Suggestions for dev on specific areas for improvement

[gracewar7]

Hi everyone,

I work at Gaia on the product management team and have been tasked with looking at features that would improve the guilds. Pirula, who sits a few steps away from me, told me about this guild and I was excited to post here to get your feedback.

I read through a few of feature suggestion threads here and thought there were really good suggestions in there. I'm looking for more ideas that address the following issues I'm trying to resolve. At risk of asking you to repeat yourselves, could you please contribute suggestions in these categories?

1) Features that help Guild owners recruit more members. For example, as a Harry Potter guild owner, would you like to be notified of users identifying Harry Potter as one of their interests and be able to send them an invite?

2) Features that ease the Guild joining process. Currently, there is a time lag for applications to be accepted. I saw a good suggestion here about having a trial period for new members. Are there other ideas along the same vein?

3) Features that help new members engage with the Guild. Posting for the first time in a Guild can be intimidating. What sorts of activities do you think a new member could easily contribute to? E.g., opinion polls, quizzes that could be highlighted in a central place?

4) Features that help a Guild stay active. Currently a lot of the burden falls on the Guild owner to organize interesting and relevant activities. What incentives can we give members to stay active and help the Guild owners grow the Guild? For example, what if the most active Guilds unlocked levels of cool features like new backgrounds or post styles for their Guild?

Thanks a lot in advance for your thoughts. I look forward to reading them!  

[MemoryDragon]

Yay! More staff interest in our humble guild. heart

For the first point, most definitely not. I think we might be flooded if we were notified every time someone added something like HP to their interests. Instead, I think a way of searching the tags would be easier. Like, having a search panel as part of the invite function that will search for users with that tag. (Small plug... It'd be wonderful if you could eventually add tags to journals too!)

Point two, I'll have to think about. A trail period does sound interesting...

Point three, guild play time. Something like, being able to play pinball, slots, or even the Zomg as a real time way to interact with people. That way really shy people can jump in the convo when they feel welcomed enough. I do like your idea of a central newbie area of quizzes of some sort though...

Point four... Bring the guilds into Gaia events! Like for Christmas or Halloween, have certain items that you can only get from posting in the guilds and interacting with your guild mates there. xd But I've been championing that for a while now... For the non-holiday seasons, I do like your ideas of special guild features. Maybe even a small percentage of gold each month. It can vary, depending on how active, for each member or something. Or even just for the guild itself, if we start having something other than subforums to spend our gold on.

I hope that helps some. There's my two cents for now, but I'll definitely try to come up with more suggestions for the points you've raised. I love the GGN dearly and want to see it improve! heart  

[Pilotslover]

We've said it once and again ... Mass PM's!!

1 - Makes me a bit uncomfortable if I'm honest.

2 - Trial periods sound a good idea, maybe a 'strike' system so that after a month or so if they've had three strikes they have to leave?

3 - *shrug* It should fall on the guild moderators to make new members feel at ease. I just invited two people to join my guild and we've greeted them and made them feel welcome.

4 - Why shouldn't the burden fall on the moderators of each guild to keep it alive? We took on the responsibilty after all. I don't think this is something Gaia should feel obligated to help out with. (I'm reviving a guild myself right now and that's fully my responsibilty since it's owners don't seem to care about it right now)

I actually like how bare bones the guilds are, I don't really want them to be more complicated, that isn't to say that I won't accept changes and I do want mass PM's and such but ... IDK, the guilds are the last bit of Gaia that feels ... old, as Gaia was.

Sorry if that's a bit ... confused, it's early.

PL  

[mamarita]

Let's see if this catches their eye: The 1st thing we want is:

MASS PM'S

Next is:

USING THE GUILD TREASURY FOR SOMETHING OTHER THAN BUYING FORUMS  

[churrlo]

First of all, thank you for continuing to show active interest in the guilds. Its nice to know that work is still trying to be made. Now lets see...

1. Definitely not... there would be too many members and it would just go crazy with the amount of PMs being sent. I don't think the servers could handle it. I liked Memory's idea of being able to search for interests while on the invite page.


2. A trial period sounds good for me. I would make it like a week... it gives new members a chance to see if they like the guild, and guild crew and captains to see if the members will follow the rules too. smile


3. I really like the idea of highlighted quizzes. We already surveys here offered, which I think is a good way to get people to do something proactive upon newly entering, not to mention we also have the usual introduction thread that many guilds have. The ideas of quizzes or small little things like that is a good way to get people to participate in my opinion. smile Especially if they would maybe award small amounts of gold!


4. I like the idea of unlocking cool new features and backgrounds for guilds, its a good incentive for members to post more and a way to take some of the burden off guild leaders. We have to scramble here to come up with contests once a month usually to get more activity... its died down since the captains guild closed.

Mamarita mentioned being able to use the guild treasury for something other than buying subforums, maybe this is something that could be looked into. You could have features unlockable through post count or activity, and then some that are bought through the treasury. Or maybe you could offer the choice between waiting to unlock something through posting, or by having the option to instantly buy the feature with the gold in the treasury for those people who don't want to wait. That sounds like a good idea to me.

