Feedback from the community - Please Read.

[Meowcenaries]

I aswell have to disagree with the mandatory meetings. People all over world like Beta posted would be completely unfair to the community. I have to agree with the Recruitment policy and vent idea. Creative ^^

 

[fudpeX]

To everyone else: Things need to change for eGO to stay at the top of its game. So don't just settle into your comfort zone and resist change. Some change is good.

or, don't just sit there and wait for change, be the change.

 

[Razor]

Mandatory Meetings - I find it hard with all the time zones to get to a mandatory meeting and all the different school and work schedules. So I disagree with the mandatory meetings



Quotas - I strongly disagree the ban hammer is not always the best way to go There are alot of eGs that admin alot really depends on the day good or bad


Promotion Process - promotions should be earned not given. Have an interview process .Drop box great idea

Application Process When a new recruit submits an app he or she has read the rules and regulations. I as a recruiter I follow steps hopefully to weed out the bad apples. Once they put there "e" on then they are held to a higher standard.



Vent - Vent could use a good overhaul

 

[LuxMortim]

Mandatory Meetings: Absolutely not. Almost everyone here, including myself, have lives outside of gaming, including members of Leadership.

Quotas: Ridiculous. Ideally we don't want to ban anyone, but some people can be asshats and we have to bring out the hammer from time to time. Setting goals on how many times we NEED to do that is just asking for trouble.

Promotion Process: Bring back the neighborhood watch if quantity over quality happens to be the issue, which, I do agree is the case. Especially in the TF2 and CS:S divisions.

Application Process: Let them know the rules beforehand, and after acceptance, nail home the fact that they are held to a higher standard than just the basic rules. Representation is key.

Vent: Doesn't really bother me either way.

 

[jeod66]

All right, here we go:

Mandatory Meetings -Terrible idea. I've played in clans with them before, and it can be a royal mess. Also, with all due respect, our clan-wide meetings tend to drag on for an incredible length of time. Now, I'm completely ignoring the logistical problems here, for obvious reasons. One of the reasons I was attracted to this organization was that, as Featherfoot said, Life>eGO. You can always take a break if life requires it.

Quotas - I'm not sure exactly where "ban quotas" came from, because I don't see it here. I read this more as "I think we should promote more people, and I'm an eG, hint-hint", personally. Our leadership does enough as it is; there's no need to demand more of them. Time quotas are equally ridiculous. This clan is the way it is because we have a laid-back, casual approach to gaming that's centered around having a good time. That needs to be remembered in this discussion.

Applications Quite honestly, I don't care, because this doesn't truly impact me. I've seen a lot of good e-level members, and that's what we need.

Promotions -I can tell right here that this eG isn't from DoDS, and I'm glad for that, to be honest. As Admin Trainers, we take pride in what we do, and I feel strongly that our classes contain a lot of worthwhile information for admins to know and understand. The promotion process is influenced to an extent (note that I mean "a little", not "solely") by eG/eGO recommendations, and I take slight offense to the implication that all promotions are based on "knowing somebody"; I did indeed make eGO in 2 months and 2 weeks. I knew nobody in this clan beforehand, but was told that I was simply doing a solid job of keeping the servers running. This sounds again like an "I want an O"; people are promoted based on the job they're doing. If you can't be trusted, you won't be promoted, and it's as simple as that.

I'm concerned about so many people spazzing out and thinking that a "test" of some sort would be beneficial: It won't. Let's just state the most obvious thing here; you're taking a test, and you have access to Vent/Steam/IRC/any of the above. It's just not going to work. When you're an admin, you make decisions. We stand by you every time; if you screw up, we'll tell you so in private, and help you to know the rules. Admin training is about understanding the concepts and then applying them; we aren't going to write out a list of banned words/names/etc. because there are too many grey areas. If you don't understand what is and isn't appropriate, you clearly haven't read Central Admin 101 or the Admin FAQ.

Ventrilo - I take this as "I want to be able to talk to anyone anytime I want." The Ventrilo system as we have it is perfectly fine. I always go down to the channel for the game I'm in, and it's as simple as that. Contrary to popular belief, we DO sit in Vent when we aren't playing sometimes. The ability to password rooms is also necessary; there's no reason to move a bunch of people into a private channel for a short talk. Again, "If I want to talk to Council, I can do it" is the underlying message here.

