Recap of the Post- JC10 Discussion
Jul 3, 2016 14:56:57 GMT -8
Post by Forresst on Jul 3, 2016 14:56:57 GMT -8
Hi,
So there was supposed to be a big round-table discussion hangout where everyone proposed some things for next Jackercon, talked about what happened this one, you know, the usual.
I'm writing up the stuff we came up with together for D.T. Pints since he couldn't make it.
1. We had way more people running than playing. We'd like to see some efforts to expanding and growing the community to encourage more players to come along. We're all in pretty good agreement that we'd rather not discourage people from running games, but it'd be more productive to up the pool of players.
1a. We'd like to consider reaching out to some of the other RPG podcasts out there when it comes time to promote the next one. Specifically, we talked about Fear the Boot since they have a pretty good relationship to HJRP.
2. Trying to organize and block time out for a Jackercon 3-4 times a year is a little overwhelming. We think we could do better if we ran twice a year rather than the current schedule. 6 months' lead time would let us get a lot more game prep in place, and if we go the route of trying to make JCon big, we can get word out with more time to build some hype.
2a. Even though we think it'd be more effective to go for the gusto twice a year rather than 3+ times, I think it'd be good to overtly encourage people to basically run off-con games whenever they like. I mean, there's a community here every day, might as well have some fun whenever we want.
3. The continuing troubles and learning curves associated with Google plus make it a major barrier to a large-scale expansion. Every time someone new joins the group, they get stuck in bad UX hell until someone comes along and decodes the whole thing for them. What's worse, Google seems to be trying to take away the features and abilities most useful to us as a group. They've changed the programming so you can only make events on a mobile device in the new scheme, for example, and even there it's not direct, you have to go through Google calendar and then somehow make that into an event? I don't even know and I'm not interested.
3a. I'm saying this publicly where before I've only said it privately: I will absolutely buy a domain and find out the rates for a web designer to make us a page that works. I'll pledge the first hundred dollars to pay the web designer even. If we go that route, though, we will need to do a few bits of research.
3b. There are some alternative software packages available that are made to run and organize large events. One is Eventbrite, and another is Warhorn, and there are likely more, but those are the 2 we heard brought up in the hangout.
3c. If we do end up with a dedicated website, we'd need a techy nerd who can do website things, and we'd need to pay that person. I'd prefer if it was a community member, mainly because that person has that much more intimate understanding of our needs, but we still need to pay someone if they're a community member. To that end, we might consider a gofundme or indiegogo or something.
4. This is the most... ambitious and potentially controversial proposition. We had a small player pool, and some of the ones who signed up didn't actually show. This is not a Jcon specific problem. People sign up for games at Gencon and bail. However, it was brought up that people tend to take things a little more seriously if they have to pay for them, even if it's a dollar. To that end, it might be worthwhile to consider making a seat reservation at a game cost a small charitable donation, and then donating the whole take to whatever charity at the end of con.
This is what I've got written down, I'm sure people will remember or think of other stuff after this goes up, so of course please reply with whatever you got.
So there was supposed to be a big round-table discussion hangout where everyone proposed some things for next Jackercon, talked about what happened this one, you know, the usual.
I'm writing up the stuff we came up with together for D.T. Pints since he couldn't make it.
1. We had way more people running than playing. We'd like to see some efforts to expanding and growing the community to encourage more players to come along. We're all in pretty good agreement that we'd rather not discourage people from running games, but it'd be more productive to up the pool of players.
1a. We'd like to consider reaching out to some of the other RPG podcasts out there when it comes time to promote the next one. Specifically, we talked about Fear the Boot since they have a pretty good relationship to HJRP.
2. Trying to organize and block time out for a Jackercon 3-4 times a year is a little overwhelming. We think we could do better if we ran twice a year rather than the current schedule. 6 months' lead time would let us get a lot more game prep in place, and if we go the route of trying to make JCon big, we can get word out with more time to build some hype.
2a. Even though we think it'd be more effective to go for the gusto twice a year rather than 3+ times, I think it'd be good to overtly encourage people to basically run off-con games whenever they like. I mean, there's a community here every day, might as well have some fun whenever we want.
3. The continuing troubles and learning curves associated with Google plus make it a major barrier to a large-scale expansion. Every time someone new joins the group, they get stuck in bad UX hell until someone comes along and decodes the whole thing for them. What's worse, Google seems to be trying to take away the features and abilities most useful to us as a group. They've changed the programming so you can only make events on a mobile device in the new scheme, for example, and even there it's not direct, you have to go through Google calendar and then somehow make that into an event? I don't even know and I'm not interested.
3a. I'm saying this publicly where before I've only said it privately: I will absolutely buy a domain and find out the rates for a web designer to make us a page that works. I'll pledge the first hundred dollars to pay the web designer even. If we go that route, though, we will need to do a few bits of research.
3b. There are some alternative software packages available that are made to run and organize large events. One is Eventbrite, and another is Warhorn, and there are likely more, but those are the 2 we heard brought up in the hangout.
3c. If we do end up with a dedicated website, we'd need a techy nerd who can do website things, and we'd need to pay that person. I'd prefer if it was a community member, mainly because that person has that much more intimate understanding of our needs, but we still need to pay someone if they're a community member. To that end, we might consider a gofundme or indiegogo or something.
4. This is the most... ambitious and potentially controversial proposition. We had a small player pool, and some of the ones who signed up didn't actually show. This is not a Jcon specific problem. People sign up for games at Gencon and bail. However, it was brought up that people tend to take things a little more seriously if they have to pay for them, even if it's a dollar. To that end, it might be worthwhile to consider making a seat reservation at a game cost a small charitable donation, and then donating the whole take to whatever charity at the end of con.
This is what I've got written down, I'm sure people will remember or think of other stuff after this goes up, so of course please reply with whatever you got.
