When I first got word I would be taking over HaloMods, I was very excited to have the ability to revive the site I used to spend hours and hours on. I felt that the activity on HaloMods was diminishing, like many users, and that change was required to give things a boost. To figure out a direction for the 'new halomods', I asked the opinions of some old friends that would eventually become part of the dev team. I asked many people, including some staff members questions like "Would you have any suggestions for HaloMods? What do you think should happen?". I was mostly greeted with 'haven't thought of that, don't know'. I considered starting forum debates - but I pictured long discussions and many disagreements about what to do with the new HaloMods and decided that that was not the way to go. After selecting some oldtimers I thought knew the community very well, we thought long and hard about the changes that we should and should not make. I decided to introduce these new changes as a surprise, and I genuinly thought the community would love them.
We've all put many many hours of work in changing HaloMods from the better, trying to improve it and turn it into a new direction for the better. It's understandable that some people don't like some of the changes, because we changed a lot. But some people here are not giving this a chance at all. "Ooh new theme! HaloMods is dead!" "We can have HaloMods is dead signatures!" "We want Grenadiac back!". You can imagine, after working on this for a long time, staying up a night with no sleep, paying for a brand new server out of my own pocket and more this is the last thing I expected to face after finally applying our work.
I will be doing my best to improve this place. I will keep everyone in the loop from here on out. I will try and look at the posts with constructive criticism and improve on those. That's what I'm going to do after considering the posts in this thread. Having said that, I will also not tolerate any more posts that say things like 'HaloMods is dead' and 'SourceGuy is a bad admin'. Frankly i'm quite fed up with them, and I find it offensive that people could say such things considering the efforts I and the dev team have put into this. Such posts do nothing but introduce unneeded negativity and decrease morale. Please guys, stop it, change back your sigs, act mature. I'm here to help HaloMods, I'm not your enemy.
One last thing I would like to address are the 'major staff issues' that Tural and Gametag seem to be referring to. Before I implemented the changes to HaloMods, I informed the staff that the dev team would be ranking above the current staff. There were several reasons to do that. I wanted to recognise the hours of work they put in the site. Also, I wanted there to be people that I trust and know well to manage the current staff - I felt there was a need for that after reviewing the boards intensively. I didn't expect the staff to dislike this change. Most staff responded positively, but some didn't. That was the smaller part of the staff though.
Another issue that caused some staff problems is the fact that I did not consult them before implementing changes to this websites. I already made clear my reasons for that. Some staff promptly resigned after they were faced with the new forums - I would have preferred to discuss this with them first, but they made up their mind. I was planning on leaving all the active staff in their current positions. Again, this is the smaller part of the staff. We are not in anarchy.
The final problem that I believe caused staff problems is a post I made about new 'staff etiquette'. It described a philosophy of mine that says user-friendlyness of moderators is more important than to strictly enforce all the forum rules. It incorporates things like more leniency and the use of punishment as a last resort to improve the atmosphere on these forums. Note that I am very aware sometimes punishments are in order, but I felt that the way staff was handling some things did not match my philosophy. I tried to change my staff to behave according to these views - but again, a minorty of the staff felt that this change was a bad one: They were in favor of stricter moderation.
Again, I would really have preferred to solve these issues with my staff and keep them on, rather than to deal with these prompt resignations.
We have some open staff positions now. If you think you're fit to act as staff on these boards, send your username and motivation to hm.sourceguy@gmail.com.
Ah, it feels good to get this off my chest. I hope you can understand things better now that you have seen things from my perspective. Please, post constructive criticsism, always show respect to your fellow HaloMods members and most of all, have a good time!
My, things have changed. I expected a new admin, and a new list of rules to follow as a staff member, about this whole be nice to members and they'll be nice in return thing, I was slightly uncomfortable with that. Then a Reintroduced hierarchy. Even More uncomfortable with that. Geo being an Admin, Meh. who gives a rats ass. I'm more disappointed that the the "new Direction" in turn alienated the "Minority" of Staff, but you do have to note, the four that have resigned were THE four most active, and a good chunk of the regulars of the forums. The forums are a relic of the past. but I can't see source and iPod modding are going to do any good. iPod modding already has it's strong ties elsewhere(say, actual iPod Specific sites), and source has been done to death. I do respect you source guy, for taking on such a large task, like trying to jolt life into these dying forums, but it seems wrong to alienate a majority of active members on changes a few older members words. The better course of action would be to consult the people on what they want, not the select few. Because now, instead of just revitalizing a modding community, you're going to have to find new staff that can do their jobs, (like Khas, GTAF, Tural, and Detox) but you'll have to regrow a new set of regs to keep the community alive. I won't be Resigning just quite yet, I kinda want to stick around and see what goes down.
