Web Hosting Talk : Other Forums : WHT Announcements, Feedback and Questions : WebHostingTalk Community Improvements!

[Rochen]

The purpose of this thread is to keep the community updated as we implement some improvements to WebHostingTalk.

As I am sure you may already be aware, we have recently made some changes to the moderator structure. This thread is intended to explain the new and improved structuring, in addition to unveiling other improvements we have made and intend to make.

Moderator Restructuring

Community Leaders
The Community Leaders are responsible for the overall management of the community and have vBulletin Administrator access. Community Leaders have moderation control over all the forums. The Community Leaders also help develop the overall 'Community Policies' and direction of the board.

Community Liaisons
Community Liaisons are forum-specific moderators and are hand picked from applications we have received. They are dedicated to managing a specific forum or set of forums within the community. They do not have vBulletin Administrator access or forum-wide moderation control. However, they can easily escalate issues to Community Leaders as required. Several will be incorporated within the coming weeks.

Community Guides
The Community Guides are primarily to help guide discussions and keep them on topic without the need for moderator intervention. We hope this will lead to an improved quality of topics. Community Guides do not have any kind of moderator privileges. However, they are also there to report problems to Community Leaders and Community Liaisons where appropriate. And will be escalated to Community Liaisons as needed and agreed.


Other Improvements

Community Advisors Team (CAT)
We have formed an advisory team made up of community members. The overall team has diverse views about how we can improve WebHostingTalk etc. The main purpose of the Community Advisors Team (CAT) is to allow Community Leaders to gain feedback from members of our community. CAT is an addition to the 'WHT: Announcements, Suggestions, Feedback & Questions' forum. It exists as another means for us to gain valuable feedback from the community.

Back-End Changes
We are also in the process of implementing several backend changes which will allow us to manage the board more effectively. This means we can devote more time to improving this ever growing community and less time dealing with mundane tasks like warning members.


Although these changes may seem small and insignificant at first, we feel they will drastically improve the quality of this community.

Remember, this is your community, so as always we would appreciate your feedback. Both now and over the coming days and weeks as we get our Community Liaisons and Community Guides fully integrated.

Thank you for your continued participation at the World's largest Web Hosting Community!

[NewtSys]

So basically the Community Guides are standard level user accounts but are more like crossing guards? Reporting and helping guide the threads but no athourity over members other than the reporting to a leader or moderator?

[The Prohacker]

Originally posted by NewtSys
So basically the Community Guides are standard level user accounts but are more like crossing guards? Reporting and helping guide the threads but no athourity over members other than the reporting to a leader or moderator?

For now.. Yes.. If the postition works out well then we may add powers to close and reopen threads in their forums.. Etc..

[Aussie Bob]

Originally posted by Rochen
Moderator Restructuring

Excellent idea. I remember asking for something like this a while back, but it fell on deaf ears. "A mod is a mod no matter where they mod" was the type of response I received. It was a worry to see Ad_forum Moderators running around with full "Moderator" titles. Nice to see some common sense come into play with the proper differenciation of the different levels of mods.

Community Advisors Team (CAT)

This will be a complete waste of time. What improvements and suggestions can't be discussed out in the open, in the "WHT: Announcements, Suggestions, Feedback & Questions" forum, that's going to be discussed in that private CAT forum?

Thank you for your continued participation at the World's largest Web Hosting Community!

Always a pleasure.

[Ronald_Craft]

Back-End Changes
We are also in the process of implementing several backend changes which will allow us to manage the board more effectively. This means we can devote more time to improving this ever growing community and less time dealing with mundane tasks like warning members.

So you've found easier and more effective ways to ban people?

[The Prohacker]

Originally posted by 1stStrike
So you've found easier and more effective ways to ban people?

A warning system allows for easy tracking of warnings and bans.. And automaticly lifts them once they expire.. Currently we do not proactively look for expired bans.. We only unban once the user contacts us at the end of the suspension...

[Joseph_M]

Another way is to just have bans that don't expire But seriously, these are excellent ideas and will make the community a stronger place to belong to.

