Habbox Forum Activity and Suggestions for Change

[Nixt]

Before I start this thread is not about being negative or to criticise. This thread is about recognising what I believe is a current issue at Habbox Forum and discussing ways, with the people that are important - the members - to solve the problem and look to management to implement, where possible, the suggestions that we make.

It is my personal belief, shared with a number of people I have spoken to in regard to the issue, that in general activity on Habbox Forum has began to falter in recent weeks. I will give you the example that frustrates me:

CHF: Currently Active Users: 90 (56 members and 34 guests)
HxF: Currently Active Users: 113 (48 members and 65 guests)

Yes, we have more active users overall but it is the amount of members that is important. Yes, this is just what I've checked a second ago but I have seen it happening on several occasions and when I resigned as AFM HxF would always have more members online than CHF. They were never real 'rivals', but now they are.

So, what are the reasons for this change in Forum activity?

• The Forum demographic has changed.

The Forum consists of quite a lot of die hard members who have been here for quite a while; from the 'older' generation of Habbos. As they grow older, their interest in such a Forum begins to wane and they have further commitments such as school / college / university / work. Thus, the time they can spend on HxF is reduced and this has a significant impact on Forum activity as a whole. Yes, we have had new members and yes, some of them have stayed using HxF but the majority of registered members don't post or have never posted.

• It is an awkward time of year.
  

I touched on the fact above that a lot of people are going to school / college / university / work. This is the time of year where a lot of people just start there new courses and are beginning to adjust to this change as it can be a lot of work. Therefore they don't have enough time right now to use the internet and chat on Habbox Forum. In theory this should improve as the year continues.

• We are not retaining new members.

It seems to me that a lot of the time someone signs up and posts saying hello, perhaps makes a couple of threads or posts and then never comes back online. What we need to look at is why this is and how we can retain them in the future.

These are three key issues I can think of, I am sure there are many more - if you can think of any issues that you think are contributing to the change in HxF's member activity then please feel free to suggest them. However I would ask that you keep this constructive! I really don't want to see something like "well the Moderators are ****". If you think Moderation is bad, give examples, back up your points and explain WHY you think Moderation is bad so we can look at how to solve the problem (sorry to use the Moderation team as an example, they are the most commonly victimised).

So now it seems important to discuss ways to improve the influx and retention of members as well as the improvement of current member activity if possible:

• Change / Remove the post approval procedure.
  

Yes, I can see it's benefits. It does very well to minimise the impact of spam bots on Habbox Forum. Yes it works fine on a lot of other Forums. In my opinion though, Habbox Forum is uniquely different.
I believe that the process of having posts approved is limiting the retention of new members and perhaps even the return of members who were previously banned. My experience in Moderation showed me that the post approval process was neglected by Moderation - and it could well still be. Not only that, our Moderators are not professionals but volunteers and they do not work on a time shift. If someone posts a thread and fails to receive a reply for a couple of hours because there are no moderators online to approve his thread, he's going to get frustrated and leave. I know I would.
Do the benefits outweigh the negatives of this though? The answer would be yes, in my opinion. We would get the occasional spam bot posting on the Forum. Normally, Moderators are quick to get rid of these though. Additionally, so what if you get three or four threads about Nike trainers on the Forum for half an hour? Most people are not stupid enough to go along with it anyway.
The other negative would be members coming onto cause trouble... I don't know how many of you remember SOLAR FLARE!!!!, but the post approval system would most certainly see him ruined. Once again though, the Moderators are usually quick to deal with this and indeed they are grateful for something to do. Not that I encourage rule breaking and not that I am suggesting we abolish the rules, people like SOLAR FLARE!!! caused controversy that made the Forum interesting once in a while. People don't like the images he posted, but it's quite funny to see Goatse spammed on the Forum... what I am trying to say is that Habbox Forum seems to have become too robotic, which leads me onto my next point.

• Abolish the automatic ban procedure (i.e. after receiving x amount of infractions y is banned automatically).
  

