Community manager(s)
DC_Darkling
Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
With the hope both uwe and the community reads this I thought I throw this in the open.
If anyone sees me making a mistake with the following please correct but lets NOT make this into a blame/point war please!
THE PROBLEM:
From what I understood UWE feels the community does not listen & treats them like garbage. Basic 'biting the hand (uwe) which feeds us (community)'.
The community feels UWE is not open and is slow to react, or does not react at all.
Part of this is, if I look at it from afar, due to knowledge and insight. Another part is due to roles. And another factor is probably manpower/time.
Let us example.
- The community asks a whole list of questions.
* Hugh decides to answer, asks around and posts answers.
* Hugh may have misunderstood some questions. (which is possible, if he for example cant code, he can easily misunderstand those Qs)
- community gets a wrong answer & blows up. (often rather unfriendly with some individuals, lets be fair here)
(- as a sidenote, I often see his answers and go like 'yeh I can imagine why he understood the question as that')
- at times the community even does not accept posts from uwe as true. (I mean come on folk, really? its just added flames for no reason)
* Hugh (and uwe if I understood posts from them all correctly) get annoyed that they get treated as such while they are only trying to help.
* Hugh answers a bit more rough. (or some of uwe dont answer at all any more)
*- fire grows
Now in this example both sides are wrong. Both sides could snap less hard and less fast.
@Hugh (for example) could just copy paste questions he doesn't understand (as the topic is not his role/job)
Community could also assume not every person at uwe knows of every topic. (like asking code stuff at a artist)
Another misconception which often pops up is that Hugh should be able to do all the talking with the community better as the pr guy. Well folk, pr is not community manager!
Last I checked, uwe does not have any community managers. If Hugh should also perform this role or not is another topic as a whole.
UWE often states everyone is busy busy busy. I assume for the moment that includes Hugh and that he has no more time for something like a community manager. Lets not kid ourselves, community manager is a full-time job!
And here is where I think We (community and uwe) as a whole can grown. To get 1 or more community managers. Those should be able to actively talk to UWE. Those should be able to actively talk to the community. (Or they are part of uwe, whatever works)
Much is just bad blood going around, but I always see good valid points on both sides! We need more respect and especially more patience and more understanding on both sides. And not to blaim each other if we misunderstand or questions get passed on wrong. Just point out why the question is different from the answer!
So I hope uwe can look into the community manager thing. I hope the community can breathe in a bit and allow for some breathing room. (Look at subnautica and the distinct lack of problems in those conversations between uwe and community. Thats because neither side misunderstands. Both sides ask and explain rather then assume the other is kicking when you're down)
Yes its a thing both uwe and the community need to work on. Now lets hear all the comments and try to keep it clean and without blame please!
Solutions! Not blaming!
Thanks in advance folk.
If anyone sees me making a mistake with the following please correct but lets NOT make this into a blame/point war please!
THE PROBLEM:
From what I understood UWE feels the community does not listen & treats them like garbage. Basic 'biting the hand (uwe) which feeds us (community)'.
The community feels UWE is not open and is slow to react, or does not react at all.
Part of this is, if I look at it from afar, due to knowledge and insight. Another part is due to roles. And another factor is probably manpower/time.
Let us example.
- The community asks a whole list of questions.
* Hugh decides to answer, asks around and posts answers.
* Hugh may have misunderstood some questions. (which is possible, if he for example cant code, he can easily misunderstand those Qs)
- community gets a wrong answer & blows up. (often rather unfriendly with some individuals, lets be fair here)
(- as a sidenote, I often see his answers and go like 'yeh I can imagine why he understood the question as that')
- at times the community even does not accept posts from uwe as true. (I mean come on folk, really? its just added flames for no reason)
* Hugh (and uwe if I understood posts from them all correctly) get annoyed that they get treated as such while they are only trying to help.
* Hugh answers a bit more rough. (or some of uwe dont answer at all any more)
*- fire grows
Now in this example both sides are wrong. Both sides could snap less hard and less fast.
