We all like to get riled up by ratings and stress the importance of comments. I’m not here to convince you to change the way you use the site and interact with content. I don’t want to lecture you on the supposed ills of your behaviour. I have plenty of other Ptag posts where I’ve done that already. No, I just want to relate my own experience.

A few days back I was cruising through some of the completed works, looking for something to read. I was craving an ending, y’know? Anyway, I found some stories that looked interesting, gave them a read through, left a few comments and recommended one.

No big deal, right?

The next day I logged in and saw that one of those works was now on the most recommended list. Funny, because it had no recommendations the day before, and my comment was the only one. Suddenly the work had attracted three more comments and two recommendations. Why? I’d like to think that the sudden popularity was all my doing, but I know it wasn’t. Yes, I left that first comment and first recommendation, but I left them for a reason: the author did a great job telling the story!

The Protagonize community rewards those who put time into their writing, as time reflects passion. When you share you passion with others, often times the sharing continues. Sure, not every piece you write will garner a huge audience, and some might slip under the tide of newly posted chapters, stories, and pages. A little persistence goes a long ways and, if you’re here because of your passion for writing, readership shouldn’t be your be-all and end-all.

Then again, seeing those “one new comment was left on your work” notifications at the top of the page are always nice.

So keep on reading and, more importantly, keep on writing!

Image courtesy of Oh Geez! Design on Flickr. Thanks!

The moderation team and I would like to thank everyone who participated in our auditions. All of your entries were spectacularly awesome, and I was personally very pleased to see how much interest there was in the role from all sorts of members of our ever-growing writing community.

To those of you who applied, we’ll be keeping your applications on hand for future moderator selection, so don’t be too disappointed if you weren’t selected… you may just have to wait a little longer than you had anticipated. :)

And now, please join me in congratulating Namrata, our newest moderator — we think she’ll fit in with our team perfectly!

Now that we’ve reached the end of 2010, and with the new year encroaching a few brief hours away, what better time than to launch a little friendly competition amongst our Protagonize brethren?

Without further ado, I give you: the Protagonize Moderator Auditions!

Moderation on Protagonize

We’ve been short a moderator for a few months now, so I’ve decided that it’s time to staff up once more. As you’re all probably aware, being a moderator on Protagonize is a strictly a volunteer position, but it’s not without its benefits:

Moderators are able to: 

• Edit, delete, and otherwise manage most types of content (stories, users, groups, comments, etc.) found on the site
• Have free Plus-level account access during their tenure as a moderator
• Have full beta access to new features as they are released
• Get a their own @protagonize.com email address (!)
• Create an unlimited number of groups
• Access a special moderators-only dashboard showing trends on the site
• Discuss site-related (and other) topics within a private Moderators-only group
• Have a spiffy moderator badge on their profile and throughout the site
• Ban-Hammer™ spammers (this is probably the most popular feature they enjoy :)
• … and a bunch of other stuff I can’t recall off the top of my head right now.

So, you ask — details about the contest!

Basic moderator requirements

I’ve discussed this with our existing team of six moderators and I’ve had them put together a list of questions based on the original call for prospective moderators issued back in 2009. The requirements to be considered to become a moderator are (mostly) the same — to recap:

• Active Protagonize members who’ve been with us for at least 6 months and are passionate about the site
• Applicants should be at least 16 years old
• Applicants must be respected community members on the site (i.e. no outstanding reports is a good start!)
• Must have the time to commit to moderation duties
• Don’t be shy! Prospective moderators should be deeply involved in all aspects of our community
• Cool, calm, mature and level-headed folks will have the upper hand when applying
• Moderator status means you will actively represent and promote Protagonize on the site and in the world at large — try not to make us look bad ;)

(Feel free to dig through the original call for moderators post for more details about what the position entails.)

How will the auditions work?

Curious, are you? I’ve created a new group strictly for our moderator auditions. The group will be open and public for the duration of the “contest” — about 10 days — after which it will become restricted while our moderators judge the applicants.

The important bit:
Each and every applicant will need to create their own topic in the group’s discussion area, clearly entitled with their handle/name and that they are auditioning as a moderator. Within their topic, they will need to answer the list of questions that the moderators and I have assembled. There will be several questions to answer, some free-form and some specific. Failure to answer any of the questions will mean that your application will be disqualified from the auditions, so please make sure to read the questions carefully and answer them thoughtfully!

So… where do I audition again?

