ID:105900
 
This is a topic I've quite fancied blogging on for some time. I think perhaps to the general community, BYOND staffing is something of a black box. This blog post is better if read with this going on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsJGLgdexc0

Who are they?
You essentially have a number of groups, with a very flat structure going on. Sitting at the top is boss-man, the BYOND development team. They surprise surprise do the technical development of the website, platform and other tooling. When they add someone to this team, usually news spread quick among other groups mentioned below.

Then you have the site admins, who are small in number. These people have a great deal of power to handle website matters, and can dish out BYOND hub bans, suppress whole games and blogs, delete entries and so on. To the best of my knowledge, this group consists very much of older members of the community, and hasn't kept newer members in much for one reason or other.

These people also act as the closest official position BYOND has to "community manager", addressing complaints and support tickets. Addition to this group is pretty seldom done, presumably down to the administrative rights that come with the role.

Then you have the moderators. This is a pretty big group now, but mostly consisting of a small number of active members, myself included. Their responsibilities lie in DreamMakers, and the blog front page. Bans, edits and whatever you like on DreamMakers is their capability, while on the blog front page it's simply "hide". These guys are dropped in as and when Tom feels it appropiate, maybe a new person every month or so.

There's another group that are not supposed to be mentioned, but it is worth it to understand the make-up of BYOND socially I think, they are Gurus. This is a pretty wide group of people brought in to provide general discussion on BYOND features, help with awkward bugs, that kind of thing. It's important to note there's actually no rights added to this group, and what they get to see before the general community tends (most of the time) to be quite scant. It's not really a special role, if we're honest. The group do play a very interesting informal role though, which I will cover later. These are added quite frequently, but also go inactive just as frequently.

Then you have guildmasters, who probably represent the last centrally appointed group on BYOND, of which I am one (BYOND Anime). I tell a lie, they aren't actually centrally appointed really anymore. They are essentially defacto gods of their dominions though, which happen to be really really unimpressive dominions. Kind of like being God-Emperor of your kitchen, it's not really that cool.

Who's in charge of who?
Naha, this is a good question. With all of these groups kicking around serving particular roles, how do they interlink? In short, they don't formally. Guildmasters happen (most of the time, not all) to be gurus, so do moderators, and site admins, and developers. Gurus don't particularly report to anyone, as they don't do anything. Moderators report to ... well, Tom. Site admins report to ... well, Tom. Guildmasters report to ... well, Tom.

You see a pattern here. Were there a conflict of interest or role between any two individuals from separate groups, they'll mostly just duke it out until Tom has to personally intervene. As you can imagine, this is pretty tiring for the guy. Some respected gurus can of course do their bit, but if things have really broken down, then it's Tom's perogative to remedy, if only because he was responsible for hiring in the first place.

Who's in which group?
It's pretty inbred, basically. Personally, I'm a guildmaster, moderator and guru, and some other guildmasters are the same, one even being a site admin too I believe. This has it's benefits actually, if only to correct other design issues with the structure. For example I can sweep pretty much across the board on a matter very quickly if need be, without having to get anyone on board. As you can imagine, there's some serious downsides if you pick the wrong people for this., particularly as Tom is the only man who can really take action there.

So about these gurus ...
Ah yes, I said I was going to elaborate. While it's a concept I personally find distateful and Tom did not design the group as such, they serve as a buffer. In most cases to be in any other group, you must first pass through the guru group. This also means that when staffing new concepts, they again get drawn from this guru pool.

Now this is just personal opinion, but I think there's something a little iffy in our gene pool, which means the whole structure struggles. By virtue of being placed into the group for general merit of opinion, they are starting purposeless. People are then drawn from this group by strong preference, leaving you with guildmasters who went "Well I suppose I could have a go at that". Not exactly leadership material, is it now?

But you said guildmasters were different!
I have a very good story about this. The previous BYOND Anime guildmaster was, as everyone knew, Masterdan. The guy got very busy for a good while and so the guild was fairly leaderless. Now rather conveniently for BYOND Anime, I was rather upset at most guildmasters in general at the time.

I felt I could do better, I felt I knew what an official guild should really all be about! At the time, aside from Tech Tree, guilds were acting as games listings. So, I looked around for a guild that suited me and asked Tom if I could get involved, right? Nope.

What I did was scan the guilds. Truthfully at the time, I would have preferred BYOND RPG as my dominion, less issues and more scope to expand without internal politics issues. Unfortunate they already had a guildmaster who was vaguely around. While they would have brought me on board I'm sure, I wouldn't have been the ultimate authority there. For me, that just wouldn't have done.

But Masterdan was busy and away, though. So BYOND Anime it was. And just how did I become the guildmaster of BYOND Anime? Simple, I told everyone I was and started about my business. I did provide suitable warning to the gurus and the guild, and left time for objections. No-one chose me though, I decided it and asserted the position on myself. Sheer balls, basically.