This is no doubt going to be a controversial suggestion and it is certainly not one that I believe will be implemented. Most people are pro-automatic banning and indeed, so am I to a certain extent. However, I think automatic banning removes the 'personal' touch Moderation used to have. You might wonder how I think this impacts on members activity but I think it goes back to the point that it creates an atmosphere of that Habbox is run by robots. I just feel it's unnecessary and too uptight, and will make current members feel less constricted.
Instead of this I would suggest general banning guidelines for Super Moderators and a guidelines for when normal Moderators should suggest that someone gets banned. Return the personal touch to Moderation and take away the way in which anyone can get banned for pretty much anything. It creates a unified law for all but it does not take into account a Moderator's expert personal knowledge.

• Introduce a new Habbox Council, or some form of Member Representatives.

There are two instances, in the form of the Habbox Council and the Community Support Team that have taken similar roles to what I am suggesting. There was a problem however. To quote a former member of both: "we were given a role and never the powers to complete it nor the support to get anything important up and running". So my suggestion would be to implement a new form of these organisations, perhaps have a small group (I would say around three) of members who are voted by the community to represent the community. They would then have regular meetings with Catzsy and they would together create and most importantly IMPLEMENT the ideas they come up with. Devolve power to the people and they stay happy. Give no one authority and don't try turn this into a hierarchy or a department.

If you have any further ideas, or have anything you could add to my suggestions then please feel free to post (constructively) and get involved. There are plenty more ways that we could solve the problem, I have just mentioned the ones I feel most strongly about and consider to be the ones I have the most knowledge.

You may or may not consider the activity on Habbox a problem and you may or may not care. I certainly don't think it's a crushing problem right now but the cracks are certainly beginning to show. If we nip this in the bud now we can keep Habbox going! You use this Forum and so you must enjoy it, lets team together and keep HxF the best Forum out there - even if you don't care so much any more, remember the times you did have a lot of fun here and get involved .

P.S. FlyingJesus for Habbox God.

[GoldenMerc]

i think chf have a thing wer they stay online like 30 mins rather than 15 mins for hxf

[Nixt]

i think chf have a thing wer they stay online like 30 mins rather than 15 mins for hxf

That may well be the case, it could even be an hour or a day in regard to the point I am making. My point is before we were always ahead of them before and now we are not. I am not saying Habbox Forum is inactive but I believe it's activity is beginning to wane.

[FlyingJesus]

The Forum demographic has changed.
The Forum consists of quite a lot of die hard members who have been here for quite a while; from the 'older' generation of Habbos. As they grow older, their interest in such a Forum begins to wane and they have further commitments such as school / college / university / work. Thus, the time they can spend on HxF is reduced and this has a significant impact on Forum activity as a whole. Yes, we have had new members and yes, some of them have stayed using HxF but the majority of registered members don't post or have never posted.

True, a lot of us have been around a while and then gradually drop off once things begin to disinterest us. My activity is certainly less than it was a year or two or three ago, and a lot of that is down to no longer having many people I can relate to and/or like. That leads us nicely to...

We are not retaining new members.
It seems to me that a lot of the time someone signs up and posts saying hello, perhaps makes a couple of threads or posts and then never comes back online. What we need to look at is why this is and how we can retain them in the future.

Frankly I'd guess that much of this is down to the previous point. We have our own cliques within certain areas and points of interest on the forum and many of these are either impenetrable or just won't appeal to most people's tastes. On top of this is the xenophobic elitism that I'm sure many new members encounter where many view "outsiders" as beneath them, and won't take them seriously.

Let's say in a month perhaps 3 or 4 new members will be truly accepted in their chosen area (or areas) - that's really not many to be building up a real new membership base. I can't actually name anyone who's joined in the last couple of months and probably wouldn't recognise most if names were mentioned, which may just be indicative of the areas I frequent but nonetheless is a poor show of our (myself included here) hospitality to new members. It's not really our fault; as mentioned we're an older generation now and people joining from habbo are likely to be in similar mindframes as we were when we first came here, and most of us have probably changed a lot since then.

Change / Remove the post approval procedure.


