Suggestions for Streamlining Appeals. Rank Suggestions, Melding Forums and the game more.

[Lovexlost]

To put this simply this topic will be comprised in different suggestions as it is tackling alot of different areas for suggestion in one topic.

Melding Forums/Discord and the Game:

This is speaking as somebody who has been playing the game since before Discord existed for PRO [2016] now [off and on through the years]. The forums are actually have a vast amount of information. Important things such as rules for multiple aspects of the game. I think on these kind of games it's important to understand the rules before you really envelope yourself in playing. 
Typically what I would suggest is this. Members with Registered forum accounts [with above 25 posts, number can be changed] + A discord account can have extra access to a text discord channel where they can get the chance to win maybe a free pokemon [lvl5] with good IVs and an optimal nature/moveset , or items like 20 rare candies or something. Through giveaways maybe one or two times weekly.

Example of this from another game:
https://imgur.com/u8TFZli
As you can see to enter the draw you have to use the emote to be entered then at the end of X amount of time someone is chosen from those who entered.

 

I think this would make people use the forums and discord alot more, which is good rather then them waiting for something to go wrong with their account and then trying to navigate the forums then.

It would help meld all 3 things into the idea of playing the game. 

I would also like to see an NPC in the tutorial when you first make an account advertise the forums and discord that the player would have to talk to before proceeding [kinda like oak under the waterfall], aswell as saying what they are useful for. I don't think we should be necessarily make them mandatory however, integrating them into the community should be a bit more of a priority.

 

Streamlining Appeals:

I think overall from what I've heard is there is usually a big black and white between players that do something wrong in this game, most of the time it's either the player has done something wrong and therefore should be banned [60-70%], or the player has done something that can be talked about and could be talked about to resolve [30-40%]. However due to this being completely done on forums this process could take days rather then hours. Due to how Forums are setup generally.

 

What my suggestions for this would be. 

1. All staff members should have a Discord account. 
2. A separate Discord should be made just for staff to be in [for communication]
3. The format of the application for applying for appeals should be changed to include discord names. 
4. Every rank should only be able to be DM on discord if they have the person on their discord friends list
5. When a rank accepts taking a case, they add the person on discord and the case can probably be handled within 1-2hrs.
6. The rank copy pastes the conversation onto topic via screencaps once completed and locks topic.

Conversations rather then posts generally drop the time of dead air between posting and allows both Game Masters and Community Cords to process everything faster.
Once the matter is completed the user can be deleted from the Discord Friends list of that staff member so they can't receive DMs from them again.

 

Having all Staff on discord would allow all of them to talk and communicate more amongst themselves in real time, and higher Staff delegate work if something needs fixing directly or something needs to be handled directly.

 

Forum Template for Discipline Appeals

What is your Discord name:
What is your IGN:
What server are you on:

If you don't know why you were banned please look here before completing this post https://dashboard.pokemonrevolution.net/dashboard/
Please list the reason you were banned in your dashboard:
In your own words what caused you to get banned, and please list why you are appealing it [honesty goes along way] :

You will be contacted in the next 24 hours by a Game Master, do not spam this forum.

Rank Suggestions:
I guess my biggest suggestion would be to make sure a someone should really only be moderating one section at a time. Generally I believe alot of people can't get 100% of their effort to something if they need to put effort elsewhere at the same time. Say for example someone is a Game Master, Trade Moderator, Moderator, Community Cord. They should not be able to moderate multiple sections. For a game generally this large putting that much on someone is difficult.  Plus if they go missing [say on vacation, or they have a real life situation pop up] 2 sections of moderation are left scrambling to take over anything that is going wrong.

This doesn't mean that those people couldn't take other ranks elsewhere. Example, a trade moderator could be a pixel artist too, or a Moderator could be a Mapper etc.

 

We should also make it clear the community what these ranks do, some are obvious but a topic with that would be good aswell. [forgive me if there already is one].

