Purely Ideas

[Tintinnabulate]

All other threads have not turned into argument and simply flaming, lets leave all that behind and use this thread to purely suggest new ideas on how to make this forum better.

Please do not argue in this thread. Use it to suggest new ideas and take each idea and make them better one by one. Hopefully management will see this thread, and start implementing good ones.

[start thread]

Basically whats happened is, Habbox offered something unique before and thats why it was popular. Now as Habbo is pushing fansites away, its getting harder to offer something unique so whats needed is a good community.

Here are just my suggestions. Feel free to say why they are crap or good and suggest new ones:

1) Mass unban. That's one way to bring back quite a few regulars, even if they were idiots or broke the rules, give them all a second chance. It will increase posting and activity, that's guaranteed. You might hate it, but hey, an easy way to do is put all unbanned users in a temporary usergroup. If they get 3 infractions in 6 months, it clear they are still morons and should be perm'd. But hey its one way to increase posting.

2) Tell the moderators to use common sense. If they do not have it, get rid of them. I cannot believe some people were picked as trialist moderators :S.

3) Relax the rules. Two main ones are:

3.1) You cannot post links to your site in Spam :S. Its spam, so seriously wth? The excuse is that the forum was being spammed with links, however when I asked for examples, they couldn't provide none and admitted its not the real reason. If someone posts the same link more than 2 times in a week in Spam, them send them a PM. The second excuse was there is a Show off your site forum. Well there is a education forum yet people post HELP ME WITH MY HW in there and thats not moved. Its silly excuses.

3.2) A8. Leave moderating to the moderators. Seriously what? If someone in the Habbo section (main part of the forum for new users) reposts a news which has already been posted and a different new user tells them "heyy its already been posted here [link]" they will be warned. Its pretty silly. Warning someone for being helpful. Obviously if someone else just replies with the same thing again in that thread, it should be classed as pointless posting.

4) A total re-vamp of the forum structure. Get rid of stupid things like the "Welcome Committee". Habbox has done fine without it for 6 years and so have CHF. It will get rid of two forums and will only help speed up the forum.
What you need to do is make index.php smaller. Why? Quite simple really. Right now its so organised with forums for everything, it means that they all look empty. But if you cut down on a lot of them, merged a lot of them, it will still get the same number of threads but it will look more active and prompt people to post more. Looking at a empty forum is just off-putting.
So basically (just an example) 20 forums with 100 threads looks less active than 10 forums with 100 threads.

5) Remove crap from the top for new members.

6) What we need is on Habbo to try and have atleast one games room on top with [Habbox.com] at the front of the room name. Now new users will constantly see it there and will come to the site. I just loaded Habbo now and I saw a HFFM and TryHabbo room on top. Not a single Habbox room.

7) I pointed out that the Events calendar on Habbox is never updated 1-2 weeks ago. Guess what? Its still empty. STOP BLOODY RELYING ON AUTOMATIC SCRIPTS. TYPE IT OUT YOURSELF AND MAKE THEM COOL AND INTERESTING. It only takes a few minutes and if the manager cannot do it, get a new one or hire someone to do it. How do you expect the site to grow when people come and see no events? Its just laziness.

I will surely think of more but its early and I cannot think of any atm. Its just starters and please feel free to say why any of all of them are crap of good. Hopefully management will actually look at what the majority want instead of what they think is right.

[Jamesy]

I'll try to answer the ones more aimed at the forum, as I'm afraid I do not know what other habbo related departments are up to.

Here are just my suggestions. Feel free to say why they are crap or good and suggest new ones:

1) Mass unban. That's one way to bring back quite a few regulars, even if they were idiots or broke the rules, give them all a second chance. It will increase posting and activity, that's guaranteed. You might hate it, but hey, an easy way to do is put all unbanned users in a temporary usergroup. If they get 3 infractions in 6 months, it clear they are still morons and should be perm'd. But hey its one way to increase posting.

An amnesty could work, although it would need to be decided by General Management so I will wait for them to reply.

2) Tell the moderators to use common sense. If they do not have it, get rid of them. I cannot believe some people were picked as trialist moderators :S.

