Member Application Changes!

[Aegean 849]

Member Submission Guidelines. (Read)

 

I will list the changes here as well so it's more clear. Anyone with a membership application currently open will have an answer within the next 2 days as following our current changes.

 

The Changes (subject to change at a later date)

• * After 2 days of your membership being open, you will be accepted if you fit the criteria as long as nobody gives a valid reason to keep you from getting into the community (this is judged by the higher ups)
   
  
• Vouches still are a great way to increase your forum activity, get credits and also give input to help us recruit the right members into our community!
  
• We will introduce new ranks to members (junior - senior etc) but we will discuss the names with the higherups and implement that at a later time!
  
• If you have been perm banned or kicked out in the past (and not pardoned), you need 3 higherups (dm+) to vouch for you to get accepted into xG
  
• Any member application currently open will be grandfathered into these new changes, and they will get accepted/declined based on these new changes
  

[MinerTeddy 46]

Don't make the member ranks badges; we all know how long it takes for you to make those. Also does Mona Pizza still apply to bullet #4?

[Aegean 849]

Don't make the member ranks badges; we all know how long it takes for you to make those. Also does Mona Pizza still apply to bullet #4?

It does to get unbanned, but not to become a member.

[Kypari 579]

I feel this is definitely a good change. Nice work.

[Thorax_ 539]

I have mixed thoughts on this; but hey we have Member protest so if there is an issue it can just be protested.

 

Love the change however

[Goblins 580]

I'd rather see 4 days rather than 2 days. That gives more time for people to give their input on the applicant.

But either way, glad to see that those who got -1'd to hell (for some meme reason) are going to have a better chance to get in.

[Forest 309]

You fools. You stupid, crazy fools.

Do you realize what you have done? You have effectively opened the floodgates to them all; this will be the end of vouching as we know it.

The structure and integrity of vouches have been buried alive, and I can hear the collective whispers of the damned as the time draws near.

They are coming. You have doomed us all.

The uprising of the "+1 cool guy" is at hand.

 

All jokes aside, I'm pretty skeptical about the new system. I never really saw a problem with the old system where upon reaching 10 positive vouches, the applicant was accepted (where any negative vouches would reduce the total positive) after 24 hours of receiving the final 10th vouch. I completely understand the idea behind this movement, but exclusivity at the cost of getting 10 vouches didn't [and still doesn't] seem like some impossible feat. It gave Players something to work for (as opposed to a generalized ratio of positive to negative vouches which is in effect now) and they could see in real-time where they were at in the review process in terms of monitoring their positive vouches.

 

I personally feel that quality is far better than quantity, and that's what we got when letting Players in to represent Xeno Gamers as a full-time Member through the old system. It ensured that we let quality Players in, not just any Player off of the street, and it gave Xeno Gamers this sort of respectable air around it. Joining Xeno Gamers felt like an honour (to me at the time) and so it felt great to receive all of the vouches I did because I worked hard for them and was rewarded for my efforts by receiving a full-membership. The number of vouches not only gave the community an idea of who the Player was, but it also enabled the Higher-Ups to formulate an opinion themselves because, more often than not, it would take weeks to get in at a time. It gave a decent buffer time for Higher-Ups and enabled them to weed out any Players they deemed 'not worthy'. 2 days just seems too few to really judge a Player.

 

That all being said, if the end-goal is quantity > quality, then it's certainly more effective in that aspect. However, this is all just personal opinion, it's just good to see an active interest from the Higher-Ups in improving Xeno Gamers in any way :coffee:

[Aegean 849]

You fools. You stupid, crazy fools.

Do you realize what you have done? You have effectively opened the floodgates to them all; this will be the end of vouching as we know it.

The structure and integrity of vouches have been buried alive, and I can hear the collective whispers of the damned as the time draws near.

They are coming. You have doomed us all.

The uprising of the "+1 cool guy" is at hand.

