It doesn't take "a lot of listening and not a lot of talking" to see the sorry state this community is in due to "not a lot of talking" from the Ingress team. It's so sad that that more silence is Brian's suggestion for Thia. 🤦♂️
I don't think Brian's advice specifically was "to do a lot of listening and not a lot of talking". Quite the contary. It said:
My personal advice to our eventual new hire is that we do an awful lot of listening, but we don't do a lot of talking. Agents want to know they're not shouting into the ether, but they really are being heard. We need a visible presence in the community, in the Forum, that Agents can get to know better as our official conduit or connector.
To me this sounds like "you shouldn't do like we do, you should actively communicate so that people didn't think they shout into a wall, and you should have visible precense in the community".
I hadn't interpreted it that way. The "we do an awful lot of listening, but we don't do a lot of talking" part came across to me like "this is how we do things around here." Hopefully you're right and in the coming weeks as the new CM learns the ropes that we'll see a much more visible presence here.
Yes we see the inconsistency between how the speech and slogan made here, and the actions and reactions done in other posts of some players you mentioned to be "in a team". Some of them treat with scorn in other posts other players requesting for help from Niantic for different aspects, or kept telling others "the system is running well and it's your own problem", are acting like "good models" in this post pioneering for answers for a lot of problems, and ranting against Niantic. But that's how society works. Honest people won't be popular.
And if this community embraces double-standard players (teasing other players everyday) and resorts to them mainly to express some attitudes especially unsatisfaction, rather than hoping the things really going to be better and proactively doing something productive to realize it, then just let it be. Whether proper or not to do it here, it's not worth the efforts to prove that "good models" are actually not good.
Toxic phenomenon can't be stopped by individuals alone as well. And it's the fact that this game is not being operated well that leads to the massive quit of normal, not-toxic players. Usually when you see a gaming environment full of toxic behaviors of users, it means the life cycle of the game has almost reaching an end. Just forget it. Some people are not standing out to stop toxic phenomenon not because they think that's right but because they think it's not worth doing so.
After all, if this game won't be improved asap, then it would sink soon along with the community. After the closing of Ingress game, nobody would care whether "good models" are hypocritical or not because at that time everything you've been worrying here would evaporate and nobody would care about any of those KOLs and those KOLs would become nobody again. Pursuing justice is good but justice lives on the fact that the platform is still running and people are caring about it.
Moreover you may see that they are trolling at people incl. someone of Ingress team in an implied way. I believe that even if they may dare do it in chat groups but they are still afraid of doing name calling directly on the forum otherwise moderators would handle that very soon. Just flag them and leave them alone if comments appearing to be inappropriate.
If that came across as, "this is how we do things around here," perhaps that is because it is how they do things around here.
At my previous job, we had monthly, company-wide meetings. Six to eight thousand employees gathered together in an auditorium for two hours. One of the more memorable recurring segments was the CEO spending a few minutes reminding the entire company what customer support should look like. In abbreviated form, her spiel might have gone:
Start with: "What can I do to help you?" Rationale: Let the customer talk. Get a sense of whether their problem is the end of the world for them, a minor annoyance that they're curious about, or something in between. Etc.
End with: "Okay, here's what I'm going to do. <a couple concrete actions you'll take> I'll get back to you by <date + time + timezone> with updates." Rationale: Let the customer know that you understand their problem well enough to take the next steps in finding a solution. Let them know that they don't need to wait by their phone or inbox with bated breath, and that you're committed to reaching out to them again.
None of that is earth-shattering or difficult. It was intended to apply to customer interactions, small and large. It was intended to apply to everyone in the company, because everyone was, sooner or later, going to run into a customer. It was intended to help us get the time we needed to look into a proper solution rather than having to come up with something ad hoc on the spot.
That ☝️ is the spirit that Niantic needs to adopt. For example, in the context of the Second Sundays Mission Days thread, all that it asks is that someone just make a simple comment:
Hi guys! We're working on an FAQ and trying to sort through some details. We'll have an update Tuesday morning (Niantic time).
Instead, what we have is silence from Niantic, and a bunch of Agents projecting whatever they want onto these Mission Days by filling in the details however they see fit. Inevitably, someone, maybe many someones, will be disappointed when their "obvious" reading of the tea leaves turns out to be wrong.
In the meantime, Brian apparently considers that making and discussing his own biocards on Twitter is more important than participating in the official forums.
Did we originally state who should reply to this? I know communication is a strange concept for Niantic but if we never stated who should directly reply, I'm afraid it's going to stay as an open letter.
The above shows many other positions at Niantic. I'm surprised an "EECB " or "executive email carpet bomb" hasn't been thought - that would give the issue front and center.
It's an open letter. I take that as anyone who can respond to most of what we're asking about. I suppose that would likely mean Brian, but that could be the new community person. Neither seem to post in the general forum though...
