Invadedlands Player Council - A proposal to Management

[didgo]

Hey, before this is written I know this is gonna be a long post so this is just like a heads up for anyone who doesn't want to read just skip it. There will be no TL;DR because I think a short summary doesn't do enough to explain everything in my reply so that's that. I also want to preface this by mentioning I was active as a member during the IPC, and I was a Jr Councillor before it shut down, so I remember how this worked.

Okay, here we go.

I'm just going to start with this; the IPC did not work. Nothing about it was nearly as productive as it was designed to be, and that's not really anyone's fault. When suggestions are made to managers, and more importantly developers, they have to be clear, organized and show a history of discussion and community engagement. This is something that the IPC never could achieve properly, and something that the suggestions tab on the forums does more effectively for many reasons which I will get to later.

My goal here isn't to completely kill the dream. I think an IPC v2 could really work wonders for the community, and community engagement and it could be a good thing. But like all suggestions I handle, I'm going to be the devil's advocate and run through some problems and issues in the hopes that people can band together and offer reasonable and feasible solutions to the issues I bring up. I've said before that the strongest suggestions will be able to stand up to severe criticism and this is no exception.

Just as a small note I will be quoting @vunsh 's google doc first, then I will go through some of the thread's replies.

Problems with an IPC v2

Document

The fatal flaw of the IPC was the fact that little to no suggestions were actually implemented at all, eventually resulting in the original IPC shutting down…

Here's the thing with the way suggestions are brought to managers and developers. If you look back at the closed suggestions around October of 2020, You will see nothing but suggestions with me as the last person to reply. Here's what I did while dealing with suggestions:

1. Go through and not only read every serious suggestion, but then you have to read ALL the replies up to that point.
2. Reply to most suggestions with concerns to see if they are truly wanted/needed.
3. Summarize every suggestion with your own wording to align with context and concerns of behind-the-scenes considerations (staff's opinions, server operations - basically what is and isn't possible).
4. Create an extensive reference list where at the end of each suggestion you put an [1] etc, and create a reference table at the bottom of the document so managers and developers alike can reference the original post if they need to.

This took me days to complete while having invested serious time into it extending into the early am of the next morning. The thing that most do not consider is while this is Minecraft, and by extension a game, to most, to certain Managers and Developers, this is their job. And while working on updates, bugs, content, etc, suggestions need to be presented in a format that is as easy as possible to work on so that it's not overwhelming for anyone involved. The same thing happened the next round of suggestions with Zackyyy leading the charge there, and he did the same thing I did that first round. When you look back at this as a staff member, you can definitely tell that suggestions were more likely to be implemented through our process and the suggestions tab by a large margin compared to IPC. IPC just has never been a good medium for suggestions, and I doubt it ever will be. This is why I would much rather IPC be used for ideas like Community Events, Events, Quality of life improvements, etc. I'll get more into that later.

The second part of this would be accessibility to make suggestions, especially for new players. Having a really involved and complicated system for players to make suggestions to the server will deter and confuse new players to the point where they give up on their suggestions altogether. I know this because the same thing happened to me when I first joined invaded. Our current system of just making a forums account and being able to post a suggestion is much easier.

The third caveat to having a suggestion-centric system is the inability for us to accept and incorporate suggestions at this time. There are currently major, critical development projects underway that require the full attention of the developers. There is no current timetable for this, however, updates will be provided when they are able to be provided, and when it is appropriate to do so.

2. Sometimes, the suggestion tab isn't open at all. This is concerning as players deserve to have their voice heard by the staff team in an effective way.

I totally understand why lots of players are concerned about this being the case. Currently, with everything that has happened with the server, managers need to make more critical problems their priority right now. Rest assured however that As soon as suggestions can be opened, I will encourage managers to do so.

However just as an explanation as to why they are ever closed at all, we previously closed them to give developers more room to breathe and focus on a small set of suggestions while preparing resets before we asked for more as to not overwhelm them.

Players want a place to give feedback that actually matters, not a forum post that gets disregarded.

I would hope that my prior explanation of the suggestions process would render this statement moot; no serious suggestion is ever disregarded.

• Become an official part of Invadedlands - includes Invaded staff and higher ups.

This is very unlikely to ever happen if the focus is on providing suggestions. I will reiterate that, in my opinion, the best way to move forward with a potential IPC project would be to shift the focus to community engagement projects that will be more likely implemented in a "player council" environment here on Invaded.

