New Features for Guilds - Sneak Peak!

[wesden]

Hey, Guild Owners, Captains and Co-Captains!

I'm the product manager at Gaia for guilds, as well as a guild owner (I'm just starting) so I wanted to give you a sneak peak of what we will be announcing and releasing later today (*crosses fingers*). We're working on some long-term improvements to the guilds system, and below is the first step for those changes.

We're making changes to overhauling guild searching (right now we only search by guild name) and adding keywords that, in the near future, will enable us to recommend guilds to users based on their interests. Our goal is to improve traffic to guilds and help increase your membership.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! Before these features go live, we need your help getting all the pieces in place. Once we launch later today you will see new features in the Guild Admin Panel, and we need your help filling out those fields.

Here's what's new in the panel (note: these changes will not be viewable/searchable by you or users until the next release after tomorrow's – which will be very soon! We need to “prime the pump”!):

• Keywords: Enter up to 5 search keywords describing your guild and the topics it covers. This will help with both searching and interest matching.

• Guild Description: Enter a short description of your guild. Something that sums it all up in one sentence, like "Gaia's oldest dog training discussion guild" or "Your place for all things Harry Potter."

(those 2 items above will be included in a new UI on the Guild search page, as well as guild home page - next release - very soon!)

• Guild Name: Because a lot of guild names are ridiculously long and hard to read/understand, we reduced the character limit to 60. Guild names need to be shortened before February 10, or they'll get truncated automatically. You guys are good! No need to change the name icon_smile.gif

We're also cleaning up the guild home page (shown for each guild) for the next release and I think you'll be happy with the improvements!

You'll receive a notice later today once we launch with a link to read about all of the details and where to leave formal feedback, but I'm happy to get your initial response here!

Thanks for your help and support.


EDIT: looks like the launch is pushed out til next week...  

[Pilotslover]

• Keywords: Enter up to 5 search keywords describing your guild and the topics it covers. This will help with both searching and interest matching.

Sounds good

• Guild Description: Enter a short description of your guild. Something that sums it all up in one sentence, like "Gaia's oldest dog training discussion guild" or "Your place for all things Harry Potter."

(those 2 items above will be included in a new UI on the Guild search page, as well as guild home page - next release - very soon!)

Can the guilds Moderators do that? The guild I'm trying to un-necro is abandoned.

• Guild Name: Because a lot of guild names are ridiculously long and hard to read/understand, we reduced the character limit to 60. Guild names need to be shortened before February 10, or they'll get truncated automatically. You guys are good! No need to change the name icon_smile.gif

Uhhh ... fine ... okay ... seems a bit pointless but ... *shrug* fine.

Uhhh ... does that mean that mass PM won't be in this first update despite that being the one thing we really asked for? All these little things seem a bit ... cosmetic if you don't mind my saying so. I can't help but be a little disappointed with this update but that's mostly because I was really hoping for Mass PM's; I know it's just one part of the updates but ... well ...

PL  

[MemoryDragon]

She did say it's the first step, PL. wink We've known that most of the things we've been talking about is going to take a while.

I am glad to see little things start coming into place. The search upgrade is one I've been looking forward to since it will make guilds much easier to find now. And trust me... I've seen some of those guild names. They're an eyesore.

Actually, I'm just glad we're getting anything. sweatdrop heh heh...  

[wesden]

Pilotslover

• Keywords: Enter up to 5 search keywords describing your guild and the topics it covers. This will help with both searching and interest matching.

Sounds good

• Guild Description: Enter a short description of your guild. Something that sums it all up in one sentence, like "Gaia's oldest dog training discussion guild" or "Your place for all things Harry Potter."

(those 2 items above will be included in a new UI on the Guild search page, as well as guild home page - next release - very soon!)

Can the guilds Moderators do that? The guild I'm trying to un-necro is abandoned.

• Guild Name: Because a lot of guild names are ridiculously long and hard to read/understand, we reduced the character limit to 60. Guild names need to be shortened before February 10, or they'll get truncated automatically. You guys are good! No need to change the name icon_smile.gif

Uhhh ... fine ... okay ... seems a bit pointless but ... *shrug* fine.