Also, Memory discussed having the holiday / forum events here in the guilds. I think that would be GREAT. I also have to search and find my fellow guild members in the forums and its not always easy to play with my friends. It would make it a lot easier to have even more fun with the people that I have grown close to smile


5. Oh and yes, we still want Mass PMs.  

[Chellies]

1. I agree with most on how getting updates like this would be annoying, and that just having an easy-to-get-to search engine would make things easier.

2. As for the 'trial period' idea, I'll be honest and say I'm confused. Is this a 'boot the member out of the guild if they don't post for a week' sorta thing, or 'in a week send the captain a notice asking if they want to keep this user in their guild' sort of thing? Or am I just not getting it?
But either way, I don't see it as necessary. If the guild watches checks out how active and how long every single person has been in the guild to feel the need for a trial period, then couldn't they just boot them out of the guild themselves if they feel it necessary, or the member could just quit the guild if they wanted to? Or, If you have a larger guild that's constantly getting new members, then trail period managing/notices would just get annoying. Then again, there's more small guilds than larger guilds, so I don't know.
[And I'm sorry if it's just me not understanding what exactly this 'trial period' would do.]

3. As for this, I mostly just agree with Pilotslover, and that it's the guild's responsibility to welcome and help the new members.

4. Oh! Cooler features! Like I saw the suggestion a while back - guild halls?
Or just a personal/private place in towns where members of the guild can get together, hang out, and interact.
This would also be what some of the guild's untouchable funds could be used for. Buying a lot for their guild, and buying a buildling. [Then you could buy the furniture for it, or possibly extensions if you've got a larger guild.] Then only the crew [or even only the captain/vice] could have access to moving around the furniture and other things inside.
I personally thought this idea was amazingly cool, but then again others might not feel the same way.

And on another random note; 'Date last visited guild' on, say,, the guild member page would be useful too! [Kind of like Date Joined, but the day/possibly time the person last visited either the Guild Homepage or the Guild Forums]. That would help with determining active users within a guild.

Edit: On another random note, I don't remember if these things were mentioned or not, but:
Mass-delete threads [maybe possibly even by forum]
Rearrange/delete subforums  

[churrlo]

Something cool would be like Guild houses in towns! I agree with Chellies. I also think that something like a Guild... whatever that music thingy is called thing would be cool too! And members could put songs that they've been listening to recently on it! smile  

[OneOfLittleHarmony]

I would like to see the ability for captains to see what their crew is doing regarding post/topic deletion and moving threads and what not. This feature got turned off a while ago and it's been somewhat frustrating as I had an incident where a crew member deleted someone's post for what appeared to be no good reason, something I'd find unacceptable, even though it's perfectly allowed in guilds by Gaia and didn't know immediately who it was until I pieced some more things together. I'd also like to have the guild ranking formula open.

I would love to have a search feature in guilds, at least for topic titles and such. I would like to see the member list have the ability to sort up and down alphabetically and by post count, so as to enable one to quickly see who has no posts in the guild, and who has a lot. Perhaps this would be more easily accomplished if the member list changed to 100 or more names on a page instead of 25.

Also, I'd like to have the pages back to the transaction log, so we can review transactions beyond the first page.

 

[pheonix20222]

Personally, I would say that the glitches in the GGN system should be the
main focus on concentration at the moment. But since you asked....

It wouldnt be a bad idea for sending them invites or giving them a list to
choose upon guilds that match their interest. However, I think they might
be overloaded with guilds in that case. Maybe if they are given a pm with
a link to the guild search engine automatically searched out in their interest
like this, then it would be a lot easier, but it would still drown out all
the guilds not on the first page because most people dont know better then
to just go off of the first ranked pages of the registry.

If you mean trial period as in an automatic ban system for members who
do not post within the first time frame of joining, then Im for it. heart
Every single large guild that I am in has at least an average of ten people
who have no posts on each page. Its really sad and misleading when the
user count says 25,000, and only ten people in the guild are actually
posting.

I really think that it is the captain's duty to keep a nice, welcoming
environment for newcommers. It was said that some people would like it
if the title of that members position (eg; captain, VC, crew) is appeared
right below the username, like gaia staff. I dont know if that would work
very well though...

Wouldnt that partailly take the point out of having a gaia gold account with
guilds? I guess, like a town hall for the guild (like gaiahomes) that they
could visit would be cool. And then as the overall post rate gets better,
the building could have updates... (Just throwing ideas in the ballpark)  

[KaylieeJay]

gracewar7

1) Features that help Guild owners recruit more members. For example, as a Harry Potter guild owner, would you like to be notified of users identifying Harry Potter as one of their interests and be able to send them an invite?

Hmm If we could 'Search' for users with this interest or send out invitations to them without receiving a notification as such. Like "Search for Users with similar interests' or something and then you can send out emails from there would be nice.

gracewar7

2) Features that ease the Guild joining process. Currently, there is a time lag for applications to be accepted. I saw a good suggestion here about having a trial period for new members. Are there other ideas along the same vein?

A trial period? Hmm I dont think It would be much different from how it is now.

gracewar7

3) Features that help new members engage with the Guild. Posting for the first time in a Guild can be intimidating. What sorts of activities do you think a new member could easily contribute to? E.g., opinion polls, quizzes that could be highlighted in a central place?

