Why has CivFanatics overtaken Apolyton in members?

[Solver]

CS, the question of whether Ming is "deep into the Civ4 community" is irrelevant because our on-site Civ4 community is small. Hence everyone who plays Civ4 is in that community .

I don't see the need for any additional moderators, though. More moderators are generally needed when the existing ones can't cope with the workload. However, with the activity levels being what they are, there's not much for Civ4 mods to do apart from deleting spambot advertisements. Just what do you think the new dedicated moderators would actually DO?

Now, if someone wanted to create a collection of some useful modding info or somesuch...

[Robert]

Solver,
If you make people moderators of the civ4 section, they'll feel more responsible for the civ4 section. They will start to add more info themselves, answer questions from others, organize the forum, etc. etc.

The community is small, and if you want to expand the community you should start with a few enthousiastic members.

[Ming]

Solver has a point... it's not really a matter of more mods or staff people... it's more a matter of more active posters. You don't have to be a staff member to add to the Civ IV experience here. What we need is more Civ IV strategists who want to continue discussing the game at it's strategies... We need more Civ IV modders... More MP players... More Newbees

People with technical skills that can help the site make the upgrades it needs are welcome to volunteer. We need help in that area. But more moderators... why... the current work load doesn't require them.

[Solver]

Hm, I'll have to respectfully disagree on that one. Assigning people is moderators is a whole different deal. In my opinion, mods need to be individuals well-known and trusted by the management, and they don't necessarily have to play the game or post much about it - they need a considerable amount of online time and the skills to put an end to any rule abuse that may be going on.

Looking at CFC and many other forums (including Apolyton in its Civ3 days), it's obvious that people who do contribute useful info and answer questions get LOTS of respect, despite (and maybe sometimes thanks to) not being mods. In the Civ3 days, alexman was highly respected for his Apolyton University efforts and work on corruption, while, for example, alva was greatly respected for the detailed answers he provided on various subjects. You can see that even in today's smaller community - the respect for Blake with his amazing AI efforts, for one.

Enthusiastic members are great, so they're encouraged to add great content. That content can well make its way to the front page or receive or other types of coverage and support. But moderation isn't about it. Sometimes it's even more of a dirty job, deleting spam and making people who do personal attacks shut up.

EDIT: X-post with Ming. And indeed, anyone who has good technical skills (PHP, SQL and the like) is more than welcome to apply for positions to help the site. As for the current Civ4 activity levels, I believe even one mod could painlessly do all the required moderation, and two certainly can.

[Arrian]

Yep, it's the posters who make the site good (or not). Some of us have just gotten busier, or burnt out a bit. I don't post on CIV strategy the way I did on CivIII, despite the fact that CIV is clearly the superior game. That's fine - I rambled on enough. But we need new folks to come in and pour their thoughts onto virtual 'poly paper. So, how does one attract new posters?

1. The front page really does kinda suck. I got past it, but it could really use fixin' up.

2. Excitement from the admins/owners about the release of the next expansion (in the form of news items, posts, etc) may help too. Of course, you'll be accused of being mindless fanboys, but that's par for the course.

3. Any help in injecting some life into comparative gaming like Apolyton University or a GotM or similar stuff would be good. Those sorts of games tend to result in lots of analysis, hence lots of posts - and generally good posts at that. ZargonX is trying to revive AU as we speak.

-Arrian

[Robert]

Originally posted by Solver
Now, if someone wanted to create a collection of some useful modding info or somesuch...

Most people don't want info on how to mod or something. They want mods, they want to search for the right mod.
They want a page with all mods listed and ways to sort and to search.

When I go to CFC to look for a UN mod, I have to search and browse, and it's really not good. But it's the best we have. That's why we go there.
What I would want to have:

- a list with all mods
- all mods must be threads, thus it's possible to respond to them
- I want to sort on mod-type (graphics, maps, civilization) and modified content (UN, wonders, tech, combat system). Involved people in the mod, date posted, number of downloads, etc.
- old comments must be auto-archived to keep the thread from growing into a dinosaur
- search functionality (only in the mod, not in all the posts)

Well, that kinda stuff.
And the info should be displayed in a simple way (one line per mod):

Name of the mod - author(s) - type - content - # of downloads - # of responses - date of last modification

All column titles must be clickable, when clicked they sort that column. (ie. when I click on 'content' then all mods that contain a UN modification will group together, all mods that contain a wonder-modification will group together, etc.) (and yes, some mods will show in multiple content-groups)

well, that's in short how a good mod-db would work imho. simple, easy to use, not too much info, enough info at once glance, and you can easily find what you look for, it's a thread and a database combined, people can respond but the responses won't pollute the real info people are looking for (The mod info)

Thus if I look for UN mods I won't find mods to which someone has responded that "You guys should have modified the UN in this mod as well".

[Robert]

Well, then continue on this clearly failing way. I won't leaving, I love apolyton, and I hate it that it's going down the hill

Lesson one in succesfull managament is that you have to give people responsibilities. The more responsibilities you give to people, the more they'll want to invest.
If a big mod-creator is responsible for apolyton in a limited way, he will post his mods on apolyton. (and perhaps still on CFC as well)

And things are obviously different when there are a lot of active users and mods. Because the hierarchy is more expanded in that case. If there's much activity people are more eager to contribute to the activity.
But that's not how things are right now. Right now there's little activity, and you can't start the activity by telling that people should be more active. There should be a reason for them to be more active.

Give them responsibility, Apolyton Staff!