• Create an effective system in which suggestions are to be voted on and passed onto management.

Forums.

Something that is really great about the suggestions panel on the forums is staff involvement. I think it is reasonable to include staff members in the final voting process for suggestions that would be sent to managers, as they would have the most experience and communication with them.

Forums.

Setting up - There is no doubt that setting up an entire player council is something that will take a lot of effort and time. However, this is something that we have decided to help speed along for managers. We have already created a discord server (link) in which most channel permissions are already set up. Councillor guidelines, rules, permissions, etc are already set in place. The ticket system is almost finished, and can be refined at any point in time by managers. There is even a custom bot that we created for the server specifically that can help with moderation and FAQs. This shows our dedication to creating a space for the community that would really be helpful, and something we take pride in. Of course, if there is anything that needs to be adjusted management can always do so.

Under no circumstances would an official player council (or even an unofficial one to which a staff member is assigned) would ever be created by someone who is not at the very least a senior member of the staff team. This is for multiple reasons, not the least of which concerns security, moderation, or accountability of the way this player council represents the server's public image. This is in no way meant to completely disregard any and all work you have done, however, if an IPC were to be set up, it would be set up by senior members of the team.

Staff time - Another issue that arises is staff time and dedication that would have to happen in the council. We have some clarifications that can maybe ease some concerns regarding this. First, moderation of the discord would likely be separate and there could be moderation applications for the IPC discord. Since it is a player council, it seems fair to have players moderate it.

You are right when you say that moderation duties would cut into the staff's time, which at a point where we are stretched thin is unacceptable. As such, we would need to be more staffed up to consider officially implementing this. By extension, if this were an official part of the Invadedlands Network, we would not allow players to staff this server, at least players selected by councilors. They would have to complete a similar application to the Discord staff application and be approved by whoever is the Discord Staff Manager at that time. This is yet another reason why this cannot happen at this time.

Secondly, suggestions that would have to be approved by staff members are not everyday suggestions you see in tickets. These would be suggestions that would already have been debated and voted on, and staff members would have 1 - 2 lines of the suggestion to deal with. They would simply decide if it is truly reasonable for the server, and move on to the next one. I feel since there are already some staff members on board with this idea, this wouldn’t be much of an issue at all.

Forums

Difference between past and now - While the council was run by Apex (@ApexWasabi tysm for everything < 3), there was an overwhelming amount of suggestions that even if management saw, there was no way they could read them all and implement them realistically. This is easily solvable! One of the main things that was causing this issue was the fact that too many suggestions were being able to pass on. A lot of these suggestions were completely game changing, huge suggestions that could not easily be implemented and benefit the server. They were accepted because they seemed like a cool addition, as councilors at the time voted more on how nice the suggestion is than how reasonable it is to add to the server. With this in mind, creating a new step where moderators finalize suggestions before sending them to managers increases official invaded involvement, and also makes sure that every suggestion that is sent is something that can actually be achieved.

Forums, and again, the focus should be shifted away from suggestions.

Forum Thread Replies

As a former member of the IPC near the end, I think this would be a positive addition to the community for a few reasons:

1.
The suggestion forum isn't often checked by staff (or so it appears so). This ensures the staff team doesn't need to go through all of the suggestions. The councillor's are able to run through the suggestions and only approve the ones that are needed. Which can be forwarded to Management. This leaves staff for other jobs instead of running through suggestions, some of which are jokes and waste the teams time.


2.
A lot of people believe that staff just don't care about the community. They do based on a couple conversations talked about surrounding the affixes threads. This would ensure the community does feel
heard and as stated before, frees up the team for other tasks.

3.
A lot of people agree Invaded isn't in the best state at the moment. This gives a chance for the community to rebuild strongly based on what the community wants.

Back when I heard news the IPC was closing I thought it was a positive impact on the IL community, I still believe it is and should be added back.

1. The suggestion tab is regularly and often checked by staff members when they are opened up. I have explained why they are not open currently in previous statements.

2. If they feel that way, that is unfortunate because this is just not true. However, staff members creating an IPC with suggestions as a focus is not us caring about the community, because it is a flawed system that is bound to fail as it fixes a non-existent problem in which there is already a better system. As I said, it would be more feasible and effective if the purpose was re-thought.

