with Carlie?
Carlie had "rivileges;" she was friends with John, and then they had some sort of relationship, or they got married or something along those lines. I can't remember exactly.
Anyways, a mod-turned-admin sounds Ok, but they would obviously have to be VERY dedicated. I don't think it would necessarily be an actual admin, but some other rank, because admins, of course, are paid employees of AG. I have modded on other forums, and, especially MMORPGs, there were always ranks different from forum/game mods and actual staff. We had community leaders, a support team to answer questions, and a team that you reported rule-breakers to. There were always a game team and a separate forum team.
Not necessarily. If the admins don't think that more mods are necessary, they wont add more mods. The admin might not realize that half of the mods are no longer active.
I'm 99% sure Dan is aware of the mod situation, because Joey Betz told him of the thread, and that was discussed heavily earlier.
I think it would be a good idea to promote any mod willing to take on the responsibility, but that was talked about a bit while Ian was around, so it seems rather doubtful the staff would make such a proper and good decision. Instead I am sure they are going to remove some of the rules or start limiting the amount of bans a mod can make or something progressive and innovative as those things . . .
Again, promoting a mod to a new rank sounds good to me, but that is, of course, waaayyy out of our power.
I like the ideas of philosopher Montesquieu, who's ideas resulted in the separate powers within the US government.
We could have different mods for,
-Community leaders (Oversees everything)
-Support team (Answers questions; makes help threads)
-Banning team (Bans rule-breakers; discusses problems with rule-breakers)
-AMW judges (Mods whom are official judges for AMW competitions)
-Forum team (Locks threads; changes thread names and the likes)
Or at least that's my opinion.
It would loosen up some of the related stress about moderating, it would give some kind of security to the community at large and it might give some leverage to force in some of the other changes to how things are run.
But it seems unlikely, and if they wanted a community admin, or thought of the mods as anything but slave scum, they would probably have brought it up with the moderation staff somewhere around... What, the time after Carlie left?
Can't argue that.
Other points, that might be outdated by half a year, but:
If there were suitable candidates, they would have been mods by now. The staff does not as such have a say in whether or not more mods are needed (considering their limited to entirely lacking interaction with the community), and will usually mod any candidate brought up by the moderation staff.
Mods are paranoid creatures that doesn't like to put others into their misery, but in times like these with two and a half active mod, you can all be pretty sure they are trying their best to come to some kind of agreement on modidates of any kind, because they know people complain for no particular reason, and they actually want to have a bit of summer holiday as well, instead of feeling obligated to sweat through game comments that multiply faster than rats on viagra.
And lastly: Expanding the team does nothing. I agree that cutting out the inactive mods might be a good idea, but they tend to pop up every once in a while and do a good job then, giving the rest a well deserved break. In times where we... they had been four or more active mods, people were still complaining about the game comments and lack of information and lack of activity. The first because you are all ungrateful pri... Because you can't actually see the decline, the second because of the staff and the third because that is how the internet goes. Be happy the activity doesn't spike in the summer due to trolls like everywhere else, and instead hope it gets better after the supposed launch of the next AG version, sometime in the year 3001.
The forums really are grinding to a halt, and the current admins aren't doing anything. However, dividing up the active mods and possibly expanding the team could fix up some problems, such as the failure in AMW competitions, failure in overall leadership, and many mods are simply unseen.
YOUR SARCASM LEVEL IS OVER 9000!!!!11!!!!
-Community leaders (Oversees everything)
-Support team (Answers questions; makes help threads)
-Banning team (Bans rule-breakers; discusses problems with rule-breakers)
-AMW judges (Mods whom are official judges for AMW competitions)
-Forum team (Locks threads; changes thread names and the likes)
The reason, besides this forum being made from scratch, that we don't have different ranks is because many of those things blend. A forum mod needs to talk to rule breakers and answer questions, so on, so forth. Otherwise it ends up a messy bureaucracy of trying to get someone to take the job someone else easily could do. As for AMW judges, no one really likes that spot. That is the reason we haven't had a mod judge there since I retired the ASC, as far as I can remember.
