Habbox Forum Activity and Suggestions for Change

~~lick~~ · 11-10-2009, 03:33 PM

i better not get infracted for that because i was only telling him what it meant.

**efq** · 11-10-2009, 03:36 PM

Originally Posted by lick

i better not get infracted for that because i was only telling him what it meant.

how the hell did you do it :S

Robbie · 11-10-2009, 04:02 PM

Originally Posted by Garion

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.

This was always inevitable, as it is with everything in life really. People move on, get bored of things, people change etc. I do agree that we need to do something to get more members active and posting on the forum, I have a few suggestions that I'll put forward to Rosie/nvr/Matt and see where we go from there.

A problem with getting new members though, is that this forum is a very tight-knit forum where everyone knows everyone in their sections, and for the most part everyone seems to stay in that section. Then, when a new user comes along and tries to actively participate in discussions, the 'regulars' make it hard for new users to fit in sometimes. This is something that I think we need to change. The only exception to this really is the 'Habbo' sections, which is where most of our new members seem to post.

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 seems to happen every year I think, it's completely unavoidable and the only way to maintain a high level of activity when people go away is to attract new members to make up for the loss of others. This could be a vicious circle though, with members leaving and members joining, the activity level would just be stagnant, although, that said, it is quite stagnant at the moment anyway.

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.

I've outlined my view on this in the first point.

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).

I couldn't agree more to be honest. People are seeing moderators as an easy target and so take things out on them without suggesting what could be changed (sensible suggestions). The moderation team works hard and it's all voluntary, I think people forget that. Matt has a lot of work being FM, and these complaints aren't really helping - maybe someone should be appointed as AFM again? (No, I'm not tryna suck up or anything to get AFM here)

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.

I think it should be lowered from 15, but not altogether, so much spam goes through that system, but Matt said this is happening anyway. Maybe mods should see a message at the top of every page when there is posts waiting approval in their sections? That would, imo, make things get done much quicker.

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.

Can't agree on this at all, sorry.

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 someone wants something to change, nine times out of ten they will post in this section and other members will give their view on it, and usually, if it's a sensible suggestion that the majority agree with then it will happen.

Overall, I think the core root of most of these problems is attracting new members and getting them accepted into the community and active. I'm sure Rosie, nvr and Matt would appreciate all ideas.

StefanWolves · 11-10-2009, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by Mint

Can I just say that calling the runescape section inactive is far from the truth. The runescape section has around 10 members that you will see posting quite regularly. Take a look at it for yourself, you will see all the subforums with recent posts. The only thing that needs improving with the runescape section is a mod that actually knows what runescape is (which I think we are in the progress of getting).

the sports section has AT LEAST 20 ACTIVE members, we don't get any sub forums? runescape doesn't need 4 sub forums, they don't need any. this forum is topsy turby.

**GoldenMerc** · 11-10-2009, 04:07 PM

runescape forum for the scrap please

StefanWolves · 11-10-2009, 04:12 PM

tbh whoever above mentioned a whole new forum re-launch, whoever said it, good idea.

Nixt · 11-10-2009, 04:47 PM

Originally Posted by Sam Carvalho

Also stop treating us like kids on the filtering. ************ shouldn't be filtered, its normal, not offensive and its pathetic whoever put it in. If you don't know what the filtered word is then guess, 'Masturba....'.

Forum has changed so its suitable for 6-11 year olds. The majority aren't even near that age.

I agree that perhaps a look at making the filter a little bit more lenient for certain things would be advantageous. Certainly not some of the more harsh words, not because I think we need to protect younger members of the community but allowing harsh swear words would take insulting members and bullying to a whole new level and it would create an anarchy I think we could do without.