Moderators wanted
Thomas Jackermeier
Member
The new forum could be launched at any time now but we need MODERATORS to help us to keep to the discussions clean and organized.
In several simracing communicties out there, there are multiple threads about Fanatec products but the threads are super long and information is very hard to find.
There are always two type of threads:
1. Anything related how to modify and tune your products
2. People looking for technical help on some specific problem
My idea is to make searate forum categories for all main products or product categories. So for each product there will be modding discussions and support discussions.
In order to keep a good overview we should avoid that the same issues are discussed in different threads. Therefore each discussion should represent one major issue and in the opening post you should find any helpful information how to solve this issue:
In several simracing communicties out there, there are multiple threads about Fanatec products but the threads are super long and information is very hard to find.
There are always two type of threads:
1. Anything related how to modify and tune your products
2. People looking for technical help on some specific problem
My idea is to make searate forum categories for all main products or product categories. So for each product there will be modding discussions and support discussions.
In order to keep a good overview we should avoid that the same issues are discussed in different threads. Therefore each discussion should represent one major issue and in the opening post you should find any helpful information how to solve this issue:
- Description of the symptoms
- Photos and videos
- How to repair or solve
- Link to drivers/firmware/manual
- What spare parts are needed
- And any other info which is needed
In the discussion below the opening post, people can comment if something needs to be changed or if the information was useful.
If your wheel is covered by warranty then you just have to contact our support but when warranty is over then the community can help each other here. We will also do our best to support that because we want our customers to buy our new products because they are better and not because their old wheel cannot be fixed anymore.
So if you like to help us and have experience with communities or moderation, please leave a comment and let me know.
Comments
I think many of us are tired of the negativity as well. Although I don't know for sure I would bet Thomas/Fanatec is too. I would wager that this forum will be policed quite well.
Thanks Kevin. Too many people just don't understand how long some decisions and R&D take. I have no clue how moderating works. I would try to help but the keyword here is "try".
I totally agree. There is a forum for a very popular racing title that does just what you're talking about. One moderator in-particular is the worst. The mods need to be people that won't engage in arguments but will stop them. I'm a firm believer of rules. A few straight forward rules would help. But I also think each situation should be looked at individually. Unless of course we are talking racism, sexism etc.. This forum is desperately needed. We need all those in support of Fanatec to ignore those that aren't. That's usually the starting point of arguments. Ie all the posts on Fanatec going out of business. This WILL work but everyone needs to be patient. As there will be a few issues at the beginning.
I believe that the community will be more succesful if the interests of the members are more important than the interests of the company. If we would censor everything, people would just move to somewhere else.
So the moderators we are looking for should not act as sheriffs and more like guides who make sure that information is in the right format and place so that it is easy to find and understand for everybody.
We want to let people feel comfortable here.
I see Fanatec as part of the community and not above it. The products we make are full of features we learned from you and at the end of the day we want to produce products the community really wants and continously improve ourselves.
I thought I'd just drop a line here to say I'd be happy to set aside 30 minutes or so a day to help administrate and/or moderate the forthcoming forum and blog here at fanatec.com. I'm a present or past staff and/or moderator at a few different hardware/sim/racing sites. Just look up username "posimosh" anywhere and to see my interactions with users and knowledge of software and hardware issues. Most recently I have become a fan of interacting on the iR forums as well as at GTPlanet, and the official FM forum (where I'm an ex-contributor). These days I mainly help folks with obscure hardware issues at isr.tv. In the past I have moderated at TORA, and a couple of more obscure league sites (some of which I helped setup using phpBB, proBoard, MyBB, and others (including some pretty terrible proprietary forum software installations).
I also work with CMS software (at my day job)... So I know my way around moderation tools (which are similar to CMS tools), and would like to think I keep a cool head in most situations. Furthermore, I am a fairly busy person and know when to admit that I don't have time to help administer a community and am not opposed to giving up the privilege of having "moderator" next to my name if the situation warrants it. Anyway, if you have further questions, I'm happy to share my usernames and such so you can check out my interaction with others online.
