>Just a reminder that we're having our weekly chat concerning the
>improvement of the Phoenyx and you're all invivted to participate.
I would love to, but I'm having dinner with my in-laws. Next week [knock
on keyboard] if my new place doesn't interfere.
In the meantime, I'd like to see if I can make some comments based on what
I saw in the logs, and see if they help out any.
REGARDING: The Physical Metaphor of the Phoenyx
Are you sure you don't want to go for the "mythical" metaphor? To some
extent, you are redefining yourselves, so you are in the phoenix's stage of
"rebirth."
(Off-Topic: Of course, I found myself a few months ago redefining my site
in broad biblical terms: Genesis, being "character creation", Exodus being
links, Proverbs being the NPCs... luckily, I stopped there.)
Just a thought; I agree that the physical metaphor is probably the easiest
to grasp and navigate around.
REGARDING: Inclusion versus Exclusion
Since I'm the one to bring it up, I should probably really delve into this
a bit.
When discussing community, one of the major inspirational forces is
inclusion. I am certain (not even guessing here, just _certain_) that
we've all been in groups which had brilliant ideas that never got off the
ground because while the idea was excellent, the motivation was mixed, the
opportunities weren't focused, and well, you know what happened. (Heck,
let's not talk about the IRPS. [sigh]) [And yes, I'm still IN three of
these groups... as much as I'd like to contribute to them, I am learning
quickly my volunteering time takes away from my gaming time takes away from
my family time takes away from my personal time...etc. Add in the level of
responsibility you have to each group. Augh.]
When we look at _why_ this happens, we end up with a variety of
reasons. I'll tell you that the number two reason is "lack of focus." The
number one reason is "lack of incentive." As much as we WOULD gain if we
could organize, it's not always enough up-front.
Vision + Skills + Incentives + Resources + Plan of Action = Change
No Vision? Skills + Incentives + Resources + Plan = Confusion
No Skills? Vision + Incentives + Resources + Plan = Anxiety
No Incentives? Vision + Skills + Resources + Plan = Resistance
No Resources? Vision + Skills + Incentives + Plan = Frustration
No Plan? Vision + Skills + Incentives + Resources = Going Nowhere
This is actually a leadership exercise, not a community building one, so
let me try to drag these topics together.
We know that the Phoenyx requires a LOT from people in order to gain
inclusion. You're already working on the "exclusion;" with your choosing
to allow a game here or not, with your rules, even with your
recommendations. Now, this is with GMs. Is it required of the players as
well? Should it be?
Alright, I'm bringing up my own forbidden topic. Without naming the
organization I used to be in (and presumably was the head of, but that's
another story) let me explain one of our "vision goals."
We had a problem; yes, we had a mailing list of almost 13,000
people. (That's a big mailing list!) That included e-mails, addresses,
phone numbers... and a comments section as to the type of gaming they
liked. But, when it came time to get submissions for the newsletter,
voting input, heck, even polls, if we were getting 1%, we counted ourselves
lucky.
There were two sides to the solution.
One group of people believed that everyone should be removed from the
mailing list if they didn't contribute.
The other group believed we had to market better to ourselves to get more
information.
I was kind of mixed. I don't think we could get the first, as much as I
wanted it... (and a lot of very neat "volunteer experience points" plans
were invented.) The second was frustrating because none of us had the real
marketing know-how to make it work. Yeah, we could try to send a GURPS
something to everyone who said they liked GURPS, but was it meeting our
needs as an organization?
So, inclusion. Inclusion makes you feel part of an "elite" community. "As
a member of [the Phoenyx] I am special." What do we do to create this
feeling? Is it found in what is provided, the individuals, the flame-wars
[just kidding], or...? What is unique about it, if anything?
These questions will also lead you into "branding" and "marketing" your
community.
Maybe it helps if we back up a step. What inspires us to be included? You
need to look at home, first, before you try waving your flags outside.
I think you do have your poll question number one:
What brought you to the Phoenyx?
When you have people joining, do you ask them, "What do you want from
us?" Remember, you need to choose what moments you can get the good
evaluation information. [Heck, once every (six) months, I send out a "GM
evaluation" to my players. It's part of their role to fill it out.] To
some extent, you have to assume everyone's lazy and won't fill things out
unless it's handed to them, silver platter with pen on the side. And even
then, only if it's required.
[Great, now I'm seeing this [United States reference] IRS-like form for GMs...]
As for exclusion, I think that is a responsibility to keep a level of
quality and thematic control over the site. Whether it's moderation or
rules for what you require, or even a type of person, you need to be
discriminatory. You need to control (and in doing this, know what you WANT
to control) to keep out what you're not looking for...be it porn (awwww),
politics, or polytheists. [grinning widely] Should there be a style of
game or gameplay? (Not with what you've got so far, but maybe you want to
change and advertise a new emphasis?)
(Heck, I'm thinking of requiring a spelling test for my PBeM players
anymore. I don't recommend going that far...(but isn't it tempting? [grin]))
REGARDING: Unique Resources
> Silver says, "Consider what you can actually deliver to your members: do
> you have access to unique resources?"
Why my game joined the Phoenyx:
Yes, it was the mailing list. But I could have had that from a dozen other
places. I could NOT have gotten:
1) the same personal contact / well-thought-out instruction I had in
setting it up. I remember reading the log and seeing that a lot of people
had problems. When I had problems, I asked questions and got them
answered. That, however, takes administration time.
When filling out the form I know I interpreted some of the questions
differently than they were intended. Examples are good (and I think there
were a few.) How often do you review the submission form?
2) the same challenges (I am _very_ much in favor of the questions I was
asked about the game. It requires me to have a level of responsibility and
it made me very much feel like I was in "elite" territory.)
Again, I felt better thinking everyone I would be a GM with on the Phoenyx
had to answer the same questions... it made me feel like part of an expert
crowd.
3) the same identification with a site I have always considered a premier
gaming site.
4) the feeling of community. Sorry, I may run 10+ YahooGroups but I am
only reluctantly a YahooGroup user.
I've been thinking about running a game on the Phoenyx for YEARS. Maybe it
was the legends of other games that ran on it. Maybe it was the people
associated with it. Certainly it was a combination of those two things and
a little more.
Now that I'm on the Phoenyx, I'm really looking at the abilities I have as
GM to better administrate my game. Things I've thought I might want:
1) A "blog" like place for players to OOC chat or bring up their favorite
quotes. Something that doesn't have to be done in mail, that's a matter of
typing in and pressing "submit." Even if it gets me in trouble, later.
2) Something to help me write a weekly "this is what happened"
newsletter. Something that pre-formats it, and/or asks regular questions
(maybe changing from weekly to monthly) and allows you to do a search
through the logs to get _just_ the right quote. Something that connects
to a banner, and archives itself.
3) A "pictures" section for locations, NPCs, and PCs open to all players to
add links or upload pictures of a certain thumbnail size. With folder
options, too.
4) A "GM's commentary" section where I can muse on the events. (Maybe
connected to number 2.)
5) What about something like "submit-it" used to do that connects to all of
the open RPG link pages? (Uggh! Run and hide!)
6) What about player pages? Could there be a template I could lay out
easily that would just post player responses to my character creation quiz
without me having to do all the HTML?
7) What about web-to-mail forms?
Of course, I can put all of these up on my own web pages...but are any of
these ideas tempting? They're all a ton of work, but I was just
musing. Brainstorming.
Gotta go pack my office...
\\ Mb \\
I've got thousands of ideas and critiques, and only 1000 seconds a day to
work on them...
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Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
