Community Helper Announcement

[Isokron]

Following our recent announcement regarding The past year and the future for 90MF, we have been looking at ways to allow us to focus on development as much as possible whilst also improving our responsiveness and providing better support to our users.

We have also had a number of controversies in the past with the Community Helper system. This is partially to do with the fact that there has been no real process to attain the suitability of a user for the role so we have in effect allowed anyone who wanted to help, to help! As the game grows there is a real need to improve our processes and the lines of communication so that users can better know who to come to if they have a problem, who to come to to discuss potential bugs, who to come to if they suspect foul play and who to come to if they simply just need a bit of help.

We will be removing the status of all current CHs and asking them to reapply to be a CH. This will allow the CHs who do actually wish to continue in the role to potentially do so assuming they have the appropriate knowledge, and those who perhaps would rather not be a CH anymore to quietly take a step back (as we know from past experience that it can be awkward for them to come to us and say they don’t want to do it anymore!). If there are any CHs that would prefer to not be part of this new setup going forwards we would like to extend a debt of gratitude for all your help, and also would like to reassure you that you are welcome back anytime.

Potential CHs will now complete a questionnaire to ensure that their knowledge of how the game works is good enough for them to be able to correctly answer the majority of questions users might have about how the game works. We will also be considering factors such as fluency in languages other than English and what times of the day they tend to log into the game as we endeavour to provide 24 hour support to as many people as possible going forward.

We will be giving new roles to a few of the current CH’s - Tino, Kevin and Steve. All of whom have made really positive contributions to the game as CH’s, often going above and beyond the ‘call of duty’, and have been doing so ceaselessly since way before 90MF was even launched on Steam Early Access. We are delighted that discussions with these users went extremely well and they are all more than happy to help despite it requiring a substantial time commitment from their behalf to do so.

Tino will be taking the role of Community Helper Team Manager and will now be directly responsible for the Community Helper team. He will also be the focal point for any problems users may have as his CH Team will have a ‘direct line’ to him and report to him directly. Tino will have a ‘direct line’ to the developers if any urgent issues need to be addressed. At the moment we have so many ways for users to contact the dev team that some real issues jumbled within all the noise are not replied to in a timely manner or sometimes missed all together. By channeling all of this through Tino and his team of Community Helpers in the first instance we will be able to provide a much better level of support where it is needed. And in many cases help will be provided instantly.

Kevin’s role is primarily a user liaison officer. He has been chosen because we believe he is pretty much universally respected within 90MF for his efforts, as well as in other online Football Management games in the past, and that he is as close to being an impartial user as we could realistically ever hope to have in this role. If you have any issues you are not comfortable bringing up with Tino or any of his CH team then Kevin is the person to approach.

Steve has been helping with the social media side of things in the game and will be continuing to assist with podcasts, Twitch stream and promoting the game in general.

Both Kevin and Steve will also act as confidants to Tino to help him in what will surely be an extremely difficult role. They will both also have a ‘direct line’ to the development team and CH’s can contact either of these if there are any urgent issues that need to be brought to the attention of the Dev team when Tino isn’t available.

Tino, Kevin and Steve will now appear in the game client as being "Tino {Admin}", "Kev {Admin}" and "Steve {Admin}" respectively.

Just for avoidance of doubt, please be aware that these (and the CHs) are unpaid, voluntary roles so please treat these guys and gals with the respect they deserve. We all get frustrated and angry at times, but everyone who helps out is doing it for the good of the game so please consider this when communicating with them. Whilst we very much expect that these users will strive to fully understand all information about how the game works that is publicly available, these users are not afforded any ‘special’ knowledge about the inner workings of the game. The only exceptions to this are when they may find out about something shortly before that information goes public - for example Steve’s involvement in the podcasts.

So in summary:

• If you need help with an in-game issue you should be able to contact any CH online and they should be able to help. If they are unable to help they will escalate the issue.
  
  
• If you have any issues with suspected “cheating”, these should go to Tino who will now be acting as a data collecting point to present cases to the developers (or alternatively please email [e-mail]). Please be aware that we very much encourage users to go to Tino with these issues but he will NOT be commenting on ANY individual cases or providing ANY feedback on these. If action is warranted it will be dealt with internally. The only time cases are made public is if one of the users involved in the case who has had action taken against them CHOOSES to make it public.
  
  Please note: Accusing someone of cheating is a serious accusation and just because you believe a user is cheating does not necessarily make it so. For users publicly accused of cheating, it is very damaging to their reputation regardless of whether or not they have actually been cheating. It is very easy for someone to find something that looks a bit fishy and put two and two together and accuse someone of cheating, but (quite rightly) it is much harder to establish a concrete foundation strong enough to actually punish someone for cheating. All information reported to us about cheating is logged, it may be the case that there isn’t enough evidence to act right now, but it will help towards building a case whereby we can take action against that user in the future. Thank you in advance for respecting the fact that we can not discuss individual cases.
  
  
• If you find any bugs or have suggestions about UI improvements, please continue to use the “Submit Feedback” mechanism in game. By doing it this way the developers receive extra information which can help to find issues more efficiently.
  
  
• If you have any suggestions that alter gameplay in some way, these should be posted on the Steam Discussions (forum) to open it up to the entire user-base for wider discussion. There have already been many changes made to the game because users have brought their ideas to the forums for wider discussion.
  
  
• If you would like to be considered as a CH please contact the Community Helper Team Manager (Tino) in the game client or email [e-mail]
  
  
• Please avoid going directly to an Admin in the first instance. They are often online but not available to help. In 99% of cases the matter will be dealt with quickest by using the proper channels (i.e. Community Helpers, who can escalate if appropriate)
  
  
• Please remember not to discuss “cheating” in public chat. This is against the code of conduct (and could lead to disciplinary action being taken against you for making such accusations). Not only is it grossly unfair to the individuals (especially considering the possibility that they may not in fact be “cheating”), but discussing it in public also makes it significantly more difficult for enough evidence to be gathered in order to lead to action being taken (as these users will realise they are no longer “getting away with it” and may potentially change their behaviour accordingly).

Tino, Kev and Steve will be taking up their roles (as well as processing the CH applications) with immediate effect as of this announcement. CHs should pass all information regarding “cheating” to Tino with immediate effect. Current CH’s who wish to reapply for their status will have until the end of August to do so. This should give everyone ample time to decide if they would like to be involved going forwards in this new setup that requires a greater level of responsibility and commitment from them.

We are extremely lucky to have so many committed and dedicated people willing to help us, both with the Community Helper side of things and in other areas of the game as well - such as the wonderful assistance a few users have given us with our 'generated names' database which now contains hundreds of thousands of unique names covering every single football playing nation in the world.

Overall, we believe these changes will help us become more efficient, give a better service to our users, streamline the process to gather information on “cheating”, and hopefully take some of the strain of this side of the game off the development team to help them focus on what we all want: development!