counterproductive moderation.

[FlyingJesus]

They wanted him to be banned before we got rid of spam threads! Joke, but I'm I really joking...

Yeah this isn't a joke it's something I directly saw you and many others say in HxHD a couple of weeks back

If I remember correctly, there was like 1-3 people of management who actually agreed into a trial and I know for that sure one of them was me and the other Bethie. Everyone else feels like these threads don't cause any issues in terms of lack of posts in the main forums and even if they were removed then they wouldn't post in the public forums more.

Then quite frankly, those people are wrong. It's not a matter of opinion, not even slightly. It's a matter of staff preferring to post in places where non-staff can't reply, "keeping to their own" which is the aggressive clique mentality that they pretend to not want to be a part of. Majority view does not constitute the best way of doing things if the premises that such a view is based on are wrong.

Here's some of the reasons that were mainly said by staff members in regards why they post in staff spam threads:

• They are fun and it's easier to chat with the rest of the department
• Good way of making friends and having a laugh
• Find it easier to talk to people via the thread instead of making a new thread about it
• Bonding

One of the answers that I received during a survey was that there was nothing interesting to post in. That type of answer always baffles me because if there isn't anything you find interesting, why not make the thread yourself?

• The rest of the department can join them in normal threads, since we don't segregate and exclude like the staff spam forum does.
• Well that quite openly suggests that they don't want to befriend us filthy non-staff members. This is totally stupid and it's very simple logic to see that if all people spam in the same area there are more people around to make friends and have a laugh with.
• It's hardly as though the Spam section is completely alien to the idea of large conversational threads.
• Why can't bonding take place alongside the community?

If these arguments actually hold for some reason then it follows that Smiddy's Shack ought to be returned. I know that you personally don't agree with them so I'm not attacking you here, just replying to the ridiculous points raised.

Again I do not agree most of the staff in the departments I am in post on the forum, there are only a few that don't which do tend to be trialists if they have applied from habbox.com itself so again I feel it isn't that they don't post where we all can see. They do, they just post in other forums and if you are too into spam then you would not notice. .

Sorry I am not forcing my staff to post in spam, you can't make them, just like you can't make them post in the staff spam forums, it doesn't mean that they are inactive, they post in the normal forums. They don't need to do anything more than do the role they volunteer to do.

If they're posting in staff spam and not regular spam then they are advocating segragation, regardless of whether they post in other sections or not. Clearly if this is going on they do want to spam, they're just being totally selfish in wanting to do so in a hidden area.

I thought that too, but when sly threads or comments are made about me when I don't even post there it get's annoying so why the hell should I be made to post there?

That's a moderation issue, such things aren't actually allowed even in that TERRIFYING WILDERNESS so this is a completely invalid point.

It would be nice, not disputing that, but then again do you like everyone on the forum? You get a few staff posting in spam such as the forum moderators and others, I know it's not much but at least you get a few people. You can't make every single staff spam there, if you want your friends to join in maybe mention them so you can create a conversation with them .

Staff spam might be nice, not disputing that, but then again is everyone on the forum staff?
No-one's saying that staff have to post in spam, but if they feel a need to spam they should do so in the same place as the rest of us. I don't have a section of the forum where only my friends are allowed to post, none of us do, so there is no justification for staff to have one.

Not a dig I just didn't agree with all your post, but even if staff spam was closed I wouldn't post in the spam forum, in a rare occasion I will but it doesn't mean I am hiding away if I don't.

Then that's your own problem, and one that makes no sense whatsoever. If someone's bullying you, report them and it'll be sorted. You'd have a valid point if spam was a free-for-all battle arena, but it's not so you don't.

[beth]

i was thoroughly pissed off at the last managerial "shall we close spam" discussion mainly because people (it felt) didn't want to see my point of view.

back in the day (like 2005-2008) managers would be everywhere in the community especially in spam and they would be known now i think many of the regulars (lets take tom for example @FlyingJesus) probably wouldn't be able to even name some of them. i think that's awful since these people who are managers are meant to be shining members of the community.

one of the points brought up when we were talking about closing staff spam was that i think managers should encourage their staff to post and i even went as far as saying if they didn't post then they shouldn't be considered as staff. but both of those ideas were turned down with the first "we can't force our staff to post" you can, and you should.

[David]

I thought this thread was about the mods?

But it honestly wouldn't bother me if the spam threads disappeared. I use them but I won't miss them.
I think Staff Forums should be solely about staff business not conversing to gain friends, they can do that in public forums, skype, msn or on habbo.


