Building a Community

[Buster's Uncle]

I joined the AC online community on 12 March 2009 - there was only one place on the English-speaking internet that had much action going.  It was only my second forum ever, the first being a state chess association website where I racked up less than 40 posts over four years, so I was a newb so green that I was covered with moss.  But I had been lurking various places on the net for years, and had some idea of the etiquette and knew my place as a newb.  I had gotten obsessively involved in custom faction creation, and I wanted to share - I wanted people to talk to about this thing that had consumed my every waking hour for six weeks straight.  -Which was a little frustrating when it took two days for any of my posts to draw replies.  -Which has everything to do with my newb-care policies to this day; I remember being a newb.

Still, there was no one around doing AC game graphics in those days, and being prolific and glad to do little art jobs for anyone who asked, I made myself reasonably popular.  Only six weeks into all this there was a mass migration to a new site.  I could have cared less about what was/why it was going on; I just went where my new friends were.

It was there that I met sisko - at the last place, the MP had been an entirely separate folder and like a lot of MPlayers he didn‘t seem to come out of the Multicave much, but here MP was a sub of the SMAC general forum, and our paths crossed.  He was a new CMN, I believe, and we were both associates of another member who took great interest at this new place in how forums work and what goes into building them, and taught us a lot about that.  sisko and I didn’t get to know each other extremely well, but he was cool and I liked him, which I think was mutual.  Another new friend.

The first six weeks at the new place where the most fun I’ve ever had on a forum.  It was really busy, full of great people, and a lot of old hands were excited like they hadn’t seemed to be in years.  The SMACers had, hands-down, the busiest on-topic spot on the whole forum -take THAT Civ- and it was just pure heaven.

Then some stupid stuff went down, about which I will only say that lax management let a situation get bad and idiotic nerdbadge behavior on the part of some of the managers created a serious crisis for several members.  My dad is dead, and no one but me is entitled to an opinion about what treatment I will and will not put up with.  I voted with my feet for five months.  All this is relevant to our current management style here at AC2.

When I finally went back, things were very quiet by comparison to before.  In retrospect, it was inevitable cooling off of the opening party fervor of the new forum to blame as much as anything, but I felt at the time like too much of it was my fault and wanted to make amends.  I had been a key player in a hurricane of stupidity and immaturity that ultimately cost the forum the AC moderator and my former mentor.  sisko had gotten left holding the bag running MP without, to my knowledge, having ever been told why several of us suddenly disappeared or what was going on.  It kind’ve left him in charge of AC, ‘cause there was no one else trying.  He was game; he’d been doing a good job.  He initiated the GotM that summer while I was away, and was the single person most responsible for luring me back in from the cold.  His cheerleading kept the place alive, near single-handedly.

In the good times, we’d both been hard citizen workers for the health/growth of the AC community; it was natural for the two of us to fall back into those sort of activities when the community truly needed it.  The GotM team came together as part of that, which came with a private folder which we naturally also used to talk more openly about the running of the place - recruiting issues, for instance, can get obnoxious if you talk openly about them all the time.  I’m proud to say that I shortly talked one of the owners into making him moderator, which made a lot of things easier, but over several years of co-conspiring, we came to treat each other as partners in our mutual hobby of making a great online home for SMACers and trying to get the word out.

Early this year, we got serious about this forum, not least because it was past time for a focused forum For SMACers, By SMACers.  At last we SMACers are masters in our own house.  It’s a lot of work.  A LOT of work, an UNBELIEVABLE pile of work always, but it’s all coming together.

For me, the motivation is simple and always has been; Alpha Centauri attracts great people, and I want more of them to talk to.  sisko is about the best friend I have in the world, but he’s never told why it’s so important to him.  I’m pretty sure his reasoning is about the same, though, and I know more important things about him.  We work well together, often like two lobes of the same brain.  We agree about enough to make a smoothly-functioning team, but also disagree about enough to have a much wider idea base and greater wisdom to bring to bear on problems and their solutions.  We’ve watched the bad nerdbage moderating and learned, as well as moderation done right, and learned from that.  We studied these things together; we know that the least moderation is usually the best moderation, BUT that lax moderation lets disasters happen.  We’ve seen so much pain caused by over-aggressive mods, and so much caused by lazy ones.  We’re not going to make those old mistakes. 

(Yes, to head off some wag -probably NewAge or Green- we’re going to invent our own NEW mistakes.  Hopefully, we‘ll find solutions, too.)

I know that I couldn’t do this without sisko; I’m not useless with the tech end, but it just doesn’t interest me.  And the technical demands of running a forum are huge.  I know that he couldn’t do it without me, either.  He doesn’t have time.  And most important of all - I know I can trust sisko.  He’s proven it for years.  This is my first place where I could trust the guy at the top, which is how I know it’s also my last place.  Here I stand.  I know I can trust him, and I know you can, too.  He’s good people, and I want to be the first in line to welcome our new SMAC(X) overlord.

Lady and gentlemen, I give you our Captain, Benjamin Sisko, Emissary and son of the Prophets.  Hail the leader!

[Buster's Uncle]

So, I mentioned in my last that when I signed up at an AC forum for the first time, I posted custom game art and it was two days before anyone talked to me.

...That's no way to run a forum.  That reflects poorly on the community.  That ain't gonna happen at AC2.  Fortunately, one of the admins here is a strange person with no life who believes that newbs are our future, but he does go AFK for as much as a whole hour in the course of an average day, and has to sleep five or six hours a night whether he wants to or not.  He needs all the help he can get.

