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 Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:03 pm
Hey, Guild Owners, Captains and Co-Captains!
I'm the product manager at Gaia for guilds, as well as a guild owner (I'm just starting) so I wanted to give you a sneak peak of what we will be announcing and releasing tomorrow (*crosses fingers*). We're working on some long-term improvements to the guilds system, and below is the first step for those changes.
We're making changes to overhauling guild searching (right now we only search by guild name) and adding keywords that, in the near future, will enable us to recommend guilds to users based on their interests. Our goal is to improve traffic to guilds and help increase your membership.
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Before these features go live, we need your help getting all the pieces in place. Once we launch tomorrow you will see new features in the Guild Admin Panel, and we need your help filling out those fields.
Here's what's new in the panel (note: these changes will not be viewable/searchable by you or users until the next release after tomorrow's – which will be very soon! We need to “prime the pump”!):
• Keywords: Enter up to 5 search keywords describing your guild and the topics it covers. This will help with both searching and interest matching.
• Guild Description: Enter a short description of your guild. Something that sums it all up in one sentence, like "Gaia's oldest dog training discussion guild" or "Your place for all things Harry Potter."
(those 2 items above will be included in a new UI on the Guild search page, as well as guild home page - next release - very soon!)
• Guild Name: Because a lot of guild names are ridiculously long and hard to read/understand, we reduced the character limit to 60. Guild names need to be shortened before February 10, or they'll get truncated automatically. You guys are good! No need to change the name smile
We're also cleaning up the guild home page (shown for each guild) for the next release and I think you'll be happy with the improvements!
You'll receive a notice tomorrow once we launch with a link to read about all of the details and where to leave formal feedback, but I'm happy to get your initial response here!
Thanks for your help and support.
EDIT: looks like the launch is pushed out til next week...
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Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 5:43 pm
Thanks for the preview! ^-^ much appreciated.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 6:46 pm
why does everytime they say they have a guild update it is pushed out. face it we all know it won't happen gaia doesn't care about guilds anymore. (sorry if i sound like a party-pooper it is just i have seen so many updates else where that noone is happy about as the guilds haven't been updated
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:28 am
Hm, it does seem that way. Almost like what Dustin said, really is just a cold hard truth to face.
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:12 pm
O_o I too am a little peeved that all of those updates haven't come in, but some did. Like the colour of crew and anyone higher in rank's names have now been changed blue. I was hoping for that guild description thing, though. It would've made it much easier for people to find my own guild. >_>
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:34 pm
Moo-Moo-the-Monkey O_o I too am a little peeved that all of those updates haven't come in, but some did. Like the colour of crew and anyone higher in rank's names have now been changed blue. I was hoping for that guild description thing, though. It would've made it much easier for people to find my own guild. >_> blue means they are just on your friendslist.
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:46 pm
Also some of those changes people will like. the title limit is to short, titles sometimes are used for updates and some titles need to be longer then 60 charectors.
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Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:48 pm
Sheriff Dustin Also some of those changes people will like. the title limit is to short, titles sometimes are used for updates and some titles need to be longer then 60 charectors. hi, I understand the title is some times used for updates, but that's why we are including a short summary, kinda like sub-tile on eBay. The short summary will show wherever the title shows, and will searched against, too. It lets you keep the same guild title and modify the short summary - that way users don't get confused as to why the title keeps changing. Overall, it lets us clean up the guilds page look and functionality. Approx. 80-85% of guilds have titles that are shorter than 60 characters, btw smile
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Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:08 pm
wesden_girl Sheriff Dustin Also some of those changes people will like. the title limit is to short, titles sometimes are used for updates and some titles need to be longer then 60 charectors. hi, I understand the title is some times used for updates, but that's why we are including a short summary, kinda like sub-tile on eBay. The short summary will show wherever the title shows, and will searched against, too. It lets you keep the same guild title and modify the short summary - that way users don't get confused as to why the title keeps changing. Overall, it lets us clean up the guilds page look and functionality. Approx. 80-85% of guilds have titles that are shorter than 60 characters, btw smile I think this is a really positive change for tidiness as well as functionality - it's good for making guilds more searchable with the search engine, but it also makes it easier for users who want to quickly scan a long list of titles. A shorter character limit promotes sharper, punchier titles. smile I also think it's a safe bet that nearly all of those 15-25% of guilds whose titles are 60+ characters, only do so because they include both their titles and descriptions, newsflashes and/or slogans in that space. Perfect content to move into Description spaces instead. ^^
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Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:25 pm
WindowOpener wesden_girl Sheriff Dustin Also some of those changes people will like. the title limit is to short, titles sometimes are used for updates and some titles need to be longer then 60 charectors. hi, I understand the title is some times used for updates, but that's why we are including a short summary, kinda like sub-tile on eBay. The short summary will show wherever the title shows, and will searched against, too. It lets you keep the same guild title and modify the short summary - that way users don't get confused as to why the title keeps changing. Overall, it lets us clean up the guilds page look and functionality. Approx. 80-85% of guilds have titles that are shorter than 60 characters, btw smile I think this is a really positive change for tidiness as well as functionality - it's good for making guilds more searchable with the search engine, but it also makes it easier for users who want to quickly scan a long list of titles. A shorter character limit promotes sharper, punchier titles. smile I also think it's a safe bet that nearly all of those 15-25% of guilds whose titles are 60+ characters, only do so because they include both their titles and descriptions, newsflashes and/or slogans in that space. Perfect content to move into Description spaces instead. ^^ excellent point ^^ I personally am one of those captains that changes the name of my guild from time to time to alert members of events, and I'm curious to where the description would show up though on the my guilds page?
