May 10
Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall
The title of this blog post has been in my title for years now. It is what Yoda says to Luke before passing away. The quote always stood out for me for some reason. As years went on, I thought about it more and more. In the end, Yoda died of old age after growing sick. But his decline was gradual.
Why the talk about a puppet from a movie? I suppose it's because upon reflection, this quote summed up how I felt for the past few years on this service. I presided over the gradual decline of a software, powerless to really do anything except shout into the wind. Every so often I would shake enough branches to get some sort of answer and be pacified for a time, but the pattern repeated over and over until I finally just gave up. Words cannot convey that feeling of frustration as I watched a once active community drop in activity over and over. As Community Administrator, I spent a lot of time and effort cultivating relationships with members on this board and introducing things to retain these members- activities, games, events, discussions. Over the years the board's layout has changed with the times- from tech discussion to serious debates to just an introduction/advertisement forum. I spent a lot of time planning things like the anniversary celebrations and the deal or no deal games, doing a superhero themed event and more. But as that activity dwindled and died, there was no way to move forward. You can't retain activity if you have none.
The fault for that falls squarely on development. Now I don't mean that to be cruel. It's just fact. There were NUMEROUS valid reasons why development suffered. The most obvious being our servers and the numerous attacks individuals chose to wage on other boards. But in fairness, I and others repeatedly brought up hiring a server admin or another full time developer. It fell on deaf ears.
I say all this as I reflect upon what is essentially the end of this service. I say it not to be mean, but to be honest. I have spent 14 years as a staff member- 15 as a member of this service. And I have always prided myself on honesty. I tried for a long time to push transparency and to be as open as I could be with the community- even if that meant saying I could answer because of confidentiality, at least that was a reason. And I have long believed that anything I typed I should be able to defend at any time. If one were to look into the private sections on this board, they would find a lot of topics on the issue of development- pushing for smaller updates more regularly, trying to get regular developer updates etc. etc.
Ultimately, the decision was made to sell to Taptatalk. And as a business decision, I get it. But it was also a perfect example of the chief frustration many have had with the owners- lack of communication followed by dropping grenades. But, we tried to work with it. We asked questions that we expected members to ask- one was what the future of ZetaBoards was. We were told it was fine. We were told there were no plans to fold ZetaBoards into Taptatalk.
We were skeptical. And we had good reason to be it turned out. But the evidence for this was not hard to locate. One need only see the decision to force IF boards to Tapatalk if no decision were made instead of ZetaBoards to see what the end goal was.
I say this not to vilify Tapatalk. Again, as a business decision, I'm sure it made sense. But in truth, communication and customer service should have been better. And we made those points.
I agreed that InvisionFree needed to end. Full disclosure: I had lobbied for it for years. The whole reason ZetaBoards was created was because InvisionFree had hit it's limits and the terms of Invision Power's license going forward prevented us from going any further. So we as a team made a decision: Create a new software. That would eventually be called ZetaBoards. Somewhere in the archives of this board is a list of the rejected names. But this new software involved a lot of trust that we placed in our developer. We endured a lot of criticism. We had people questioning it's existence and calling us liars. I spent many months for those two plus years trying to get people to believe us, placing my credibility on the line if it didn't turn out right. I did that because I had faith in our developer. I did it because even though I too had yet to see it, I trusted it was being done.
Those days were not easy. The Beta boards took a long time to come and we endured a lot of flack for things like the color choice and name at the time. And then there were the broken promises- no theme converter despite assurances otherwise. API delayed. RDB delayed. But they were always coming "soon". Eventually soon became mocked and we stopped using it because even we couldn't tell when it was coming.
I do not regret any of my time on this service. I do not regret decisions I made- I would defend every one of them. If nothing else, I know I tried my hardest at all times. I am immensely proud of the fact that I have fewer moderator actions than most of the staff who came after me. I have more Personal Messages instead because I spent a long time talking with users, trying to defuse situations wherever possible and find solutions rather than throw down the ban hammer right away. That said, there were times were I reached the ban moment and I never regretted that either as I had a laundry list of reasons to back me up by that point. Nor do I ever regret the messages I wrote there. I am still proud of some of the ones I wrote in fact. I stand by my words regardless of how that makes others feel.
I say that because my credibility and that of my fellow staff was destroyed by the most recent announcement. Without knowing, we were made into liars. And I am hurt and angry about that. I feel for all of the board owners who went through so much stress these past few months only to go through it all over again. I feel for the numerous theme designers and coders who put untold amount of hours into their work only for it to essentially be erased months from now. I feel for the RPG boards and others that use attachment URLs that may well be useless soon. I get the anger. I can't defend the decision. I don't agree with it.
