Community Management
by David Montgomery-Blake · 12/14/2007 (10:43 am) · 9 comments
First off, if you haven't read it yet, go read 80 tips on Community. It's a great game-oriented community development ideabase.
Next, I thought I would post a picture since no blog is complete without one and I've been pictureless on the last couple of blogs.
Next, if you hadn't noticed--and most people probably haven't--I have a new tag next to my name. Instead of Associate, it's Admin. The big-wow-scary implications of this tag is that I can now close topics. And I get to post news about what's happening on the forums. It also means that I read ALL of your posts even if I don't reply. So if I seem a little crazy, it's probably because I'm bleary-eyed from reading!
I'm working remotely, so I don't have direct access to the people involved in billing and such, but I tag them with anything that I see on the forums. The most common problems with the billing system is in the form of something like the RTS kit requiring TGE 1.4.2 and not being available to TGE 1.5.2 owners when it should be. Or resources not being opened up. Things like that. So I tag the people who can make changes happen.
When I was at IGC, I talked to a lot of people about some of the difficulties with community development, management, and transparency. Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of development time that needs to take place before some of the larger sweeping notions could take place. One of the most interesting and left-field was a 3D visualization ala Second Life or its ilk. While an interesting discussion, we were in a conundrum about how it would benefit the community. How would it be of more benefit than say, IRC? I could see something like an advanced interface to Sauerbraten being beneficial from a content creation community standpoint, but it was difficult to see where the 3D virtual world would be better than what is available now. It would certainly be cooler, but if it was anything like SL, it would definitely be laggier! We also talked about The Great Games Experiment and its featureset and how to utilize or manage it in a development setting.
But for all the discussions, it would take a rather huge chunk of web development time to create and maintain. Right now Stephen Zepp is working to put together a highly efficient transparent community for the development of Torque 2. And I hope it has the beginnings of some of the things that I discusses with a number of community members.
If you have any ideas, cool communities to look at as models, interesting thoughts on community or community management, then I would love to hear them. The community at GG is one of our greatest assets, and allowing the community to work together and find information in a user-friendly fashion goes a long way towards solving some of the major complaints that many community members have had in the past. It is, of course, not a solution for all complaints, but it would definitely help the community help itself or new members much more easily.
Next, I thought I would post a picture since no blog is complete without one and I've been pictureless on the last couple of blogs.
Next, if you hadn't noticed--and most people probably haven't--I have a new tag next to my name. Instead of Associate, it's Admin. The big-wow-scary implications of this tag is that I can now close topics. And I get to post news about what's happening on the forums. It also means that I read ALL of your posts even if I don't reply. So if I seem a little crazy, it's probably because I'm bleary-eyed from reading!
I'm working remotely, so I don't have direct access to the people involved in billing and such, but I tag them with anything that I see on the forums. The most common problems with the billing system is in the form of something like the RTS kit requiring TGE 1.4.2 and not being available to TGE 1.5.2 owners when it should be. Or resources not being opened up. Things like that. So I tag the people who can make changes happen.
When I was at IGC, I talked to a lot of people about some of the difficulties with community development, management, and transparency. Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of development time that needs to take place before some of the larger sweeping notions could take place. One of the most interesting and left-field was a 3D visualization ala Second Life or its ilk. While an interesting discussion, we were in a conundrum about how it would benefit the community. How would it be of more benefit than say, IRC? I could see something like an advanced interface to Sauerbraten being beneficial from a content creation community standpoint, but it was difficult to see where the 3D virtual world would be better than what is available now. It would certainly be cooler, but if it was anything like SL, it would definitely be laggier! We also talked about The Great Games Experiment and its featureset and how to utilize or manage it in a development setting.
But for all the discussions, it would take a rather huge chunk of web development time to create and maintain. Right now Stephen Zepp is working to put together a highly efficient transparent community for the development of Torque 2. And I hope it has the beginnings of some of the things that I discusses with a number of community members.
If you have any ideas, cool communities to look at as models, interesting thoughts on community or community management, then I would love to hear them. The community at GG is one of our greatest assets, and allowing the community to work together and find information in a user-friendly fashion goes a long way towards solving some of the major complaints that many community members have had in the past. It is, of course, not a solution for all complaints, but it would definitely help the community help itself or new members much more easily.
About the author
Community management and development, Educational computing systems and lab management, Flex, ActionScript, JavaScript, PHP, C++, C#, Perl, Python, Ruby, LUA, etc.
#2
IBM's developerWorks spaces is great.
Game developers could have their own space to showcase their games, complete with blogs, related news, etc.
GG has the "Projects" and "Companies" but they're just short blurbs... why not take those a step further and allow blogs to be attached to projects.
Then you could have Spotlight projects / companies and show them on your main "what's new" page.
