Forum

Blog version
en.virtualpopstar.com/home/profile?user=Shadowjess&show=blog&id=9906

Should Jess become admin?





Hi, I'm Jess. I'm 24 and live within the UK with my girlfriend of 6 years Claire. I currently work for the DWP as a Telephony agent. Along with work I am also a first generation EN designer since 2012 and for a short period of time I was a member of ET. Due to my work schedule at the time with my old job, I had to resign due to inactivity as I wasn't able to help much. 
Before joining VP, I was a moderator on gSM and before then a member of the English gSM community as Shadow2.

I don't have many dislikes to be honest, so at times I may come off sugarcoated. It also take a lot to annoy me or to get on my 'bad side' (I mean a lot, I have the patience of a Saint).

-I've noticed a few people are mentioning contact with Kim. I also have direct contact with Kim and message her often-

------
Below are answers to questions that have been asked in the forums for Admin Candidates.

Question 1: Why do you wanna be Admin for VP?
As many people know on this site, especially the older and longer going members it's been a dream of mine to become admin for this site. At the time however it was because I wanted the status, a badge collector and after our first VP picked admin Alana was selected it made me think. Why did I want to be admin? and it's taken me till now to realise why I wanted to be.
To help people.
My soul being has been to help people, to listen to people and to give guidance towards a new era for VirtualPopstar. In my eyes right now, VP is at a standstill to where the usual activities happen everyday with the usual people who are stepping forward to make the site a better place.
I'd formally like to thank those, the team members, the non-badged members and allow them to have a stronger voice in the community. I would want to system where people are recognised for the good deeds that they do and where people are able to voice their opinions within a secure environment whilst keeping to the rules of VP.
I want to grow this community and make it stronger and also take in ideas that are well requested by the people of VP and hopefully get those implemented within the game.
Without our members, without us, there is no VirtualPopstar.

Question 2: Which qualities do you have as a person that will help VP and the community?
I have been a member of the English VP community since the second day running as well as a first gen designer along with Dani. Before this, I was a moderator on the GSM Cosmo before the server closed. Going through the Mod Boot Camp which was a fantastic experience.
At the moment I'm actually based in a customer service role within the Department of Work and Pensions. By doing this role, I would say it's been me a lot more of a step to be able to understand people and become more neutral within situations, where as before I would pick a side and argue with it.
I am fairly active on the site even if it's not in the forums and am approachable also.
Along with this which may be classed as a quality? I'm also one of the oldest members of VP, turning 24 in February.

Question 3: What do you want to achieve on VP as Admin? Safe community? More updates? New games?
Frankly all of the above and more.
However as an Admin there are actives that we are not able to do, however we can suggest . I want to be the bridge before the community and Kim/Kaj so we can push forwards with updates to make this site a better place for all ages. With the new VP App in progress, a lot of updates that will be going into the update will also be coming here such as the tagging which I had suggested back in 2014. 
New games? As much as I am for new games, it also costs developing money which with the new app being made may not be possible as we'd like to think. However I'd give credit to the Event team, Social media and the Forum team for keeping games and events available in replacement for games on the site. On a personal level I prefer this. People are able to join in together, have fun together and make new friends rather then fighting about who's at the top spot for Snake.
As many of you are aware we've had a hacking problem as of late and codes being leaked. I'd like to implement a safer way for members to be able to access accounts and even had a safety email for password resets. So once a password has been reset an email is sent to the original maker of that account to make them aware and to even be able to revert the password back and 'block' the account for a short period of time for safety measures.
- To add to this, maybe make it so once you've confirmed an email address, it's locked in so you are able to change it without an email being sent to the original email to confirm it's okay to change. 


--
Wow I feel like I blabbered on too much haha


1. What do you think the job of the new Admin will consist of?
 I want to be able to see it as mentioned above a bridge between us and the owners of VP, or a person people can come to if they feel like their situation is important. Seeing as we haven't had any description of the role, I can see it being more of a support role for the community and the moderators as well, so they have somewhere to fall back on if things get messy.

2. What would you like to do as an Admin?
Ah so many things. For one I'd like to introduce a similar boot camp to what was on gSM for moderators. However I'd want to test it two ways. The first being how this admin contest has been conducted with public voting and then narrowing down the top 10. The second being mod nominated by our current moderators. Both ways would result in people being invited to join the camp where they would be given scenarios and given limited mod access to see how they would do. I would also like to make sure of the tagging system where if there is a forum that needs to be closed, if the tag @Mods was used, it would alert all of the mods that there is an issue.

4. What skills do you bring to the table that would make you a better Admin than the others? 
I wouldn't say that I would have better skills then the others as I'm unsure to what their reasons are to being an admin. From the candidates that have been picked, we all have fine qualities and flaws that can be picked up on. I think that matter is down to you guys to decide.

5. How will you improve the community as an Admin?
As mentioned above and numerous times within forums, I want to strip the Moderating system back to the bare bone and rebuild it. I don't want people being afraid of mods or being scared to call mods out if they themselves have broken rules. There is a lot that needs to be improved by far however one rule I don't agree with is the 1 post every 10 minuets rule that has been brought by the Dutch server. I think it's reasonable to say that if on one has commented after you for about 5 then go ahead as it does reduce spam, but I think the rule needs to be clarified a lot more so people understand it. 

