Idea for a Community Manager

You need a community manager but rumor has it that it isn't in the budget. Here is a suggestion:

1. Find someone who is fair, honest and willing to provide you critical but useful feedback.
2. Someone who plays and actually communicate with the players
3. Someone who is willing to offer their services

Rather than employing this person full time with a traditional salary, do the following:

1. Hire them on as a 1099 - Contractor and give them a rate of $1.00 an hour (this gets you around the having to pay clause)
2. Grant them a TF Keep or larger deed and house as part of their pay. The purpose being they can use this to host events and hold in game questions and other stuff (this helps with the compensation).
3. You all work remotely now, so figure out how to give this player access to things like modding the forums and access to the support queues.
4. Have this person help with hosting the streams.

So basically you are hiring someone who is good with a really low contract rate but with in game benefits. But you have to find the right person with the right disposition and who is essentially willing to work a bit for some in game assets. They would need to work (play) at least 8hrs a week. It's not perfect, but it is better than what you have.

But this person can't be just a face. It is someone who has to earn the respect of the community AND someone that Portalarium listens to when needed.

If you feel the need to poke holes in this idea, have at it. It's just an idea. All I hear/see is people saying we need this but no one is saying anything like how to do it. This is just a thought.

CR

 

Overall, I like the idea.

Finding someone with a balanced hand and wide respect from the community is going to be very difficult. Still, it is exactly what we need. The person should be the primary, two-way conduit between us and devs.

However, at our current size, the time it takes to do this kind of work is likely already 40+ hours a week. Also, I have private information access and related concerns about such an arrangement. This person should be a full-time employee.

 

I take payment in COTOs.

 

This is exactly what Ambassador program was back in the days, except the payment point. I'm 100% sure they will re-active the program/team again when they ready for this. If not, any other option is always good for all, the game and the community

 

I was mulling the same sort of post after the livestream yesterday, but your does it perfectly.

 

Great idea! Sign me up!!

 

Great idea. I also think the payment in COTOS would suffice. As they are all remote now already, let the community "respected" "player" also tune into ports their video meet ups. This way they still have a bit of control on this community manager.

 

This is illegal and carries with it the potential for both criminal and civil penalties.

 

It is not illegal in the US.
A 1099 contractor is responsible for their own tax responsibility.
They are a subcontractor and not an employee.

During the first SOTA Con I suggested an idea like this to Berek to get some 'social media' exposure.
I know some experts in SM that play and would love to have perks in game to promote SOTA.
I'm not sure why this was not considered. Perhaps there are other things that can't be seen from the outside.

 

There's a lot of people around here, hidden in the woodwork, who would volunteer for tasks. One person was fully transcribing the telethons at one time, but stopped. Things like this are daunting and difficult to keep going. What we could use some level of organization for tasks, like Jira would be used for... that people could claim. Example tasks could be like above, "Transcript for livesstream on XYZ". Allowing people to claim tasks could help avoid burnout... and help convey what Port's needs are. (Edit: or maybe even fully replace using the forums for bug tracking, with proper searching)

If they can't do that with Jira, I'm aware of several people here who'd probably whip up a Drupal site to do it.

The real threshold would be if they established a GitHub developer environment/project so people could develop some modular unity chunks (without revealing their entire source code). That could include diagnostics for known bugs.

... but someone would have to take the time to arrange/coordinate/manage all that.

 

The experts at S Mart are always happy to help.

 

Page 7 and 8 discuss what constitutes employee vs. contractor. There are serious legal implications if a company is found to be in violation. I'm just suggesting that it isn't quite as simple as it seems.

 

Just as I said, not illegal.
No one said it was not without restrictions.
If you follow the rules, it can benefit both the business and the contractor.

 

As described in what I quoted, it would be potentially be illegal.

Replacing a salaried community manager with a contractor that fulfills the same role that earns $1 an hour I would imagine be legally questionable.

My comment applies to the OP's specific suggestion, not to all potential uses of contractors. Portalarium already uses contract work, specifically in reference to Scottie.

 

Except right now there is no community manager to be replaced.. salaried or otherwise..

 

The op only made a suggestion and it was not to "replace anyone currently employed by Port".

I run several businesses that use subcontractors.
What experience do you have with using subcontractors?

I have no desire for the drama of arguing the point since it will not benefit anyone.

 

Thanks @Lesni - I have been a 1099 contractor and I have hired on 1099 contractors as well. We are not talking about converting a salaried position in the company to avoid expenses. There is no position in the company. There is a need and right now given the size and stability of the company, it is not a full/regular needed position. Hiring a contractor worker in the this unique manner is a very feasible solution. Port has a need, contractor had a desire to play the game with some additional assets. Win-win, very viable solution.

 

community managers are sooo lame
IF they get a community manager I am going to quit!

 

That would be a pretty lame reason to quit.