Hi all,
We have recently decided to go ahead with a dMw community survey. Before we get going with the survey we need to come up with some constructive questions and comments as to what we want to achieve and want we want to ask to make the survey successful and of course the actual questions and wording (basically the action points). I have been given the task to sub-lead this with Benny leading from the Council. To start with the guiding principals of the survey are thus:
The survey needs to be split into 2 similar or different forms possibly with a way of filtering after the initial response to tailor the survey to that viewpoint. These viewpoints are:
*supporting members
*non-supporting members.
This will then contain various sections such as game specific questions or the like.
It mustn't be too long and be of adequate length without people feeling bored throughout.
Another point we need to discuss is the type of questions so be it yes, no questions graded 1-10 for satisfaction or typed essays.
Remember the way you ask the question will affect the way they answer.
Here are some topics to get you started on the things I think we should be asking:
(? marked topics are ones that could be included but are they really necessary)
*how long has the person been a community member
*why did they join initially
*who referred them
*their age?
*gender?
*what type of games do they prefer
*do they feel as a community member they are getting good value for money?
*Is the supporting membership fee a deciding factor on becoming a supporting member?
*would they be open for volunteering to help with dmw activities/ organisation?
*what games do you play here
*what games should we support
*any further comments
Any questions post away.
Cheers,
GhostMjr
I think you should keep age as it would be good to know which age bracket we fall into - Gender is pretty pointless as most of us are male apart from a few?.
Also could the answer be in the form of a few sentances? rather than scoring or picking an option that way we're bound to get a broad range of answers....Just my two cents
Unfortunately it makes assessing the results almost impossible if the bulk of the responses are in qualitative form (i.e. sentences), hence GM's suggestion that the questions are answered quantitatively.
I agree it needs to be simple one point answers in order to encourage people to fill it in. If they find they have to type or write lots of information then they are likely to just ignore it. We get issues of people just visiting the forums and reading posts let alone them to actually join in a discussion so would keep it brief.
Also I don't think that gender is really that relevant to this and for age we should use ranging options like 20-25 or 20-30 etc as some people might not want to be too personal.
On a scale from 1-10 are you male or female? ^^
Quote from: .DickDastardly.;341229I think you should keep age as it would be good to know which age bracket we fall into - Gender is pretty pointless as most of us are male apart from a few?.
Also could the answer be in the form of a few sentances? rather than scoring or picking an option that way we're bound to get a broad range of answers....Just my two cents
But if you have some ideas mate that you want to see put in talk to your GL or any of us, always welcome for new idea mate :)
All,
Let's not get bogged down in a discussion about the survey aesthetics and types of questions. Short, concise posts about what you need to understand about our existing community to help further it, wants needs etc. Dump thoughts and Ghost and I will decipher them and decide how we go about setting up the survey itself.
Bullets would be lovely.
So basically we want multiple choice?
Like:
Age? 10-15 16-19 20-25 26-29 30-35 etc. (This would go quite high knowing some of the members)
What games do you play/prefer? RTS | RPG | FPS | MMO
What are your favorite aspects of dMw? Social/LAN | Community/Forum | Whatever
Where would you like to see changes? Social/LAN | Community/Forum | Games
Aspects you would like not to change?
Is it always TwoBad's fault? Yes | YES! | Who else? | Duh...
------------------
Or have I missunderstood?
perfect for now, thank you Vargen. Does that cover everything you need to know about your typical BF3 player that would allow you to target more of the same?
I guess you could add more game specific questions with just a N/A option for those that don't play it. Adding game mode and server settings questions. I dunno how specific you want it to be to a certain game.
Rate 1 to 10
- Is it important to have a game admins available
- Did games having admins influence your decision to join dMw and/or become a Supporting Member
- Should games have more organised events (more than just a weekly gaming night)
Along the same lines as twobad:
Would you participate in:
- Competition matches (competition rules)
- Friendly matches tournaments
- Friendly Ladders tournaments
what games do you have (from a list)
do you play each regularly(weekly) infrequently, or never. etc.
What games do you plan to get in 2012?
do you play games regularly with other clans/communities? if so, which games, & which clans?
Quote from: Blunt;341299what games do you have (from a list)
do you play each regularly(weekly) infrequently, or never. etc.
What games do you plan to get in 2012?
do you play games regularly with other clans/communities? if so, which games, & which clans?
