Brawl Forums Team: Bridging the Gap Between the Community and the Staff Team

This thread is massive. I have tried to condense this information into a digestible form without losing detail in a TL;DR spoiler at the end of the thread. If you don't have the time to read all of this, see there. If you are confused about anything in the summary, look for clarification in the main thread. The summary is arranged like the thread itself, so you should be able to find what you are looking for easily enough.
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Brawl Forums Team
Bridging the Gap Between the Community and the Staff Team
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Greetings Brawl community! Have you ever felt as though the staff team take too little interest in your ideas? Have you ever felt that posting a server idea thread was or still is useless? Would you like a surefire way to make certain that your ideas aren't getting lost in the heaps of threads that are posted on a daily basis? Wouldn't it be great to know that your ideas are getting to where they need to go?

Greetings Brawl staff team! Have you ever felt frustrated by the community's incessant dissatisfaction with the changes and updates you bring to the servers? Have you ever wanted to show the community just how invested you are in them? Wouldn't it be great if there was a working system in place to give the community a sense of satisfaction and fairness?

Good news guys! There might just be a way to help with these problems! What I am proposing is a new group of individuals that would act as an intermediary between the community and staff team for server ideas. This group would be known as the forums team (or server progression team, idea team, swag team of pure awesome, or anything else you want to call them). This team would possess traits similar to the wiki team, and would consist of trusted, veteran members who would know at the very least the basics of what would and would not be appropriate for the servers. This team of experienced individuals would have one job: to collect promising server ideas and get them to the coders where they belong.

So, how exactly would this team be assembled?

I have a few possibilities, each of them with pros and cons.

1. The team could be chosen by the community and confirmed by the higher up staff.
There are two ways that this could be made possible. The first involves posting and sticky-ing 1-2 threads in each of the individual server specific sections of the forums. The first thread would be a nomination thread. Community members would nominate who they wanted to see a part of the team and the nominees would accept or decline the initial nomination then and there. The top (insert number here) nominees would then be voted upon via a poll in a second thread should there need to be less. Finally, the top nominees would be confirmed to their positions by the higher staff. This would be so they have some degree of control in case the nominees were ridiculous or other similar situations.

The thread posting would preferably be done by a SMOD+ for all of them or a staff member that moderates the server that the forum pertains to. Either way would work. The SMOD+ way would seem more official, though it would add more work to their already busy jobs. This sort of thing would be the perfect opportunity for a Mod or JMod to prove themselves by overseeing and tackling a project like this. Stuff like this is what got Jayden SMOD guys. Just saying. :v

The reasoning behind this first method is that nobody knows what the community wants like the community itself. It's as simple as that. Some form of this would be most preferable in my opinion, as it perfectly suits my vision of the spirit and purpose of the team itself. The community desperately needs more of a voice, and this situation would ensure it.

There are drawbacks to this method nonetheless. This would be a large project and low turnout or disagreements within the community could complicate matters or prolong them. Additionally, this would be unlike the higher staff to assemble a team in such a manner. Usually, they prefer to have more control. (Not that this is a bad thing. I appreciate their concern and caution, but the usual sort of control would be detrimental to the purpose of this team.)

2. The team could be chosen by the staff team and confirmed by the community.
This would be made possible in a way similar to that of the first. Individual threads would be posted by either JMods, Mods, or higher ups in the server specific sections, though this time, there would simply be an application via google forms like that of the wiki team. This application would of course be customized to what the staff saw as valuable and necessary. Now I'm not entirely certain what this would look like, but if I were them (I'm not), the application would look something like this:

IGN:
(For obvious reasons.)

Age:
(For maturity? Necessary at all?)

How much time would you be willing to dedicate to this position?
(Generally, we would want active people.)

How long have you played on the server you are applying for?
(The longer the better.)

If you could change three things about the server you are applying for, what would they be?
(This would be to determine whether or not the person could suggest realistic things that would fit with the theme of the server. Something tells me that the staff team would be looking for something like this.)