3. See 2.

The IPC is just another way for us to filter the suggestions before we give them to management or staff to ensure we only give them the ones that would be good for the community, meaning they wouldn't get the ones that have no benefit or the troll ones.

We don't need a complicated council system to do the job of one person (see above regarding the suggestions process).

The system did not work out before because suggestions were delivered to management, but were often ignored. Now that new blood is on the management, might as well give it a try and see how it goes.

I can't speak about times before I was a staff member, however, I kept pushing Mega to open the suggestions tab and after a while, he did. When I presented that organized document to him and Neon, they listened and were incredibly receptive. Not to say that prior management did not have its flaws, but I think that a different approach is needed when you face challenges such as this. It's not necessarily about who's at the helm, but rather how to present new ideas when you consider all the variables.

I feel like this will be brought up heavily when didgo posts his response, so I'll respond to this idea when I respond to his post : )

See the suggestions process above.

make me head councillor again

I neither see the value of Sr Councillors/Head Councillors nor do I believe that such positions would be needed. If this is an official project from Invaded, a staff member (or members) would take that role. That head counselor position served no real purpose and in a different system, it's not needed.

I will leave this thread open so that more discussion can be made on this topic. However, I invite players to either challenge the points I mentioned or shift their mindset of what an IPC should look like, as it is a firm belief of mine and the staff team that suggestions aren't the future of a potential IPC project.

 

[vunsh]

Hey Didgo! I appreciate the extensive response to my post. Here is what I have to say based on what I hear.

Note: Anything I do not reply to can be assumed as something I agree with : )

You will see nothing but suggestions with me as the last person to reply. Here's what I did while dealing with suggestions

Which we are thankful for. Going off topic here but seriously thank you for the dedication you have towards this community, its seriously unmatched and I'm glad we have you.

This took me days to complete while having invested serious time into it extending into the early am of the next morning.

Why push all this responsibility onto one or two people? Not only is this all being funneled through maximum 2-3 staff members, but I think the majority of us can agree this should be and could be much more efficient if more people helped with this process.

that suggestions were more likely to be implemented through our process and the suggestions tab by a large margin compared to IPC. IPC just has never been a good medium for suggestions, and I doubt it ever will be.

This was due to the fact that IPC was quite literally sending hundreds of suggestions with basically no staff input, and the councilor team was disorganized. For example, a suggestion would come in to completely add a random game mode, and it could get accepted because councilors thought it was a cool idea. All that needs to change this time around is a clear mindset around what kind of suggestions are actually reasonable and worth developer time.

The second part of this would be accessibility to make suggestions, especially for new players. Having a really involved and complicated system for players to make suggestions to the server will deter and confuse new players to the point where they give up on their suggestions altogether. I know this because the same thing happened to me when I first joined invaded. Our current system of just making a forums account and being able to post a suggestion is much easier.

There are more people in the invdaded discord than forums, and discord in general is known to be easier to use than registering for a Minecraft forums account. The suggestion process involves clicking the create ticket button just like the suggestions tab, and writing your suggestion just like the suggestion tab. From a player perspective, barely anything is different in their experience.

The third caveat to having a suggestion-centric system is the inability for us to accept and incorporate suggestions at this time. There are currently major, critical development projects underway that require the full attention of the developers. There is no current timetable for this, however, updates will be provided when they are able to be provided, and when it is appropriate to do so.

Which is completely fine. However, players themselves deserve the opportunity to make suggestions AND give feedback (more below) about the server regardless of whether managers are implementing them at this time. The suggestions tab is meant to give players a voice in a real way, not necessarily just to put suggestions. If you close it, players no longer have this place and end up making angry forums posts about the situation that causes tens of replies and a more heated discussion than it needs to be. An IPC allows these kinds of suggestions and concerns to be discussed professionally and effectively.

However just as an explanation as to why they are ever closed at all, we previously closed them to give developers more room to breathe and focus on a small set of suggestions while preparing resets before we asked for more as to not overwhelm them.

The key word I'm going to talk about here is overwhelm. There is absolutely no need to ever give managers/developers this feeling, and a suggestions panel on a forums that had 700 total suggestions can do just that. While the IPC v2 concept for suggestions is definitely more complicated, it ensures managers on receive the best and most reasonable suggestions. IPC didn't exist to provide a place for players to simple put a suggestion and move on. It truly involves the player in a way that makes them feel included on the server, and I'm sure that is something you can agree with. That whole process is not something a suggestions tab can recreate.