Both Garion and myself do encourage common sense, as a trialist moderator it's a very steep learning curve so of course they will make mistakes. It's something you have to learn as a moderator to take your own initiative.

3) Relax the rules. Two main ones are:

3.1) You cannot post links to your site in Spam :S. Its spam, so seriously wth? The excuse is that the forum was being spammed with links, however when I asked for examples, they couldn't provide none and admitted its not the real reason. If someone posts the same link more than 2 times in a week in Spam, them send them a PM. The second excuse was there is a Show off your site forum. Well there is a education forum yet people post HELP ME WITH MY HW in there and thats not moved. Its silly excuses.

3.2) A8. Leave moderating to the moderators. Seriously what? If someone in the Habbo section (main part of the forum for new users) reposts a news which has already been posted and a different new user tells them "heyy its already been posted here [link]" they will be warned. Its pretty silly. Warning someone for being helpful. Obviously if someone else just replies with the same thing again in that thread, it should be classed as pointless posting.

I believe this came up in the other thread about forum specific rules. I do agree and I find some harsh - I will set aside some time to go through them with the moderators of the section and decide which ones are worth ditching / keeping.

4) A total re-vamp of the forum structure. Get rid of stupid things like the "Welcome Committee". Habbox has done fine without it for 6 years and so have CHF. It will get rid of two forums and will only help speed up the forum.
What you need to do is make index.php smaller. Why? Quite simple really. Right now its so organised with forums for everything, it means that they all look empty. But if you cut down on a lot of them, merged a lot of them, it will still get the same number of threads but it will look more active and prompt people to post more. Looking at a empty forum is just off-putting.
So basically (just an example) 20 forums with 100 threads looks less active than 10 forums with 100 threads.

I think after the last big forum merging we now have a lot smaller index. I also think that merging too much will kill of discussion in some forums, for example putting jokes into spam - that simply didn't work at all. The WC wars have given me a lot to think about (not just members against it, there are other factors I've noticed that have concerned me.)

5) Remove crap from the top for new members.

If you mean notices then I admit I tend to forget to clear them, although it's not always I notice them get made by other people .

Thanks for your feedback. It's given me a lot of food for thought.

[Nixt]

1) Mass unban. That's one way to bring back quite a few regulars, even if they were idiots or broke the rules, give them all a second chance. It will increase posting and activity, that's guaranteed. You might hate it, but hey, an easy way to do is put all unbanned users in a temporary usergroup. If they get 3 infractions in 6 months, it clear they are still morons and should be perm'd. But hey its one way to increase posting.

Not something I am keen on. Certainly not unbanning every member who have ever broken the rules, that would seriously undermine the rules and the foundation on which we ensure a stable community at Habbox. However, watch this space. There is something I mooted to Jamesy last night which, although not a complete removal of all bans, will certainly make people happy. I'm not going to go into too much detail on the matter yet for two key reasons - 1) It will need approval from the highest levels, and as such may well get rejected, in which case I don't want to outright say something so big will happen for it to get rejected (thus pissing everyone off) and 2) it's in the very early stages and needs a lot of expansion before I go about talking about it.

But put it this way - a lot of people will be happy and it will benefit a lot of people. As well as creating an awful lot of work for us. Give me a day or two and you may well see a lot of stuff happening that surprises you.

2) Tell the moderators to use common sense. If they do not have it, get rid of them. I cannot believe some people were picked as trialist moderators :S.

Your personal vendettas against individuals are irrelevant. However I do agree that Moderator's ability to evaluate individual circumstances and act upon that needs looking at, we need to make sure that they are not becoming robotic and following a perfectly set procedure each and every time. James has already communicated this to the Moderators (today) and we will continue to hone this skill to ensure it starts happening.

3) Relax the rules. Two main ones are:

3.1) You cannot post links to your site in Spam :S. Its spam, so seriously wth? The excuse is that the forum was being spammed with links, however when I asked for examples, they couldn't provide none and admitted its not the real reason. If someone posts the same link more than 2 times in a week in Spam, them send them a PM. The second excuse was there is a Show off your site forum. Well there is a education forum yet people post HELP ME WITH MY HW in there and thats not moved. Its silly excuses.