On this one I would add an option for "Only for special events". IE I only play SC2 at LANs and friendly tournaments. I rarely play it on my own.
When we discussed the possibility of the survey, is was around our customer and the service that dMw offer our customers. It was also along the lines of how well do we know our customers and are we delivering what they need / expect so we can stop them from drifting away. Without knowing our customers, we can't deliver the service they require.
If dMw delivers a top-notch service our community will continue to grow and grow in the right direction. If we fail to meet expectations, people will leave to find what they are looking for.
My thoughts are:
Know your Customer:
Age: Use 5 age ranges max
Genre of Games Played: Using tick box approach. eg: FPS, Driving Sim, Real-time Sim (eg: Total War), etc. etc. - Keep the list reasonable.
Hours Spent Playing Games in a week: Use 0-10, 10-20, 20-30, >30
Are you a Supporting Member?: Y/N - if no, open a text box so they can tell us why not.
Service Delivery:
On a scale of 1-5 (5 being excellent, 1 being poor), how do you rate the dMw community?
(insert selection of questions above - some of them are really good)
....
Would you be willing to get involved in the Community with respect to: Server Admin, Compettition / tournament coordination, etc. (this will require a commitment of your time): Y/N if yes, Text-box for gaming name.
And of course, thank them for their participation in the community survey.
Good work chaps, everything is covered here so I don't have much to add.
One thing I am interested in is the addition questions about how they found dMw and if they would/have recommended the community to anyone. I know this has already been posted on the forums but its an important one IMO.
DZ.
All done fellas? Another day for the stragglers then we'll take it off and start seeing what we come up with.
Quote from: DrunkenZombiee;341453Good work chaps, everything is covered here so I don't have much to add.
One thing I am interested in is the addition questions about how they found dMw and if they would/have recommended the community to anyone. I know this has already been posted on the forums but its an important one IMO.
DZ.
On that note maybe add something about the cards TL handed out at the LAN? I've passed on quite a few of them so far :)
Apologies all, I thought I'd sent some PM's in the background but like a dunce, hadn't. We are still on this, watcha this space, as Joe Dolce once said.
After a pretty good response to the survey the initial results are attached. The highlights being;
Finding us : a whopping 52% of our responders saying it's word of mouth that got them here, followed by 23% finding us through in game browser. You can probably assume that the browser responders are BF fellas to level it out.
Supporting Members : Nothing really of note other than supporters fill out forms, but worth noting that people don't really appear to play anywhere else, with the exception of individual responses noting other social pieces.
No real surprises that our members are FPS and RPG players, but the real interest comes from the additional comments, a scrubbed version of the feedback is below
It's not the complete list, but a subset thereof. The edits I've made are to maintain the anonimity as I think it's right to do so. Perhaps someone would like to start chopping these up and getting the themes?
) Servers and forums are well maintained and monitored More dMw surveys like this one, they offer better info than what a poll can achieve
i like the community feel and the support given out to each other
attempts to organise Scrims with other clans haven't gone down too well (i.e. no one shows up at the right place/ no one knows what's going on
I just think it is getting increasingly difficult to keep general pc gaming popular due to the next generation preferring consoles. All in all excellent job running the community
more scrims with other clans and a team dedicated to looking for other clans to challenge. Internal ladders are a great idea but you need to have commitment
the community at the moment is very fractured by many factors
dMw is friendly and honest compared to most clan's which are mostly competition based
although getting players online is always the issue :P
There seems to be a push by gamers who can afford new technology and even new games to constantly change the gamelist.
little stability on what the clan is all about
dMw now tries to wear all hats and doesn't give the same experience it once did I never know from week to week what games will be up or who's playing what were and when. There is no-way I'll be shelling out £30-40 for a game that some critic gives 99% only for the community to lose interest in a matter of weeks
If a game is working for dMw do we really need to update when a new version is released?
larger" raid events- aka 25 man
new CounterStrike should be interesting, nowadays people leave early in the evenings on Friday . CS got us alot of new members back in the day.
