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Has the Community Engagement Guru Changed Again?

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aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
edited March 2017 in Forum Ideas & Feedback
I know there was a thread similar to this started by @nanashi-sims back in December; however, after one reply in that particular thread @SimGuruDrake went quiet again.

I know most if not all of the gurus use twitter, but that's not the official platform for the Sims and I think it would be nice for the gurus to poke their heads into threads (and not just before or after a new pack release) and be more visible in the official community.

I know they're busy; however, there's an ongoing thread (here) that was started in October last year (that's almost 6 months ago!) about a TS3 Creative Corner, something that @SimGuruDrake said would be coming to the forums. This thread has been met with radio silence, not even an acknowledgement.

If there is no longer a community engagement guru or they have changed, I think it would be nice for Simmers to know so they can stop tagging Gurus needlessly or to ensure that they tag the correct Guru.

I understand that a Community Engagement Guru may get hundreds of tags a day; however, if that's a title that they have, why not engage with the community? Or if they don't have the time, pass the title to someone who does.
Post edited by aricarai on

Comments

  • king_of_simcity7king_of_simcity7 Posts: 25,102 Member
    I wonder what has happened to a few of the mods. Some have not been active since last year but some users still tag them in threads or message them for name changes or even asking for game related advice. It would be nice to know who the new mods are if there are issues
    Simbourne
    screenshot_original.jpg
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    Yes like the gurus/mods introduce themselves to the official community.

    twitter is cool and all but it's not the official Sims' community but that's where most of them seem to park themselves.
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    Can anyone please advise who to contact? @SimGuruDrake if it's not you, can you please advise on who to contact for forum issues? That would be much appreciated!
  • JaguwarJaguwar Posts: 143 Member
    Makes you wonder if anyone is even paying attention....
    @aricarai have you also posted on Twitter? Cause if they're over there instead then posting your concern here may be a complete waste of time (and also prove your point).
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    @Jaguwar - I haven't but @bekkasan has and was ignored!
  • JaguwarJaguwar Posts: 143 Member
    :| Well. That's no good. *sigh* I really don't understand. It's... annoying at best. We appreciate responsive Gurus, guys! We really do!
  • JaguwarJaguwar Posts: 143 Member
    Oh phooey, @aricarai , forgot to tag you, hehe. Anyway, thanks for your speedy reply.
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    edited March 2017
    No worries @Jaguwar. I think there's been a communication breakdown. I don't remember this code of silence that they've adopted now during TS3 era.

    @SimGuruDrake @SimGuruNinja @SimGuruGraham @SimGuruRusskii @any guru for that matter, could someone anyone reintroduce the appropriate moderators, community engagement officers, please?

    Thank you.
    Post edited by aricarai on
  • TriplisTriplis Posts: 3,048 Member
    I'm curious as well. I had gotten the impression there's intended to be at least one person around for handling forum-specific things, even if it's among other duties.

    But in the last couple of months, the actual forum-related stuff seems like it's mostly being ignored. And moderation seems really odd sometimes, like a discussion will have a tiny little shift in language for one post and suddenly it's whisked off to another section. Maybe just coincidental timing, but the number of times I've felt like that happened makes me wonder if there's some automated system.

    Probably just me seeing connections where there are none, but in this day and age, ya know. I wouldn't be surprised with how technology is.
    Mods moved from MTS, now hosted at: https://triplis.github.io
  • SimburianSimburian Posts: 6,907 Member
    edited March 2017
    I've noticed that the "Best of" selections are often quite a bit out of date recently - rather as if they were doing a random selection by robot. There seems to be more Sims3 stuff than Sims4 there also. That's a bit annoying sometimes when you have to run through lots of huge Sims 3 pics to get to a Sims4 comment. Not good if you have a poor connection.

    I do, though, get the feeling that "all hands have been called to the pump" to get the new pack out so maybe the moderators have got other work to do as well. The Gurus Twitter feeds also are a bit quiet lately.
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    @Mchap353 - What are the best of selections?

    The gurus are on Twitter all the time...at least that I've seen lately. If they can post on twitter at least once a day, it shouldn't be difficult to post on what they've dubbed the officials.
  • SimburianSimburian Posts: 6,907 Member
    edited March 2017
    aricarai wrote: »
    @Mchap353 - What are the best of selections?