 

All jokes aside, I'm pretty skeptical about the new system. I never really saw a problem with the old system where upon reaching 10 positive vouches, the applicant was accepted (where any negative vouches would reduce the total positive) after 24 hours of receiving the final 10th vouch. I completely understand the idea behind this movement, but exclusivity at the cost of getting 10 vouches didn't [and still doesn't] seem like some impossible feat. It gave Players something to work for (as opposed to a generalized ratio of positive to negative vouches which is in effect now) and they could see in real-time where they were at in the review process in terms of monitoring their positive vouches.

 

I personally feel that quality is far better than quantity, and that's what we got when letting Players in to represent Xeno Gamers as a full-time Member through the old system. It ensured that we let quality Players in, not just any Player off of the street, and it gave Xeno Gamers this sort of respectable air around it. Joining Xeno Gamers felt like an honour (to me at the time) and so it felt great to receive all of the vouches I did because I worked hard for them and was rewarded for my efforts by receiving a full-membership. The number of vouches not only gave the community an idea of who the Player was, but it also enabled the Higher-Ups to formulate an opinion themselves because, more often than not, it would take weeks to get in at a time. It gave a decent buffer time for Higher-Ups and enabled them to weed out any Players they deemed 'not worthy'. 2 days just seems too few to really judge a Player.

 

That all being said, if the end-goal is quantity > quality, then it's certainly more effective in that aspect. However, this is all just personal opinion, it's just good to see an active interest from the Higher-Ups in improving Xeno Gamers in any way :coffee:

 

Totally understand where you're coming from, but just look at the member application section of the forums. Look how many members have applied but have not even gotten a vouch. They probably won't come back to the forums, and just because you're shy and don't talk a lot does not mean you are not a quality member. Unfortunately, the vouching system just to gain membership only allows outgoing players who are good at making friends join the clan very quickly, and pretty much keeps away anyone who might not use the mic or talk a lot in servers. I want xG to be a place where people who are accepted and become a member can gain new friends, and come out of their "shell" so to speak, where they start making friends and enjoy a warm community. As a few others have stated, we do have member protest section and we can always use it (:

[virr 808]

You fools. You stupid, crazy fools.

Do you realize what you have done? You have effectively opened the floodgates to them all; this will be the end of vouching as we know it.

The structure and integrity of vouches have been buried alive, and I can hear the collective whispers of the damned as the time draws near.

They are coming. You have doomed us all.

The uprising of the "+1 cool guy" is at hand.

 

All jokes aside, I'm pretty skeptical about the new system. I never really saw a problem with the old system where upon reaching 10 positive vouches, the applicant was accepted (where any negative vouches would reduce the total positive) after 24 hours of receiving the final 10th vouch. I completely understand the idea behind this movement, but exclusivity at the cost of getting 10 vouches didn't [and still doesn't] seem like some impossible feat. It gave Players something to work for (as opposed to a generalized ratio of positive to negative vouches which is in effect now) and they could see in real-time where they were at in the review process in terms of monitoring their positive vouches.

 

I personally feel that quality is far better than quantity, and that's what we got when letting Players in to represent Xeno Gamers as a full-time Member through the old system. It ensured that we let quality Players in, not just any Player off of the street, and it gave Xeno Gamers this sort of respectable air around it. Joining Xeno Gamers felt like an honour (to me at the time) and so it felt great to receive all of the vouches I did because I worked hard for them and was rewarded for my efforts by receiving a full-membership. The number of vouches not only gave the community an idea of who the Player was, but it also enabled the Higher-Ups to formulate an opinion themselves because, more often than not, it would take weeks to get in at a time. It gave a decent buffer time for Higher-Ups and enabled them to weed out any Players they deemed 'not worthy'. 2 days just seems too few to really judge a Player.

