Guardian Hobba (modernized helper)

[Okeanos]

You say that no X's were debadged during 2007, but I made an eXpert Database over the 3 years I was within the program, making notes of team changes, join dates, debadgings etc. And I can say that 17 eXperts were debadged in 2007, and 8 were debadged in 2008 (And remember, the program only ran for 6 months in 2008).

Are you including people who were initially accepted onto the programme but didn't pass their trial? I can not think of a single person who passed their trial but was later debadged. I was friends with Xs who were very open about their disdain for the X programme, some of them didn't log on for months (nearly a year in one case) - but they were never debadged.

The problem was friends managing friends; it was never going to work. Team leaders were a bad idea from the outset because they could never be impartial or fair. It is hard having to keep your friends in check, and nearly all of them failed to do so.

I feel that the outside impression of the X system is something along the lines of Habbos going into the Welcome Lounge for 5 minutes

Actually, that is basically what happened. There were so many times when eXpert friends of mine asked me to join them in the welcome lounge because they had to do their 15 minutes; we would spend the time chatting and then leave. This was pretty endemic, nearly all Xs did this whether you or Jarkie admit to it or not.

If it were a choice between bringing back Xs or nothing at all, I would go for nothing at all. I hope the guardians are at least 18, trained and staff supervised but I doubt this will happen.

[Kardan]

Are you including people who were initially accepted onto the programme but didn't pass their trial? I can not think of a single person who passed their trial but was later debadged. I was friends with Xs who were very open about their disdain for the X programme, some of them didn't log on for months (nearly a year in one case) - but they were never debadged.

The problem was friends managing friends; it was never going to work. Team leaders were a bad idea from the outset because they could never be impartial or fair. It is hard having to keep your friends in check, and nearly all of them failed to do so.



Actually, that is basically what happened. There were so many times when eXpert friends of mine asked me to join them in the welcome lounge because they had to do their 15 minutes; we would spend the time chatting and then leave. This was pretty endemic, nearly all Xs did this whether you or Jarkie admit to it or not.

If it were a choice between bringing back Xs or nothing at all, I would go for nothing at all. I hope the guardians are at least 18, trained and staff supervised but I doubt this will happen.

No, all those debadged Xs I mentioned passed their trails, in my database there's a different section for eXperts that didn't pass the trial. eXperts were debadged regularly for a variety of reasons. Also, just a note, when I say 'debadged', I mean eXperts that had their badge forcefully removed from their accounts, not eXperts that resigned by themselves and had their badge removed. If you count them, I'd say there's easily 100 eXperts that fit into that category.

I'm not denying that Xs went into the Welcome Lounge for 15 minutes and left, that was what was expected, and what was written within our handbook, I'm just saying I don't agree with the impression that we just hopped in and abused our rights the rest of the time.

The only thing that eXperts were *required* to do was do a 15 minute session each day they logged in, the majority of Xs, including myself, did a lot more than 15 minutes - and when you consider that some eXperts logged in everyday, that's one session per day.

Of course, I'm speaking from past experience, with hindsight the system looks awfully flawed that all we had to do was stand around for 15 minutes. eXperts would have worked a lot better with the tools that were implemented later, such as meeting new Habbos in their starting room for example.

[Bill]

If anyone knows the X programme, it's Kardan - trust me.

[Jarkie]

If anyone knows the X programme, it's Kardan - trust me.

Indeed.

[Bill]

I'll chime in and say its AWESOME that this whole hobba thing has brought back so many oldies! Even Bob is back in action.

[Kardan]

Touching on the Team Leader part Okeanos mentioned that it never worked, I agree and disagree. When Team Leader roles were opened within the program, everyone had to send in an essay on what made them qualified to be a Team Leader, of course Habbo Staff would read these, but also base it on recommendations as well as other factors.

I applied for the Team Leader position in December 2007 for XGen, the Team I'd been in since the very beginning for two years, of course I was determined to become a Team Leader, since I held XGen close to my hearts, and had been working with the people in that team for a long time, so I agree with you, that of course there was a preference to lead the people you knew, it'd be easier and friendlier and just more enjoyable.

I then got the next Team Leader position that opened a few weeks later for RoleX after the previous applications were looked at it again, and from within a day I was happy in XGen to suddenly leading RoleX, and I wasn't particularly close to anyone within RoleX. I feel like I was fair to everyone within my team, and when new eXperts were brought in at the beginning of 2008, I had no say who was put into my team, and I knew nobody that was put into my team.

