Guardian Hobba (modernized helper)

[Lewis]

Its funny, most of the people who have posted in this thread wern't even registered to Habbo when Hobba's were around yet they manage to slate them and know everything about them, or so they say...

Back when Hobba's were around the community was so much smaller, so small you could most likely know everyone on your friends list. Thus why Hobba's did work back then, they removed them as Habbo expanded, not because they were corrupt etc, you always get one in a few who will do wrong but mainly they helped and did good.

What he said.

[Jarkie]

Ok... well I've had an afternoon nap and this pops up! This is big news.

Like I've said in previous 'hobba' posts, there needs to be a serious regulation if a new hobba-related system actually comes into fruition. Things like age, previous experience and affiliation really need to be taken into account. A guardian council, I would presume have some sort of age restriction attached to it. Like the X system, a load of teenagers running around and abusing powers won't do habbo nor its users any good. Also somebody talking about a large number becoming guardians - I don't think that'd be true, because it'd cause a lot more problems then solutions.

Indeed, there has always been such a huge debate when it comes to giving normal users 'tools' and methods. due to the Human nature; once someone has more power than someone else, some people accept the responsibility and do well; while others will get power hungry and abuse the powers. it will always be a Win Loose system. I really hope they do infact use; age, experience & most deferentially affiliation. When it came to the 'eXpert' system, in my eyes the Staff at Sulake sort of gave up with it, and hired waay to many people. If they keep the numbers low in this new system it will be more easy to monitor? and so fourth. Maybe to the people who get offered this chance to sign a contract that if they breach this contract they can get sued or something along them lines?

Interesting how Habbo have turned to this though.. cost-cutting measures? UK-based MODS would have to work at a minimum wage, but also US, CA, AUS and SG mods would also have to work at some base wage too.

(Yes, it works for Maccy D's for individuals working in two different countries e.g India and the US but it's a bit different.. working in the same place but then discriminating against nationality because of varying minimum wages breaks EU law amongst other various international laws. That would cause a lot of hassle for Sulake).

(PS - Sorry for the rant at the end )

Indeed it would be far more sensible to bring back local moderators and put them on minimum wage, with the current climax there would be loads of people who would do the job, and correctly. The reason minimum wages are around is infact the country the person lives in either is really expensive to live on or not so expensive. for example; Living in the UK, you will need to stretch your money for Rent; Food; Bills; Car anything else along them lines. and someone who is in India where it is 'slightly' cheaper to live, will have lower wages. (< that is my view anyhow)

EDIT :: P.S:

Its funny, most of the people who have posted in this thread wern't even registered to Habbo when Hobba's were around yet they manage to slate them and know everything about them, or so they say...

Back when Hobba's were around the community was so much smaller, so small you could most likely know everyone on your friends list. Thus why Hobba's did work back then, they removed them as Habbo expanded, not because they were corrupt etc, you always get one in a few who will do wrong but mainly they helped and did good.

I was around when the hobbas were around I joined Habbo when they only had a few months left in the Hotel, and I agree with this comment; however with my experience I had with them was unfair kicks and bans.. also with all the stupid flooding of habbo alert messages in pretty much every room.

[dbgtz]

This will fail in either system.

If it is by appointment, it will fall the same reason the Habbo X scheme did. The staff got lazy in appointment of them, choosing well known names nearer the end rather than those who actually show a chance of doing a decent job. Most of the people who abused the room privillages were generally in the last or second to last batch.

If it's by levelling up that talent tree, well needless to say some noobs or idiots will get it and just fail.

[Puma!]

Indeed, there has always been such a huge debate when it comes to giving normal users 'tools' and methods. due to the Human nature; once someone has more power than someone else, some people accept the responsibility and do well; while others will get power hungry and abuse the powers. it will always be a Win Loose system. I really hope they do infact use; age, experience & most deferentially affiliation. When it came to the 'eXpert' system, in my eyes the Staff at Sulake sort of gave up with it, and hired waay to many people. If they keep the numbers low in this new system it will be more easy to monitor? and so fourth. Maybe to the people who get offered this chance to sign a contract that if they breach this contract they can get sued or something along them lines?

