You have been a member of rmmv for a pretty long time and are one of the most active members. However, as of late, the forum doesn't seem to have many discussion topics (that are really active)... as a Moderator, what do you think you can do to make this forum more active? (other than welcoming new members, I mean)
How will you get more people to speak up and discuss things--and most importantly, how will you get everyone to have even more fun here at rmmv? Of course this is a group effort that we would all help with, but I am interested in knowing more about your vision.
Thank you Micro for putting these questions before me. All of your questions fall within a larger vision for our awesome forums. How can we have more fun, will be covered in many of the answers.
How can we make the forums more active?
*We can do more recruiting. There are niches that we are currently looking at to add to our numbers other than traditional RPG Maker users. I am looking at inviting more artists, writers, and gamers to the forum. Right now, almost all of the reviews and feedback we get is from fellow game designers. Why not get feedback from gamers, the people who actually play the 2D games?
*We can make simple forum collaboration games. Imagine if we made a small fun game, where everybody could participate. This would be a game, to make a game. Imagine the challenges of incorporating everybody’s individual idea. Our forum has many people with a diversity of talents, in different fields, at different levels.
*Imagine having a different kind of contest. Imagine if an administrator or moderator posted a special post, and it had to be replied to in a particular way. They would be a special key phrase that the forum had hints about, but no one knew what the phrase was or within what exact day it would occur. That person would give us a hint, and the beginning. No one would know who found it, until the very end. Have a really nice prize. This would have people read and reply to sections that initially did not interest them.
How can we get people to speak up?
*One method I like using is PMing a person, and tell then that I would really appreciate their opinion to be shared with the forum regarding ______ thread. I have found that through asking, they usually will share their opinion publicly, and at worst, tell me they prefer not to.
*If the topic would not put the person in an awkward position, within the post, we can ,”@ForumMember, how would you solve this image challenge?” Sometimes it just takes a little prompting.
*We can give the person thanks for when they do speak up. We do not have to agree with the person. We can thank them for making a contribution to the discussion. This can be done publicly or through PM.
How can we make the forums MORE FUN?
*Have you ever seen a forum character wedding? I have. I actually ‘married’ a few gamer characters, and had a ceremony where the entire forum was invited. The only graphical representation we had were each other’s avatars.
*Have a live RPG Maker MV mini-game playing section. This take major funding.
*We can have a very informal Queen and King Jester contest. The contestants though CANNOT nominate themselves. After the forum votes, we can announce the winners, and have a crowning ceremony, and award them with appropriate badges.
My vision for this forum is a long term vision. I desire this forum to be the best RPG Maker MV forum that is out there. I want is to be the best so much, that I can see us attracting the non-typical members. Our forum may influence others to actually desire to buy the game engine. Here are a few things that I have envisioned, in addition to what has already been mentioned to help us grow and have a lot of fun while growing.
*Be a better role model, in the areas of financial support. Some of the ideas that I mentioned above will take major funding. If we desire to have them, it will take more funds. I pledge to increase my personal funding to help bring additions and improvements to the forum.
*I see us having NO need to have advertisements on our site. We continually increase the amount of monthly and annual funding, and they will be gone.
*I see us being at 10,000 members, in a short amount of time. The more members we have, the more opportunity, we to increase the number of Partners and Supporters that we receive. We are at over 3,000 members now. Now is the time to prepare for the ever growing membership numbers. Our forum family is growing, and we need to make the preparations.
*RPG Maker Forums will be known as the FREE premiere site to store and share you resources and mini-games and demos. A number of us have seen what happens when too many people download our images, and it being embarrassing for friends to attempt to download, and we ran out of monthly allowed bandwidth.We can promote this off-site to attract more potential members.
*We will be known at the friendliest, most fun, educating, resource providing, etc., forum in our genre and beyond.
How prevalent do you think legal issues will be for this forum?
Thanks for asking about legal issues, in the future for this forum, HotfireLegend.
To prevent legal issues,from occurring, in the future, we already have measures implemented to help. Moderators immediately warn members when there is a prospective ripped image. This applies to not only visual resources, but also auditorial. A forum is responsible for the content that is allowed. Another job of the moderator is to catch and remove inappropriate links to other sites. There are predators out there, and we have a diversity of ages groups represented. I am admin on a social media RPG group, and links appear that are malicious and inappropriate, pretty frequent. I do not see us having legal issues, because we have and will have more moderators looking for and addressing/removal potential inappropriate content.
Very nice thread! I've got a couple of questions:
> What do you think is more important: being taken seriously as a staff member, or being able to hang around with other users?
> You mention bringing direction to the forum, and in that you focus on introductions. How do you plan on bringing direction to the RM side of the forum?
Amy thank you for asking me these important two questions.
I think it is more important for a moderator to be taken as a staff member. It is a position of leadership. Moderators are to be role-models for the forum.
Thank you for allowing me to clarify what I meant by bringing direction. I used Introductions, as an example, because that is often the first encounter with a new member. By giving direction, I mean giving assistance. This assistance is available to be given throughout the entire forum. New members have questions or sometimes they do not know how or where to respond. It is our job to give them supportive direction. Common places the new member needs help in includes MV Support. We do not have to know the answer to give them direction; we can give them assurance that we will help look for a possible solution. New members may not know procedures on how to add a resource, and we find this out after they already submitted a resource. We can give them guidance on ways to get more exposure of their resource if they added one extra thing, which actual be a requirement. By direction, I mean helping and assisting the new member or any member that needs it. We are here to serve them.
Has anyone done something here, that you've seen, that you would have done something about as a moderator? (don't have to name anyone)
Wow! Macro, I actually thought of a similar question last night when I was preparing my initial campaign introduction
Yes, I have seen someone do something that I would have done something as a moderator. I even sent a report on this one. Here is an example of the scenario, someone placed a two-word review, with four stars. “Cool Dude!!!” He is how I would have responded, through PM. Notice a pattern: Positive, negative, positive. We want to encourage the member to keep being an active participant, while correcting desired area.
Hi ForumMember,
I am writing to you regarding a review you made HERE. [HERE linked to review thread]
Thank you for posting your review. You being an active member is appreciated.
Our forum has a three-word minimum post count. While this is the minimum, you might desire it to be a little longer, so the artist and other members can know why it is so Cool. Thank you for modifying your review, and I look forward to reading it.
I really appreciate you in helping this a better community, because you are a vital part.
Thanks,
MinisterJay