[Esr Tek]

Excellent -- hope this all works out well.

Although I am not sure on the 'CAT' team.
Who decides who gets on this team, and are they going to be made public? (I know I would sure like to know who is representing me!)
Maybe something like voting for the CAT team members would be viable?

[The Prohacker]

Originally posted by Esr Tek
Excellent -- hope this all works out well.

Although I am not sure on the 'CAT' team.
Who decides who gets on this team, and are they going to be made public? (I know I would sure like to know who is representing me!)
Maybe something like voting for the CAT team members would be viable?

At first moderators picked the CATs, now that there is a large enough member base there, CATs now make nominations and vote who gets in...

New additions are made all the time..

We will not be making a public list of all the CATs, if certain people on that team with to make themselves known they can. But to keep people from flamming people who wish to stay anon, it won't be public knowledge..

The CAT group was made of a diverse selection of people on WHT who have proven to be the most helpful and knowledgable. Its not just web hosts or customers, we have designers, and just general posters. Many people do not post here because they represent companies and they do not wish to make people beleive their personal opion is that of their company. In the CAT forum all members can express their personal opions as they wish...

[DarktidesNET]

Woo hoo....

[Esr Tek]

Originally posted by The Prohacker
At first moderators picked the CATs, now that there is a large enough member base there, CATs now make nominations and vote who gets in...

Ah didn't realize this was already implemented and I misunderstood it somewhat (had to re-read the post).

Originally posted by The Prohacker
We will not be making a public list of all the CATs, if certain people on that team with to make themselves known they can. But to keep people from flamming people who wish to stay anon, it won't be public knowledge..

Many people do not post here because they represent companies and they do not wish to make people beleive their personal opion is that of their company.

Fully understood and agreed with!!
I hesitate to post a lot for the reason you mention.

[CrazyTech]

I think this should work out rather well and I welcome the changes personally. Perhaps we all can help better the community as a whole and make it a bit more friendly and helpful for everyone.

[Aussie Bob]

Originally posted by The Prohacker
. . . Many people do not post here because they represent companies and they do not wish to make people beleive their personal opion is that of their company. In the CAT forum all members can express their personal opions as they wish...

So that's the logic for this secret forum? Wierd that suggestions for WHT need to be made in a secret forum for these folks.

Oh well, logic and common sense aside, let's hope some good fruit comes out of this secret group of WHT advisors.

Get cracking on the ad forum, peoples!!!

[Incognito]

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
So that's the logic for this secret forum? Wierd that suggestions for WHT need to be made in a secret forum for these folks.

Oh well, logic and common sense aside, let's hope some good fruit comes out of this secret group of WHT advisors.

Get cracking on the ad forum, peoples!!!

Would love to hear your advice on the ad forum. Having been a moderator previously, I can tell you it is a nightmare to manage. Do you think we should charge? Eliminate it? Restrict replies? Require special registration? What do you think, Bob?

[Aussie Bob]

Originally posted by Incognito
Would love to hear your advice on the ad forum. Having been a moderator previously, I can tell you it is a nightmare to manage. Do you think we should charge? Eliminate it? Restrict replies? Require special registration? What do you think, Bob?

Not sure if this is the thread for that but yep, it's a nightmare down there to manage. There's no simple or right and wrong solution, but I do believe the new WHT management should be looking to monetorise that section of the forum, and this could have the effect of removing an unwanted element from participating.

You could draw a similar parallel to when eBay started charging for actual auction listings. This cut down on the volume of new auction listings, but the quality of such would have increased, given folks now had to pay to start an auction on eBay.

I just find it hard to believe that given the sharp business accumen of the new WHT owners, that they're not profiting from all that eCommerce that's happening in those ad_forums. Nice and charitable on them though.

I can still remember the times when companies like DV2 were selling hundreds of servers through the ad_forum. One thread was over 300 posts long and I remember at the time being slighly amazed at the volume of eCommerce being moved through this vastly superior interactive marketplace.