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Community change committe

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December 14, 2009 12:11:03 AM

Hi everyone,

I'll get straight to the point. The community manager idea isn't exactly working for us regular forum users. The whole approach that our forum community is at the will of a sole foreigner with hardly enough THG forum experience is horrible. (No offense intended to JustinBlue). How can you let one person take control of an entire community? We need people who understand the forum, the way it works, the bug, glitches and general gripes of the forum. We as a community need to be represented by our own, people who understand.

So here's my proposition, for the creation of a community change committee, a group of highly esteemed individuals elected democratically by the forum community themselves rather than by BoM management. A representative group of the community, designed to communicate our worries and woes to BoM and ultimately to influence the development and improvement of the forum community. People who can talk directly to their management. People who will change the face of Tom's hardware for the better.

How can we let other people make decisions for us as a community?

It's American Independence all over again!

We need to stick up for ourselves as a community. As a democracy.

We need to fight for our liberties.

We need change.

More about : community change committe

December 14, 2009 12:32:46 AM

Don't like me already? :( 

Just kidding. I don't even know if I have the job yet or not.

What if the Community Manager did just that? Formed a consulting group of the storied veterans? An advocacy group to help ensure the interests of the members are heard and considered by the higher ups.

Even if they did allow a 'community change committee' someone would need to be pointman to lead the committee and represent them with BoM. In essence, you'd end up with a Community Manager anyway but one they'd have no role in selecting.

The other issue is simply that the role goes beyond the forums. The social media aspect, forum staff meetings, contest operations, forum/main site integration, etc... The Community Manager's full role would not be covered by a 'community change committee' meaning they'd still need to hire someone anyway.
December 14, 2009 12:45:36 AM

Well, if a community manager did just that, they'd be a darn good one for a start.

What I'm talking about is the community managers from other forums. You're a million times more preferable than any of them? Why? Well simply because you are one of us, not some BoM hired person.

As a community, we don't want BoM electing our leaders for us. It's a puppet government system then. Even just letting us as a community electing the manager would be great. How many of us are fond of having a community manager we've never even seen or met?

I'm just saying though, more minds are better then one when it comes down to your job. No offense.
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December 14, 2009 12:52:05 AM

Wow...AFG....never knew... those are some fighting words (ohh... the irony..IIRC you are part French?),eh? Anyways, +1 for thy idea.
December 14, 2009 1:16:39 AM

Electing a community manager would possibly be in the interests of the community, but probably wouldn't be in the interests of BoM. They are paying the person after all.
December 14, 2009 1:22:09 AM

randomizer said:
Electing a community manager would possibly be in the interests of the community, but probably wouldn't be in the interests of BoM. They are paying the person after all.

I wasn't going to say it but that came to mind almost instantly, lol.

This wouldn't be the first time I've created a Forum Representative system.












I still need to be hired though. Come on BoM. Not fair making me wait all weekend to find out. This is your cue to inundate your BoM leaders with a recommendation on someone's *coughminecough* behalf.
December 14, 2009 1:25:56 AM

Our BoM leaders? They really are the government :o 
December 14, 2009 1:47:11 AM

randomizer said:
Electing a community manager would possibly be in the interests of the community, but probably wouldn't be in the interests of BoM. They are paying the person after all.


Oh c'mon we are the community for goodness sake.

If they kill the community, Tom's will die.
December 14, 2009 1:50:25 AM

AFG, I think what he's trying to say is that BoM wants to have the final say in who gets hired since they are the ones doling out the salary.
December 14, 2009 1:53:45 AM

I dunno.

Will it matter if someone they choose or someone we choose does the job?

They still have to pay them anyway. Right?
December 14, 2009 1:57:15 AM

Now if we can find an extra C, we can call it C4!
December 14, 2009 1:58:20 AM

How many companies do you know that aren't involved with the hiring of their own employees? Outside of outsourced temp staffing I mean.

EDIT:
Concerned Community Change Committee - C4.
December 14, 2009 1:59:44 AM

If I was paying someone to paint my house, I wouldn't want my neighbours deciding who should be hired.

EDIT: This is why they have HR people! You don't hand out fliers asking the local residents who you should pick for a position :lol: 
December 14, 2009 2:07:18 AM

Well, it's more like you're building a charity a PC. It's not for yourself, it's for the community. It's a totally different issue.

You'd let the charity tell you what THEY want from the PC, what software they will run.

Your analogy is taking the whole thing out of perceptive.
December 14, 2009 3:28:16 AM

The difference is that BoM is not a charity and is not hiring someone for a charity. They are a business and they exist to generate revenue ;) 
December 14, 2009 12:35:21 PM

I think the best you can hope for is a community manager that will take suggestions (seriously), or possibly even let a community group form to choose the best recommendations for him/her to look through.
December 14, 2009 5:36:59 PM

If you look at successful sites, like Extreme systems, or Anands, or Tech Power Up, all 3 have certain people in charge whove been there done that, know tech from top to bottom, or enough to assign the right people in the right spots.
Those right people arent always the ones getting paid, but theyre the right people anyways, and the community leaders of each site knows this, and it works quite well.
As a mod, I hope to be a asset of Toms, and theres plenty of Mods that definately are, as we arent just relegated to babysitting and nothing more.
Having a com director using that knowledge, and this approach can have positive effect for Toms, and it give good direction as well, and would of course need some fine tuning, but I say, go for it
December 15, 2009 4:13:56 PM

TheViper said:
Don't like me already? :( 

Just kidding. I don't even know if I have the job yet or not.


I do now.
Guess I won't be helping you guys after all.

Good luck with whomever they selected.
December 15, 2009 10:33:06 PM

Oh... great.
December 15, 2009 11:33:49 PM

Hopefully if things don't work out too well with the new guy they'll reconsider.
December 16, 2009 3:00:53 AM

I wonder who itll be?
Im hoping theyre at least reading this, and have the guts to be here on the forums with us, making Toms a better place, as no 1 single person can have as well and idea, as those of the many.
December 16, 2009 3:07:02 AM

I welcome anyone with the interests of both BoM and the community. Any person not actively involved can consider themselves bypassed by me when I need to send messages upstream though.
December 16, 2009 3:20:20 AM

JAYDEEJOHN said:
I wonder who itll be?
Im hoping theyre at least reading this, and have the guts to be here on the forums with us, making Toms a better place, as no 1 single person can have as well and idea, as those of the many.

That's something that has surprised me as well.

I figured all us guys competing for the position would be working the forums over to learn the community and get to know everyone but I've only seen 1 other person that applied post a few times (6 times to be exact) and he didn't get the job either.

December 16, 2009 4:33:08 AM

He didn't? Well in that case I have no idea who got the job, and that's even more disconcerting. I wonder if he's french.
!