Hello people,

Based on our current server and community status. I would like to invite you all to debate what we should do in terms of keeping our current server or changing the server to be smaller/run multiple smaller (and cheaper) servers.

Basically I would like you to post suggestions on what we should do. Wynney will post his idea that should make sense in the direction we should be discussing, but basically "What changes would you make to the Techious servers to get the community together?"

Enjoy this debate, and we will be taking your suggestions and you will help build Techious into the next thing.

Thanks,
Si (and the new Community Tiered Leadership System)

My opinion is that a dedi is far too expensive for the amount of activity the clan currently has. I think we should donate towards a server that we wish to have, possibly monthly - e.g. people donate for a tf2 server and we go rent it for a month.

Of course we want the forums to keep on going. But I feel dedi is something not to do anymore, think we should look at maybe just a tf2 / gm server or even joining servers together as a community when we feel like playing.

Anyway, everyone's thoughts on this matter are important! So get posting.

As long as Forums/Mumble stay... And we have the ability to run TF2/CSS I would be happy with scaling back on what we can do I think it's important to the clan/community to have a game server which we can use

Might think of some other stuff later

We have a TF2 server which gets active quite quickly and were working on making our current CSS server better for public use aswell. If we can get activity up on both of these inside of the community more instead of the usual people on mumble who generally go play games together ect then it can work but we need ideas how to increase activity more so on CSS and to get people playing this games together again in a more friendly manner.

So Wynney, your idea is what, something like this:

We scale down the forum to say something that is £X a month.
We then have donations going to a central pot instead of to dedi.
Say we want to play game Y this month, cost this month is £(X+Y). Next month if we don't go down to £X again.

That what you mean/good idea people?

i agree with wynney, i think dedi servers are too expensive for our current activity. its nice having our own servers but with our number of active members it should be easy enough to all join a good random. other than that all i'd like to see is an increase in forum activity tbh
i'll be sure to post any ideas as they come.

it will be sad to see the old server go, but I assume with the kit most of us have lying around we could probably keep most of the stuff we have running in action anyway

although we could avoid most of this with some new blood and a few more donators, Si and I were talking recently and he mentioned that we never really advertised techious which in short is a real shame, we are a great community with a heap of resources and a helpful team of an admin and moderators.

I might take a step out into the wild and see if I can get a few more members you never know, it just might work

I'm not too sure what we currently have, but I think we should have at least one dedicated server so we can always run a TF2/CSS/GM/L4D server. Mumble and the forums are important but perhaps the forums could be downsized having only 4-6 topics + whatever private ones you have.

Also wyn's idea that we donate money to an additional pot when we want a server for another game (minecraft, bad company 2 ect ect).

I have no plans, so give me a shout and if I'm around I'll join in.

I'll shout from Derby

I'll shout the opinions of Kaboom to Harry to shout to you! What sort of time are you planning to have the meeting?

Afternoon/Eveningish - When we can get most people on.

Right ok. thanks i should be on at that time.

Whenever is fine with me.

Also, should I reveal the replies of the PMs (anonomised) now to allow you all to think of ideas based on it?

Might as well incase people who can't turn up can still read the opinions in the PMs and thus give their opinions of the opinions here in the topic.

Could be a good idea, though you may want to redact more sensitive information (peoples complaints about others), depending on how open you wish to be.

Link for current ideas: http://www.techious.com/newtechious.pdf

I approve of the last "Other" statement ^^

I am available at most times today. Afternoon would probably be better than evening though.

im home after 5PM if im needed

i'll shout for the system lords ;o

I shall argue against the False God!

Right, time for a quick summation of what has been suggested so far. If people could contribute (esp. those who couldn't make it) we can put this into place very soon:

Staff

• Current staff to be put "on trial" to prove they are suitable staff.
• New second in command (manage stuff when Si is away) - Nominations please
• New staff system to be in place (see http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4774576/newstructure.png )
  Suggestions for people in each area please
• Staff members to be changed if it is felt that they are no longer suitable.
• Set method of dealing with people (e.g. mute/kick/ban from that server)
  Suggestions here for what to be done

Servers

• Current server is going (17th Oct)
• We will have the new system as inspired by Wynney (see http://techious.com/newtechious2.png )
• Just start out with core servers (Mumble and Web) and expand when needed
• New forum theme Yay/Nay
• Suggestions on priority for "current servers" - which do we need?

Community

• Techious will stay as clan (though refer to as both) - Apparently recalling us a community will make things worse as we won't have a focal point.
• More community events (see new staff system)
• Yay for CT10
• Try and keep a friendly community going
• We don't care what skill people play/claim to be (casual/professional gamers) we treat them all the same.
• Mumble to have less channels but you can create more.
• Try and keep community going

Any changes/suggestions/anything I missed out before this goes into action next week, please say