The most promising applicants would be chosen by the staff team and they would be voted upon by the community in threads posted in the server specific sections. Along with the applicants' names, their applications would be made public to the community. The top how ever many applicants would be accepted to the team.

I don't prefer this approach as much as the previous, but there is still a viable argument for it. This sort of application process is a tested and tried method that has worked for Brawl consistantly in the past. Low turnout would be less disastrous in this case. The community still retains some voice in the process, which is a vital part of the team itself. However, the staff team also get more of a voice, therefore I believe it will be more appealing to them.

The main drawback of this method is that the community is less involved in the choosing of the team itself. For this team to truly be an intermediary between the staff and community, they have to be chosen more by the community themselves rather than the staff team. The worry here is the potential for the Forums Team to become another branch of the staff team instead of a go-between team.

Should at any time the number of team members grow small due to resignations or something similar, the aforementioned processes could simply be repeated for whatever server lacks Forum Team members.

So, how exactly would this team carry out their duties?

As I mentioned previously, the job of the team would be to collect promising server ideas and get them to the coders. Each member would attend to the server ideas section for the server they applied for. Each day, they would go through the sections and read the new threads there and assess their ideas. This assessment would be based off of how the community would react to the idea being implimented, how well the idea would fit in to the server, how balanced the idea would be, and whatever else needs to be taken into consideration. It would be recommended to ask the OP any questions that needed to be asked about their idea. The individual members would select what they think the best ideas were as time went on. Forums Team members could also search through older server ideas and select from there as well. After one months time, the members of the team would present their favorite ideas to their fellow team members of their server. A Slack channel for the team members would be very helpful for this. The ideas would be discussed and the number of ideas would be lessened to a manageable degree at that point. These ideas would then be submitted for the community to vote on via threads in the server specific sections. The poll for these ideas would be up for one week. The most liked ideas from this thread would then be voted upon once again in one last thread which would also be open for a week should there still be too many remaining ideas. The top ideas in this thread would be the final ideas that are submitted to the higher staff for a final confirmation (in case the selected ideas were pretty questionable, they needed to be put aside for existing projects, etc) and the coders for either implementation or rejection (in the case that they couldn't code the ideas). Even if these ideas weren't immediately implimented, it would provide the staff with a very specific idea of what the community wanted. Seeing as Brawl usually likes monthly things, the idea searching process would most likely begin in the middle of a month and end in the middle of a month. The two, weekly polls would then be the last two weeks of the month.

Now, there are numerous reasons why this system for getting server ideas where they need to go is better than the current system. In case you don't know this, the current system is "Players tell Mods things, Mods tell SMods things, SMods tell Admins things, Admins tell Coders things."

1. The new system ensures to the community that their voices are being heard.
This is a huge issue. The current system is invisible. Rarely is it seen in action. Too much goes on behind the scenes, which is troublesome for both the community and the staff team. The new system would be far more transparent, as the community would actually be able to see and vote on ideas that are being considered.

2. The new system is fun and engaging.
Whereas posting server idea threads seems relatively boring and perhaps even hopeless, the new system adds greater incentive to post server ideas. This way, the community can see the majority of the process in action and take part in it themselves by not just posting ideas, but voting for their favorites. To give the community more incentive to post ideas, perhaps gifts of ranks or forums medals could be awarded to ideas that were accepted. These players would of course be featured in the Brawl News as well.

3. The new system is actually an official system that helps accomplish work.
Now I'm not certain if things have changed since I was a Mod, but during that time, not once did I hear "Hey Randy, go look through the fpsHG ideas and tell me which things you think are good." What I'm trying to say is that (to my knowledge), looking through the server ideas is not a requirement for being a moderator. If anything, it might be encouraged, but most of the staff stuff done by the lower ranking staff members is in-game. Additionally, most of the lower staff in my time were afraid to tell the higher staff stuff, which really inhibits the whole "Mods tell Smods things, etc" part of the process. Judging from recent resignations and a certain post from Sig, I think I can safely infer that this hasn't changed much.

