Looking for Forum Staff

Yeah, that notification feature is awesome. I don't know if we've got a mobile site, but it would be cool to have an app for easy cheat access or whatever. Seems like the kind of stuff on SC would be great in an app format.

<3 My notification system is really limited right now though. ):
It'll only pick up something like, @Pollo@, or tell you about topics you've subscribed to. Hopefully it'll get better, and SC will one day use a good notification system.

Rich, with all due respect, the experiences I've had with these forums as far as moderation is concerned is that the level of activity in the forums dictates whether that forum actually needs to be moderated. By soliciting applications here and now — when the majority of new posts on the entire message board are by unregistered guests — and considering that moderators and super moderators are ill-equipped to deal with guests who harp on about hacks for games that violate that game's terms of service, it seems that we're going back to the days when we started out and had all of the moderators going in different directions due to a lack of internal and public policy.

Perhaps you're banking on the possibility that the people you select to be moderators will tell all their friends in the outside world about the site. Not only is advertising not the responsibility of a moderator — it's really yours, as the site owner — but some people will prefer being on social networking sites where posting standards are much more lenient and the ability to upload personal pictures or videos from their computer or mobile phone afforded them.

Furthermore, I'll be the first to admit that Derek has said it — SuperCheats was a hub of information on gaming at large, particularly cheats and hints; its architecture was based on user submission, which, aside from the intermittent need to cooperate with other submitters that led to these message boards being created, was a community unto itself, with the message boards being an inchoate replication of the Reviews, Questions, Hints, and Cheats columns. This system isn't working as well due to two distinct factors: social networking and the diminished role of cheating in video games. As I said before, social networking has largely replaced dedicated communities as it is easier to get help from a neighbour instead of someone miles away; the interconnectivity of video gaming also obviates most cheating in order to insure the playing field. The only way SuperCheats can survive is by evolving to address these two trends, instead of trying to glue what's left of this community.

I've been on the message boards from the beginning; I know how it was, I know how it is. SC needs to evolve, and fast. In fact, instead of looking for forum staff, you should be looking for planners and analysts. Just some friendly advice.

Cross Stinger said:

Perhaps you're banking on the possibility that the people you select to be moderators will tell all their friends in the outside world about the site. Not only is advertising not the responsibility of a moderator ? it's really yours, as the site owner

That's something that still bugs me. Yes, it is the site owner's responsibility to advertise, but take this from someone having their own share of problems in advertising a site - It isn't easy. One person can only do so much. It's much better if advertising passes through word of mouth. If everyone would just mention a place they like once, it could do a world of help compared to just one person trying to tell everyone.

I used to advertise this place, until I sorta fell out of love with it. If this place was shown some love by people who could make a different - Mark, Rich, Dennis - I would start again. It's just hard to say great things about a place stuck in the stone ages.

Thanks for the posts. We do need to add a notification system in the forums and we will do that shortly.

It's also really clear that we need changes at the top until you guys like this place again.

I did write a much longer post but the server was having MySQL issues and it didn't save. But I would like to say we are still growing as a site, probably doubling the number of visitors in the last couple of years, we just need a better way to make those visitors interested enough to engage us more. We do have site related plans that may help such as a hub for popular series like Pok�mon and a weekly blog/articles that will be added there.

We're not banking on new moderators bringing new people to the site, but we do want them to engage the people that post.

I wish I could have a better input on this but I didn't start posting until the decline, so I can't help much.
Plus the fact that I still enjoy traditional message boards over social media.

yeah, I'm kind of in the same boat as Stormy. Although I've been much more active in the time i've been here. but point stays the same. I popped up around when the decline started to be a little more pronounced :(

After 2009? I can't actually remember when you and storm started posting.

I was around oct. 09 I think. Just after it started to kick in a little more noticably.

That's around the time I started posting in the forums as well. Before that, I was in Teams only. We started at the same time. <3

It's our fault then :(

Nope. Filip.

Definitely robocop.

Forgoten_Scars said:

After 2009? I can't actually remember when you and storm started posting.

I started a while after Alfred I think, I avoided the general boards though. Was mostly in the gaming, CoD specifically.

<3 the old CoD forum community, hate the games :p

Rich, a few suggestions I think could potentially work miracles (or not):

Forum Rules. Remove all but the bare essentials, i.e. no flaming, no advertising. Un-filter all swearwords that aren't 'fu.ck' or 'cu.nt', because although this is supposed to be for ages 13+, kids that age are going to know all the swear words in the book, anyway. Keep those two filtered to maintain status quo. Being 'too strict' (and let's face it, we ended up stupidly strict) made things much worse. No more qwerts. Remove all staff who take that part of their job too seriously or act like they're getting paid.

Guests. Five posts max from their IP, then they have to register to post.

