Improving our Events system

    At the time of writing, it is currently unknown if there are any events scheduled to take place within the following days. However, what is known is that the most recent event was not successful, nor was it close to it either. As you all know, I've hosted countless events on Total Freedom in the 1.5 years, and I feel that my words could have an impact on how the team is managed, as well as how events take place.

    Score-based Approval

    My first suggestion applies to how an event comes to fruition. Back in Lyicx's time, and more towards the start of his term as Executive, event hosts had to fill out a document detailing their event and chronologically order how the event would play out. We also had to feature a ruleset as well as highlight any possible problems we could encounter, with their solutions too. This system didn't make it too far, but I think it's a good idea. I'd like to improve on the original idea though with a score-based approval system.

    The way this approval would work is by featuring multiple points that have a score and you add these scores up to form a total. If you don't meet a certain threshold, your event cannot pass through. An example is shown below.

    Given that this event is missing 2 marks off of 20, which is the threshold, this event shouldn't take place but should be reviewed further to see if it can be executed better.

    Using one week per month for planning

    I can't lie to you all, the management and scheduling of events is all a shambles, mainly due to poor scheduling and a lack of communication across the team. I'd like to bring forward something that might make it easier: the use of one week per month for the purpose of planning events for the next 3 weeks. There's around 4 weeks in a month, that's at least 8 potential events, if 2 took place every weekend. Although we'd only have around 6 with this system, it'd still be a lot higher than our current amount.

    Every event host would be required to attend a meeting in this dedicated week - the meeting would go over who could host which event for each month, with their being a backup host for each event. After the initial scheduling stage at the meeting, each event host would be granted access for one day in the following weeks to run test events, using players on freedom-01. If this is implemented, we'd probably see more events taking place.

    Utilising Discord's Events System

    In the past we've just posted an announcement in the dedicated channel in our server for events. However, Discord's got this amazing Events system which I'm sure those in the server have seen. It's really good as when an event is ongoing, it lets people know so those who don't show interest will still see it. Furthermore, this system can help to build up hype for an event as people can show their interest. This is a really good feature and I'm not sure why we're not using it yet.

    I want to know what people think of these suggestions. Speaking from the perspective of an experienced event host, as well as a Discord Manager for 2 servers with over 15,000 members, I think these suggestions will help our events system greatly.

    I'm going to be honest, I actually prefer events that are more spontaneous. They tend to be more successful from what I've noticed. Golfing is one of those things that we barely plan for, and yet it's kind of become tradition to do it every now and then as a community.

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    ↩  videogamesm12 I’m going to be honest, I actually prefer events that are more spontaneous. They tend to be more successful from what I’ve noticed.

    During my time as an Event Host, I hosted events spontaneously as test events including random spleef games in freedom-01. However, I also hosted events such as bedwars and SMP.

    Both my spontaneous and planned events had good turnouts. In fact, my unofficial spleef event in January caused the server to reach 32 players.

    Feel like this is all very formal. A very subjective scoring system, forcing event hosts to attend meetings, backup hosts etc.

    Obviously events should be planned and prepared in advance but I feel like this is over the top and the amount of rules and regulations in place here will likely put people off wanting to become or remaining as an event host.

    And honestly for things like this we need to focus on quality over quantity. Way too much focus is put on player count, and while that's often important, I'd rather have 4 players having a fantastic time in an event than 8 or even 12 players kinda just there.

    Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.

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    ↩  erin amount of rules and regulations in place here will likely put people off wanting to become or remaining as an event host.

    I feel that for the time being we will need some form of rules and regulations to ensure high quality events take place.

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    ↩  erin And honestly for things like this we need to focus on quality over quantity. Way too much focus is put on player count, and while that’s often important, I’d rather have 4 players having a fantastic time in an event than 8 or even 12 players kinda just there.

    The reason for this suggestion is both for high quality events whilst keeping a focus on player count. Recent events haven’t been as high quality and I feel that if they had more planning it’d have been better.

    Edit: I’d also like to add that these ideas are similar to what we use in other communities I manage. More spontaneous events like golf are still planned - they just only have a time planned.

    Events are something that Ryan has said he most likely will phase out, but I don’t want them to be and I don’t think many others do.

    ↩  Allink Currently, event hosts don’t have access to the events server. They need to request the current team leader to add the required files, and it actually uses up so much time.

    What I think is best is for there to be allocated days for event hosts, where they can actually have some uninterrupted time with a server admin or the team leader to get the event up and running.