Ask the Hive Staff

[Archian]

Ask the Hive Staff!

On top of the FAQ for general board-related information, we will keep this thread to answer any questions you have about e.g. site policies, site rules, and site management. The idea is for this to be a living document. Questions that we feel may provide help for the public will be grouped together, en masse, and listed in this post.

Answered Questions

Answered questions will be in the following format. As the list grows, we may divide them into groups of what they pertain to specifically.

• What's your plan to increase board activitiy? (Follow Up)
• Can users control how much reputation they award a post?
• Are threads outside Something Else strictly spam free?
• If a user get banned, will his IP address be blocked for registering a new account?
• If two or more device belong to different people but within the same LAN, will the IP checker be able to distinguish them?
• Can moderators be assigned over minor areas of the forum?
• Are reviewers the backups of moderators?
• Are there any hidden/confidential forums?
• What are referals?
• How do you give empty/negative reputation?
• What do you do if your account is disabled?
• What are relevancy factors?
• Can a user get in trouble here for causing problems off-site?
• If I wanted to be a staff member, how would I go about doing that?
• How do you deal with moderators who abuse their powers?

Thread Rules

• Please make sure the question hasn't already been answered in this thread or by the FAQ.
  • Open the hidden tag in this post and read through the questions, or use Ctrl + F to search for words related to your question. If it's there, it will most likely give a match.
  • For the FAQ, use the search box.
• Don't ask about individual cases.
  • That is not to say you can't ask about stuff that affects you personally. "Why was I given an infraction for double posting?" and "When will my reosurce be approved?" are not okay, but can easily be switched out for "Can you explain the double posting policy?" and "Can you explain the resource approval process?" respectively.
  • Questions about individual cases can be answered in Staff/Admin Contact.
• Answers by the staff are the only official answers.
  • Users may obviously chip in with answers. And most of the time, they will be correct. Just know that any answer not from a staff source is liable to be false.
• Disagreements with our answers should go in a separate thread or in Staff/Admin Contact.
  • We're not keeping this thread to debate the site. We have the entire Site Discussion forum for just that.

Play nice and keep to the guidelines and you're in the clear. Posts may be deleted if they don't comply with what's been laid out above. This is to keep the thread helpful and not to harm you personally. If you're in the bush, we will let you know one way or the other. What will we do exactly? Hey, maybe that's a question you should ask in the thread!

Questions away.

 

[Heinvers]

Is the site still alive?
How healthy do you perceive the current resource sections and what's your current agenda for it besides the reviewer system?
As in solutions given in the long run(attracting more activity there, whatnot).

 

[fladdermasken]

How healthy do you perceive the current resource sections and what's your current agenda for it besides the reviewer system?

Besides changing it to repositiories and having a whole different system to play with when we migrate to Hive 2.0? Nothing conclusive. We still see a lot of traffic and the reviewer system is a good way to get on top of that. There are many pending maps and models, but we've seen and dealt with worse situations.

As in solutions given in the long run(attracting more activity there, whatnot).

For attracting activity we promoted StoPCampinGn00b to Site Ambassador and he's running our Twitter and the likes. We're also working on some stuff that will probably be announced in the near future about the upcoming patch. Other than that, attracting activity is always a bit of a gamble this late in the game, and it seems to follow its own whims more than anything we do, even if what we do contributes to it.

 

[Roland]

Will you accept Posts with Shit-posting & Cringe-y outside the Something Else Section?

 

[Archian]

As in solutions given in the long run(attracting more activity there, whatnot).

The Community Program is the official title of a new effort initiated by the Hive administration team.
The primary focus of this program is to promote Hive across multiple online communities and social media.

More specifically, the points listed below are the primary focus of this program:

• Set up new affiliates.
• Promote user created content on social media.
• Promote and organize content on Hive and social media.
• Promote community activities.
• Build relationships with other communities.
• Manage our Twitter and facebook account, keep it active
• Verify Hive's Twitter & facebook page
• Get Hive recognized as an official Blizzard fansite.
• Set up Battle.net tournaments.

StoPCampinGn00b was made part of our community program. A program that I oversee. His primary task is to manage the new Multiplayer, Clans and Arrangements board, establish contact and set up new relationships with other Warcraft 3 communties. And when he finds time, help me keep our Twitter account active.

