To make the forum a little easier to navigate for new readers, and to create new places to have more diverse conversations, we’re going to be making some changes, specifically to the “Welcome” Category and “The Cabinet” which has up to now been the home for not only AGP Blog entries, news, and announcements, but also all out of world discussion.
In the next week you’re going to see the following changes:
Forum Structure:
The Welcome Category will become the “Meet, Greet, and Discuss” Category. It will contain:
- A fresh Welcome super topic that’s meant to be the front door where veteran welcomers will help new readers and lead them into the forum proper.
- The current Q&A super topic
- A new “Cabinet-style” discussion category for all out of world topics that don’t nest in the Creationary category. The scope of this will be broad and general, like the original out-of-world super topic. I think some variant of “discussion” will be used for titling just to make things as clear as possible. “The Cabinet” is a hold over from the 100% immersive forum of TMP and while nostalgic, isn’t super clear for recruits.
We (AGP and Leadership) will also be periodically creating polls and quizzes in this category, to help new readers better navigate and warm up to the community and forum vibe.
“The Cabinet” will become “From AGP: Blog, News, and Announcements” and will be the official category where things like, well, this post, will be housed.
New Forum Roles:
Leaders, veterans, and even a few helpful new readers have been assisting in the current Welcome topic, but it’s been kind of crazy and confusing with the influx of amazing new Mounties the ads have summoned.
So we’re going to be changing the flow of our forum “funnel” to better spread out the help.
When you first come to the forum, you’ll now meet someone from the “Welcome Wagon” in the welcome topic who will give you a quick lay of the land and send you on your way. That will help keep the welcome topic tidy and less chaotic, since it’s most readers’ first experience with the forum.
From there, readers will be able to do get to know other veterans and recruits in the discussion topics, take polls and quizzes, create in the Creationary, catch up on in-world events, and at Trust Level One (which only takes a couple of hours to reach) you’ll be able to access:
Your Guild home in The Guilds category where the leaders will now act as “Resident Advisors” to help you settle in, explore your guild, and better have a one-on-one connection with your guild and guild leader, get to know your guild mates, and have your first taste of the AGP in-world experience.
This will now be your cozy home and hub as you continue to explore the Magiqverse. Leaders will be creating and cultivating fun and interesting things for you to do in your guild, and with other guilds.
This will also take the pressure off of the Leaders who right now are welcoming readers, as well as PMing them, fielding questions, managing the Guild categories, moderating and managing the forum activity, AND working on longterm projects for AGP.
@Augustus_Octavian came up with the name for our new “Welcome Wagon”…
Wagoneers!
As much fun as the welcome topic has been at times, I think it’s best to keep it sweet, short, and tidy to not overwhelm our new Mounties. And the Wagoneers will help make that happen. I’ve reached out to several Mounties, both new and old, who have been helpful in the forum and have expressed interest in assisting in other ways. As of now, your Wagoneers are @Rimor and @BrokenVoid, and I’ll update this announcement when I have confirmation of the remaining Wagoneers!
Leadership Changes:
Veteran readers have seen lots of changes and updates to the forum over the past couple years and we here at AGP are always trying to make it as fun and easy to explore as possible given our complex meta, magic, and mystery requirements.To help us manage and continue to grow this amazing community, @Revenir is moving on from Flinterforge Leadership to a new role as Community Leader!
He will help leaders and us at AGP with “community health” which will include managing groups like Wagoneers, acting as the leader for All-Guild Hall, and basically helping things that aren’t directly connected to guilds go more smoothly on the forum, which is a lot. The role will also act as “pinch hitter” when other leaders are swamped, filling in as needed. This is going to be a big help for @Catherine and me, as well as the leaders, and I’m excited for Rev to take on this new role!
And last but certainly not least, joining @Viviane as the new co-leader of the Flinterforge guild will our own @Tinker! Welcome her!
Finally:
If you have questions, ideas, or comments feel free to leave them below!ALSO, Leaders if I missed anything also let me know!
THANK U
all of this. It’s delightful to read and I actually laughed at work when the titles on