Want to help GP be better? How you can help!

Jun 1, 2016 11:39 pm
Gamers' Plane is an every-growing organism, from new players to new games to new systems to new features. Right now, all the work is handled by me, and supported by you guys (thanks, as always, for every donation, every purchase through a referral link, etc). Some people have asked how they can help the site be ever more, so I thought I'd put together some ways I think I could use help. If there's something here you think might be helpful, feel free to post it here, PM me, or email me, and lets talk about it.

The stuff posted here is meant to be a role in GP; I'd ask if you're considering signing on, please take into mind the time the position would take. I'll never ask someone to give me more than they can give, but if you'd like to help with something, please don't disappear on me or what the role needs of you. I'll be placing my trust in you to help me make this site and community all the better, and the goal would be for me to stop paying more than high level attention to whatever you're helping with. If you can't dedicate time (this doesn't mean set hours or anything silly), that's not a big deal! Being on GP and having fun is all I want from people. If you're active on the general forums, playing/running games, adding items to the library, you're already doing a ton for the site. If you're telling your friends, people online, at your FLGS, or cons about GP, you're doing a ton for GP.

But if you do want to dedicate some energy to GP:

- Designers: If you have experience with graphic design (mainly web design), I'd love your feedback. No, I'm not asking for free work. If you have good ideas and can do work, I'll try to find money to pay you. Otherwise, as I continue to work on designs and build mocks, I needs feedback from experienced people who know both design and gaming to help me figure stuff out. If you'd like to join in the design of GP, I'd welcome new ideas/modifications. But this is more than just giving me an idea and bouncing; this would be an active conversation, taking the time it takes.

- Community Managers: I'd love to get people to help me grow the general community on GP, mainly through starting up new threads. This means thinking of interesting threads to get people involved, be it from general geek news, interesting Kickstarters, specific news from RPGs, board games, video games, etc. It'd be as much about coming up with threads as keeping threads appropriately alive and figuring out how often to post threads to keep the community going. Hopefully, this leads to organic community growth, and you'd mostly just be responsible for making sure people aren't getting rowdy.

- Guides Manager: GP has had a guides section for a while, and we keep talking about filling it. I know how I'd like the guides section organized, but I need help with people willing to take the lead on picking guides to work on, getting people moving to building guides, and making sure guides are structured in the most useful way possible. If we get guides going, I'll change it from a forum to a more wiki style section of the site.

- Programming help: GP is currently written in PHP/MySQL/MongoDB, and is moving to a Angular front end with a PHP/Mongo API. If you have experience with these languages, I could always use sounding boards, and there are projects you could help me develop or at least structure (like I haven't had time to learn RSS structures, and how they'd best work with GP, like a game feed, forum feeds for games, etc).

- Social Outreach: I try to put up tweets when a game is created and add a post to Facebook. I've also tried to do it for interesting threads, without much luck, and I haven't even tried to get onto stuff like Reddit yet. With a few other people, I wouldn't miss Facebook posts, and be able to get other social means moving. Eventually, I'll have code to auto tweet/FB, but I've never been a fan of automated social media; it doesn't feel real.
Jun 1, 2016 11:44 pm
I would like to help, but I'm no good with web design or programming. maybe I'll manage a community or something
Jun 1, 2016 11:50 pm
darthoingoboingo says:
I would like to help, but I'm no good with web design or programming. maybe I'll manage a community or something
As mentioned, what I have above I'm thinking of more as a "role"; I'd expect dedication if you sign up. If something like the community interests you but you're not sure you can always strive to start up threads/discussions on your own. As mentioned, I don't expect anyone to sign up to these; hopefully as the site grows, most of this will be organic anyway.
Jun 2, 2016 12:04 am
I could probably do some community management. My coding skills aren't all that great, and it's been a hot minute since I've done any kind of actual design...but I can definitely talk.
Last edited June 2, 2016 12:04 am
Jun 2, 2016 12:45 am
I don't have any coding experience, but I'd be happy to help out on the community management side.
Jun 2, 2016 12:54 am
Updated to mention guides
Jun 2, 2016 1:47 am
So first, I'd like to say that, I'd be happy to help work on guides and social outreach, as well as community manager. Although working on te guides and outreach is probably more of what I'd better suited for. I can't really help with coding or design.
Jun 2, 2016 1:49 am
when you say help with social media, what specifically do you mean?
Jun 2, 2016 1:59 am
I am a graphic designer, although I haven't really done anything web-related. Well, when my friend had his forum, I did offered some suggestions...

Edit: I do have a friend who's a webmestre. I know he could help greatly with referencing in order to come up on top with google searches...
Last edited June 2, 2016 2:01 am
Jun 2, 2016 2:00 am
darthoingoboingo says:
when you say help with social media, what specifically do you mean?
Someone to help me make sure the FB account always has new games posted up on it along with interesting threads, and increasing general awareness. Likewise, looking into alternate avenues like Reddit and what not.
Jun 2, 2016 2:02 am
hmm.. maybe we could get a subreddit made
Jun 2, 2016 2:20 am
darthoingoboingo says:
hmm.. maybe we could get a subreddit made
Maybe Voat as well for those who have chosen to boycott Reddit...
Jun 2, 2016 2:21 am
I might be able to help with some of the programming aspects. Familiar enough with ol' LAMP architecture and am in the process of pushing for an AngularJS solution for a project at work (mostly so I have an excuse to learn it).
Jun 2, 2016 2:27 am
I'd love to take a look at some programming! I'm doing some MEAN stack stuff personally and I'd love another project I can get passionate about!
Jun 2, 2016 2:33 am
I'm a programmer with some PHP experience, though my primary focus has been Perl with SQL thrown in. I am familiar with JavaScript, but I don't know Angular. Perhaps I can at least volunteer some time to consider algorithms.
Jun 2, 2016 2:37 am
CancerMan says:
I'm a programmer with some PHP experience, though my primary focus has been Perl with SQL thrown in. I am familiar with JavaScript, but I don't know Angular. Perhaps I can at least volunteer some time to consider algorithms.
I'm going to have to learn PHP myself some time early next year as I basically bought the domain name for my friend's aforementioned forum... Here might be a good place to start...
Jun 2, 2016 2:38 am
I have a lot of trouble letting go of my own work, so for code help, I think I'd be most comfortable starting off on subprojects for features (like the RSS feeds or maps?) and then moving on from there.
Jun 2, 2016 2:40 am
I can facebook and twadder
Jun 2, 2016 5:22 am
If be more than willing to work on guides and social media as well
load next

You do not have permission to post in this thread.