Woah, how's Mr. "good to be back" doing, by the way?
I'd like to see reply to most of the points from Brian directly. Outsourcing the topic to Thia would be evaluated by me as trying to escape from his own community, by ignoring the letter until the Community Manager is here to deal with the problems she didn't cause.
Isn't dealing with junk like that so that actually important people don't have to what community managers are for?
(Not that I think this particular thread actually merits any sort of official response, apart from maybe locking it a couple weeks ago when it overstayed it's welcoming and began going off topic.)
I think they enjoy talking about communicating instead of actually doing it. I’m starting to think even the new community manager was onboarded with the same expectation. I suppose we can be happy knowing they “might” be reading it, but it literally feels like talking to a brick wall. I know I’m pretty vocal here in the forums, definitely this thread, but even in trying to get a response regarding scanning and hoping to create some conversation about something we all know they want, I still only get silence.
My guess is that unless you’re an XMA, you’re input isn’t as valuable or relevant? I don’t even know. But it’s quite clear that if you expect anything different from Niantic, you’re going to be waiting for awhile. They’re not interested in conversation or communication unless it’s their agenda. I do believe that ultimately that will be part of their undoing unfortunately.
You know, I do get why folks are frustrated. But if you go back and read this thread, do you honestly think that it's incentivizing the kind of communication that you want? The devs did comment, acknowledge the issues, point to concrete actions being taken, etc. And after a few initial thank-yous, things went back to being non-constructive in a hurry.
It's a really small team, and there's a limit to what they will be able to do. I'm not saying that issues should be pointed out, nor that one shouldn't criticize. But perhaps it is useful to put yourself in their shoes, and then ask what input would be most likely to encourage the outcome you want? Probably, this isn't it. Just sayin'.
How patient can a person be? We’ve asked for better communication, they’ve acknowledged there needs to be better communication and here we are. The community manager or whatever they’re called has helped, in some ways and in others, silence continues. The hard questions are ignored, as always. But please, give us your 5* rating… At some point, enough is enough…
Comments
It doesn't take "a lot of listening and not a lot of talking" to see the sorry state this community is in due to "not a lot of talking" from the Ingress team. It's so sad that that more silence is Brian's suggestion for Thia. 🤦♂️
I don't think Brian's advice specifically was "to do a lot of listening and not a lot of talking". Quite the contary. It said:
My personal advice to our eventual new hire is that we do an awful lot of listening, but we don't do a lot of talking. Agents want to know they're not shouting into the ether, but they really are being heard. We need a visible presence in the community, in the Forum, that Agents can get to know better as our official conduit or connector.
To me this sounds like "you shouldn't do like we do, you should actively communicate so that people didn't think they shout into a wall, and you should have visible precense in the community".
I'm sad I had to scroll down to skip all the off-topic from page 6.
Not aiming at names, but please solve your problems in private messages / or ignore the conflicts by going in your happy place.
The unpacking of bricks of paragraphs contains too much negativity for me.
Half the issue with people lashing out is lack of input from Niantic I think.
Ignored so ppl start lashing out at anything in frustration.
I hadn't interpreted it that way. The "we do an awful lot of listening, but we don't do a lot of talking" part came across to me like "this is how we do things around here." Hopefully you're right and in the coming weeks as the new CM learns the ropes that we'll see a much more visible presence here.
Cool. But where is the "Do something about Spoofing" section? Missing when even investigation thing was mentioned?
I can't think of anyone that could confidently say that "I was never bothered by spoofing in Ingress" wherever they live.
Yes we see the inconsistency between how the speech and slogan made here, and the actions and reactions done in other posts of some players you mentioned to be "in a team". Some of them treat with scorn in other posts other players requesting for help from Niantic for different aspects, or kept telling others "the system is running well and it's your own problem", are acting like "good models" in this post pioneering for answers for a lot of problems, and ranting against Niantic. But that's how society works. Honest people won't be popular.
And if this community embraces double-standard players (teasing other players everyday) and resorts to them mainly to express some attitudes especially unsatisfaction, rather than hoping the things really going to be better and proactively doing something productive to realize it, then just let it be. Whether proper or not to do it here, it's not worth the efforts to prove that "good models" are actually not good.
Toxic phenomenon can't be stopped by individuals alone as well. And it's the fact that this game is not being operated well that leads to the massive quit of normal, not-toxic players. Usually when you see a gaming environment full of toxic behaviors of users, it means the life cycle of the game has almost reaching an end. Just forget it. Some people are not standing out to stop toxic phenomenon not because they think that's right but because they think it's not worth doing so.
After all, if this game won't be improved asap, then it would sink soon along with the community. After the closing of Ingress game, nobody would care whether "good models" are hypocritical or not because at that time everything you've been worrying here would evaporate and nobody would care about any of those KOLs and those KOLs would become nobody again. Pursuing justice is good but justice lives on the fact that the platform is still running and people are caring about it.