Go here:
http://www.protagonize.com/group/protagonize-moderator-auditions

Contest closing time & judging

Entries will close at some point on January 10th, 2011 (possibly midnight, possibly mid-day; either way, I’d suggest getting your application in early and avoid missing the deadline.)

We will be selecting one (1!) lucky prospective moderator from the batch of applications we receive. If you’re the lucky applicant, you’ll be notified within a few days of the close of applications. Once the selection is made, the winner will be promoted immediately.

Important note:
Please, don’t pester or badger myself or the other moderators for the status of your application — believe me, that will not help your case. :)

If you have any further questions, I’ve created a topic in the new auditions group where I (or the other moderators) will answer questions applicants may have. Please try and limit yourselves to asking questions only in that topic. I would prefer the group not become cluttered with random questions, so that the moderators and I can sift through the applications without too much trouble.

So, that said, on with the auditions! The moderation team is looking forward to reading your submissions. :)

Nick,
I have tried so hard, over and over again, to get re-engaged with this once fine site – but alas, most of us more mature writers have gone on to other places. It has become a chat room for middle schoolers.

Sad to see your hard work end up this way.

While I’m sorry to hear that some authors are no longer finding the site to their liking, I don’t see our current membership in quite the same negative light. As anyone who’s run a large, thriving community site knows, it’s an unavoidable fact that reputable, long-time members will come and go as your site evolves. It’s an unfortunate side-effect of growth, and one that I’m quite familiar with.

As a community manager, having poured your heart and soul into a project, it’s easy to become disheartened or frustrated when presented with comments like these. It’s easy to get rattled. It takes a lot more effort to keep the confidence you had when you launched your product and stick to your guns. But anything worth hanging onto is going to come at a cost.

With enough experience, however, you’ll understand that it’s all a part of the way things work. Without an influx of new members and a little displacement of existing members, a community’s population can easily stagnate. And a stagnant community is a dead community, which is why I try not to let this kind of sentiment get me down. It’s a by-product that anyone who runs a community will have to come to terms with eventually.

There’s another thing to keep in mind here: what was once a shiny new toy does lose its sheen after a while, no matter who you are. I’ve participated in many a community, whether it be in the social media arena or in the hobbyist or gaming worlds, where I’ve lost interest after being heavily involved for a lengthy duration of time. In any kind of closed system, particularly on free sites where no financial involvement is required, burn-out is not uncommon. Social network fatigue has been edging towards the forefront for at least the last couple of years.

To address the commenter’s point more directly, I’m quite aware that there’s been a definite trend towards a younger population here in the last year or so; I’ve given it plenty of thought. By younger, I’m referring to budding writers in the range of 13-to-18 years old. From my perspective, and from my experience at various technology and literary events throughout 2009, it’s a very telling statistic. It goes to show that there is an underserved market that needs to be addressed.

Although there might be a bit of clutter in our stories section right now, I’ll be introducing a number of ways to segregate and aggregate content into various areas so there’s a little less overlap between genres (especially roleplays.) The addition of dynamic content recommendations (particularly the subscription version) will also help to filter and personalize content to a level that individual authors are more comfortable with. And while it’s perfectly understandable that some of our existing membership may become a little disenchanted with this youthful trend, I think there’s a lot to be said for those who do stick around and help our younger members mature and grow into their writing ability.

As we all know, kids do grow up eventually (and I can say for one that I was once like them, not so long ago). I see offering them a creative outlet and being a positive influence in their writing as a valuable endeavour. And I’m going to keep doing it.

While it took a little longer than I had hoped, that means the site has doubled in membership in just over six months (we hit 5,000 around April/May 2009). I’m hoping we can keep that kind of growth rate up, so please keep spreading the word to your friends and family. I’m still encouraged by the fact that Protagonize feels like a small community when we’ve grown to a size I would have never imagined when I launched the site nearly two years ago.

On that happy note, I have more good news: at some point in the next week, I’ll be migrating Protagonize over to a much-improved server. We’re getting upgraded hardware courtesy of our hosting company, ServerBeach (a Peer1 company), and upgraded server software thanks to Microsoft’s BizSpark program. I’m hoping this translates into a smoother, faster site experience for everyone here.

I’d like to thank all of our authors and everyone else who’s made this possible. And I’ve got a whole bunch of neat stuff lined up for this month that I’ll be posting about regularly over the coming weeks, starting with the complete overhaul over the story writing form that I gave a sneak preview of earlier this week. Keep your eyes peeled for updates. Cheers!

