Suggestion to SmiteWorks: Appoint Community Manager for Game Calendar

[lachancery]

Appoint a person from the community to be the community manager responsible for keeping the Game Calendar relevant and clear of dead games. It is a pretty bad new user experience when someone new to FG goes through the calendar to look for a game to join and is met with a large portion of (seemingly) dead game.

The community manager would have access to the email address used by the person to sign up to the FG site, and would contact each GM to confirm whether the games are still active or not. A protocol of, let's say, 2 emails would be sent, and then the community manager would make the game "not accept new players" so it disappears from the public view.

Thoughts?

[unerwünscht]

I agree something needs to be done with the game calendar and all the old games. However I would have to say that a 'Community Manager' with access to every ones email addresses is totally not cool. There has to be a better way, and when I have had more sleep I will try to come up with some suggestions. Until then, we have some super brainy people around here, maybe one of them knows a good way to handle this.

[bennis1980]

There is a way an email could be sent by a community manager without them having access to the address. It could work the same way emails are sent if you receive a PM, through an intermediary.

I'd like to add my weight to the idea that the calendar needs cleaning up. I also think it should default order by last GM activity (as oppose to the current alphanumeric sorting). If your ruleset doesn't begin with a 3 or 4 you have to be creative with your naming to get your game seen in the current system of sorting.

[wbcreighton]

This would make a lot of sense. The same thing used to happen on herocentral.net and it worked quite well.

[JohnD]

Really good idea.

[lachancery]

Good point I had not considered regarding access to email addresses. That said, many in this community are in their 40's and have real life responsibilities far reaching and serious. I would think a serious and mature community manager could be signed under NDA by SmiteWorks and be trusted with the information.

(I realized that my opinion on privacy may differ from others though, so an indirect way to send email, like allowing the use of the email option on the account's profile page, would be a decent fallback.)

[bennis1980]

That said, many in this community are in their 40's and have real life responsibilities far reaching and serious

Oh dear. I sence a perversion of the traditional way people lie about their age online poluting the future internet. :D

[phantomwhale]

My thought is a better calendar which was more engaging might encourage the content creators (e.g. those posting calendar games) to better manage and prune their own games.

Problems like old data can also be managed by the system itself (e.g. hide inactive games - email owners when there game is about to be hidden in case it's merely a hiatus period etc...)

Of course, then instead of a Community Manager, your looking for a Systems Developer...

[unerwünscht]

Ok, I have given it some thought. Here is my idea:

We get someone that can be a 'Community Manager' or a Games Moderator. This person (or persons) would then be given access to post in ALL games regardless of if they have joined said game or not.

They could then make a post in older game entries. Then if they get no response after a week or so, they can kill the game entry. This bypasses any need for email access of any kind, and also goes a very long way to insuring that all game entries on the calendar are actively maintained.

[Draeus]

Ok, I have given it some thought. Here is my idea:

We get someone that can be a 'Community Manager' or a Games Moderator. This person (or persons) would then be given access to post in ALL games regardless of if they have joined said game or not.

They could then make a post in older game entries. Then if they get no response after a week or so, they can kill the game entry. This bypasses any need for email access of any kind, and also goes a very long way to insuring that all game entries on the calendar are actively maintained.

Sounds like a fine plan.

Back the calendar update request!

[Trenloe]

They could then make a post in older game entries. Then if they get no response after a week or so, they can kill the game entry. This bypasses any need for email access of any kind, and also goes a very long way to insuring that all game entries on the calendar are actively maintained.
The only issue I would say with this is that posts in game calendar campaign entries do not inform the GM/players by email that there has been a post. I frequently miss messages in the campaign entry because of this - and I am fairly active. There really needs to be a way of contacting GMs outside of the Fantasy Grounds forums/campaign entries so that GMs and players in games that aren't active on the FG website have just taken a break for a few weeks.months can get communications regarding the imminent culling of their campaign from the game calendar.

[unerwünscht]

There really needs to be a way of contacting GMs outside of the Fantasy Grounds forums/campaign entries so that GMs and players in games that aren't active on the FG website have just taken a break for a few weeks.months can get communications regarding the imminent culling of their campaign from the game calendar.

I think part of the idea is to clean out games where the GM has been away for months. As for weeks I think the criteria for moderation should be that a game appears to be inactive for at least a month before a moderator even begins the process of verify a game is still active.