I'd like to know what division this eG was from. It sounds like they want to run a realism unit (the kind where you're required to "salute" higher-ranking members over Vent) rather than just hang out and have a good time on clean servers.

In conclusion: I disagree with every idea on the board, because I believe that eGO is run well enough the way it is, and we don't need this foolish attempt to instill bureaucracy interfering with a well-running system.

 

[Zero711]

Vent: I like how the gaming rooms would be in the top, but put the server channels in, as opposed to the "Room 1, 2, and 3". I like having my Gravel Pit channel as opposed to having to declare room 4 as "the Pit O' Gravel Channel".

 

[shrimp]

Mandatory Meetings
This would benefit the community immensely. This would allow most members to be on the same page, especially with regards to admining servers or any other issues that may arise.
BUT I understand that would be impossible. Not all members are available with school/work/timezones or other real life issues.
Since not everyone can make it to the meetings, maybe the recordings could be a manditory sign off. Delegating a member/s to view the sign offs. You miss a certain amount of signs offs you lose your tags.
It would be a huge job, but I really think this would help in manning the admins.
Posting the meetings for people to view won't solve anything without this. Why? because I would be bet that there are alot of members that just don't watch them.

An added note: Posting on the servers, that an admin must visit the forum to keep their admin status just isn't good enough in my opinion.
Simply visiting the forums is not being an active admin. An active admin reads the stickies, question/answer section & anything else that is relevant to being a admin.

QUOTAS: I just don't like the sound of this. I understand that the organization does not run by itself, but surely there are other ways of achieving the goals & maintaining eGO standards.

Application Process
I agree that Quality is better than Quantity. Recruits should know all there is to know before they are approved. Which I believe the recruiters already have a set guideline in place. Adding a one on one chat session would be taking more time away from the recruiters to enjoy their time here (playing).
How about some sort of buddy sytem. For every 'e' that joins & gets accepted, it's up to an eG to take them under their wing & show them around. This would allow the admin recruiters to do their job in a timely manner without overburdening them. And at the same time, making the new recruit feel special. This would also help the eG move up in rank.

Promotion Process
Promotions should be earned. Period. Having eGO friends should help you to get your name out there, but promoting should not be based on that alone. Personally, I find it disheartening when I see a promotion being handed out to a member that has not been a part of the eGO community for very long.

That's about it from me

 

[Knucklehead]

Well first off mandatory meetings are bad for me. I miss a lot of them because of my screwed up work schedule. Mandatory to me implies a threat. There is no way I can take time off work to attend a meeting. I have bills to pay and a family.

Quotas? I can't even imagine the reputation we would have if I had to ban or kick a certain amount of people. I cannot imagine the stress on our leadership dealing with all this. Terrible idea and at this point I don't know if I could stay.

Applications and promotions need input from people that play with the person. All of the changes sound like some business and we are going to hire and fire people while we work them to death. What happened to the fun? I joined EGO for the fun and good peeps I met while playing. I was honored when tapped for promotion and did my best to learn and still have fun! I am proud to wear the O and I try to be the best admin and Team player I can. I don't have a lot of time to play but really enjoy the little bit I get to.

I've made some friends and think that the values we have and maintain on our servers is just a part of why we are the best. I understand that some aspects have to be run like a business but such strict rules and requirements would put a huge burden on a lot of our members.

I don't use vent in game because my house is relatively small and my computer is in a shared area of the house. Not easy to talk without bothering everyone else in the room and they look at me like I need professional help. First time I yelled SPY-ENGIE sorta freaked my wife out. Plus having to minimize the game to do anything in vent is not a good thing on my computer.

 

[GardenGroveVW]

Promotions -I can tell right here that this eG isn't from DoDS, and I'm glad for that, to be honest. As Admin Trainers, we take pride in what we do, and I feel strongly that our classes contain a lot of worthwhile information for admins to know and understand. The promotion process is influenced to an extent (note that I mean "a little", not "solely") by eG/eGO recommendations, and I take slight offense to the implication that all promotions are based on "knowing somebody"; I did indeed make eGO in 2 months and 2 weeks. I knew nobody in this clan beforehand, but was told that I was simply doing a solid job of keeping the servers running. This sounds again like an "I want an O"; people are promoted based on the job they're doing. If you can't be trusted, you won't be promoted, and it's as simple as that.

