Bad communication between community and devs -> community manager needed!

[Vibe]

I never said I wanna do the job, and I definitely don't want to. But I still find it amusing how I made you somehow hate me so much, that whenever I post you never miss the occasion to write something negative about my person. Seems I hit a nerve? 

Joker I don't hate you, I don't hate anyone in this mod really. I just like making fun of you, you can picture me as a dickhead or something, no probs

PS: i never read more than 2 sentences in your posts, sue me

[Bryggan]

Seriously, folks, if you are not able to read any text which is longer than three sentences, I would really recommend you to limit your participation onto the spam forum, because some matters can not be discussed with one liners. I don't fucking care if you didn't read or not.

True, that's why most people on this forum respond with a giff.  And then the next poster quotes the giff, and adds a smiley face under it.

Anyways, I think people should take what they're given and be happy with it.  Gift horses and teeth and all that.  Still, if this cuts down on all the whiny bitchy people whining and bitching about not getting their way, then hip hip hurrah for it.

[Oberyn]

Meow probably got all the compassion and kindness drained out of him by the community. In his place I would've regularly started referring to people seeking my help as "retarded cunts" or "whiny 5 year old girls with pigtails". In fact, I already do that and I'm not even forced to deal with them.

[Molly]

Joker I don't hate you, I don't hate anyone in this mod really. I just like making fun of you, you can picture me as a dickhead or something, no probs

PS: i never read more than 2 sentences in your posts, sue me

You appeared today in front of this court because you have been accused of being a dickhead who is not capable or willing to read more than 2 sentences of post made by the sueing party.

How are you pleading, sir?

 

[Joker86]

Well, I guess I can already forget about the idea. One reason why I make so long posts is that there should not be any misunderstandings, and still chadz seems to have misunderstood something and replied with a short, ironic post which I interprete as "No. I don't bother giving a reason. Fuck you.", while cmp just gave my OP a "-". And of course there are all the other dickheads which complain that I don't use the forum as some kind of chatroom where the messages stay for some time.

Really, I just realized how much I wasted my time writing that post. 

[Oberyn]

Really, I just realized how much I wasted my time writing that post. 

And knowing is half the battle.

[Molly]

[...]
and still chadz seems to have misunderstood something and replied with a short, ironic post which I interprete as "No. I don't bother giving a reason. Fuck you.", while cmp just gave my OP a "-".
[...]

The sad thing is actually that probably nobody expected anything else.

[Micah]

Meditating is not a good tool to transport informations and never will be. Adding an instance between communicating parties must always be seen as a sacrifice in information transported and additionally the joy to directly talk to the guy who needs to be adressed. Your idea would cause the "gap" you try to close here.  Direct (as in 1on1) communication is simply the best thing you can have. even if its rare for some cases. if you feel the urge to immanently talk to an admin/dev, use the IRC. forum is not the right platform for that.
I just want you to notice that chadz directly answered to your post, which would barely happen if your idea would be implemented. In case of a (how you call it) communication manager, you would always see the bored guy with his fake smile.
Better structured/moderated forums however sounds very nice to me. Even tho a forum will never be more than a big mountain of scrap, it still serves the purpose of granting a view to community interrests.

[chadz]

Just when I was to elaborate the reasons, Micah came along and did it better than I could.

When we don't say something, it's not because we are too "lazy" to post on the forum. It's either because we don't know at this point, or we do know and don't want to communicate it yet.

Either way, all you would get from a "community manager" is someone saying "I don't know" on any question you ask him. I can code a bot for that if you want.

And when I have some real info, I have to take the time to explain it to the community manager and make sure he does understand it so he doesn't misquote me.
And how would that be easier or faster than me posting it directly?

It's really just a guy in the middle that takes away community interaction.

Why do you think the "big gamestudios" have someone like that? Because they don't give a shit about the community themselves. I do.

[ROHYPNOL]

Nerf Crying

[chadz]

For the record, we read (as a collective dev/admin/beta tester being) every thread in this forum. Maybe except spam. And faction halls. But definately anything worth reading. If you post a suggestion in the forum, we will read it. If it's good, someone will tell me about that good idea. Happens every day, quite often actually. Not all suggestions are really good, but the good ones stick in our head and get the brainflag "pending". We don't reply at this point because people immediately get their hopes up when we do. And we can't guarantee that we can find the time to implement it. And then people will pester us about 20 different things where we once posted "looks interesting, we'll try and bring it into the game".

That's why we usually inform when something is close to getting finished, not when we think about something.

[Tristan]

Lets go Corporate.

We also need an Senior Accountant, Junior Accountant, Legal Advisor, Marketing Consultant, Direct Sales Representative, Project Managers, Business Developers, Customer Relationship Managers, Community Managers, Country Manages and Area Managers, Cheif of Human Resources, HR Consultanta and HR assistant.

We need ERP systems, ECM system all integrated in the intranet and extranet with an expensive homepage.

Now we only need something to actually manage with all the mid level managers ^^.

Oh and I forgot we need community representatives and CSR inititatives!

[bruce]

All communication must be approved by the propaganda office and pass the censors.

Free posting without propaganda office approval is an outrage!

[Nessaj]

A CM for C-RPG isn't needed given the community isn't bigger, what sort of questions and tasks could he answer/do that the current team cannot?
It is true that most CMs for big companies are simply parrots, which usually repeat "I don't know" OR "I have to ask" and doesn't really answer any questions, he or she is just the one to write about new things happening, which anyone could have done really.

However, just taking questions and giving answers isn't the sole job of a Community Manager, there are plenty of other tasks involved which are highly useful to any company, it simply depends on what type of production that's going on. A CM would be the one taking care of fan sites, social media (trust me you'd want someone to handle that tedious crap ), outside-communities, web-related tasks, compiling user requests, real life event planning, tons of stuff, not just answering forum posts

CMs are great when there's a big production going on, it is simply impossible to coordinate everything between your staff, so if you let everyone speak and post without any coordination it'll end up with plenty of people misunderstanding each other and the information presented to them - instead a 'front man' (or several) where everything can be forwarded to is hired.

Conclusion: Not needed here.

If there were several thousands of people active at any time though, with a staff working on the mod 8 hours a day etc then 100% a proper CM would be useful for everyone.

[Tristan]

On a more serious note, several gaming companies have gone away from CM's.

An example is EVE. Before none of the devs were allowed to talk to the gamers directly on the forum.
That policy was changed. Most of the CM department was fired and now devs communicate directly with the gamers.
This has in many great ways developed a tighter bond between the gamers and the devs. You just accept more shit, when you can talk to the guy who coded it himself and you foten realise they don't do bugs and bad stuff because they hate you.