Suggestions to improve the org

[Husar]

Example: The Arena has two assigned moderators but it is effectively a dead forum.

Pfffff!

You have no idea, first of all I'm having an exam phase so I'm also not playing a lot, so I don't have a lot to post about lately.
Secondly I've personally encouraged the posting of a thread AND sent people from the Gameroom there because they were discussing the game in the middle of a mafia thread. The problem isn't that people don't play games or don't want to discuss about them, it's that they either feel others don't want to discuss them or that they start talking about them everywhere but in The Arena for reasons I haven't yet studied.
For example quite a few people in the chat are Playing Fallout:NV but none of them have posted in the Arena about it because they just lost interest in posting here for some reason long before people complained about the forum being dead.

Now the beauty of having two moderators is that neither I nor CR are awake/online 24/7 and people have already complained about the response times to reported posts in other sections.
You can't have your cake and eat it, too!

[caravel]

people have already complained about the response times to reported posts in other sections.

Easily solved by having what they have on other boards and which were temporarily introduced that .org, very successfully, during my time: Global Moderators. Failing that, existing moderators could be given larger chunks of the .org to cover, instead of taking on more and more moderators. This would remove the need for having specific moderators assigned to every single forum - especially relevant to "dead" or low activity fora.

[Husar]

Easily solved by having what they have on other boards and which were temporarily introduced that .org, very successfully, during my time: Global Moderators. Failing that, existing moderators could be given larger chunks of the .org to cover, instead of taking on more and more moderators. This would remove the need for having specific moderators assigned to every single forum - especially relevant to "dead" or low activity fora.

Will the global moderators also get complaints about not creating any content in all of these "dead fora" they reside over?

[caravel]

It's not for the staff to "create content"... This is a discussion forum, a "community", not a blog and not a news site - it's continued survival depends on members interacting here freely, not within rigid and artificial constraints. It's for every member here to "create content", by their own free will. Not through coercion, not through being told to get off their arses and post.

If the staff can get off the members' backs and let them be themselves this place may start to recover. The current climate of staff playing social worker and aggressively moderating every single word, spat, debate or issue, is what's killing this forum slowly but surely.

[Beskar]

If the staff can get off the members' backs and let them be themselves this place may start to recover. The current climate of staff playing social worker and aggressively moderating every single word, spat, debate or issue, is what's killing this forum slowly but surely.

The moderators do a great job of oppressing the members and suppressing free will making sure the ORG is respectful and decent place and not a clone of 4chan. I can't really fault the moderators for the work they have done, because when they "get on my back", I have pretty much deserved their ire in the first place.

If you have been naughty, don't get in a grump about it, be grown up about it and move on. I doubt there is anyone out there to get you.

[caravel]

The moderators do a great job of oppressing the members and suppressing free will making sure the ORG is respectful and decent place and not a clone of 4chan. I can't really fault the moderators for the work they have done, because when they "get on my back", I have pretty much deserved their ire in the first place.

So without the moderators reading over our shoulders, all the idiots here, excluding yourself of course, will simply run riot and turn the place into a flamefest? Nonsense.

If you have been naughty, don't get in a grump about it, be grown up about it and move on. I doubt there is anyone out there to get you.

Do you honestly believe I need a lesson on this from you?

[Monk]

So without the moderators reading over our shoulders, all the idiots here, excluding yourself of course, will simply run riot and turn the place into a flamefest? Nonsense.


Do you honestly believe I need a lesson on this from you?

Ease up on them guns Caravel.

Purpose of this thread was not to throw mud in the eye of the moderators or start a fight. The original purpose was to offer real suggestions to real problems. I'm not so alarmist as to say the org will collapse tomorrow if no one listens to or agrees with this thread, but these are all (imo) real problems the site faces and could do well to address them.

[Monk]

Pfffff!

You have no idea, first of all I'm having an exam phase so I'm also not playing a lot, so I don't have a lot to post about lately.

You say that like I don't know what it is to have a life or haven't been moderator before. But I have, twice as an AM and twice as green. I know exactly what it's like to balance the Org and your life. I also know that this place gets shoved on the back burner for a lot of the staff. General perception browsing the forums is that there isn't much going on behind the scenes since there seems to be little effort in the foreground.

For example quite a few people in the chat are Playing Fallout:NV but none of them have posted in the Arena about it because they just lost interest in posting here for some reason long before people complained about the forum being dead..

That's one hell of a perception problem, and with the appeared neglect that the arena receives from the top down I can see why it continues to perpetuate. Ain't meaning to insult you Husar or put you on the defensive. I'm telling you what I see.

You can't have your cake and eat it, too!

I always thought the purpose of having cake was to, in fact, eat it. If i was wrong maybe I should re-examine my life's priorities - and maybe the Org should too. Why exist if you're not going to attempt to grow or improve?

I think this is a chicken before egg scenario. Content will appear once more people come through the turnstiles and start getting actively involved - at present that is not the case, so asking people to just get off their arses and create content won't cut it. I appreciate what you're saying and in the ideal world I would agree with you, but this is not the ideal world.

We've disagreed before over this and I'll be happy to do so again. I'm of the exact opposite thinking. I'm not asking for huge blow-outs but having a regularly updated frontpage (for example) would go a long way to making this place feel alive. When i was writing articles for it, maybe it was bias, but it feel like this place got just a little more lively.