Hi all,
Spring is here, so time for a new blog in mod world as to what’s going on behind the scenes. Threee main topics this time…
Changes
As you will have seen devs have changed the forum format to incorporate their other games, personally I think this is awesome because in the age of so many different Social Media platforms, it recognizes that this is really the home for Flyboys, even though they are very active elsewhere too.
With Change comes challenges and this one is no different. Discourse (this platform), only allows categories 2 deep, so a main (WOA) and a sub-category (Airline Suggestions) as an example. The challenge is under the old structure, we were already using 2. There is a solution, but it needs to be reviewed and tested before we set it up in the new way. I am working on that. In the meantime, the existing categories will stay as they are (including this one), until they are ready to move over.
Mods.
As I have written before, I have had to take a large step back from playing and managing, doesn’t mean i am not around and I help the team as needed due to me being an admin rather than a mod. Honestly there isn’t a lot of difference between the two, but it’s good to have separation and as many know you have to be careful with admin levels. I am still honored that it was given to me in the first place.
However, with me stepping back. the work has fallen on @ukplanespotter757 , and while he has done an absolutely brilliant job of keeping things running, it definitely needs more folks to help out. So Discourse has a setting called Category Mods, and we are starting to implement that. That doesn’t mean we are suddenly going to have a ton of mods on the site, as that’s not good practice either, so please don’t come right at us and ask to be one, it’s not going to happen.
That said, we have created a group called Category Mods and they are going to assist with probably the biggest traffic part of this forum. Suggestions. They will assist in reviewing submissions and either adjust, approve or reject them as necessary (more on that in the next section). So outside of the admin and regular mod folks, I would like to welcome our first two category mods. @Hirohitoswaifu and @Thatflyerguy , who have worked on many things with this forum and both UK and I believe can really help keeping the suggestion submissions moving. I look forward to working with them over the coming months, they are already doing the job and by all accounts it’s working well.
Side note: We have created Mods for the Wiki part of the system as well, but that’s already a specific group of people that have access to edit/create that category,
Suggestions
Now to the big point of this point. Suggestions. As above we have added mods to review the large number of submissions we get on a daily basis and manage them accordingly. HOWEVER… you can help too..
We are seeing FAR too many requests that I call “Phone it in”, meaning the proper research has not been done, the information is incomplete, poor quality photos attached and in many cases, the template provided is just not followed.
That stops NOW… While the Suggestion Mod team will have a certain degree of latitude, submissions that just poor or not following the template will be automatically rejected. This does not mean it gives you the rights to get annoyed at them, DM them (unless already in a conversation about it) or complain in other threads. The fact of the matter is, in 99/100 cases, its the submittors fault, so the blame lies there NOT in the mods lap.
So if you are going to do a submission, take your time, do it properly, do not spam the requests with 50 at once, give everyone a chance to submit. OH… and before you submit, do a search to make sure your proposed submission is not already there. There are plenty of tags out there to find stuff.
We are going to be a lot less flexible with it than in the past. It takes time to review, check confirm, each one (which we do), so help us, help you. Do it right first time…
Wiki updates:
We have a great team of folks working on this and I’m blown away by the continued progress. So instead of me posting here. Please check out the link below, to see what the future holds. It’s pretty cool..
With that.. I’m out of here… have a great spring and above all, enjoy this wonderful game of WOA, it’s still one of the best games out there in my opinion and i’ve been doing this a LONG time (even before some of you were likely born…) - yes I am that old…
Carlsberg72 (Andy) for the mod team.