Community Roles

(no title)

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 14:43:00 +0000

Yep, I can do that.
For some reason yesterday, the site's css and javascript was really jacked up for me, but it's fixed now. Thanks :)

Re: Community Roles

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 11:58:41 +0000

I can do that! :D

Re: Community Roles

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 09:32:19 +0000

Yeah, we wouldn't want you to start any forest fires :D

Since you seem to be a very energetic and engaging person, how about you work with Boba Foxx on (1) welcoming new visitors and members; (2) ensuring new topics don't fail; and (3) regularly posting new topics, responding to posts, and asking questions in every post. Does that work with you? Can you handle those tasks? What might work best is if you guys contact each other via private message, and set up some kind of buddy system to ensure you each remember to follow through with your tasks.

(no title)

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 08:08:04 +0000

Yeah, I forgot about making a regular competition; that is a good idea :) Since you can only post as a guest, how about you be responsible for (1) welcoming new visitors and members; (2) ensuring new topics don't fail; and (3) regularly posting new topics, responding to posts, and asking questions in every post. From what I've read in your posts, you seem to be a friendly and intelligent person, so I think those tasks suit you well. Does that work with you? Can you handle those tasks?

(no title)

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:18:16 +0000

It sounds pretty awesome. Personally, I think that if we got enough members, we could add another task for the news team, such as regularly starting or making a competition of some sort. I'd like to help with any of these, but as a guest, I can only do up to half of any of the tasks (lol, responsibility avoiding)

Re: Community Roles

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 11:56:33 +0000

Responding to your first post: I can do any of those tasks that you want me to do. (However, I advise that you do not have me do the one with settling the arguments. From the arguments I have had in "Politics and Religion" threads, you can see that I probably would try to "end" the arguments by winning them.) XD

Re: Community Roles

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 08:06:30 +0000

What I think would work best is to have two or three people work together and be responsible for managing two or three of the related tasks. For example, here is how I would break down the list of tasks from above into groups:

Welcome Committee

welcoming new visitors and members (including creating a new introduction thread for a new member, if they don't after a set period of time, and creating their associated member page)
ensuring new topics don't fail (there should be no threads with only one post)
encouraging inactive members to get involved (send a private PM to members who were posting in the last year, and asking them how's it going and mentioning a particular thread they might be interested in)

News Team

regularly posting new topics, responding to posts, and asking questions in every post (to keep the discussions flowing)
choosing forum content to highlight on the main homepage (such as a popular forum thread, featured project, and a featured challenge/brainteaser)

Cleanup Crew

acting as a mediator when heated arguments and problems arise (handling them calmly and with respect)
clearing up spam (it occasionally happens)
delete, edit, or move content around the forum when appropriate (such as posting a 68k topic in the TI-83/84 section)

Note: I believe the Cleanup Crew should simply be the moderators, as they already have the power to do all of those things, but I think a group name would go along with the group theme.

What do you guys think of that? What do you think of the names? And more importantly, who wants to help lead the community?

Re: Community Roles

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 07:31:25 +0000

I don't understand what you're saying… Could you please rephrase that?

Re: Community Roles

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 07:30:28 +0000

I'm glad you mentioned the "watch this site" button, as I completely forgot about it :D I agree completely with you that that is a valuable tool, and I think it needs to be given more exposure so more people use it. As far as welcoming new people, I figured the only way to get the community to do something is to lead by example.

Re: Community Roles

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:03:05 +0000

You can put on any of those tasks (except maybe the argument one… you know me). XD

Re: Community Roles

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:24:22 +0000

I cannot think of any good names, but I think something useful that I did a few months ago was to click the "watch this site" button. I don't miss any new threads anymore and leaving my gmail account open with notifications turned on, I get a little popup whenever a post is made. I can now answer questions almost immediately because I know when responses have been made which was the big advantage on Omnimaga, Cemetech, and TI-Planet.

I also like how you have been welcoming new people. It is very concise and immediately points them to useful sections of the site.

Community Roles

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:39:45 +0000

As I stated in the Developer's Page thread, one of my main goals for the site is to increase community interaction and involvement. I believe the site has the potential to be even more active and vibrant than it is now, and the best way to accomplish this is to give members more responsibility and control over the site. I have spent some time thinking about the different areas that make up the community, and broken them down into individual tasks:

welcoming new visitors and members (including creating a new introduction thread for a new member, if they don't after a set period of time, and creating their associated member page)
- this should be a community effort, and as many people as possible should be welcoming them to the site and providing assistance
regularly posting new topics, responding to posts, and asking questions in every post (to keep the discussions flowing)
ensuring new topics don't fail (there should be no threads with only one post)
encouraging inactive members to get involved (send a private PM to members who were posting in the last year, and asking them how's it going and mentioning a particular thread they might be interested in)
acting as a mediator when heated arguments and problems arise (handling them calmly and with respect)
choosing forum content to highlight on the main homepage (such as a popular forum thread, featured project, and a featured challenge/brainteaser)
clearing up spam (it occasionally happens)
delete, edit, or move content around the forum when appropriate (such as posting a 68k topic in the TI-83/84 section)

We have several active people in the community, so I don't want to simply assign people to particular tasks as that is rather unfair and counterproductive. Instead, I believe that each person should step forward of their own volition to do what they feel like they are best capable of handling. I realize that multiple people might want to have ownership over the same tasks, in which case they can simply work together on it. I also would like to come up with some creative names for the different community roles to take advantage of the functionality that Timothy is building into the new forum.

What do you guys think? Any things I forgot to add to the list? Any creative community role name ideas?