Current state of affairs at Habbox

[Lewis]

I created the reputation and tokens stickies for those that are unable to explain it. If a host can't explain it correctly, they are required to have those stickies. I think with Shonly that it was just a human error and she missed what Nelson said. (I might be wrong, but isn't Comity Nelson_Mandela?)

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We still have VIPS that you can access openly or via a teleport (the actual furniture teleport, not wired) - I believe one or two people have the HabboxVIP keyword when they shouldn't but they're new and have been unaware of the rule. That'll be sorted soon, though.

If anyone is seen that they're getting distracted by their friends, they'll be talked to about it. If it's continued, things will happen specifically for them to help avoid this in the future.

In reply to the specific things that happen, I haven't done them yet as I haven't really noticed any events staff doing it - I can't be at every event, but I know staff have openly admitted that it's happened to them. What would be done after talking to them really depends on what's happen and how seriously it is when distracting them. It could be as much as a caution if it's that terribly bad, or a few changes made to their event room, such as VIP areas changing a little for them, or rules for that specific host, etc and seeing how that goes.

[Kyle]

What's the point in posting this? I don't understand? One of these are made pretty much every month and nothing changes which I know of.

Echoes the thoughts of some staff members I think, which is kinda worrying. Things do get done but the problem with these types of threads is that only 1-2 issues brought up are focused and dealt with and others ignored. Definitely helps to bring issues up as regularly as possible though.

Ah, I did wonder who would notice honestly I did . If I can't play a game on Habbo when I'm also doing Habbox work then what's it coming to, I still attend and play events and I'm pretty sure (don't quote me on this) that screen shot would have been taken pretty late. I was paused on it a while sorting staffing issues (I'm not trying to make it seem ok), but it doesn't mean I'm not interacting with the community as such. I'm working a lot more behind the scenes currently which will be brought out to the community soon. I'm currently limited until tonight, but I'm never unavailable to interact with the community.

Also, I have my role in my motto, so people can come to me and it does work! I can't comment on the other stuff yet, but I will do.

I'm not saying that it's fine for me to not interact with the community x amount of time, but no one can be expected to be on all the time.

It disappoints me that you seem to have overlooked the point of this thread in order to defend yourself. A trend I feel you follow far too often. I mentioned in the post that nothing was meant by me pointing out your specific activity, I just thought it could be a good metaphor to learn from. Yes, you're an easy scapegoat, but that does not mean you should be exempt from criticism altogether. Being on limited activity certainly justifies some inactivity but when it is clearly harming habbox then sometimes something has to be said. I look forward to these mind blowing features you have been working on behind the scenes.

Well it's nice you mention post-inseriousity but to be fair, I too fell into that trap of complacency. The thing is there's no leadership. There are flashes of it occasionally but the hard decisions are usually swept under the carpet unless there's someone else in the general management team who is willing to make that decision. For instance, I would imagine that Skynus probably had more of the final say into Chippiewill's recent firing. When I was AGM, it was me who had to make that final decision to merge the content/news departments and me who then had to make the decision to reverse it (even though technically they weren't "my departments" - as a general rule though, I understand that most AGMs will help any department if they need it regardless of the official structure).

I talk about it extensively in this thread here: http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=790483 but I am still waiting for the action plan I asked for despite repeatedly being told that it will be coming soon. I knew I wouldn't see it because it'd take about half an hour or so to make if they had the ideas. They do not have the ideas to push Habbox forward and when they are presented with ideas, there's no urgency so they either get ignored or abandoned (skandair's post is right for that then). Things like hxhd mottos they'll probably reinforce that but the bigger ideas, nope.

Yes, some department managers could get more active in sorting out the issues in their departments but to me, the bigger issue is the lack of leadership in general management.

Complacency at some points does not become a wide issue when it's clear that the passion is still there. This was true with you, bolt and others but there is a lack currently. IMO. I distinctly remember only 1 or 2 points of your action plan being acted on and the rest completely ignored. They were all good ideas worth proper consideration but as a thread moves on it always happens to be 1 topic that sticks in the readers' minds rather than the thread as a whole. For yours it was issues surrounding the token initiative and for this it seems to be heading in the direction of staff interaction. Sad.

I created the reputation and tokens stickies for those that are unable to explain it. If a host can't explain it correctly, they are required to have those stickies. I think with Shonly that it was just a human error and she missed what Nelson said. (I might be wrong, but isn't Comity Nelson_Mandela?)

Even if they can explain it, stickers should still be mandatory. As proven, sometimes staff do not have enough time to dedicate to specific users' queries so it's just better and easier. Nelson_Mandela is an account I was using whilst muted and nobody was aware that I was already a member of habbox.
@Samanfa; @lawrawrrr; @Empired; @Sloths; @Mk,; @xxMATTGxx; @Chris;
sorry, I feel really uncomfortable picking you guys out but you're the ones that run this show and feedback is only good if it's properly discussed with you.

