The Forums
 

NOTE: I am in no way trying to bash or criticize the moderation, so please, read this with an open mind.


The forums are dead. Sure, we've known this for a few years now, but I'm not only talking about amount of posters (compared to the past). We barely have any active moderators in the vast majority of forums, and Darlene is the only active super moderator.

Looking at the "Global Staff Contacts" thread, there are a few errors. Skyld is listed as only member of the "GS-Team", which is a group that to my knowledge hasn't existed for years. I'm not sure what he actually should be listed as, he's... SUPER Skyld. Stephen is listed as the Zone Administrator, something he hasn't been for 1-1.5 years, maybe more. Tig is apparently a super moderator, but I don't think he's actually moderating anything aside from the GK forums.

Now, let's take a further look around and see what we can find...

• There's a Global Scripting Team section. As I mentioned, the GST hasn't existed for quite a while. Last post that wasn't Snk trolling was from 2008.
• The Wiki Administration Team should be named to something more fitting, such as Global News Administration Team
• Half a decade from being on the Classic list later, Bomy Island still has a forum. Sentimental value? Certainly doesn't serve a purpose since it's not even being developed.

The development forums especially could use some moderators. The levels forum have Crono, he's been doing a decent job moderating so that's great. I'd recommend Dusty and Aeko as moderators for the graphics forum since it has none. Skyld and Tig are moderators of the scripting forum, but I'm not sure if either one of them have been very present the last months. In either case I'd recommend Chris as a moderator for that. We have one active person that specializes in ganis, and that's Fulg0reSama. I think he'd do an okay job at moderating.

I'd also like to mention the ~20 stickied threads in various sections that are no longer valid. More specialized moderators could definitely solve that though. Maybe even one or two more super moderators? You gotta start trusting more people Darlene!

Yeah, haven't you noticed that just about every gave up or doesn't care?


-Neg rep leaver; You mad?

Some of us do care, though.

good luck with that

It's not up to her anymore. If it were, it's likely I'd be a Super Moderator, myself. Instead I'm waiting on a response from Stefan as to whether or not he'd like another Super Moderator.

As for everything else, I guess it's a matter of perspective. Most of the parts that are still active still hold a fair bit of weight binding the forums to the game/server they correspond to whereas there is indeed a lot of dead or no-longer-valid forums and threads stickied that would better be seen the end of in acceptance that they're obviously not coming back and if they do, it'd actually be better to start fresh with fresh information.

It really wouldn't be very difficult for sections to be fixed and moderators to be added, provided someone could have the right to fix them.

The problem with removing moderators is that I dont know when people leave their positions. People leave and come into positions often, and I'm not always told.

As far as needing more moderators, I really don't see a reason for it, with the exception of another supermoderator simply because Tig is head of the pwa and is busy, and maybe one for the scripting section.
Most of the forums have moderators.

I do agree there are areas of the forum that need tweaking and cleaned up.

The forums are dead because there are new online social gathering places for Graal players ran by players with more relaxed rules. As far as my moderating, I think I hand out more infractions than Darlene! :D (but she's less likely to give infractions, she moderates more than I do).

The biggest thing is that Graal is subdivided by server. Server managers want full control over their forums just as they have full control over their servers. These forums do not offer that, and we do not force servers to use the official Graal forums. There are ways to fix this, but it's way out of my or Darlene's hands.

Do you have rights to edit the theme and stuff? I think maybe we could do a community project to improve the general theme of the place.

Aw, thanks.

It's true guys, it's true.

:D
I am still watching the forums daily, and often moderate threads in the scripting forum. There hasn't been much activity in the scripting subforums in general though, because not many people seem to be developing anymore.

No

Oh ya, graphic forums definitely don't need any type of moderation. :rolleyes:

Oh :/ That stinks.

I don't remember where, but I know many tutorials listed have either broken links or images.