We recently got permission from doomhammer99 to take over his facebook page dedicated to Hive. We will soon make an announcement regarding this and much more.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Get Hive recognized as an official Blizzard fansite.

Any special plan to accomplish that?

 

[fladdermasken]

Will you accept Posts with Shit-posting & Cringe-y outside the Something Else Section?

THOSE WERE THE DAYS.

But no, not likely. Something Else is a measure to keep the other localities of the site cleaner. The idea is that people like to spam (note: not spam as in unsolicited chains of adverts and the likes). It's an online community's equivalent of shooting the breeze with your friends without having a set topic to discuss. It can even help build stronger ties in the community. But it's harmful when it's derailing topics where it's not wanted, so the ideal solution is to have a designated spam forum.

In the end it's all context, though. If your post derails the thread, it will most likely be deleted. If it's tasteless/harmful/out of context, it will most likely be deleted. And so on and so forth.

But at least when Ash and I are overseeing the community-side of the site, we're not going to go out of our way to mass purge banter and jokes because they're not entirely on topic. Shit-posting is part of any community; it's just a question of which level of shit we're talking about.

 

[Roland]

Thank you for your Explanation. +Reputation

 

[Traxamillion]

How do magnets work?

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

How do magnets work?

Duh. It's because they are atraxted to each other, just like when one is attracted to make posts like these because of there being no rule against posting such a post.

Any special plan to accomplish that?

Well, a special plan isn't exactly needed. We (Hive staff) are already in contact with blizzard's "WC3 patch 1.27 team" which makes our goal easier since we know blizzard is willing to work with the Hive.

As for making it convincing for blizzard to follow through with our request, I believe we have everything we need. There's no other WC3 modding site, in English at least, anywhere close to the activity and the amount of amassed quality tools and resources that Hive has. This means Blizzard won't have to worry about picking a side. Our site rules also tidily mesh well with Blizzard's interests and legalities - mostly notably copyright and resource rules.

Yes, we're exited about this possibility.

 

[Roland]

How do you guys hangout in the Mod's Lobby are you staff(s) allowed to post weird shit-posting (Porn, Gore or Cringe-y) Stuff in the Mod's Lobby?

 

[Ralle]

How do you guys hangout in the Mod's Lobby are you staff(s) allowed to post weird shit-posting (Porn, Gore or Cringe-y) Stuff in the Mod's Lobby?

It's casual definitely. A moderator is permitted to say his opinion about a user without getting fuss over it, but they aren't permitted to post weird shit. Think about it this way. If a moderator is keeping cool with a user, he may want to vent about it in ML.

The ML is a shoulder.

 

[Roland]

Do you have a track record & Every personal information from your staff team? & is VGatsomi has access to the SF? (Staff Forums)
How do users give a specific amount of rep? Like JesusHispter gives me 4 Rep while San Gives me 5 and Ralle gives me 50 (Just an example)

 

[IcemanBo]

When a user decides to spread rep, the amount will be decided automatically depending on how much rep the said user currently has. Details are explained here.

When a moderator/admin decides to give or to deduct rep, a new window will pop up, where we can specify the amount. More details are explained here.

 

[Flux]

Do mods/admins see some 'extra' information about a user that regular users can't. (E.g. how many infractions a user got). If yes, what are those.

If a user get banned, will his IP address be blocked for registering a new account?

If two or more device belong to different people but within the same LAN, will the IP checker be able to distinguish them?

 

[IcemanBo]

What does staff see from a user what user's can't

I will only answer your first one, because I might not know everything what Ralle knows about IPs.

• We can see a user's "User Notes" on one's profile.
  It's not something where we log behaviour, but insetad it has only low value for us.
  We actually only use it to track name changes for one's account.
  E.g., if I change my name, I might get a note there: "Formerly knows as IcemanBo."
  -
• Infractions is something that we can see, yes. That is basicly all the idea with infractions.
  We keep track of listed mis-behaviour of a user, and also linked with the appropriated punishment/warnings on our side.
  If there are further problems with the user or complains from his side, we can precisly see who and why has acted back then.
  So it makes things easier for us, and strengthens the fairness/adequacy for a user's treatment, in case of an issue.
  -
• 
  Of course we also can see when a user gets reported in forum or in chat. Or one of his posts.
  This is obviously needed so we can deal with the reported matter.
  

