What do you want to see change with the CDT?

As you know we've had a recruitment thread up for a little while now. The Community Development Team has had it's ups and it's downs since it's creation in 2012. I was one of the first members since it's inception with Verts, x339, Brendan etc. I lead the CDT for quite some time after x339 was banned and have on/off been involved since then. There's been a recurring theme, it would get an infusion of new members and be active for a short period of time and then lethargy would set in, things wouldn't get done and anything pushed out would usually be a last minute scramble or with a select few members doing most of the leg work. Now I'm back as a co-leader alongside Cas_M and want to transform the Community Development Team into something viable, that isn't destined to fail and can promote events and growth on sythe.org.

One of the things we collectively want to see is more interaction and transparency with the community, so without further adieu, what do you want to see change with the CDT? Share your ideas here.

 

Transparency would be nice. I had no idea you people even still existed.

 

-Events need to be planned farther ahead, same with minirank requests.

-Be consistent with motm, if not, don't do them. If you plan to bring that back, add prize box rewards for winners who already won previously. Possibly change the algorithm for voting to try and marginalize it from being a popularity contest.

-Random competitions in the sandbox to increase activity and the giving of miniranks.

- An ETA thread to see which events are coming/going to happen. This allows users to prepare for events.

- Give CDT members a fun rank. Honestly, that's the only way productivity will be consistent. If members aren't contributing enough/meeting quota, kick them and take away the rank. For the sake of it being used as a tool of trust, make a thread detailing what the rank is, and what it stands for so it isn't misinterpreted.

Thanks for caring.

 

Rewards tbh, simple as that.


I honestly think something you get a rank for/minirank for etc for being a part of(or ever a user rank), would encourage activity alone.

I think you also need to find a wide spread of users with good activitys in diff timezones but also the same timezones, would help alot I think, should of asked in ur application their timezones but its to late now I guess.

 

agree with all of this except the fun rank, I'd prefer they get a minirank.

 

Ghast has a good point. Sythe monthly should be assigned to people so we get it every month, although every 2 months might be alright too. Also, make more fun events, not just seasonal events like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, etc... The pool tournament was good.

 

Not sure how we'd change the voting for MOTM to make it less of a popularity contest eh, we've tried anonymous voting via google forms etc and all that resulted was less of a turnout. It is something I want to revisit however.

Any ideas on potential mini competitions?

In the past I've wanted to implement something similar to Powerbot's "event participant" rank as a mini-rank and have it there for ~1 month or something but the reason it was shot down is it would be too much work apparently applying them all the time.

That's how it would work in the past, people would pick sections and then they'd go from there. Unfortunately it never seemed to materialize so well. We are going to refine sythe monthly though, not sure if it will be monthly or bi-monthly. As regards to the tourney, I believe another one is coming out soon.

 

What are the goals and how do you define success in measurable terms?

 

The goals are mentioned in the OP. How would you propose we measure this success? It's not so easy to measure and requires judgment through observation to comment on the success or failure of the team.

 

Specific and quantifiable goals. Bolster the community or whatever is mad wishywashy and really is meaningless.

 

http://www.sythe.org/community-general/1498824-community-development-team-members-our-aim.html

Basically this:

"Sythe’s Community Development team strives to strengthen the community of Sythe.org. We hope to better and aid the site, in terms of activity, community orientated events, and overall increased participatory by all our present and future members."

Strengthen the community, get greater involvement and get some community spirit

 

I agree. Id like to see more events than 3-5 per year ^_^

Pool tournaments again and some other fun events like that would be great.



I also agree with Ghast about the SytheMonthly.

Thanks CDT

 

I believe anonymous voting is always the way to go. Too many times have I seen casual members vote and have a similar to near exact replica forms of a prominent member. Maybe find a way to add an incentive for voting.

As for competition ideas, here are a few.

- Riddles (sythe exclusive/general made up ones)
- Dice competitions (similar to what Roary used to do)
- Sythe goodiebag (Reward active users for posting. Users who average x amount of posts over the course of x amount of time is eligible to win a minirank at random/their choosing. Eligible users would sign up, and winners would be chosen at random through a generator. Possibly add a fun rank as a prize for users who have been active for 6 months to a year.)
- Story telling (Give a topic subject, and users would have to create a story using that topic. Users with good stories are subjected for ballot and a winner is chosen randomly.)

Guidelines would be made by the CDT for each event.

It's definitely hard to gather a large base of participants when the only viable reward that can be given away is miniranks. I'd hate for you guys to constantly find a patron to support each event. While by all means this is truly gratifying, I assume it puts a dent in the amount of competitions that can be released. Again, I think the team does a lot for very little, which is why I suggested the fun rank. Maybe if we had currency specific to the site, we would see a much bigger turn out. Well, one can only hope that happens in the future.

 

Good to hear constructive feedback.

Right now I'm bringing tournaments bi-monthly, as well as making sure SM is released on time every month. I made sure this months was thought out and tasks have been assigned.

Also involved in some side projects like bringing back an official teamspeak server as well as heading up another currently secret project that'll be released soon.

 

That is still pretty wishy washy and I don't think they have actually achieved anything other than hosting competitions. It is also made up of the entire staff team except for 2 of them and only three normal members. Obviously the staff have no activity requirements so I really don't see how this group is anything more than the staff doing some stuff. It's basically the UE without any of the good that came from it and all of the bad.

 

how were you one of the first members when i was the first person to be put in after x339 had it up and running when you came in 2-4 months after i left rofl.....

also this ^ I don't really see any community development going on, its just your typical once a month or so giveaways/popularity contests. Sythe monthly was about the only thing i look forward too until wulf stop writing them, then it went down hill.


Ultimately there will be no real community on this site, communities form when people share common goals and interests and bond with people, no one really wants to share to the world that they are on a black market website primarely catered to runescape, i mean honestly think hard and long about how many of your IRL friends even know you are on this site?


you people may hate to hear it, but you will never achieve what you want this site to be.