Please let Staff know if you think your permissions are messed up!

Feel free to remind them as much as you want to too!

I'd like to start doing weekly community updates, where we, the EgN leadership let you know what we've been upto.
Sadly though I'm not feeling too great atm and I've been busy transferring the websites and everything so I'll keep this one short and maybe elaborate later (Apologies for that).

Should we call this State of the Community instead!? 🤨

1. Made a tasking app for Staff+, so it's clear what the outstanding tasks are.
   
   • This included some core stuff we need to get for our eventual new website
2. We're evaluating where our JB project is at right now (not referring to the one currently open to you guys)
3. Worked on a server management service which's core is done, but has no panel for non-dev to interact with (that's still WIP)
4. Moved the old forum to a new server.
5. Internally (among Leadership) discussed splitting Staff ranks and what that would entail.
6. Implemented our new community guidelines [and sadly had to enforce them on a couple of people]
7. We had a meeting where Matt stepped down (gl to you Matt!) and Doldol became Leader! We also vaguely discussed what the future holds for EgN.
8. We've been figuring out which posts if any to move from IPB to Phpbb3 and how to best go about it.
9. Looking for a way to properly do a community Discord [our current one isn't really there, I'd say]
10. *REDACTED*

I've been really busy getting everything situated and oriented, both infrastructure and hr wise. Plus I imagine it's been much the same for other Staff+ to adjust to a new Leader and figuring out how to do stuff, a lot should be cleared up once we've finished moving back to Phpbb3.

We will be moving over to the new website on this day!

Hey everyone,

I would like to provide you with another update on how things are going.

The biggest and most pressing change coming up is the new website. This past weekend we held our "Community-Wide" Staff meeting. A number of people attended, and we got the input we needed to move forward with the website. Personally, I am excited about what we are bringing to the table. This meeting has rang the bell for radical change, change that will not be easy to implement. We've entered into a time of change that I believe is required in order to propel this community forward. In an age of dying communities, the aging games we play, and the advances in development, we are at a significant disadvantage. I've promised to myself and this community to maintain a safe space for people to gather, game, talk, and what have you. To keep that promise, this change is necessary. Sly pointed this out in his LOA quite recently. I'm rebuilding this place from the ground up, which sometimes means to shake the very foundation that this house was built upon. It may be the same name, but many of you won't recognize these planks or the roof we will provide. I expect a lot of push-back, especially as this was not a majority decision by the Staff+. But to persevere we have to change.

We've purchased and have been working extensively on the new website. I'm pleased to say we've made significant progress, and near completion. The intent is to switch over the day of the monthly meeting, which is 1 week from today. We'll release whether we finish or not - the intent is to get a viable product up and continue to improve off of community feedback.

Now allow me to discuss the important changes that we will be bringing to the table with the release of this new website.

New Rank Structure
We've radically changed the rank structure. Matter of fact, we've taken it out completely. We are removing all ranks in favor of no ranks. All users who register on the forum will become "Community Members." The only other ranks are all leadership ranks. There will be no more promotions, demotions, LOAs, etc. Allow me to explain our reasoning behind this. We want people in our community who want to be here, and to associate. There are a plethora of rules that keep people away, ties that keep them here, and the inability to do what it is they really want. There's a lot of upkeep for the Staff, to monitor, promote, etc. Removing this system opens the highway for people to come and go as they please, with no rules such as double clanning, or even requirements to wear the tags. In place of the rank structure we will be introducing a new awards/achievement system. Awards will vary from a variety of different functions, such as some just being awarded after a certain number of posts, while others are harder to obtain, such as years of service, admin duties, reputation, likeness, etc. The awards system is currently our highest focus right now, and it's easily become the most difficult thing to create. Soon you'll see a post asking for your help on ideas.

Additional benefits to this system include the ability to create server-specific ranking structures. We are no longer limited by the structure of the community, allowing us to more easily develop gamemodes with their own playstyle. These ranks can be reflected on the forums, not the other way around. This structure also opens the door for expansion when we grow. Many ideas were discussed at the meeting to create a ranking structure of just admins, and while we decided not to go that route currently, the door is open for the future.

A new feature we are happy to release is the usage of "Clubs." Clubs are user-made groups in any field that you want. These will replace all current teams, including the Events team. Groups will now be User-directed instead of Staff-managed, encouraging players to take a more active role in the community and drive it in the direction they see fit. Clubs currently have to be Staff approved, but this is primarily to prevent troll clubs and combat potential "cliques" that may form. Clubs have a variety of features and forms, allowing you to create your own forum for your members, and you decide whether or not people in the club can see it's threads or not.

I am very excited for you to experience all the new ins and outs of the website. It's packed with a bunch of stuff this community has never had before, but it's also given me the opportunity to rebuild this place from the ground up, reviewing the FAQ and forum sections, systems and structures, posts and rules. While the content we have is extensive, I've decided to take out a lot of constraints and information we may not need. I've re-designed the forum structure. I want this to become a place you want to be, with no reasons to push you out. I think you'll be pleased to see what we've done. We'll be the better place to hang-out, not the place to get power over someone else.

I could talk about all the new features, but I think I'll leave that to you to explore.

Other Changes
Here I have good and bad news. The bad news is Nick and Dave have decided to leave the community, and with that, the Only War server project has been abandoned. LOAs increase as people continue to leave. Our undertakings have depleted all of EgNs funds. We have $0 in the bank, and I have spent hundreds of dollars on what we are building, including next month's bill.

Let's talk about the good news

First, LOAs will no longer be a problem because nobody will really be "in" the community with the new structure.

And here's the best news: After a long awaited period of time, I am almost 100% positive I have fixed the server listing issue. While what I've done may not be a permanent fix, it's done the job, and we've gotten random population on literally every server in the past 24 hours since the fix.

I thank you once again for your patience. For those of you who will care to read this post, I thank you. I thank you for your continued support, your ideas, your activity, and your excitement for what's to come. I'm committed to rebuilding this place to the caring, supportive, and the escape I once knew. I know you may not agree with what we're doing. Some of you will leave. But for now we are adapting and changing so that one day we can become.

Cheers to whats to come.
- mattlikespie

There will be a Staff meeting on February 10th at 3:30pm CST, normal meeting time but on a Sunday. The reason I am posting this, however, is because everybody is invited. We'll run it more or less like a normal Staff meeting, and of course the Staff+ will do the majority of the talking. But when we reach ideas and decisions, we will listen and accept suggestions and ideas from the community members who attend. If you'd like a say in the next major decisions of EgN, this is the meeting to be at.

These are some of the things we will be talking about:
- New rank structure
- The Retired rank
- Key elements of the new website
- Conducting a "Purge" with the creation of the new website
- Do we migrate over old content or not
- Restructuring of the dev team
- Restructuring of all the other teams
- Minecraft plans
- Anything else that comes up

I look forward to a constructive meeting, and I am excited to see what we can accomplish.