 

[fladdermasken]

If a user get banned, will his IP address be blocked for registering a new account?

Yes, we can restrict devices assigned with specific IP addresses from accessing the site. But a normal ban from infractions won't restrict your connection, only your permission to post, access the chat, etc. If you try to create a new account and the site picks up that you are trying to register from an IP that already has an account connected with it, it won't allow you to complete the registration.

If two or more device belong to different people but within the same LAN, will the IP checker be able to distinguish them?

Unfortunately, no. There are less than 4.2 billion available IPv4 IP addresses, i.e. less than the total amount of hooked up devices in the world. Meaning some devices will have to share. When the IP tool gets a match between two or more accounts, we will contact them to get the full story. If two or more accounts share an IP, there can be no boosting involved, i.e. the accounts aren't allowed to rep each other, vote for each other's entries in contests, upvote each other's resources, etc. If we find out the accounts have been boosting each other, we will be forced to treat it like a multi-account.

 

[Flux]

Unfortunately, no. There are less than 4.2 billion available IPv4 IP addresses, i.e. less than the total amount of hooked up devices in the world. Meaning some devices will have to share.

Yeah, I know there are not enough IPv4 but I was thinking it maybe it can distinguish via port numbers (like how NAT overload works).

 

[fladdermasken]

Yeah, I know there are not enough IPv4 but I was thinking it maybe it can distinguish via port numbers (like how NAT overload works).

It can't. But either way, we have no way of telling whether that would be two separate people in the same household or one person on two devices.

i.e. our measure is effectively the same as it would be if we could distinguish via port numbers.

 

[edo494]

imagine now that either whole part of the city, or even the whole city is connected to the same LAN, which it literally is, so that plan does not work so well anymore. On the positive note, I really doubt there is anyone else from this city on this forum

 

[Flux]

imagine now that either whole part of the city, or even the whole city is connected to the same LAN, which it literally is, so that plan does not work so well anymore. On the positive note, I really doubt there is anyone else from this city on this forum

Then it wouldn't longer be classified as a LAN. It is now a MAN

 

[edo494]

the naming doesnt matter, + noone uses MAN anyways, but yeah, I suppose it is more correct in the theoretical level

 

[Roland]

Can the Webmaster promote a user but has Limited staff powers in the site? i.e Has ONLY control to the Graphics Design & Concept Art section
EDIT: Does reviews are backups of Moderators? or like the Reserves for moderatorships?

 

[fladdermasken]

Can the Webmaster promote a user but has Limited staff powers in the site? e.g. Has ONLY control to the Graphics Design & Concept Art section

Yes, a moderator can be assigned to only have powers in a single forum. A good example of this is the hosted projects, where the leaders of the team have moderator powers over their own forum space. We have a pretty good permission panel where we can select which permissions a user has throughout the site.

Should be noted though that we don't usually promote like that, but instead have our existing staff take on more encompassing responsibilities.

e.g. Graphic Design and Concept Art are under the authority of our 2D Art Moderators.

Does reviews are backups of Moderators? or like the Reserves for moderatorships?

Reviewers are a helping hand that don't deal with any other moderation business other than resources. They are focused versions of moderators; not reserves and backups.

But yes, we do look at it as a good pool of candidates when we need to promote more people to the core staff.

 

[Roland]

I see, is there any dark and confidential subforums here in the hive? (excluding the Staff forums)
Please explain us what happened to The former respected staff: Wolverabid All the details and the cause about his disappearance, I'll give you +Reputation for the effort
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/members/wolverabid/

 

[KILLCIDE]

TFW Blizzard likes the Hive Workshop facebook page.

When I took this photo, I remembered one of the administrators informing the community that you guys are in contact with Blizzard. I know this will probably be difficult to answer (I would be pretty happy if I even got one), but what kind of things did Blizzard talk to the administrative team about? I'm not looking for anything specific, maybe just mentioning a very vague topic would be enough for me.

 

[Ralle]

Wc3 is not dead.

 

[Roland]

Is there any dark and confidential subforums here in the hive? (excluding the Staff forums)
Please explain us what happened to The former respected staff: Wolverabid All the details and the cause about his disappearance, I'll give you +Reputation for the effort

 

[The_Silent]

Is there any dark and confidential subforums here in the hive? (excluding the Staff forums)

All the social group forums.