I would hope that my prior explanation of the suggestions process would render this statement moot; no serious suggestion is ever disregarded.

When I said this, I was referring to the idea that the suggestions tab was currently closed and people are making forums posts with suggestions now. I realize this is unclear and makes it seem like suggestions in the suggestions tab are disregarded, which is not true.

This is very unlikely to ever happen if the focus is on providing suggestions. I will reiterate that, in my opinion, the best way to move forward with a potential IPC project would be to shift the focus to community engagement projects that will be more likely implemented in a "player council" environment here on Invaded.

Even if your perfect idea of an IPC becomes real, actual staff and manager involvement must occur. It will end up like the last IPC if ideas for player events and projects were just thrown out because there was no manager or staff involvement. This is crucial to IPC, and really what needs to happen regardless of the reasoning for the council.

• Create an effective system in which suggestions are to be voted on and passed onto management.

Forums.

Upon examining the suggestions tab more and looking at past suggestions, I agree its efficient for players to make suggestions. However, it lacks the ability for players to professionally communicate their side of these posts in real time, as its a forums. On discord this happens at the same time in a live chat, which makes it faster overall. Also, the suggestions panel is usually dealt with by the same two (usually) people every time, which I'm sure takes a lot of personal time and dedication as you said earlier. This shouldn't be put on one persons shoulder.

Under no circumstances would an official player council (or even an unofficial one to which a staff member is assigned) would ever be created by someone who is not at the very least a senior member of the staff team. This is for multiple reasons, not the least of which concerns security, moderation, or accountability of the way this player council represents the server's public image. This is in no way meant to completely disregard any and all work you have done, however, if an IPC were to be set up, it would be set up by senior members of the team.

The goal of creating a discord and some other customizations that were ready to go was just to serve as a placeholder for the community. To show players what it would most likely look like, and what to expect for the future. By no means do I expect to just give this discord server and bot to a manager to run, of course that would have to be internally created. I believe that goal is being accomplished, as I can tell players are warming up to the idea of being in that server and getting ready to make suggestions.

You are right when you say that moderation duties would cut into the staff's time, which at a point where we are stretched thin is unacceptable. As such, we would need to be more staffed up to consider officially implementing this. By extension, if this were an official part of the Invadedlands Network, we would not allow players to staff this server, at least players selected by councilors. They would have to complete a similar application to the Discord staff application and be approved by whoever is the Discord Staff Manager at that time. This is yet another reason why this cannot happen at this time.

Which is what I was saying, they would have to apply and be accepted by the actual Invaded staff team not councilors. That would also apply to councilors in the server as well. In regards to staff time, it seems reasonable to me that 5-6 staff members can spend 1-2 hours max a week reviewing two sentence summaries of suggestions that have passed the extensive process, and by that time not many suggestions would even be passed on. While the application process demands more time, it doesn't have to be done at this time and can be done whenever is feasible for the server.

Secondly, suggestions that would have to be approved by staff members are not everyday suggestions you see in tickets. These would be suggestions that would already have been debated and voted on, and staff members would have 1 - 2 lines of the suggestion to deal with. They would simply decide if it is truly reasonable for the server, and move on to the next one. I feel since there are already some staff members on board with this idea, this wouldn’t be much of an issue at all.

Forums

You yourself said it takes many hours to review suggestions, as you have to read the suggestion and all the replies (which are sometimes just random and irrelevant). In this scenario, staff members dedicate 1-2 hours a week to this process.

Forums, and again, the focus should be shifted away from suggestions.

Players don't post feedback at all on the suggestions tab. Additionally, my point of view here is that the suggestions tab doesn't create the sense of player involvement that an IPC does. IPC offers another place for players to help out on the server, one that isn't just applying for staff every 3 months. For the majority of players, IPC is a chance to really talk about what they think about the server and what they would like to see. They would be talking to real players who are councilors, not just posting a forums post and maybe responding to 1 or 2 other players who checked out the suggestions tab that day.

2. If they feel that way, that is unfortunate because this is just not true. However, staff members creating an IPC with suggestions as a focus is not us caring about the community, because it is a flawed system that is bound to fail as it fixes a non-existent problem in which there is already a better system. As I said, it would be more feasible and effective if the purpose was re-thought.