I'm concerned about so many people spazzing out and thinking that a "test" of some sort would be beneficial: It won't. Let's just state the most obvious thing here; you're taking a test, and you have access to Vent/Steam/IRC/any of the above. It's just not going to work. When you're an admin, you make decisions. We stand by you every time; if you screw up, we'll tell you so in private, and help you to know the rules. Admin training is about understanding the concepts and then applying them; we aren't going to write out a list of banned words/names/etc. because there are too many grey areas. If you don't understand what is and isn't appropriate, you clearly haven't read Central Admin 101 or the Admin FAQ.


In conclusion: I disagree with every idea on the board, because I believe that eGO is run well enough the way it is, and we don't need this foolish attempt to instill bureaucracy interfering with a well-running system.

100% Agreed.

 

[Boyle]

Some suggestions

1) Mandatory Meetings - I do not think this would work because of the logistics as far as the whole organization is concerned. Too many time zones and countries would require four or five meetings, just to give everyone a fair chance of attending "The Meeting" that fits their real life schedule. I would like to see more divisional meetings offered. I love everybody, but I really do not have time for TF2, COD, Counterstrike, etc., even though I have all of those games. To be honest they are great, but I don't care about them more than my DODS division. I have a hard enough time keeping up with that.

2) Quotas - I do not think we need quotas.

3) Application Process - I am not promoting the reinstatement of the house system, but I really liked the application process in DODS when we had houses. This was an area that I personally feel that the houses got it right. We could police our own and teach the eGO values on a more personal level, because our environment was smaller. The problem now is even though we still get good people to apply that we meet in game, it is harder to train and follow up on the new e's because there is less structure set up to follow them closely. With the houses we almost always had someone from house leadership keeping an eye on the new people while in game or in vent. I remember asking countless questions as an e, but I never felt like a noob about it because I knew everyone. I think people are afraid to ask questions now for appearing stupid or too eager.

4) Promotion Process - I feel like the promotion system is in need of some help. Again I am not asking for the house system, but how can anyone keep track of the good people falling through the cracks now? I would like to feel that my house leaders recommended my promotion because they knew what to expect from me as an admin. eGO is so big now, that management often times makes me feel like they do not have the time or resources to follow up on all the promotable people. I am an eGO and feel this way. Do some of the poor e's and eG's feel they are being overlooked?

I know that leadership does not have the time to keep up with everyone. So as a suggestion could we designate advisors in the maps to keep an eye out on their own little world, further supplementing the existing system with our regular admins? Anyone who plays the same map over and over knows the good guys from the bad guys. With proper training these "Map Advisors" could do their own legwork, guide people, and make recommendations based on sound judgement.

Sincerely,
Boyle

 

[Cobalt]

Although I am only an "e" and have not been around as the majority of you, I would still like to throw my two cents out there.

1) Mandatory Meetings - Refer to everybody else's post.
2) Quotas - I am not sure why everybody is bringing up ban quotas, but possibly a certain amount of timed played on their specific division. With that being said, I understand that this does not certainly mean that admins will be doing their job, but it is a little easier to tell when they are playing in eGO servers and not doing their jobs.
3) Application Process - This actually does make a lot of sense. Normally, being accepted into a clan is a prestigious award, while being accepted as an "e" is something so easy that you could be a complete, pardon the language, but a complete asshole. Being an "e" should be made a little more prestigious, meaning that you are held to a higher standard than the current expectations. This will not only weed out some of the troublemakers, but also make being an "e" make you feel more important, ergo meaning that as an "e" you feel like you are special to the clan.
4) Promotion Process - Being an "e" I don't have enough information about the current system, therefore I can not give an accurate opinion about this.
5) Vent - I almost agree 100% with 'his' setup of the way his vent would look. Much cleaner, much nicer, much more professional and overall just a better place to be in.

Also, I am not sure how to set it up, but I think that we should have a music room, where there is a DJ and everybody else is muted. I have noticed on other vent's that they use phantoms for the channel also.

