I’ve been around a few months, support the site, and LOVE helping new players!!! Is there a way to set up a role for new players to ping a ‘new player’ channel???
For reference, the second item listed when one sends the command help is the following:
Quickest way to get help is to chat with our helpers, by typing:
helpme Hi! I am new here.
Helpers already exist, though I do not know the process of becoming a Helper.
1 Like
But! It’d be nice if someone just reached out to them for some more personal engagement.
Or a helper ping for a new player! I want to be able to reach out and say hi and be friendly and welcoming and not just expect them to read text. Wolfery is overwhelming for a lot of folks!!
This is the idea behind Tom Greyback, the “station master” puppet found in Station 2, the room where (if I recall correctly!) brand-new players first appear. I see (from checking right now!) that he’s still there, so presumably you can ask to become a registered puppeteer and control him whenever you’d like. (See help puppets.)
I have a memory of some folks here feeling like this was a bit of a failed experiment (as @Kelmi alluded to), fearing that having a total stranger interact with you expectantly the moment you connect, before you even get your bearings, can be a bit overwhelming. I do see that his description implies that he only kicks into gear if the newbie greets him, though!
Has anyone inhabited old Tom lately?
I tried a couple times to get bot/puppet permissions for him a couple months ago without success.
And I concur, it needs to be a person that reaches out, to engage and welcome newcomers to what’s an overwhelming at-first system.
Further…it doesn’t have to be anything more complex than someone messaging and saying ‘Hi! Welcome! Type ‘helpme’ then your message if you have questions!’
So far, I’ve declined anyone without helper role to puppeteer Tom Greyback. So, I am the one to blame for that!
I think I’ve been the one controlling Tom the most. And from my experience I notice:
- many players get scared and simply just close the game when contact is initiated by Tom
- when greeting is initiated by the new player, Tom works pretty OK
- people get scared/quiet/leaves if Tom is too expressive. Simple poses works best:
Tom nods his head in greeting ,“Welcome, miss. First visit here?”
- people with previous RP experience can appreciate Tom, and often replies with longer messages, allowing Tom to respond in a similar way.
So, I’d say; Tom would work well, and is appreciated, as long as:
- contact is initated by player, not Tom
- poses are initially held short and simple.
You may not have a helper role, but if you are willing, I could give you access to Tom for a while?
3 Likes
Welp, wouldn’t mind tryin’. I’m on every week day CST from about 8 to 5 pm. Could help. Hopefully!
I’ve had friends who connected to Wolfery and got paged hello right away and they got creeped out. So messaging someone right off, probably not the best idea.
Careful. If the mod team doesn’t like you @Accipiter won’t care. They just blindly accept what their mod team says without question.
I am sorry, but this is incorrect. There was a recent thread about a moderator decision and once RL allowed him the time to do so, Acci replied that he reads the internal discussions of the mod teams. He doesn’t blindly accept what they decide, he understands the reasoning and, when necessary, steps in to correct things that are decided incorrectly due to the lack of information. That is what Acci said directly, not an interpretation of others words, either.
2 Likes
My apologies, I did not mean to imply there was constant oversight. But there IS oversight. To say that Acci has access and can read it says to me that he does in fact at least occasionally read it and thus the claim that Acci blindly accepts the mod team’s decisions is, as I said, incorrect. The statement that Acci has access to the decision making process means he set it up so that he has the ability to check in and review, though how frequently he feels he needs to do this has not been stated to this point aside from the occasional mention that he trusts the moderators to do their best. However, I do not think a statement on how often the decisions are reviewed would provide any confidence in the moderator team to those who are currently skeptical.
Just stepping in here to clarify.
What Ori was likely referring to was an incident of harassment/abuse that triggered the mod team to request that I did not make them a greeter. After looking into it and reading the internal mod discussions, I choose to comply with their request. But to avoid calling Ori out publicly, I DM’d them my decision. Their comment is likely from a misinterpretation of that post.
True. I do not involve myself in moderation and try to avoid the argumentative discussions related to them. It takes a heavy toll on me - and I am not good at handling the kind of resentment people express towards moderators when they feel mistreated (which people in general tend to feel even when showing the worst case of behavior). It is much better that I focus on coding, instead of laying awake at night mulling over moderation issues.
That said; I do read most everything related to moderation. I do follow internal discussions. I do, in the background, argue with mods in cases where I feel my opinion could be of use (I am often on the “let’s give them a 11:th chance” side, as those knowing me might guess 
).
But this is one of the cases when I feel I need to reply to a discussion to avoid the spreading of falsehoods. While I was asleep, mods have thankfully delisted some of Ori’s posts created to spread negativity or plain falsehoods on the forum.
I follow these events too. And I think mods have done good calls on this one.
TL;DR;
I read and involve myself in almost all of the moderators’ internal discussions. I avoid involving myself in actual moderation and discussions related to those incidents.
5 Likes