Team and site changes incoming for HotS

As we all know, the Heart of the Swarm BETA is well under way. This means that release is surely not too far away. The Wings of Liberty BETA went for a relatively small duration of 5 months, and the Heart of the Swarm BETA has a lot less base-functionality to test (it was already tested in WoL).

So it's safe to say we're not far away from getting our hands on Heart of the Swarm, and there's no denying that recently there's been quite a lack in activity here on our website. That said, activity hasn't been too bad on Battle.net itself.

However, some changes are incoming which I think will improve things in general for Proxiteam, and hopefully bringing these changes in on the release of Heart of the Swarm will be a good opportunity to bolster some activity.

The changes I have in mind are:

• No more applicant system
  The applicant system is good in that it's a good way for a player to put their hand up and say "Hey! I'm interested! Keep your eye on me!"
  
  But we've found over the past couple of years that what this can lead to is a lot of dudes just putting their name on the list and moving on, forgetting about us, hoping that maybe one day they will just end up on the roster without much effort. That's not what we're about, so we're going to go back to the old method of Proxiteam recruitment and that is - there is no recruitment strategy. We will go quietly about our business and eventually if someone has been hanging around the channel and seems like they've become part of our community and is actually interested in playing the game with (and for!) us, they will eventually find themselves on the roster.
  
  
• Team Roster Clean-up
  The roster is currently full of inactive players, or players who have defected to other factions. The roster will be purged come the beginning of HotS. Players who are active at the end of WoL/Beginning of HotS will remain on the list or be put back on the list very soon after the purge. I want the roster to be a lot more accurate than it has been in the past. No more exceptions for old members. If you're inactive, you're off the list. Activity will be judged by one simple rule. If you played less than 20 games in the previous season, you are off the roster.
  
  
• Management Shuffle
  I am going to start having some discussions with our players and community members regarding primarily the following:
  • What roles are required?
  • What roles do our members (if any) feel they might be able to fill?
  In the past we've just sort of created the roles out of thin air and nominated (instructed) people to fill them. I want some input from as many people as possible as to what kind of management people we need, and if so, who would be the best for these roles provided that they actually want to fill them.
  
  
• Deletion of Facebook Group in favour of Facebook Page
  Groups just aren't as good as pages. And when we have both, our content is being split up, and we have members contributing a lot (like Kade) and their content is suitable for a public facing page but only reaching a few people. The Facebook page will allow us to reach a greater audience and concentrate our social presence in one location.

These changes are ones that I thought must be implemented at the turn of WoL to HotS if we want to freshen up and re-group for the next instalment and be the fun, active team we were in the beginning. Please express your comments if you disagree, and especially if you have input toward any of the questions I suggested.

Thank you.

I agree with removing the applicants list as well. I think this could lead to making the site more open to the public, allowing proxiteam to function more like a community. As far as I remember, you could only become a member (to post in the forums and shit) if you were applying to join the team. Removing the applicant system should open the community up naturally!

Of course there would still be the team roster (visible to the public) but members could have their own section in the website for events such as clan wars or team exclusive events / news that the general public need not know about.

Maybe a streams section too?

PS: any way to change my gamer handle? I don't like Wharny anymore haha

Patchy,

People have always been able to register with the site and not be on the applicants list or the roster. I'm not sure where that assumption came from. But either way, if you think these changes will help eliminate that assumption, that's good to hear.

I've changed your handle to Patchy now.

Oh really, my bad, I kinda assumed that anyway 'cause i only registered to apply for the team I guess.

A couple more points:
I think a twitter presence would be good.
Splitting up the team roster to different teams or divisions based on ability.

We do have a Twitter.

Do you see the left-hand navigation of the website? Look at the very bottom of it.

I was tweeting quite regularly from it for awhile, when we had clan war results to post and what-not. But with the recent inactivity I gave up.

We weren't getting a whole lot of interest with it anyway. If someone else wants the login details and wants to be in charge of our Twitter presence, I can organise it.

my names Mike il be hanging around the channel a lot to play games with you guys ! i remember you guys back from BW ! awesome team!

sounds very cool. ill be around

A roster clean-up now woud be great to see, that list seems useless right now.

Yeah, to be fair I deserve to be cleaned off of the roster, but I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt, as its a new game, and I plan on only playing sc2 and exercise until july, so hopefully my activity won't be nill. Discretion to the higher ups of course!

<Insert random comment about tyrannical dictatorships for no reason other than to trigger Dwain rage here.>

I'm very much in favor of us getting to the bottom of what holes to fill. prOxiteam members are very good at filling holes. nomsain?

gross

NapE wrote:

gross

haduhz ullaz bees haden.

How about that roster clean-up / removal of the applicants list?