Part of why other communities have prospered and SEN has stopped has been promotion.
Someone with the proper vision of leading SEN into something people want to check out should be appointed as a PR administrator or representative, giving this person too much power should be dangerous itself, though, he does have to have some moderations powers to ensure things go on the right track and relations with other sites aren't endangered.
The first step to improve SEN is accepting that SEN is no longer a good mapping site. It's old, outdated and it doesn't satisfy SC2's mapping needs. Morever, even when some time it could be said that it had the popularity of having the best mappers and best modder, SEN, simply, does not anymore.
If you cannot accept this DO NOT CONTINUE READING.
Public Relations shouldn't really be enclosed to "relations with other sites" but also how well does SEN lets itself be known to the public. Propaganda? Is SEN at the state of being some elite site in which you must have invitations to become a member? If you accepted the previous statement you'll know it's not.
Propaganda is the key to getting newcomers, new, active users that found, while browsing the internet some SC2 content that SEN users have made, that SEN is actually a nice site. They decided to check it out and checked out what was going on with the site and decided to join.
How do you achieve this?
Easy. With a nice propaganda plan. By making videos about your work, map trailers and even the most retarded test map or trigger you do might impress someone. One could promote SEN by adding a "staredit network" video logo before the main video. Of course, the video logo has to be aproved and you might actually not want every single crappy test have the staredit network logo, there has to be, of course, a quality control.
Relationships between sites. Of course! There's nothing wrong with a site promoting another one on their news. There's nothing wrong with sharing content, in fact, you could create competitions in between sites and they both get benefited from them. I was just talking to IP about Nibbits as affiliates and here's a quote:
Quote
*partnership with nibbits should be good because:
- Nibbits is LARGE, like really LARGE. zeeg has always been the type of "the more the best" so he has the largest collection of SC maps and I have no doubt he'll do the same for SC2. So think of nibbits as a "channel" for SEN to get known more.
- Nibbits also has some pretty good programming support. I honestly have no idea where zeeg gets this people but when I was with the mapster people zeeg got ahold of a "galaxy syntax validator" and hosted it at nibbits.
- zeeg is just cool. He has a lot of resources, if you check at his contests and stuff he gives beta keys, sc2 pre orders, things that require a lot of resources (money) no doubt SEN members can benefit from these prizes
*is what i got last
Carlos Cuchilla dice:
*k
*yeah, that's pretty much it. SEN can benefit by being promoted on the site where a lot of people go
*Nibbits benefits itself by expanding its community
*the way I see it nibbits doesn't really have a strong community
*if you notice the contests aren't really for submitting map
*they're for creating tutorials
*for being active on nibbits
*and such
*SEN can also benefit because they can win SC2
*maybe another reason why people aren't doing crap
*is because they don't have SC2
*but honestly, I've been doing stuff before I left SEN and even before mapster gave me a key and that never stopped me.
- Nibbits is LARGE, like really LARGE. zeeg has always been the type of "the more the best" so he has the largest collection of SC maps and I have no doubt he'll do the same for SC2. So think of nibbits as a "channel" for SEN to get known more.
- Nibbits also has some pretty good programming support. I honestly have no idea where zeeg gets this people but when I was with the mapster people zeeg got ahold of a "galaxy syntax validator" and hosted it at nibbits.
- zeeg is just cool. He has a lot of resources, if you check at his contests and stuff he gives beta keys, sc2 pre orders, things that require a lot of resources (money) no doubt SEN members can benefit from these prizes
*is what i got last
Carlos Cuchilla dice:
*k
*yeah, that's pretty much it. SEN can benefit by being promoted on the site where a lot of people go
*Nibbits benefits itself by expanding its community
*the way I see it nibbits doesn't really have a strong community
*if you notice the contests aren't really for submitting map
*they're for creating tutorials
*for being active on nibbits
*and such
*SEN can also benefit because they can win SC2
*maybe another reason why people aren't doing crap
*is because they don't have SC2
*but honestly, I've been doing stuff before I left SEN and even before mapster gave me a key and that never stopped me.
Relationships between the community?
Believe it or not the PR representative (let's not call it admin for a while) should take care of all of the community's... bitching
Harsh moderator is behind you? The PR should check your case and conclude something. If the moderator IS abusing you he is to notify the administrator to take care, not actually do any moderation itself (see why we're not calling him admin?)
Why? Simply because if the PR doesn't have the power to abuse it, he won't. Think of it as a mediator. Should also relief the admins from getting mass PMs and filter some retarded PMs off them so they can focus on more important things.
