User blog:Bagwis/2021 Q4 Report

''This blog is a part of a report series. Should you be interested, you may check out the previous related published report here. Have fun reading the archives!''

Here's a quick disclaimer: the discussion below is not exhaustive and comprehensive -- and may be updated from time to time whenever it is convenient and necessary.

Hewwooo! Welcome to the final quarterly report of the year 2021. To start, I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to everyone’s contribution not only during the latest season but for the rest of the year too! I know this year has been challenging, but we all made it through! Please pat yourselves on my behalf – you all deserve "a job well done."

You might be wondering why I didn't release the report on time. My commitments in the latter months of the year are not aligning well enough to evaluate server statistics better. In other words, I lost touch with the community for a short period. While it is true that we can easily interpret data as it is, not understanding the reasoning behind the numbers or not trying to communicate observations well in an analyst’s position does not conform well with my standards. Well, thank you for your patience and your willingness to read the report below. Without further ado, let’s look at the statistics.

On the Discord moderators, there is a clear difference between prior and current year workload. Members who violated the rules and made several alternate accounts (shall be called “alts” henceforth) infested the discussion channels as their way of expressing their vendetta against the moderators who penalized them. It was such an era of distrust, confusion, and conspiracy, whereas it’s hard to distinguish real accounts from fake accounts.

Knowing which ones should be trusted, which ones are genuinely innocent, and which ones are the conniving individuals behind each attack requires a series of stressful investigations and cross-examinations. We even came to the point where we had to think like an alter to understand their next steps. Some of us have to do the dirty work of infiltrating servers where the violators team up and plan an alt attack. While it sounds like an exciting and heart-pumping cat and mouse chase, it was the reason why we had mass moderator resignations last year.

There are ways to filter out such accounts, but we’re not leaving the fact that we may commit many lapses in judgment or erroneous decisions. We received some reports that we wrongly banned an individual, and of course, we learned how to validate such things without making the server sound like a hostile environment. We have been better – not just the moderation team but the active members are now able to sieve alt accounts quicker. We have better tools to identify quickly alters and better understand an alter's psychology.

Compared to last year, moderating regular members during mid-2021 was a breeze. However, this fact shouldn’t leave us complacent. There was a better link between the staff team and actives, and sometimes, members often forget the moderators' authority when it comes to imposing server rules. While people often see that mods have different levels of patience and leniency, keep in mind that we review the penalties as a whole before we make a final consensus for a case.

As for what the mods can improve, I recommend shortening time to respond to suggestions. We should improve the turnaround time in the bureaucracy, and the time commitment between each mod is better distributed. It won't also be surprising if some staff thinks of ways to improve their work-life balance. It’s not a wrong choice either.

This season, there are two overlapping terms on the camp generals. The first group (10th batch) was an almost full squad, including Honzuki, Ishan, Disfigure, Lightrex, Skeng, and Tuna. Not much to be said here aside from the fact that some of them received no reward points for not taking up their responsibility. It could have been why there was a mass disinterest among the active members to run as candidates during camp elections. It leads only to 3 individuals taking up the seat during the induction period. Frono violated a server rule that merited a loss of privilege. Only EmperorAry and Sonami were left on their devices to think of ways to revitalize the camp activity. During the period, Airi Camp was also closed due to the consistent inactivity of its members.

For full disclosure, here’s the reconciliation of camp activity as of October 2021.

We have no documentation as of November 2021 during the 11th batch term, but we shall see their term-end impact on the following quarterly report.

For the camp generals, we expect them to keep inspiring other members in taking up the role. It might be sound like a tall order but doing so merits a preview of their leadership performance in real life – it’s a good simulation on managing or hosting an event, especially since most meet-ups in organizations happen digitally.

Recent additions to the group on the translation and archiving team include Violinster5, Alisa, Ponglettt (BladeEntity), and jhelan123. Each of them is a trusted individual having knowledge and experience in translation.

