More interaction with the users..

So, since I became a Trial Mod, I decided to look over the Projects in the January Agenda. Since one of the projects sparked an idea, I thought I would share it since it could become an extensive idea throughout the entire forum for other mods as well.

More interaction with the users would be very nice, and a good way to do that would be to have someone on the team with the appropriate time on their hands for such a job, like myself for instance. I have nothing to do during the day, and while becoming a mod would just be sitting back and making sure things go right if everyone else does their job, there's more behind the scenes to make people feel more welcome at the forum.

You know how the forum tells you when someone has a birthday coming up? Someone with the appropriate time on their hands should stick around to send said user a Happy Birthday message. It would make people feel more inclined to be here if they knew they'd be getting a message celebrating their birthday on the forum.

This would not be mandatory, and it doesn't have to be required, but I plan to do this on my own, regardless of if anyone actually agrees with the idea. I hope it doesn't sound like too much to do, but I rather like the idea.

Tell me what you guys think, especially the mods. I'd like to hear you guys' opinion as well.

-Luna

I think that's a really nice idea, it'd be good to have someone(yourself like you suggested) to always do it and anyone else should if they're online and see that it's someones birthday, even if they aren't necessarily active anymore, sending a PM doesn't hurt
Hmm....what other things like that could we do?

Hm.. I don't know, I haven't really thought about anything else we could do.. xD

The core point of this idea has been brought up before in the staff, but I'll reiterate.

By all means, if you feel that your contact with the members is inadequate, change it. No project initiative is going to help you do that. I can't mandate you getting along with members.

So feel free so long as it doesn't interfere with any other duties or guidelines.

Agree with Atlas. I personally think as a mod, interacting with the members goes without saying. Generally, too, people post happy birthday wishes in the general chat when a member's birthday is announced, but a PM would be a nice idea. ^^

I've gotten started on that, on my own actually. I want to put something toward my mod trials, so I figured that would be something of interest for it. Of course, there's not much going on with the forum right now that could go toward it until the projects actually start, which will boost activity. xD

On the Cantr forums, there's a separate, specific thread for posting birthday wishes publicly, whereas here they tend to just get buried amongst the other jabber that goes around in the GC. I don't know whether or not this has already been started since my last visit here this morning since I haven't read that far just yet today, but I can go ahead and start it up if it's not already there.