Yeah that's a really good point and I agree, the X system became a bit of a problem for staff. It was mostly *sends visit my friends fansite*, *overrides room to see new Callie furni* and *I'll talk to my friends, not help others*. The eXpert system were individuals who, in essence, were experts at what they did. However they didn't really do the job nor did Sulake give them anything to do (in their defence), it was basically "here's a badge and show other Habbos what to do" without really giving them instructions. The number of individuals was probably a little too high, so sorry for that - maybe a split of 20 guardians among the UK, US/CA, SG and AU to ensure all time zones are looked after properly? I'd agree to an extent - but how can individuals be scrutinised? And who exactly will be scrutinise them? It would cost Sulake money for someone to constantly watch, but the CR outsourcing team would struggle to do it - lack of experience in the hotel coupled with a lack of fluency in the English language. Legal action is a bit excessive imo, but maybe a breach in a contact that if is broken they lose their powers. I don't know if Hobbas were banned after losing their powers (unless they were court scamming or something).

Indeed it would be far more sensible to bring back local moderators and put them on minimum wage, with the current climax there would be loads of people who would do the job, and correctly. The reason minimum wages are around is infact the country the person lives in either is really expensive to live on or not so expensive. for example; Living in the UK, you will need to stretch your money for Rent; Food; Bills; Car anything else along them lines. and someone who is in India where it is 'slightly' cheaper to live, will have lower wages. (< that is my view anyhow)

But the problem is that they work in the same place, which would mean two different people being paid just because they live in different locations. Countries like SG don't have a minimum wage, despite having a higher GDP Per Capita (Gross Domestic Product) than the UK, which does have a minimum wage. My assumption that the original move to SG was because of the lack of minimum wage, meaning they could pay literally nothing to the moderators, raising profit margins (removal of CA/US/UK/AUS MODs) and making the Sulake as a whole more profitable (which attracts more investors). I do see your point though.. and you're right. Good observation (geographer in my head!).

[Jarkie]

Yeah that's a really good point and I agree, the X system became a bit of a problem for staff. It was mostly *sends visit my friends fansite*, *overrides room to see new Callie furni* and *I'll talk to my friends, not help others*. The eXpert system were individuals who, in essence, were experts at what they did. However they didn't really do the job nor did Sulake give them anything to do (in their defence), it was basically "here's a badge and show other Habbos what to do" without really giving them instructions. The number of individuals was probably a little too high, so sorry for that - maybe a split of 20 guardians among the UK, US/CA, SG and AU to ensure all time zones are looked after properly? I'd agree to an extent - but how can individuals be scrutinised? And who exactly will be scrutinise them? It would cost Sulake money for someone to constantly watch, but the CR outsourcing team would struggle to do it - lack of experience in the hotel coupled with a lack of fluency in the English language. Legal action is a bit excessive imo, but maybe a breach in a contact that if is broken they lose their powers. I don't know if Hobbas were banned after losing their powers (unless they were court scamming or something).

It wasn't like that with every single person who signed up for the eXpert system. I was part of the UK eXpert team, and sadly the bunch I got accepted into really did over use their 'rights' which gave the bad look to the eXpert system, thus users were complaining and then shutting down the system. I agree with you; Sulake pretty much 'giving' us a badge but in a sense I saw the badge as something to prove that you are a chosen 'helper' thus new and old users would trust 'you' more and ask you for help. (Thats was and still is my view), but Sulake did kept us informed via a secret forum, and so did our group leaders; They did regulars meetings to make sure we where all doing ok, and telling us what we should achieve before the next meeting, and so fourth. With the saying that Paul said that it'll be watched, no doubt it just be made into 'logs' and someone will visit them from time to time just to check on them. Maybe they will make 'Guardian leaders' to help with the watch. I'm not to sure on Hobbas getting banned for loosing their powers AKA getting fired.. it most likely will depend on what caused them to be fired etc.

But the problem is that they work in the same place, which would mean two different people being paid just because they live in different locations. Countries like SG don't have a minimum wage, despite having a higher GDP Per Capita (Gross Domestic Product) than the UK, which does have a minimum wage. My assumption that the original move to SG was because of the lack of minimum wage, meaning they could pay literally nothing to the moderators, raising profit margins (removal of CA/US/UK/AUS MODs) and making the Sulake as a whole more profitable (which attracts more investors). I do see your point though.. and you're right. Good observation (geographer in my head!).

Very valid point there friend, and I agree with you, I 'think' it did get proven that the Temp SG staff was indeed paid pretty much pennies and magic beans for their work so like you said, Sulake gain more profit which made other companies like them more so they invest and sulake gain even more money!

However with the Channel four news, and no doubt other new stations have really affected how they gain their profit; so how I see it is that they are pretty much throwing nearly everything on the line to show the news people that they do listen etc and to re-gain the investors they once lost and to gain others. once they have done all this, it will go down hill again (no doubt!) till the next time.

[Puma!]