From the other thread: Saurav has also mentioned the advertising rule in the spam forum. Essentially disallowing you from posting such things as "HI I'M DJING ON SOMEHABBORADIO.COM TUNE IN". I don't think it is so much a problem with the rules, rather a problem with the way it is applied. Shameless advertising should be dealt with but not necessarily casual linking.

3.2) A8. Leave moderating to the moderators. Seriously what? If someone in the Habbo section (main part of the forum for new users) reposts a news which has already been posted and a different new user tells them "heyy its already been posted here [link]" they will be warned. Its pretty silly. Warning someone for being helpful. Obviously if someone else just replies with the same thing again in that thread, it should be classed as pointless posting.

From the other thread: Regarding the "leaving moderating to the moderators" rule - this seems to be applied too harshly in some situations, for example when someone says "already posted - link here" in Habbo News and Rumours. I think this rule should only be applied where someone interrupts a discussion by say, quoting a rule breaking post and doing the whole "TUT! YOU WERE RUDE TO ANOTHER MEMBER". Posting "oh this has already been posted - xx" is essentially a way of helping members and maybe should not be penalised. However I do think, if a member were to post "already posted - xx" and someone replies "yeah it's already been posted", the second poster should be approached for pointless posting. What do you guys think?

Regarding other rules I said:

The pointless posting rule could also be reviewed (and is being reviewed). The first thing James has looked at is the way in which the "one word" rule is applied and we will be altering this slightly to make it more fair. Essentially we will be stopping people posting threads that can only really justify one word answers rather than targeting people who reply to them.

I think the key problem is actually that some of the forum specific rules have become too draconian, rather than the main body of rules. Notable examples are:

Graphics rule 1 - I hate the way members aren't allowed to say "I really like this, it's awesome +rep!" I feel this rule is far too harsh. Members should be penalised for saying "Good alt" but not for clearly and fairly expressing their appreciation for an alt or graphic. I do think they should be penalised however, if they just say "this is really bad". It's unfair and rude to outrageously criticise without backing that up (some people in feedback should perhaps take note of this point!) but I don't think it's wrong to say you like something, as long as you say it in earnest!

4) A total re-vamp of the forum structure. Get rid of stupid things like the "Welcome Committee". Habbox has done fine without it for 6 years and so have CHF. It will get rid of two forums and will only help speed up the forum.
What you need to do is make index.php smaller. Why? Quite simple really. Right now its so organised with forums for everything, it means that they all look empty. But if you cut down on a lot of them, merged a lot of them, it will still get the same number of threads but it will look more active and prompt people to post more. Looking at a empty forum is just off-putting.
So basically (just an example) 20 forums with 100 threads looks less active than 10 forums with 100 threads.

In light of recent feedback and obvious complete lack of faith (the fabled quote) on the part of almost everyone on the forum, it seems likely the Welcome Committee will be removed and the roles of Committee members stressed as part of a Moderator's mandate.

Regarding the index, it was repeatedly cut down under Oli's Management and I think currently works quite well. Do you have any suggestions on what forums we could cut down? Because I, personally, can't think of anything but I am sure as hell ready to listen to member suggestions on the matter.

5) Remove crap from the top for new members.

See above.

6) What we need is on Habbo to try and have atleast one games room on top with [Habbox.com] at the front of the room name. Now new users will constantly see it there and will come to the site. I just loaded Habbo now and I saw a HFFM and TryHabbo room on top. Not a single Habbox room.

We are currently in the process of a "Habbox Central" project, where there are a number of Habbox rooms linked to a centrally connecting room. We aim to popularise this central room and the rooms linking from it, so we have a number of rooms regularly popular on the client. I do think the community departments need to step up at this time of Habbox recession, as it were, and I am quite keen to hold another "Habbox Promotion Week" similar to one held recently that involved a lot of giveaways and events.

Thanks, Saurav, this is the kind of feedback I like to see.

[ihatehash]

I personally think that the main reason habboxforum has died is because of habbox.com. It doesn't have anything that will make the visitors want to stay and and that is the site that people will first go to. It's laggy, appears quite boring and doesn't look like a gold official site. also with the habbox site there is not much about the forum. The forum is what will make people stay and come back daily, it needs to be advertised more so that people make an effort to sign up.