The one thing that keeps me coming back is the great great people who run and use this community and the hope that solidity can return
random game night on anything weekly or biweekly on a game of peoples choice to try and persuade more people to play different games as its mostly BF3 and SWTOR other games are starting to get over shadowed
I feel as though the rules are perhaps too strictly adhered to, sometimes it doesn't really matter if the teams are a bit stacked. Fine with balancing when the round ends but don't do it mid-game
(website) Deadmen has the content, it's just that presentation is important too.
also feel as though newer members (or younger members) of the community should be given more warnings/chances than older/more experienced when it comes to breaking server rules
Website needs modernising. It looks like an off-the-shelf forum page, which visitors find daunting
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ahem. .
I don't want to be the first reply and I'm really interesting in hearing what the admins say.
That said, I think it does raise some really interesting points and some we (I) hadn't considered and which need addressing. I'm not to go into more detail until others have spoken as it'll be interesting to see if we're all in accord.
"more scrims with other clans and a team dedicated to looking for other clans to challenge. Internal ladders are a great idea but you need to have commitment" <--- This is somthing I would love to be involved in for BF3.
"Website needs modernising. It looks like an off-the-shelf forum page, which visitors find daunting " <--- Strongly agree with this.
Unfortunatly I missed doing the survey this time round but hope there is another one So that I & Other members can once again express their views, Thanks Benny.
I can't find anything I disagree with, all salient points are covered.
From my own perspective, we're really struggling to get any members to play BO anymore, and I know RO2 is the same.
A few members have mentioned how much they miss CoD4 so I am considering resurrecting it for a bit to see whether more people turn out for it.
I'll chip in if I can think of anything else.
For me it comes into two key areas:
*communication
*Modernisation
communication is something we do well within dmw we plan and we meet all the time we speak to each other and we see what does and does not work. I think what they are saying is they want to see more leadership from us and where we are going. Maybe more posts from the council and GL's on what we are doing and where we are going. We do loads in the background I am not saying we don't but if we show them how much we do then they may see where we are going and why. Thats why we produced the survey to see what they wanted.
I think they have highlighted that the want some new ways of doing things. We need to try new ways to gain new people. We've done this with the business card idea that I came up with and with other things such as thinking about the new landing page. What I think we need to do is tell the community more what we are doing with their money and why we are doing it. We are honest with accounts information but now we have a good pot of money we could think about what else we can do to expand/grow. Games aren't flowing in anymore so what else could we be doing to keep our members here?
One interesting point to put across is we had a large response from those with supporting membership is this because they care more for the community and therefore wanted to spend a few minutes filling out the survey? I think the survey also shows the proudness to be part of the community a large amount want to participate in scrims and matches. Both internally and externally this means as they want to beat other clans!
I think we might need to think about what else we can provide to supporting members as an incentive to join us. Is there anything we could do?
Modernisation is difficult and I am happy with what we are at the moment I guess this has been talked about above admin level but I think a general this is where we are going post would be great to show the community what/where we are going.
As a side note the survey is still open.
Have we had many more entries since the results on page 2?
Looking at the current results, It looks like the majority wants some kind of competition one way or the other, so why not have both internal and external competitions? maybe some ladder matches
I think it would be important to keep it more casual and light hearted rather than going down the serious 'pro' route.
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submission history
Quote from: Benny;350150As a side note the survey is still open.
Cool how to I participate?
Quote from: .DickDastardly.;350188Cool how to I participate?
Go here DD:
http://dmw.wufoo.com/forms/dmw-survey/
Quote from: Benny;350170[ATTACH=CONFIG]1320[/ATTACH]
submission history
I give up. :(
I can't believe that after all these years we still have 11 people using Internet Explorer. :frusty:
Quote from: TeaLeaf;350199I give up. :(
I can't believe that after all these years we still have 11 people using Internet Explorer. :frusty:
I saw that 2 TL who are they need educating :'( :D
Not sure I agree with the forum needing modernising, I think its fine as it is, but that's from someone who regularly visits so not sure what it is like for a newcomer, maybe its a bit daunting rather than un-modern.
Agree we need to be more competitive with games whether internal or external, obviousley (and I agree with snokio) the internal competition needs to be light hearted and more of a laugh. External clan matches/scrims can be very difficult to organise nowadays, not only is it hard to get people to commit but with today's games it is getting more and more difficult to customise servers to accommodate matches etc. Clanbase would be a great place to start, I presume they support cod and bf3 and I know they have an RO2 ladder, which we could all look into.
How long until we get our hands on the results?
Whats wrong with Internet Explorer? next you'll tell me arrow keys are old fashioned!
enjoy
Quote from: Ninja_Freak;350206How long until we get our hands on the results?
not bad so far. Lots of interest for external and internal comps. Only 51 respondents though. Are you going to announce a closing date?
