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| Thread: Message to the Site Owner, Moderators and Users | |
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nightshiver
Hired Hero
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posted June 21, 2002 03:37 AM |
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Message to the Site Owner, Moderators and Users
Management of Forums
I have been reading the posts with regard to moderators abilities and with regard to the perceived problems within the Forum and Heroes Community generally.
I am somewhat qualified to comment on both albeit not strictly with regard to Heroes. I will talk a little about our operation as an alternative way of operating a game site
I operate what is now generally regarded as the premier D2 hacked Dueling and Help site on the Internet nightshiver.com. we have been operating a forum for 5 months have 1250 members and gain approx 15 to 20 new members a day average
We have
7 administrators
25 Moderators
22 Clan moderators
12 judges USEast
14 Judges US West
3 Site developers and technical support
5 program developers
5 channel operators
approx. 16 forums for general and a further 20 private and hidden clan forums
We have a general staff forum where all staff can post there ideas thoughts or problems and decide on what course of action to take in any given situation
I regard our site as a Community in the true sense. The users and Moderators have a voice and in regard to Moderators a full range of abilities including name banning for any period from an hour to forever IP banning They can move delete or edit a post.
We donot have many problems with feral moderators which is surprising considering the large egos that inhabit a D2 Duelling site..
We have 7 administrators who oversee the moderators and if someone goes bad then they are removed Our rules are simple and very few.
One of the keys to our moderator system is reponsibility We give our mods ownership of there forum full control. All Moderators are aware of our general philosophy and code of conduct and as long as they stay within that broad framework I am keen to see them manage and develop their forums.
Another key to our system is we have a forum specifically for Flamming and i have recruirted some of the biggest egos on Open bet to operate it These ppl take snow from no one They are all regarded as feared Duellers and PKs and so respected accordingly.
The rule on the site for Flamming and spamming is simple No flamming or Crap comments towards ppl especially newbies except in the Flame forum in there if you post your fair game if you flame else where it will be moved to the flame forum. This does provide an area on the site for the less community minded to sling off at eah other in a moderated way we dont allow it to go to far
Our forums are linked in the sense that we even engage in cross forum posting which often provides a smile on a dull day ...
Another and important point is that Nightshiver the Dueller is still active in the Bnet Channels and on the site people see me in channel on UsEast or Uswest i am an active Participant and make myself available to Test against and my posts are there for all to see it one of the most often made comments by my users that "It is good to see the owner still active"
A site needs strong leadership a champion to drive the image and status of the site I try to make the users proud that they are members of Nightshiver.com and are amongst the elite of Bnet.
We have a range of ages as Moderators our junior mods are 13 yrs old our oldest administrator 56yrs of age all junior mods are overseen by an assigned administrator.
I believe there should be more forums here to add breadth this community has plenty of depth to it but little diversity maybe try polling for what ppl waant to see and more importantly Acting on it.. If my users want somthing then we give it a go if it doesnt work we collectively decide to dump it..
A point in case was the Flame forum the original Moderator retired the forum went a bit feral so i closed it ... The overwealming reponse from users was
1. appologies for overstepping the mark and
2.a flood of volunteers to offer to re moderate it if i considered bringing it back
so i reinstituted the forum and now it runs smoothly with 2 moderators
I sincerley hope heroes community moves on from this temporary lull and i would say to the owners of the site
1. Be active and post
2. Allow increased responsibility and control to moderators
3. Listen to your users (community)
4. Act on what you read and users suggestions
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Conn
Responsible
Famous Hero
God slayer
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posted June 21, 2002 09:17 AM |
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Acting as a proxy poster here...for Cat. Here's the message:
What Night hasn't told you is that the mods use the flame forum to flame each other.... the word "guinea pig" ring any bells...? hehehe. As always, I have to agree with the boss. It's a nice community and I can count the times anybody has stepped over the mark on one hand. One finger, even. Just one thing Night...? Biggest egos?? As soon as I've got my amazon ready I'm gonna get ya for that...lol
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 Whatever does not kill us, only makes us stronger
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nightshiver
Hired Hero
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posted June 21, 2002 01:37 PM |
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lol to true im afraid the burning of Rainbows bar did not go down well and the retaliation was swift and severe lol poor fadedsequin is still in denial not sure wether hes a GP or a Hamster Rainbows recruitment of Glory_hall was a Tactical coup
ummmmmmmm as for your Amazon challenge 
goodluck
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Hexa
Responsible
Legendary Hero
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posted June 21, 2002 11:25 PM |
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Very nice the way u have things arranged at your forum!@
I just wonder ... how long have u been reading/visiting HC.