It wouldn't be much different from what we have now, except a blog entry could be associated with a person, project and/or company.
That would help with recruiting... link a "help wanted" ad with a project / company and voila you have the history of the project including all of the relevant blogs.
Upgrade the resource system to include a way to indicate for which game engine(s) the resource is intended.
Show avatars on the forum posts and not just on profiles and on blogs. Face recognition is much better than name recognition.
Create a kudos / rewards system for people with highly rated resources and provide an indicator next to their name on blogs and forums to show off the rewards.
Word ranked systems work the best.... you know, something more than just "Employee" and "Associate" and everyone else.
Have an easy way (on GG's website, not just GGE) to show what games a person has been involved in developing, what they've actually published, etc (and not something deep in the bowels of a person's profile)
Add kudos to people that actually finish a game and publish it (even if they don't publish it on GG's website)
Allow a little bit more customization for blog / profile spaces.
Wait... this is starting to sound pretty familiar.
I know... how about re-reading this blog and apply it to GG's community... a lot of the things GG and associates have been suggesting that the game developers should be doing are also things that GG should be doing.
"Don't tackle the big things until you have mastered the little things," and "Don't just copy everyone else... innovate," are two of my favorites. :-D
I'm sorry if that came out a little bit rude... it just seems kinda funny giving advice and not following it.
edit typos
12/14/2007 (12:27 pm)
Just a few random thoughts / ideas.IBM's developerWorks spaces is great.
Game developers could have their own space to showcase their games, complete with blogs, related news, etc.
GG has the "Projects" and "Companies" but they're just short blurbs... why not take those a step further and allow blogs to be attached to projects.
Then you could have Spotlight projects / companies and show them on your main "what's new" page.
It wouldn't be much different from what we have now, except a blog entry could be associated with a person, project and/or company.
That would help with recruiting... link a "help wanted" ad with a project / company and voila you have the history of the project including all of the relevant blogs.
Upgrade the resource system to include a way to indicate for which game engine(s) the resource is intended.
Show avatars on the forum posts and not just on profiles and on blogs. Face recognition is much better than name recognition.
Create a kudos / rewards system for people with highly rated resources and provide an indicator next to their name on blogs and forums to show off the rewards.
Word ranked systems work the best.... you know, something more than just "Employee" and "Associate" and everyone else.
Have an easy way (on GG's website, not just GGE) to show what games a person has been involved in developing, what they've actually published, etc (and not something deep in the bowels of a person's profile)
Add kudos to people that actually finish a game and publish it (even if they don't publish it on GG's website)
Allow a little bit more customization for blog / profile spaces.
Wait... this is starting to sound pretty familiar.
I know... how about re-reading this blog and apply it to GG's community... a lot of the things GG and associates have been suggesting that the game developers should be doing are also things that GG should be doing.
"Don't tackle the big things until you have mastered the little things," and "Don't just copy everyone else... innovate," are two of my favorites. :-D
I'm sorry if that came out a little bit rude... it just seems kinda funny giving advice and not following it.
edit typos
#3
You talked about a 3D space for developers. I've used one, You can see it here.. (it will require the viewpoint plugin and Internet Explorer on windows to work tho) It was nice to stand and chat with people. We had tech talks and such there as well, and, it took a lot of the "hey, how do I do this??" questions out of the forum. People used this world more than they did the irc channel. Btw, I am just giving an example here. A really good/great 3d place would allow classroom type discussions where images could be placed on a screen for reference. (we had one of those too but I can't find it at the moment. It used flash for the interface)
I also agree with Tony Richards suggestions. All those can be done using phpBB3. (there are already great addons to that forum software adding the functionality) If you want to use outside forum software.
12/14/2007 (1:43 pm)
Great blog. You talked about a 3D space for developers. I've used one, You can see it here.. (it will require the viewpoint plugin and Internet Explorer on windows to work tho) It was nice to stand and chat with people. We had tech talks and such there as well, and, it took a lot of the "hey, how do I do this??" questions out of the forum. People used this world more than they did the irc channel. Btw, I am just giving an example here. A really good/great 3d place would allow classroom type discussions where images could be placed on a screen for reference. (we had one of those too but I can't find it at the moment. It used flash for the interface)
I also agree with Tony Richards suggestions. All those can be done using phpBB3. (there are already great addons to that forum software adding the functionality) If you want to use outside forum software.
#4
One of the things that I talked about with a number of people at IGC was the idea of some of the feature integration of Great Games Experiment within the Torque community. A number of the features such as project-linked blogs and the like could be implemented in a similar structure. I also like the idea of tracking projects in the same way I track RSS feeds and podcasts. It makes it quick, easy, and intuitive.