Feel like in order for anything to happen that I must force acknowledgement of current issues. I'll point out a few things that have been touched upon in past and present threads that still need looking at:

- incentive systems for staff. Are they working as intended? Do they need tweaking?

- fresh meat. ensure that managers are aware that they won't be in their position for life so use bonding sessions etc to properly groom (not in the moh sense) the younger members into management material.

- achievements system. an idea presented by mike that has so much potential. look into it. thoroughly.

- plan of action. manifesto. whatever you want to call it - we'd love it if you presented one. 'working on stuff behind the scenes' is just not going to cut it anymore. tell us what you're working on. reassure us.

[lawrawrrr]

I have read the OP here but I only have my phone on me at the moment so wiring a massive reply is a bit beyond my reach until this evening! I do agree with most of it and I'll reply properly later


on phone xx

[Empired]

@Samanfa; @lawrawrrr; @Empired; @Sloths; @Mk,; @xxMATTGxx; @Chris;
sorry, I feel really uncomfortable picking you guys out but you're the ones that run this show and feedback is only good if it's properly discussed with you.

You're not picking on us?? I thought feedback threads were SUPPOSED to be so members of the community could give managers their thoughts on how different departments were being run? Just because feedback threads are often abused these days doesn't mean that's changed.

Feel like in order for anything to happen that I must force acknowledgement of current issues. I'll point out a few things that have been touched upon in past and present threads that still need looking at:

- incentive systems for staff. Are they working as intended? Do they need tweaking?

These are difficult. Especially because yet more feedback threads are made on how we give out too much VIP so we decide to give out some credit/furni prizes and then we get complaints because we're wasting credits on staff instead of the community. I know I sent out a trophy to @:Cerys; who did some absolutely fantastic hours last week and she seemed to appreciate that quite a bit. I may start doing that more often if you get over x hours (e.g 35).

- fresh meat. ensure that managers are aware that they won't be in their position for life so use bonding sessions etc to properly groom (not in the moh sense) the younger members into management material.

Not sure if you mean fresh meat just for training to be a manager or if you mean fresh meat for the whole department.
Anyway, we have two fantastic seniors who I know would be great as management but I think opening HxHD management applications again would be the best bet so General Management can get the widest range of applicants possible.
For the whole department, we have a pretty high rate of trialists failing at the moment because we're offering jobs to *most* people. We figured it's easier to give them a chance rather than throwing away people who would actually be really good. Obviously we're not accepting people if their application is absolutely awful or they're on the DNHL or something..

I'm also working on getting more members of HxF and ex-HxHD staff to come (back) to work in HxHD because we've found these people are much more likely to stay in the long term.

- achievements system. an idea presented by mike that has so much potential. look into it. thoroughly.

Vaguely remember reading about this but not a lot has happened. I think events has something like that where you can redeem furni, coins, etc if you host a certain amount of events or something. That would be harder to do for HxHD but I'll reread that post Mike made.

- plan of action. manifesto. whatever you want to call it - we'd love it if you presented one. 'working on stuff behind the scenes' is just not going to cut it anymore. tell us what you're working on. reassure us.

We've been focusing on trialists at the moment and trying to get the department as big as we can but I'll talk to @Sloths; @Cassiieee; and @zebbadi; about coming up with a list of things that we can work towards over the next month or two.

[Lewis]

- achievements system. an idea presented by mike that has so much potential. look into it. thoroughly.

@Kyle;

I brought a rewards points system to the Events Department a while ago. You can earn reward points through weekly challenges which are on the booking calendar under each week. These may be from hosting double your minimum, triple your minimum, attending other events that aren't yours, hosting new and original games. The list goes on. These are the habbo prizes you can get:

05 Points - A bundle of norms
10 Points - Ten coins
15 Points - Twenty coins
20 Points - Thirty coins

Alongside that, you can get forum VIP and perhaps some other forum prizes that staff may want in the future. Of course, you can lose reward points for whatever reason, such as missing events, being rude and disrespectful, etc. Not including any points taken away from staff, a total of around 160 has so far been given out.

It doesn't have a definite thing on how to earn reward points, which I prefer that way. It all depends on the weekly challenges. The only thing that you can always be guaranteed to earn the points every week is being top three in the weekly leaderboard or just overall doing your best.

[Inseriousity.]

