Bio of a BZP Admin

Shhh, this is a secret. You guys are the first to hear about this, because I trust you for some honest feedback.

Before the upgrade there was a 'Gallery' link that people always asked us questions about. The feature was never turned on, mainly because we were worried that hosting images on BZPower would adversely affect the performance of the site (even more). Things have changed, and now we have a new server and fewer active members.

What would you think if BZPower had a gallery where you could post pictures of your MOCs, artwork, and other LEGO-related things? And what would you think if normal Members could post a certain number of images and Premier Members could post more? Would you use it? Would you keep using Brickshelf/Maj/Flickr? Would you upgrade to a Premier Membership for more pictures?

I'm really interested to hear what you all think...

I had only one question in my inbox for a mailbag this week, so I thought I'd share that first and then go on to the topic of this entry.

Mailbag

Just got one question for you today:

What's the step-by-step process behind hiring new staff?

I like how you tried to set me up for a nice Behind BZP there. Unfortunately, we outline that process very well right here in the Staff Information topic. That doesn't mean I can't use it as a springboard though.

Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line.

Assigning Staff
So once a potential staff member is selected, how do we know where to put them? There's actually a number of things that go into the process.

First is the team they should be on - forums, blogs, news, or reference. For the latter two we usually pick out people we think would be good fits there. For Reporters we find people that write a lot, either in the blogs or the Library or just in a lot of topics. Reference Keepers need to be people who are very passionate about the story. Forum and Blog staff, however, are very similar in a lot of areas. They need to be helpful, courteous, respectful, and show a good understanding of the rules. Most times we pick someone with one team or the other in mind, but occasionally we give them the choice. Generally the deciding factor is where the member is more active, since that indicates which part of the site they like more.

For forum staff (aside from Mentors), there's then another level of assignment - which forums should they be helping out in? If we've recently had a staff member retire, there are obvious gaps we're looking to fill, but sometimes we're just looking to beef up our numbers a bit.

I'll start off by asking the Forum Assistant or Leader where they'd like to be. I don't want to assign someone to a forum they're not going to enjoy - it's happened in the past and usually doesn't turn out well. I also keep a giant spreadsheet: there's a column for every forum and a row for every forum staff member. I use it to not only keep track of assignments but also to gather some statistics to help figure out who should go where.

Each forum obviously needs at least one Forum Leader - more active forums can get two or more. Some less active ones have them too by virtue of an Assistant getting promoted to Leader and not wanting to leave where they had been assigned. The majority of forums also have Assistants. My spreadsheet calculates the Assistant-to-Leader ratio, which ideally I'd like to be at 2 or greater, but that doesn't always happen. It should always be at least 1 though. In addition to that ratio I also look at the total number of staff in the forum. I've also recently begun keeping track of forum activity in terms of page views to get an idea of which forums are the most active and consequently should have more staff.

Once I figure out which forums need staff, I need to figure out who to put where. The spreadsheet also calculates how many forums each staff member is assigned to and the average number of forums per Leader and Assistant. I try to keep these as low as possible because we obviously don't want people getting overwhelmed. Invariably though I see a few staff members asking for more work, so they'll have more assignments than most. Every now and then I'll shift people around though, just to even things out.

Every time a staff member joins or leaves the team, I make a new page in the spreadsheet and update it. This lets me keep a record of the staff changes, so I can go back and look at how things have been trending over time.

So I doubt that was nearly as exciting as recording the Powercast, but I wanted to share it anyway. As always, if you have an idea for something I can talk about, let me know!

As I discussed last week, I was thinking of ending my Weekly Update series. And I am. Last week was the last one. It had become too much of recap of the news than anything substantial. You can get the same content from reading the front page.

So I'm trying something new - 'Behind BZP' - where I'll pull back the curtain a little on the things the staff an I do. It won't be every week, but I'll be doing it as often as I can think of things. If you have something you'd like to see me talk about send me a PM and let me know.

Recording the Powercast
There's a lot that goes into recording an episode of the Powercast, which is why they're every month and not every week or something crazy like that. Let's see how it goes.

My recording starts with a MXL-990 microphone, suspended by a Heil PL-2T boom arm. Be aware that I do not pay retail for any of this, I always search around for good deals. A Nady MPF-6 pop filter attaches to the boom to keep those harsh consonants from coming through too strong.

The mic is plugged into an M-Audio Fast Track Ultra mixer, to which I also plug in me Sennheiser HD-380 headphones. Then the mixer plugs into my laptop (a MacBook Pro).

So that's how I sound so good, but there's a lot of software involved to get everyone else on the show. Once we decide on a topic and who's involved, we use Skype to talk to each other. I record that conversation using Audio Hijack Pro.

After all the segments have been recorded, I open them up with Audacity. For some reason I've yet to determine, my mic only gets recorded on the left channel while everyone else goes on both the left and right. I use Audacity to split the two channels, get rid of the right, and save it as a mono-track file. I then run it through Levelator to even out the volumes of all the different speakers and to help remove noise. This saves me from actually having to do a lot of advanced audio editing.

