Staff Comments

[CyberAutumn]

Personally, I think the staff don't comment on threads enough. Only a few truly engage in a good conversation, or downright say, "Good thread, I'd recommend etc..." The most I, and any other player can see, is a staff saying, "Locked thread!"
I know a lot of the staff are busy, but I have been seeing about four to five staff on for a while on the forums, and I doubt they are doing work all the time. I know they can take 10 minutes to read a thread and comment some nice things other than 'we're working on it' and 'thread locked.'
I know it might not be needed on random threads that don't make sense, etc, but on a good thread, (which is rarely seen anymore) it's just nice to see a staff member comment something nice.
I know I'll probably get the same response on this, but it's just been stuck in my mind for a while. ;-;
~Cyber

 

[Sophie]

Staff do not typically have a say in what is added to the server and what isn't, so there's little reason for them to reply to threads that they don't need to. They're just ordinary players, with an added responsibility.

 

[CyberAutumn]

Staff do not typically have a say in what is added to the server and what isn't, so there's little reason for them to reply to threads that they don't need to. They're just ordinary players, with an added responsibility.

This is the opposite of what I was saying... I never said they need to say what is being added, I am saying that I would appreciate to see them comment some things like, "nice thread" and "we'll look into this." -.-

 

[Sophie]

This is the opposite of what I was saying... I never said they need to say what is being added, I am saying that I would appreciate to see them comment some things like, "nice thread" and "we'll look into this." -.-

But they're just ordinary players, why does it matter? It seems like quite a petty thing to ask from them, since their comments aren't going to be much more valuable than any others.

For the record, I do see a lot of staff replies to threads. There are just so many threads on here, that a lot of them don't get noticed by the few staff that are here.

 

[Ayroh]

But they're just ordinary players, why does it matter? It seems like quite a petty thing to ask from them, since their comments aren't going to be much more valuable than any others.

For the record, I do see a lot of staff replies to threads. There are just so many threads on here, that a lot of them don't get noticed by the few staff that are here.

Sophie, dont get me wrong, the staff do great, but I think it’s not a necessity but rather a perception thing. I agree with your statement that their comments aren’t anything more special; however, I disagree with that aswell. It’s just one of those gimmies that staff can (dont have to) but can do, to help the community to know that these threads are being viewed and at least considered (even some briefly). I’m not saying staff need to comment on every thread, it’s just one of those things can can be easily done; it’s not too much more of an added responsibility/weight for staff to say something on a decent/good thread like “Hey, I can tell that you took your time with this idea, and I will pass it along with other friends and staff for more opinions”. This would: allow the community to feel even a little more like these threads are being viewed (I have no doubt each one is) and even being considered (even if you secretly know that it’s an idea you dont agree with), and will possibly be passed along (you dont even have to, they wouldnt know).

 

[AFreakingCookie (Hank)]

Personally, I think the staff don't comment on threads enough. Only a few truly engage in a good conversation, or downright say, "Good thread, I'd recommend etc..." The most I, and any other player can see, is a staff saying, "Locked thread!"
I know a lot of the staff are busy, but I have been seeing about four to five staff on for a while on the forums, and I doubt they are doing work all the time. I know they can take 10 minutes to read a thread and comment some nice things other than 'we're working on it' and 'thread locked.'
I know it might not be needed on random threads that don't make sense, etc, but on a good thread, (which is rarely seen anymore) it's just nice to see a staff member comment something nice.
I know I'll probably get the same response on this, but it's just been stuck in my mind for a while. ;-;
~Cyber

Staff are probably very busy with staff things honestly. I think it is totally fine for staff to not be super active on responding to posts because being staff no cubecraft is huge.

 

[AnimalTamer1]

Alright, so I read through everything so far and am going to say the obvious that has been said, staff are extremely busy with life, school, moderating, and other things. Okay, now that the obvious response is out of the way, let me get down to the nitty gritty of this thread as a whole.

I fully agree that we, as staff, while not anything special since we are just people should try to reply to threads when we can. Now that I have said that, I will also state that staff do try their best to respond to threads when they can, or when they actually have a response. I can assure you we do try to read every thread, but we can not reply to each one as we may not have a response for it other than "good idea" since we may not be particularly knowledgable about the idea and what it being added could bring. As someone else said, we do not know about future updates and what will be added. This means that while we can comment nice comments/recommendations/ideas on threads, it will not hold too much weight other than telling the writer that we have seen it, do like it, and appreciate their thread.

This brings me to why I am writing this. I truly feel we, as moderators, should be integrated into the community, listening to you guys and informing you what we may feel on your threads. We should be encouraging you guys and showing appreciation towards you guys that write threads. I agree that commenting on them is a very key way to do this and to show that becoming a staff did not change how we feel about the community. This is especially important since having messages that are decent, meaning replying to threads with constructive feedback, is a requirement to even become helper. Regardless if we manage to comment or not, I can speak for all of us and say you guys are appreciated, we love when you guys give us constructive feedback and are creative with new ideas for the server. We all may not always have time to write a comment, but it is acknowledged by every staff, appreciated by all, and commented on by at least several staff.