Pokemon games. Here is where your biggest chance lies. These are so popular, you should be trying to promote them on your main site more. Look at how you can integrate the forums with them. Advertise the Pokemon forums more on the pages for the main games, rather than just display the 'Forum' option there. Because if anyone viewing them are like I was nine years ago, they won't have a bloody clue what forums are. I'm sure so many visitors want to talk pokemon. There's so much regarding the Pokemon series to talk about. Of course, you need initial activity to attract people to actually post, which brings me to...

Your idea regarding staff. Get them posting in the Pokemon forums (particularly B2/W2 etc.) and starting up all this activity you desperately need. NOT just making new topics, they need to get talking in them too. There are probably too many sub-forums in the Pokemon boards too, like the Trading forum. Remove them. Activity in the Pokemon forums is vital. It started this community years back, it needs to start it again. Get your staff posting in other popular games too, such as CoD, Mario, Zelda etc etc. But Pokemon is essential.

Modernize the forums. Pronto. Good suggestions have already been made in how to improve them by Derek and co. earlier in the thread, so I need not repeat them. The forums need better involvement (bad choice of wording?) with the main site, e.g. advertise them more, improve the display at the main game pages.

Site name. SuperCheats is a dated name, because cheats are dated and so is 'super' being in video game and console titles (except Super Mario). SuperCheats is also part of your 'Video Game Network' site hub. The only other VGN board left is Gaming Update. Merge the two, rename the site to 'The Video Game Network'. It's a great name, catchy, and the word 'network' in the title suggests networking, and social networking is the next big thing in gamer communication. You say you're happy with the amount of visitors you get, but I'm sure you'd be happier with even more.

Teams. Separating them into two individual communities messed up the activities of both in the long term, because they became too divided. People who posted in the Forums stayed there, people who posted in Teams stayed there. If you can find a way to return Teams as a sub-forum in the Forums whilst maintaining the cool features Teams currently has, then do so. The Teams forum was a significant contributor to activity back in the day. Retrospectively, it was a bad idea to close it and create a new community sector.

Stats. When I first joined, the Stats were really fun. Everyone was competing with everyone to be top of the table, and top of the great individual categories (Best Cheater, Best Hinter etc.). This was a major form of discussion in the Forums back in the early days. The current Points system is pretty good, but the individual categories are all gone. They need to come back, and resetting all the stats so that everyone is back to 0 (on the Stats page only, let them keep their former records in their profiles) would help spur on that friendly competition again, because nowadays it's impossible to get anywhere near the top 100 due to ridiculous Points scores, mostly featuring members who are no longer active. You reset them all in 2003, which started all the friendly competition (which certainly convinced me to sign up so I could join in), why not do it again? A few people may moan, but at the end of the day they're just numbers, right?

The reason I went inactive myself was because the activity was so low, and that was a year ago. Things are even worse now.

I liked teams in the seperartion. The issue for me is it became looked down upon. "Get off the forums you crappy teams nub we post quality here hurrr." That was an issue. Teams was vastly supportive when I first started posting in them in 07. Swear filters are eh and neh, but volke is right. Even if we keep them we need to back off on how enforcing, unless of terms of arguments and fights. Or at least use a creative a swear filter. Volkes name suggestion would be tight too

Ooooor, you can do what I do and just give the users the option of cutting the swear filter off for their view of the site. Ad companies don't like to see curse words around their content. Luckily, ad companies never register for a forum. Keep both sides happy.

Great suggestions Volke (except about changing the name!) - We can't do that!

I'll look deeper into all of those, we do have something exciting with Pokemon coming soon and we will better integrate the forums into that new area, as well as try to integrate some more of the latest posts from the Pokemon forums into the actual cheat and question content areas we have.

I've already approached a designer this morning about getting some cosmetic work done, and Mark has the notification system towards the top of his to-do list.

Integrating teams into forums I think that is a good idea that we should do, integrate but separate if you know what I mean... i.e. still see latest teams posts in the latest posts page, and vice versa, see the latest forums posts in the teams section.

We can do more with stats and we will do starting with rankings and achievements which have been on the back burner for too long. Resetting stats - Not thought enough about that yet to comment.

Guests idea - yep, great.

Rules - Yep need to be totally rewritten or abolished in favor of common sense, I need to go through and sort this out.

Looks like a lot of works needs to be done to resurrect this beast but I will be giving it a shot.

« Last edited by Team SuperCheats on Mar 27th 2013 »

I actually think Volke's got good ideas. I'd prefer abolition of guest posting altogether for practical reasons, but at least there will be an incentive for them to register.

As a matter of fact, what say you to allowing people to log in with Facebook rather than starting a separate account here, and merging the accounts that already exist with those members' Facebook profiles? (Remember, Facebook's TOS prohibits users under 13, and since some comments would be on Facebook's servers it would take much of the responsibility of enforcing that rule off your shoulders.)

That is something we looked into doing a while back, but I think there was some complication - we did it on gamingupdate - posting via Facebook is something I like but moderating facebook forum posts is a nightmare. But it does make it a lot easier for the user.

I think once the person has posted we need to make it as easy as possible to open an account... Like ok, you've posted now drop your email address here and pick a username.