So as a Team Leader, I can say that I felt I treated everyone equally, but that's simply because I didn't know anyone. Some Team Leaders probably did favour some eXperts though, but it could barely be avoided since people had been in the program so long, and I'm not sure what positives there would be from being favouritied by a Team Leader. But I can agree that Team Leaders weren't perfect, I do recall one being debadged from the whole program because of something that happened.

And nice to see bill on here Joined the eXpert program in July 2007 with effeX and moved to proteX until the program ended if I'm correct

[Okeanos]

snip

Let's see this list of names then!

I don't pretend to know everything about Xs, but I find it hard to believe that as many as 17 could be debadged when so many others who should have been, weren't.

[Jarkie]

@Okeanos;

I don't understand why you still have so much hate for a system that died in 2008? Perhaps it's time to move on.

[tm]

Let's see this list of names then!

I don't pretend to know everything about Xs, but I find it hard to believe that as many as 17 could be debadged when so many others who should have been, weren't.

Thought I'd throw my hat into this ring.

I've been going through a few old emails recently and found a lot to do with the expert programme. Many messages from colmc, redtiz and in particular 0rca. How we were supported by staff seemed good at the time, but looking back it was exceptional.

The amount of staff support was ultimately the downfall of the whole system due to the time they WANTED to spend on it. There were also many experts chosen who probably weren't up for it, that's for certain, and if there's anything bad to say it's regarding the nature of the selection process, but overall I think the whole expert system worked brilliantly towards a better Habbo.

The whole expert idea had two major aims.

- 1. Assist users that required specific advice.
Considering we were without a tool such as the helper tool (which is great when used correctly by the way) I think this was achieved to a decent standard. People knew to come to the welcome lounge or safety spa for answers to questions, and the answers delivered were always at least satisfactory.

- 2. Promote safety in the hotel.
Campaigns were limited by staff, but experts held many games and other events that did engage regular Habbos and the message of safety was promoted well overall.

Also just to be clear; Habbo expert leaders were not superior to regular experts in any way. Our role was simply to hold meetings and keep the experts engaged in the programme. We were told that we were the peers of regular experts and were treated by staff as such (at least from my experience).

If the guardian scheme could be well supported by staff and as completely understood by it's participants and by regular Habbos, it would be far better than the expert system, mainly thanks to the helper tool.

BUT - with limited powers (expected to be just kick) and what I can assume will be minimal staff interaction I think this whole thing is going to go badly.

Hobbas were a way to do low level moderation 'on the cheap' which IMHO has absolutely no place on Habbo especially after all the problems of the past few years have been beautifully highlighted by the press. Guardians doing a similar role would be a borderline disaster. What they also claim to be doing is hiring more trained and vetted, paid moderators. That's only a good thing and will have a decent impact if they hire enough and train them to a high enough standard.

The worst part about all this is that I get the overall impression that the current Habbo staff have not seen the mistakes made by their predecessors in terms of the whole 'silver expert mess' on old.com/ca or the issues with expert selection (favouritism), and are ready to make all the same mistakes again.

[Kardan]

Let's see this list of names then!

I don't pretend to know everything about Xs, but I find it hard to believe that as many as 17 could be debadged when so many others who should have been, weren't.

Sure, here's the list of eXperts that had their badge removed for a reason other than resigning or retirement:

GlowingSpirit - Debadged Feb 2007
.Matt..Chenery. - Debadged Jun 2008
2Crime - Debadged May 2007
Bokers - Debadged May 2007
Departing - Debadged Feb 2007
Deserting - Debadged Feb 2007
Dragon-nccb - Debadged Jul 2008
Dudelyness - Debadged Apr 2007
Envieux (Team Leader) - Debadged Feb 2008
EternalMasque - Debadged Nov 07
Flumples - Debadged Mar 08
G_BNLL - Debadged sometime in 2007 (Records aren't fully complete...)
HelpfulDragon - Debadged Feb 07
Maze-expert - Debadged August 07
MysticDreams - Debadged Jan 08
Nath - Debadged Sep 07
Octagon-X - Debadged Jul 07
Robsladey - Debadged sometime in 2007
Shortcheese - Debadged May 07
Snim - Debadged Mar 08
Terrafire - Debadged Jul 07
Urges - Debadged Feb 08
XRF - Debadged Dec 07

That's everyone debadged in two years, not including everyone debadged from 2005/2006, and not including everyone who left on their own accord.