Clearing Up Stuff About The "New eSports Team In GFL"

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Hello, after reading this thread, I just wanted to clear some stuff up (since obviously, some of you are surprised).

 

A month or so ago a member named Kaizy came to us asking for a team sponsorship with GFL. Recently, I've been wanting GFL to "open up" a bit more by accepting sponsorships along with participating in tournaments, etc. Therefore, knowing the CA rank was implemented, I decided to give it a try. Some things I want Community Advisers to deal with are organizing events, being the "go to" person for sponsorships and partnerships, etc. The Community Advisor rank, in my opinion, is a very helpful and important rank in GFL. If the current team can handle taking on sponsorships, organizing big events, etc in the future, I highly believe GFL has a lot of potential. This also pulls a lot of weight off of the BoD team.

 

Like I said, we are giving this a try. Kaizy seems very serious about the team and he is looking for team members still. I believe he is planning on doing tryouts (which can include GFL members) since he needs a few more players. 

 

Also, @Joshy is the "go to" person for this team (Joshy, consider them your client!). 

 

Thanks.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Also, I know I should have communicated about this team sponsorship beforehand and that is my mistake. However, making posts on the thread that contains "An eSports leader for GFL and not even a Member" really isn't necessary. Although I do understand that seeing somebody out of the blue become an eSports Leader is odd/surprising especially without proper communication, you shouldn't be making comments that not only makes the new Member look bad, but GFL look bad overall. 

 

If you have questions about events like these, please don't be afraid to ask in the Admin section, etc. The Admin section is there for a reason.

 

Thanks.

[Dano 949 / 15,644]

The only thing about it I found surprising was that Joshy knew about it, but the other CAs, at least I, didn't and never heard of it at all.

I think it is a good idea that the CAs get to do more and the rank is actually used instead of people having it and not doing anything. It's a good move for the future.

[Joshy 4,382 / 45,371]

I'll communicate the errors in a "Lessons Learned" thread, which I plan to have prepared by tomorrow.  I am seeking a way to discuss some relevant topics that will make the communication more effective, but I do believe that Team Updates is not an appropriate category.

 

The Lessons Learned thread will not be a way for me to finger point nor to alleviate myself of blame - I accept full responsibility for this weak introduction and I deeply apologize; however, by communicating the errors, maybe it will be easier to avoid this mistake in the future and we can discuss what needs to be done to make this new opportunity a fruitful one.

[Joshy 4,382 / 45,371]

Okay, so I was thinking of doing a separate Lessons Learned thread, but now that I have looked further into it and piece together what went wrong, I can safely say that this was caused by a classic case of rushing; I am sure now that the cat is out of the bag regarding this team, that none of the points I am mentioning is sensitive.  I'm not sure if any of you have read that popular self-help/motivation book called Who Moved My Cheese? but our actions mostly matched the character Scurry -- we need both Sniff and Scurry to do well.

 

My involvement began when there was an issue for HLStatsX for CS:S Surf RPG DM (reference thread).  I had asked Roy, now that I am a Community Advisor, if I may help so that that there was less burden on him.  I cannot help with HLStatsX, but I could help in other areas of the community, which included this sponsor/eSports team opportunity.  It sounded like a very good idea and I asked if I could be a part of it on the 18th.

 

I was tagged into a private message that was exclusively Board of Directors and the leader of the eSports team on Saturday the 20th; it was made clear that I became the new Point of Contact, and Kaizy reached out to me on Steam the very same day and we began discussing some of the wants and needs.  It wasn't unreasonable given how new this was, but nothing was in place yet. There was no TS nor a practice/scrimmage server, no sub-category forum, no title, and not even the logo -  I didn't even know that the team might be incomplete too.  I also didn't have complete power or authority to make this happen aside from facilitating these needs to people who could ie. if someone needs a new server for practice, I cannot just set one up.

 

Monday morning, the 22nd (keep in mind this is 4 days after I even heard of this idea, and 2 days after I was officially involved and met the new leader), I found out that my AC/DC adapter was broken and my computer was running on fumes.  I instantly ordered a new adapter, which I received yesterday; unfortunately, I couldn't be actively online for the many hours throughout the day like I normally am.  During one of these gap periods, the team leader sent me a message asking if he could introduce himself...  Personally, my answer would have been no because we literally had nothing in place and it had only been 2 days; however, before I could even get online (1 hour after the request was sent to me), an introduction thread was made.  I could already see that our members did not take to it well, and so the only thing left for me to do was respond in support and try to mitigate the issue.

 

I have my replacement AC/DC adapter now and I can put my entire time online today where we can continue the progression forward.  We have a few things in mind to make this new opportunity work.  First, we're going to need arrange for all of the above (TS/scrimmage server, forum/title arrangement, and the logo).  I've already began a thread looking into how we can use the Media Team since I do not have the tools on my computer although I will resort to my personal knowledge of graphics design if I absolutely must; this'll also help us re-establish a team.  We're also discussing which permissions or controls Community Advisor will have.  In the past, Community Advisors were Forum Moderators, and although we're still moderators, the role is evolving and maybe the past permissions fulfilled a different need...  I can facilitate the arrangement for this team; however, with the current set of permissions I have, it's not practical to have it done in 2 days.  I was really aiming for having a clean introduction within a week when more things were prepared, but given the bad AC/DC adapter for 2 days and still not even making it to the 1 week mark, it's not reasonable to expect that this would have been done sooner.

 

This was rushed and I was not properly used as a Point of Contact - when I wasn't online and was unable to answer a question within 1 hour, a haste decision was made and the team was introduced without control or an official notice.  To prevent this issue from occurring again, for now, it would really be best to ask me as the Point of Contact and make decision until I can piece together the situation and recommend the best next step.  The other mistake I made was that I did not get more people involved yet, which would have been helpful... but to reiterate, I had only been working on this for 2 days and the adapter broke.