[Trenloe]

I think part of the idea is to clean out games where the GM has been away for months. As for weeks I think the criteria for moderation should be that a game appears to be inactive for at least a month before a moderator even begins the process of verify a game is still active.
I completely agree and understand where the idea comes from. I just think it would be a waste of time if the *only message* being sent is posting a message in a campaign notes/discussion section for old campaigns as no one (even if it is "slightly" active) will check the campaign messages as they are not expecting messages being posted there.

Without giving out email addresses, the game calendar manager only has access to:

PMs.
Notes on the campaign entry.

PMs may allow external email notifications: IF a user has setup their PM options in their profile to allow receiving emails when they get private messages, AND they have enabled private messages, AND their PM mailbox is not full, AND their email address is still active.

Personally, I'd just put a disclaimer on the game calendar - "campaigns will be removed after X months of no GM activity" (where X is an agreed number of months - perhaps 2-3???) and then change the campaign in question to no longer accept players so that people who aren't signed up don't see it in the list. The game calendar manager can put a message in the campaign discussion section saying this has been done and also PM the GM. This action will not impact the current players. The main downside is that it may impact future potentially interested players from seeing a games had been available and contacting the GM to see if they would get it running again - which is a small price to pay for not wasting a lot of players time contacting inactive GMs.

[phantomwhale]

Appoint a person from the community to be the community manager responsible for keeping the Game Calendar relevant and clear of dead games. It is a pretty bad new user experience when someone new to FG goes through the calendar to look for a game to join and is met with a large portion of (seemingly) dead game.

Thoughts?

Going back to Lachancery's post, we have a solution (Community Manage), and then the problem (poor experience from new users accessing the FG calendar).

I still wonder if the solution is the right one, or there isn't other analysis that could be done here (e.g. WHY is the Calendar so out of date / seemingly dead ?)

For me - it's a little clunky to use, not easy to visualize when and where games are being run, and doesn't facilitate great communication between me and potential players. Therefore I create an entry, then use outside tools (email / forum threads) to continue discussing the campaign, and leave my Calendar entry there growing old and useless.

So tidying up dead entries would create good housekeeping, but wouldn't adding Calendar features help drive more people to use the calendar, potentially, and focus on generating more good content for the Calendar rather than just pruning bad content ?

That's just my experience anyway - I'm sure it differs for many people - I just wanted to take a different look at the problem in hand.

[Draeus]

A game calendar system could be put in place like they use at infrno. It is simple and visually instant to know when a game is.

[JohnD]

There are entries where it is pretty easy to see that the game is dead though, I think.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/calendar/?id=762
Last GM activity over 7 months ago. GM has never posted on the forum.
No indication that the game has even started, plus 15 people on 'pending' status for a maximum 6 player game.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/calendar/?id=530
Last GM activity over 25 months ago. Looking for forum activity, we see the GM's last time in the forums is "Last Activity: December 28th, 2010".
No indication that the game has even started, plus 13 people on 'pending' status for a maximum 8 player game. Not one player in 'active' status.

Now these are only two examples... likely there are more. Worse, these examples are near the top of the list. These are examples of what I'd prune immediately if I were in a CM position.

If you look through the lists of potential players in these games, how many were lost as potential customers?

I would think also that on the back end it should be possible to look at what kind of license the GM has (had) and when it was last used (when was the validation server accessed). Or perhaps I am assuming to high a level of robustness (if that's even a word).

If you sort on Last GM Activity, you see roughly 1/3rd of the list is over 24 months old. Not a good first (or any kind) of impression. If you delve into those "games", I'm willing to bet you see the same type of situation on the GM side as in my 2nd example above... likely the players as well.

A more robust system that differentiates between campaign pages like we have now, and active, scheduled games (perhaps visible on an actual calendar) would be best. You could with one click see what games are scheduled in the next week or month at a glance, whether they are open for new sign-ups, who is playing, etc....

[leozelig]

I still wonder if the solution is the right one, or there isn't other analysis that could be done here (e.g. WHY is the Calendar so out of date / seemingly dead?)

For me - it's a little clunky to use, not easy to visualize when and where games are being run, and doesn't facilitate great communication between me and potential players. Therefore I create an entry, then use outside tools (email / forum threads) to continue discussing the campaign, and leave my Calendar entry there growing old and useless.

So tidying up dead entries would create good housekeeping, but wouldn't adding Calendar features help drive more people to use the calendar, potentially, and focus on generating more good content for the Calendar rather than just pruning bad content ?


I agree that more features are needed. Currently, it tells you whether the game has started and whether it is accepting new players, and I suspect that these are frequently inaccurate.