There are still some things to be done, so please bear with me and be patient. We’ve been in beta for a few weeks now, but there are still outstanding issues and probably a few bugs to work out. I figured getting them up and running for the entire site sooner rather than later was probably in the best interest of everyone here, as opposed to waiting until I worked out every little detail and tiny feature.

Phase two will feature group creation and management, and phase three will let you add stories to groups. I may merge these two phases into a single release, depending on how things work out over the next couple of weeks.

To give you an idea of where we’re at currently, here are some of the things that are still to come for phase one (i.e. I’ll be adding these over the  course of the next week or so):

• Notifications: these aren’t turned on for groups yet (!)
• The ability to report topics (and eventually groups) isn’t enabled yet
• The main site activity feed doesn’t display anything group-related (for now)
• A list of groups you belong to on your profile, and in the main groups listing somewhere
• The group’s activity feed summary needs to be added to the Group Overview tab
• Group announcements aren’t editable just yet (group managers, this will be ready ASAP)
• The ability to watch/favourite a topic in a group
• RSS feeds on groups
• Search for a topic

Please don’t file bug reports for anything in the above list — I’m still working on this stuff so you’ll see it show up progressively over the next week or so. And as with all major site updates, you may need to clear your browser cache to get all of the changes.

In the meantime, enjoy groups. Feel free to send me feedback directly, or post suggestions or ideas in the fancy new Protagonize Pub, while you’re there. :)

Here’s the slide deck from my presentation. Video should be up within a week or so. Enjoy!

You can register for the event (registration’s not mandatory, just helpful) on Facebook or Upcoming.org. I’d love to see a few Protagonists down there — if you happen to come by, please drop by and say hello!

In other words, you guys made the choice much harder than I expected it to be. With this in mind, I ended up selecting seven (7!) moderators from amongst our membership. All of these authors have shown exceptional commitment to helping our community evolve and grow, and I think they’re all very deserving of this (somewhat awesome) recognition.

The worthy folks I’ve selected as moderators won’t have their priviledges until groups are released publicly, but for the time being, feel free to congratulate them all!

In addition, as a thank you to to those who weren’t selected as moderators, I have a little bonus for you. I’ve decided to give special beta accounts to everyone who sent in a application or expressed interest to me in some way about the moderator positions. I’ll be flagging these accounts in the next couple of days, and I’ll let you all know via email if you’ve been selected.

Drum roll, please…

Congratulations to our new moderators!

I’ll be contacting all of our newly minted moderators in the next day or two via email to discuss your responsibilities and when they’ll start. They’ll all be rewarded with free pro accounts on Protagonize (once they go live), and they’ll be granted full moderator priviledges in the next week or two.

In the meantime, please feel free to high-five all of these seven folks if you see them online. ;)

In alphabetical order…

AnaCristina	Tasha_Noble	darkliquid	Eloosive
JackRubashevskiy	jdxx	RedheadRose

Thanks again for all of the applications I’ve received — if you applied and didn’t make the first round of selection, there are good odds you’ll be first on the list if I decide I need additional moderators, so don’t despair!

UPDATE: I’ll be cutting off submissions/applications for the first round of testers at the end of day on Friday, May 1st, 2009. Please get your applications in by then!

You heard right: I’m looking for a few good Protagonists to act as moderators on the site starting sometime in the next few weeks.

I’ve got a bunch of huge new site features coming before the summer rolls in, and these new bits and pieces are going to require some active site members to act as moderators. I’m hoping to eventually have between 3 to 5 moderators from around the world to be able to handle day-to-day moderation duties on the site and in the new areas I’ll be adding when I’m either not available… or I’m asleep, which happens pretty often when we’re dealing with many of our European members.

Protagonize is now up and over 5,300 participating authors, which is starting to become a bit of a logistical nightmare for one person (err, me) to moderate effectively. Thankfully, I’ve already got a couple of lovely authors who volunteered to act as moderators months ago, and they’ve been helping me out regularly (and unofficially) by policing the site quietly and letting me know about any dust-ups or heated arguments that I haven’t noticed and need to intervene on. That’s exactly what I’ll expect from moderators in the future, except once I roll out the next round of major updates, they’ll actually have the power to do some of the work themselves.

