DISCLAIMER: Potterworld or Droobledore LLC is not in any way affiliated with Mojang AB, J.K. Rowling, Warner Brothers or any company, copyright or trademark.
PotterworldMC PotterworldMC PotterworldMC

A strictly "Helper" role.

tiggs_

Magician
Minecraft IGN: Jacooob_
Auralock Dark Follower Phoenix Serpent Vampire
#1
Is there currently a staff role, or even a non staff role, that's designed for people to purely help the community, with no permissions or powers, just a prefix to let people know that they are there, and willing to help. If there isn;t, I think there should be and here's why.

Now this post may seem negative, but it's not mean't to be, Potterworld has notoriously always had an amazing community, one that's friendly and accepting of all, but I've noticed since I have returned on the server, so many people are left hanging in the chat. A year ago, when I played before, questions were asked in the chat 24/7, and 9 times out of 10 they were answered, within seconds.. I was one of those people that used to dedicate a good few hours of my day each and every day escorting new players to where they needed to go, but nowadays it seems to happen so much more rarely.

Me and my friend always have a giggle at the fact that multiple times a day the chat box looks something like this;

New Player: Hey I have a question, can somebody please help me find the green houses?!
........tumbleweed........
Broadcast: Player123 has been sorted into the house of the brave!
Sr Prefect: Congrats!!
Jr Prefect: Congrats!!
Jr Prefect: Congrats!!

I feel like it's left to the community to spend hours of their day ensuring newer players are looked after, and it seems that as time has gone on, people are fed up of doing it.

Again, I mean no negativity by this post, I just think it's super important to keep newer players happy, and on the right path!

So I believe allowing experienced players to apply for some form of Helper role, where they at least get some sort of Prefix to showcase their efforts, would be a great idea!
 

Chriss

Dragonologist
Drooble's Order
Minecraft IGN: ChrissShock
Auralock Dark Follower Phoenix Raven Vampire Werewolf SPEW Drooble's Order
#2
Heya! Just wanted to leave my view on this suggestion.

Before I start, I just want to say that moderation members have to deal with a lot different situations that might not allow us to help in chat all the time. I can’t talk for everyone, but personally I need to tab out sometimes and work on IRL things. These things could be school work, taking care of my dog, doing chores, or making food. This list could go on forever tbh.

On another note, some members (like myself) go on hiatus because we need a break. I pop in and out of game during these hiatuses but I still interact with players and other staff members.

On the suggestion itself, all staff members or player can help as much as they want/can. Moderation members are asked to help as much as they can while they are online.

I would also like to say, that something really close to this idea has been rejected before. You can find that here!

Hope this helps! I also hope everyone reading this has a great day! :heart::)
 

tiggs_

Magician
Minecraft IGN: Jacooob_
Auralock Dark Follower Phoenix Serpent Vampire
#3
I get that completely and of course the staff at potterworld are volunteers, its for nobody to say "you HAVE to answer everybody's questions or else" but with that said, questions are going unanswered, I see it multiple times a day, people asking questions, and having it go unanswered, then someone graduates to year 2 and 7 members of staff all of a sudden appear to congratulate them.

but again, as I say its not something that is expected, which is the sole reason for my suggestion. Having that role for people to apply too in order to hopefully encourage the want to help newer players.

I see an issue on a daily basis, and this is my personal suggestion to fixing it, thats all.
 

Emily ☽ ❀

Magician
Staff
Minecraft IGN: eimly
Honeybadger Auralock Dark Follower Staff Phoenix Vampire Werewolf Lead Architect SPEW Sr. Prefect Sr. Architect Lead
#4
I completely see where you're coming from, and just wanted to give my perspective as another member of the mod team!

Firstly, I can definitely see what you mean about the prefect team sometimes not assisting players in chat while online. I will be the first to admit that sometimes my mind isn't fully focused on chat at times, which is mostly down to my focus being diverted to working in my other position on the server in the build team or to other aspects of my moderation roles (handling rulebreakers, responding to tickets, mentoring junior members, staff training crew work etc.). We are not a huge moderation team to begin with, and many other mods also have multiple roles within the team to balance when online as well as a large number of responsibilities within the mod role itself. Therefore, we can't focus on chat 100% of the time, but may be able to respond to broadcasts as these are more eye-catching, and don't take much energy to reply to. I'd agree that this becomes an issue more when there are less mods online, because then if the mods are all working on other server-related things, it can mean that players' questions go unanswered. I'm sorry to hear that this is something you've noticed and I promise that this feedback will be taken to heart to hopefully improve my own chat presence and to encourage other moderators to do the same. I hope that this, along with Chris' thoughts, has provided a good perspective into our end on this!

