New Game Mods: Mallorea and Riva & Mousebumples

[Sedgistan]

Having served as Forum Moderators for a year, passed the mandatory drugs tests, and been fitted with the necessary augmetic enhancements, Mousebumples and Mallorea and Riva have been cleared to compete in the Game Mod Olympics promoted to Game Moderator!

Please feel free to post congratulations and commiserations below.

[Kemintiri of Kemet]

All Hail Mouse and Mall!

[Shogun]

Congratulations! Deserved promotions!

[Kemintiri of Kemet]

Having served as Forum Moderators for a year, passed the mandatory drugs tests, and been fitted with the necessary augmetic enhancements, Mousebumples and Mallorea and Riva have been cleared to compete in the Game Mod Olympics promoted to Game Moderator!

Please feel free to post congratulations and commiserations below.

You misspelled the title Sedgy...

[New Chilokver]

Having served as Forum Moderators for a year, passed the mandatory drugs tests, and been fitted with the necessary augmetic enhancements, Mousebumples and Mallorea and Riva have been cleared to compete in the Game Mod Olympics promoted to Game Moderator!

Please feel free to post congratulations and commiserations below.

You misspelled the title Sedgy...

[Sedgistan]

Oops... fixed.

[Toronina]

Congrats to Mall and Mouse. May they do well as mods and win more medals then the others in the mod Olympics.

[Cerillium]

Congratulations to both.

[Ardchoille]

They needn't think they'll get out of the General Assembly that easily!

[The Blaatschapen]

They needn't think they'll get out of the General Assembly that easily!

No one gets out easy, the WA back offices are gnome sized, so it's very hard for either of them to get out

Congrats both

[The Dark Star Republic]

They needn't think they'll get out of the General Assembly that easily! :p

When were they last in the General Assembly? They've barely posted there since being modded a year ago.

[Land filled with People]

Surely some levels of activity as a forum mod are required before being promoted to game mod? It's understandable for people who are already game mods being less active - people's lives change. But does it actually serve any function to promote people (and give them more tasks to perform) when they aren't even overly active as forum mods?

Congrats Mouse

[Sedgistan]

Yes, some activity is required, and both have been sufficiently active. Bear in mind that mod activity can take place behind the scenes, such as on IRC or in our private discussion forum. I'm aware Mall was away for around a month earlier this year for RL reasons, but he was active before then, and has been active since returning.

It's worth noting that both Mouse and Mall were offered GM status several months ago, (both declined at the time due to gameplay commitments), so the team has been confident for a fair while that both would be good Game Moderators.

[West Aurelia]

Congratulations to both.

[Land filled with People]

Yes, some activity is required, and both have been sufficiently active. Bear in mind that mod activity can take place behind the scenes, such as on IRC or in our private discussion forum. I'm aware Mall was away for around a month earlier this year for RL reasons, but he was active before then, and has been active since returning.

It's worth noting that both Mouse and Mall were offered GM status several months ago, (both declined at the time due to gameplay commitments), so the team has been confident for a fair while that both would be good Game Moderators.

Activity can take place behind the scenes, but does it, is another question (eg. only Mouse or Fris have ever responded - if anyone has - whenever I've joined #themodcave - which I realise has more to do with when I join, than activity levels of the mods). Obviously, we the players cannot see this 'activity'.

So, noting that the following is based solely upon public records, I would dispute Mall's more recent activity (or, half the time that he's been a forum mod). Excluding the last several days, which I presume was when Mouse and Mall were asked/informed of being promoted, you really have to go back over 6 months, to the end of September, before Mall is ever that consistently active again. Between then and now it's been a combination of a handful of reports handled over a couple of days, with ~week long breaks between posting sessions, or a couple of reports on a single day with longer breaks between posting sessions.

