Lox Ponders: Failing Mentor Program

[Loxmardin]

Hey folks.

Something that's come up in recent times is the state of the Mentorship Program. The Mentor Program's design was hugely dependent on community participation beyond the involvement of solely the server staff, and management issues aside (we're learning)... we never did manage to rack up much of a consistent community interest in the Mentor Program.

The result of this is that it's failing. We don't have a lot of people who want to be Mentors and even during the time we did, it was either difficult to catch them online to assign Peons or they were already too crowded with Peons whereas other Mentors didn't keep any charges.

Now, I'm not blaming the Mentors for this, or the Staff.

I'm looking to the community for feedback, however, on how we're supposed to proceed and how we could possibly improve this program to make it work. Right now, the program's on ice pending a solid decision and our options right now are to dismantle the system as a whole or keep it to staff-members only, pending any change in the system or overall community involvement and interest.

What would make you more interested to participate in something like the Mentor Program? What's keeping you from being invested in it at present? How do you think we should proceed with it to make it work? ... Should we even bother?

[Geoni]

I'm going to be as honest with you as I was with the chat and say part of why it wasn't working was because of the staff. I could see it failing when I was on the team and though it's been a while if there's nobody on the team being very consistent with keeping tabs on mentors and how they're doing with their mentees along with making new assignments, things get stagnant and morale in the program disappears.

I've also been a mentor and I can say with some experience that I think that any stagnation from mentors themselves might come from the fact that you get a low success rate, only a few peons will actually stay around and be interested in the server itself. But I think a lot who have been mentors also know that those select few are worth the low success rate.

In general, I think the low success rate has to do with chance and the appeal of the server to newcomers. From what I can tell the program's intention is to serve as an aid for making the population grow. It offers a more interactive welcome than the 'hello and goodbye' introduction responses, but once they get into the server they need something to keep them there.

I still think trying it again is worth a shot with more commitment from the staff if it's the way it was when I was on the team. You guys have three new GMs, so I think it's definitely something they should weigh in on.

[ImagenAshyun]

From what I've observed, a good number of the peons assigned to anyone is that they hardly stay. They are assigned a mentor, they stick around for a few days, then disappear wholly, never to be seen again. Of the only peons who did graduate, they happen to be the kind of folk who are looking for community to begin with and found themselves right at home. Not every CotH player can be that.

I think the Mentor Program should stick around, but it shouldn't be too specialized. Probably more generalized among existing staff with fewer non-staff players with the role.

[Loxmardin]

I think the biggest issue on the staff-side was that no one really knew when they could assign Peons to Mentors, or if. There was no real streamlined process to make this happen and I remember in the beginning of the program it was primarily myself taking care of assignments (and then I fell off the grid due to illness and whatnot).

Honestly, I would like it if we could find a setup in the Mentor Program that enables it to run itself by the effort of the Mentors, collectively, rather than all assignments and whatnot being handled staff-side. Which would still require a greater community interest and involvement, since we lack in community participation. (eg. Mentors.)

[c0rzilla]

I never joined the mentor program myself, but I try to guide new players without a tag. It isn't a motivating force to me, I don't need it.

But that's just me.

[Geoni]

I think the biggest issue on the staff-side was that no one really knew when they could assign Peons to Mentors, or if. There was no real streamlined process to make this happen and I remember in the beginning of the program it was primarily myself taking care of assignments (and then I fell off the grid due to illness and whatnot).

It's really not that hard to streamline that process though. Just make making assignments one of the GM duties and that anyone on the team can look at the batch of unassigned mentees and assign them to mentors in the chat. On the mentor side of things, maybe making little 'woo, graduated peon' threads might raise morale if it's missing, but that's just a little thing.

The big issue is indeed the low probability that the player will have enough interest and motivation to fit in here. And the state of server interest is...y'know, always a hell of a discussion. But it remains a problem when it comes to the population.

[Loxmardin]

I never joined the mentor program myself, but I try to guide new players without a tag. It isn't a motivating force to me, I don't need it.

But that's just me.

And that's great. One of the perks of the Mentor Program, however, is visibility and (in theory) making connections straight out the door. ... If the program works as intended, anyhow.

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I think the biggest issue on the staff-side was that no one really knew when they could assign Peons to Mentors, or if. There was no real streamlined process to make this happen and I remember in the beginning of the program it was primarily myself taking care of assignments (and then I fell off the grid due to illness and whatnot).

It's really not that hard to streamline that process though. Just make making assignments one of the GM duties and that anyone on the team can look at the batch of unassigned mentees and assign them to mentors in the chat. On the mentor side of things, maybe making little 'woo, graduated peon' threads might raise morale if it's missing, but that's just a little thing.

The big issue is indeed the low probability that the player will have enough interest and motivation to fit in here. And the state of server interest is...y'know, always a hell of a discussion. But it remains a problem when it comes to the population.

The problem with this is catching the Mentors to confirm assignments, most of the time.

I would very much prefer, personally, if the Mentors assigned themselves to Peons and functioned more as a unit and a team than worked individually with their charges, as it's been working up 'til now.

... Which still makes community interest and investment an issue.

[Kaghuros]

I think it's important to figure out what the goal is before you start looking to build something new. Do you want to get new players into a core RP group quickly, so they stick around? Do you want it to be for teaching new players how to work through the server's rules and requirements? Getting down a list of goals is the easiest first step in figuring out what, if anything, you need to change.