I don't think the upgrade was wrong, but I belive you could have taken a better approach at it. For one people have been around halomods so long, it becomes a part of their life. If it changes to much, they will get scared and hide because their sanctuary is no longer what they remembered.
Now blaming SourceGuy for this is not right. Halomods has been dieing for a long time, and we all knew it. Halo modding is not what it use to be, it hasne't been for the last 2 years.
Ah change…Happens every few years…There is always some people who won’t like it…There has been a thread like this for every change I’ve made to the site, and it was always worked through…Unfortunately, this time I’m on the other side…
I like the new front page…It looks well done…Kudos to whoever put the time into that…I can even tolerate not being able to find my way around…New forums will do that to you…CH was a lot different, took me awhile to figure out what I was doing, and I had the advantage of developing the site for it for the forum merges…I can only imagine how the users felt when introduced to it…I’m sure I’ll get used to the new locations for buttons…
Now onto the other side…Clearly someone jumped the gun wanting to get the new site out…Can’t fault them for that, I’m sure they were excited about all the changes they had in store…But still, clearly jumped the gun…The new theme is just horrible…Someone needed to read a few documents on basic web design…Screen space is a premium…So to have the left column so wide you could triple the avatar restrictions is just plain criminal…That blank area is taking up valuable real estate that could contain things like, I dunno, the forum post text?..The color scheme looks similar to the old site…I like the mild blue colors, but without some distinction between the posts (eg. a bar), the contrast between the alternating colors needs to be much different…I also know it’s a little thing, but the site feels somewhat more bloated now…I was outraged when mIRC added 3 pixels to the status bar (and I’m still using an old version to this day)…I don’t like lots of space around things that seems to make everything take up space for no reason…I like efficiency!..If a slightly smaller font will let me see 15 threads per page instead of 13, I like that idea…The right column on the thread list page is slightly too narrow, so sometimes it takes up three lines instead of two, which takes up even more space…It just seems like there’s more cramming to be done on the thread page…But that’s just my personal preference…
Seriously now, raise of hands…Who here clicks banner ads?..Who here even reads banner ads?..In this day in age, by now you’ve learned to completely phase passed them if they don’t interest you in the least, which they rarely do…Now, I know banners pay for the site, and they’re a necessary evil…But to think that you will somehow increase your view count, or your click through rate by placing them inline with the posts is just naive…Put one at the top, everyone will say “yup, we need banners”, and move on…In my resolution you could even fit one between the logo and the search box, that’d take up even less of my screen, giving me less scrolling per post…Putting them inline accomplishes nothing but alienating your readers into “this is just another slapped together forum, nothing special to find here”…
This site was founded on research…Not just research, hardcore research…Does anyone believe we’re going to be a great source for iPhone modding?..No…Putting new modding forums is like adding a café…Someone might post something there in passing when they’re bored on the site, and have a question, but I guarantee you a quick google search will find your answer, or find you a better resource…I assume those forums will quickly go to the place where lame forums go to die…It won’t increase membership, it won’t increase activity on the site…No ones going to join halomods for our great Crysis posts…
As for the staff resignations…Staff doesn’t always need to be kept in the loop…Granted, I probably would’ve given them some heads up beyond “SURPRISE, WE HAVE A NEW SITE!”, but you can’t win them all…New rules are just a given when a new administrator takes over…If you don’t like them, you step down…No one can really be faulted for that…As SourceGuy said, he is the new administrator, so in the end, he is right…The real problem with new administration is the new hierarchy…A new administrator means that his friends are now the new staff…It doesn’t matter if you’ve been staff for a month, or 3 years...Odds are pretty favorable that in a disagreement, they’re probably going to win over you…This has nothing to do with all those members who want the fancy title, or think they deserve the fancy title, or are entitled to something special…It has everything to do with putting in blood, sweat, and tears into a site, and being demoted without having a change in status…That guy you were telling to follow the rules yesterday, he’s now your boss, have a nice day…No one can really be faulted with this either…When I was made an admin, I cleaned house with staff too…So I’m not surprised in the least to see several staff members step down from power…
What I don’t like, is auditions…How can you post “hey, if you wanna be staff, just shoot me an email!”, how is that any way to select new staff members?..”Hey there, my names Jim, I’ve been on the site for along time now, people seem to like me, and I think I’d do good at enforcing the rules in a friendly manner”…I call bullshit on that…You pick your staff based on who you can trust…I also know from experience that it takes very few, very dedicated (and you know who you are) staff to keep the site up and running…They may not have been the most friendly about it, but this site was a clean well oiled machine…I would think even with demotions, the newly added ranks to staff would be sufficient to handle it…Aren’t they up to the challenge?..