At the risk of going on and on about myself... I shall cut this short right about here. However, I do have a couple of links I'd like to share privately that represent some troubleshooting issues I have walked people through and some other instances of my web handy work (including pics and even a video or two.) I have quite a few fanatec devices at this point, some of which I have altered to improve the feel or functionality of a hardware device.Some of the posts are very old, while the posts at iR are less than three months old (for the most part) because I just started racing there in November of last yea.. Ok Ok enough about me... on to further discussion of the perimeters of community interaction and rules for the community in the soon to be "live" official fanatec forum....
PS. I'm not looking for free stuff or discounts.... Just want to support a product that I enjoy using and a company that treats customers right (you know that fanatec does if you have ever tried to legitimately RMA a logitec product... I have.... and they are terrible.)
I totally agree Steve!!!
A bold statement, yes, but what I've found through administering a forum of my own, is the best way to direct topics and to influence conversation is for the hardcore of general members (there is always one) to do the job of the moderators without the potential for ill feeling of a moderator jumping in and doing whatever. Far far better to guide conversation and debate than to smother it.
The problem with internet forums are that there is no inflection of speech, what you type is just cold hard words, it being very hard to articulate sentiment at times in the written word that is so much easier and natural in speech. The other problem is that people do seem to get unnecessarily upset or are willing to threaten or get abusive at the slightest thing if they deem it not to their point of view, which is where I think interjection from general membership is far far better than a moderator just deleting or editing. Being a cohesive, polite and respectful community can have far better results than having titled members who may become targets in their own right. Those titles underneath user names in forums do tend to act as magnets for abuse at times.
If the general feel of the community is right, the conversations are respectful, then that influences everything. As has been said, criticism should not be stifled, but it does need to be constructive with balanced input and points. From that can be born many good and productive things. I am concerned that a community that starts off on the defensive is maybe starting on the wrong foot, and the wrong ratio of members to moderators is part of that. Yes, there will be nay sayers and people wanting to get things off their chest at what they feel is wrong, but managing those people and hopefully turning them around should be the goal, and I think that is better done through the carrot rather than the stick.
I like a lot of what you have said here. I especially agree with it being impossible to tell someone's tone by the written word and internet muscles that people get. People tend to get more argumentative behind a keyboard than they ever would in person.
As far as no moderators, I disagree. And the reason being that this forum is linked to a company and business. Therefore it must be moderated to keep them in a good light. Having said that, if anyone is concerned with over moderating or rouge moderators doing whatever they wish, I don't think Thomas will allow that because it's not his vision of this forum or blog. Need proof? Go back and read posts at the old blog. He didn't have any moderators there. He allowed the community to speak freely. I think that's his vision here also. But with several threads he just wants it to stay on topic. So maybe there needs to be a "off topic" section. That way when we are in the CSS SQ thread discussing issues, someone doesn't pipe in with " when are you going to do X". I think that's our solution.
Yeah man, it'll work as any other usb hid device would. I mean I suppose fanatec could choose to pay for official ps4 licensing, but that opens a whole can of worms in terms of compatibility, exclusivity, and would cost extra money at the time of purchase that is unnecessary. I haven't seen the license agreement for the ps4 but I have for the ps3 (circa 2007), and xbox360 (circa 2011-2012) and I'm guessing that the agreement that third party controller manufacturers have to agree and adhere to are even more egregious than they were back when I read them years ago. Por exjampilo, ever wonder why you can't use your pedals as stand-alone on the ps3? It's because logitec agreed that the wheel and pedal devices would be combination devices and not separate components. Luckily, the standard (it's a standard not a method) that logitec upgraded to work with usb for ffb and wheel and pedal kits (from gameport) is open source so companies like fanatec and others can emulate for compatibility's sake.
Sony leaves this loophole open... Actually, you know what? This has all been said before.
Tell you what, if your fanatec kit doesn't work with ps4, I'll buy it.