During this period, as usual, Alice (Cinnamon) released translations for 4 short stories, each pre-locked with a solvable link. Graze, and his team from Confused Translations are still in the process of translating the LN Year 2, Volume 4, while on the other hand, jhelan123 released a translation of the LN Year 2, Volume 4.5. While jhelan’s version was technically an edited MTL, several translation staff members have checked it and found it accurate.

Again, our server stance is that we don't condone MTL, which other groups blatantly spread among people that cause misinformation and plot distortion. Since Okayish TL meets the bar on that front, we have no reservations about recognizing it in the community. While we support these fan translations, we urge people to support Seven Seas' Translations for official EN translations as the copyright holder.

For this sector, proper documentation and archiving of translation without hurting the author and translation copyright holder is what we need to improve. There should also be a quicker review of the output of other translation groups that aim to be part of the community.

This one improved that most among all sectors in the server are the event staff. They aligned most of the events during the server anniversary headed by the main hosts, namely, Boo, Shissou, and Pyguel. During the period, there were Blitz Season 2 (hosted by EmperorAry, Regulus Corneas, Deceased, and Mr.Devil), Pokemon Showdown (hosted by Jacob), Normal Chess and 4-Player Chess (hosted by Boo), Yu-Gi-Oh (hosted by Eto), and Game Nights every weekend (hosted by Pyguel and Tuna) enjoyed by lots of participants. There was also an MC Building Competition (hosted by Boo and Pyguel with the help of Ariadust as the MC server admin), Aeroplane Chess (hosted by Shissou), and Tetris Tournament (hosted by Shissou). The anniversary event culminated with rewards from Bingo events and giveaway prizes sponsored by Kagaya. Again, I won't be tired of declaring that this squad is the heart of server activity. Please also give them your highest and most respectful praises for keeping us engaged and having fun around the server.

What needs to improve in the event staff lies in the consistency of such rigor, commitment, and dedication in event planning, implementation, and evaluation. We shall also lend help for whatever permissions or bot work they need to make the events successful on the staff team.

There has been a slow growth rate on the wiki moderators and editors but an improvement, nonetheless. Compared to the previous quarter, a lot has participated in the editing, probably due to updating the plot sections. The new and existing wiki moderators can quickly accomplish their duty in case there is a vandal on the site. New editors such as Inouchka12 (FR) emerged. During the period, there is a mass interest in first-year characters such as Takuya Yagami, Tsubasa Nanase, Sakurako Tsubaki, and Ichika Amasawa and we expect the same trend to happen the Year 2 plot progresses. Accrued monthly visits across interlingual wikis reaching millions imply that the database is relevant and essential.

As for the recommended improvement for this group, we recommend headhunting for people knowledgeable in the wikitext to update the site's appearance and the outdated coding that may not work due to migration issues.

There were no changes in the management on the subreddit moderators, similar to other reports. They reached 55,000 users as of this report's initial writing, and we expect them to reach 60,000 users for not too long. Candle ensures that he regularly reviews the posts and attends the modmails accordingly, demonstrating his intensive versatility in moderating a community.

[List of people who claimed the hidden treasure in order: Regulus, Freak1234, bens, PercyJackson, Boo]

As for the improvement in this sector, we suggest that they train at least 2-5 members in moderating the subreddit. While there are around five moderators in that sub already, most of them are inactive in the server or community, making it hard to coordinate across the medium. The immediate effect of this adjustment will improve the consistency of growth between the Discord server and Subreddit.

Here’s the simple metric provided by Discord on the server members.

We can see the consistent figure across the period regardless of the events in real life. There is always a ratio of 24 people among 100 who regularly visit at least one channel in the server. Among those 24 people, four regularly talk, and 2 are new members. One will surely stay and speak across the server channels on every three new members.

There is always an influx of new members whenever the server has many ongoing events and releases for the new LN volume. The engagement is high as well as expected. Again, this report may not show significant statistics, but here's the link to the server's basic statistics are open to the public.

That is all for the last quarterly report of the year 2021. Please look forward to our progress in the following season.