It might be a good idea in some level, but not parted like this. Besides, nothing creates disorder and rivalry than different ranks. Just look at me snarking about how useless I think the staff is, and how glorified I find the mods. I most likely wouldn't be able to last a day as an admin, but it sure as hell would be a day the community would remember.
So, well...
If I was to issue a parting of the powers, then perhaps issue a few mods to the game comments, and a few others to forum duty. It would be hell, but with rotations it would seem fair, and there would be enough done so that the mods could verbally kick in some faces when people complain about the spam level. But... It can't work right now, not with two and a half mod around for the entire site.
This is why they need the support from the people they are volunteering for. More so than they currently are, and much more visibly.
However, dividing up the active mods and possibly expanding the team could fix up some problems, such as the failure in AMW competitions, failure in overall leadership, and many mods are simply unseen.
As mentioned, the AMW competitions are somewhere below cleaning game comments on the scale of "YES!" to "kill me please...", mainly because it takes a lot of time, and people actually want a serious reply. It's just tiresome, and with a university degree building in the background, or doctor's work, or something, it's something you ought to get paid for in either riches or proper respect.
The overall leadership could be taken by mods, but they really can't. They can't fix the site, they can't answer technical inquiries... They lack the knowledge the staff has, and without it, it won't be overall leadership as much as some kind of failed military coup.
And for the unseen mods... They really ought to get a kick. They might have serious problems or hard lives or something else entirely more important than AG. It's fair, that was why I retired. But why shouldn't they have the decency to admit they can't do their volunteer work properly and retire as well. It might either force the mod team into some hard thinking and stage a proper strike against the staff, or motivate the staff to take some part in the community because they would end up with perhaps three mods trying to uphold a larger site.
I don't really know, there are probably better ideas and ways to fix it all, but... No one seems to care.
YOUR SARCASM LEVEL IS OVER 9000!!!!11!!!!
Totally. As blunt a snarker as ever.
That said, there is no harm in making the staff continuously aware of this thread. As said, the community might not be a big part of the site, but this is where all the issues land when they happen.
The reason, besides this forum being made from scratch, that we don't have different ranks is because many of those things blend. A forum mod needs to talk to rule breakers and answer questions, so on, so forth. Otherwise it ends up a messy bureaucracy of trying to get someone to take the job someone else easily could do.
I see your point. I do believe that some sort of separation would be nice for moderators to give them breaks from doing mindless tasks for their entire career. It probably won't work for AG, but perhaps a few groups would somewhat work. Like, for example, game-spam cleaners, forum cleaners, and maybe in-game moderators who ban hackers.
As mentioned, the AMW competitions are somewhere below cleaning game comments on the scale of "YES!" to "kill me please...", mainly because it takes a lot of time, and people actually want a serious reply. It's just tiresome, and with a university degree building in the background, or doctor's work, or something, it's something you ought to get paid for in either riches or proper respect.
I know many of the current mods wouldn't like to judge, but this is where one could appoint judges to position where they only have the power to award merits, but only for AMW competitions. This is where the team expansion idea takes place.
The overall leadership could be taken by mods, but they really can't. They can't fix the site, they can't answer technical inquiries... They lack the knowledge the staff has, and without it, it won't be overall leadership as much as some kind of failed military coup.
As for this part, a current admin take up the spot, or a new admin. At least someone who is somewhat familiar with AG and can inform us of the activity of AG3.
I really don't know what to say about new admins...
Anyways, appointing new mods for certain roles like AMW judges could be beneficial, but this wouldn't really help right now.
---
I think I lost a "bold" BB code in there somewhere... if my post comes out all bold, I'm just going to repost.
Salvidian considered sending an e-mail, so I gave suggestions on what to put in the e-mail.
