As promised I will attempt to conclude the "Wake Up" thread discussion before I leave for work. Nearly 80 posts and 2500 views in 2 days ain't a small thing, so we can safely assume it lives in the community. It's a long post, but I tried to keep it readable by using punctuations and sorts. Besides all the people that took the time to post in the topic I also received numerous PM's with support declarations, suggestions and unfortunately also less pleasant messages (which are deleted without reading, the headers were enough for me). Either way I would like to thank you all for writing down your thoughts. When Hawker asked us to give the general meaning and goal of the whole topic into 1 sentence we came up with 2 keywords. The first one being... Communication. The word itself in the broadest sense of it's meaning, and into all directions. It's not only the communication from the staff to us users but also the other way around (huh? What?? Yeah, read on!). Let's start with "The Staff" to us communitymembers... - Provide more information in general. A good informed community is a stronger one. If you plan on major changes put them up before doing anything so everyone can be prepared. - Have a clear ruleset in place which everybody has to accept and respect (No exceptions whatsoever). Also lay down a clear set for those that moderate us users (if this doesn't exist yet). - Have a good and complete F.A.Q. page with all the ins and outs on how to install and use GB/HB and maybe update the current video's since they are pretty much outdated. When properly made (And lots of partial F.A.Q's are already made by users on the forums, use them, combine them. Bossland has already informed a Wiki is gonna be installed, which is a good place for such a thing). - Know what everyone is doing. And make sure every member of "The Staff" walks into the same direction. Now the other way around, from us "The community" to the staff... - When making a bugreport, make it properly. The "it doesn't work, fix it" remark with 3 lines from some logfile is not helping the staff or the CC/Plugin developers. 9 out of 10 times Hawker posted a template on "How to report a bug" with the release of a new GB/HB, but hardly anyone was using it. How do you expect the staff to adress the issue with 2 lines of text and 3 lines of logfile information. Further now "The Bugtracker" is active for GB/HB related bugs, so you can make your bugreports over there. Most is already pre-filled out, only make sure you deliver a whole logfile. Put some effort in making their life and in the end also our lives easier (proper bugreports = possible faster fix). Suggestions in relation with or regarding Communication. - One of the many simple suggestions made that can improve things was to have a sticky in the release thread with all the versions and changes made, so it can be used as reference by the users (and is part of the communication issue). - Another change suggested was to have Stable and Beta separate again (even though it was a failure in the past as posted by Hawker). Create a separate Beta section where the test versions are posted a few days before it's "officially released". Anyone downloading from the Beta section accepts there are bugs to be encountered. - Hold regular meetings at the "virtual conference table". This is something that you have to do on regular basis. A PM or a short IM chat is not the same . Talk about what goes wrong, plans and everything else that comes around. I do realize that you are all busy with coding (or at least most of you), but it's a essential thing to do (even if you don't like eachother). It might also be a good idea to have the same kind of meeting with the CC developers and other people alike to give them a heads-up on coming things (besides the early builds that go to them to test it against their coding). - Get some more much needed staff, it's not costing you anything (they are volunteers anyways). To improve Tony's and Ski's life a bit it would be much advised to get some more staff. Just regular moderators and assign them to maintain parts of the forums (best if it's an area of expertise of the person), so Tony and Ski can do the job a Supermoderator is supposed to do. It will also give you a chance to get more people to man the "Helpdesk". As it is now it mostly boils down to Tony (and Ski), and he's getting the shit from both sides. - To improve your own circumstances, get a project manager who has nothing to do with coding (but knows how to manage a project). It would give you less things to maintain, so you can focus more on the coding itself. - Make a suggestions forum so we can put our idea's to improve somewhere, instead of posting them all over the board (and usually end up in the wrong places, annoying Tony and Ski). Make sure there's a template to follow for posting suggestions, and clear out anything not conform it. Have one of the assigned people look at the suggestions and answer whether possible or not. Use the suggestions to your advantage. Discuss those you deem "worthy" in the weekly or 2 weekly meetings, and give feedback on them. I probably forgot a few more, but if there is gonna be a suggestion's forum, there will be a proper place for it to post them. Now the other keyword was... Organisation. As we could've read Bossland already planned for some changes when he comes back from holidays. Meanwhile I am gathering the suggestions made here regarding forumchanges and other things. - Ranks for the Staff. Create the proper ranks for the staff, so there can't be any mistake on who is what. As I received the reply from Tony that Apoc, MaiN and Nesox are part of the development Team, and not the (super)moderators, there should be a rank made for them. It's 5 clicks and filling out 2 tables with vB to create this. It's a small thing but it has to do with organising things. - A much heared complaint is that the profile section is a bit messy due to the fact that Alliance, Neutral and Horde profiles are all in 1 subforum. If someone needs a profile, often to know for which race it's meant you have to open the files. Split the profiles in these 3 categories for better overview. - As posted in communication I repost it here as well, because it fits in both categories. The F.A.Q. page with all info regarding GB/HB. It's gonna make it much easier for new users when all the relevant information is consolidated in one place. Also as said, Bossland is gonna provide us with a Wiki. - A sub-release so that a larger group can test and report back, before tossing it to the general public. Obviously you will need active testers here who know what they are doing. I visualise it as a 3 stage release. Stage one is the CC developers and selected testers, Stage two the bigger group of public testers, and then Stage three, the general release. I'm sure I forgot quite a few things, but I hope that if the suggestion forum will be a fact, those things I forgot about will be posted there properly. I want to thank everyone involved in the GB/HB project and all those that support it one way or another. Hopefully this will have some wished results, but we can't say we didn't try it. Take care and best regards, LiquidAtoR.
Haha, I was about to correct your spelling of "Organisation", but decided to google it, and it turns out it can be spelled either way. Thank you for doing this as well, this is what I hoped to see out of that thread.
Not sure if I'm blind or not but i noticed there was a download tab added at the top of the page, just used it and made downloading the programs muchhh easier! So thanks.