Moreover you may see that they are trolling at people incl. someone of Ingress team in an implied way. I believe that even if they may dare do it in chat groups but they are still afraid of doing name calling directly on the forum otherwise moderators would handle that very soon. Just flag them and leave them alone if comments appearing to be inappropriate.
If that came across as, "this is how we do things around here," perhaps that is because it is how they do things around here.
At my previous job, we had monthly, company-wide meetings. Six to eight thousand employees gathered together in an auditorium for two hours. One of the more memorable recurring segments was the CEO spending a few minutes reminding the entire company what customer support should look like. In abbreviated form, her spiel might have gone:
None of that is earth-shattering or difficult. It was intended to apply to customer interactions, small and large. It was intended to apply to everyone in the company, because everyone was, sooner or later, going to run into a customer. It was intended to help us get the time we needed to look into a proper solution rather than having to come up with something ad hoc on the spot.
That ☝️ is the spirit that Niantic needs to adopt. For example, in the context of the Second Sundays Mission Days thread, all that it asks is that someone just make a simple comment:
Hi guys! We're working on an FAQ and trying to sort through some details. We'll have an update Tuesday morning (Niantic time).
Instead, what we have is silence from Niantic, and a bunch of Agents projecting whatever they want onto these Mission Days by filling in the details however they see fit. Inevitably, someone, maybe many someones, will be disappointed when their "obvious" reading of the tea leaves turns out to be wrong.
still nothing niantic ? :/
In the meantime, Brian apparently considers that making and discussing his own biocards on Twitter is more important than participating in the official forums.
I just can't...🤪
I know right.
Did we originally state who should reply to this? I know communication is a strange concept for Niantic but if we never stated who should directly reply, I'm afraid it's going to stay as an open letter.
The above shows many other positions at Niantic. I'm surprised an "EECB " or "executive email carpet bomb" hasn't been thought - that would give the issue front and center.
It's an open letter. I take that as anyone who can respond to most of what we're asking about. I suppose that would likely mean Brian, but that could be the new community person. Neither seem to post in the general forum though...
I sent John Hanke a tweet. Maybe he will read it. Maybe.
Woah, how's Mr. "good to be back" doing, by the way?
I'd like to see reply to most of the points from Brian directly. Outsourcing the topic to Thia would be evaluated by me as trying to escape from his own community, by ignoring the letter until the Community Manager is here to deal with the problems she didn't cause.
That's what I write in every feedback sheets from e-mails..
Isn't dealing with junk like that so that actually important people don't have to what community managers are for?
(Not that I think this particular thread actually merits any sort of official response, apart from maybe locking it a couple weeks ago when it overstayed it's welcoming and began going off topic.)
Here's your chance to ask them in person.
Source: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/15713/nl-1331x-meetup-oakland-ca-on-jul-11-at-14-00
This is bigger than the community manager.
The "we're working to improve communication" is a total joke.
John Hanke where are you ?
I have been lurking in this discussion silently, reading everything from everyone. I just realized now how little I know of this game.
If you have questions, ask.
Ingress basic gameplay isn't hard to pickup. Techniques and 'hardcore' play, taught usually.
Bump. This doesn't fade away so easy
🆙
I think they enjoy talking about communicating instead of actually doing it. I’m starting to think even the new community manager was onboarded with the same expectation. I suppose we can be happy knowing they “might” be reading it, but it literally feels like talking to a brick wall. I know I’m pretty vocal here in the forums, definitely this thread, but even in trying to get a response regarding scanning and hoping to create some conversation about something we all know they want, I still only get silence.
My guess is that unless you’re an XMA, you’re input isn’t as valuable or relevant? I don’t even know. But it’s quite clear that if you expect anything different from Niantic, you’re going to be waiting for awhile. They’re not interested in conversation or communication unless it’s their agenda. I do believe that ultimately that will be part of their undoing unfortunately.
Yep they obviously don't wanna talk on uncomfortable topics. Running away from a problem looks to be more preferable.
Bump
Stop bringing up dead topics
You know, I do get why folks are frustrated. But if you go back and read this thread, do you honestly think that it's incentivizing the kind of communication that you want? The devs did comment, acknowledge the issues, point to concrete actions being taken, etc. And after a few initial thank-yous, things went back to being non-constructive in a hurry.
It's a really small team, and there's a limit to what they will be able to do. I'm not saying that issues should be pointed out, nor that one shouldn't criticize. But perhaps it is useful to put yourself in their shoes, and then ask what input would be most likely to encourage the outcome you want? Probably, this isn't it. Just sayin'.
How patient can a person be? We’ve asked for better communication, they’ve acknowledged there needs to be better communication and here we are. The community manager or whatever they’re called has helped, in some ways and in others, silence continues. The hard questions are ignored, as always. But please, give us your 5* rating… At some point, enough is enough…