{GARION RAMBLES ON ABOUT SPAMBOTS}
The other negative would be members coming onto cause trouble... I don't know how many of you remember SOLAR FLARE!!!!, but the post approval system would most certainly see him ruined. Once again though, the Moderators are usually quick to deal with this and indeed they are grateful for something to do. Not that I encourage rule breaking and not that I am suggesting we abolish the rules, people like SOLAR FLARE!!! caused controversy that made the Forum interesting once in a while. People don't like the images he posted, but it's quite funny to see Goatse spammed on the Forum... what I am trying to say is that Habbox Forum seems to have become too robotic, which leads me onto my next point.

Mark's still about lol, he was already an old member by the time he got bored and decided to do the whole @SOLAR FLARE@!!!!!!! thing. Post approval is fine I think, maybe it should be reduced to just a couple of posts needed though - after all, mods will soon enough pick up on troublemakers and spambots will still be stopped by this. Also, most newbies just spam up their own welcome thread for a while until they can post normally so it's not that useful in reducing spam

Abolish the automatic ban procedure (i.e. after receiving x amount of infractions y is banned automatically).


This is no doubt going to be a controversial suggestion and it is certainly not one that I believe will be implemented. Most people are pro-automatic banning and indeed, so am I to a certain extent. However, I think automatic banning removes the 'personal' touch Moderation used to have. You might wonder how I think this impacts on members activity but I think it goes back to the point that it creates an atmosphere of that Habbox is run by robots. I just feel it's unnecessary and too uptight, and will make current members feel less constricted.
Instead of this I would suggest general banning guidelines for Super Moderators and a guidelines for when normal Moderators should suggest that someone gets banned. Return the personal touch to Moderation and take away the way in which anyone can get banned for pretty much anything. It creates a unified law for all but it does not take into account a Moderator's expert personal knowledge.

Now you just sound senile darling. Automatic bans is a much better way of doing it than at a moderator's discretion I think, especially with the amount people already complaining about mods (deserved or not, they do complain and that's always going to be true). If someone's banned for breaking too many rules that's fair enough and they have no real grounds to complain as any disagreements over infractions should be sorted before it gets that far, but if a mod can just ban someone outright because they feel it's right there will be more complaints and more mess to sort out

Introduce a new Habbox Council, or some form of Member Representatives.
There are two instances, in the form of the Habbox Council and the Community Support Team that have taken similar roles to what I am suggesting. There was a problem however. To quote a former member of both: "we were given a role and never the powers to complete it nor the support to get anything important up and running". So my suggestion would be to implement a new form of these organisations, perhaps have a small group (I would say around three) of members who are voted by the community to represent the community. They would then have regular meetings with Catzsy and they would together create and most importantly IMPLEMENT the ideas they come up with. Devolve power to the people and they stay happy. Give no one authority and don't try turn this into a hierarchy or a department.

Honestly despite my disappointment with both the Council and CS team (in how we were treated and brushed off rather than how they actually functioned) I can't see it happening any differently a 3rd time around. The feedback subforum is here for all the ideas and such that need voicing, which takes away the need for anyone to ask around, and any good ideas from here are already implemented for the most part.

P.S. FlyingJesus for Habbox God.

Good plan +rep I heard he is a genius

Shut up Sam

Jay you're a fag00000000t.
Jake, just **** and gtf0.

somebody ban me off this sh1t f0rum pl0x.

I CANNNNNNN SPAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

I hate COD5 snipers. Although, with the fact that you actually need to unlock a scope, I thought a lot more people would no-scope. I no-scope on COD4 still, love it. Tried it on COD5, failed, epicly.

GET THE F00K OUT OF MY THREADDDDDDDDDD

LOL, he's that sad. He can't survive without HxF yet everything he posts is ********.

HxF is like his version of nicotine

sure m8
go grow some pubes
ohwait, u r late puberty!
LOLOlOL

[Sammeth.]

• The Forum demographic has changed.

The Forum consists of quite a lot of die hard members who have been here for quite a while; from the 'older' generation of Habbos. As they grow older, their interest in such a Forum begins to wane and they have further commitments such as school / college / university / work. Thus, the time they can spend on HxF is reduced and this has a significant impact on Forum activity as a whole. Yes, we have had new members and yes, some of them have stayed using HxF but the majority of registered members don't post or have never posted.

