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.

[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!