March 2022 Community Management Update

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Welcome to the end of March. Another month goes by and there has been a lot going on behind the scenes within the Community Management team that should make April an absolute powerhouse of a month. We're excited to launch some pretty massive and exciting changes very shortly. Hopefully this will give you a small peer into what's happened and what's to come.

Heidi, Media Community Manager
We're very excited to have Heidi join the Community Management team to assist with our Media efforts. Heidi will work along side Webby who will still maintain a co-leader seat overseeing Media. With all of the projects and demands on a small team, it made sense to separate efforts between current internal and future external projects within Media. Heidi will mainly focus on current projects already existing in Media that require a significant amount of attention such as news, graphics, and supporting the existing teams. Meanwhile, Webby will focus on upcoming projects such as social media, video production and live content. Heidi comes equipped with a bold personality that will prove valuable to important community wide discussions within the Community Management team while working in Media.

Return of Regular Meetings
Meetings keep the community in the know with what's going on in the community. Regularly scheduled community-wide meetings are being taken over and spearheaded by @FirezFury and @Rykes. In an effort to provide most important updates up front and make sure they don't lose their spotlight, only critical information will be shared at community-wide meetings. Depending on the importance and relevance to all members in the community, some updates from the game you play most may be shared out at a game specific meeting rather than the community-wide meetings. You can expect the next meeting to be scheduled for mid April with an official announcement on a date arriving soon.

Structural Changes Incoming
We've recently finalized a plan for significant structural and hierarchy changes in the community. While these details can't be shared entirely at this point, I use this as a tease that some significant news is on the way. Recognizing people is important in this community and we will be pushing forward with a new initiative to recognize dedicated and reliable members in a whole new way. We expect the details to trickle down through the Leadership ranks in the coming weeks with an official release to the community at the April meeting. I have nothing more on this topic in particular. I think I have said enough.

Disrespect, Harassment & Discrimination
In my final bit of news to share out, we've finalized a new plan regarding disrespect in the community as well as the targeted discrimination policy. Official details on this will be released by @Adam in the coming days / weeks. To provide some background, nearly a year ago we modified our Racism policy (a zero tolerance policy resulting in permanent ban) to transition to a targeted discrimination policy (also zero tolerance). A year later, we've re-looked at the many layers within this policy and determined that there's a way we can do it better to represent our values as a community most effectively. Bottom line - no one should be disrespected on our servers. Everyone should feel that they have a place to game here and not have to worry about anything else in the "outside world." We're here to play games and have fun. I believe these updates will provide some much needed clarity to handling these situations and live up to the values that this community strives to uphold. You'll see these reflected in an update on our About page soon.

Why We Exist
Provide a punk-free gaming experience to gamers worldwide.
What We Commit To
Drive an emphasis on maturity, fair play, helping others. Having a fun and competitive gaming experience that all can enjoy.
What We Want To Accomplish
Connect and bring gamers of all calibers from around the world together.
Who We Want To Be
Honorable, Loyal, Integrity, Exciting, Engaging, Safe, Fun.

Legend Leaves
While some may jump for joy hearing that I am leaving - know that it's not permanent. Dramatics aside, I will be taking the next few weeks away from my daily duties of EdgeGamers and will operate in a very limited capacity as I begin a relocation across the US to the windy city of Chicago. I'm seriously not looking forward to being in the cold and snow again.

In the weeks ahead I have asked the Board to assist with the daily operations and tap into the very capable minds that sit on that team. @USCG Hammer, former CEO and leader of this community, has agreed to take a much more active day-to-day approach with his interactions. I'm excited to see him with his "boots back on" and interacting with our leaders on the front lines to make sure we continue to achieve our goals. Hammer has been a fantastic mentor and friend over the years and I can trust him to keep the train on the tracks and even push us to chug a little faster. He will be working with the operations team, @Adam @FirezFury and @Rykes, as well as with all of you! Hammer is an "in the weeds" type leader so I have no doubts our Leaders and even members will have interactions with him over the next few weeks.

Closing
I took a moment to reflect earlier this week on some of EdgeGamers history and it's not always been the easiest road but we figure out how to make the community work. I was able to dig up a thread from 2009 where a younger @GardenGroveVW sparked discussion in the "Council" team concerned about communication.

Look guys, I'm getting tired of the of the fighting. I'm getting tired of the fighting especially within the council. No one seams to be on the same page, or even working together, why continue when you can't work with someone? Yea I know thats life, and I've learned that you should just deal with the people you can't work with. Well in this case its different. Its a gaming community where its suppose to be fun. Suppose to be a place where we can all come here and be friends and have a good time playing games.

I think sometimes some of us forget that this is a gaming community and not a fortune company. I wouldn't even label us as a small business. We're a bunch of people passionate about gaming that want to extend a certain experience to all gamers possible. Sometimes our expectations exceed that and there's a general feeling that this community should operate like a corporate company with professional departments. In those companies, you have true professionals put in positions (in most cases) that have years of experience in communication and their field of expertise. We're not going to be the best at marketing, managing, communicating. At minimum, we have to be willing to talk and figure it out - and I believe all of our Community Management team will always afford that opportunity.

Most of the community typically is younger. They are just starting to dip their toes into the real world. We offer these people the opportunity to leverage EdgeGamers' platform to explore responsibility and leading. For those who are a little older, we don't always want to come home from a 40 hour work week and have to re-live some of the same things we do in our day-to-day job here at EdgeGamers. What I am saying here - running a gaming community isn't going to always be easy but we are committed to make it work and figure it out.

We need to consistently remember the basis of what we should be doing is being friends who have a good time playing games, together. I'd be willing to bet if we were in that mindset more frequently, we wouldn't be as concerned about who communicates what or who didn't do the tasks they should have done. Can't we just play some games and chill?

As always, I appreciate all of the work our Community Management team members put in along with the countless hours that our Leaders put in to make the operations of this community happen.

See you in game soon.

February 2022 Community Management Update https://www.edgegamers.com/threads/377213/
 
Legend said:
Legend Leaves
While some may jump for joy hearing that I am leaving - know that it's not permanent

Legend Legend , I feel like you were attacking me personally with that statement.

All jokes aside, safe travels. We'll see you when you come back. I am excited to see the return of my original admin trainer and someone I've admired ever since my journey into Leadership a decade ago, @USCG Hammer.
 
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We need to consistently remember the basis of what we should be doing is being friends who have a good time playing games, together. I'd be willing to bet if we were in that mindset more frequently, we wouldn't be as concerned about who communicates what or who didn't do the tasks they should have done. Can't we just play some games and chill?

I'm incredibly happy to see this posted here. Entire closing section of this post is great.

Lots of good stuff in here and lots to keep looking forward to. Good stuff Legend Legend and best of luck on your move.
 
And just like that, the Legend is gone, never to be heard from again . Safe travels, hope to see you back soon.
 
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