Revitalizing PR - Announcements

Hello, everyone. I'm making this thread today to talk about the current state of Public Relations, and where it's going in the future.

As you may know, last August we introduced the new Public Relations Team. Our goal here was to address concerns that we had heard that users felt distant and disconnected from the staff here.

Let's start by addressing the survey that Lightvayne recently ran. In the survey, we asked you the following question:

Quote

The New Public Relations group was assembled late last year. They are currently responsible for setting up Events, Contests, updating our social media accounts and help bringing a strong bond between users and staff. How well do you think they are doing?

Answers to this question generally were in the range of "Poor" to "Fair". As the manager of the PR Team, the responsibility for this falls upon me.

Right now what the PR Team does is mostly unknown because almost all of it has been behind the scenes. However, I think this needs to change. The PR Team should be a group that you, the normal users, can contact with your suggestions and feedback. And when you give us feedback, I want you to know that you are being listened to, so you feel like your voice can be heard if you have concerns or the like.

One of the ways in which we attempted to solve this issue was by including a non-staff member of the userbase on our PR Team (currently Nimono). The idea was that they would be able to give feedback and planning assistance to us while still having the perspective of a non-staff user, and that would help you all feel less isolated from us.

Unfortunately, I feel that this plan was not effective, and here's why. I feel like although we intended for this position to be used as a sort of "bridge" between regular users and staff, being on the PR Team was viewed as a "staff position" instead of as a regular user. Second, I think that simply adding a sole user wouldn't be enough anyway. We could add more and more regular users until we reach whatever number we think is good, but I think a different approach that makes this more open and accessible to everyone is not only easier, but better as well.

So with all of that out of the way, what are we going to do going forward to address these two issues?

The Public Relations Forum – I want this to be your go-to place to give us feedback and suggestions. Did you like or dislike an aspect of a contest or event we ran? Do you have an idea for a contest or event that you wish to run? Is there something you want to see more of from us? All of these should be posted here. Every single time feedback or a suggestion is posted, one or more of the PR Team members will read it and respond to you. Rest assured that each and every thing you say will be taken into account and passed along to the PR Team and the Staff as a whole.

Monthly Updates – After you give your feedback, I want you to know that it is not simply thrown away or stuck in limbo. Each month I will post a summary of the feedback we received and the discussion we had about it. If you suggested a contest or event and are waiting to learn the status of it, check the update thread.

The idea here is that instead of just adding a normal user or two to the PR Team and calling it a day, I want to foster a much more open environment with a good deal of transparency on our side. As a result, the PR Team is now officially a branch of Staff only. Nimono is being brought on as a regular Staff member in order to assist with PR. With his help, we will have more resources to devote to listening to you guys and acting upon your feedback. In particular, I am hoping to initiate the revival of some things like Caffie Radio and the YouTube channel.

So that's basically it. It's kind of a long post, but I want to be honest and open with everyone. With your help, I hope to be able to start making changes for the better, to make this site the best it can be. Please, head over to the Public Relations forum and let us know how you feel.

Super Mario: Star Seeker

Well, fantastic. Glad to see the survey is getting some results. Also glad to see that you're going to start listening and interacting with the public more instead of just working "behind the scenes," because not making any progress that us users can see definitely goes directly against your goal of not isolating users from staff.

Speaking of being heard, lemme start here, as there is one thing I disagree with. I don't feel that the PR forum is the place that questions and concerns should go, but rather Site Questions. Isn't that what the Site Questions forum is for? I think this will confuse newcomers as to which of the two forums their question should go in, and I feel that Site Questions needs more staff attention anyway--a lot of threads in there just die without much done about them due to lack of attention from authorities. The PR forum should stick to what it's for now which is for contests and stuff.

I recommend getting some more members for the team, as NoelYoshi is currently inactive and wass the only regular user in the team.

NoelYoshi was removed from the team several months ago after he left. He was replaced by PatPatPat, who also promptly left. We brought on Nimono as the regular user about a week ago, although we're changing away from that idea now.

Super Mario: Star Seeker

Sorry you are to bother but I asked one question I've been noticing level design contest and chocolate level design contest all I should start doing custom level design contest more often so they could get better ?

Because I see what kind of getting better at touhou mario 2 be like wakana

And not only that but I like to see people share their work like graphics and music to others just saying because I really would like that to be in the central site and also takes a lot of requests

Edit: I'm really serious about this because that be really good

Because that is worrying me a lot and the next thing is the reason why I see this cause any SMBX website other people who drew the graphics to other people and that is really nice of them really nice

that is no lies at all

before I forgot how much example of a graphics. I use on the SMBX site

Edit 2: I mean Smw and Smbx

I'm...not really sure what you are trying to tell me...

Something about contests and custom graphics?

Super Mario: Star Seeker

English

I mean you should start a custom level design contest because I'm not seeing none of those often

that is why I'm trying to explain here

German

Heilige Mutter Gott

Sorry about that I was stressed out

No worries. We have two main Level Design Contests each year, those being the Vanilla and Chocolate contests. Sometimes the Chocolate contest will get changed to something else (Special LDC last year, Halloween LDC in 2014). In addition, we also run 24hosmw contests at various points. Some more maybe wouldn't hurt, but I don't think we have a big shortage of contests. I also wouldn't want to flood the calendar with constant contests since they would all draw attention away from each other and likely result in a lower turnout for each one.

Edit: Also remembered we recently had Auto LDC and Kaizo LDC a few months back.

Super Mario: Star Seeker

Originally posted by K3fka

I want this to be your go-to place to give us feedback and suggestions

I think there should be a site-suggestions thread there instead of a billion loose suggestions in the "Site Questions & Bugs" section.
Nice to see the Public Relations Forum getting some more use.

One of the best things you could do is give more ability for the PR team and staff to be known.

Before I went into hibernation for awhile, one of the biggest things is I felt that 80% or so of Staff are completely unknown. Besides the usual core rotation, I feel there is no way to get to really know any of the team. Sure if you follow up on every hacking related thing you might know more. However, we should know about them, not only their accomplishments. And while IRC might be good and well, I do think they should be more visible here on the site.

The one good thing I have seen to counter this was Lightvayne making an ask thread and I for one think that him answering the thread and staff comments is great! Now one thing is that Lightvayne is already well known in my opinion, and he is the only one doing it.

I think more need to join in or make their own thread. PR could also have their own thread in the PR forum announcing updates and changes they plan on doing relating to events or closing the gap which results from a big staff team.

Now while I'm not as involved in the site nowadays, I do believe that only makes my case a bit stronger to speak from a "person outside"'s perspective. Thank you for listening.

Where I am found.

Are you guys going to do something about the SMWC Youtube channel?

I would definitely like to, but I'm not sure what we would post there. The SMWC News thing that has been tried in the past is really redundant since it just echos the News posts and Announcements threads.

Super Mario: Star Seeker

I had a conversation to bring back the Lets moderate but structure it a bit more appropriately. Things I brought up was for it to consist of pre-recorded bits that two ore more moderators talk over and present how they construct their opinions on each bit. Certainly would take more effort, but it could also present a more appealing product for the channel.

Originally posted by Losoall

I had a conversation to bring back the Lets moderate but structure it a bit more appropriately. Things I brought up was for it to consist of pre-recorded bits that two ore more moderators talk over and present how they construct their opinions on each bit. Certainly would take more effort, but it could also present a more appealing product for the channel.

That has been talked about among staff and there didn't seem like enough mods wanting to do that and questions on who we get to record the footage poor how long it should be seeing as some moderation can take hours.