With regard to your suggestion specifically, I would disagree with it on the basis that the Prefect team already has this within their responsibilities, and other staff members are encouraged to help as well if they can. If a player is excelling when it comes to helping in chat and enjoying doing so, we 1000% encourage them to apply for Jr. Prefect if they meet all the other requirements! We are always delighted to introduce new members to our team, especially if they're keen on and dedicated to helping out in chat and within the community. If a player does want to help but doesn't want to be staff, then they are of course welcome to do so anyway as we appreciate all the help we can get in this regard!

Thanks so much for the suggestion and I hope this shines a light on some things for you <3 We appreciate your concern for our community and will take your feedback into consideration!
 

gospojken

Professor
Staff
Minecraft IGN: gospojken
Dark Follower Staff Phoenix Serpent Vampire Wizencouncil Sr. Prefect Store Manager
#5
Hello there! I thought I would provide input on my personal experiences and thoughts too, as a member of Moderation. I too completely see where this suggestion/feedback is coming from and I appreciate it.

First, I appreciate seeing that you really care for the community and would like to ensure everyone receives the help they deserve! Like Chris and Emily outlined, an important responsibility of the Prefect Team is to provide the best customer service possible and it is something that is important on the Staff Team in its entirety, and we always strive to improve it. While these are my personal thoughts, I do believe I can speak for all when I say that the situation that you describe where a player is asking a question that is then being drowned by congratulatory messages is, of course, something that we want to avoid happening. It is not always possible due to a multitude of factors but we always strive to not leave questions unanswered, and I see that you understand this as well. Additionally, all staff members are encouraged to help out whenever they are available, especially when the members of Moderation need some additional assistance in the chat. Finally, we also have the students who also help out a lot when the need is there, and I am grateful to see this.

As I outlined, there are some contributing factors so that we might not be able to help players or that it might be perceived that way, and Chris and Emily also outlined some of these. However, I still thought I would provide my personal experiences on this as well. One reason is the already mentioned one about tabbing out to work on other responsibilities, whether it be in real-life responsibilities or other team responsibilities. Many of us who tab out to work on other things can sometimes also be watching the chat to an extent but not fully. For example, when I am online and work on Store Manager-related tasks, I can many times still help out and keep an eye out for any rule-breakers but my response time understandably decreases.

Another reason as to why responses might not be given or are very delayed is that we, mainly members of Moderation, are handling rule-breakers, which can be quite distracting at times. However, something we do find important is to always put customer service first whenever possible. Additionally, a lot of our (members of Moderation's) work occurs in PMs as well, which means that sometimes we are helping players in the chat but by immediately PM'ing them. It is not always the case, but it does happen from time to time. This might be perceived as if we are ignoring the player while we are not, but I would understand if it can be perceived that way sometimes. Another contributing factor is that in some cases we need to ask each other for some additional input before answering questions to be more accurate.

One last contributing factor that I wanted to mention is that we are, as mentioned earlier in this thread, quite a small team, so keeping up with everything can be difficult at times. However, we always attempt our best to have at least someone actively helping out but it is not always possible, unfortunately. There have been some times where I personally have been helping out in the chat alone with hundreds of players. It is definitely not always the case but it does happen. In my personal opinion, I believe more members of the Moderation team is what is the most important to solve the issue because they are dedicated to helping, and more members mean that we can usually have more staff members helping out at the same time.

On a final note, I also wanted to bring to the light that we do show our appreciation to those students who stand out exceptionally and are being a really good role model by sometimes awarding them some House points. It is a rare thing but it does happen from time to time. Once more, I really appreciate the feedback and suggestion, though I personally believe the best answer would be for more players to join the moderation team if they are interested in a role dedicated to helping out. Again, this is absolutely no decision, these are just my personal experiences and thoughts that I wanted to share, and I hope it has brought some insight into things, in accordance with my experiences! c:
 

Pankakes

Animorphus
Minecraft IGN: Pankakes_81
Griffin
#6
While I understand both sides of this argument, I think there's a repeating pattern in these staff responses that ,wheter intentionally or unintentionally, miss the point.

Nobody expects staff to be online 24/7 without breaks, but the point that @tiggs_ is making is that even if the staff doesn't respond to people asking for help, they are always quick to congratulate someone for filling out a form for a house.