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Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:21 pm
Sheriff Dustin Moo-Moo-the-Monkey O_o I too am a little peeved that all of those updates haven't come in, but some did. Like the colour of crew and anyone higher in rank's names have now been changed blue. I was hoping for that guild description thing, though. It would've made it much easier for people to find my own guild. >_> blue means they are just on your friendslist. O_o Figures, every one of my crew members and Nikka herself are in my friends list. =_= Anyway, that does sound much better than I had previously thought it was, the short description, I mean. I was starting to think I would have to put up some announcement with the date of the news to make the news flashes, though that's not exactly good considering the people aren't going to come in if there's nothing new. >_>
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:26 am
Moo-Moo-the-Monkey Sheriff Dustin Moo-Moo-the-Monkey O_o I too am a little peeved that all of those updates haven't come in, but some did. Like the colour of crew and anyone higher in rank's names have now been changed blue. I was hoping for that guild description thing, though. It would've made it much easier for people to find my own guild. >_> blue means they are just on your friendslist. O_o Figures, every one of my crew members and Nikka herself are in my friends list. =_= Anyway, that does sound much better than I had previously thought it was, the short description, I mean. I was starting to think I would have to put up some announcement with the date of the news to make the news flashes, though that's not exactly good considering the people aren't going to come in if there's nothing new. >_> although having the crew and "higher ups" screen names be displayed in a different color in the guilds that their running could be a good idea. I think I'm going to add that to suggestions. and that does make sense. I'm just 'one of those' who eventually get's stuck to certain guilds and hangs around all day, even when no one's posting (is it obvious I have no life?) I still think that a 'guild announcement' would be a good idea, but I also agree that there should be some restrictions on them. maybe only have the option available to guild with a certain number of members or higher, and only to captains who have been captain for a certain length of time or longer, and have so many posts in the guild? it's just that that sounds like it would be tricky to design...
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 11:46 am
they shoud just give all captains and only captains the ability to mass pm their member but using the gold in their guild account
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 3:17 pm
>.>
<.<
lol, you all have good ideas... although half the time (bc i am a new guild owner) i have nooooo idea what you guys are talkin about... LOL!!!
>.>
<.<
*softly* ninja kaaaat!
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Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:55 pm
HI folks...
Sorry for radio silence the last week. We've had some small changes with code branching/merging that will enable us to release the guild admin panel entry (of 5 guild tags + short description) along with the new UI and search functionality at once!
What does that mean to you? It means no loss of functionality, and a 1-2 combo of features and functionality. Once we launch, you will be able to enter your guild tags and short description, and it will be instantly searchable! Remember users can (and will still be able to) search via your guild title. The 5 tags and short description are a nice bonus that will make finding your guild a lot easier.
I do want to remind you all that we will be relying on you to include those new tags and short description (which will be found in the guild admin panel) to help users find your guild. I, along with Gaia, believe in guilds and want to help you re-energize activity and this is a first step in more to come.
We are looking at launching later this week if we get our final ok from QA, so please keep your fingers crossed!
Thanks to everyone for their support, and I look forward to being a part of the guild community here on Gaia for a long time!
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