4. The new system gives more decision making power to those who are specifically qualified to make it.
Historically, not everyone who has been a part of the staff team has been a veteran of the server they have moderated. Usually, they have a pretty good track record, but there is no shortage of veteran players who reside outside of the staff team. Perhaps I'm thinking too much in War terms... (This is very true with the War community. What about the other ones? I'm looking at you CTFers.)

5. The staff have better things to do that look through countless server ideas.
If thoroughly looking through server ideas is ever going to be a priority, it shouldn't be the job of the staff team. The staff have better things to do that look through countless server idea threads. This job should be dedicated to a specific team in order for a truly thorough job to be done.

Seeing how gigantic this thread is, here is a TL;DR spoiler for your benefit. I'll try to summarize as much as I can while still explaining the idea.

Spoiler: TL;DR

Why This is Necessary ​

The community needs to have their server ideas gone through on a regular basis. This would please the community, lessen the dissatisfaction from the community, and help the servers develop. This could potentially be done by a team of veteran players who would get go through the server ideas and get them where they need to go.

How the Team Would be Formed​

This team could potentially be chosen by the players and confirmed by the staff. This would be done by sticky-ing threads in server specific sections for community nominations. The top nominees from the threads would be put in a poll to be voted upon. The top nominees would then be either be confirmed or denied by the higher staff.

SMods could post these threads for officialness, or aspiring JMods or Mods of the corresponding server could do so to prove themselves.

This method of selection for the team is recommended because nobody knows what the community wants like the community itself. That being said, low turnout or community disagreements could complicate matters and this method is not one traditionally used by the staff team.

The team could also be chosen by the staff team and confirmed by the community. The same method of thread posting would be used, but instead of nominations, there would be an google forms application.

Spoiler: Sample App

IGN:
(For obvious reasons.)

Age:
(For maturity? Necessary at all?)

How much time would you be willing to dedicate to this position?
(Generally, we would want active people.)

How long have you played on the server you are applying for?
(The longer the better.)

If you could change three things about the server you are applying for, what would they be?
(This would be to determine whether or not the person could suggest realistic things that would fit with the theme of the server. Something tells me that the staff team would be looking for something like this.)

The staff would accept some applicants, make their applications public, and present whom they have chosen to the community for voting. The top applicants would join the team.

For this method, low turnout would be less disastrous and it would be more appealing to the staff team. On the other hand, the community loses some of it's voice and the team risks becoming a branch of the staff team instead of a go-between team.

How the Team Would Work​

Individual team members would go through their server's idea sections and select the most promising new (or old) ideas. These ideas would be presented to the entire team monthly (via slack?) and the number of ideas would be lessened. The remaining ideas would be voted upon by the community in threads sticky-ed in the server specific sections either once if there was a small amount or twice of there were too many. The polls would be open for one week for each thread. The top ideas would be submitted to first the higher staff for a final confirmation and then the coders for either implementation or rejection (in the case that they couldn't code the ideas).

Comparison of the Forums Team and the Current Protocol​

The current protocol is "Players tell Mods things, Mods tell SMods things, SMods tell Admins things, Admins tell Coders things." The Forums Team is better than this protocol in the following ways:

1. The new system ensures to the community that their voices are being heard.
2. The new system is fun and engaging.
3. The new system is actually an official system that helps accomplish work.
4. The new system gives more decision making power to those who are specifically qualified to make it.
5. The staff have better things to do that look through countless server ideas.

EDIT: I'll list miscellaneous ideas I come up with for the team and suggestions from you guys that I like here.

Idea: Forums Team Director
This team is going to need someone who oversees it and makes sure deadlines are met. This person could be chosen by the team itself once it is assembled, or a staff member could be chosen to preside over the group. A new SMod position could be opened for this, an existing SMod could take the responsibility, or an aspiring Mod or JMod could oversee the group. Ideally, this person should be amiable, responsible, mature, understanding, and possessing good communication skills.