Why this? Simply because if the community is not satisfied, they won't feel like working, they won't feel like improving cause there's nothing motivating them. If there's no work being done, what propaganda will SEN make? What work will be promoted and most importantly, why should I as a pro SC2 map maker stay at SEn if I'm going to be the only one doing anything at all?
I've mentioned some aspects of what has to be done, there's much more than this but now I'll relate this aspects to what a PR admin should do and should be:
He should be:
- Someone with a vision on the future. Someone that can imagine and can do what it takes to get new members on SEN and make them stay. Maybe it's not in his power or ability to do the required things to improve SEN but it'll be his job to point them out. i.e. SEN needs a new DB, the PR obviously can't do it, but he'll tell the one who can that a new DB is needed because new users don't have where to submit their jobs.
- Someone who has people skills. Someone who is convincing, someone who knows what he's talking about and that people will follow on.
- Somone who knows SEN. Period.
- Someone who is willing to put behind his personal feelings and do what's right for SEN, achieve the right connections and of course, he has to know where and how to look for them.
He has to do:
- Achieve external relations
- Achieve promotion, promote SEN externally via any possible method in order to bring new users
- Has to mantain the community, make it improve and keep it happy.
- He doesn't have to moderate SEN per se but of course has to take care of it in the sense so SEN feels like a nice place, and not as a spambox, flamebox or anything hostile.
- Must have an internal recognition. Globe perhaps? So that people can contact him and not think he's a regular member.
- Must interact with other communities and places, keep things updated on what's going on SEN but of course he is allowed to do it. Maybe some sites don't really like advertising? either disguise it or why is this site your affiliate? What are the benefits you're getting from it if it's not propaganda & sharing?
The PR is someone who cares about the community and someone with not so much power that he can abuse it or become a gigantic douche after a while with that many power
Here's the Plan:
- Creation artwork. Quality artwork. Loading screens for.. when loading a map? duh? Imagery for inside the map, you can display the SEN logo as a button or as a signature somewhere in the screen. And of course the creation of a video logo. Also design them in order to allow the user to customize them whenever he wants.
- Creation of propaganda plans. I'm not going to detail this but just to give a VERY broad idea this could include the creation of a "work report" in which you could gather information to create videos or a magazine (think SEN observer but actually get it done)
- Make the community happy. Make your users feel important. Seriously? Last 7 news topics: contest, release date, contest, map night, contest again? Who the fuck cares! If you go to staredit.net you'll find a lot of information about a site that you don't know, but what if they showed you information of something you could be PART OF?
Say the PR News, like, twice a week, of the work being done by members already. Centreri's map is awesome blah blah blah check it out here *link* Payne's map's done play it here *link* Here are some screenshots of us playing it *pics* This will make members want to BE in the news and show newcomers what SEN is doing without having to lurk the forums very deeply. This will make members work more to get news'd since they actually have the possibility of being in the spotlight. This also mildly creates a quality control cause then members will start competing against each other in order to be in the spotlight. A simple tiny square is NOT ENOUGH. Before I got banned I made sure funguscraft would be in the spotlight for 4 straight weeks in the future and it did. Did anyone even notice it?
- New affiliates. Talk to people outside. Invite others to check on SEN, tell them what SEN has to offer.
Nothing of this will work if 1. SEN doesn't have anything new to offer and 2. SEN Member's don't do crap.
I'm posting this (Or not?) from below my banned, quitting, grave. I said that if I was asked for I would help and that all you had to do was contact me. Here's my help.
I'm just pointing out some of the many things SEN's missing. Offering some solutions while I, of course, can't do everything.
I honestly would love to be assigned the position and very much honestly IP was already offering it (right?) and I am obviously the one with all the ideas but I understand two things. 1. I left. 2. I didn't leave particulary in good, mature ways, instead I left in lulzy, "free gifts"-giving spree ways
And I don't want to be IP's next excalibur where he randomly just picked up a friend to be admin and everyone wtf'd on sight, IP's a nice guy, he's cool, he does favours, it's not his fault. But I instead, want the community to hear the proposal first. I want to listen and take you guys into consideration, thing that I would do too.
You may also just appoint somebody else, or not appoint anyone at all, that's okay, I have already informed you of the problem and did my share. I'll continue with the life I've always carried and won't QQ in my bedroom's corner or cut deep into my veins.
Hope you appreciate that even DEAD I help you and take this post gladly with no bashing intention whatsoever.
It's been nice having the opportunity to talk to you guys again, bai.
fuck you all