@Bethie I only know of a few of the managers myself

[buttons]

i don't actually understand what is wrong with going off-topic once or twice in a thread or not directly answering the question - doing so will only make the thread generic and robotic, quite like the moderation on here. as long as posts have some sort of relevancy to the topic and isn't to get post counts up then it's doing no harm at all. i see many people admitting to posting for post count, usually staff who seem to think it's incredibly important but nothing is done about that.

moderators have done this pointless posting editing for a long time, they see something that slightly breaks the rules and feel the NEED to edit it. they should think about whether its actually disrupting the thread or going in a completely different direction - which it rarely does. i never get edited for pointless posting but i'm realizing that's because i've gotten in to the habit of not doing it incase i get edited for "breaking the rules". breaking rules is supposed to be a negative and because you've done something wrong but how is pointless posting harmful? it isn't and can actually generate more discussion. i usually end up replying to someone on their profile or pming them if they've made a post to me in a thread in order to avoid getting infracted for it but it would be much more practical to post it there and to liven up a thread.



it's not a big deal, i don't mind it when people have a little private joke with each other in a thread, it brings more character to it. + if you don't like inside jokes which general spam is supposedly so famous for (i actually see it in a lot of staff about other staff members) then stop segregating everyone. general spam isn't just there for our 'pointless' posts, it's not just there for people who aren't staff. its for everyone and that's how it should be. as for seperate spams, it's as though us non staff members are of a different species and not worthy but if you actually look at the regulars in general spam they tend to have a higher post count, higher reputation and have been around a lot longer than the current staff, maybe even being ex staff themselves who are then just thrown to 'the bottom of the pile'. if there's going to be a staff spam then don't go on about how clique we are when obviously we only have each other to talk to and can't really relate to the staff and their ~inside jokes~ in their own spam thread.

stephen is a grumpy old git to anyone and everyone so don't mind him. he isn't the only person like that. i made a thread ages ago about wanting more people to post in spam and i think we succeeded. these are people who didn't want to post because we're "scary". i think staff are worse to each other, especially habbo staff - & yes maybe i'm generalizing but that's what everyone seems to do to non-staff spam members. stephen isn't spam.

Again I do not agree most of the staff in the departments I am in post on the forum, there are only a few that don't which do tend to be trialists if they have applied from habbox.com itself so again I feel it isn't that they don't post where we all can see. They do, they just post in other forums and if you are too into spam then you would not notice. .

this is exactly what people are taking about. "if you are too into spam" - we're not just 'spam' members. you act as though it's a bad thing and that we're only interested in ourselves. of course we are, we're the only people who post there. there are staff members then there are non-staff members, or at least that's how it's made out to be so how else can we interact with everyone else/

Sorry I am not forcing my staff to post in spam, you can't make them, just like you can't make them post in the staff spam forums, it doesn't mean that they are inactive, they post in the normal forums. They don't need to do anything more than do the role they volunteer to do.

jeez, your attitude is appalling and sounds as though power has went straight to your head which is absolutely ridiculous considering most spam members (as you all like to call us) probably have no idea who you are. i guess maybe authority and status (ie being staff) is much more important to people on here than it is to actually make an effort to communicate WITH THE COMMUNITY?

I thought that too, but when sly threads or comments are made about me when I don't even post there it get's annoying so why the hell should I be made to post there?

so basically you're one of those bitter people who was 'rejected' by spam (actually thanks to a GM or whatever hoteluser was) so now you hate it? again most people in spam probably don't know you and couldn't care less about why some people make sly threads or comments about you. no-ones asking you personally to post there so get over yourself..

It would be nice, not disputing that, but then again do you like everyone on the forum? You get a few staff posting in spam such as the forum moderators and others, I know it's not much but at least you get a few people. You can't make every single staff spam there, if you want your friends to join in maybe mention them so you can create a conversation with them .

no not everyone likes everyone but i personally put up with them and try to converse with them because i'm not a 12 year old child but if that's what makes up staff nowadays then fair enough. not everyone in general spam likes each other and there are groups within groups. forum moderators mainly only post there because they HAVE to read every thread or else they wouldn't be doing their job (as i seem to recall infectious/chris saying). and how can we make friends with staff members when they're never trying to befriend any of us either? only their 'own kind' hence why we stick with OUR 'own kind'

There are rude people, there are rude people all over the forum, doesn't mean we should stop posting though and although I don't post in spam, I post in many threads all over the forum but at least most of the staff in the departments I'm in do post, again I say you can't really ask for more.

& this isn't just about you but if 'YOUR' staff members were to see this i'm pretty sure they'd rather listen to you than a NON STAFF MEMBER like myself. you could at least encourage them to post but no all your post does is reinforce the idea that we're all evil. how annoying.

it would be nice if staff members, not managers or moderation, posted what they thought about general spam and staff spam but i doubt any of them will. would be nice if you know you directed them to this thread to show them that there is a problem and could they try make more effort? it's a simple request and they don't have to but they could at least be highlighted about it.

[Kasabian]

TL;DR

Pretty much sums up my opinion on this.