    The gurus are on Twitter all the time...at least that I've seen lately. If they can post on twitter at least once a day, it shouldn't be difficult to post on what they've dubbed the officials.

    Haven't you noticed the "Best of.." to the right of "Activity" at the top of the Forums or do you only read the Forum on your mobile? I have noticed that "Best of.." doesn't appear on my Android smartphone but only on reading the Forums on my laptop.

    I have checked the Guru's twitter feeds today and there is very little they have tweeted themselves for some time and most are re-tweets.

    PS I don't like Drake's new avatar as it seems a bit yukky and childish and not a Sims character - but that is my own opinion.
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    I'm on my phone at the moment. When I'm on PC, I usually just go straight to the forum section and wade through each section that I want to read. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Haha!

    Yes they do tweet angst themselves but still my point is: twitter isn't the official Sims platform. Until it is, the community engagement guru should still engage with the official community. Last I heard, in December, that was @SimGuruDrake but she refuses to acknowledge tags.
  • egwarhammeregwarhammer Posts: 5,752 Member
    aricarai wrote: »
    I'm on my phone at the moment. When I'm on PC, I usually just go straight to the forum section and wade through each section that I want to read. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Haha!

    Yes they do tweet angst themselves but still my point is: twitter isn't the official Sims platform. Until it is, the community engagement guru should still engage with the official community. Last I heard, in December, that was @SimGuruDrake but she refuses to acknowledge tags.

    I wonder why this is so hard for them to do, or to understand?

    We want to be SEEN. Here. Where we are told to come for issues.

  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    Thank you - I am glad that you agree @egwarhammer.

    Don't get me wrong, I think twitter, tumblr, and youtube are great communities, of which I am part of, but it's not the official one or the Sims.

    I don't think it's fair that announcements, giveaways, contests etc are hosted there instead of here on the officials.
  • NeiaNeia Posts: 4,190 Member
    @aricarai
    What makes you think they aren't officials ?

    They appear under the Community menu on their official website, their twitter mentions "Official #TheSims Twitter", their instagram is "The Sims Official #TheSims Instagram!", their Youtube tells us "This is the Official YouTube channel for The Sims™" etc. They have several means of communication.
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    Neia wrote: »
    @aricarai
    What makes you think they aren't officials ?

    They appear under the Community menu on their official website, their twitter mentions "Official #TheSims Twitter", their instagram is "The Sims Official #TheSims Instagram!", their Youtube tells us "This is the Official YouTube channel for The Sims™" etc. They have several means of communication.

    @Neia - Because they don't own those platforms. Yes, they have official accounts on those other platforms but they aren't the officials, the forums always have been.

    If @SimGuruDrake or whoever is meant to engage with the community here wants to correct me on that, that's fine.

    And if that's true, one "official" shouldn't be treated differently than another. Like I said, it's not right that contests, giveaways, information etc is on twitter and relies on forum members to bring the information here.

    I'm not against social media at all; the silence here isn't ok though.
  • egwarhammeregwarhammer Posts: 5,752 Member
    Origin's Sims 4 details page offers these two links: (nothing about twitter or facebook, I mean)


    Official Site https://www.thesims.com/en_GB/ ( << which I don't really understand...)

    Forums http://forums.thesims.com/en_US (which brought me here.)

    This should be their first port of call, IMO.


    I really don't care where else our gurus are. The problem I have, is that they don't seem to care much at all about spending time here.

    (But I'm well aware that no one has asked for my opinion.)
    :|
  • NeiaNeia Posts: 4,190 Member
    There's a feed on https://www.thesims.com/news so what's posted on the official The Sims twitter/facebook/youtube is available here without relying on other members.
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    Neia wrote: »
    There's a feed on https://www.thesims.com/news so what's posted on the official The Sims twitter/facebook/youtube is available here without relying on other members.

    Thanks for the links @Neia. Still doesn't eliminate the problem that we have on the forums. There's little to no interaction with forum members here.

    All I'm asking is that the Community Engagement Guru engages with the community here. How are we s'pose to know who that is if you can't get any of them to respond to you?

    Do you think it's right that the gurus only seemingly appear ahead of a release or when there's a major problem?