@Hugh (for example) could just copy paste questions he doesn't understand (as the topic is not his role/job)
Community could also assume not every person at uwe knows of every topic. (like asking code stuff at a artist)
Another misconception which often pops up is that Hugh should be able to do all the talking with the community better as the pr guy. Well folk, pr is not community manager!
Last I checked, uwe does not have any community managers. If Hugh should also perform this role or not is another topic as a whole.
UWE often states everyone is busy busy busy. I assume for the moment that includes Hugh and that he has no more time for something like a community manager. Lets not kid ourselves, community manager is a full-time job!
And here is where I think We (community and uwe) as a whole can grown. To get 1 or more community managers. Those should be able to actively talk to UWE. Those should be able to actively talk to the community. (Or they are part of uwe, whatever works)
Much is just bad blood going around, but I always see good valid points on both sides! We need more respect and especially more patience and more understanding on both sides. And not to blaim each other if we misunderstand or questions get passed on wrong. Just point out why the question is different from the answer!
So I hope uwe can look into the community manager thing. I hope the community can breathe in a bit and allow for some breathing room. (Look at subnautica and the distinct lack of problems in those conversations between uwe and community. Thats because neither side misunderstands. Both sides ask and explain rather then assume the other is kicking when you're down)
Yes its a thing both uwe and the community need to work on. Now lets hear all the comments and try to keep it clean and without blame please!
Solutions! Not blaming!
Thanks in advance folk.
Comments
BTW Vote @Ironhorse for community manager, he's close to allready doing this job anyway.
No he's still "just" a member of this community. So he only represents himself and not uwe in any way.
He has as community veteran and lead playtester a closer relation to uwe than anyone else of us.
By this he knows better what's going on at uwe than any of us. And often he's kind enought to share his knowlegde with us
I do believe its an important function, especially for a developer with limited staff and a passionate fanbase.
But I also know myself well enough to know, that I am probably not the best person for this role because I can sometimes be a snarky argumentative twat, as well.
You basically need a robot to be a good community manager. (see EA or 2k twitter responses) Else, you just upset people unintentionally sometimes.
Great points DC, and great approach!
Worth a view, btw : http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/community-management
While I do agree Iron performs a lot of such functions regardless I think many of us misunderstand the time it takes to do this. IF uwe would do this & go by use of community rather then hiring a person, we may need more then 1 person simply due to the time it will take.
(im gona grab iron as a hypothetic example now)
Especially if its a community member or members a failsafe needs to be set up. For when, like Iron said, he has a snarky day. Or when he simply fails to understand the significance of the topic.
To go back to reality, remember how Ironhorse had a lil bit of trouble understanding the points some linux folk made in the tech support? I did. I read them! Such trouble would become more problematic IF Ironhorse would be the and only manager.
I appreciate all the comments so far. Please keep em coming. (And if someone can point uwe to this topic without spamming names like @hugh that would help)
But lets realise that how we/uwe will proceed with this idea depends on a lot of factors. It may initially fail due to those factors in which we need to try again.
I hate you!
exactly.. and the powers to ban if that someone does it often.
Some other games have done this very well like Warframe; which has two dedicated community managers, to both schedule Q/A sessions on Twitch (creates more transparency with the developers), and to generally try to help facilitate the flow of questions, and or expectations.
There are many people in the community who share unique admirable traits. It's the question of how we can meld these qualities to define this CM role to benefit both the community and ease some of the load off of UWE trying to handle it.
The OP said it best, a PR role and a CM role are very different, and I'm sure Hugh wouldn't mind some of that tension offloaded
I think it's agreed that said community manager should be more of a "player" than a "employee" so that the community feels that, that person has the community's interests in mind, while the CM might not have all the answers (since they have no involvement in actual development), it would be understood that the CM would try to pursue them as a priority just as any other player desire. The CM would then serve as a conduit for UWE to have to answer to 1 person, instead of hundreds.
I'd certainly like to tryout for this role, as the growth of the NS2 community has always been my focus through all my actions thus far. Weather or not this is a job for 1 person or more, is another story.
Too little too late. I actually thought this was supposed to be Hugh's job when it mattered but wow he was awful at any community interaction. Maybe you could do it for Subnautica.
No you fucking can't.
well its not really his job. pr / community managers are 2 different fruits.