I know this site was dieing…I was actually excited to see the new team take over…I think a lot could have (and could) been accomplished…A lot of this could have been done differently…I understand the need to upgrade to phpBB3…But to try and change halomods into something halomods isn’t wont save halomods, and re-invigorate it…There’s a lot that could be done to help with that, without destroying the fabric of our history…Things like the serenity repository, and the gamertag database…Things from the “would be nice to have, but no one has time or energy” list…To take our site, and make it better by doing things we all love, and making them easier for us…
Your old administrator,
- Iron_Forge
...Thats right...I invented modding...So give me Wii Points...
I personaly don't see why people are complaining about the new moding forums.
There was a thread a while back asking what people would most like to see added to the site and the users voted what they would like to see.
Now their requests have been fullfiled all people can do is complain?
This saddens me greatly.
I would like to ask people to instead of focusing on what they dont like but to comment on what they do like but also instead of complaing what they dont like suggest ideas on how to improve the layout the forums in general to make it more home worthy.
SHOUTrvb wrote:I'm in love with Tural, but I keep having all these negative discussions with him.
If people are against the new forums, don't use them... quite simply. They're not stopping you from using the existing forums you enjoy. They give something extra for people to do, if they mod other things, which as my poll found out, people do mod other things.
And to those saying this is 'HaloMods' you're quite right, but as you're probably aware, Halo Modding is almost coming to a standstill, Halo 3 is the major culprit. If and when Halo 3 is moddable by the masses, we can lose the extra forums.
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I am really pissed about two things right now:
1) my post was just erased when my browser crashed
2) halomods has been slain. Not by the new topics or people leaving, but by lack of community. Admins should listen to what the users say, not their own whims.
I am leaving this board and am not returning until the community starts to matter again.
bcnipod wrote:I am really pissed about two things right now:
1) my post was just erased when my browser crashed Thats your broswers issue
2) halomods has been slain. Not by the new topics or people leaving, but by lack of community. Admins should listen to what the users say, not their own whims. You obviously have not read a single thing that has been stated several times by both Soruceguy and the rest of the Devs.
They are willing to listen to the users and adjust accordingly so give them a break.
I am leaving this board and am not returning until the community starts to matter again.
Comment in bold text.
SHOUTrvb wrote:I'm in love with Tural, but I keep having all these negative discussions with him.
bcnipod wrote:I am really pissed about two things right now:
1) my post was just erased when my browser crashed Thats your broswers issue
2) halomods has been slain. Not by the new topics or people leaving, but by lack of community. Admins should listen to what the users say, not their own whims. You obviously have not read a single thing that has been stated several times by both Soruceguy and the rest of the Devs.
They are willing to listen to the users and adjust accordingly so give them a break.
I am leaving this board and am not returning until the community starts to matter again.
Comment in bold text.
I have read ever post in this thread. I am stating my position. I am not forgiving the lies and coverup involved in this whole thing, particularly concerning geo.
I don't care about what is being said until something is done.
bcnipod wrote:
I have read ever post in this thread. I am stating my position. I am not forgiving the lies and coverup involved in this whole thing, particularly concerning geo.
I don't care about what is being said until something is done.
Lies?
what lies?
Tell me where has anyone lied about anything here.
What would you preffer halomods to be down for 3, 4 even upto 5 weeks only to be up for 5 hours and then to be down again or would you preffer a fresh new administrator who is willing to pay out of his own pocket to keep the site up for 24 hours a day 7 days a week and also arranged a team of regulars to revamp the site for the benefit of the community not for the devs but the community.
I cannot believe how closed minded some of you are being right now.
The Devs go out of their way to please everyone and all the members can do is nit pick.
SHOUTrvb wrote:I'm in love with Tural, but I keep having all these negative discussions with him.
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