If the problem is people not assimilating quickly, having assigned mentors can help so long as the system is something people know about. Is it easy for a new player to find out about mentors? Maybe if the system returns it should be integrated with the website, with mentor wikipages open for people to pick the person they want to help them, if anyone, and a notice that the program exists in the automated message posted to all new introductions.

[KomodoTheCashew]

As one of the people who took part on the "mentoree" (if that's even a word) side of the program, I'd like to say we keep it around.

When I first joined CotH, to say I was a bit overwhelmed and confused with how everything worked is an understatement. Every other WoW RP I had done was usually just make a character, stroll up to some other people and start typing. CotH is a bit more... advanced than that. You need to make an introduction, you need to make a character profile up to the standards of CotH (higher than most RP servers) and then when you RP there are rules you need to follow and things unique to CotH that newbies wouldn't understand or know right away. Oh and the Lore, I had a passable knowledge of Warcraft lore on other servers but CotH is so lore intensive. (Not saying that's a bad thing)

I had a problem with pretty much every single one of those my first couple of days and got a little intimidated to say the least. I decided to go back on what I said on my introduction and get a mentor.

It was really nice to have someone that I could go to and pass my questions or ideas by.
"Would it be stupid if I asked why a Worgen can't be a Shaman?"
"Back in that last RP, when 'X' did 'Y', why was that okay but 'Z' doing 'Y' wasn't?"
Stuff like that.

Part of me staying around was the community but I had a pretty awesome dude ( @"CappnRob" ) to introduce me into it. I know not everyone who comes by will want to stay but having people to help introduce the newbies in is a good idea that we should keep. I'd even volunteer for it once I get learned better on my lore.

[Loxmardin]

I think it's important to figure out what the goal is before you start looking to build something new. Do you want to get new players into a core RP group quickly, so they stick around? Do you want it to be for teaching new players how to work through the server's rules and requirements? Getting down a list of goals is the easiest first step in figuring out what, if anything, you need to change.

The purpose of the Mentor Program has been to connect Peons to other players fast in order to get them introduced to the server, the RP environment, groups to RP with and just to plain and simple make friends out the door. Have a fellow player on the server who can help 'em out, since a lot of times it's easier for new players to relate to a fellow player rather than a staff member.

In a way it's meant to circumvent the apprehensiveness many feel when it comes to directly approaching "authority figures" by creating a platform inbetween, and in addition to that be a good direct gateway into RP groups since it all too often is difficult for newbies to find their way into established RP circles.

(Most of the server staff are already technically "Mentors", but the Mentor Program itself is designed to be player-driven. Player to player.)

If the problem is people not assimilating quickly, having assigned mentors can help so long as the system is something people know about. Is it easy for a new player to find out about mentors? Maybe if the system returns it should be integrated with the website, with mentor wikipages open for people to pick the person they want to help them, if anyone, and a notice that the program exists in the automated message posted to all new introductions.

It's pretty easy. It's right there in the introduction template (with a link to the announcement about it); people have the choice of signing themselves up right there in the introduction template if they desire to. I do like the idea of wikipages, though.

[Mathias]

There were not enough peons that wanted to be goblins, therefore I could not help them, therefore the program failed.

[Stealthscout]

Okay well, time for some IRL mentor-ship things.
Being a mentor, for a few years, you cannot guarantee that the mentor and the mentor'd will be.. well, always together. That is why we do things like this.
You receive your mentor, or you receive the mentor'd and you have a chat, if the both fit with the same mindset and all is good, they continue on with the happy fun stuff. If they don't, well, you have more mentors.
Now, to insure that the program is working, the bear minimum is to meet the mentor'd at least once a week.(So, if you want to meet with him twice a week, or the whole week.. no one is stopping you.) The mentor needs to be active and flexible. Since the Mentors are the ones who signed up for it, they should be ready to be flexible with the other's hours. So let's say, if I can only be active during the evening and he can't, then I need to clear time specifically for him, so I could take care of him and such.

All in all, the mentor program works only when those who sign up are active constantly and willing to help and willing to actually sacrifice some of their not so comfortable hours to help the mentor'd. Yeah, I guess that sums it up.

[CappnRob]

Honestly, there just weren't that many peons sticking around to be mentored to if anything. I truly want to know where they all go. Who signs up for a forum, makes an intro post, gets approved, and then never comes back... ? Its so weird to me.

[aroes]

Pretty much what Cappn said, I'll admit that I wasn't as proactive as I should have been when it came to snatching up new peons but when 80% never even bother to show back up on the forums...well that just gets really discouraging after a while.

[Loxmardin]

... Hmmm. Then perhaps the assignment process should be handled a different way.

I had a vision just now of something like this:

> Peon signs up on the forums, expressing interest for the Mentor program.
> The special Mentor subforum is made available to the Peon usergroup from the get-go/all interested Peons get manually invited.
(> The Mentor program also gets a reference link and presentation inside the New Users subforum.)
> Peon is pitched a link to a "Welcome!" thread in said Mentor subforum.
> All Mentors receive super-invasive PM containing the same link with instructions to go say "Hi!". (*leers*)
> Mentor assigns self to the Peon in question after everyone has read their introduction and conferred in private.

...

Yep. In a perfect world this would be pretty neat if it worked. ;O; I'm not sure if it would work as well in practice as it does in Lox-theory. Thoughts on this?