We WANT people to talk to.  We WANT contributors.  Maniac was a newb once.  I was a newb once.  You were too, and you turned out to be a good egg and a pillar of our community, didn't you?  Everybody started out a newb, and newbs are where our future superstars come from.  And at AC2, we don't eat our young.

NO question is too stupid.  Greet everyone.  Go out of your way to talk to the new people - anyone you see with under ten posts, even if they signed up before you, even if you've only got four posts yourself.  It don't matter.  THIS is how a healthy community works.  This is how it grows.  This is how we overcome the inevitable attrition of community members getting hit by busses or taking up Duke Nukem Forever forever.  This is a way that YOU can contribute to building the community.  Make people welcome and give them someone to talk to.  It pays off.

I WISH it went without saying, but nobody's going to be rude to newbs on these boards three times.  (Not even sisko, if he wants me here, not that he would do that.)  This ain't 4chan or Usenet.  I am not joking at all.  Test me on this, and enjoy your vacation.

SO some of you have been reading my suggestions in this thread for how to chip in, and come up lemons.  Well, we've been getting more humans than bots registering for months now, and a gratifying portion have actually posted.  Talking to those people and making them comfortable here is a way everyone can help out.  Thank you in advance for doing your part.

[Zoid]

I applaud your efforts Buncle :b: While I don't have much to contribute myself other than the occasional OT post/thread I'll do my best to send over as many SMAC'ers from WPC as I can...

[Buster's Uncle]

In the end, that's all it takes to build a community into something great; everyone doing what they can to pitch in.

[sisko]

I applaud your efforts Buncle :b: While I don't have much to contribute myself other than the occasional OT post/thread I'll do my best to send over as many SMAC'ers from WPC as I can...

good to see you here again Zoid!
..and a big thank you for that link
whether you want it or not, you are now part of our team.

[sisko]

as part of our effort to build a multilingual forum, the Game of the Month team is looking for people willing to translate the presentation and text files of our scenarios.
this is a good time to give us a hand as the promotional effort for the Nomads scenario is not over yet.

so, any volunteers?

[zstrong24]

This is my first post on this forum, and I wanted to just say that after lurking a bit and reading through the various posts, I decided to register and, hopefully, become an active member of this community. Posts like this show me that it's a good group of people assembled here that enjoy the game and enjoy one another's company.

[Buster's Uncle]

That's exactly the idea, and I'm glad it shows and that you get it.

[Rymdolov]

Welcome, zstrong24! Every active member counts, as BUncle wrote. I second what he said about sisko and will add that sisko is exactly the kind of person a forum needs. Patient, welcoming to newbs, not the one to go looking for conflict, that is, he acts like an adult. Also, he's good at the tech stuff.

BUncle is also the kind of guy you'll want on your favourite forum - talented, enthusiastic, hyper-active and always willing to lend a hand.

We feel strongly about this community. It's a great chance to have a place of our own. I hope you'll like it here.

[Buster's Uncle]

Also?  We ain't got nothin' against having fun within the sensible limits of consideration of each other.  This thread makes it sound like we're all serious, all the time, and it ain't so - just talking about the big, important ideas is srs biznis...

I like hyper-active, Rym. That's well-put.

[Green1]

That is a compelling story, BU. Many media rable rousers potray gaming as an anti-social thing. Yes, in the days of the Atari, Commodore, and early 8088's before the internet and only a scattered few BBSs, that may have been true.

But, what outsiders do not realize is there is an incredible amount of socilizing in most game communities. Some more than others. The MMO crowd in the right guild is like a drunken gamer convention of the 90s, girls and all! 4x, less so, but we type more intelligently and write a lot.

[Buster's Uncle]

sisko and Me is compelling?  Good to know; the story is important to me, having been there and felt it passionately, but of course there was a point.  Several points, actually, but mainly it's my answer to anyone who wonders what happens the next time I get P.O.ed.  Answer being that it's not a problem when I'm treated right.  I have my issues, but I can get along with almost anyone who respects me and listens when I say they're pushing a button of mine.  It ain't gonna be a problem here.

-Also, all that stuff about doing your part and leadership and newbcare.  It's all connected, and I've been thinking about these things a lot for years.

But yeah; I've always been terrible with people, and it's weird to find myself doing so well as a manager, though I got some of that running a RL chess club, too.  I guess I'm growing up in my old age.

Ab so LUTELY to 4x people being quality and literate.

as part of our effort to build a multilingual forum, the Game of the Month team is looking for people willing to translate the presentation and text files of our scenarios.
this is a good time to give us a hand as the promotional effort for the Nomads scenario is not over yet.

so, any volunteers?

Just wanted to bump this; it's important.

[Zoid]

I applaud your efforts Buncle :b: While I don't have much to contribute myself other than the occasional OT post/thread I'll do my best to send over as many SMAC'ers from WPC as I can...

good to see you here again Zoid!
..and a big thank you for that link
whether you want it or not, you are now part of our team.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Check this out:  http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=2530.0

That's the new Game of the Month, Nomads.  Try it.  Enter the contest.  Comment in the thread.

We need your feedback.  It helps us stay motivated.  Making goodies like that is a lot of work, and we need participation to help us stay on-task.  Also, I hear it's a lot of fun.  Like most of our GotMs, it includes a custom faction.  This one has some really nice bases, at that.  Download it, and make my day.  Thanks.

[Buster's Uncle]

What does AC2 not have -yet- that you think it should?  Be realistic, but we are interested in giving all our partners -that's you if you do your part here- what they want in an Alpha Centauri forum.  We'll work with you and back your play on anything within reason.

Thoughts?  Requests?