Community Leader Program Revamp
We announced the Community Leader program with the intention of creating that something serves the community with special projects and events. Our Community Leaders have worked tirelessly to help out players in Zeus and Ares - everything from helping new players to communicating issues with our community management team. There has been a lot of good that's come out of the Community Leader program and we are proud of our accomplishments. However, we've been receiving consistent feedback from the community about changes you would like to see with the program. Due to this feedback, we have decided to make some changes.
Please read below to hear more about the program and how it will be changing.
Your feedback: There was no restriction on how long a Community Leader could remain in the program. This resulted in the Community Leader program being capped at 10, with little fluidity in the roster for new players to join the group.
What’s Changing: Community Leaders will serve for a period of three consecutive months. During this time, they will be asked to focus on a single community-based project and will receive assistance from the community management team. After the three month period, new Community Leaders will be elected to tackle new projects and/or assist with old projects. *Some have noted that three months may not be long enough to complete a project. If this is the case, extensions will be issued on a case by case basis.*
Your feedback: Upon induction, Community Leaders received a CL_ in front of their name and a text color change to green. Due to this chat color difference, they were taken as stand-ins for BB and held to the same standards that are placed on the BB team. Community Leaders are players first, but the green text effectively pushed them into acting as peer mediators, chat moderators and support stand-ins.
What’s Changing: Community Leaders are not chat moderators and they are not the support team. Any and all chat or game related issues should be escalated through the proper channels to our Support team via ticket creation or within the forums. To emphasize this, Community Leaders will no longer have a green chat color or the CL_ tag.
Your feedback: Community Leaders had to be 18 or older due to the necessity of an NDA and the use of Skype channels to communicate.
What’s Changing: Community Leaders will no longer have an age-restriction. Players of all ages can participate and discussion with BB will take place primarily in the forums or in-game.
Your feedback: Originally, Community Leaders could not have any infractions on their account.
What’s Changing: All players are able to positively contribute to the TSO community, despite a history of infractions. The Community Leader application will no longer require a player to have zero infractions on his or her account. However, the infraction history of a player will still be taken into consideration by the community management team during the process.
Your feedback: Community Leaders were capped at five players per server, for a total of 10 CLs.
What’s Changing: Community Leader projects are meant to be beneficial to all players regardless of server; therefore, the program will be capped at three players total. These three players will serve as Community Leaders for a total of three months, wherein they will complete or make progress on their projects and new Community Leaders will be elected for the next term.
Your feedback: Open nominations were held, but the final decision of who became a Community Leader was left up to the community management team.
What’s Changing: Since the application requires a project concept, the nomination system will no longer work effectively. Players interested in becoming Community Leaders will be asked to fill out an application. That application will enter into a moderation queue where the community management team will assess the concept to determine that it is feasible and realistic. If it is not approved, it will be sent back to the player for revisions. If approved, it will enter into a public thread where players can vote on their favorite projects. Two of the three CL's will be accepted into the program based on popular vote. One CL will be community management choice. Additionally, the community management team will still reserve the right to veto any elections.
Your Feedback: The name of the program, Community Leaders, did not adequately reflect what the program was about.
What's Changing: The name of the program will be changing. Feel free to leave a suggestion of a new name in the comments below. Five will be chosen by the community team and then a player poll will be opened to determine the final name.
The following changes will go into effect immediately: CL_ tags will be removed and green text will be removed.
We will open the applications next week with more detailed information and a poll will be opened to choose the new name.
Please bear in mind that since this is a new program, it may be subject to some changes or alterations. We hope that this program will grow with the community and give players the ability to make and encourage positive changes within the community.