It's for that reason that I have chosen to share exactly what I have written in private regarding this matter. Understand, my loyalty was to ZetaBoards. The software I helped create. The software that was the result of the blood, sweat and tears of far more than just one person. There was the Documentation Team, the Graphic design team, the staff who bug tested, the creators of the ZB CSS and the default theme, the numerous members of the support and community teams over the years. And lastly of course- the members who took this software and made it their own and shared their talents with us for years.
When the decision was announced, my reaction was much like everyone else's I believe:
- Quote:
You were asked about this multiple times for over a year and denied or flat out lied to us.
I cannot convey enough how disappointed and hurt I am by that. You have been given a massive amount of loyalty from us. We have frequently gone above and beyond to defend you only to get the floor dropped out from under us.
Please tell me why I should continue to volunteer my time where I and others have been made into liars and fools. Please tell me why anyone should trust us enough to continue using this service.
Because in the end, it doesn't matter if the new product blows ZB away. Because by then, we may not have enough customers left who care. And I can't blame them.
Understand, I do not fault you for the decision. I fault you for not being up front much earlier and stringing all of us along. That's not ok and to me, feels incredibly disrespectful. We aren't stupid. We saw the writing on the wall for some time- yet you continued to mislead us. How do we trust you again?
- Quote:
- Quote:
1) People invest a lot of time and energy into their board. If they are going to lose customization they made, they do not want to move.
2) People don't want to re-learn how to use basic features. It's why many of them flipped when forced to tapatalk. At least ZB preserved most navigation.
3) People don't like being forced into conversions. Don't call it an upgrade- it's not a new ZB. It's a new software. I can point you to many an angry Personal Message or Facebook message about how people felt about being FORCED to convert to Tapatalk and not having the option to go to ZB.
- Quote:
This is several steps backward. And your word, frankly, means nothing now. As does ours. We have a MASSIVE public relations problem thanks entirely to your actions. No one here has any credibility to speak to this service. You have had a history of missed deadlines, broken promises, dropped projects and in general over-promising while SEVERELY under-delivering. And this is my constructive criticism. Please don't ask how I'm really feeling right now after putting up with this for 14 years.
- Quote:
Keep in mind that if you can't defend a decision to us or answer our questions, you don't stand a chance against the rest of the user base. Every decision will need justification or this will fail. That's not a matter of opinion- it stone cold fact.
- Quote:
But then I think of other boards, like RPG boards that might have thousands of links to ZB attachments- that could cripple a board and render YEARS of history useless. These are the things to be aware of when moving forward.
In my mind, the focus should be on transplanting all ZB features into Tapatalk. From there, you can add new features and already planned features. But if there is a feature ZB has that Tapatalk doesn't, then there will be problems. Even something as stupid simple as an avatar gallery might be an issue for some boards. Dismissing any feature ZB has- in my opinion- is not a risk worth taking at this stage.
Why share the above? First of all, to be clear, some of these are selections and not my full quotes because they reference the posts of others. I will not break confidentiality. But nothing listed in these quotes is confidential. Indeed, nothing in these quotes is even confirmed. None of these quotes were answered by development either. So in terms of 'leaks', this is nothing that I would not be comfortable posting in a public forum. And these quotes aren't to hurt the developer or Tapatalk either. As indicated in the quotes and in this post, I don't necessarily disagree with the decision. I disagree with the way it was made and delivered. I disagree with being strung along and expected to support this decision and pretend all is fine.
I am therefore sharing these thoughts for two reasons: Transparency- I know our credibility is shot. It is my hope that perhaps by sharing these posts, we can start to rebuild that. Because without that trust, this service will not survive the transition. When a developer loses trust, they lose customers. And I am more than aware that that is already happening. I may not be able to restore the developer's credibility, but I will do the best I can to preserve that of my fellow staff who, like all of you, had this dropped on them. Second, I share this to encourage board owners to foster discussion with Tapatalk and developers. You are the customer. You have the ability to affect change if you are persistent and vocal. For instance, if you can present a decent argument about themes, perhaps a solution for either using or converting ZB themes will emerge. But if you choose to wallow or take your ball and go home, then that indifference will be interpreted as consent to the changes you are currently facing.
