Long(?) ago, the FEU Discord server underwent a Rolevolution that changed up how users were displayed. It was… questionably followed and there have been inconsistencies with adherence since the beginning.
I want to propose a new system that is easy to follow and has none of the charm:
Role categories and colors are abolished for non-staff. Staff and special utility roles like Bots are blandified–reduced to simple, utilitarian names like Administrator, Global Moderator, Section Moderator, etc.
Role pingability is replaced with a set of bland, descriptive, opt-in pingable roles:
- helps_with_writing
- helps_with_eventing (possibly split into or coexists with:)
- helps_with_febuilder_events
- helps_with_EA_events
- helps_with_assembly
- helps_with_game_design
- helps_with_art (possibly split into or coexists with:)
- helps_with_portraits
- helps_with_animations
- helps_with_map_graphics
- helps_with_music
- helps_with_buildfiles
- helps_with_febuilder
The names and specializations here are suggestions. I’ve probably forgotten some useful roles here.
Users can get as many of these as they want. Users can request to have them removed at any time, too, but getting snippy about it is an instant warning.
Channel descriptions are updated with a reminder to ping the relevant helps_with_ role, with a reminder that abusing pings will result in an instant warning. A reminder to check if people were recently pinged might be helpful, I don’t know.
An optional expansion, because I know people like this:
Generically-named color roles. Just use the existing role colors but remove the names in favor of generic ones.
This system should be easier to maintain. I didn’t think the original rolevolution was hard to understand from both a user and an implementer perspective, although I definitely have made mistakes as a moderator when assigning roles.
There’s nothing really pressing about this–the issue of people not understanding the role system is very minor. I think removing the little cultural bits from the role system might help clarify things. If you see @helps_with_design pinged often, you get an immediate understanding of who the role is for and what it does, as opposed to something like @Wizards.