So thanks SilkWizard, I'm glad you liked that I appointed me! =P

Unfortunately my appointment was to a guild which if we're honest, isn't much liked outside of it's own circle. And the reason was in no small part due to the politics and hassle of pulling off that party trick on another guild.

You go on about politics a lot ...
I do, we're hitting my conclusion nicely now. BYOND politics is rarely beneficial. There is rarely a back-handed trading of resources to better get things done on BYOND. The politics you get instead is "Ohhh no, I'm not sure X will like that, or go along with that". It's always about not upsetting the apple-cart.

And the reason is fairly simple, and two-fold. People are not appointed with purpose and objective in mind. Secondly, too few people have the authority to just dish out to others how things are going down. So they never go down.

A little bad news (I think)
Unfortunately come the new year, I believe I'm going to be done out of my most useful role at BYOND, when the site upgrade arrives. I won't be re-allocated to any grand role either, as I hold the closest replacements already, but they are not going to have the authority and leadership dynamic my current role has.

Put simply, I stop having the capability to push developers to improve, to focus a marketing strategy for my area, to include and hire my own staff purely on their capability and work-attitude, trial new site concepts, styles of moderation etc.

I need to decide what I can do to fill this gap, as I don't believe this has been considered by Tom et al as a role. When I come up with something, I'll let you know.

Thank you for reading.
Byond seems fairly dead lately not to mention guilds are getting killed off and anime is getting exiled.
Quaddw wrote:
Byond seems fairly dead lately not to mention guilds are getting killed off and anime is getting exiled.

I don't think the leadership is there. I don't necessarily mean decision or indecision on the part of Tom, who is obviously taking major steps with the software and website at the moment. It's more no-one's instilling that go-getter attitude. I'm not actually a very good manager, but I can lead.
-braces himself for flaming-

I personally think BYOND Anime is a good thing, if managed properly. Stephen001 does a decent job, better than Masterdan in my personal opinion.

A lot of the members on this site came here originally due to BYOND's vast variety of anime "inspired" games, including myself.

It's a shame the guild and any games related to anime is basically a rip battle, to see who can give a ripoff the most steroids.

Stephen, if there's anything you think I can help with around the guild before it's annihilated, let me know.
Yammen wrote:
-braces himself for flaming-

I personally think BYOND Anime is a good thing, if managed properly. Stephen001 does a decent job, better than Masterdan in my personal opinion.

A lot of the members on this site came here originally due to BYOND's vast variety of anime "inspired" games, including myself.

It's a shame the guild and any games related to anime is basically a rip battle, to see who can give a ripoff the most steroids.

Stephen, if there's anything you think I can help with around the guild before it's annihilated, let me know.

Thanks. The guild will continue to exist as a player guild (I have the password, so does IceWarriorX I believe). But as we all know, player guilds have all the reverence in the wider community of a kid's action figure.

I'm currently trying to assess ways the guild could still offer a very genuine avenue to players for it's member games, hence the blog post on BYOND Anime. I suspect, but don't know for sure, that there's still some potential to keep BYOND Anime as a core hub for the anime games community, who will essentially be poorly served by the site upgrade.
Stephen001 wrote:
Yammen wrote:
-braces himself for flaming-

I personally think BYOND Anime is a good thing, if managed properly. Stephen001 does a decent job, better than Masterdan in my personal opinion.

A lot of the members on this site came here originally due to BYOND's vast variety of anime "inspired" games, including myself.

It's a shame the guild and any games related to anime is basically a rip battle, to see who can give a ripoff the most steroids.

Stephen, if there's anything you think I can help with around the guild before it's annihilated, let me know.

Thanks. The guild will continue to exist as a player guild (I have the password, so does IceWarriorX I believe). But as we all know, player guilds have all the reverence in the wider community of a kid's action figure.

I'm currently trying to assess ways the guild could still offer a very genuine avenue to players for it's member games, hence the blog post on BYOND Anime. I suspect, but don't know for sure, that there's still some potential to keep BYOND Anime as a core hub for the anime games community, who will essentially be poorly served by the site upgrade.

What about creating a site that just links to hub entries and displays the list of players and how many are active? A pseudo-corehub persay.

It'll give you the means to do whatever you want, advertising, bringing in a larger more efficient player-base.
True, and it's not too difficult to glean off BYOND itself. I'm interested in exploring social media more (facebook, twitter etc) as a lot of Anime game hits come off word of mouth, people telling friends etc. Even some of the classics like "Email to a friend" may step things up.
Stephen001 wrote:
True, and it's not too difficult to glean off BYOND itself. I'm interested in exploring social media more (facebook, twitter etc) as a lot of Anime game hits come off word of mouth, people telling friends etc. Even some of the classics like "Email to a friend" may step things up.

Then do it, I know you have it in you :P
I'm fine with the centralized web site, but readjusting to centralized decisions could be a challenge. Independent projects could get things done without needlessly waiting around for permission. Refinements when something went wrong were quick too.
ACWraith wrote:
I'm fine with the centralized web site, but readjusting to centralized decisions could be a challenge. Independent projects could get things done without needlessly waiting around for permission. Refinements when something went wrong were quick too.

