Perspectives of Crystalline LS - Honest Feedback Sought

[Maeve]

I'm rather new to the forums and I have just been in the last beta so I am definitely a newbie to the whole FF scene. Therefore I thought I would share my first impressions:

 

Being a new forum member one of the first things I did was check out the linkshell listings and admittingly Crystalline caught my attention because I assess how active a guild is by the posts and threads on their forums, and they appeared quite active. I could see they were closed off for recruitment but this did not deter me because I've often seen Heavy IC guilds close recruitment to ensure character stories can be built up and developed with one another before letting more in. However, the reason why I closed the browser tab and moved on to viewing other LS was because of the religious/charity theme of the guild - this was not because I didn't like it, just because I knew Maeve my character would not fit into this theme.

 

At this point that was all I knew about the guild & I didn't think more about it.

 

Then I saw this thread.

 

To be honest it made me winch and let me explain why. In the past I've worked as a human resource advisor for a large multi-national mining company and from yearly we would conduct employee surveys in order to get feedback not just on our departments service quality but also their thoughts about the company as a whole in order to improve culture and perceptions. When I first arrived they did them on paper and each person would hand in the survey to their supervisor. Naturally the responses we received were not very detailed and mostly positive, they had learnt in the past that those employees that were 'too honest' would have a more in-depth interview and would be informed why their opinions were incorrect. Luckily a few of us started to voice our opinions of how we were losing the trust of our employees through this method and how we weren't receiving any useful or objective data. Therefore we hired an outside company to run the survey, it was completely anonymous and computer based so we never even knew who had written the response or even what department it came from.

 

I know, I know what you are thinking - a linkshell is not a company and you're not seriously expecting us to hire a company. Obviously not. However, during my time on the internet, and most significantly in the second life community (that does this a lot with their shop brands) has shown me there are sites where you can set up anonymous feedback and survey forms. I honestly think that is the best way of getting feedback as people know you don't know where its coming from. Furthermore, when receiving feedback while it is very tempting to refute or explain something that is viewed as incorrect, in my honest opinion it really should not be done. Let people say their piece, both good and bad. Wait till everyone has said what they wanted and then sit down and sort through it with your officers. Really assess each piece of information and soon you will have a list of things that require addressing in order to improve your LS or community perceptions. This can be done in steps without ever needing to reference the original feedback or explain why you are doing something. Just over time you will be fixing these 'problems' and hopefully people's opinions.

 

See the trouble of having a thread where you are providing immediate feedback and explaining your position is that for a newbie like myself, that has no prior knowledge of your LS, is that I now honestly am a bit wary of the guild. Why? Well because I have now been made aware that there is a bit of drama surrounding the guild. I wasn't even aware that the LS members were moderators on the forum - now I do. I didn't realise there was a perception of these mods having a conflict of interest, and regardless of whether it's true or not, I now have a seed of doubt in my mind. And so on...

 

So from my own personal opinion this thread -may- have done more hurt than good to the LS's branding and perception by others, well in the very least it has impacted upon how I view the LS.  I do think it's great that Crystalline is attempting to find out how it is perceived within the community, but just like with the initial survey methods of my original workplace I think the method of collecting this data is flawed and therefore you are not getting a full or honest picture. Worse may even be hurting your own brand image by going around it in this fashion. Its a mistake that many make (even massive professional mining companies! lol), and what counts is what happens from here and in the future. 

 

That is my honest, personal opinion and in either case I wish your LS all the best.

[Asyria]

I think Maeve nailed it just right.

 

I would add that this seemed very much unnecessary to me from the start. I believe I already mentionned that, no matter the amount of explanation, people will always form opinions and are not likely them change it from some PR.

 

Like we said in Star Wars The Old Republic: sith happens.

 

But mostly, if you skimmed through Maeve's post, I invite you to read it carefully. It was a good read.

[sciencerob]

I was going to post something similar to Maeve. Before seeing this thread I hadn't heard of anything significant that made me feel any positive or negative inclinations towards the LS but this thread had me wondering.

 

No one posted anything damning but the fast responses by multiple people would definitely have made me wary if I did have a problem with the LS. I definitely think Maeve post is worth several reads as well.

[Eva]

ADMIN EDIT: Thread locked due to author request.

 

Thank you for the additional feedback Maeve. The company I work for does something similar in contracting out a third party to perform annual surveys to assess employee satisfaction and any number of other things. While it may not be an identical scenario, earlier in this thread Alothia offered to take feedback and post it anonymously. I can still understand where there might be some reservation for that as well though.

 

The other point made was that this thread's very existence spoke to some element of concern. I admit I had some idea of this when I created the thread initially. Yes, I was putting ourselves under the microscope here and requesting honesty and some of that would include scrutinizing things. It was my hope that some might also see this for what it is as well - that being a genuine effort at furthering our self-awareness in the broader community. I wouldn't expect everyone to look past those flaws that we have to see a real desire to make some changes and adjustments to our community in order to better interface with the rest of the RP community, but I do think that is the point that underscores the reasons for this thread's creation.

 

It may be beside the point of the more recent posts, but from where I stand there has been a lot of really valuable feedback which has prompted us to take a closer look at ourselves, our policies, and the way we've operated thus far. Already we have enacted some changes, and there are a few more on the horizon. I admit there were taken some risks and I agree entirely with your post that some might view this LS more negatively, but I also feel this was necessary and that the opinion of some "on the outside looking in" - so to speak - has been worth that.

 

Finally, I'm of the mindset that this thread has run its course. I'd rather not discuss any further the merits or shortcomings of the utilization of this thread itself. Unless there is some specific thing about our group that hasn't been mentioned, I think this can be put to rest and if the thread remains inactive for a few more days, perhaps a mod could lock it for us after that time. This isn't to say I'm opposed to discussing our linkshell community any further or anything. I'm always welcome to hearing additional feedback. At this point though I don't know that it needs to be hashed out any further in front of the whole RP community so if you want to talk about your own impressions of Crystalline, I would invite you to visit our forums or send me a PM and I'll be glad to discuss anything further privately.

 

And again I want to thank everyone who did chime in and share their thoughts. I'm looking forward to our possible future interactions in ARR and I know that most in our little community are just as excited about it as I am.