[Robert]

In my opinion, mods need to be individuals well-known and trusted by the management

That's obviously. I don't ask to let people who are hardly known or trusted to mod the forums.

and they don't necessarily have to play the game or post much about it

I respectfully disagree with this.
On all forums where I post the mods are those people who are deep into the subject. If a mod is only a rule-enforcer in your mind, then that's a wrong idea of a mod, imho. A mod should be much more then just a rule enforcer. He's an inspirator to the people that participate. It's the person who responds to their questions. He helps them, he posts great ideas, he knows much info, etc. That's why he is respected most. Not because he can enforce the rules, but because he's first 'one of them'.

Why is Ming such a successfull Mod? because he's living and breathing the Off Topic and all of Apolyton.
He wasn't a mod first, he was a normal user like all of us, he participated much into the civ2 community. That's why he is so succesfull as a mod.
And talent comes in 2nd of course (or 1st, and the rest I said 2nd)

Even his lack of admitting his mistakes didn't come into his way to become a good mod (notice the !)

[Solver]

Most people don't want info on how to mod or something. They want mods, they want to search for the right mod.
They want a page with all mods listed and ways to sort and to search.

True, but we cant have mods here if we don't have modders. Granted, we can host and provide dowloads for various mods, but we can't just link to every mod that CFC has published, that's not prudent.

A page with "all mods" eventually becomes infeasible, once there are many mods. A good database with a search function is important, of course.

Some of your database suggestions are good, though. I like the CFC database myself. If you search in the forums, it can lead to problems like what you mention, if you search in the actual database (like http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=1 ), you'll actually get good results.

And things are obviously different when there are a lot of active users and mods. Because the hierarchy is more expanded in that case. If there's much activity people are more eager to contribute to the activity.
But that's not how things are right now. Right now there's little activity, and you can't start the activity by telling that people should be more active. There should be a reason for them to be more active.

I just don't see how a person will be more likely to create a mod if he has the power to delete threads. In a forum that works like it should, you don't even really notice who the mods are. They do the dirty works without it being visible to regular users, and if they post, they do so in the same way as regular users.

What are you proposing, to pick 4-5 Civ4 players randomly, give them a responsible mod status and hope they come up with strategy guides and modpacks because of that?

Activity is built around enthusiastic members. They are enthusiastic because they like to talk about the game or create files for it, or play it online, etc. Just think back to the Civ3 days. I think Ming and Rah were the only Civ3 forum mods (and they didn't even play Civ3), but that didn't prevent the community from being very active. The hierarchy in that community, instead of being forced down on everyone by the admins, formed by itself, with the greatest contributors at top.

[Ming]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Even his lack of admitting his mistakes didn't come into his way to become a good mod (notice the !)

I do have to agree that the best mods are those that know the community, are involved in the community, and are respected.

But I dont' agree that we need more mods just so that they feel that have to post more. A forum that turns into only having the mods talk to each other is not what we are looking for. Yes, we do need more active and involved posters... but making more people mods isn't the answer.

In the new sports forum, some people (a few staff members, but mostly just posters) have taken it upon themselves to keep the forum active. We/they have done a good job since the Sports Forum is alive and well. We need the same in Civ IV.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Solver
Just think back to the Civ3 days. I think Ming and Rah were the only Civ3 forum mods (and they didn't even play Civ3), but that didn't prevent the community from being very active.

Civ III sucked
But yeah, just because we weren't active past the first few months of the launch (we gave up on the game after that) didn't hinder a strong Civ III community

[Solver]

On all forums where I post the mods are those people who are deep into the subject. If a mod is only a rule-enforcer in your mind, then that's a wrong idea of a mod, imho. A mod should be much more then just a rule enforcer. He's an inspirator to the people that participate. It's the person who responds to their questions. He helps them, he posts great ideas, he knows much info, etc. That's why he is respected most. Not because he can enforce the rules, but because he's first 'one of them'.

Again, let me refer you to Civ3. People were inspired by posters such as Aeson, Arrian or alexman, none of which were mods. They had the answers. They had insight. They had enthusiasm.

See, a mod is, technically, just that, a poster with the power to close and delete threads. If a poster has knowledge and the will to answer, he can do that without thread-delete ability. If he doesn't have the knowledge, he won't suddenly gain it from that. If he does have the knowledge but is unwilling to answer questions, he won't become willing by becoming a mod. In fact, I wouldn't want someone who doesn't want to answer questions assigned as a mod.

Why is Ming such a successfull Mod? because he's living and breathing the Off Topic and all of Apolyton.

Ming is a great OTF mod because he knws the people in the OTF and has respect of most of them. He has experience in dealing with spam and flamewars, so you could put him to moderate a forum for a game he's never played, and he'll still handle it well, because he knows how to deal with trouble.

But in our current Civ4 forums, why is Blake a respected member? Why is Dale or Dominae or Ozzy a respected member? Because they post useful things and have done so for a while. If anything, making one of them a mod would (theoretically, if the forums were active enough) make them spend some of their time deleting crap and closing threads, which would mean LESS time spent making useful posts.

[Robert]

But I dont' agree that we need more mods just so that they feel that have to post more.

Well, it's not as if there are that many (active) mods in the civ4 community. Right now just Solver and me.
If you add 1 or 2 that's not as if there's an overdose on mods.

And like I said, it's only a beginning, we need a new db as well. The new db is the key to success. In the end information is most important! And being able to find the right information.

[Solver]

Bah, Ming, what's up with you, drank a lot of coffee this morning? You keep typing the answers faster than me today .

[Solver]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Well, it's not as if there are that many (active) mods in the civ4 community. Right now just Solver and me.

Locutus and Gramphos also visit the forums all the time. And even if I were the lone active mod, I'd still be capable of handling all the trouble in the Civ4 forums, because there's little of that.

Now, let's see if your mod status suddenly prompts you to create a huge modpack .