 

[Tacosbefriends]

Nice thread. I tend to agree; it would be nice if staff could reply more to threads unrelated to staff stuff. Being staff, as any of our staffers will tell you, is a huge responsibility that tends to take up a lot of free time that would once be used commenting on and creating forums threads.

I personally don't comment often on threads for a few reasons, the first being that I simply don't have the free time I once had before being staff. I used to have no life and spend all my time on the forums and skyblock. I still have no life, but I do have a job that requires me to be doing other things most of the time. I still comment on things I find interesting (mostly the memes thread) but I certainly don't hang around on the forums like I used to.

Second reason I tend not to comment much is that, as an admin and as staff manager, a lot of people interpret my opinion as fact. For example, if someone said they want a turn-based card game on Cubecraft, I'd be totally in favor of that and say I agree. As someone with influence on what gets added to the server, some people might see my comment and go "OMG THEY ADDING MY CARD GAME IDEA I SO EXCITE." It just gets out of hand.

Finally, I'm simply super forgetful; I might comment on a thread, go handle my 10+ private messages, then go play spleef for an hour and completely forget that someone quoted me and asked a question about my comment.

In conclusion, yes, I think taking a bit of our free time to comment on one or two threads would be a great idea. We obviously can't comment on every thread, but more forums interaction from staff would be great.

 

[iLoveYouu]

I'll just quickly say how I usually am when going around the forums before giving my opinion on what you said: I check the forums quite often and I mostly check the recent activity, so when I see something that looks interesting to me or is posted by someone who usually has interesting posts (mostly suggestions) I'll click it (I often also just check all the threads in recent activity). Then I check to see if I can remember anyone else making the suggestion before on either the forums or anyone from the staff team, if it's a good suggestion but posted before then I will probably just like it. If there's a suggestion that is new to me and good I will most likely like it and post on it. If there's a suggestion that has potential I will probably respond with some points that need to be addressed with what the person is suggesting. That's basically what I do when I browse the forums. :p

So now onto what you're saying in your thread, I totally agree that we could respond to more threads, but I think a lot of staff members also don't want to for example effect responses to suggestions by them replying to it. If I reply to a suggestion saying it's absolutely amazing, there will probably be a couple of people who will say the same thing just because I said it. Also a lot of our staffers are leaning more towards the actual moderating of the forums instead of interacting with forum members. I also agree with what Animaltamer had to say:

This brings me to why I am writing this. I truly feel we, as moderators, should be integrated into the community, listening to you guys and informing you what we may feel on your threads. We should be encouraging you guys and showing appreciation towards you guys that write threads. I agree that commenting on them is a very key way to do this and to show that becoming a staff did not change how we feel about the community. This is especially important since having messages that are decent, meaning replying to threads with constructive feedback, is a requirement to even become helper. Regardless if we manage to comment or not, I can speak for all of us and say you guys are appreciated, we love when you guys give us constructive feedback and are creative with new ideas for the server. We all may not always have time to write a comment, but it is acknowledged by every staff, appreciated by all, and commented on by at least several staff.

It would also be nice to have someone in the management team that has the function of community manager like tacos said:

Second reason I tend not to comment much is that, as an admin and as staff manager, a lot of people interpret my opinion as fact. For example, if someone said they want a turn-based card game on Cubecraft, I'd be totally in favor of that and say I agree. As someone with influence on what gets added to the server, some people might see my comment and go "OMG THEY ADDING MY CARD GAME IDEA I SO EXCITE." It just gets out of hand.

Staff don't have a say in what happens with the server, so often we tend to not reply to not give players the idea that it will be implemented in the future.

 

[Gainfullterror]

I completely agree with every single thing you've said.
I've noticed this as an issue for quite a while now, to the point where I had even made a staff feedback thread regarding forums activity. Since moderators usually aren't too active (posting-wise), I also try to push Lezappen to be more active & just interact with the community itself. I've definitely felt that some members have distanced themselves a bit from the community since they became a staff member, but that's totally understandable considering the points mentioned above by ILY, Tacos and Animal.
Again: I completely agree that some staff members should interact more other than locking threads and what not. I try to push my friend Lez to do this too, and I really hope others start getting back into the swing of things regarding 'active' activity on the forums.

 

[Injunction]

favourite part is that to this thread there have been 3 replies from staff members

The thing I do have to say is that any normal player response is about the same worth as a staff's response (unless it is completely irrelevant or just breaking 1 of the forum rules)
Think about it, both of the 2 are giving feedback (once again with the exceptions of locking, useless posts or saying we are working on it) they are just useful
now to actually respond is way different than to just see the thread and forward it without saying anything now that is obvious but aren't those both nearly equivilent

I am more mutual on this as it is something involving personal opinion

 

[Edgeless]

You know alot staff replied to this
Now almost every thread a staff has replied to...... Cool