I am also not saying to grab a pitchfork and march on the castle. I am hoping that we are well past that stage of grief. We need to move on to acceptance and start working towards discussing what matters. What must your community have to survive this new phase? What is essential and what can you live without? I encourage you to think long and hard and then share that.
Lastly, I want you to know that the staff and I have always done our best to function as your advocates and we will continue to do so for as long as we are able. It has been an honor and a privilege. But after 15 years, I am ready to move on. And while this is not the fate I wanted for ZetaBoards, at least it is moving forward- which it had to do. Now though, you all need to weigh in on just how it should move forward.
May the Force Be With You... Always.
Jun 18
Progress is Slow
This April, I quietly celebrated my 12th year as a member of this board. 11 of those years has been spent as a staff member and 7 as Community Administrator. So yes, I've been here a while and have certain opinions on things. Why do I bring this up?
One of the most common things I will read is frustration with apparent lack of progress on Zetaboards. This frustrates me for many reasons. The primary reason actually goes to my position: as a member of the staff and specifically as an administrator, I am privy to the things that go on behind the scenes. As a result, I see things from that perspective as well. Absolutely I understand the legitimate criticisms at the slowdowns that occur. As do all of our staff and most especially Brandon. Unfortunately, there are times where things can not be explained- not because I or the staff do not want to, but because for that moment, we cannot.
Ultimately, I do cling to the adage that the customer is always right, even if I may personally disagree with the customer. However, sometimes the customer just doesn't have the whole picture. For instance, it would surprise many to learn that several requested features are either coded and in the testing stage, or they are in the planning stage. It might further surprise people to learn that as of last Fall, there was a schedule for releases that was to occur. We had essentially begun transitioning from large big updates, to multiple small updates. And this was coming along swimmingly up until the end of November.
So what went wrong? In short: the servers. Server 11 experienced one of the worst Distributed Denial of Service attacks in this network's history. And unfortunately, features and updates aren't really useful if you can't access your board in the first place. So naturally, the priority shifted to getting the boards up and keep them up. Ultimately, this led to some costly decisions that upgraded the server's defenses and protection on a scale that was previously unnecessary. While I would very much like to go into more detail, I and the others cannot as this is an ongoing matter at the moment. As this was occurring, personal matters also reared their head. This one-two punch basically knocked out the planned schedule and we are just now getting things back in order. Tapatalk for instance is on target for a summer release assuming no major bugs are discovered during the testing phase.
The trouble with being a free service, is that you can't exactly pay to have a team of developers on hand 24/7. As many of you are aware, the majority of our staff team, myself and Nicolas included, are volunteers who do not get paid. While we would love to do this full time, this is simply never going to be a financial reality. And because we'd rather keep this service free, that is the trade off. That too is why progress will remain slow.
That is not to say however that things will always be slow. We are working hard to implement improvements that will greatly reduce development time for future updates and we plan to have future updates releasing much faster as a result. That said, the process to achieve this goal is time consuming. However, much like Zetaboards itself, the pay off will be worth the time put in.
Feb 6
Changes coming
So by this weekend you will see several things occur. First: New Servers. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And these are nice servers. So hopefully all those annoying troubles lately will stop.
Second: New Staff (and Jay): We've promoted Tony to Support team and Tim to Community Moderator. We believe that their additions will be a great addition to the team. So congrats to them
Third: Dissolving of the President and Cabinent: You might ask why? The answer is simple: It just didn't work. Now I take most of the blame on this. While the election was well planned, I hit several roadblocks in getting the Cabinet involved in activities. But there was some fault on the Cabinet as well. Several were just not active enough and it showed. Because of this, I have decided to cancel Zetaboards Government. It's just not possible at the moment. Maybe in the future.
Fourth: Return of the Think Tank: Well ZB Gov't may be impossible for now, but there is no reason the core idea can't be used. Tomorrow I will be making an announcement in Community Chat recruiting members to join the think tank joinable group that will be created. Full details and rules will be revealed then, but if you've been a part of any of the past think tanks, you know what this is. For those who don't: It's a way to give me and the staff your feedback for improvements to the Community and support forums.
Now, there are more things I have planned but those are still in the early stages and require details to be flushed out, but eventually I'd like to try scheduling discussions/debates in IRC. Arranging Wii or 360 game nights and generally draw more people into our Community this spring.
What do you think? Does any of this interest you?