Then I pop open Garageband. All the tracks get brought in, I cut and splice things together to get rid of awkward pauses and some of the 'ums' and 'ands' and such. This helps make the show flow better when you're listening. Around now I'll record the intro and outro pieces too. Once all the audio is in place, I add in the transitions. Then I listen through the whole thing (again) and adjust the levels so the volume doesn't change dramatically between segments. Finally, the metadata gets added and I export it into iTunes.

The file then gets uploaded to BZPower, I edit the XML file with the new episode, and post a news story.

Pretty simple, right?

Oh, and since I still have some questions, here's a Mailbag. I'll keep doing these if you guys keep sending questions.

Mailbag

1. Best Doctor? (Sorry if you've answered this before!)
2. What is your favorite BZPower fad?
3. Least favorite?
4. Favorite internet-wide meme? Least favorite?
5. Have you played Cave Story? If so, what did you think?
6. Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contain itself?
7. Will you consider on purpose a train at some point in the future?

-Canama

1. Hmm. I think I'd say David Tennant, even though Matt Smith is quite awesome.
2. There've been so many they all blend together.
3. The ponies are starting to get a little old.
4. Lolcats for sure. Rickrolling might be my least.
5. Nope.
6. By definition it can't.
7. Sure?

What's your favourite:

1. Rahkshi power?
2. Mask power?
3. Toa element?

1. Invulnerability
2. X-ray vision
3. Fire

Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line.

I hope you all enjoyed that. Please let me know if you did! And let me know if there's other things you want me to discuss here.

So just about exactly a week ago, I found myself sitting in Casey's at the Sheraton in Birmingham, AL with Jim Foulds, Kevin Hinkle, Watashi Wa, Emzee, and Abner (an AFOL who I've met at almost every LEGO convention I've been to). In case you're not in the know, Jim and Kevin work for the LEGO Community Team. It has a different name, but they change it every six months so I don't bother remembering.

We came up with the best idea.

Kevin was telling us about the many times he's driven through Texas either for moves or to visit family when he was living out of state and how much 'fun' it was. (In reality he was telling us about the abandoned houses he'd see on the side of the road that he really hoped he never broke down next to one.) He also talked about how much he enjoyed driving a big moving truck while towing a car. (I think he was being sarcastic.)

The logical conclusion from this was that Keven needs to drive a party bus from Connecticut (where LEGO has their US HQ) to the various fan events, picking up AFOLs along the way. He promised Gogurt and Snack Packs and Capri Suns until Jim said the budget probably couldn't afford it. So there will probably only be some cheap knockoff brands. As long as there's food though, I'm on board.

I think this would be the ultimate way to get to an event - it's like the con starts before you even get there. Of course there's the downside that everyone will hate each other by the time you get to your destination, but it's a small price to pay.

So who's ready to hop on the magic brick bus? I hear there will be a mariachi band on the one that goes to BrickFiesta.

From the Rules & Guidelines:

Respect the Staff. They have been chosen by the Administration to enforce the rules. You will listen to what they say. If they ask people to stop posting, stop. If they ask you to remove something that is inappropriate, remove it.

This goes for every section of the site. Recently, I've seen instances of our Blog Staff not receiving the respect they deserve. If they make a judgement call and you disagree with it, it does not mean you should make an entry complaining about it or throwing veiled insults around. Feel free to contact them and ask about it, or contact myself or another Administrator.

If I continue to see this kind of behavior happening, you can expect Proto Energy and blog privileges to be removed.

Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.

Alright, time to clear some things up.

If you have heard anything to the contrary, unhear it. Pictures of ponies from the TV show, 'My Little Pony,' including 'wet mane' images, are not banned on BZPower, so long as they abide by BZPower rules.

The content of pictures, as well as captions or comments relating to them, can make any image inappropriate. This site is not the place for sexual content or themes, so keep that off the site.

I apologize for any of the confusion that arose in the past few days, it was not our intention to mislead anyone. I hope this puts things to rest.

That said, the reactions I've seen in some blogs have been very disappointing. I would like to say that those entries and comments only made the situation worse, and that it was a well-worded, polite PM that brought all of this to my full attention and caused me to address it now. Please everyone, be respectful and courteous - it gets you much further on BZPower and in life.

So in my last Weekly Update I mentioned I hoped the front page would be updated this weekend. Clearly that didn't happen. I'm waiting on one more thing and then we'll be good to go. Honest?

Now everything won't be fixed, but the majority will. Some of the more advanced features require linking to the new database to get data. This update will mainly be focused on all the links so you don't keep getting sent to the archive. (Although some links will purposely still take you there.)

Sorry for the delay everyone. We're working on it!

P.S. I'm going to try to update this thing more frequently. We'll see how it goes.

P.P.S The answer to the above is probably, 'not well.'