I remember MVP people on the WoW forums who generally were very knowledgeable about the game and helped people a lot.
The trust level / mvp system/ whatever else they have tried on these forums thus far is a colossal failure. There’s zero clear guidelines on why anyone has any kind of status. It’s the absolute opposite promoting a positive community.
MVP’s because they’re popular in the community are a terrible idea. They inevitably derail any conversation into a criticism of the MVP program, even if it’s utterly irrelevant. WoW has had a few of these and they’ve overall being terrible for both the MVP themselves and the forum as a whole.
MVP’s should be a rare designation for people who actually provide a tangible benefit for other forum users, whether it be people in Tech Support who are very reliable in their advice, or users like Wyoming who facilitate the OWL discussions and other things.
The trust system isn’t designed to get others to trust you, it’s to earn the “trust” of Blizzard.
It’s basically a way of introducing things like hyperlinks and pictures without it being abused by spammers.
Yeah I got forum muted for something completely random and minor almost a year ago, and I’m still not level 3 because of it, dispite generally trying to be a nice person that contributes to conversations.
I honestly think they just abandoned the forums, and everything just sort of stays the way it is.
I’ve never been muted or punished in anyway in OW. I met the supposed ‘requirements’ to get trust level 4 to post images and what not early on, then lost it when I had to go on a week long business trip and have never gotten it back.
Apparently having a life outside the forums is also warrant for not being trust worthy on the forums according to Blizzard’s A+ algorithm.
Sure, but I’ve been here some time now and am very active. There have been a couple times when I wanted to post a picture of a graph or chart to illustrate a point as part of a conversation, but nope.
Still not allowed to post pictures because of some unseen entity.
He is an MVP (but posts mostly on the World of Warcraft forums) and was grouped in our “forum group” here on the Overwatch forums. I think his account was guinea pigged for testing forum features.
Nicole is new to our community in comparison to most of the MVPs, she has primarily posted only on the Technical Support forum here on Overwatch and has done some amazing work (and has probably more technical knowledge than me). Trust her as you trust me.
It is important to remember that there is no “Community MVP group” for Overwatch, there are community groups for World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Hearthstone and Diablo. However, Overwatch is a very different game as it is not filled to the brim with quests, a single player campaign, thousands of cards to collect, etc. Overwatch in some ways is a very simple game, but in many other ways, it is very complex. However because of this, there is no “official” community MVP group at this time.
JellyandJam is one of many wonderful active community members here, and he does bring about a high level of positivity to the forums that I truly appreciate. I should directly quote one important part of the MVP program from the thread I linked:
I see a lot of you concerned about not getting “trust level 3” for forum privileges, I have a guide on the World of Warcraft forums that do answer most questions:
I also wish to point out a few key notes about us MVPs.
We are NOT representatives of Blizzard Entertainment.
I have no doubt will be answering this a lot more again. As the linked thread I provided indicates, we should be seen as “a valuable contributor to the community wherever he or she is posting.” However, we are players like you, passionate about Blizzard’s great games. Now that being said, I have provided incorrect information by accident in the past. I am human and prone to mistakes though I will try to correct them if possible. I will also not hesitate to tell you the truth even if you don’t like the answer (though it is often a difficult task for me in many cases). I have always tried to provide sourced information to help build upon any constructive discussion and will continue to do so.
Do not see us as a gateway to communicate with the devs
While I do have a very strong relationship with Blizzard as a consumer, and I have relationships with some of their team members. I do not have direct access to communicate with the development team for Overwatch. In reality, I rarely badger them unless I have a technical question that I don’t know myself and I feel it is something I can be allowed to learn.
Everyone has the power to make a difference in our community
As mentioned, there are amazing people here who spread positivity on these forums and give constructive responses. I’d like to think I am one, but I am a MVP Tech Support, I have over 10,000 posts among both technical support forums (for both the current and old Overwatch forums) alone, I also have thousands of Tweets and hundreds of replies I have made on Twitter and Reddit respectively to help players with their issues with Overwatch. I do this to make our community a better place, because Overwatch is more fun for me when everyone can play and have fun. That being said, I challenge everyone here to help others when they see the opportunity. Whether it is answering questions about the rules of the game, or providing support for a person struggling with having fun in the game, try to be positive and make a difference for each other.
A feature not doing something it isn’t designed to do is kinda expected.
The trust system isn’t meant to change the relationship between forum-goers. It’s meant to increase engagement from customers, give incentive for increased engagement and act as a way to offer certain privileges (like hyperlinks and embedding images) without them being abused by hacked or throwaway accounts.
I’m not arguing that the system is perfect, only that it not doing something it wasn’t designed to do is hardly a flaw of a feature.
It’s like saying Reaper is flawed because he sucks at mid-range.
i see, i instantly assumed than the MVPs were just blizzard representatives chosen from the playerbase,
would be intresting if blizzard started picking more people who do constructive posts and promote discussion to help in the program (thing that is very needed in this forum sometimes…)
I’m an MVP on the Starcraft forums, so I can practically answer any question you guys can think of about the MVP program. If you want to some basic information about expectations and policies etc. see this thread here:
Just for context, I have not been an active poster in the Starcraft community for a couple years now. Marriage, work, and Overwatch pulled me away after almost 7 years of activity, but I still know how everything works.