Jan 30
If you can't say anything nice at all, Do not post
Some of you may have heard I've been making the rounds to several large boards of the past few days, enforcing a tiny little piece in our Terms of Use:
- Prohibited Content
Let's go through these together:
Abusive
- Abusive
2 a: using harsh insulting language <an angry and abusive crowd> b: characterized by or serving for abuse <abusive language> c: physically injurious <abusive behavior>
The second definition applies here. So when you are talking about a person, when you talk about hoping bad things happen to them, like an account cracking or using profanity. Guess what? That's abusive.
Defamatory
- Defame
2: to harm the reputation of by libel or slander
3archaic : accuse
Any time you spread comments about another user, you harm their reputation. If you don't have facts or evidence to back these comments up, you are slandering that user's reputation. According to our terms of use, if you see this content by a member or you or another staff member post it and you as the owner fail to remove it, you are violating the Terms of Use.
Threatening
- Threatening
2 a: to give signs or warning of : portend <the clouds threatened rain> b: to hang over dangerously : menace <famine threatens the city>
3: to announce as intended or possible <the workers threatened a strike>
4: to cause to feel insecure or anxious <felt threatened by his brother's success>
intransitive verb
All of the above would apply. Any time you make a post that contains offensive, hostile language toward a specific user, you can make them feel insecure or anxious. More serious though are threats to crack accounts, email etc. Or to cause bodily harm. Those type of threats can get the authorities involved.
Racist
- Racist
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
I really would think that I wouldn't have to explain this, but I've seen posts indicating that many board owners are not aware that racist content does in fact violate our terms of use.
So obviously, the n word is out. As are rude or offensive comments about religious groups or other ethnicities.
Obscene
- Obscene
1: disgusting to the senses : repulsive
2 a: abhorrent to morality or virtue ; specifically : designed to incite to lust or depravity b: containing or being language regarded as taboo in polite usage <obscene lyrics> c: repulsive by reason of crass disregard of moral or ethical principles <an obscene misuse of power> d: so excessive as to be offensive <obscene wealth> <obscene waste>
What qualifies as obscene? Vulgar language and images, words that should never be uttered anywhere and that you would never want to hear described about yourself. Basically content that would turn your stomach.
So, what does this mean? Lately several boards have had a trend. Topics where they attack users on other boards. The language used is obscene, racist, abusive and threatening. And for any one of those reasons the content should be removed. And so, I have been going to several boards on the network and passing that decree around. And I am still watching these boards to make sure they will enforce this area of the terms of use.
No user should have to read what I have read about them. No one, not even your worst enemy, deserves some of the bile I have seen about others. Especially for just being staff on a message board. I'm sorry, but being the admin of a board does not make you Hitler. No one dies, there is no physical suffering (though a few egos are bruised). Users have no justification to write some of the posts I've seen and I will be making it my mission to enforce this part of the terms.
To me, it all comes down to the golden rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated.
Not how you WERE treated. Not how you want to treat someone else. No, you treat them with the same respect you would want even if you don't get it. It's all about being the bigger person and taking the high road. Because when you sink to a level like some have, you show everyone your true self and it's not a pretty sight to see.
So, as the Blog title says, If you can not say anything nice about a person, do not post.
Jan 23
When and Why should you send me a PM
Often, I log on in the morning and find at least 2 personal messages waiting for me. Sometimes, I find up to 5 or more. Of these, several messages should not be sent to me for good reason. The primary reason is that I have a terrible memory due to Lymes disease. This means that if I get distracted, I will lose my train of thought.
In many cases, that means forgetting to reply to a support pm because I tend to prioritize them for last. I am not a member of the support team and while I will occasionally post in the support forums or support tickets, that is not my primary function. Regardless, you should not be pming staff for support. However, I understand new members are a bit confused and I'll try to help whenever I can. But if you want a faster answer, it would be best to use the forums or make a ticket. You may not receive a reply from me for several hours, if at all.
When I log in every morning and see a new message window, the messages that get priority are the ones from the staff. It doesn't matter if a member has marked their pm with the subject URGENT (because 99.9% of the time, it's not that urgent.) Staff pms tend to be the more urgent ones. They contain matters that require my attention as soon as possible. Depending on the content, it may take several minutes to several hours before I have dealt with that matter.
I then read any messages that do not appear to be support messages. These tend to deal with user disputes, issues with staff and other items that require my attention. Again, depending on the day, it can takes several minutes to several hours to finish.
While PMs are the first thing I deal with, I also log on to instant messenger every morning. So while I may be reading your pm asking for support, a staff member or another user may contact me with something else. I will then lose my train of thought and likely forget about your pm until I find it in a mess of firefox tabs 5 hours later.
