Lack of Communication between GS Staff and the community

Note: this was posted initially on the blog of a certain admin. I am reposting this so I could get heard better. Here's the message:

"I don't know what's your opinion on this but I would really like to see the admins spending less time with enhancements and more time with fixing glitches and hang out with the community. Seeing admins more often discussing on the forums would be (at least for me and several other folks) better than almost any enhancement. The only admin that was more involved in the community was Dkittels, and it seems you guys fired him because he was "counterproductive" - meaning that, even though he made several wonderful enhancements like the new posts tracker, he was discussing way too much on the forums, and you guys thought it was counterproductive! Pretty bad, since he ran hundreds of miles to LA to work at GameSpot and that's how are you guys repaying his efforts?...

But my post isn't about Dkittels, but about the fact the staff members are more and more different from the rest of the community. Sometimes I feel like I'm in some medieval society where only privileged users can get to talk with the staff. I'm not saying any lies, the Ask GameSpot board, the chat room, the far more open communication between mods and admins are living proofs of the fact they're tring to limit interaction with the rest of the "noobs" on GS. I agree that Ask GameSpot would have been far more filled with spam if it was open to humble Basic users like me but Burning Questions is now gone and all I can do now is send a PM to a staff member and pray to God that the respective staff member will reply to my message.

It's not like I don't respect the staff. I admire their work and I am very aware of the fact they're all busy people, but there are other gaming sites with busy employees - and yet they interact far more often with the community than GameSpot. Why?... I know, I know, the staff interacted more often with the community when GameSpot wasn't so well-known around the world, but this motivation simply could not justify the cliff that was made between the staff and the regular GS users. Staff members are also normal people, why create the impression that they're some gods that don't talk with us mortals because we're mortals, not gods?... As I've said, I have nothing to complain about the work of staff members, but I (and not only) would feel a lot better if they would interact more with us. After all, a king cannot be the ruler of people he doesn't know, right?"

Yeah, i kinda agree to the point where you said, " they only talk to privilage users", I was always thrilled to see an admin answered my question but its just once in a lifetime. I really want to them to talk to other users besides privilage people, sometimes these "users", write some blog that isn't a great editoral and it got into the soapbox and that user got into the community spotlight too(I'm not going to name, names), I just get that feeling that they only talk to those people.

That user that you mention earlier, its not because of that, its probably because the lack of work he did, thats why they fired them and also gamespot isn't in LA, its in San Franisco.

Yeah. They do work...:? Maybe the staff who have free time can help. :lol:

I dunno about privileged users. I haven't encountered that as of yet. There are users who are more known than others and are very pro active in the community. I won't say who but there are some users who would like to add so and so as a friend. Also, it depends how they benefit GS.  

I also think it would be cool to see more admins post in more places but to be honest, i can totally understand why they wouldn't. GameSpot is their job, they probaly don't want to see any more of it outside their working hours. Imagine working somewhere and just going there, even when you aren't working at that time. Its a little different but its the same principle. Some of them post a lot, some of them post when they can and some of them don't want to feel like they are spending time at work when they actually aren't (well thats what i think would happen). They do post though, i once seen Jeff post in the UK board about something so it shows they do actually read posts and even drop a line here and there.

Yeah, i kinda agree to the point where you said, " they only talk to privilage users", I was always thrilled to see an admin answered my question but its just once in a lifetime. I really want to them to talk to other users besides privilage people, sometimes these "users", write some blog that isn't a great editoral and it got into the soapbox and that user got into the community spotlight too(I'm not going to name, names), I just get that feeling that they only talk to those people.

That user that you mention earlier, its not because of that, its probably because the lack of work he did, thats why they fired them and also gamespot isn't in LA, its in San Franisco.

ElendilElessar

That user that you mention earlier, its not because of that, its probably because the lack of work he did, thats why they fired them and also gamespot isn't in LA, its in San Franisco.ElendilElessar

I'd love to see this too, but we can't forget that the Admins are very busy. There's also an "Ask Gamespot" forum for subscribers, although there's not much discussion there from what I've seen.OhhSnap50893

[QUOTE="ElendilElessar"]That user that you mention earlier, its not because of that, its probably because the lack of work he did, thats why they fired them and also gamespot isn't in LA, its in San Franisco.IonescoF

While I agree with your overall point...I REALLY don't appreciate your assumptions that Dkittels was let go because he posted in the forums too much. Not only is that not something that should be considered your business at all, but it's totally unsubstantiated. This has been discussed between the mods and the admins, and things fluctuate, but in the end...it's not part of their job. Yeah, it'd be nice to see regular admin posters, but they shouldn't be forced.spazzx625

I'd love to see this too, but we can't forget that the Admins are very busy. There's also an "Ask Gamespot" forum for subscribers, although there's not much discussion there from what I've seen.OhhSnap50893

From what you seen on somebody getting let go? All of us are complete outsiders when it comes to something like that. We don't see what happens in the background, we see message boards and features that they produce but nothing else. It is simply jumping to conclusions without factual background knowledge. 

[QUOTE="OhhSnap50893"]I'd love to see this too, but we can't forget that the Admins are very busy. There's also an "Ask Gamespot" forum for subscribers, although there's not much discussion there from what I've seen.IonescoF

I can't speak for everyone, but I know many staff are active on the site. Some have two accounts (one staff one not) and some aren't even marked as staff in the first place. I post when i find it relevant and I read all posts I see that might contain anything remotely consequential to the improvement of the site. I even visit the site when I'm not working.

During the day we are usually very busy working on making the site better. It is encouraged to use the websites, but it is not required in any fashion. I would love to post more, but I think right now I post when it matters, and that's the best you are going to get :)

Please don't assume we are ignoring things just because you don't always see us responding. Between all the various people here (community, developers, production, qa, art, sales, editorial, etc) we have a pretty good grasp on what is going on on a regular basis.

I see the moderators and GameSpot staff members' posts frequently, just about every day I'm on the forums actually. I think you're overreacting a bit, and like you said they're busy people. They're busy runing a site, and it's their job, it isn't their job to post on the forums all the time.Ryo_Kensen

It is frequent to see moderators posting as they are members of the community anyway. They are forum moderators who before they became mods, would post anyway.  

Your concerns are appreciated.

Over the past few months we've been working on a number of community related projects that we should really see materialize in the next few months. Part of that has also being knee deep in Customer Service as we've been short one person since late last year. We're in the process of hiring a replacement as we speak. That coupled with a few of the community initiatives launching soon should free some time up to spend more in the community.

I’ve also found over the years that “posting” isn’t as simple as spending 15 minutes here and there with the community. I’d be more than happy to be in IRC chat and drop by for a few here and there and going afk when I needed to because I can end the conversation properly. In forums you are having an ongoing discussion that can have an unpredictable number of responses that you may or may not have to respond to over an unpredictable amount of time. Simply posting with short time may feel like a half hearted effort and is sometimes avoided for just that reason. We will work on it though. We appreciate your understanding.

Geig3r/Kurtis

While it would be nice to see more administrators on the forums, it's not their job. I've seen some administrators who never post, and others who only post a few times. They are busy working on the site.

One of the main reasons why we don't get a lot of responses on this forum, is because too many people take an administrator's response literally. If they said that they liked a feature that was suggested, someone might think that that meant that it would be implemented