 

[Disboyjerry]

like the idea, but like everyone else, the mandatory meetings ask for too much, but many a meeting with a set schedule would be fine to see who attends

 

[Snoopy [inactive]]

Mandatory Meetings- This is bad news, mainly because of the time zones, school, extracurricular activites (sports, etc) that people have.

Promo's- Don't know much about the current system because I'm an =(e)=.

Vent- I'm neutral on this.

 

[pickles]

I am all for the vent idea. I think, as most people said above, that it would be good to have fewer rooms, which wold force you to meet someone new. I think there should still be gaming rooms, but seriously, we dont need a room for EVERY server.

I also like the idea of and eG/eGO/Advisor test. This would prove that your a ready to be promoted.

That's what I see it as.

 

[BlazeFallow]

As a preface: I came to eGO after the gaming community I was in collapsed. The community was called LANFusion and had been around for a solid 5-6 years(long for the size of community it was, being only 100 or so members strong). There were a number of reasons why it dissolved and fell apart at the end some of which are covered in this person's PM. That being said, I feel I can speak from experience here. I was in a top tier leadership position when the LANFusion community collapsed and it was a miserable thing to watch. Seeing a community you love and have been a part of fall apart around you and knowing that the time for action to prevent it, or stop it, from collapsing has long since passed, it hurt. It felt like I was losing a family.

So take my words with a grain of salt, but know they do come from experience. While I realize that it is experiences with a much smaller community, I feel that they still cross over.

So without further ado:
Vent, the updated vent layout looks nice, but in practice vent will always look nasty. If you think about it, we just have a lot of games for one vent system. So you'll have a glob of people in this or that channel and nothing will make it look "balanced" or "clean" like an ocd fellow may wish for. the only time it would look pristine is without anyone in it.

that aside, I think the updated one does have a bit better organization than the one we currently have.

Mandatory meetings: These can't happen. Too many people wont make them and too much drama would come out of it. We attempted to make this happen and it just caused further bickering and separating of the different groups in our community. Even if a "make at least once every [time period]" approach would be likely to fail. There would be too much overhead to ensure that people were making it to meetings. secondly, the meetings can generally be summarized into something that people can read in 10 minutes or less. If a person can't make it, or doesn't feel like making it, then they forfeit their right to voice an opinion in a decision that is to be made in the meeting, and thus(if they chose not to attend when they could have) forfeit the right to complain about the outcomes.

Quotas: horrible. You cannot put quotas on things like banning or other administrative tasks. It's like telling the sheriff of a peaceful town that he *must* make 20 arrests per month or he'll be fired. it just doesn't make sense. Oftentimes I'll go 2-3 weeks in insurgency without seeing more than a few warnings for cursing from new players, let alone someone getting banned. In fact I can't remember the last time I saw someone get banned on any eGO server while I was playing.

As far as leadership accountability: this is KEY
This is the one major reason LANFusion fell apart. The leadership/owenrs lost interest and showed that loss of interest to the community. Rather than have an active role, or finding people who would be able to have an active role, the let things idle for a few months(7-8 to be exact) and the community devolved from a Mature(read: responsible, well mannered, fun) community into a Mature(read: immature thinking mature means r-rated so anything goes, ie porn sprays cursing every other word, using admin whenever they feel like it, etc.) community.

Without a strong leadership things can quickly cascade through the ranks and fall apart.

Which brings me to a point that someone else made, if an eG or eGO doesn't act on a breaking of the pub rules on the servers someone should make them aware of it. It's possible that they were *actually playing the game* and did not see the infringement in the chat log. I've had this happen many times. In insurgency the chat log moves so fast that sometimes even if you catch it at the last second you'll miss the name. so if someone else sees it the admin should just post in the admin chat, anyone going to handle this?" and if no one answers in 10 seconds or so then handle it yourself.

I was recently promoted to eG and that's the one thing they told me: you are first and foremost in the game to play and have a good time. you are not supposed to go in a game and idle in spec trying to police the server.