    I honestly don't remember forum members being ignored in the past or this code of silence that seems to have come with TS4.

    @egwarhammer - all opinions are valid; I appreciate yours!
  • lisasc360lisasc360 Posts: 19,258 Member
    I agree, the Guru's have been very quiet here for quite sometime now. I see that SimGuruDrake does make an occasional post here and there but the posts that I have her posting were just announcement threads that once she's posted them, she then locks the thread. The last real thread that I had seen her making where she allowed members to comment on was back in September 2016. And even that thread finally got locked as she didn't want anymore comments made on it.
    http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/899806/ask-a-guru-thread-and-community-engagement/p1

    And I also agree that this is the "Official" site for The Sims games. And yes I know that they mostly hang around Twitter but this is the site that they should be hanging around at and not Twitter since not everyone has a Twitter account or they're just not interested in having an account over there. I remember on the old TS3 site, the Guru's were more vocal over there than they are here. And yes, the Guru's also had Twitter accounts when they were on the old TS3 site but they still made time to pop in and join in on several of threads over there unlike they do here now. I also remember that when EA would have live broadcasts for the new EP's coming out and the members of the old site would make threads just to talk about the LB while it was going on, that some of the Guru's would pop in and make comments in them and interact with the members over there.

    And I also know that just not myself but others have also PM'ed the Guru's/SimStaff members with issues either with this site or the TS3 store/exchange used to get replies from them but not now we don't. And yes, I know that they could perhaps be busy with other stuff but they could at least acknowledge that they had seen our PM's and that they would get to them as soon as they can.
  • LosaruTaiyoLosaruTaiyo Posts: 10,807 Member
    edited March 2017
    I'm not going to comment about where the staff should/shouldn't post.

    I do agree that it has been quiet but it could a case of end of the fiscal year business (March is usually the last month of a fiscal year. Don't ask why, that's just how some companies do it) where staff have to do inventory and budget crunching and all that other 'fun' stuff. And January was a very busy engagement month for them so maybe they want to focus on other business this time. Sending a quick shot on twitter may be the easiest at the moment and maybe come April, there will be more engagement here.
    D6PfW.jpg?1322673184

    I have no memory of this place. Time to start anew I guess
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    @lisasc360 - 100% agree with what you said although Drake did pop in to a thread to explain why she was closing it which is the most engagement I've seen from her since last year some time.

    @LosaruTaiyo - that's my point; if a community engagement guru doesn't have time to visit the forums and engage with the community here, pass the title to someone that can.

    There's literally no excuse that I can think of where a thread with a simple request - that was at one time indicated by the CEG that it would be done - should be ignored for five months and then closed without explanation when frustrations come out! None!
  • Uzone27Uzone27 Posts: 2,808 Member
    edited March 2017
    That thread was headed south anyway.
    If I were a Guru I wouldn't want to spend any signifcant time with this lot either.
    I mean who wants to read the same tired complaints from virtually the same group of people day in and day out?
    Silence is a lot better than some of the things I bet they wish they could say from time to time

    At least silence won't get them fired...(or sued) B)
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    That thread was headed south anyway.
    If I were a Guru I wouldn't want to spend any signifcant time with this lot either.
    I mean who wants to read the same tired complaints from virtually the same group of people day in and day out?
    Silence is a lot better than some of the things I bet they wish they could say from time to time

    At least silence won't get them fired...(or sued) B)

    @Uzone27 - I agree probably within the last 2 weeks it was open, it was going south. Before then, it was quite peaceful. So I still don't see how it is ok that the prior 4 months and 2 weeks were ignored...just because as you say it's the same group of people day in and day out?

    Ignoring people is rude. It got to the point in that thread where all people wanted was any kind of answer...even a sod off would have done. Not only was the request ignored on the thread but numerous tweets and PMs by various Simmers went unanswered. The thing that tickles me is that request was a suggestion that was on a list of things to happen by Drake herself, so I don't see why it was not engaged in...just because it's the same group of people day in and day out? That's not a very nice way to treat people.

    So if someone has any other way to get answers from the Gurus or to find out who the Community Engagement Guru is meant to be or to simply get them to engage besides posting here, tweets, or PMs, please, I'm all ears.
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