Forum Assistants

[Mania]

Today I approached a few community members about serving as forum assistants on the Petopian Guilds and Role-Playing forums. A forum assistant can perform some basic organizational functions like stickying threads; they can only do these things only in their assigned forum.

Forum assistant are here to help all the members get the most out of the forum as a place to share information. In the Petopian Guilds forum, for example, a forum assistant can sticky information threads, update posts about who to contact to join the guild, or merge two threads about the same event.

Forum assistants are not responsible for enforcing forum posting rules or keeping the peace between community members. If you see a post that violates the rules, please report it with the report Post button (!) and it will get dealt with by a global moderator or me.

We don't plan on adding very many forum assistants - certainly not one for each forum. The Petopian Guilds forum, however, seemed like it could benefit from some more organization from people involved in the guilds.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to send me a PM or e-mail me at mania@wow-petopia.com.

[Cialbi]

Ah, I like 'Forum Aide' much better than 'Forum Moderator' - that should help clear up confusion and make a distinction between them and Stable Masters.

So, Saturo is a Forum Aide for the Petopian Guild forum (I'm guessing that Ryno will most likely become one as well). Any other aides that we should know about?

[Saturo]

I read it as forum aids. Made me go wtf. ^^

[Cialbi]

Now we all know who not to have foru... *bites lip*

But, seriously, now that Saturo mentions it, I'm afraid that I'll have to change my mind (mostly because now I can't think of Saturo being a forum aide without thinking of her having forum aids )

[Mania]

Really? I thought it sounded like a sports drink. Hmmm. Okay, okay. Assistant then.

Cialbi: I've asked Azunara to help organize the Role-Playing forum, but I haven't actually set that up yet. I think those will be our only two forums with Assistants at this point.

[Saturo]

Great choice! Was thinking about suggesting her, but you seem to have beaten me to it! ^^

[Azunara]

Great choice! Was thinking about suggesting her, but you seem to have beaten me to it! ^^

Zzzgrbt. You make me feel more useful than I really am! >.>

And really, I never would've caught on to either of those sport drinks or disturbing diseases until it was pointed out. *rather innocent?*

[Adam-Savage]

So what is the difference between a "Forum Assistants" a "Stable Master". The Stable Master can do the same thing but only to there area ? Like "mod" and "super mod" ? Perhaps changing stable master to "Global forum Assistants" or something like that ?

[Vephriel]

The Forum Assistants are members that have a specialization in one of the sub-forum categories, with minor permissions. Stable Masters are Moderators with admin capabilities throughout the entire forum. Forum Assistants were added so that parts of the forum which have unique characteristics could be easily organized by a helper.

For example, the Roleplaying forum could almost be considered a mini-community on its own. There's a core group of members that regularly utilize that board, and it's largely left to its own devices. Having Azunara as the designated assistant will allow her to easily help that community in terms of organizational needs and guides/stickies that they might want to create.

The Guild Leaders/Officers of the Petopian guilds were given privileges in that section so that they could easily manage matters which pertain to the in-game guilds such as new members, questions, organizing events, etc. It just makes things easier as a whole.

[Anyia]

Stable Masters

So it only just dawned on me that this kind of implies that the rest of us are really just Veph's, Golden's and Kalli's pets... Hmmm!

[Kalliope]

Stable Masters

So it only just dawned on me that this kind of implies that the rest of us are really just Veph's, Golden's and Kalli's pets... Hmmm!

*offers Anyia a tasty pet biscuit*

[Adam-Savage]

Hmm so it's basically a what is called a Stable Master here without the ability to Bann people in the extreme case. Though Mania would usually would do something that.

A Forum Assistant can do:

* Sticky threads.
* Lock threads.
* Merge and split threads.
* Edit posts.
* Delete posts.

This is where I get lost.. The "Stable Master's" can already do this in any section of the entire forum. So what can the Stable Master's do that the Forum Assistant is unable/does not have the ability ? Trying to understand this all. Perhaps I'm just having one of my slow days.

EDIT: Either I'm loosing my mind or somehow Stable masters gained the new title of Global Moderators suddenly. I could of sworn it was Stable Master's less then a hour ago.

[Kalliope]

Forum assistants are limited to their designated subforums. Stable Masters cover the entire forum. The advantage to the assistants being able to handle the subforums is that a Stable Master won't need to be located for every little detail, giving greater freedom to all.

Also, as Mania posted previously in another thread:

What are the moderators responsible for?

Global moderators are responsible for responding for:
Dealing with spam.
Moving and stickying threads.
Requests to change user names.
Reminding members about the forum rules.
Escalating issues to Mania.

I've italicized the differences for you.

[Adam-Savage]

Forum assistants are limited to their designated subforums. Stable Masters cover the entire forum. The advantage to the assistants being able to handle the subforums is that a Stable Master won't need to be located for every little detail, giving greater freedom to all.

Also, as Mania posted previously in another thread:

What are the moderators responsible for?

Global moderators are responsible for responding for:
Dealing with spam.
Moving and stickying threads.
Requests to change user names.
Reminding members about the forum rules.
Escalating issues to Mania.

I've italicized the differences for you.

Ahh! Ok I fully understand now. I knew there was a difference I just couldn't put my finger on it.

[Kalliope]

Happily, Mania already spelled everything out, so there isn't any confusion. ^_^

[Anyia]

*offers Anyia a tasty pet biscuit*

*sniffs the biscuit cautiously*

[Golden]

*sets down a trap and sits down to wait for a pretty user to pass by and trigger the trap - fingers at the ready to cast Tame Beast*

[Royi]

*walks quietly in the nicely lit path that leads out in the open in the tundra, thinks to self... whats this?

-------- Golden, Guardian of Cenarius
------------------- <Petopians>



hrm, not suspicious, not one bit.*

[Azunara]

Wait- so if Veph, Golden and Kalli are stable masters and we're all pets...does that mean I train itty bitty hunters?

*starts teaching people cat form.*

[Kalliope]

Better cat form than potty training. *nod*