And even when they are AFK or doing something other at the time, the chat log doesn't simply dissapear once a new message appears. Previous messages can be clearly seen when they type that "Congrats".

PS: I experienced the exact same situation.
 

tiggs_

Magician
Minecraft IGN: Jacooob_
Auralock Dark Follower Phoenix Serpent Vampire
#7
While I understand both sides of this argument, I think there's a repeating pattern in these staff responses that ,wheter intentionally or unintentionally, miss the point.

Nobody expects staff to be online 24/7 without breaks, but the point that @tiggs_ is making is that even if the staff doesn't respond to people asking for help, they are always quick to congratulate someone for filling out a form for a house.

And even when they are AFK or doing something other at the time, the chat log doesn't simply dissapear once a new message appears. Previous messages can be clearly seen when they type that "Congrats".

PS: I experienced the exact same situation.
I must admit, I was starting to feel a little more teamed up on for a moment there haha.

but yeah, you make a great point, and I think you explained what I wanted to explain better then I did.

tbh I think the above members of staff have in s way actually backed up what I was saying, they've all explained how and why they are sometimes not available to help people, and I completely understand, and couldn't agree more, but that only highlights the problem. You are not able to help people because you are understandably busy doing other things, but just because there is a reason as to why its happening, doesn't mean its not happening..

and therefore a role, solely and specifically dedicated to helping people i believe would be a good idea.

as you say, members of the moderation team are having to deal with other issues, and thus are not always around to help, therefore having people apply to the moderation team isn't going to fix those issues.
 

tiggs_

Magician
Minecraft IGN: Jacooob_
Auralock Dark Follower Phoenix Serpent Vampire
#8
I do want to make another comment, and no doubt it'll be an extremely unpopular opinion, but I want people to know I truly mean this in the most respectful way possible. I love Potterworld and it's community, it truly is filled with some of the most amazing, kind hearted souls in the entire world. People that under any circumstances remain respect, loyal and friendly - but I do have to one thing.

In the past, and present, I have noticed a somewhat common theme when it comes to suggestions, and that's that a lot of excuses are made, as to why stuff doesn't need to be fixed. What's mentioned in my above comments are a problem, new players are going without help, multiple times and I strongly believe it is ended up with said players not returning to out Magical world of Potterworld. Regardless of the excuses for it happening, it is happening and it is something that needs to be fixed.

So whether or not my suggestion, is the best suggestion to counter this issue moving forward, the staff of Potterworld do need to look at something to help counter this problem.

Player retention after all is extremely important, and no matter how amazing the server is (Developter/Builder wise) people simply will not stay unless the community aspect is there for them.
 

gospojken

Professor
Staff
Minecraft IGN: gospojken
Dark Follower Staff Phoenix Serpent Vampire Wizencouncil Sr. Prefect Store Manager
#9
To clarify what at least I meant with my response, I do not necessarily believe that we are missing the point. Obviously, we do not mean to team up on you, just share our experiences as those who mainly work on the customer service for the server. I believe it is important to hear the experiences of those who are working within the particular field to get a better understanding of why things might be as they are, and that is what we are trying to do here. c:

We do see your concern and we are aware that this is an issue from time to time (like Emily acknowledge very specifically) and, of course, want to strive for it to improve. What I would say is that Chris, Emily, and I have been trying to share our experiences to explain why we might not always be able to reply immediately and that there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes.

As I explained in my previous response, a lot of our work occurs in PMs, meaning that players cannot be sure that we do not help players. The player might choose to create a ticket right after. We might PM them immediately if we find that suits the question better, for example, that we need more information that better suits for private or that it becomes quite spammy for a public chat. We might need to ask each other to have an accurate answer to give. There are many factors that can contribute to players not seeing when we help other players, and these are just a few. This can happen even if we are otherwise active in the chat. However, I do not disagree that it is an issue and personally I always strive to be sure not to leave questions unanswered whenever possible.

It can be an easy task to send a "Congratulations!" even when you are working on something else, but helping players is a lot more work as we cannot know everything and sometimes need to look into things before we can help the player accurately. To give an example, say that a player has lost a quest item. It might be easy to reason that "it is just to give it back." However, there is a lot more work behind such cases and they take time, this leads to us not being equally as available as otherwise, unfortunately. Even if you are fully paying attention to the chat and all questions, it is not easy to answer all questions immediately and some need investigation. That is something that is incredibly difficult to get away from since no one can really know everything.