Thanks. I guess I missed that in the last couple pages somewhere... Just needed some clarification.
However, dividing up the active mods and possibly expanding the team could fix up some problems,
How is expanding the mod team going to stimulate forum activity?
such as the failure in AMW competitions, failure in overall leadership, and many mods are simply unseen.
How did moderators becoming inactive reduce the forum activity?
-Community leaders (Oversees everything)
-Support team (Answers questions; makes help threads)
-Banning team (Bans rule-breakers; discusses problems with rule-breakers)
-AMW judges (Mods whom are official judges for AMW competitions)
-Forum team (Locks threads; changes thread names and the likes
Are there enough users that are suitable, and have the time, to be moderators? An idea such as yours appears to require a large number of mods.
How is expanding the mod team going to stimulate forum activity?
How did moderators becoming inactive reduce the forum activity?
I think it partly has to do with what Ernie said on page 2 or whatever:
If you haven't noticed, if you get two or three mods posting in the same thread, that thread is going to blow up with activity. Newish users especially want to get in on the "action" of posting in the presence of mods. They probably see it as some sort of mortals-on-Mount-Olympus thing.
That, and also I think that if there were more mods active the site would get the impression that the more people actually care.
But having more mods really wouldn't do much to the state of the forums still, and in my opinion this is not the main solution here,
As for the email, I really doubt that the admins will do much, if anything after getting it.
How is expanding the mod team going to stimulate forum activity?
This,
If you haven't noticed, if you get two or three mods posting in the same thread, that thread is going to blow up with activity. Newish users especially want to get in on the "action" of posting in the presence of mods. They probably see it as some sort of mortals-on-Mount-Olympus thing.
If you need an example, look here, I guess. The thread wasn't moving fast and then, Strop, I think, posted and over night activity was spewing out of the lid.
How did moderators becoming inactive reduce the forum activity?
This actually takes a little explaining, but I'm just going to give you the tl;dr version because this will be the 100th time I've explained it.
If a new user needs assistance, who do they contact? A moderator, for the most part, right? Or maybe an administrator? Well, what happens when they don't get a response? They up and leave, don't they?
What happens when a new user is surrounded by people he/she isn't comfortable talking with and would rather contact a staff member? Again, they end up leaving.
What happens when a new user doesn't see the stickies? They contact a staff member for help...
...and you get the rest.
Also this would help for explanations,
That, and also I think that if there were more mods active the site would get the impression that the more people actually care.
I went into detail with this a few pages back, don't ya know. Go ahead and look for yourself if you need more explaining.
Are there enough users that are suitable, and have the time, to be moderators? An idea such as yours appears to require a large number of mods.
Well, I said this wouldn't work right now, just because we don't have the manpower to accomplish this. The AMW judge idea is easily implementable as far as I can see, but it would also be taking up time from the admin's work to create the new rank, give it certain powers, etc, etc.
But having more mods really wouldn't do much to the state of the forums still, and in my opinion this is not the main solution here,
This isn't the main solution at all. What we need is a new community manager who is strict as Cormyn but as personable as Carlie.
As for the email, I really doubt that the admins will do much, if anything after getting it.
If the admins don't reply to the e-mail after a week or two, whoever sent the e-mail could let us know, then we could call the admins out on not reply (as Cenere said would happen if the admins had only partial activity in the forums). If this is done, the admins will lose the advantage of e-mail only support, which would then increase the chance that the admins will do what needs to be done to increase activity.
This isn't the main solution at all. What we need is a new community manager who is strict as Cormyn but as personable as Carlie.
Replace the bolded word with active and I would agree. When attempting to increase activity, it is more important for the community manager to be active than to be strict, though I wouldn't mind a strict community manager.
If the admins don't reply to the e-mail after a week or two, whoever sent the e-mail could let us know, then we could call the admins out on not reply (as Cenere said would happen if the admins had only partial activity in the forums). If this is done, the admins will lose the advantage of e-mail only support, which would then increase the chance that the admins will do what needs to be done to increase activity.
