Community Feedback/Suggestions Part I

[chacusha]

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK PART I
(ff_classchange & ff_land)

Here's how this is going to work:

- There's going to be two phases to this whole community feedback process. During the first phase, I'll have you fill out general polls asking you to rate various aspects of the comm and make suggestions. During the second phase, I will collect all reasonable/feasible ideas that were suggested and put them to a vote.

- This series of posts are part of the first phase. The polls here are to help give me a general idea of how the comm is going, but mostly they're here to to jog your memory on various aspects of the comm that might need improvement. You're encouraged to make suggestions in the comments as you think of them and to respond to other people's suggestions.

- Comments are unscreened. However, anonymous commenting is allowed in case you're uncomfortable voicing your opinions with your name attached.

- Not all suggestions will go on to be voted on in the second phase. Some suggestions will be rejected without vote and some suggestions will be accepted without vote, at mod discretion.

- The mods have already put some thought into community improvement. Here's a list of things we've come up with so far:

Suggestions that will be voted on in Phase 2:

• [GENERAL] Add Vagrant Story to the list of accepted FF games
• [GENERAL] Add original Kingdom Hearts characters (e.g. Sora, Terra, Organization XIII, etc.) to the list of accepted FF games
• [GENERAL] Use (different) alliances again in Game 2, or switch to individual teams

Suggestions that will be implemented without vote:

• [GENERAL] Track & reward member participation with a fanworks incentive system
• [FANWORKS] Allow people to set up "shops" as part of the above
• [FANWORKS] Rework the moogle_workshop fanart scale
• [SORTING] Remove the leader/supporter dichotomy from the app as it's made redundant by question 4

If you have concerns that would be fixed by any of the above, you do not have to mention them here.


- All suggestions (here and in the comments) are open to debate, so if you want to make an argument for or against an idea, you are encouraged to do so.

Onto the polls!


[Poll #1737741]


Polls/suggestion box will be open until Saturday May 21
If you need to change your vote, click on the "Poll #______" link at the top of the poll, then [ Fill out Poll ], then change your answers and resubmit.

Comments

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

I don't know, honestly. I could definitely see merging some of the teams as a good idea...but, then, like with the Soldiers and Dragoons: I didn't necessarily feel like the alliance was all that helpful overall because the members still weren't all that active (actually, it seemed like the Soldiers picked up activity towards the end and the Dragoons sort of slowed down...and I don't know if that was just because members were busy IRL or if people lost interest or what. I know there were even quite a few members who never bothered to add the other team comm in those teams, so in the end I'm not entirely sure how beneficial it was in the long run). I like Z's idea more of merging or having an alliance with a team that participates a lot with one of the quieter ones...because, as shown with the alliance for the Dragoons and Soldiers, merging two quiet teams isn't necessarily all that beneficial in the long run.

Unfortunately, it does all boil down to traits. I hate saying it...but when I think of the traits people tend to use when sorting Soldier, Dragoon, and White Mage applications, they don't exactly relate well to team playing-- which might also explain why some of those members aren't super active. For Soldiers I see people getting stamped because they remind people of Squall, Cloud, or Lightning...or for Dragoons because they remind people of Kain...and even for White Mages they *have* to be reserved like Yuna or they tend to go into another class: regardless of the fact that there are other characters in those classes who *don't* fall into those personality archetypes. I think that's where the Soldiers recently have benefitted, because there's more versatility in the class overall (applicants who remind people of Tidus can get stamped into Soldier, and I think they'd be more likely to participate because of that in general). Unfortunately, there's no easy way to fix that...other than to ask people to consider the character classes as a WHOLE instead of focusing in on one or two popular characters that might happen to fit that archetype: because, in reality, people tend to only vote what they know. I've just found that if you stick all reserved or introverted people on certain teams, you're probably going to find those teams not super active regardless of the really good efforts of one or two of their members. :)

I also think that MWS could benefit from a point overhaul in some way. Not that I want to take away points from my icon posts or anything, lolz! Still, it seems like something about the point system could be worked on in a way: like when people submit fan fic things to challenges and then they don't place but they'll get 30 points for submitting to the challenge, but no points at all for de-anoning and posting at MWS (while considering the word count for the longer challenges, they probably would have gotten more points just for submitting to MWS instead of the challenge itself). Maybe we could do an obligatory "20 points for de-anoning" or something, just to encourage people to post there? I do know that there are a few members who won't de-anon after a challenge because it just doesn't seem worth it overall, so I think it might be beneficial to them if they have some little incentive and receive positive feedback too. ...Although, in all honesty, I also know MWS is where some people make up points for their teams (like Yin, for example. She can't enter most of the graphic challenges, so she likes writing fan fics there to help get some points up for White Mages...and Z does a great amount of them for her team as well!), so I hope that it won't be too drastic of a change. I am glad to see that the points for fan art will be overhauled though! ♥

[glacialphoenix]

Still, it seems like something about the point system could be worked on in a way: like when people submit fan fic things to challenges and then they don't place but they'll get 30 points for submitting to the challenge, but no points at all for de-anoning and posting at MWS (while considering the word count for the longer challenges, they probably would have gotten more points just for submitting to MWS instead of the challenge itself).