What that boils down to is that I’ll probably be recruiting up to three members as new moderators (possibly more if you make the decision tough on me), in addition to the two I have lined up right now. I’ll also be picking people from around the world, as what time zone you live/work in is almost as important as your zeal for moderation. I’m particularly interested in adding at least one European moderator. (Hint, hint.)

What are the benefits of being a moderator?

• First off, being a moderator is not a paid position. It’s strictly volunteer, and you won’t be compensated in any way other than the prestige (ahem) of being a moderator in an awesome, thriving creative writing community like Protagonize. You will, however, be provided with some powers that regular members don’t have access to. And you’ll get a shiny moderator icon to display proudly on your profile. :)
• On top of that, moderators will have access to a private discussion area on Protagonize where all moderatorial (is that a word?) duties and issues that crop up on the site can be reviewed by the moderation team.
• Down the road, moderators will also get to beta-test new site features as well, but that’s not quite ready yet. And they’ll probably be the first to get some Protagonize schwag, once I decide what to have made. :)
• Moderators will be granted a free pro account, once they go live on the site. No, don’t ask me for details just yet; suffice it to say that you’ll be getting access to some really cool new features at no charge.

Another thing to note here is that moderators are not administrators. I’m still the boss, and what I say goes. True, moderators have some power, but they don’t have absolute authority. If they act out of turn, or people start complaining about abuses of power or a reputation for heavy-handedness, I can take that moderator icon away just as easily as I can give it to you. Something to keep in mind.

What are the requirements for becoming a moderator?

• If you’ve only been on the site for a few weeks or you haven’t really participated much in the site’s community, this probably isn’t the role for you. Our moderators need to be active Protagonize members who’ve been with us for at least a few months, and haven’t gone for weeks on end without being active on the site.
• I’m looking for respected community members on the site; particularly people who get involved in discussion with other authors regularly, are proactively helping out by putting out fires, greeting new members, and generally being model citizens: helpful, courteous, and outspoken. You don’t need to be a prolific writer, but you do need to be passionate about Protagonize, and enthusiastic about helping out your fellow authors.
• Make sure you have the time to commit to moderation duties. I’m not asking you to read everything on the site (I built those reporting tools for a reason!), and I’m not expecting you to be online for hours every day. What I would appreciate is if you check in regularly, hopefully once a day at least (unless you’re off on holiday, etc.) and keep the rest of the moderators updated on anything you’ve seen every few days.
• Don’t be shy! At least, not online. :) I want a selection of moderators who are deeply involved in the community from all aspects. They should have their profiles filled out, have a photo, and not be afraid to make their presence felt and heard. We need to show everyone that our moderators are real people, too, and having a photo and bio up will help other authors relate to you.
• Cool, calm, level-headed folks will have the upper hand when applying. The most important thing I’ve learned in running a large community singlehandedly for the last 15 months is actually something I’ve known for years: if you act rashly, overreact to a situation, or don’t take the time to think things through, you’re probably going to screw it up and make things worse than they already are. Having the patience to let something go and sleep on it is a virtue in community moderation. If you’ve shown this kind of maturity on the site the past, you’ll have an easier time applying.
• Moderator status means you will actively represent and promote Protagonize both on the site and in the creative writing community as a whole. In addition to being active on the site, I’d expect our moderators to take that level-headed and patient nature to the other writing communities they belong to outside of Protagonize. If you could promote our site to the outside world, even better. Just make sure to behave yourselves off the site, too. :)

Finally, don’t apply if…

• Moderation shouldn’t feel like work. The people I’m bringing on as moderators should enjoy their new role and if that’s not something you relish, best you don’t apply.
• If you’ve got a reputation for being a hothead, being hyper-sensitive to feedback or criticism, being a jackass to other authors, or for being overly argumentative on the site, this position is definitely not for you.
• If you’ve been reported for anything that I’ve reviewed and resolved in a negative way (i.e. if you have a red “reported” flag on your profile), you’re probably better off not applying.

Think you’ve got what it takes?

I think that pretty much sums it up. I’ll be taking applicants over the next few weeks, and I’ll notify those I’ve selected as soon as I make a decision. Once I’ve filled my quota of moderators, I’ll update this post to mention that applications are closed, and let you all know on the blog who all has been selected.

Interested in applying to be a Protagonize moderator? Don’t post a comment here — email me directly and let me know the 5 reasons why you’d make an awesome moderator. No more, no less.

I’m looking forward to seeing your submissions. You’re all amazing authors — so impress me! :)