Community Talks
Hi everyone!!
I believe it is time to talk about community talks again. Last time someone talked about it in depth was @Dualninja in this post, and that was almost a year ago already. If you don't want to read any, TL;DR at the bottom!
Why do we need to talk about this?
First of all, let's state that I think it is important to give an honest and unbiased look at the suggestions of the community from time to time. That means that if I start whining about MinerWare and how it should return again, sometimes you should just look past that (even though it is a great suggestion and a lot of people agree with it). Some suggestions are not good for the network or are not worth the time, even though you might think of it as a good idea yourself. It is hard to do this alone, so the communities input on suggestions is necessary for this.
That being said, we have to talk about the current and previous way of how feedback has been handled. Starting off all the way back with Escalated threads, a system where staff people could 'forward' or 'mark' the threads they thought were great for the network, or if they had a ton of interaction. This system did not work for a couple reasons. First of all, this could be very subjective and biased, a thing I described as bad just above. Secondly, not all threads were seen this way, making it sometimes tough for people that made suggestions that were just skipped anyway. And lastly, there was no clear line in what was and wasn't forwarded, making it feel unfair from time to time. That's why at the start of 2021 (can't find the thread announcement sadly), the system was replaced with what was one of the best things that could happen to suggestions
The new system introduced the
and 
reactions. If a suggestion would hit 25 , it would be forwarded to the admin team immediately. This helped a lot of suggestions gain traction in the community, made the forums peak on the amount of members and helped the community to engage on a whole new level. The system actually helped a ton of suggestions to get the implemented tag and appear on the network itself. Sadly, with the size of the team shrinking, the community manager being removed/fused into other positions and the forums losing traction as a whole, the system was put on the side (again, cant find the post). Suggestions now would only be reviewed by admin's choice, meaning no guarantee on response even if you had 100 s.This system did not work in the slightest. All previously forwarded and planned threads have been untouched ever since, with some of the games those suggestions were about being already removed from the network. Besides that, the team failed to respond to suggestions in over a year in 2023 and 2024. It was only logical that there would come a sound to increase the response rate. And so there showed up a thread with the community update. This brought things that were highly appreciated, e.g. the discord community corner, as well as things that were less praised, e.g. the feedback team. Even though the suggestions finally got a bit more attention, it stumbled upon problems similar to the Escalated system. It therefore was removed as a whole around a month later, without leaving any valuable impact.
The current system, even though barely used as well anymore, consists of a new tag suggestions can get: the Cam Reply tag. This tag shows that the Admin in charge, @Camezonda, responded to the thread. Very cool, very nice. However, we haven't seen this tag get used a lot, very selectively and not anywhere past weeks/months. Even though there have been a ton of suggestions, some good, some bad, it is necessary to keep the community involved. This system does not do that, therefore I believe it has to go and make place for something better.
Why then Community Talks?
Again, community input is great, and what better way to get it than to actively chat with people, being a call or a chat conversation. What the forums fail to allow is short conversations with fast responses. Discord does this way better. The Community Corner however gives too much of a Forums vibe to actually encourage people to go into quick conversations and easy share of opinions. Discord is the way to go over forums, but just not the way it is being used right now.
To make a general place to gather feedback about a topic is to involve the community better. It doesn't even matter about what topics we talk: every topic can improve in some way, even if we are not aware right now. Just starting the conversation from time to time would be nice. I don't even ask for a bi-weekly one, just once every 2/3 months would be great already. This should be a scheduled moment where people can share their opinions freely and go in an in-depth discussion where the admin team actually listens and uses the feedback that has been offered. Topics that can be talked about are MinerWare, the Limited Time game-modes, possible partner stuff, seasonal events, etc. You name it!
The way community talks work allow it to be easily accessible by the entire community (involved, new, casual or try-hard), gather a lot of feedback quickly and efficiently and makes the community feel heard. Right now, all these points are lacking. Forums feel as useless as ever and I don't even know if the three agree reactions I will get from this post even matter anyways. However, I got faith. Faith in CubeCraft, faith in the admin team and faith in a return to its former glory. Only listening to a player perspective might help from time to time.
Thanks a lot for reading, if I missed anything, let me know! Peace out!
TL;DR - Community has been neglected in their opinions on updates and suggestions on games. Previous systems have failed for different reasons to make people feel heard. Community talks have been doing this the best, therefore I think they should return, even if it is only once every 3 months. Every bit helps.
