Dropping the beta team.

[striker]

Beaner and I have been thinking about dropping the beta team and only stay with the mappers. We think that the Crew members themselves should be able to test features on the beta server and can also learn a lot from it. If need extra help to test can always look for someone, preferable someone friendly or that can be trusted. Next to that I want the managers to award this player, Sophia, that annoying guy who has been around helping a lot and until this day didn't receive any award. And also these. We might have to update that though.

Here's the member group of beta members, mappers and this.
Some mappers doesn't show under the mapper group, but in beta instead. Beaner should be able to say who's all the mappers.
Is it possible to move mapping to development section as a child board but can only be seen and access by mappers and Crew?

Ok that's all. Please discuss here, not IRC.

[Russell]

I agree with dropping the beta team.  Both #LVP.dev and the beta server are open for everyone who is interested.  I'm all for advertising them more widely.

There are nine people with Appreciation Awards (TEF, Jay, Xanland, Halo, Cave, [BB]Turkey, eF.Pedro, Kase and [SM]cake).  While I recognize that Sophia has done good things for Las Venturas Playground, his name does not belong in that list.

I tentatively agree with giving FateTrip an Appreciation Award.  However, I also think we should not nominate more than a few people a month.  As for other people in that topic, I don't have a strong opinion.  I just want Appreciation Awards to continue being a special thing.

Moving the boards should be possible.

[MacSto]

I think retiring the beta team would be a good way to streamline some of the unnecessary hierarchy. As Russell pointed out, the dev channel is open to anyone, and the community at large should be able to help the developers with beta testing if they desire.... there's nothing that we need to hide in beta testing.

Sophia is a nice guy, and has indeed been helpful to the community. But again, I side with Russell on this note.

I feel that the current holders of Appreciation Awards have really earned them, and deserve to be holders. This is something that should indefinitely be kept "special", so few and far between. I dont think we need to have a monthly quota for nomination or anything of the sort.... as people really earn them, they should be nominated. I agree with FateTrip, and I would also like to suggest Mark, as he has spent a tremendous amount of time and effort into fully (and independently) managing LVP Radio. For the amount of work he has put into it, he undoubtedly deserves some proper recognition.

[striker]

Thanks for the replies.

I'll like for these two to have an award then, Mark & FateTrip. Last award for this year.  As MacSto said, he's been managing the LVP Radio for a while now and is doing a really good job. FateTrip has been around for quite some time and was part of the LVP Crew until last year and now is part of the LVM Crew. I had many conversations with him and he said that he isn't really fine with being a Crew with no appreciation at all. Hence why the bad attitude of him on the LVP forum, which I can understand when it's coming from someone who spend a lot of hours helping a community.

Would it be a good idea to send a forum PM to those beta testers for their help and also say why dropping the beta team? Or will just drop the whole beta team without saying a word to them? And who will do the honor of moving mapper to LVP Development as I suggested above?

[Kase]

I'll deal with dropping the beta team, sending private messages and moving boards around.

EDIT: Actually, most beta testers are inactive, and the few active ones are part of the crew or the development team, so there's really no point in sending private messages. Let's just remember to drop a note about this in the next public announcement.

EDIT 2: All done!

[striker]

Thanks. One last thing Beta can removed from membergroups and the badge for the LVP Mappers should be renamed to Mapper. That should be everything then.