I think the uniqueness of this forum is in fact partly due to the fact we appeal to an older generation of users, rather than other forums which seem to have a much younger average. I think if anything focus should be put onto focusing on their interests and things older users would like to see occurin' as it would make sense to want to retain what makes us hot.

• It is an awkward time of year.
  

I touched on the fact above that a lot of people are going to school / college / university / work. This is the time of year where a lot of people just start there new courses and are beginning to adjust to this change as it can be a lot of work. Therefore they don't have enough time right now to use the internet and chat on Habbox Forum. In theory this should improve as the year continues.

This is true.

• We are not retaining new members.

It seems to me that a lot of the time someone signs up and posts saying hello, perhaps makes a couple of threads or posts and then never comes back online. What we need to look at is why this is and how we can retain them in the future.

These are three key issues I can think of, I am sure there are many more - if you can think of any issues that you think are contributing to the change in HxF's member activity then please feel free to suggest them. However I would ask that you keep this constructive! I really don't want to see something like "well the Moderators are ****". If you think Moderation is bad, give examples, back up your points and explain WHY you think Moderation is bad so we can look at how to solve the problem (sorry to use the Moderation team as an example, they are the most commonly victimised).

So now it seems important to discuss ways to improve the influx and retention of members as well as the improvement of current member activity if possible:

• Change / Remove the post approval procedure.
  

Yes, I can see it's benefits. It does very well to minimise the impact of spam bots on Habbox Forum. Yes it works fine on a lot of other Forums. In my opinion though, Habbox Forum is uniquely different.
I believe that the process of having posts approved is limiting the retention of new members and perhaps even the return of members who were previously banned. My experience in Moderation showed me that the post approval process was neglected by Moderation - and it could well still be. Not only that, our Moderators are not professionals but volunteers and they do not work on a time shift. If someone posts a thread and fails to receive a reply for a couple of hours because there are no moderators online to approve his thread, he's going to get frustrated and leave. I know I would.
Do the benefits outweigh the negatives of this though? The answer would be yes, in my opinion. We would get the occasional spam bot posting on the Forum. Normally, Moderators are quick to get rid of these though. Additionally, so what if you get three or four threads about Nike trainers on the Forum for half an hour? Most people are not stupid enough to go along with it anyway.
The other negative would be members coming onto cause trouble... I don't know how many of you remember SOLAR FLARE!!!!, but the post approval system would most certainly see him ruined. Once again though, the Moderators are usually quick to deal with this and indeed they are grateful for something to do. Not that I encourage rule breaking and not that I am suggesting we abolish the rules, people like SOLAR FLARE!!! caused controversy that made the Forum interesting once in a while. People don't like the images he posted, but it's quite funny to see Goatse spammed on the Forum... what I am trying to say is that Habbox Forum seems to have become too robotic, which leads me onto my next point.

• Abolish the automatic ban procedure (i.e. after receiving x amount of infractions y is banned automatically).
  

This is no doubt going to be a controversial suggestion and it is certainly not one that I believe will be implemented. Most people are pro-automatic banning and indeed, so am I to a certain extent. However, I think automatic banning removes the 'personal' touch Moderation used to have. You might wonder how I think this impacts on members activity but I think it goes back to the point that it creates an atmosphere of that Habbox is run by robots. I just feel it's unnecessary and too uptight, and will make current members feel less constricted.
Instead of this I would suggest general banning guidelines for Super Moderators and a guidelines for when normal Moderators should suggest that someone gets banned. Return the personal touch to Moderation and take away the way in which anyone can get banned for pretty much anything. It creates a unified law for all but it does not take into account a Moderator's expert personal knowledge.

• Introduce a new Habbox Council, or some form of Member Representatives.

There are two instances, in the form of the Habbox Council and the Community Support Team that have taken similar roles to what I am suggesting. There was a problem however. To quote a former member of both: "we were given a role and never the powers to complete it nor the support to get anything important up and running". So my suggestion would be to implement a new form of these organisations, perhaps have a small group (I would say around three) of members who are voted by the community to represent the community. They would then have regular meetings with Catzsy and they would together create and most importantly IMPLEMENT the ideas they come up with. Devolve power to the people and they stay happy. Give no one authority and don't try turn this into a hierarchy or a department.