It is in your best interest to use our support forums or the support tickets to get fast, accurate support. There is a chance that even if I do receive your pm and remember it, I may not be able to help you. If your problem is time sensitive, you will lose valuable time waiting on me.
On days where there is a large problem such as server trouble, I will be focused on that problem and anything else will be ignored. A lot of pms likely means yours will be overlooked. It's not intentional, but I have found weeks, even months later that I missed someone's message due to the chaos of the day.
So, When should you PM me: Personal matters mostly. The Report CP now handles items that require moderation action and the personal ticket forum is far better for one on one support. If you have a problem with a user, if you wish to talk to the management or if you have a problem with a staff member, those are the primary reasons to contact me. There are exceptions. For instance, if a user is spamming, posting adult content or threatening another user, in addition to using the RCP, you should contact me and let me know. Either I or another staff member will act by then.
I take staff complaints very seriously: When you have a complaint regarding the conduct of another staff member, I ask that you provide as much detail as possible. The topic or pm where this occurred, any following conversations and any past history. I will then look into the matter and speak to the staff member for their side. I may not always reply to you immediately, but I will reply to you.
If you are reporting a board: I will ask you to use the Report Abuse form. Nothing will change by contacting me. It will still take the same amount of time for the report to be processed. Unfortunately, I can not speed up anything. I may attempt to alert Brandon or Brian if the issue is extremely urgent, but even then, there may still be a long wait.
PMs are where I conduct business. If you just want to chat, you can find me on the IRC chatroom daily. Please do not use the personal message system to chat with me as I will prioritize it for last and may forget to respond.
Lastly, I really need to emphasize how hard it is trying read some of these messages and comprehend what you need. While my memory itself is actually quite good, it is my loss of concentration that causes my forgetfulness and one track mind. So, while I realize that not everyone uses English as their primary language, those that do should avoid using all capital letters or abbreviations like: u, 2, r ... etc. What this does is force me to sit there for several minutes and decode your message. When I don't have the time, I will just ignore your pm and move on. So, if you have an urgent problem that requires my help, I simply ask that you use complete sentences to detail your problem as best as possible.
Jan 5
It's Your Community: What do you want?
I've decided to use this blog as a type of Feedback area. As Community Administrator, my job is, well, the Community. But what is it that the Community wants?
This year I have several games and events in the works. I'm hoping to get Zetaboards Government set up within the next 2 months. Over the spring, I hope to have Zetaboards Big Brother ready to go for a summer release. And I've started the Staff Sims comic which will start to incorporate users every now and then.
But is that what the Community wants? Do you want more discussion topics? Do you want more games, events etc. Or do you want something new?
I want to hear about it right here on this blog!
What do you want?
Dec 10
Zetaboards Anniversary
I must say that I am very pleased with the turnout from the anniversary. I am still trying to total the massive amounts of points users earned. Every single activity we ran received a lot of attention. We drew in new members and new board registrations. And we had fun.
In every way, I count that as a success. While it's not technically over until Saturday and I do hope to have one last surprise for the community, I do want to begin thanking everyone for their aid in making this event a success.
Brandon and Brian: Without their support, enthusiasm and participation, this event could have flopped. Brandon not only postponed his Premium announcement, he also made not one but 2 releases of Zetaboards upgrades. He also made several Admin CP announcements to really give this event the attention needed. He really got into this and did his best to show what makes Zetaboards such a great software. And further, he showed us that there is plenty more where that came from and the future is bright for this service.
Brian provided so much help with ideas, prizes and getting things set up as well as running his own game. I can always count on him to help make this community better.
Nicola, Ryan and Hazel: I'm singling these three out as they helped the most with running the games themselves. Nicola had to put up with my crazy person mode for all of November and she managed to make several great images, get Battle of the Boards revised and ready to go and make the Winter theme. Ryan managed to resurrect Guild Wars within 5 days before the anniversary because I needed another game. Hazel of course ran deal. And she did it while sick and she knocked out dozens of members fast.
Hazel's "lovely assistants": Dennis, Jeremy, Jay, EA, Tony (and anyone else whom I forgot): Many thanks for taking on the hardest job in Deal. The assistant's job can be time consuming and I appreciate all your help so that Hazel could keep the game moving.
The Ex-Staff: For me, the exstaff are like extended family that you only see on holidays. And it was great that so many not only made it back here but also pitched in to help in any way possible. I sincerely hope many of you stick around a bit even after this is over.