Open to thoughts on that, but perhaps another week?
Maybe a pm to all active members? Or something along those lines to remind? Email to all sorta thing, suppose it may be a little forceful though, I presume we have more than 51 active members.
Your the boss.. :D
Week sounds reasonable.
Out of curiosity, did you consider sending this via PM to catch the irregulars or those that haven't been here in a wee while?
Quote from: Sparko;350340Maybe a pm to all active members? Or something along those lines to remind? Email to all sorta thing, suppose it may be a little forceful though, I presume we have more than 51 active members.
lol.. great minds.
I certainly think it would be a good idea to email/pm members.
I know that people feel very strongly about being spammed, but I've had reminder emails from sites I'd forgotten that I had joined, and I didn't mind too much.
after all, it's just a click of the mouse to get rid of it.
We have several memebers/regs who play regularly but don't use the forum.
Quote from: Blunt;350347I certainly think it would be a good idea to email/pm members.
I know that people feel very strongly about being spammed, but I've had reminder emails from sites I'd forgotten that I had joined, and I didn't mind too much.
after all, it's just a click of the mouse to get rid of it.
We have several memebers/regs who play regularly but don't use the forum.
To be fair I did forget about it.
I'm a bit worried about the spamming aspect and if people don't visit the forum and the servers are their opinions ones we want to add to the mix? They're by definition not active members of the community. On the other hand as you say using the survey as a nudge to maybe remind them we're still here without that nudge seeming to be just spam might work as well. I'm happy to go with whatever choice we make. Sending an email to the membership is not a difficult thing to do from the forum admin panel. Also each member has the option to turn on or off messages anyway.
If we want a rounded opinion then I think we should send out the reminder. I see absolutely nothing wrong with it.
You could even start the PM / Email with "Apologies if you've already completed the survey, but dMw are very interested in your opinion...."
We've two options. We can use a free introductory feature of teh forum that lets us send out up to 500 mails for free (after which we have to pay) or w can create a mailing list in the forum software and export it to an external application to send. I'm not sure how best to send the mails if we use the mailing list feature. I use Gmail for all my mail and doubt it would work through that service. We'll need to look into it a bit ore if we do decide to create a mailing.
You guys probably already have this covered but i use a programme called SendBlaster 2 for doing mail shots for some of my clients. I'd be happy to use it for this, all i'd need is a list of addresses but if you gave me more info like forum name i could personalise the mails a little more. I can also add tracking to them so we can see how many people open the mails, click the links etc.
Guys,
Have we sent the survey invite out to non-active members yet?
I've taken some of the info about ladders and community scrims but before I consider anything further I thought I'd see if we're done with the survey and if so request the final results. However, I would really like us to contact those on the database that haven't been around recently and get their input too.
Tks.
Any News??
Had not seen this follow up for some reason.
I'm not convinced we should be sending this questionnaire to any non-active members. The questionnaire was designed as a link and for existing active members. Asking someone how many times they play on dMw servers or if they are Supporting Members when we already know they are not seems kind of pointless to me.
What I think people are thinking about is how we contact existing members who are inactive. That's a separate question.
The clash here is privacy/spam versus communication of services.
Personally I see no reason why we should not periodically send an email to ALL registered dMw members promoting our community and servers. I know there has been opposition to this in the past, buyt tbh if you register on a forum you expect some contact. The balance is frequency, too often and it is spam, too infrequent and it is inneffective.
I'd suggest once every 3 months is a reasonable period for contact? GLs would then need to come up with the content for these mails though!
I think this would work. We might be able to work it into a newsletter format and give people the option to unsubscribe if they want. This would throw up the issue of how we manage the newsletter and make sure those who unsubscribe don't receive the message in the future. I imagine a manual system would not work and we'd need to go automatic. The Vertical Response service built into the forum would cost us about £20.00 for each mailing assuming we were mailing all 2400ish members. I think the system allows recipients to opt out which I thin k is a must have if we're not to be accused of being spammers.
I've not checked yet (I'm out and about on public wifi) but there may be an alternative plugin option for the forum? Or someone may have a better idea or have facilities themselves to send out mails?
But I think the idea of a news letter with what we're doing, what games we support, how the various LAN's, events etc went would be a good call.