 

Hopefully these things can help the game and hopefully some are eventually implemented. Hopefully this helps a bit

 

~ Ryan

 

 

 

[G3n3r4l]

I've got nothing against the first suggestion. (edit) I will say though, we currently have 96 000 members in the discord, and the game itself has over 2 million accounts registered, so this would be a lot to handle

 

For the second part however about the appeals:
Many staff members do have a discord account, and use it. the problem being that anyone can change their username on discord, and copy someone else's exactly by letter, and that can cause issues towards private information, because you can't confirm anything. This is one of the main reasons why appeals are done on forums. Also the staff do have their own private discord, it's been mentioned by a few staff members beforehand. So to end that, it just wouldn't work well.

 

Anyone can apply for any position on staff as staff or not, i mean sure make way for more people but getting people with experience in the game is already good. There isn't an insane amount of work needed in every area, so more staff can be more things. You can see that most of the content staff only have one position because that takes a lot of work to do, while people in moderation will have multiple, an example of that can simply be Game Master and Trade Mod Ehkoe

Edited January 18, 2021 by g3n3r4l
clarifying

[Comrader]

1 hour ago, g3n3r4l said:

while people in moderation will have multiple, an example of that can simply be Game Master and Trade Mod Ehkoe

Gms are the exception, you never become a GM straight off the bat, you always have months of experience in your previous moderation role (cc, mod and tmod). And because they usually have alot of information about their past post it'd be dumb to just leave all the previous work behind

[Lovexlost]

1 hour ago, Comrader said:

Gms are the exception, you never become a GM straight off the bat, you always have months of experience in your previous moderation role (cc, mod and tmod). And because they usually have alot of information about their past post it'd be dumb to just leave all the previous work behind

True, to be fair I am shooting relatively blind in terms of a full understanding or scope. However I do think it is a bit concerning if someone was doing alot in 2 sections and then disappears for like a week or two, it leaves a big whole in more then one section. That is really my only concern.

[Comrader]

I don't think there is that much traffic, the size of the team has been the same for years and there hasn't been really any issues ever, or i haven't heard atleast

[Lovexlost]

3 minutes ago, Comrader said:

I don't think there is that much traffic, the size of the team has been the same for years and there hasn't been really any issues ever, or i haven't heard atleast

fair what are your thoughts on other points?

[Senrosia]

16 hours ago, LoveXLost said:

Streamlining Appeals:

I think overall from what I've heard is there is usually a big black and white between players that do something wrong in this game, most of the time it's either the player has done something wrong and therefore should be banned [60-70%], or the player has done something that can be talked about and could be talked about to resolve [30-40%]. However due to this being completely done on forums this process could take days rather then hours. Due to how Forums are setup generally.

 

What my suggestions for this would be. 

1. All staff members should have a Discord account. 
2. A separate Discord should be made just for staff to be in [for communication]
3. The format of the application for applying for appeals should be changed to include discord names. 
4. Every rank should only be able to be DM on discord if they have the person on their discord friends list
5. When a rank accepts taking a case, they add the person on discord and the case can probably be handled within 1-2hrs.
6. The rank copy pastes the conversation onto topic via screencaps once completed and locks topic.

Conversations rather then posts generally drop the time of dead air between posting and allows both Game Masters and Community Cords to process everything faster.
Once the matter is completed the user can be deleted from the Discord Friends list of that staff member so they can't receive DMs from them again.

 

Having all Staff on discord would allow all of them to talk and communicate more amongst themselves in real time, and higher Staff delegate work if something needs fixing directly or something needs to be handled directly.

 

Forum Template for Discipline Appeals

What is your Discord name:
What is your IGN:
What server are you on:

If you don't know why you were banned please look here before completing this post https://dashboard.pokemonrevolution.net/dashboard/
Please list the reason you were banned in your dashboard:
In your own words what caused you to get banned, and please list why you are appealing it [honesty goes along way] :

You will be contacted in the next 24 hours by a Game Master, do not spam this forum.

Sounds good, however it compromises the private information we seek to protect in appeals (one of the reasons was mencioned by G3n), especially when it comes to scams, account hacking or RMT.
Another aspect to keep in mind is that not all appeals are simple as many are part of the investigations and can't be sorted out in a day or two xd. Other point to highlight is that the only person that can take your appeal is the person who punished you, this is not to make a mess.

[Lovexlost]

So the first part is agreeable the others are not I'll try to brainstorm a better solution