The Staff: You had to put up with 3 months of me going crazy to get this to work as well as several revisions and last minute changes. And you all helped out in topics to keep order. But you also participated in the games so that things were fun. In so many ways, I can not fully convey my appreciation for that. But thank you.
The Members!: Well without you guys I would have had a bunch of games and no participants. So thank you to each member who participated in a game or event. And a big thank you to those who went the extra mile and participated actively in many events. Good luck on winning when I total the points. And congrats again to Dan T on winning that iPod.
Zetaboards Theme Zone and Locke: I'd like to thank Locke and the TZ for their help as well. The TZ helped bring in more members to see just how great the Support board is. Locke kindly placed the anniversary banner to directly link people to the celebration and wrote about it to encourage members to participate. Without their help, it would have been hard to get the word out.
The ZBN board: Without their additional help in providing information about the anniversary, we would not have had as many members as we did. I really appreciate both ZBN and the TZ for helping spread the word in addition to Brandon's ACP Announcements.
So the celebration was a success in my eyes thanks to all these people. And there is a very good chance that we'll be doing this again next year. I look forward to it and hope to see many of you again next year for more fun.
Oct 7
What is a Community Administrator?
I think, given that this is the first "real" time this service has had a Community Administrator, I need to explain what it is. While both Seth and Ben had this title, both were also Support Team members and therefore did tickets. So the big distinction: I don't do tickets. I don't give support.
Why? Well it's not that I can't. I fully can. I just don't have the time. I'm a full time college student who works as well. I spend my weekends sleeping and doing this mostly. My social life this fall is very poor because myself and my friends are working most of the time and we can spare maybe 2 hours every 2 weeks to do anything. So it's a balance.
There's also the fact that I never was chosen for the Support team. Nor did I ever ask once I was a Community Moderator. And while I did occasionally answer tickets or give support in the forums, it was never required of me and I did it only when I had the time.
This is all an elaborate way of saying "Please don't PM me for Support". I just can't help you for many reasons. My knowledge of HTML and CSS is about 3 years old. I've really not done any web design for over 2 years. I've spent much of my time now with Math and learning Java and C++ and SQL. While the basic properties are similar, I could not easily figure out what is wrong with your board or make you a code. With themes, I have yet to find the time to read Nicola's in depth guide and learn the stuff for myself. So I stay away from that as well.
So now you must be asking, "What the heck do you do?" Good question. The word "Community" really says it all. I spend my time looking after the Community. To give you an idea, here is a typical day for me:
On Mondays during a break, I log onto a campus computer and pull up IF and meebo. Using meebo, I log in and chat with Brian first. I catch up with him on any of the previous days events and then anything that needs to be discussed for that day. I normally have that window open until about 6pm. Any issues that pop up during that time I will discuss with him.
I then check IF support for new personal messages. After I've responded to them, I check out Community Chat and Feedback for anything that requires attention. If the Report CP has something in it, that gets my first priority. After checking in there, I make sure Java Hut and Games are nice and tidy. I then go to the Staff room and make sure there isn't anything requiring attention.
That's about as far as it goes. Normally there are multiple things requiring attention. Members with feedback in the forum, Community Chat having inappropriate topics, Java Hut getting out of hand in a topic, Staff needing some information or something done etc.
On meebo, other staff might pop in and bring something to my attention or I may require their assistance with something.
Once that mess is sorted out, it's pretty much rinse and repeat. I pop onto Com Creations and Tech Chat occasionally to make sure things are fine. I then head over to support.zb to make sure there aren't any stray PMs.
This whole routine can change at any time and it depends on the day. A dull day with many staff means I can do more. A busy day where I am the sole person on can mean I do nothing but run around. Normally if I am the sole staff member on and I have the time, I stick around until someone else pops in.
Basically, I try to make the Community better. I pretty much did this as a Moderator. But now, I have a few more tools to put things in order faster. I strive to keep the staff happy, keep the forums safe and make this an enjoyable place to be around. I still run games and contests and have plenty more planned this season. But I also can do more. When you have a problem on this board that requires an admin, you go to me. When you have a problem with your board that requires speaking to a member of the management, it's best you go to Brian. He's the one that can handle restorations and all those other big issues that only Brandon or Brian can handle. I focus on helping the members of the Community here. I am on often and I try my hardest to respond fast to any problems you may have.
4:48 PM May 20