Here are a few things that I think would improve the calendar:

An option to receive an email when someone posts in the discussion.
Prospective players are able to view the discussion (and maybe even post) without first being accepted to the game by the GM.
Consider dropping "Last GM Activity," which currently only updates when you edit the basic information about the game (description, ruleset, setting, etc.). Displaying "Next Scheduled Game" would be far more useful... Or at the very least, changing what qualifies as 'Last Activity' - a discussion post, for example.
Sort options that include the date/time of next game. I know some rudimentary sorting is available now. In general, time zone, ruleset, and date/time of next game are essential pieces of information. If you are looking for a Pathfinder game in the GMT-6 time zone, then you could quickly narrow down the list.

I think if you add some useful features AND assign a moderator to keep the list up-to-date, then the calendar could be a valuable tool for finding games. I would not be surprised if it actually discourages players from looking for games in its current format.

[leozelig]

If you sort on Last GM Activity, you see roughly 1/3rd of the list is over 24 months old.

Excellent examples, JohnD.

I want to emphasize that Last GM Activity only updates when you edit the basic information about your game (ruleset, setting, etc.), which few GMs have cause to do once the initial entry is created. This is a MAJOR flaw in the calendar.

I used to update my dynamic server address just so the activity date would update. Lately, I have not been doing that because I use an alias, but my game remains as active as ever.

[bennis1980]

I'd like to see more html functions available for GM announcements so I can link source material for my campaign.

I would like to see the calendar appear in the same format as the handy tool someone made for the FGcon so players can view games according to time zone horizontally and the age (or other sorting) of the campaign vertically

Lastly, it definitely does need a clean up so older campaigns are no longer visible

[JohnD]

Excellent examples, JohnD.

I want to emphasize that Last GM Activity only updates when you edit the basic information about your game (ruleset, setting, etc.), which few GMs have cause to do once the initial entry is created. This is a MAJOR flaw in the calendar.

I used to update my dynamic server address just so the activity date would update. Lately, I have not been doing that because I use an alias, but my game remains as active as ever.
Yeah - which is why I'd look at marking the game as "Private" and/or "Not Accepting Players" instead of deleting it...

I suppose it's possible that a GM could run an on-line game for 2+ years with no player turnover or recruiting needed... but it seems unlikely.

[JohnD]

A few more of note:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/calendar/?id=416
Last GM Activity: November 11th, 2010 19:54

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/calendar/?id=465
Same situation (and GM as in https://www.fantasygrounds.com/calendar/?id=530) in my earlier post.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/calendar/?id=445
Last GM Activity: October 20th, 2010 01:07
4 "active" and 31 pending players for a maximum 6 player game.

[unerwünscht]

I am starting to think JohnD would be an excellent choice for cleaning the calendar.

[lachancery]

I am starting to think JohnD would be an excellent choice for cleaning the calendar.
LOL! I came to the same observation an hour ago as I read JohnD's message. ;)

[JohnD]

Well, I am willing to take it on if TPTB are amenable to it.

[JohnD]

Guess this is a non-starter. IMO a bit of a mistake.

[Blackfoot]

We use the game calendar all the time in a number of my games with different results.
The lack of email notifications on discussion messages makes the discussion all but useless, hence why we've made a point of in the PFS group of using Forum posts for all discussions.

My regular Thursday game uses it pretty religiously as it stands and it works ok up until there's a problem with a scheduled game... and then usually someone doesn't notice the message on the board that says 'game cancelled' up until they go check the board at gametime when nobody is around and the server isn't up.
In my Sunday evening game we have pretty much bailed on the calendar and moved to OP to do our calendar tracking.
In my Sunday morning game we've never used it... for whatever reason.
In the PFS games we do all of our announcements and discussions in the forums... we DO make use of the calendar for it's global clock functions and for a quick and easy list of who is signed up for games. These are one shot games so there is a lot of turn over... the calendar gets a lot of use for these and GM activity info is largely correct.
I also have a RuneQuest game open that is basically a list of players who wanted to be involved in playtesting a RQ extension... I could probably save all their names and close the game... but I keep it open as a reference, even though, currently, I'm not working on this project I do plan on picking it back up somewhere in the future. I could switch it to private or not accepting players, but I am kinda interested in anyone else who might be excited about this project moving forward again.

I'm posting up this info as general 'uses' sort of info.. I'm sure others use it in different ways.. but a lot of us likely have the same issues.

[Moon Wizard]

My apologies for slow response on this thread. I blame it on low personal bandwidth.

Let me talk with Doug about an appointment of a community manager for the calendar, and see how it is managed and whether this can be handed to a community member. That is, if you are still interested.

Regards,
JPG

[JohnD]

Certainly!