To put some numbers on this, going back ~175 posts on Mall's account takes you to September 23rd 2014 - this is with personal, non-mod posts included. Mouse, for example, has made ~405 posts in a similar time frame; yourself, ~710; Euro, ~375; Ard ~90, DLN ~2100* and Nerv, ~925* (*Both Nerv and DLN have a lot of personal posts, inflating that count. Nevertheless, they were both still publicly very active as mods). I realise post counts are not always the best indicator for activity, however, in this instance they are the best resource available to players. And, frankly, forum mods, when able, should be forum modding - it's no use simply being involved in back room discussions if the mods aren't involved in the actualities of the player-base's habits/trends etc. That just causes greater disconnects between players and mods, which is never a good thing.

Further, it doesn't appear that more game mods are necessarily needed at the moment. By and large, GHR's I've filed have been responded to quickly. Those that have a longer response time (several hours, rather than within an hour or two) are typically sent during the early hours of American morning - something that adding two more American game mods would not alter. The same can be said for the forums.

To be clear; I don't take issue with mods being less, or more, active. Circumstances change, or people go away, and RL is always more important than NS. However, I do take issue with promoting a forum mod to game mod when they haven't been all that active for the last 6 months - just as I would take issue with promoting a player to admin, or player to forum mod if they exhibited the same levels of inactivity.

[Frisbeeteria]

it doesn't appear that more game mods are necessarily needed at the moment.

That used to be a consideration, but it's not so much one anymore. Granting GM powers isn't a matter of assigning mods to the back room to handle GHRs - it's just giving them a bigger and more effective toolbox. It's a promotion based on our trust in their ability and reliability rather than a specific game need.

All GMs are also FMs. Being promoted doesn't mean you stop monitoring the forums. I work both sides of the game about equally, as do most of the GMs.

[Cymrea]

Congratulations and commiserations in equal measure to both Mousebumples and Mall.

[Kaboomlandia]

Congratulations to both.
Also, does this mean that there is now nobody that is at the rank of "forum mod" now?

*goes off to recommend someone else*

[Wirbanskia]

Holy shit, sweet! Awesome job to you both, it's well deserved!

[Sedgistan]

Congratulations to both.
Also, does this mean that there is now nobody that is at the rank of "forum mod" now?

*goes off to recommend someone else*

Correct, but as Game Mods can (and do) moderate the forums too, there's no particular need to always have mods holding the Forum Mod rank.

[MERIZoC]

Congrats guys!

[Shazbotdom]

The competition might be fierce this Mod Olympics, eh? Should be even more interesting than before.


Welp.


Grats to Mal and Mouse. Get dem bots and other such unwanted things.




Please don't kill me, either.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

...

Do we need more game mods? This site is over-moderated as it is.

[Enfaru]

We have...

1 Site Admin
2 Game Admin
1 Cute Purple Dinosaur
1 Forum Admin

19 Global Moderators / Game Moderators
2 Senior Game Moderators
1 Senior Issues Moderator

In total we have 27 Mods (and one techie)

At the last count we have 140,313 nations

That's 1 mod for every 5196 players (assuming all of them are active all of the time). This site is far from over moderated.

To put that in perspective in 2008 Phpbb had 1 mod for every 2500 users https://blog.phpbb.com/2008/08/12/how-m ... ally-need/
Others believe that a higher ratio is required http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/ge ... moderators

The general consensus appears roughly at 1 mod for every 3000 users. Given that there are 200 users on right now (and apparently no mods) I'd say there might be a problem with understaffing.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

We have...

1 Site Admin
2 Game Admin
1 Cute Purple Dinosaur
1 Forum Admin

19 Global Moderators / Game Moderators
2 Senior Game Moderators
1 Senior Issues Moderator

In total we have 27 Mods (and one techie)

At the last count we have 140,313 nations

That's 1 mod for every 5196 players (assuming all of them are active all of the time). This site is far from over moderated.

To put that in perspective in 2008 Phpbb had 1 mod for every 2500 users https://blog.phpbb.com/2008/08/12/how-m ... ally-need/
Others believe that a higher ratio is required http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/ge ... moderators

The general consensus appears roughly at 1 mod for every 3000 users. Given that there are 200 users on right now (and apparently no mods) I'd say there might be a problem with understaffing.

I'd half the number, myself, as Max won't go completely unmoderated.