Ranking is a big issue in many communities, whether it be karma based (slashdot or gamefaqs post/moderation base) or up/downvote based (similar to the rating system but used in areas like Conitec's forums) or "experience" basing like Perlmonks or a pure post count rating system. I tend not to like the post-count systems since it gets people excited to up their level with meaningless blather a lot of the time. People with unpopular opinions often get downvoted in karma/up/downvote systems. As a mod at GameFAQs for years, I would like the site to be as mod-free as possible, so a post-to-moderation karma system wouldn't be appropriate.
Of course, however it is done will be based on the web framework down the line, whether it be new forums, new resource facilities, etc.
EDIT:
@Mike
I haven't looked a phpBB for a long time. I've been playing with SimpleMachines myself for a bit, though. I'll have to give 3.x a run and see how I like it.
12/14/2007 (2:14 pm)
Not rude in my estimation. I was hoping that you'd reply since you've been thinking for a long time about communities in the MMO sphere and the dev-sphere with IndieZen. I'll take a look at IBM's setup. One of the things that I talked about with a number of people at IGC was the idea of some of the feature integration of Great Games Experiment within the Torque community. A number of the features such as project-linked blogs and the like could be implemented in a similar structure. I also like the idea of tracking projects in the same way I track RSS feeds and podcasts. It makes it quick, easy, and intuitive.
Ranking is a big issue in many communities, whether it be karma based (slashdot or gamefaqs post/moderation base) or up/downvote based (similar to the rating system but used in areas like Conitec's forums) or "experience" basing like Perlmonks or a pure post count rating system. I tend not to like the post-count systems since it gets people excited to up their level with meaningless blather a lot of the time. People with unpopular opinions often get downvoted in karma/up/downvote systems. As a mod at GameFAQs for years, I would like the site to be as mod-free as possible, so a post-to-moderation karma system wouldn't be appropriate.
Of course, however it is done will be based on the web framework down the line, whether it be new forums, new resource facilities, etc.
EDIT:
@Mike
I haven't looked a phpBB for a long time. I've been playing with SimpleMachines myself for a bit, though. I'll have to give 3.x a run and see how I like it.
#5
That sounds awesome.... I wish I could've made it to IGC; it looks like I missed out on quite a bit of the discussions on the new stuff coming out.
Hopefully I'll be able to make it out there this next year...
12/14/2007 (3:08 pm)
Quote:One of the things that I talked about with a number of people at IGC was the idea of some of the feature integration of Great Games Experiment within the Torque community. A number of the features such as project-linked blogs and the like could be implemented in a similar structure. I also like the idea of tracking projects in the same way I track RSS feeds and podcasts. It makes it quick, easy, and intuitive.
That sounds awesome.... I wish I could've made it to IGC; it looks like I missed out on quite a bit of the discussions on the new stuff coming out.
Hopefully I'll be able to make it out there this next year...
#6
Also always good news on improvements. About sugestions, well, Im with the old request for a PM system.
12/14/2007 (5:21 pm)
Good news David. Obviously Ive noticed the "Admin" tag, and frankly I am always happy to see this kind of movement, specially when the people involved are connoisseurs of the community like you are. Congrats and *merde* on your new tasks.Also always good news on improvements. About sugestions, well, Im with the old request for a PM system.
#7
I really like what you're talking about with GGE features and project tracking. I use my GGE page as my main project page right now, and it would be nice to see this developed further in the directions you're talking about.
12/17/2007 (8:39 am)
Ah, cool. I had noticed the new tag and was thinking of asking you about it. Very nice.I really like what you're talking about with GGE features and project tracking. I use my GGE page as my main project page right now, and it would be nice to see this developed further in the directions you're talking about.
#8
12/24/2007 (1:15 am)
Btw David, did you found an easy solution to "the RTS kit requiring TGE 1.4.2 and not being available to TGE 1.5.2 owners when it should be."? People keep asking.
#9
Would be of great help, if one could susbribe (RSS) to forum sectors, to now when there is movement on that sectors. Ie: I could suscribe to "RTS Starter Kit Private Forums", and get on my reader the list of activities, just "new comments on XXX" or "new thread XXX", so it would work as an *alarm* of new coments on the forums.
01/01/2008 (6:09 pm)
Ok I dont know if you are even reading this, but what I have to say its not worth for a forum thread I think, and besides you asked for sugestions in this blog.Would be of great help, if one could susbribe (RSS) to forum sectors, to now when there is movement on that sectors. Ie: I could suscribe to "RTS Starter Kit Private Forums", and get on my reader the list of activities, just "new comments on XXX" or "new thread XXX", so it would work as an *alarm* of new coments on the forums.
Torque 3D Owner Sean H.
one idea I had was that you guys should have more contests. most people here are game devs so items from the dev store would be perfect for prizes.