I'm working on the email. It'll be posted and ready for review tomorrow. I'm going to kind of speak on behalf of a lot of people, so it needs to include everyone's ideas.
Calling the admins out may or may not be a good idea. Care to elaborate?
Replace the bolded word with active and I would agree. When attempting to increase activity, it is more important for the community manager to be active than to be strict, though I wouldn't mind a strict community manager.
I didn't realize I said strict until you replied to the post. >.<
As promised, here is the editable email.
Hey Justin! Your community members, or us, have noticed that the forums are going through a pretty severe rough patch that they may not recover from. In my thread, One Dilly of a Pickle, ain't it?, many other users and I discussed the current state of the forums. We have found some of the causes for the forum's problems and have found some easily implementable solutions and some not-so-easy implementable solutions that we'd like to share with you.
I'm just going to give you a condensed version of what has been discussed in the thread, so for more detail, please read through it.
The current link to the forums is very small and, frankly, misleading, and we'd like it to be a little smaller than a banner, but surely, bigger than a little link. The term "Community" is misleading. Many users have clicked on the link expecting to go to a page with more links to social media networking sites like Facebook, with other links to other gaming sites, which was something included in AG1. We really need more of a flow of activity coming into the forums, and we've seen other sites include a pop-up window after registration that would bring them to the forums. This sounds easy to do, and would make users more aware of the forums!
We could really use a new community manager like Cormyn and Carlie. What I mean is, we need a community manager who is publicly active and posts in the forums frequently. They also need to be able to lay down the law, be personable, be familiar with AG, and know its people. The community manager could also be a solution for the lack of public knowledge surrounding AG3's current state. We really aren't as informed as we were when we had Cormyn, and we need to be more informed of AG's next big update.
Speaking of staff, most of the mods are, unfortunately, busy with life and aren't able to fulfill their duties. Some mods have been like this for an extremely long time (over an entire year!) and should be de-modded until they are ready to come back, if they can at all. Many new users will try to contact inactive mods, assume they're being ignored, and will quit. One of our biggest problems is the lack of new, quality users to come in and replace the retiring veterans, leaving a humongous gap to be filled by no one.
---
That's what I have so far, but I'm going to wait and see what you think before I get ahead of myself. Critical comments please!
INDENT IT!
Besides that, I like the e-mail. It has a consistent tone and might, if actually viewed, get the point across.
The email appears to cover all of the concerns that have been presented. In the event that the Admin does not take the email seriously, what can we do then? Calling them out on it may be effective, but as Salvidian said above, we need some elaboration.
The email appears to cover all of the concerns that have been presented.
I'm adding more later. Like I said, I'm not going to write the entire thing now because that would take a large chunk of my free time. And what if I fail? That would be terrible.
In the event that the Admin does not take the email seriously, what can we do then? Calling them out on it may be effective, but as Salvidian said above, we need some elaboration.
I don't really understand how we would "call the admins out." Boycott Armor Games? Flood emails? I just don't know...
I'm adding more later. Like I said, I'm not going to write the entire thing now because that would take a large chunk of my free time. And what if I fail? That would be terrible.
Take your time. No big rush. It's not like the admins will take any quicker action if you send it today rather then tomorrow.
I don't really understand how we would "call the admins out." Boycott Armor Games?
I considered suggesting a boycott, but, I don't think the admin would pay much attention to all 10 forum users boycotting. We don't have enough people for that to be very effective.
Flood emails?
That sounds like an excellent way to possibly end up getting banned. In my experience, pestering never generates favorable results. In this case though, it might work as a last ditch effort.
As promised, here is the editable email.
Ummm...OK. What do you think this will do? I think Justin will read it, and probably give it to Dan. And I think Joey already told Dan about it. So I would send it but just don't expect much.
Thread is locked!