Further to that I think, there was drive. The new process seems very technically functional, but soulless. It may be a little different for Strategy, I'm not sure what contact you kept with your listed developers or prospective developers.

For Anime, we drove a pretty good deal by charisma and advice to developers. That kind of contact just doesn't exist in the new process.
I don't disagree with removing guilds. Aside from Anime & Strategy, they didn't serve a meaningful role. I think the biggest loss is, as you say, for BYOND Anime, but I do think it can keep serving its role as an anime hub. The biggest problem I see is the lack of "official" status (hence notability), but this could probably be overcome with more blog activity.

I do heavily disagree with the idea of "gurus", especially when they are prerequisites for management roles. Locking out the majority of the community from understanding, and being involved in a lot of BYOND's future plans in favour of a "select few" (at least proportionally), other than encouraging elitism, is also silly, from a management standpoint. You might argue that it is no different than volunteering site staff, but what makes it questionable is the impression that these members are still "regular BYOND users", rather than staff. (If anything, your work as a guru should be to facilitate an understanding between the community and the development team.)
There's actually a really virulent feeling going around anime developers at the moment about the site change in that respect, as the standing rule is the highest level of featuring in the new process will never be available for Anime games. These people understandably feel wronged by the change.

How we react as a guild is going to determine a lot about the future of Anime on BYOND, the form it takes etc.

As for gurus you are quite right, and personally that is their big issue. We selected staff for BYOND Anime on capability and work-ethic.

For example IceWarriorX as a fellow guildmaster. He knows the people, has the power of speech, has the decision-making capability and isn't afraid to get in and make a decision on the snap if he needs to. The convention is guildmasters on BYOND get made a guru as well, to share in that guru pool. The priviledge was not extended to IceWarriorX, because of his background with Bandwagon. Had the process followed the guru route, BYOND Anime would suffered a lack of his presence and guidance.
@Stephen001: I don't know what happened with IceWarriorX, but I think the convention is that guildmasters on BYOND stay out until someone speaks up. The access is always overdue.

Also, the forum hasn't really been a prerequisite for joining a guild's staff. It's just that you've run the only guild with activity that warrants filling more positions. ;)
ACWraith wrote:
@Stephen001: I don't know what happened with IceWarriorX, but I think the convention is that guildmasters on BYOND stay out until someone speaks up. The access is always overdue.

Also, the forum hasn't really been a prerequisite for joining a guild's staff. It's just that you've run the only guild with activity that warrants filling more positions. ;)

I broached the issue when I become guildmaster, and listed who I was sharing with. Maggeh was already a guru for Art Society, and Lummox (if I remember correctly) declined to follow the convention of providing access in IceWarriorX's case.
I donno, I have mainly been moderating as of late, I really need to think about something, but heck, all guilds are being procrastinators right now.

Lummox doesn't like the idea that I be a ruler of the total kitchen, but rather rule over just the spoons and not the knives...that way I can't do any damage. I see where he's coming from, and don't blame him for it. People have done some questionable/infamous things just to garner attention from the same guilds I'm affiliated with. (darkwizard, bigboiD, cyberlord, etc.)
You shouldn't shift the attention away from yourself, mind. If I have it right, case is pretty borderline. You were (are you still?) a troll yourself, and in light of that, I can see why Lummox wouldn't want to 'acknowledge you'. If we assume guru status is justified in the first place, I can agree with the decision not to include you. That shouldn't exclude you from a management role if you are capable of it. But it's somewhat analogical to a boss hiring someone capable and not trusting him for bad personality/history.
I would have preferred BYOND RPG as my dominion, less issues and more scope to expand without internal politics issues. Unfortunate they already had a guildmaster who was vaguely around.

And if you had asked, you probably would have got it within seconds. Funny old world, isn't it?
Tiberath wrote:
I would have preferred BYOND RPG as my dominion, less issues and more scope to expand without internal politics issues. Unfortunate they already had a guildmaster who was vaguely around.

And if you had asked, you probably would have got it within seconds. Funny old world, isn't it?

I did note that, yeah. This was a fair bit before both Aud and yourself had completely decided to move off the guild and hand over to Android Data, so I doubted a total replacement being likely, as it was your baby.
Toadfish wrote:
You shouldn't shift the attention away from yourself, mind. If I have it right, case is pretty borderline. You were (are you still?) a troll yourself, and in light of that, I can see why Lummox wouldn't want to 'acknowledge you'. If we assume guru status is justified in the first place, I can agree with the decision not to include you. That shouldn't exclude you from a management role if you are capable of it. But it's somewhat analogical to a boss hiring someone capable and not trusting him for bad personality/history.

The done thing at the time would be to pick a guru for guildmaster, basically. So my point was had we picked from that pool (which is at least meant to be a decent pool of people) in this case, we'd have been worse off.
Well yes, I agree with that.
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