Uhhh ... does that mean that mass PM won't be in this first update despite that being the one thing we really asked for? All these little things seem a bit ... cosmetic if you don't mind my saying so. I can't help but be a little disappointed with this update but that's mostly because I was really hoping for Mass PM's; I know it's just one part of the updates but ... well ...

PL

Thanks for the feedback. I understand that the mass PM is something many guild owners have been asking for. Its something we are working on, but we wanted to get a few infrastructure things fixed first. These changes (search by keyword, guild suggestions) will allow us to help users find and join guilds. Once we make it easier to allow users to find/join guilds, we will focus on the "internal" workings, like mass PM, better admin tools, etc.

As for your question about mods making these changes...No, mods won't be able to make the admin page changes. Please contact Customer service if you are trying to recover a guild--they can help you smile  

[wesden]

Ben229

It sounds good to me and that your doing things step by step slowly changing one thing then the next till it is done and that is goood because then you can get feed back!

I think it all sounds good except for the name thing, but I don't really care. Also do you know anything about fixing the numbers for the posts and members for each guild when you do a search? Even if you make people able to find guilds their interested in looking at that, it can sometimes be seen if their active or not. I'm also thinking that when a member leaves or is banned from a guild the number of members viewed when you are searching should decrease. Considering the new updates for the guild front page, can't wait!

Hi,
Thanks for the support. I really have abut 5 pages of single spaced items that are "guild fixes" We have a lot to do, but we're making our way through the list!

Also, seems like the numbers issue (posts/users) have been fixed smile We just did another impromptu test and the number decremented correctly. We'll continue to monitor, but looks ok for now!

By the way, it looks like our release won't go out until tomorrow, so hold tight smile  

[pheonix20222]

Yay! I can't wait! biggrin  

[Pilotslover]

MemoryDragon

She did say it's the first step, PL. wink We've known that most of the things we've been talking about is going to take a while.

I am glad to see little things start coming into place. The search upgrade is one I've been looking forward to since it will make guilds much easier to find now. And trust me... I've seen some of those guild names. They're an eyesore.

Actually, I'm just glad we're getting anything. sweatdrop heh heh...

And I acknowledged that, it doesn't stop me from being disappointed though.

It's not my guild to recover, so no I won't be contacting customer services, I have no 'right' to the guild at all, I just don't want it to die.

Yes I appreciate the work but ... I can't help but feel it's a bit a** backwards, making the guilds easier to moderate would have been a more ... natural starting point as these present changes will help more users to find the guilds in their present - and frankly - difficult to moderate state.

*shrug* We'll see, I'm just not over whelmed with confidence right now.  

[mamarita]

TO OUR NEW DEVELOPER- WELCOME

Now a note about mass pms for guilds- The programming is already in place but was deactivated. Check- if any of the old developers/programmers are still on staff who built this site- because there was mass pm'ing for the friends list, so it only requires tweaking that to guilds, edit it to allow only captains/vices and maybe crew to do them, and activate them. Ta-da!!

And please- we need to use that treasury for more than buying forums!!!  

[pheonix20222]

Or, if we can have a setting about that in the guild settings just like
GIM broadcasting.... (IMO, just throwin it out there)  

[wesden]

mamarita

TO OUR NEW DEVELOPER- WELCOME

Now a note about mass pms for guilds- The programming is already in place but was deactivated. Check- if any of the old developers/programmers are still on staff who built this site- because there was mass pm'ing for the friends list, so it only requires tweaking that to guilds, edit it to allow only captains/vices and maybe crew to do them, and activate them. Ta-da!!

And please- we need to use that treasury for more than buying forums!!!

I'm looking into the mass PM feature this week smile  

[churrlo]

Thanks for working so hard ^^ We appreciate all that you do for us and are ready to help out when needed! We'll be guinea pigs biggrin

 

[Pilotslover]

churrlo

Thanks for working so hard ^^ We appreciate all that you do for us and are ready to help out when needed! We'll be guinea pigs biggrin

Tut-Tut, Churrlo, we're not Guinea Pigs.

*still cynical*

Window's Opener started a thread down in the Site Feedback, there have been some interesting points raised by other members.

Here

PL  

[churrlo]

Ooo intresting :3 I'll check it out. And fine PL D:<

click me?