Applications: I think it's slightly different depending on who's recruiting you, and which division is doing the recruiting. So in this I suppose I agree in that there should be a more unified and cohesive process. Just a set of things that a recruit should have to read through and understand before they cna throw the e on. As far as making it more difficult, I don't see the point. the e means that they identify with the community and the values that is upholds, so long as the individual understands that and the values, then that should be fine.

Promotions: don't know much about the topic here as I only recently go promoted to eG, but I know that it feels like I did earn it. I've frequently help start pubs which were either empty or near empty, and I've always been devoted to the ego insurgency pubs and keeping them a clean fun place to play. I believe that that is what got me noticed by the upper echelon and thus got me the promotion. If there is favoritism going on then I agree that it should be stopped, however we should also be realistic and say that often times what appears as favoritism doesn't necessarily mean that it is.. Perhaps the person just plays when more leadership is playing and thus moves up the ranks faster because, since they play with more leadership, they know more leadership.

Anyhow, I hope all of what I typed here makes sense, it's kind of 2AM ramblings so I can't vouch for any coherency or lack-there-of.

Edit: my goodness I posted this as a quick reply so i didn't realize how ridiculously long it was, honestly if someone actually bothers to read this post they should get an award. The "Survived Reading a BlazeFallow Post" award.

 

[iamevilbear]

I don't really agree to be honest. There is no place for G's to meet privately (eG Private) or O's to me privately (eGO private).

Honestly sometimes a couple of O's all go to O private to discuss a ban contest or request or an issue on the servers that doesn't need to be in the public chat area. After seeing the disappearance of these forums it is difficult to discuss someone and have someone walk in in the middle of things.

I don't like the changes.

I would recommend one change. Change all of the channel codecs to speex to people who are at work can remain in vent if they use the mac platform. It could increase the number of people being able to assist members in making decisions regarding small issues.

As for now though, I don't care for the new channel layout. It seems like it is saying it is okay for council to meet privately but not anyone else.

 

[tiddy]

100% Agreed.

Welp, Council has weighed in on all this. Thanks for playing everyone.

 

[Un4Gvn]

100% Agreed.

I hate to appear to be on a bandwagon, but I'm in agreement with Gardens quote of jeod66. Word for word.

One thing I will say is, that this did generate some intelligent well thought-out posts. It's very good to see that our group can so readily discuss important relevant information in a timely matter without all the tit-for-tat hampering things up. It is also nice to see that our community members have the ability to voice opinions and through sharing ideas, affect it's own future.
I'd say that's a pretty good inclination of a VIBRANT community, THRIVING on it's TITANIUM "backbone" with an ENORMOUS member-base and a BRILLIANT leadership core both of which are EXPERTLY trained covering EVERY aspect of EGO. I can get you 2000 names for the bucket brigade before you see anything "burning down" around here, and our founders and council would be in the front.

Definitely appears to me that this member might not have been around for very long at the time of this post.

 

[ManBearPig]

I hate to appear to be on a bandwagon, but I'm in agreement with Gardens quote of jeod66. Word for word.

Qft

Jeod66 knows whats up

 

[xShuriken]

You shouldn't put a time quota on -video games-. There are already unspoken quotas met by the leadership, or else Council would be like "Hey, where the heck is this guy?" and replace them. As for administrative functions like bans, you can't put quotas on those, because it goes completely against the proper way to do things. You should try to do the job to the best of your abilities, thinking of each situation as a unique case. You should -not- be trying to meet some number limit of kicks/bans for fear of losing your admin powers. I would rather lose my admin powers than be pressured into kicking/banning people who do not deserve it.

As for applications, the whole code of conduct and such should be common sense to those who really want the tag. We shouldn't really have to point it out to them. However, this whole issue could easily be resolved by adding a link to the code of conduct and such in the 'Start Here!' thread.

Promotions: I'm not too familiar with how the other divisions handle things, but over at INS, I worked hard for my G and it had -nothing- to do with an admin class. You just take your class to finalize the transition. I've seen plenty of people that have worked hard and are awaiting their promotions, and I'm always looking for those =(e)=s to recommend in the drop box. It's not an easy road, at least not in our division. It should be noted that this comment is just for the e-eG switch, as I will not comment on the higher levels that I haven't experienced yet.

Vent: Both formats are fine with me. The new one is a bit cleaner, but the old one didn't really bother me that much, if at all.