[Samantha]

@buttons

I know you're not just spam members and I think you give great posts throughout the forum I didn't mean to sound like that's all you do at all sorry if it came across that way. I don't think power has gone to my head though if I sound like I have then again I am sorry and if I wasn't staff I would also communicate as I wasn't staff for a long while and still managed to communicate too. I don't hate spam, I was interested in some spam threads yesterday and I remember communicating in there the other week I think it has improved since say 6 months/12 months ago and I should have really considered the really long essay more before writing it as I don't think I portrayed myself in a very nice and mature way. On the other hand though, I know you aren't all confined to spam, I mean I love reading posts from the likes of you FJ and Bethie, you give great posts.

I also agree with you about moderators it makes sense.

To your final point I guess I could tell them to post more, the majority do but some don't but I guess I don't completely realise as they are doing their job to a high standard but then again with rv they are a community role so I could be more motivating for them. When I'm back from being away that is.

I remember events push their staff as they had a staff challenge that contributed posting and although you critisied my post I do agree with you mainly throughout reinforcing my post about you making great posts.

I sound rather hypocritical but I'd rather look at everything from both sides and get critisised than just being one sided all the time.

However, with pointless posting (best add this in here) I remember someone last night and I asked Chris if it was pointless this post and he said yes but it was an obvious pointless post. I think that some that get modded are needed but then again sometimes moderators read too far into the situation if you get me? .

[Mathew]

I remember events push their staff as they had a staff challenge that contributed posting and although you critisied my post I do agree with you mainly throughout reinforcing my post about you making great posts.

Of course, management should be encouraging their staff to post in the regular forums, but I simply don't agree with forcing them to. If you'd like to be dramatic and talk about segregation on a Habbo fansite then that's great, but I really do think that spam threads have their place in some departments.

"Staff Bonding" is a rather vague term, but it does help the team to actually interact with each other. Staff Bonding occurs in real life institutions as it's a way to increase morality. Naturally I can only speak for Events, but the majority of new trialists do pop along in the spam thread, say hello, and ask questions. It's an informal setting for everyone to speak together: it's one thread, not a whole section. I think if it wasn't for the spam thread, then we'd simply get a much higher staff turnover and it just wouldn't be as... fun.

The second, and arguably main, point is the fact that these people just wouldn't post in the regular forums anyway. Regardless of whether there's a spam thread sat there in the Events Organisers forum, I highly doubt it will have any effect on the amount of posting in the main section. People post on Habbox because they want to, not because they have nowhere else to post. We need to encourage them to post by creating interesting, conversational threads; not removing "fun things" and expecting them to make the change. Because they won't.

There seems to be the assumption that these "staff members" are posting machines and they're the sole answer to HabboxForum's lack of posting crisis. By all means remove the spam threads for a trial period, but I'm pretty sure that it will yield no improvement in posting and we'll be left with an isolated, independent group of people who fail to work as a team.

[FlyingJesus]

So what IS your opinion then? That post pretty much says "oh I was lying before, soz" and not much else

This goes out to everyone who thinks that staff ought to have a separate spam section just for them: if you can give me a logical argument as to why its existence is good for the forum that I can't hack to pieces as I (and others) have done so far, I will concede. Until then, "WE WANT ONE!!!!" is simply not good enough

The second, and arguably main, point is the fact that these people just wouldn't post in the regular forums anyway. Regardless of whether there's a spam thread sat there in the Events Organisers forum, I highly doubt it will have any effect on the amount of posting in the main section. People post on Habbox because they want to, not because they have nowhere else to post. We need to encourage them to post by creating interesting, conversational threads; not removing "fun things" and expecting them to make the change. Because they won't.

Frankly they have **** all reason for being staff then. If you're not regularly posting on the forum you are not a decent member of the community, and that's that. If you're completely unknown and refuse to integrate with the members you're supposed to be representing then you have no place whatsoever pretending to be a beacon for Habbox, no matter how good you are at sitting in a room clicking dice.

[Mathew]

Frankly they have **** all reason for being staff then. If you're not regularly posting on the forum you are not a decent member of the community, and that's that. If you're completely unknown and refuse to integrate with the members you're supposed to be representing then you have no place whatsoever pretending to be a beacon for Habbox, no matter how good you are at sitting in a room clicking dice.

That's a decent point, but on the other hand we're also tasked with the job of bringing new members to Habbox. I wouldn't turn down a good Events Organiser application just because they're unheard of. I'd give them equal hearing because they're new and we're trying to get more people active on the site. I could quite happily accept Bethie as an Events Organiser, but then I'd also like to accept a new user because it just might turn out they're the next General Manager. You need some balance rather than just recycling the same old users.

[FlyingJesus]

Applicants fair enough, I'm not suggesting that all comms staff should have a certain post count or join date or anything, but they absolutely should not be people who shy away from using the forums as you seem to suggest they do