Hello everyone.
I had a showerthought recently about the community and the recent issue of the whole smp blunder, and how it could be avoided in the first place.
My suggestion is for community made events or servers!
How do these differ from the servers already?
Instead of staff members being the main creator/staff/facilitator of every server ever, members of the community would be the ones that propose, create, run, staff, and modify future event servers.
This is what it would look like:
1) A community member has an idea for a server that they are able to do (and host?). Examples would be a 7 Days to Die server, a vanilla SMP server, Factorio, PUBG, ANYTHING that they want to do and think it would fit well with the community's support.
2) The community member proposes the idea and gauges interest. Preferably in some kind of format that avoids threads turning into shitstorms. The level of interest helps determine how much official staffing/sponsoring is done from the administration.
If the community member can create the server by themselves, host it themselves, and staff it themselves, then regardless of how much interest there is in the server, they should be able to essentially advertise it on our forums, with certain guidelines. If it flops, then it was their decision to create the event while knowing that there was little interest in the idea. Even if there is little support, the member should be able to spread information freely about their server on EscRes platforms.
If the community member needs help, such as learning how to set things up, staffing, or possibly even hosting, then a high level of interest from the community must be presented. This is not to say that 100% of the work would be done by staff. If the presenting member has ZERO ability to work on their idea, then they should not be posting it to begin with, and instead present it as purely a server suggestion (that with this system, any other player who is willing and able can pick up and work with them on!)
3) The member creates the event, plans the details, and everything.
Certain guidelines would have to be met:
- The server must not be in 100% direct competition with our current servers, including event servers. Such as a lava survival server, or a creative building server that is essentially the same. This would be determined by both the community and the staff, and discussed in the proposal thread. A plot based creative server would not be okay. A plot based creative MODDED (See chisel&bits, architecturecraft, etc) server would be, as the main premise is different.
- Rules and staffing of the server would have to be in line with community guidelines and standards. If a member makes a server and creates an environment that conflicts with EscRes values/rules, that member would lose sponsorship/hosting and possibly face administrative action. An example would be creating a werewolf server and banning a certain player simply because you don't like them, or creating content that is racist/prejudice.
- Events would have to clearly be associated with EscRes if the server is hosted on unofficial places (anywhere but the main EscRes IP). This includes naming the server/description, including in-game links to the forums/discord/TS, etc. These are just suggestions. This creates a symbiotic relationship between the event server and the community. The server gets the support of the community, staff, and the established playerbase, and the community gets new content and excited players that are more involved in happenings.
4) Once the creation of the event is complete and reviewed by a higher staff member, the event can be announced, opened, and advertised. Advertising includes forum announcements, social media posts, discord announcements, meeting mentions, etc. It would be treated as though we're releasing an official server. Credits would be given to creator(s), obviously.
5) The event concludes on a mutual agreement between staff and the creator. If the creator is providing the hosting, they have no obligation to close the event, and staff would have no real reason to close it either. If it is officially hosted on the dedicated server, staff would have near authority on server access/hosting.
TL;DR Let people make the events and host them if they can. Support them with our community platform and if it goes fucking amazing, make them official servers. Community gets cool content and excited, involved players, players get to make cool shit, practice server staffing/admin, and everyone gets to have fun on new things.
I definitely haven't considered all aspects of this, please give your criticism/ideas/questions towards this. Lets hash out a great plan to make things happen!
Two great recent examples are the 7d2d server and the vanilla smp server. Someone made a 7d2d server after the suggestion and it would have worked a lot better if they were able to post about it and we promoted theirs instead of wasting our time making our own. Same thing with the vanilla server. I bet 25+ people in the community can make and host a vanilla server. Lets put the community back in community!
Thanks!
I had a showerthought recently about the community and the recent issue of the whole smp blunder, and how it could be avoided in the first place.
My suggestion is for community made events or servers!
How do these differ from the servers already?
Instead of staff members being the main creator/staff/facilitator of every server ever, members of the community would be the ones that propose, create, run, staff, and modify future event servers.
This is what it would look like:
1) A community member has an idea for a server that they are able to do (and host?). Examples would be a 7 Days to Die server, a vanilla SMP server, Factorio, PUBG, ANYTHING that they want to do and think it would fit well with the community's support.
2) The community member proposes the idea and gauges interest. Preferably in some kind of format that avoids threads turning into shitstorms. The level of interest helps determine how much official staffing/sponsoring is done from the administration.
If the community member can create the server by themselves, host it themselves, and staff it themselves, then regardless of how much interest there is in the server, they should be able to essentially advertise it on our forums, with certain guidelines. If it flops, then it was their decision to create the event while knowing that there was little interest in the idea. Even if there is little support, the member should be able to spread information freely about their server on EscRes platforms.
If the community member needs help, such as learning how to set things up, staffing, or possibly even hosting, then a high level of interest from the community must be presented. This is not to say that 100% of the work would be done by staff. If the presenting member has ZERO ability to work on their idea, then they should not be posting it to begin with, and instead present it as purely a server suggestion (that with this system, any other player who is willing and able can pick up and work with them on!)
3) The member creates the event, plans the details, and everything.
Certain guidelines would have to be met:
- The server must not be in 100% direct competition with our current servers, including event servers. Such as a lava survival server, or a creative building server that is essentially the same. This would be determined by both the community and the staff, and discussed in the proposal thread. A plot based creative server would not be okay. A plot based creative MODDED (See chisel&bits, architecturecraft, etc) server would be, as the main premise is different.
- Rules and staffing of the server would have to be in line with community guidelines and standards. If a member makes a server and creates an environment that conflicts with EscRes values/rules, that member would lose sponsorship/hosting and possibly face administrative action. An example would be creating a werewolf server and banning a certain player simply because you don't like them, or creating content that is racist/prejudice.
- Events would have to clearly be associated with EscRes if the server is hosted on unofficial places (anywhere but the main EscRes IP). This includes naming the server/description, including in-game links to the forums/discord/TS, etc. These are just suggestions. This creates a symbiotic relationship between the event server and the community. The server gets the support of the community, staff, and the established playerbase, and the community gets new content and excited players that are more involved in happenings.
4) Once the creation of the event is complete and reviewed by a higher staff member, the event can be announced, opened, and advertised. Advertising includes forum announcements, social media posts, discord announcements, meeting mentions, etc. It would be treated as though we're releasing an official server. Credits would be given to creator(s), obviously.
5) The event concludes on a mutual agreement between staff and the creator. If the creator is providing the hosting, they have no obligation to close the event, and staff would have no real reason to close it either. If it is officially hosted on the dedicated server, staff would have near authority on server access/hosting.
TL;DR Let people make the events and host them if they can. Support them with our community platform and if it goes fucking amazing, make them official servers. Community gets cool content and excited, involved players, players get to make cool shit, practice server staffing/admin, and everyone gets to have fun on new things.
I definitely haven't considered all aspects of this, please give your criticism/ideas/questions towards this. Lets hash out a great plan to make things happen!
Two great recent examples are the 7d2d server and the vanilla smp server. Someone made a 7d2d server after the suggestion and it would have worked a lot better if they were able to post about it and we promoted theirs instead of wasting our time making our own. Same thing with the vanilla server. I bet 25+ people in the community can make and host a vanilla server. Lets put the community back in community!
Thanks!
