Unofficial forums sound off: Part 2 (PhoenixRed)

This is a continuation of our interview with Warhammer Online's unofficial forum administrators. In part 2, we put the same questions to and Frank "PhoenixRed" Sanchez of Warhammer Alliance...

What was your immediate reaction to Mythic's announcement that they will be hosting official WAR forums and why?

PhoenixRed: We actually learned about OFs for WAR back in December. There were some rumblings and some goings on within the company and we have a few connections over there that told us this might be coming down the pipe. My original reaction, one that still persists to this day, is curiosity. Those people that know Mark Jacobs and Mythic from back in the days of DAOC know that they've never had any kind of preference to have official forums for a variety of reasons. They are a huge cost and definitely a huge time sink. The other reaction I had was "Wow!" It's going to be insane. Speaking as someone who has moderated forums over the past decade or so, it's definitely a challenge. I wish the community team and moderators responsible for managing and herding the community nothing but the best. I sure hope the people they bring on board have prior experience with online communities.
What are your opinions on some of their proposed forum features (paid mods, strict COC, special privileges, etc.)?

"Special privileges are a nice incentive... but they can also encourage the same kind of drama that you don't want to deal with."

PhoenixRed: There are some interesting things that Mark has said in his initial post. Some are expected, like paying your moderators. Managing your forums is a full time job. There are a lot of menial tasks that go into managing a forum. In a day and age where you can just post what you want within seconds, you definitely need to be right on top of things. Paying moderators is expected and welcome. As for the code of conduct, I honestly wish that more forums took the effort to have some kind of clear posting guidelines.

As far as special privileges go, I would caution Mythic to be very careful of the one thing that is always a changing beast when it comes to forum management: subjectivity. Special privileges are a nice incentive that encourages people to participate but they can also encourage the same kind of drama that you don't want to deal with. Despite choosing a few posters to be in a privileged group, I hope they listen to the entirety of the feedback.

Finally, only allowing active subscribers to post on your forums has many good aspects like cutting down on extra negativity, noise, and clutter. That said, I think these voices should still have a place in the community. The trick is to get non-subscribers to contribute constructively.

How do you feel about Mythic releasing official forums several months after release?

PhoenixRed: I think Mythic is making an adjustment based upon how EA is supporting their other games but also how customers have communicated to them concerns that they need to be better at disseminating information. The disadvantage of having so many places to go to is that none of the information is in one place. With OFs, you're able to communicate from the top level down in one place. The con is probably going to be a hit to PR. Mark has been against OFs for so long. A 180 like this may make a lot of people lose their trust. Don't get me wrong, I think he does a great job, but at the same time, when you say things like that, you have to deal with them when they come back around.

Mark said he would maintain a relationship with your forums for all the past support you have given Mythic. Can you give us any details?

"Mythic knows that fan sites are going to remain relevant whether or not they have their own forums. "

PhoenixRed: I can't really give you details because we've only just started with those kinds of talks. One concern that's popped up is that with Mythic having OFs, no-one's going to come to our forums anymore. That's totally untrue for many reasons. The channels with Mythic are certainly open. Mythic knows that fan sites are going to remain relevant whether or not they have their own forums. They have a vested interest in maintaining relationships and I don't think it will change once they launch OFs.

Where does your forum go from here? Do you have any big things planned in the near future?

PhoenixRed: We've already made adjustments in order to deal with the obvious effects. While we recognize that developer posts are not the only reason people visit our forums, it's certainly a factor in our traffic. What we're really going to focus on more is content generation: articles and community focused / community driven ideas. In December, we hired a really great bunch of volunteers for our community content team. I can't thank them enough because they've been doing a lot to generate content for WHA from things like spotlights on the community to feature articles on various things the community is doing in WAR. Other things we're working on are opinion columns, podcasts, etc.

While OFs can provide a catchall for official communication, there's a lot of value in unofficial discussion, otherwise every fan site out there for any game out there would probably be dead. We'll also be working on new things with Curse, such as updates and expansions to WarDB. The biggest thing we want to do is make sure the community will always have a voice on WHA regardless of official forums or not.