If you have any further ideas, or have anything you could add to my suggestions then please feel free to post (constructively) and get involved. There are plenty more ways that we could solve the problem, I have just mentioned the ones I feel most strongly about and consider to be the ones I have the most knowledge.

You may or may not consider the activity on Habbox a problem and you may or may not care. I certainly don't think it's a crushing problem right now but the cracks are certainly beginning to show. If we nip this in the bud now we can keep Habbox going! You use this Forum and so you must enjoy it, lets team together and keep HxF the best Forum out there - even if you don't care so much any more, remember the times you did have a lot of fun here and get involved .

P.S. FlyingJesus for Habbox God.

I believe there are changes lined up for the post approval system, however abolishing it completely would be a mistake in my eyes. Removing the automatic ban system just seems unnecessary more than anything and your reasons to justify it don't seem that valid. If we didn't have the automatic ban system, there would still be strict guidelines in the moderation guide and still intense rules that moderators have to follow - all of which give less of a personal touch, granted, but still get the job done appropriately. I think a Habbox Council would only be good if it worked properly, but even then I don't think it would work that well. We rallied so hard for a Habbox Council last time and because of lack of attention to it, and really all it did was give members a sense of higher authority over other members and if their opinion was more valid. We have this feedback forum, and when nvr became General Manager, feedback had a lot more attention paid to it, and a lot of ideas do actually get implemented and the people credited.

I think this forum does need to improve with activity, but it isn't by any means a serious problem. I think maybe in a month or two if this still applies we have our work cut out for us, but right now we have a steady level of active members.

Or something like that I only replied cus you told me to.

[Nixt]

I believe there are changes lined up for the post approval system, however abolishing it completely would be a mistake in my eyes.

Indeed I didn't necessarily mean abolish it completely and I think changes such as reducing the amount of posts needed for approval and sorting Moderators out in terms of approving posts is much needed.
In terms of automatic bans I am probably biased and stuck in my old view from when I was originally a Super Moderator. When it was implemented I didn't like it purely because it removed the personal touch but I do see it's benefits. It is because I am an old man.
I agree Habbox Feedback is indeed becoming much more used and recognised. My time as AFM taught me that Habbox Feedback is an invaluable way of improving the Forum but I think that something like the Habbox Council on a much smaller scale (even if it was merely one member) would have some benefit to the Forum providing they are given power.

I think this forum does need to improve with activity, but it isn't by any means a serious problem. I think maybe in a month or two if this still applies we have our work cut out for us, but right now we have a steady level of active members.

Granted it is not a serious problem as yet, but when you notice a problemit is best to deal with it as soon as possible to prevent it becoming a difficulty in the future. Hopefully in a month or two as Christmas comes and people have more free time things will improve, but it wouldn't hurt to try and improve member retention and happiness regardless!

I love you.

[Chippiewill]

I think that moderators need to check it for often, and as for reducing spam. I think not, I once made an account for the specific intention of pissing someone off once and all I had to do was make 15 quick posts in 'welcome to habbox' (then wait an hour for my user group to change) and I was able to post because it's not limited. Also having post count increase in the welcome forum seems pointless aswell because:

a) Spambots can get posting easily
b) People can boost their post count by making a 2 second post.


Basically I think all moderators should be able to allow new posts, even if not in their section and post count shouldn't increase in the 'welcome to habbox' forum.

[lick]

I think the uniqueness of this forum is in fact partly due to the fact we appeal to an older generation of users, rather than other forums which seem to have a much younger average. I think if anything focus should be put onto focusing on their interests and things older users would like to see occurin' as it would make sense to want to retain what makes us hot.

HabboForum tried that and look where it ended up

[leah]

Yeah, loads of people have left that were regular posters and the activity, particularly in spam has decreased loads recently.

[adaym]

Well without a doubt the forum was much better when ---MAD--- was in charge. What a controversial statement.

I'm not saying get rid of Nebula, it's not even related, but it's just an observation...