 

That all being said, if the end-goal is quantity > quality, then it's certainly more effective in that aspect. However, this is all just personal opinion, it's just good to see an active interest from the Higher-Ups in improving Xeno Gamers in any way :coffee:

 

I was going to type something longer to explain our reasoning, but @Aegean covered some of it in his post. I'd just like to add;

 

The issues we were having with the old system was that a lot of people didn't really understand the purpose of the vouches which in addition to the guidelines being a complete mess (which has now been fixed) led to confusion in a lot of cases. A lot of applications never really met the old requirements (which was 7 for TF2, 3 for CS:GO) which was really disheartening and a lot of people give up after their first member application being denied.

 

Members who put in extra work to be stand-out members of the community will still be recognized and rewarded when we flesh out the member hierarchy properly. We feel like this in addition to badges (which are being finalized probably some time this week) will bring a bit of bling to members that really put in that extra mile to make xG a better place for all of us.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Guest (see edit history)

[Moosty 148]

I like the new changes and definitely think making it easier to get in is a good thing. My only concern is that two days might be a little short. The percentage of our playerbase that checks forums daily is pretty low, so not very much of the community is going to be involved in the process in that short of time.

 

But my suggestion, that would help whether we increase the time frame or not, is to start pushing the forums alot harder than we already do on the servers. Not just in chat, but in the middle and on the side of the screen (atleast in tf2 not sure how other games would work).

 

As @Forest said, our community has until now been very selective, with a high bar to be accepted, and that's worked, but if we're going to change that we can't just make it this thread and higher ups running the changes and done. We need to commit to raising traffic total for this to work at it's best.

 

 

Buckle up for the member protest section to be more than just the after thought it's been for years ;)

[Moosty 148]

Also with more and more people joining, and it being easier, will we still be strict about multiclanning? I assume more will get through/join others later either way, but we should make it clearer where we stand.

[Elcark 288]

I see no reason not to maintain the mutli-clan rule. Even though making entrance easier seems to be the clear goal of this, it's still important for the people here to try and be more focused on activity in this specific clan, even more so for new folks.

[virr 808]

Also with more and more people joining, and it being easier, will we still be strict about multiclanning? I assume more will get through/join others later either way, but we should make it clearer where we stand.

I see no reason not to maintain the mutli-clan rule. Even though making entrance easier seems to be the clear goal of this, it's still important for the people here to try and be more focused on activity in this specific clan, even more so for new folks.

Our stance against multi clanning is the same as before (member guidelines can be found here). If someone is found to be multiclanning and there is a conflict of interest with any of our current divisions we will take action against said individual.

[Aegean 849]

Also with more and more people joining, and it being easier, will we still be strict about multiclanning? I assume more will get through/join others later either way, but we should make it clearer where we stand.

 

Yes we will be, if found multiclanning we can strip your membership and to re obtain it you might need 3 dm+ vouches. Of course before anything is done we will talk to the member and go from there.

[Forest 309]

I suppose it makes sense, but at the same time it just feels like the bar has been set too low to gain full-membership. It's worrisome because what if a Member Application only receives one positive vouch that is simply "seen him around on servers, he's pretty fun +1" during that two day period, with no negative vouches or anything? As the rule currently stands (assuming this is the polished final product):

 

* After 2 days of your membership being open, you will be accepted if you fit the criteria as long as nobody gives a valid reason to keep you from getting into the community (this is judged by the higher ups)

 

It just seems like this system is heavily dependent on those who vouch immediately on a Member Submission (based on the fact that the applicant will be accepted, not can be accepted), which is either incredibly rare, or the vouches themselves are no where near detailed enough. With the way it is currently set, the Guidelines seem to put a lot more emphasis on why someone shouldn't be permitted to gain full-membership instead of why they should be. That being said, it isn't inherently bad or anything. It just feels less like a Member Submission and more like a minor hurdle to jump over; just barely one step over what someone has to do to join the Xeno Gamers Steam Group. Also, just for the sake of debate, I'm only voicing my concerns, not trying to step this whole thing into the ground. Apologies in advance if it seems that way.

 

Annnd just thought I'd mention this: not sure if this was intended, but the Guidelines thread doesn't highlight the whole "2 day processing time" anywhere in it. That, or I'm blind af.