I disagree, passion only goes so far. It definitely helps to care about Habbox obviously. I always had Habbox's best interests at heart even if people didn't necessarily agree with how or what action that should take. The thing about ideas is that it is very easy to come up with them, harder to put them into place and sustain them. This is where complacency comes in because if you're in part of a team that has no sense of urgency then things will get left behind. Your passion gets dented when there isn't a supportive environment to back you up against obstacles and no-one should be under any illusion that making radical changes that has no blueprint or previous structure to follow is a piece of cake so it's natural to have your passion worn down. Matt's typical method of attack, for example, is making sly digs about you cos he doesn't have the balls to just say it outright. That atmosphere is toxic and things are just never going to get done.

I agree that feedback threads tend to focus around one thing but actually my feedback thread wasn't about putting those ideas in place, it was about presenting an action plan/manifesto of their ideas and saying my own to show I wasn't just all talk. The thread tended to evolve about critiquing the ideas rather than the main point of the thread. Despite that, to their credit, general management did seem to acknowledge that it was more about the action plan and resolved to get it done. I'm still waiting. It shouldn't take too long because it'd just be a case of writing down what ideas you're working on behind the scenes (and I don't necessarily think this is a cop-out excuse but as there's no accountability and lack of leadership then it is easy to stop working when ideas get too difficult). This would restore the sense of urgency - they'd have to explain themselves if ideas didn't come to fruition as expected - and perhaps produce some spark of leadership skills in the general management team when they know their ideas behind the scenes are now being publicly held accountable.

As for Martin, he should be removed from dnhl, habbox needs all the people that care in its team not watching from the sidelines.

[Kyle]

I must stress that the achivements system (something akin to that on runescape and other mmorpg games, according to @Inseriousity. is completely different to the incentive system you guys are discussing here. Lets move the focus away from the ideagiving cool features to staff and towards rolling them out for newer and existing users. Thanks for clearing up what actual incentives you are giving though. Do you find the system incentive to be on that works? Are people actively claiming their rewards or simply storing up points (a problem I am seeing with token system right now)?

Essentially, an achievement system would involve users performing certain tasks or whatever and earning whatever reward for it. I'll go back to the RS example - a user can earn an achievement score in their achievement diary for, say, killing a goblin in lumbridge. I know it's an abstract way of thinking for those unfamiliar with this type of game, but the proposal would be that a new user could earn an achievement in their diary for, I don't know... posting new or amending old articles on the wiki. In the game, it encourages users to adventure across the entire map and at habbox it could give some love to the habbox websites that are currently neglected.

[Lewis]

I must stress that the achivements system (something akin to that on runescape and other mmorpg games, according to @Inseriousity. is completely different to the incentive system you guys are discussing here. Lets move the focus away from the ideagiving cool features to staff and towards rolling them out for newer and existing users. Thanks for clearing up what actual incentives you are giving though. Do you find the system incentive to be on that works? Are people actively claiming their rewards or simply storing up points (a problem I am seeing with token system right now)?

Essentially, an achievement system would involve users performing certain tasks or whatever and earning whatever reward for it. I'll go back to the RS example - a user can earn an achievement score in their achievement diary for, say, killing a goblin in lumbridge. I know it's an abstract way of thinking for those unfamiliar with this type of game, but the proposal would be that a new user could earn an achievement in their diary for, I don't know... posting new or amending old articles on the wiki. In the game, it encourages users to adventure across the entire map and at habbox it could give some love to the habbox websites that are currently neglected.

People are definitely claiming their rewards. However, most of the staff saving up to get the biggest prize, 30c for 20 RP. They don't get spent instantly, but they do get spent.

[Inseriousity.]

I envision the achievements system to work as follows:

- Habbox
- HxHD
- Competitions
- Events
- HxL
- Forum

Each category would have beginner, medium, hard tasks in each one (the Habbox category would include all the departments that don't have their own category). Single tasks would have small rewards like tokens but completing a set would get a bigger reward. You can give them funny names and it would get newbies more involved in the wider community and might be something fun for older members to complete too. Maybe some sort of 'completionist' forum userbar for those that complete the whole set that gets removed when new tasks are added. They would have terrible names that involve bad puns and would be more of an achievement than the current awards system.

[Kardan]

I envision the achievements system to work as follows:

- Habbox
- HxHD
- Competitions
- Events
- HxL
- Forum

Each category would have beginner, medium, hard tasks in each one (the Habbox category would include all the departments that don't have their own category). Single tasks would have small rewards like tokens but completing a set would get a bigger reward. You can give them funny names and it would get newbies more involved in the wider community and might be something fun for older members to complete too. Maybe some sort of 'completionist' forum userbar for those that complete the whole set that gets removed when new tasks are added. They would have terrible names that involve bad puns and would be more of an achievement than the current awards system.

Pretty much exactly like the RuneScape achievement system. I think this would work very well. I also imagine it would be a good replacement to the awards on the forum, which seem a bit stale.