I think what @noktw was trying to say is that players feel like they have reached a dead end when it comes to voicing their opinions about the server to something official. IPC would be created to be MORE than suggestions, it always has been. Its been about suggesitons, feedback, events, gamemodes, concerns, questions, literally anything Invaded related. People would open tickets to talk about suggestions for content on the server or even different types of events. I know this is something you want to see IPC strictly be for, but really IPC should be there for everything it can. Why create an IPC and leave suggestions tab open, like mentioned earlier submitting a suggestion to IPC is very different from submitting on to the suggestions panel.

We don't need a complicated council system to do the job of one person (see above regarding the suggestions process).

Why not? This system allows so many people's ideas to be heard and actually considered, dealing with real suggestions and feedback for the server shouldn't be done by one person.

I can't speak about times before I was a staff member, however, I kept pushing Mega to open the suggestions tab and after a while, he did. When I presented that organized document to him and Neon, they listened and were incredibly receptive. Not to say that prior management did not have its flaws, but I think that a different approach is needed when you face challenges such as this. It's not necessarily about who's at the helm, but rather how to present new ideas when you consider all the variables.

I think what's missing here is the fact that opening a suggestions tab is much more reasonable then reading and dealing with hundreds of suggestions. That's why they were ignored, not because it was approached the wrong way. This time around, only like 10 real (probably quality of life) suggestions max would make it all the way to management, which is why the complicated system exists.

I think another thing I need to address is that often times IPC would deal with smaller things like quality of life improvements. The issue in the past is that even these were disregarded because they were never read. The new system would solve that for all the reasons mentioned above and in the document.

I neither see the value of Sr Councillors/Head Councillors nor do I believe that such positions would be needed. If this is an official project from Invaded, a staff member (or members) would take that role. That head counselor position served no real purpose and in a different system, it's not needed.

Agreed, if players were to be on the IPC team they would serve as normal councilors, nothing more.


If there is anything to take away from all this, is that an IPC is maybe something that Invaded really needs. Its a place to really feel involved in the community, and is so much more than the suggestions panel.

~ with love,
vunsh <3

 

[StepBrah]

Wow lots of good ideas!

 

[noktw]

Create an extensive reference list where at the end of each suggestion you put an [1] etc, and create a reference table at the bottom of the document so managers and developers alike can reference the original post if they need to.

I'm going to reply more extensively once I'm home as I'm on my phone right now. But another thing I want to touch on is it's possible to have councillors or some people in the IPC to compile a document similar to what you were doing to present to Management, instead of the old way in which they were forwarded unformatted and organized suggestions. Which I agree, was extremely inefficient.

This is why I would much rather IPC be used for ideas like Community Events, Events, Quality of life improvements, etc. I'll get more into that later.

Once you do get into it, are you able to give specific examples of these events?

 

[J1my]

Cool!

 

[vunsh]

Wow lots of good ideas!

!!

 

[ash]

+1

 

[Cake]

The motto of the Invadedlands player council should be: Make Invaded Great Again

 

[xStraved]

Hey everyone! Welcome to a project me and some friends have been working on for some time. We hope to get some support around the idea, come check out our proposal to management here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y1W6_acI6RHKOaGQ8nDIVEHtvdlXG9p7-JE-GlRAGvw/edit#
discord - link in document!

Brief introduction: The IPC was a place to submit suggestions and feedback in the past. It was founded by @ApexWasabi around 2 years ago, and shut down due to many suggestions not being considered by management. However, after much consideration and thought I think that an improved, more effective IPC is something the community can benefit off of now. The document above dives into finer details about the idea, and I appreciate all the support! < 3

Links to our discord server and website (in progress) are on page 7 in the document. We ask that people in the community who want to see change on the server in a positive way that involves everyone to read through the document the best they can. You can support this idea by bumping the thread and spreading the word! The more of the community we have backing the idea the better, thanks guys!

if you have any questions be sure to let me know : )

take care
~ vunsh

Wtf where is my credit

 

[_Vqpple_]

The system did not work out before because suggestions were delivered to management, but were often ignored. Now that new blood is on the management, might as well give it a try and see how it goes. No credit tho?

Ok

 

[_Vqpple_]

Man

Woman

 

[_Vqpple_]

Wtf where is my credit

Rig the next giveaway so i win kid

 

[Lauren]

whats the point when all it takes is 1 manager to look at the suggestions part of the forums

agree I do not see the point lmao it disbanded for a reason