While I like the idea of having a helper role, I do not believe it would really work in practice for a few reasons. Some of them include it being the main responsibility of the Prefect Team and that those having that helper role would be humans too and have other responsibilities, they might not know everything either and the same issue could occur. In conclusion, yes, I personally agree it can be an issue but I am not sure a helper role that takes away the Prefect Team's main responsibility is the solution but we still take your feedback into consideration respectfully. Again, these are my personal experiences and thoughts, and we are not attempting to team up, just sharing experiences that might provide a clearer picture of the daily life of a Prefect since it is the role responsible for helping. Regardless of the decision of the suggestion, we still appreciate the feedback and take it into account. c:
 

Belle

Magician
Minecraft IGN: trashdotcom
Auralock Dark Follower Phoenix Raven Vampire Werewolf SPEW
#10
I'm going to share my thoughts on your original suggestion, the idea of a helper role, and not on the moderation team.
I personally do not think it would work, for the following reasons.

- Players would confuse the "Helper" prefix for staff roles. Players already sometimes confuse the "P" in phoenix to mean Prefect and "S.P.E.W" to be a staff role because it has a word in it. Adding a role called Helper sounds like a staff role. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. Except in this case, where its not a duck at all.

- The "application" for a Helper role would likely be the same as Prefect. Based on the qualifications of the role, a player who applies for Helper would have to be often helpful in chat, have a good knowledge of the server (level requirement), and be a nice person who doesn't have a rough history of rule breaking (as they have to set an example for other players). These are also all things that Prefects have to meet in their applications. At the end of the day, these 2 applications are very similar. So why focus so hard on applying for Helper if you could do the same amount of work and be a Prefect instead? (which as mentioned in other comments, have the same responsibilities as the "helpers" + more + perks)

I understand and know that some players have no interest in becoming a staff member, and to those people, this idea seems great. But as mentioned before, this role has a majority of the same work as a Jr Prefect. If anyone is this enthusiastic about wanting to help the server more and get a cool prefix, they should be encouraged to apply for Jr Prefect. And to those who do not want to apply, they can still (as gos mentioned) be awarded house points for their help and dedication to the server

TL;DR against the idea because a helper role would be confused with staff, and the role is basically a prefect role without dealing with rule breakers
 

Ashh

Librarian
Staff
Minecraft IGN: AzureAsh
Auralock Dark Follower Staff Phoenix Serpent Vampire Werewolf Discord Moderator SPEW Game Designer Lead
#11
Hello @tiggs_! Thank you for taking the time to leave your thoughts and suggestion on our forums! We really appreciate it, and the various feedback and suggestions we get on these forums give us the opportunity to reflect on currently existing systems and how to improve them, as well as considering suggested ideas to implement.

We (the CM leadership) recognise that there has been a lack of assistance from the Moderation team over the last while and we do not wish to deny this or make excuses for why this is the case. Whether or not our moderators are preoccupied with either IRL or other responsibilities, we definitely understand it is important for there to be support for players in chat who need help or have questions.

For your specific suggestion, we will not be implementing a Helper role. This is due to a number of reasons. Creating a new sub-department for a role, or a role in general, takes a lot of effort and work. Having any sort of role means that there must be criteria in order to hire someone for the role. Creating a role, therefore, involves coming up with completely new applications, requirements and responsibilities they will have, and setting up general team aspects. They will need to be led by someone. It would be difficult to come up with sufficient questions for an application like this due to the role's purpose. It would also likely end up being very similar to the Jr. Prefect application.

We believe that helping players in chat should be covered by the Moderation team. The helper role suggested is to show 'people are there, and willing to help'. This is a responsibility of moderators currently. Their responsibilities are, 'answering support tickets, moderating chat, aiding students and fellow staff members when in need of help, and overall enforcing the server rules.' Instead of making a new role, we want to instead emphasise to all moderators on the team just how important helping is. We will also take this feedback on board to see how we are able to improve this aspect of the Moderation team. As a team, we aim to help people strictly over moderating and we hope that we are able to show students that we are more than just staff members looking out for and handling rule-breaking. Additionally, other staff members are able to help out in chat as well if they wish to do so. Following on from this, players are also able to help each other in chat, and we encourage you to do so.

If you are interested in helping on the server in a role like this suggested role, we strongly encourage you to apply for Jr. Prefect, as helping is our key responsibility. I want to reiterate that while this suggestion is being declined, we will still be taking the feedback from this thread and sharing it with the Moderation team. If you have any further comments or concerns following this response, please feel free to reach out to a member of CM leadership.