You have a good point on the objective. Even a manager can fanboi now and then but objective judging is very needed.
Damnit!
"Accidentally repeatedly" Love the show RedDog.
\On topic
Agree with everything you posted @DC_Darkling. I did a post earlier slightly off topic about the seeming fallout we (the community or some members within) has with Hugh. It is unfortunate and unfair, how much bile (no pun intended) is directed to UWE and Hugh. Is it because the game looks AAA, so people demand to be treated like royalty? I haven't been on any other game forum before because I don't feel other companies are as involved in their game compared to this one.
PS. I would love to have It's SuperEffective to be a Community Manager. This community is really an odd one out as far as passion and dedication of members is concern (for all good reasons). Lets take some of that heat off Hugh (this is speaking as a fellow fan, he should be allow to enjoy the game without being dumped on).
I'll admit, It's weird for me reading claims like yours, @palagi , because in reality you have zero clue how many hundreds of times over the years that i have "listened to criticism" on these forums by passing along suggestions, complaints, and ideas to the developers (who may not have ever known they existed)... even if i disagreed with them. Either through private messages, emails, or internal forums. I believe at one point Sewlek actually told me to stop, that he couldn't keep up with the amount of links i kept sending him.
I don't expect anyone (least of you) to know that this goes on, of course, its not public knowledge.. i don't expect anyone to know about the internal list i maintained pre launch that was a 100+ feature item list comprised from the most popular requests from the forums to PTs themselves (Who often linked to forums).
What i mean to say is... The times you see me arguing in favor or against something publicly, is when I've chosen to "steer it toward productive dialog and eventually results" by actually having a debate about it. Because lets not fool ourselves here - this community has plenty of non productive circle jerks. And the times when i am objective and pass on criticisms, or argue strongly with devs about popular issues, or create petitions, or beg and hound or incur hours more of work for myself... you never even know about. So, I don't blame you for having that viewpoint - the only thing that you see is me agreeing or disagreeing with some school of thought. Must be hard for you to consider me actually putting thousands of hours into assisting in making this game something everyone would enjoy - not just myself.
Lastly, i think there's this phenomenon where, when someone feels that others are not as poor as themselves at delivering their own message, or agreeing with their particular point of view... they scream "Fanboy" ...as if its an insult or some negative connotation that insinuates that they should instead be jumping in the "OMFG This SH!t Is stupid, you idiots, UWE!" / Misdirected Passion camp. Instead of recognizing that perhaps their delivery was more than likely very poor (why the devs do not like visiting their own forums)
A great example of this can be found in the current Eclipse thread, right now.
Elodea posted with "more like ns2_cratelipse" .. instead of providing polite and well written feedback like Blind did on the very next page.
Both said the same thing, essentially.. but i bet you anything that only one of those users would actually accuse me of asking them to "eat a bag of UWE poop" because i disagreed with their delivery and point... (hint: its the one who a dev publicly said was being insulting)
First of all, we all do thank every active member in this community improving the game, from every playtester to mapper to modder to dev and whatnot. But don't expect users to reiterate that every two sentences, if someone has negative emotions about certain issues, it will flow, it is human. And forums as well as chats, unlike exchanged words in real conservation or, at least voice communication, can be heavily misinterpreted in a more harmful way than they are necesessarily meant to be.
Over the last years I have observed countless times that many people just adopt to it and try to carefully voice their concerns with 2 chapters long introductions on how they love the game, the devs etc. before they dare to point out criticism - in the hopes it won't be smashed down as just another unthankful annoying forum troll. I might be wrong, but the impression is there anyways. Sure, we understand that the people reading posts full of criticism are just human and are happy to read some nice words here and then and are naturally less devoted to naggers. Who isn't? But in truth, de-escalating and especially also listening to badly worded, insulting and otherwise harsh criticism can be pure gold. The best community opinions about the changes ENSL went into I got from just those. I even might dare to say that these kind of harsh tones made me reflect the most about what I have been doing wrong. Face it, if you have friends in real life and you are about to do a terrible mistake, I rather have them be open minded and tell me the uncinvenient truth about my behaviour giving me the chance to correct myself, than just yay-sayers who won't help me improve on my decision making. As I am running a company myself, this is mere a philosophy but so far I fared well and can say that criticism often kinda saved my life. Whether I liked to specifically hear it or not. Of course I prefer to hear that I am a genius and do everything all right but that doesn't reflect reality. So I deal with it.