 

[PurgeandFire]

When I took this photo, I remembered one of the administrators informing the community that you guys are in contact with Blizzard. I know this will probably be difficult to answer (I would be pretty happy if I even got one), but what kind of things did Blizzard talk to the administrative team about? I'm not looking for anything specific, maybe just mentioning a very vague topic would be enough for me.

We'll have a cool post next week about it.

 

[bear_369]

Did the BBCodes were made by this site?
If so, how does it convert it into a HTML code?

 

[Ralle]

Did the BBCodes were made by this site?
If so, how does it convert it into a HTML code?

Your question makes no sense at all.

 

[RED BARON]

Did the BBCodes were made by this site?
If so, how does it convert it into a HTML code?

Well.. BBcode is a markup language. Some of those used on this site, I believe is custom, like say the one for showing triggers. As for how to create them, you can find some guides for it.. like say this, this or this (through a mod).

There is plenty of converters out there if you want to convert html into BBcode or the reverse.

So as you might be able to see from the above, it is not really a question of: if the BBcodes was made by the site, nor how to convert them to html. Usually its more a question of adding the BBcode to the site, meaning adding a html function, that is then written, when one uses the BBcode. It extends functionality to the users. That also means that you can convert an html code to a bbcode and use on a site.

 

[Warseeker]

If I'm asking, Is it possible to move all the contains of an user's profile to another profile?

 

[Chaosy]

@warseeker
Merge accounts? that's possible.

 

[Ralle]

Yeah. Merging works. But it's all or nothing.

 

[Warseeker]

So if you merge the profile contents of user (A) to user (B) profile, the first account will become empty (0 posts, rep...etc), and all that will be moved to the new profile, is that right?

 

[Shar Dundred]

The old profile will not exist anymore afterwards.

 

[Warseeker]

Okay, now I understand, Thanks Shar!

 

[fladdermasken]

Moved the posts concerning the map situation to Official "There are too many pending resources" Thread.

Is there any dark and confidential subforums here in the hive? (excluding the Staff forums)

There are hidden forums that are not used anymore. There is also a hidden Recycle Bin. Then of course you have Staff/Admin Contact in which you can only see your own threads.

You also had some other hidden forums, e.g. a hidden forum in the Arena where the staff posted all threads before they were checked up on and moved to the main forums.

Most of the dark shit goes down in the Staff Forums. It's like the VIP corner of a joint ran by a yugoslavian crime syndicate. Except less tracksuits.

 

[Yours Truly]

I have questions

I have questions that I dun know about the Hive:

• What are Referrals?
• What are Relevancy Factors?
• How do you give empty/negative rep?
• What to do when an account is disabled?

 

[Ralle]

I have questions that I dun know about the Hive:

• What are Referrals?
• What are Relevancy Factors?
• How do you give empty/negative rep?
• What to do when an account is disabled?

1. When someone registers on the site, they can write your username as their "referral" if you referred them to the site.
2. Where do you see those?
3. You are a moderator.
4. You send us an email.

 

[Yours Truly]

I've found Relevancy Factors here:

 

[Ralle]

Ah. The search system provides a relevance for each found search item based on your search query. You can find more about it here:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/fulltext-natural-language.html

 

[Roland]

Hi, Does the user gets infracted if He/She threatens or Flames a user Outside the Hiveworkshop?

 

[Chaosy]

Hi, Does the user gets infracted if He/She threatens or Flames a user Outside the Hiveworkshop?

Sounds silly to me o-o

 

[Roland]

..I mean if a user has a (Social media account) so as the Flamer, Will you reprimand the user here? (I just flammed the same user here in hive and in Youtube)

 

[Chaosy]

I don't see why.

That's like me getting banned in Maplestory will get me banned in WoW and Runescape as well.

 

[Ralle]

Hi, Does the user gets infracted if He/She threatens or Flames a user Outside the Hiveworkshop?

No. What happens outside Hive stays outside Hive. However, if you are a staff member, everything everywhere matters.

 

[Gilles]

If I wanted to become a staff member how would I go about doing that?

Note: I looked really quickly through the FAQ but I didn't see anything. I know what the site's stance was on this topic in the past, but I'm curious if it's changed at all and I think it's something that users would like to know but are afraid to ask.