Removing OTM's [Community Feedback]

[THEFROSTHead Admin]

Removing OTM's

I'm not putting anything fancy here. I'm just getting straight to the point: you have a few options of members.

Option 1: Remove OTM's all together. I'm in favor of this because it's a waste of time, no one really votes in them, it takes up resources from staff and it's more or less a shitty popularity contest in my opinion these days and there are better alternatives in my viewpoint.

What do I propose in return? Community spotlights and challenges. Community spotlights would be a monthly thing where staff would highlight those who have done great work in the community and toss them the spotlight. Community spotlights can also be suggested by members as I'd have a community spotlight board where people can post up threads, reply to my threads or put in their recommendations so staff can pay attention to anything a member is doing and see more evidence of their work.

While, challenges would be a rush for a member to complete a monthly competition and the winner will receive prizes + recognition if they are the first to complete or among a group of people to complete something. Effectively, the point is to make people EARN their notoriety rather than it being dictated by a popularity contest like OTM's. And everyone member would have an equal chance to make something of themselves because it's not based on the whims of others.

Think of it like this: you actually have CONTROL of your own destiny if you put in the work with challenges; whereas some other dick is gonna be in charge of whether or not you win something without it. I'd rather go with the option that gives me a fighting chance if I'm not popular and have my work speak for itself.

Option 2: Serenity is in favor of Option 2. “Of the Months” have been a long-time tradition with PH and were once something that members looked forward to. The excitement for them has faded and she believes it is because that lack of importance on rewards. “Yen” was once a coveted resource on PH that’s value has diminished due to different reasons that would need to be dealt with. With a possible increase in reward quality (this being possible with all options), Serenity feels that the OTMs can be revitalized. Since, with Option 2, they’ll only be done 4 times a year, one of those times being “Of the Year,” the weight they often caused on staff’s shoulders would be lessened as well. Serenity also enjoys the community having the ability to be more involved in who wins and feels that the “spotlights” might take that away from our member base. Instead of completely getting rid of them, she’d like to rework them to something more rewarding for everyone involved.

Option 3: OTM's would remain the same and you'd get the same boring thing every month.

Option 4: In Rawk's opinion, the revitalized Of the Month system that Serenity supports (Of the Quarter, as it were) is a very good system, that would likely give a very strong influx of value to the entire ordeal. As it stands, Of the Month is more of a chore than anything else both for staff and for the members, if the total lack of interest in them as of late is any indication. However, Serenity is correct that they are a tradition, and the idea is one that is quite, well, fun, as a good way of involving the community to say what it is they feel was the best and worthy of looking back on.

With all that being said, though, Rawk is also of the opinion that the system of challenges and community spotlights would be a stellar way of providing something new and energizing for the memberbase as well. The varied challenges provided would give an excellent way to incentivize and reward more diverse roleplay, assuming they were kept to a relatively high standard, and the community spotlight system is a good way of preventing popularity contest syndrome from occurring, as there are no inherent winners or losers in such a system, only those threads people personally felt an impact from.

Therefore, seeing as both systems are not only functional, but serve varying purposes for the community, it is Rawk's opinion that, while Option 4 may put the most work on staff, it is also the one which best serves the community, and that in itself makes the work worthwhile.

So, you all can weigh in with your opinions + vote.

[TsubineYe Olde Guarde]

Honestly, my main issue with the first option is this one line:
Community spotlights would be a monthly thing where staff would highlight those who have done great work in the community and toss them the spotlight.

For one, that pretty much precludes those who are staff from saying "Hey, I think this staff member has done some good" because it makes us look like a circlejerk to be frank. And with some of the most active members being staff, that can cause issues. I know it says that members can point the spotlight themselves, but if this is to be implemented I'd like their choices to be more emphasized rather than staff choosing. If we're wanting it to stem away from seeming like a popularity contest, having staff choose could make it appear as though people just need to win staff's favor to win these spotlights. Now, if spotlights don't have

I actually really like the challenge idea. I think it's a great and impartial way to reward people for doing stuff on site.

Personally, I like the Of The Quarter version the best. The Of the Month system may not have aged well, and it is not the most impartial system, but it does give everyone an equal voice on who they think has done the most for those months. Since we do have activity lulls and spikes in equal measure, OTQs would be the best way to allow people with lulls to still be recognized for what they've done if the community thinks they have done something worthwhile.

[GammaVeteran Member]

I'd suggest possibly having more than a month for some challenges like, there have been a lot of threads I have been in on site where it has taken over a month to complete or get done, I'm going off the idea that WIP threads might not count towards competetions maybe since then people could just start a thread for the challange and then bail midway which wouldn't look good if people were doing it just for the challenge benefits which if that means one has to finish their thread it can be really hard for some to do so if the mission at the time required a thread - possibly challangees over 2 months or different deadlines depending on the size/estimated work needed for it y'know. Like a relatively small mission could be a few weeks but a larger one could be up to 2 months.

Also as a note, members should be able to contribute challenge ideas in the form of get-togethers of something along those lines, similar to how members can pitch missions/events and the like. Also it would be nice if the challenges weren't all post count related like the anyburst and those kinds of missions. Mainly here just for Frost to be reminded but also something to consider.

[ChiraisuEstablished Member]

I voted for option 4!

The reason I voted for this is because I think that something of an 'accolade' system in place of OTMs would be really cool to see. Rawk's ideas of challenges gave me a really solid spat of inspiration that I think might really help us as the members here in PH moving forward.

I would love to see Challenges refresh either month or quarterly, or both. Monthly for small, petty challenges, and maybe quarterly for massive challenges faction wise, or even legendary (S) class challenges. Having a ranking system on these challenges that scale on difficulty and affect more of the PH world would be stellar.

An example of an S class challenge would be something like, single handedly starting a faction, or perhaps starting a AAA class thread that ends up changing the state of world as we know it.

[THEFROSTHead Admin]

Ok. I've decided that I'm going to let Serenity/Tsubine do their quarterly OTM, while I will focus more heavily on the challenges to keep promoting growth on the site. I'm not gonna bother with the psotlight as I don't feel I'd keep up with that. I'll be posting updates on my hand of things soon.

[THEFROSTHead Admin]

[adm]Archiving this since the discussion is over with.[/adm]

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