/tg/Station 13

We haven't had any community meetings since last November or so.
How do you feel about them?
Do you intend to start them back up? Why or why not?

Although not explicitly called out in my platform, this is a big part of it. I think we could do with bringing more server discourse to discord and even voice chat to humanise each other a bit. I remember the teamspeak chats of old, where people who absolutely hated each other's guts on the forums could actually understand each other just by talking on a call for a couple minutes.

I think more policybus discussions, more inclusion of player voices in those kind of spaces and being willing to deal with more controversial and difficult topics in public discord spaces would improve on our communication as a server and make for a more positive server culture.

I think, given the other headmin's schedules permit, a monthly drop in session would be cool. I think we could do with allowing each individual headmin to make more decisions withouth having to wait for the timezone alignment or scheduling availability of the other two headmins. The value of three headmins should be increased coverage, not being forced to decide on everything as a council. This means we could have public calls with one headmin at a time, maybe even using the discord staging features to improve since juggling voice permissions is generally a pain in the ass.

Discord stages are cool, too bad that's limited to community servers, which I don't think we are.

Community meetings are nice, though I think this headmin term's idea of making #policybus access a role a player can get just by asking works much better. Discord messages are a lot less ephemeral than voice chats, and let people think a bit more before they talk.

As a rough idea on the spot, I think we could adapt this idea into a mix between Discord stages and text channels. Let a handful of people chat at a time, perhaps even use threads so it's much easier to look for Q/A after the fact.

I would push for these to be started up again, aye.

The players feel that they're not being listened to and that they have very little input in what happens/goes on creating a strained relationship between admins and players having more opportunities in any medium to talk is going to lower this strain. I wouldn't mind of community meetings with only 1 Head admin just saying their plans for what's going to happen next. Anything for more transparency and communication.

Community meetings power level over 9000.

Policy bus poor substitute. Admin echo chamber. Irrelevant to the average player. Useful to delegate headmin work. Inevitably admin dominated, mostly by necessity.

Community meeting fun social event. Get to know people, bring people together, highlight issues, invaluable feedback. Community building.

Players main focus point. Event run for them. Would hope to run at least one at half-term mark. Would like to run 2 months, 4 months and final pre-election wrap up. Headmins and players in the community both bridging the gap between us.

Overly idealistic? Maybe. Look for the best in people. Listen. Learn. Every day a school day.

Community meetings are a fun cross-server event and it's sad they've fizzled out. Mechanically there's no need for them with policy-bus (especially if we make a way for more players to get involved in discussions!). I don't see me pushing to start them up again in the form we had them in before for that reason.

I do like the idea of having more community events to carry the energetic spirit of meetings though. I love the toolbox tournaments and seasonal balls, Sticky ran the recent marathon, and Sacko's talent show went over really well too.

WE NEED MOAR

THEY BRING EVERYONE TOGETHER

THEY GET SO LITTLE DONE

BUT EVERYONE HAS A GOOD TIME AND IT'S A GREAT WAY TO FEEL LIKE ADMINBUS AND HEADMINS AREN'T JUST MYSTERIOUS FIGURES

We need more meetings to get the community closer and hear their concerns.

I think that community events have been fun as a social thing but have largely struggled to meet the level of discourse that they set out for.

To me it seems like they have great potential for discussion, but there needs to be careful planning in both topics and lead up to the meeting.

I'd like to start them back up so we can have more conversations about community culture. If we want to see real change we need to work together and hear each other out, both in terms of idea and (constructive) criticism.

Communication makes or breaks how players perceive the game as it stands. Take this from experience: I used to play /tg/ for AWHILE before making a forum account. My perceptions of the game were a lot less static than I'd probably like to admit. Outside of playing 4-5 rounds in a single day and recognising a few of the standouts at the time (Mekhi Anderson, Lexia Black), you would be invested in the game as a "game" and not the game as a community, if that makes any sense.

Once you start to really interact with the community outside of just playing, you get a greater sense in what the game is and a feeling that your input can change how the game is player. It can be as little as running server wide polls in-game from time to time, talking ton the forums (even off-topic!), or hell, even the ss13 digg. All of these things can actively turn someone who I feel like we call an "arcade" player (Hops on, plays 3 rounds hoping to get their next antag roll, salts in deadchat regardless) into someone whose invested in the future of the game, whether that's as a coder, a potential admin, or just a nice community staple.

My point, going back to having a schedule for community meetings, as well as inviting and encouraging players to join community meetings, maybe even players who aren't part of the discord just yet, is an excellent thing for both fostering and contributing to the community at large and helping to grow. I'd personally like to see there be at least an annual, if not bi-annual community meeting, even if there's no hot-button topics that need to be discussed.

community meetings are fucking critical, absolutely bring 'em back