Because u seem to have figured out HC completely.
The recepy for a forum ain't always the same ....
But perhaps u are right ... only time can/will tell like she always does...
Thnkx for your interest and attempt to help ...
Greetz,
Hexa
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If you want to realize your dreams >>> you have to wake up!@
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HappyPike
Known Hero
Pikeman
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posted June 22, 2002 01:58 AM |
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NightShiver, your forum's hierarchy is impressive but it appears to be a *little* too complicated and must be a pain to manage...  I do agree with many things you mentioned though, including that admin needs to be active. I have the second highest postcount in my forum (One of my mods surpassed me in postcount last week  ).
In my forum, I only have 1 admin, 1 super-mod, and 12 moderators currently. The forum is very orderly, especially considering we have nearly 18500 members and around 80 forums/subforums. All the mods have ban power and the super-mod can moderate all forums.
I don't really want to tell Valeri what to do.. because each community is different. But I DON'T think the difference b/t HC and my forum is due to Civilization players are more civilized.
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Also a Civilization fanatic:
http://www.civfanatics.com || forums
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nightshiver
Hired Hero
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posted June 22, 2002 05:17 AM |
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lol yep yep looks a bit complex a structure but to manage well
let me tell you a story about communities. Communities develop thru empowerment.
about 2 months ago i was still updating ladders manually i had reached 2000 active duellers across the 4 main ladders . I had a lot of commitments at home and it was all getting a bit to much. So i put it to my users i close the site or they get responsible and help me. They take the running and do the leg work but also more importantly they make the decisions
I could no longer cope with all the responsibility. I have to say how proud i am of my users they assisted to develop and automated ladder system now operational They organised and managed the Duelling competitions
They took over maintenance on the site and developed the policies we now have. They have taken over promotion and we are soon to introduce some more innovations.
so managing the structure is not difficult my users manage it for me My admins are all trusted ppl who i have known and duelled with over many years now i could comfortabley leave my site in there control
There are always bad ppl who will try to stuff things up but because my users are aware that it is there site there competition they take there responsibilities seriously.
I have only ever had one serious breach of my server when a user hacked into the server and stole some character files i had stored then proceeded to kill off the elite ladder leaders The idiot bragged to someone in his clan
The clan leader expelled him and blacklisted him on every channel and clan site I was informed as were all th other users of my site and i understand he no longer plays D2
I am fortunate that the game Diablo lends itself to hieracial structures and there is a common meeting ground the Bnet channels The Clans of Bnet rule the Bnet channels of East and West and the Clans are my ears and eyes in Bnet if someone stuffs up in my forums they will be found in Bnet and dealt with either in the channel or on the blood moors
so i guess what im saying is from a site owners perspective is.
All the users here have a stake in this working or not working I have found through my experiences that opening up control and responsibility does not lead to chaos or inflated egos or lack of direction quite the reverse.
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Hexa
Responsible
Legendary Hero
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posted June 22, 2002 12:51 PM |
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Quote:
All the users here have a stake in this working or not working I have found through my experiences that opening up control and responsibility does not lead to chaos or inflated egos or lack of direction quite the reverse.
Agreed!@
Basic Management tool.
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If you want to realize your dreams >>> you have to wake up!@
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Sir_Elric
Responsible
Famous Hero
Having a bad hair day.
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posted July 02, 2002 03:51 PM |
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*bump*
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Neverwinter Nights - "City of Melnibone"
Direct connect - ausnwn2.dyndns.org:5121
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