Blue Appreciation Day! - Blue Tracker

#0 - Sept. 14, 2007, 3:57 p.m.

IT'S BLUE APPRECIATION DAY!

Our forum moderators (those guys with the animated avatars and blue text) deserve a little appreciation. Heck, they deserve A LOT of appreciation. Their job isn't easy...

They regularly get guff for things that are clearly outside of their control. Yet they plug on.

They're demanded to provide concrete facts for issues that are nowhere near to being officially resolved. Yet they plug on.

They must bite their tongues and act professionally, despite personal attacks that twist their words, scoff at their answers, and outright insult them. Yet they plug on.

And if God-forbid they do respond with a bit of humor or sarcasm, they're chastised, threatened, and rediculed even more. Yet they plug on.

So I'm asking all of the mature-minded and even-tempered members of this community to come forward and post in appreciation for the fine job that Nethera, Drysc, Bornakk, and all of the others do, day in and day out. Sure, you'll likely be flamed by some for being a fan-boi or a suck-up, but you'll get much less flack than our moderators get on a regular basis.

So show your appreciation! Offer a heart-felt "thank you" and wish them well.

They deserve it.

Nethaera

#24 - Sept. 14, 2007, 4:20 p.m.

Very kind of you Breanni, but the best way for people to show their appreciation or provide feedback to the team is via wowcmfeedback@blizzard.com . The comments do get read though we don't reply to them.

Some weeks are just better than others and despite it all, I still greatly appreciate this community and enjoy being a part of it.

Nethaera

#49 - Sept. 14, 2007, 4:39 p.m.

Q u o t e:

So you enjoy all of the insults and whines?

Who enjoys that? There are far more pearls among the community than people give credit for. Besides, I've seen far far worse than these forums. I'd tell you stories, but there's no point. ;)

I prefer to see the positive side of people even when they are being negative. I'd rather people be invested than be apathetic. Apathy adds nothing to conversation and yes, too much negativity draws away from it as well, but apathy is probably the worst of it.

Feel free to be invested and passionate about the game, but remember that it IS just a game and that real people exist on the other side of the screen. MMOs have the ability to engage people far more than many other types of games and the communities are a vital part of them. This is what I appreciate and why I do what I do. I greatly respect the community no matter how people may feel in return.

Nethaera

#62 - Sept. 14, 2007, 4:50 p.m.

Q u o t e:

question: what do CM's do when they aren't responding to threads ? You can't possibly spend an 8hr shift writing 5 responses. And we *know* you don't play WoW, otherwise you might have a clue about game mechanics, so what do you do ?

Minesweeper ?

We've actually responded to this many times before. Yes, we do play WoW, but I'm aware of the constant maligning of us in this regard if we don't agree with you or are sharing information from the developers that doesn't mesh with your own ideas and thoughts.

We also do many other things from contests, contact with Fan Sites, news posts, internal meetings, reading through the forums and other news sites, F.A.Q. information, helping the moderators with moderation as we see it necessary, and we also each have other internal tasks that we handle. Our jobs aren't strictly on the forums. We also did a lot of work on BlizzCon recently. As we've said before, there are many aspects of our job that you don't see or if you do see it, you don't realize it came from us. While it's nice when someone sees our work and appreciates it, we're more focused on just getting the job done and we work with many teams within the company with funneling information.

Besides, I'm terrible at Minesweeper.

Nethaera

#77 - Sept. 14, 2007, 5:05 p.m.

Q u o t e:

postive section of response: ah ok. Was expecting these were different groups of people.

negative section of response: So you guys are 100% Public relations. As in your trained to lie, answer questions with questions. Sell stuff.

No, we aren't PR. We're community. There are specific things that are Marketing and PR only that you see. It's easy to confuse what we do though you could say we have a PR aspect in that we work to support the community, promote it, work to keep it healthy, and help it grow. Communities are important for MMOs and while much of that is reliant on the game, a part of that is reliant on being supportive of a community and doing what you can to be there for them.

We could probably discuss the various aspects of what a Community Team does, but there are many other sources on the web that discuss a bit of it and it has some complexities that can't be delved into in a public venue. Each community is unique though and everyone has their own approaches that work best for them.

It's hard to shed light on what we do for people, but hopefully these sorts of brief discussion help in whatever small way they can.

Nethaera

#131 - Sept. 14, 2007, 7:32 p.m.

Q u o t e:

If you are truly community why do you not let us know of negative aspects of the game as you personally see them? Why do we get zero feedback from yourselves, except when you use something to great success, ie the LFG interface?

We share personal accounts of our experiences in game when we can, however we do have to be careful since opinions can be construed as the company line. We walk a very fine line between personal and company.