[Tintinnabulate]

I had added a Point 7 btw

[Samantha]

I feel there should be a mass unban, not just so I can get my old account back, but it would bring back some regulars, and say like the forum started afresh.
Also, some people may not stay on the forum because they are on the DNHL, like myself, I have started posting again, but I left for a short period of time because of that.

I'll just be picking on random points now.

The Events calendar.
Sorry but it needs updating, Roxy said Char ued to do it. What annoyed me is Char resigned, so you can't rely on that excuse. I want to know why there is no assistant event manager to do it? Does it mean Char can return whenever she pleases until the slot is filled?
I just think, that the event calendar, could be updated regularily, by the AGM Community which is yet again Roxy. I agree, it should be typed out if you're just gonna sit on your arse and let a script do it.
Get it sorted. I was planning to come to more events, looked at the calendar, saw none so now I just cba to.
And there isn't enough events being done.
Some people may have seen how many were done in HxSS, and thought, oh that must be the daily routine, an event nearly every hour. But then, they notice that, that doesn't happen.
What I think also is, there is too many events in big events, HxEE 2008, I only started in the 2nd week of that but ended up coming 2nd overall, there were only like 3 events per day and I loved it. Maybe this would be better?
Also, some event announcements in the CNB need sorting out. People overseas from the UK have a lack of grammar and punctuation. It would make me feel the event would be sloppy too.

Leave moderating to the moderators. I never get this rule, surely if you just tell someone that it's in the wrong forum or it's a duplicate thread they shouldn't be punished for it.

Some moderators lack common sense.
I remember posting a thread about PMT. I got one reply from Pyroka, saying something about Habbo and what he does when he's stressed.
Please tell me how was that classed as pointless posting? It wasn't a pointless post, he may have said it in sarcasm, but it answered the question.

The Welcome Commitee is unneeded imo. If you looked, it said you can be selected for the comittee through recomendation or something. I saw that no one at all was recommened regardless of how many times they posted.
I agree, that we have got members before, without the welcome committee.

[Nixt]

7) I pointed out that the Events calendar on Habbox is never updated 1-2 weeks ago. Guess what? Its still empty. STOP BLOODY RELYING ON AUTOMATIC SCRIPTS. TYPE IT OUT YOURSELF AND MAKE THEM COOL AND INTERESTING. It only takes a few minutes and if the manager cannot do it, get a new one or hire someone to do it. How do you expect the site to grow when people come and see no events? Its just laziness.

Strictly speaking the events department isn't in my jurisdiction but nevertheless I agree that we need to improve the events on Habbo. The reason the calendar is so sparse is actually to do with the fact events haven't been booked rather than a failure to update the calendar. I am sure this will improve.

However I do agree that a reliance on automated scripts is becoming too prevalent and we need to try and make pages more attractive. It is something I highlighted in a long thread I created for AGMs only. The difficulty is of course, it is very difficult to make a page look sexy on a rather outdated content system and layout although I do think it's something we should try until we get V6. At the end of the day we've been waiting for ages for it and we haven't got it, so rather than falling back on that excuse when it comes to site content we need to endeavour to make the site look as best as possible until such time as the new site comes along. The longer we leave it the more dire the situation is going to become.

Sorry, I'd quoted your post before you edited it.

[Calvin]

I personally think management could try and run it without Jin a bit, I know it's his fansite but yeah. Management always have to get permission off Jin which takes weeks, possibly months (using V6 as a prime example, supposed to be done by summer which now means in every thread about the site theres just going to be "in v6").

[Samantha]

Yeah I don't get why you always have to play by the book by consulting Jin.
I'm sure you're more active, the forum manger and/or general manager should have the final say if Jin isn't here.

[Nixt]

I personally think management could try and run it without Jin a bit, I know it's his fansite but yeah. Management always have to get permission off Jin which takes weeks, possibly months (using V6 as a prime example, supposed to be done by summer which now means in every thread about the site theres just going to be "in v6").

Yeah I don't get why you always have to play by the book by consulting Jin.
I'm sure you're more active, the forum manger and/or general manager should have the final say if Jin isn't here.

Quite, but the decision to devolve that power rests solely with Jin.