I also want a system set up so non badge designers can send their designs somewhere that is not a team and get a response so they know their designs will be used. I see (and have uploaded) a lot of designs along with the others which were more then worthy enough to be used as DM's and even Credit sets.

6. What else do you want us to know about you before we vote?
I don't really think there is to be honest. I would enjoy the role as much as the others, but our fates are in your hands now. All I can do is just ensure you that if I am voted Admin, I would try my utmost best to make sure that VP stays the safe community it is now.

7. Which of the parts, that the job as an admin require, do you think would be your weakness and/or flaw? How would you work with it, and improve yourself ?
Having previous mod experiences, the conflict side of things doesn't bother me. May a person be a friend or not, if you are in the wrong you are in the wrong. I think the main weakness or flaw for me would be that I do like to be proved wrong, but not in an argumentative way. I like people to show me evidence that I am wrong so I can back down from a situation and reflect on things. - I'm rather stubborn at times - 

Extra Questions

Asked by @Absolute 


If here comes hackers what you would do to that?
I would cry. Not really but mentally. I hate hackers having been hacked before and as our team model for Designers also was hacked as part of this. As mentioned above, I want to put more security on our accounts and maybe a way set up so texts are sent also if the passwords to an account are changed.

Would you be more active with social part of VP and listen to us as Admin?
The main part I look forward to in all honesty is being able to listen to people a lot more. I want to be able to take opinions of our community and push them forwards into something productive and won't be dropped. 

How good u can handle the pressure in triky thing? How u will make them clear?
I work better under pressure. It's a bit odd but I think more clearly when under pressure. I like to take two sides of the situation and narrowing it down to make a conclusion. Sometimes the right answer isn't even part of the two sections that are given to you.

Do VP need advertisement? why? where? how?
Yes and no. 
While advertising is a great way to make the community better, I've even suggested to Lianne before that we should affiliate ourselves with similar sites so grow a bigger community. It's nice to be a stand alone site, however some of the biggest sites out there have some kind of ad revenue or joining up with partnership with another site 

How much u will be in VP?
I'm nearly always online on VP unless I'm working. I tend to also pop on during my break and lunch also. I'm always reachable! 

------
Asked by @beholder 

What do you think your biggest weakness would be with being Admin?
I think I've already answered something similar to this. Along with what I've said before now that I've had a think about it I think my biggest weakness would be not being able to cope with peoples expectations. Yes a candidate can come up with fantastic ideas, however people assume that because they have come from an admin that they would be implemented. We all know that isn't the case. So I suppose what I mean is my biggest weakness would be the thought of failing and disappointment from those I'm meant to be helping. I like to please people.

-------
Scenario by @Gingivitis 
Someone doesn't like the DM set they got for the week, so they take their anger to the threads.
In their thread they trash the designer of the outfit..not directly saying the designers name of course- that would be rude, and asking why this designer even has items uploaded onto the game
Then they trash on Kim and Kaj because they're frustrated that they made this designer's set the DM outfit. Memes are a gr8 hit these days so another player responds to the OP's thread with a meme poking fun at their relationship and begins calling Kaj out for dating Kim.
This thread has reached 15 pages before you were able to log onto VP and see it.
What do you do?

First thing for me would be to lock the thread so the bashing can't carry on. People need to understand that the players or designers do not get pick of the outfits. End of. We never will do.
I would also go through and remove any offensive memes also once closed. Before (or during) this I would contact OP and explain to them the issue regarding DMs and that we have no choice over what is used. Most DMs can be sold and get a return back of usually nearly 70% of the funds used to by a DM (depending on how long).  In the regards to mentioning Kim and Kaj, it is nothing to do with any of us so no one should be mentioning their relationship. Their relationship didn't 'blossom' on VP but outside of VP during a meet. I would also contact the other play regarding this also and ask them to not post up memes regarding them.

I would also be questioning to why no mod had already been called to the forum to close it before it had gotten out of hand. Which is why I'd like people to use the tagging system to 'summon a mod.'
I want people to be respecting of designs that are used, hence why I made this forum - 
en.virtualpopstar.com/social?category=15&topic=72397

---
To this situation in general, I hate how people are still so naive to think that designing is so easy when they lash out like this. It's not easy. It's really not. So I'd like to make like a 'hit thread' within the mod forums to keep tabs on people who act up and lash out but that may be my designer pride coming through. I've felt the wrath of people not liking outfits and it's not nice being on the receiving end. It would be nice to set up a system so if people DIDN'T like an outfit that they know how to say that they don't with a way that gives constructive criticism to why they don't. 

---------
Asked by @TheLucyStone   

How many vacations would you take per year on average, and would you still go on VP? And if you did still check up on VP, would you be willing to do a little work if you had to?

Work wise I only get average of 20days off from my actual employer. I get all bank holidays and weekends. The only time I would be away from VP for long periods of time without not logging or or just checking messages would be if i went away. Which rarely happens because I'm a boring person. If it was the case that I did go away, I would still check in to do messages and just make sure everything is still running smoothly and ask for the mods to give me a recap if it's the case I've had to be away for over 3 days. 

----
Asked by @Kaitlin 
i'm asking all candidates this, but have you had any timeouts or warnings and if so, when was the most recent one?

No.
The only 'warning' I had was during that stupid April fools where you couldn't wear black. (I was wearing dark green...but ah well) That was like....2012/13.