Regarding this: about the point discrepancy, I'm not sure if it's best put under MWS or UA, because it's an issue of points given for a particular challenge - if I'm reading you right? Unless you're suggesting a decrease in points given for certain things in MWS...

But about the incentive: noted, thanks! <3 Will keep that one in mind.

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

Lolz, I just know realized I'm stupid, so you can forget what I said about the point thing. O_O; IDK what I was thinking when I typed that. :/ But, I do think that even a little incentive for de-anoning after challenges might be a good idea (even something as little as 5-10 points would probably be enough to make most members de-anon). ♥

[glacialphoenix]

You're not stupid! *hugs*

I think the incentive is a good idea, although 20 points is definitely too much. Maybe 5 per contest? (so de-anoning for all your drabbles, regardless of how many you actually wrote, would still count as 5; the reward's for the act of de-anoning after all.) <3 I'll sort out the actual number of points with Tako.

[chacusha]

Regarding personality being linked to participation -- the personality may be part of the problem but I'm more of the opinion that it's a time/motivation issue not a personality issue. The Dragoon team was actually one of the strongest teams at the beginning -- they only had 5 members but they ALL participated, which is pretty impressive. The problem was that they permanently lost two members, one of which was their mod and then they stopped getting members for a while. Imagine if the same thing had happened to the Black Mages or Thieves -- that would be a pretty significant blow.

I'm not sure what's up with Soldiers and White Mages. For some members, I think they came for the stamp and don't plan on being active. :/ But there are a handful of people on both teams who do participate pretty regularly, even if the team comms themselves are pretty quiet. If we do alliances next game, I'll do the comm-linking (so that will help White Mages) and I'll be pairing both Soldiers and White Mages with active teams (Thieves and Monks respectively).

(while considering the word count for the longer challenges, they probably would have gotten more points just for submitting to MWS instead of the challenge itself)

Actually, for fic, I purposely set the participation points so that this doesn't happen. If you submit an entry that's within the word count limit, you'll get more points for submitting it to a contest than you would for submitting it to MWS. But of course I think getting some bonus points for de-anoning might be a nice idea.

[glacialphoenix]

About the inactivity thing: I do wonder if that isn't sort of linked to personality as well. It's less an attribute thing than a 'tone' thing sometimes, and if you sound happy and cheerful and talky you're probably going to end up in, say, Thieves, who are enthusiastic and participate a lot - which in turn generates more participation?

Whereas terser, shorter answers might get you sorted into Soldiers & Dragoons, and it's entirely possible for a terse, short answer to be that way because the applicant simply doesn't give a damn. And Soldiers & Dragoons are low-activity - I know if nobody else in my team seemed to care I would feel a lot less inclined to participate as well.

[chacusha]

I'm going to be pretty stubborn on this point, so bear with me for a moment:

White Mages are also happy and cheerful and usually pretty talky, and I don't think their apps are any terser than average -- right now they're on the same level as the Soldiers & Dragoons as far as participation goes.

My major issue is with personality being picked out as the main reason for the Soldier/Dragoon inactivity. I don't think that's so, and I want to avoid it because I think it's unfair to say certain personality types are less likely to participate. There are many other reasons for the inactivity including:

1. The three comms (Soldier/Dragoon/White Mage) each have only one mod. Honestly, I'd prefer all three of these teams (well, Soldier & White Mage, since Dragoons already have one) to get co-mod -- it's not an issue about whether a mod can handle the work of modding but just having one other person who is on good speaking terms with the main mod and who is equally responsible for encouraging participation.

2. The Dragoon team makeup literally got messed up mid-game.

3. Two of the least active teams were accidentally paired with each other (because of the Dragoons' initial pwnage) -- linking doesn't do much when both teams are already suffering from inactivity -- and the third was never linked with its more active ally. I agree, inactivity DOES breed inactivity, just like activity breeds activity. But I think the reason behind the initial inactivity is not personality-related, or at least personality doesn't play as big of a role.