Hmm maybe make your first post in the guild earn extra gold like it is when you post the first post of the day.

gracewar7

4) Features that help a Guild stay active. Currently a lot of the burden falls on the Guild owner to organize interesting and relevant activities. What incentives can we give members to stay active and help the Guild owners grow the Guild? For example, what if the most active Guilds unlocked levels of cool features like new backgrounds or post styles for their Guild?

Maybe a way for the owner to be able to automatically 'Reward' people. Like for every 100 posts the user makes in the guild the owner could send out 20 gold from the guild till. I don't really have any other ideas but this would be really interesting.  

[LillianSaire]

Give the memberlist some kind of organization, like alphabetical, or anything logical.

In the member list, or somewhere, be able to see join dates for a member? If you can change how the memberlist is sorted, then a 'date joined' ascending and descending options would be nice.

I think the current workaround is a 1g join fee, that will save as a crew log entry.  

[Pilotslover]

LillianSaire

Give the memberlist some kind of organization, like alphabetical, or anything logical.

Or at least leave it in the same order so it doesn't change every time you view the guild.

Arranging by post count and join date would be a God send.  

[WindowOpener]

Not sure if gracewar is still around, but one area I'd love to see explored is how guilds can be integrated with the GGN community more.

The first step would be having an adequate set of GGN forums, which is more of an administrative issue, but the next step is linking those closely with individual guilds.

It was good how the Captains' Guild used to have a link inside the Moderator Panel, and that idea can be extended.

It would be great if the Mod Panel was redesigned to helpfully point captains towards the relevant services that other GGNers are already offering. For example, captains who are starting new guilds might be interested in banner and other graphical services, as well as where they can go to advertise and recruit.

With suitably arranged forums for the GGN community, eg...

• GGN Discussion - General GGN discussion, including feature suggestions
  • Captain / guild leading help and advice threads
    
  • Guild service and buy/sell threads
    
  • Affiliation and networking threads
    
  • Advertising/recruiting threads

...it would be easier to link captains with helpful and relevant services quickly.  

[Purple Thriller]

All right, so I just got back from a video game party and haven't slept in 24+ hours and Im not sure if this was already mentioned.

But being a co-captain of a guild that has been active since nov of '07, The Captain and I realized something.

Clearing out 30+ pages is highly difficult and annoying considering how many topics can be put onto one page. There are a few options to make it go faster, but I don't like to try it since it lags up my computer and it also lags up other crew members computer. This idea is open up to at least 10 tabs with topics and either click DELETE or MOVE THIS TOPIC icon. Now, this takes/saves a few minutes longer/shorter to do, but like I said, the lag kills you.

The other way is taking turns in deleting pages at a time. However, deleting 15 pages worth of topics is difficult and takes up to 8hrs and about two 4 liters of Soda to keep yourself awake in the wee hours of the morning.

I cant believe they haven't made it so if crew members and captains can click squares next to the topic then move/delete many topics at once. For those of you who don't know what I mean, think of it this way:

Log into your email and look at either your inbox/spambox. You have several emails you don't want. What do you do? Click each one one by one? No, you click the box next to the email you want to delete/move and click the button.

So wouldn't it be more beneficial for the crew and leaders to be able to do this so we don't have to do weekly cleanings? Running a guild and managing to maintain the forums are highly important. It should be easier to manage the topics.

Whats your guys' view on this?  

[ZRaashaq_gro-Kral]

Quote:

1) Features that help Guild owners recruit more members. For example, as a Harry Potter guild owner, would you like to be notified of users identifying Harry Potter as one of their interests and be able to send them an invite?

No, I think that would be a bit too much. If you could turn the setting on and off, then I can see it being a valuable tool. My guild doesn't have a wide range of fans that might join it, but something like this would help, but only if it can be switched off for those that do not wish to use it.

Quote:

2) Features that ease the Guild joining process. Currently, there is a time lag for applications to be accepted. I saw a good suggestion here about having a trial period for new members. Are there other ideas along the same vein?

I can see that working very well. It would make it very easy for new people to just jump right in, and it gives staff time to look over the person and see if they are a good addition to the guild as a whole.

Quote:

3) Features that help new members engage with the Guild. Posting for the first time in a Guild can be intimidating. What sorts of activities do you think a new member could easily contribute to? E.g., opinion polls, quizzes that could be highlighted in a central place?

I think that a survey of what the person joined for, what they would like to see within the guild, and the like would be a great addition.

Quote:

4) Features that help a Guild stay active. Currently a lot of the burden falls on the Guild owner to organize interesting and relevant activities. What incentives can we give members to stay active and help the Guild owners grow the Guild? For example, what if the most active Guilds unlocked levels of cool features like new backgrounds or post styles for their Guild?

I agree with the first post, having Guild only event items would be nice, especially since some guilds would become more active. Plus, it gets them working as a team.

On another note, mass messaging would be very helpful, along with being able to subscribe to Guild threads.

Perhaps being able to use the guild treasury for other things besides guild subforums?