It wasn't like that with every single person who signed up for the eXpert system. I was part of the UK eXpert team, and sadly the bunch I got accepted into really did over use their 'rights' which gave the bad look to the eXpert system, thus users were complaining and then shutting down the system. I agree with you; Sulake pretty much 'giving' us a badge but in a sense I saw the badge as something to prove that you are a chosen 'helper' thus new and old users would trust 'you' more and ask you for help. (Thats was and still is my view), but Sulake did kept us informed via a secret forum, and so did our group leaders; They did regulars meetings to make sure we where all doing ok, and telling us what we should achieve before the next meeting, and so fourth. With the saying that Paul said that it'll be watched, no doubt it just be made into 'logs' and someone will visit them from time to time just to check on them. Maybe they will make 'Guardian leaders' to help with the watch. I'm not to sure on Hobbas getting banned for loosing their powers AKA getting fired.. it most likely will depend on what caused them to be fired etc.




Very valid point there friend, and I agree with you, I 'think' it did get proven that the Temp SG staff was indeed paid pretty much pennies and magic beans for their work so like you said, Sulake gain more profit which made other companies like them more so they invest and sulake gain even more money!

However with the Channel four news, and no doubt other new stations have really affected how they gain their profit; so how I see it is that they are pretty much throwing nearly everything on the line to show the news people that they do listen etc and to re-gain the investors they once lost and to gain others. once they have done all this, it will go down hill again (no doubt!) till the next time.

Cheers for that mate, sorry if I offended you too - had a bit of a biased view against the X's (was very jealous at the time). I had no idea about the secret forum though - did that work out fine for Habbo? Also, did other Habbo eXperts get on?

[Jarkie]

Cheers for that mate, sorry if I offended you too - had a bit of a biased view against the X's (was very jealous at the time). I had no idea about the secret forum though - did that work out fine for Habbo? Also, did other Habbo eXperts get on?

lol na you didn't Was many years ago now, lol! erm the team what I was in, (was in the Safety eXpert team) we all liked each other, and pretty much all knew each other beforehand. with the other X's we all got along but 'cos of our subject areas we didn't see many other X's, cos there was, welcome lounge ones, gamers, Safety and Tech. Back then we had the Safety spa, that was pretty epic ^.^ with the forum bit I think it did work; but nowadays it most likely be private habbo 'group' forums they'll use.

[DPS]

I was around when Hobbas ran da hotel *****z

Mizki / FarmerJiles / Sken

DUN KNO

[LoveToStack]

If it were my show then this is how I'd do it:

- Take core elements from the Hobba program, minimum age ~18 and a phone interview if you make it to the end of the application process
- Don't use badges / quests / achievement point as an incentive for the program
- Most importantly: treat it like a Janitor system*

*No badge, no name on a public list somewhere on the site or client, no bubble to show which 'hobbas' are online, no rewards. They should be completely invisible. Yes it's necessary that they have special privileges (potentially room-override, ability to kick users and ability to send a help message which goes to the top of the list for an actual moderator) but it is not necessary that other users know that they have these privileges. A key component would therefore be removing anyone's privileges if they're caught exposing themselves as a janitor.

People might complain about a minimum age but at the end of the day this sort of program is not about saying "oh why can't I be a hobba just because I'm not old enough abloobloobloo". What matters is that other people are there, enforcing the rules and keeping the hotel functioning. It doesn't matter if it's not you, what matters is that it's being done.

I'm not sure how you'd introduce some form of culpability for abuse but then again there was no such thing for old Hobba's either: it was just trust.

Anyway I feel that this approach would weed out a fair amount of people doing it so they can have another badge in their inventory, another 5k on their achievement score and another reason to have their e-pals stroke their ego. Inevitably you'd still get people applying for the wrong reasons but that's always going to be a problem.

All you need to do to justify anonymity is look at the helper system. I can safely say that for the majority, it is not about helping new players. It's about getting badges and moving up the goal-tree so you can say you're one step ahead of everyone else.

[Shorty]

Habbo CMs are Habbo Helpers and it's *supposed* to be the final stage of the Habbo Helper tree (the very final lol), which I imagine would require a great deal of work to get there. And yes, it is very ridiculous how he's going to users for help instead of improving the staff team lol. Don't get me wrong, customers are a very important part of a business and it's good that he listens to people I suppose, but to put all your faith in them is a very bad idea lol.

I'm half-half in terms of support for this.

These were planned way before the whole Channel 4 debate came around, just they've had to rush the feature along a little. Player Support is good, if it's done correctly.

Xbox Live has player support.