Seeing as there is now Forums Team yet, this thread will have to be evaluated through the traditional method. Remember, "Players tell Mods things, Mods tell SMods things, SMods tell Admins things, Admins tell Coders things." If you really like this idea, don't just leave a like, don't just vote in the poll, and don't just comment on the thread (though I would be extremely grateful if you did all of those things :v). Tell your mod buddies. Get them talking. Hopefully we can get some publicity and make this thing actually happen. Another way you can show your support for this idea is by putting one of the following pictures in your signature and hyperlinking them to this thread.

Spoiler: Support This Idea! Signatures Inside!

Thank you all for your valuable time. You're a nut if you read this all. ;v Humor aside, if you read this all, serious props to you. You deserve some respect. GG. One last thing. I'm not usually one of those people who ask other people to read their threads, but this time I think I'll make an exception. I care about this idea enough to want to give it the best chance of acceptance I can get it. I feel that the community desperately needs something like this. Once again, thank you for reading.

 

I wouldn't worry about that too much if I were you. I'm assuming that there won't really be much for the staff team to deny someone on, as this won't be a position of power. I'm hoping that it's requirements will be like that of the build or wiki teams. Players just need to be good at their job, not necessarily 100% likable to the staff. We'll see though if this even gets that far. :v

Actually, I would say that my ideas have recieved more than their fair share of attention. :v I know that this is by no means the case for everyone though, and the community has complained on numerous occasions about this. Let's hope this isn't "overlooked." I'm going tryhard on this one, so that probably won't be an issue.

 

Wow, that's really interesting. I've had this thread floating around in my mind for a long time. That's eerily good timing for me posting it... Well then, seeing as you already seem to be planning something similar to this, would you consider having a team of veteran members to work under these SMods as described in this post if it fits in with what you were planning to do? The SMods would fit swimmingly into the Forums Team Director position I described.

I also recommended using SMods for the sticky-thread posting for either nominating veteran members for the team or threads with applications. The SMods would also post the threads for voting on server ideas.

Seeing as I'm apparently late to this discussion, would you still be willing to consider this sort of a team? I know you most likely have a plan in mind, but if that isn't fully developed, you have a nearly developed plan right here. All you would have to do is assemble the veteran members, set SMods over them. Give this process two weeks and then start the thread searching process. A month from then, have them turn in their results and allow the community to vote on them, just as described in this thread.

EDIT: @MrWaffleman, maybe it's so synchronised because it's what Putty went through the other day. I posted about this here on the thread he just now discussed. He was just talking to Socool about it on his profile.

 

Don't worry, all of these things were included in the thread itself.

The community would be a huge focus of the team and the realism part would be addressed by the coders. It's the team's job to get what the community wants to the coders. They will decide if it's realistic or not. I personally like the idea of the team discussion as the "burn down list," but this could work as well. I'm sure that community appeal and realism would be a part of the discussion.

A general timeline is in place already, but if necessary, the Forums Team Directors could get more specific. If this idea is accepted, it would fit perfectly into what Putty said about the SMods.

It's only about 650 words m8. The existing summary should be fine.

If that's still too much, read Piky's post. :V

That's good to know!

 

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That's interesting that something like this didn't work for McPvP. What would be disagreed on? Balancing issues or reworks for kits? If that is the case, simply suggesting ideas that didn't involve these things would be easier on Brawl. Most ideas don't involve an overhaul and 90% of the threads I see coming from the McPvP community suggest just that. Nobody agrees on those type of issues. Simply because of the different types of servers on Brawl, I see this being easier for the majority of server communities. As for forwarding ideas, this is not the only job of the team. The team would be comprised of veteran members of the server who look through each and every idea and consider them all. Not every person without a nametag has the time or mind to do this. The SMod managers would see that everyone did their share of ideas and oversee this whole process. This way, not some, but all these ideas would be bridged or considered. To me, the SMod managers seems too small scale for the mass load of ideas. A team is needed for an excellent job to be done.