So, about the example @IronHorse put in, I felt to step in and rephrase Elodea's post just to make it heard since I fully agree with his content. But I dislike the fact that I had to do it in this way, it should have been answered the same way as my post was. If I wouldn't have stepped in, maybe his absolutely valid point would have gone unheard just because people don't like his tone. But it is still gold if you want to improve eclipse and make it at least competitive playable. There are not many Fana's left who put hours of work into well educated written useful feedback, so please don't neglect the imput you receive from others who are left over and don't edit their posts 10 times to make it sound less harsh.
I realize this is exactly what a well paid community manager should do, and that an indie company can't afford this. But for all volunteers out there, you hurt UWE sometimes by putting criticism down, even if it was voiced in the most poor, hateful or annoying manner.
Other than that, the people I had to pleasure to talk/write/chat with (of course including you Iron!) about the game, are great. So here are the nice words - you do an excellent job and I can't thank you enough for all your dedication you put into my dearest hobby and keep it up!
i suggest blind, if the man is keen.
I also don't think being a "fanboy" is a bad trait in itself, as long as you remain open to criticism and all sorts of feedback. From my time spent on the PT team so far, I can say for certain it's not uncommon to see people who totally love this game still acknowledge all of its flaws.
Nor should it, if a community behaves civilly ALL the time, they WILL get stuff done...but at a rate less than half of one willing to rock the boat and piss people off to accomplish their goals.
as @blind and @ironhorse shown in their 2 latest posts convo's can swing both wides quite fast. Both have valid points. All feedback should be heard, but then again well constructed feedback is often easier to accept.
Something Maxx11_v2.0 is also right on the mark. My reasonings are not the full list of them, I could type page upon page of reasoning. Having any other view written down is just as constructive in terms of community speech.
@CCTEE has a point I often wonder myself on a personal level. But like @blind said, folk get emotional. (And when folk do, reasoning often becomes blurred or leaves completely)
You all have valid points showing the diversity in this community. THAT diversity is yet another reasoning why communication at times can be hard. I feel that shows even more why something like community managers is a great idea. (Boosting my own idea here haha
Regardless what UWE desides, whether ignore or get a official CM, to get one or more community members to do it, I shall hope we all do our best to support those decisions.
(Also as a side note, I want to voice my confidence UWE will react. I am sure they are just debating about it among themselves)
Please keep the comments going!.
And as a final note.
damnit @Reddog. If that was on topic I missed the entire point completely.
Criticism = content
Tone = delivery
Your delivery will... and should be put down if it is non conducive to a friendly or productive environment. Just think about this principle for a second.. these forums get a bad rep already, but do you really want them to escalate to EA or Battlefield forum levels with every other post being absolutely useless ranting trash with obscenities??
I know the devs do not.. and i cannot imagine anyone here who actually cares about NS2 wanting that either.
Socially curbing poor delivery - NOT CONTENT - by pointing it out (as jonacrab did, and as you did @blind by reiterating his post in a much better delivery) and generally being intolerant to it, allows for a better mechanism (forums) in which to deliver content (criticism)
Yes, those who are often the most passionate with the best criticism/content to provide can be very poor with their delivery (xdragon, to name drop one).. and this is a damn shame in my eyes, because of the gold, as you adequately put, that is contained between their inability to communicate with other human beings.
I hate to single out a particular group of people, but the Aussies in these forums are sort of known for this (see the 4/5 users who awesomed your post
Of course the developers and anyone attempting to be a CM tries to absorb the content in between the hateful wording.. even if its 5 pages of hate, there's still good content in there. It does get absorbed.. but boy is it the worst way possible.. all it does it breed contempt and disgust between you and the developers you are trying to give feedback to. Despite the popular misguided viewpoint of "the only way to get my message heard is to act horribly". It may get you a response in the short term... but its damaging in the long term to the community.. and therefore NS2.