If there ARE flaws in the sorting process that's putting people more likely to be inactive in certain teams, it actually makes more sense to me to examine Soldiers and White Mages as the recipients of those people, instead of Soldiers and Dragoons, since the Dragoons HAVE been active in the past.

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

1. The three comms (Soldier/Dragoon/White Mage) each have only one mod. Honestly, I'd prefer all three of these teams (well, Soldier & White Mage, since Dragoons already have one) to get co-mod -- it's not an issue about whether a mod can handle the work of modding but just having one other person who is on good speaking terms with the main mod and who is equally responsible for encouraging participation.
~Actually, regarding this, I just recently talked to tjemd4 about being a co-mod over at mythril_swords...since he's usually commenting on most of the Reminder Posts there, I know that he's familiar with the team going-ons and he does participate in a lot of the challenges and min-games as well (and we're on each other's f-list, so we know each other well enough that we can talk about mod stuff/team information pretty easily!). He said that would be fine with him, so if it is all right with you I think tjemd4 would be an awesome one. ♥ Wasn't sure where else to put this, so I hope this will be okay!

[chacusha]

Awesome! :D I'll add him as a maintainer and send an invite to judge_magisters! I always thought tjemd4 was a girl. ._.

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

She is! O_O ZOMG, I fail at typing when I'm tired. I can't believe I did that. *feels horrible now* :/

~But, thank you for adding her! I think having a co-mod there will really help. XD

[thedrowned.livejournal.com]

Your points are valid, but I doubt people were ill-sorted, because even short answers can say something like "I love to talk with friends. It's my favourite." and some may think "That seems White Mage". Whereas the opposite is true in my instance: I speak a lot, but I am most certainly not a White Mage or Thief, by any means.

So I don't think participation is solely based on personality. I believe the culprit is better suited to disinterest and business (I know with my finals looming, I've been spending many hours studying, etc.)

[glacialphoenix]

So I don't think participation is solely based on personality.

Nope, never thought that either - I was just worried that certain teams might be more prone to ill-sorting (whether in the first game or in the upcoming one). But, point conceded.

And, uh, FYI - you express your opinion frequently, but your tone would never strike me as White Mage or Thief. ^^;

[glacialphoenix]

That is to say, the disinterest factor for ill-sorting, rather than the time factor, because when my finals came up I couldn't exactly participate in any of the UA challenges, either.

[thedrowned.livejournal.com]

Haha, yeah, I'm going to shut up. But I hope we can raise interest in the future. Advertising, something, ahh, not sure.

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

I wasn't meaning to imply that personality was the only problem with the reasons certain teams were having inactivity-- so, I apologize if that was how it sounded. I'm 99% sure most of the inactive Soldiers just came for the stamp since I've never seen any of them outside of their intro posts on the team comm. Basically, I was just saying that a lot of the reasons I've seen people sorted into the Soldier/Dragoon/White Mage classes was because the applicant mentioned being more reserved: a team full of more reserved members is probably going to be more reserved in participation as well when compared to a team full of more energetic and extroverted ones. I didn't mean to imply anything bad about it, just something that I noticed...so, I think having an alliance with one of the more active/"energetic" teams with those particular teams would be beneficial (especially if all of the members were watching the alliance team comms).

I did know about the problems that the Dragoons had mid-game and I'm sure that that was primarily what happened with their participation towards the end of the first game. For a few weeks, I was also the only one posting regular reminders for both teams due to LJ's weird issues with those cyber attacks they were getting...which probably didn't help the Dragoons that weren't watching the Soldier comm as well. :/ As far as Soldiers go, we have a few members who do participate, but I know many are very busy IRL and they don't participate in every challenge...but that didn't actually start happening until mid-game (I think, for awhile there, the only active Soldiers were me and one other person, orz). IDK about the White Mages. I know Yin said she's tried to get discussions going and everything on the team comm, but that many of the team members there have been pretty busy IRL...she said that she noticed it seems to be the same members who participate over-and-over again.

If you submit an entry that's within the word count limit, you'll get more points for submitting it to a contest than you would for submitting it to MWS. But of course I think getting some bonus points for de-anoning might be a nice idea.
~Ahh, I did not notice that! O_O; Sorry! But, I do think some bonus points for de-anoning after a challenge might be a neat incentive, just to keep members interested in participating in other aspects of the comm besides the challenge parts. It probably wouldn't even have to be as much as 20...something like 5-10 points would probably be enough incentive for most members. ♥