Reworking the Hylian Knights

[Jamie]

Hey,

The Staff have discussed extremely thoroughly the idea of reworking the HKs. I want it to be made clear that this is not an HK decision, but a staff decision pertaining the future of a particular rank. This is something that is being seriously considered, but we do think there is value in hearing the community's opinion, as well as the opinions of the current HKs.

Here is the general idea:
Firstly, we would demote every Hylian Knight from their rank.

Secondly, with criteria that we outline, we would pick a few new Hylian Knights to represent the rank.

Thirdly, we would work together with these new Hylian Knights to rework the rank in the most efficient way possible, meeting these goals:

1. Have the community have more of a say.
2. Make the rank into more of a "reward" for consistently positive contributions than a rank.
3. Have the criteria for who can be promoted/who will be demoted make more sense and be more clear cut.
4. Rejuvenate the rank's activity level.​

Many of the staff are of the belief at the moment that the HKs, despite improving their demotion and promotion system, are still very flawed. Many of us do not believe it is feasible to fix these issues without rebooting the rank. I would like to make this part very clear: This is not an HK decision. The HKs not being fully okay with this decision will not be the only thing that influences this decision. However, we are informing the entire community of this decision and allowing everyone to have their say.

None of this is set in stone, but I would like to make sure everyone knows that this is being seriously considered.

Thanks.

 

[Emma]

I have a few concerns, first of all, Repentence, you have no right to declare this isn't an HK issue. Becoming an admin doesn't give you power to make those declarations on your own. So let's get that out of the way now. It is an HK issue.

Now, as I said in the HK section, this is a very, very bad idea. Demoting everyone from the knights is only going to make them all very resentful. And it's not going to solve any of the problems that it has. This system is only going to encourage people posting rapidly to get the rank. And if that's decided to not be good enough, but people are trying anyway, then you'll lack candidates.

there is nothing wrong with the current knights voting system. All of these problems Repentance is talking about is honestly a lie. The main reason we're not getting more knights is actually a lack of candidates. And that's not because the criteria is strict. The system Repentence is proposing is MORE strict than the current criteria. The problem is that we have few people who are WILLING to be knights. There are plenty that meet our current criteria, but have expressed an opposition to becoming a knight. So we can't vote people in. The proposal here is only going to make that problem worse.

 

[Jamie]

Firstly, this is a staff discussion, not a Repentance discussion. Please do not think these are strictly my own thoughts and ideas, we have discussed this as a team.

Secondly, I never said it isn't an HK issue, but rather it isn't an HK decision, as the current HKs will all be demoted if this goes through.

The system ALIT posted that had certain exact requirements and such was not something that was completely agreed on, which is why I edited it out of his thread. So no, it won't have people posting for the rank.

I never once said the problem is with the voting system. In fact, the voting system has been rather successful lately. However, if you read the thread, I said explicitly, Many of the staff are of the belief at the moment that the HKs, despite improving their demotion and promotion system, are still very flawed. Many of us do not believe it is feasible to fix these issues without rebooting the rank.. I have no idea why you are making this about the voting system, as I never mentioned the voting system as being a problem. I'm not lying about anything, this a joint staff discussion, and the staff member who proposed it is actually a Hylian Knight.

 

[Emma]

Firstly, this is a staff discussion, not a Repentance discussion. Please do not think these are strictly my own thoughts and ideas, we have discussed this as a team.

Secondly, I never said it isn't an HK issue, but rather it isn't an HK decision, as the current HKs will all be demoted if this goes through.

The system ALIT posted that had certain exact requirements and such was not something that was completely agreed one, which is why I edited it out of his thread. So no, it won't have people posting for the rank.

I never once said the problem is with the voting system. In fact, the voting system has been rather successful lately. However, if you read the thread, I said explicitly, Many of the staff are of the belief at the moment that the HKs, despite improving their demotion and promotion system, are still very flawed. Many of us do not believe it is feasible to fix these issues without rebooting the rank.. I have no idea why you are making this about the voting system, as I never mentioned the voting system as being a problem. I'm not lying about anything, this a joint staff discussion, and the staff member who proposed it is actually a Hylian Knight.

I'm entirely aware it is not a staff discussion. The very fact you edited ALIT's post proves it is not. The very fact that you saw fit to stress how it was not up the HKs so badly indicates that you personally want it to be one. It was a logical conclusion to see it was about you, not the staff. We could have kept this private but you chose to make it public. Making this a public spectacle shows that you wanted to carry sympathy to your point of view, to play on the emotions of people who have been vocally against it. If it was really about just improving the knights, as you claim, you'd have kept it in the knights section. And I'm morally obligated to point out when power is being abused. This is a knight discussion. And nothing you proposed here, or that was in the post before YOU edited it, is going to solve the problem you're complaining about. You are ignoring the real issue, which is all this resentment against the knights, and keep proposing very bad ideas as "solutions" that are only going to make the problem worse. This indicates that you don't actually care about improving it and you really just want to see it go.

 

[A Link In Time]

I truly believe that the community should be polled again about the HK rank. At this point in time, we could separate those who disagree with the rank by principle from those who disagree with the rank on an activity basis.

Also, changing the appearance of something does not change what it stands for. They'll be different knights, different promotion criteria, and different branding of the position, yet this doesn't address a common complaint of why certain members should be recognized for posting, something that every forum member should partake in and try to improve.

The one redeeming factor of this proposal is trying to increase community involvement. From what I understand, this would entail that members partake in the nomination process, while knights have the final say over who joins their numbers.

At the end of the day, this will probably only temporarily push aside the overarching problems of the Hylian Knight usergroup that have persisted for years. This past week I've been doing some research into past threads and since 2012 people have bee deploring the lack of activity in the Hylian Knights section. Yes, it's great if someone achieved what they consider an honor by acting as themselves, and I don't want to take anything away from that. But at the same time, what satisfaction really is there in a comatose section whose only purpose is to induct more into continuing an honorary cycle?

Everyone should be free to decide their own role models and every poster should have level ground in being perceived as others as such. Few, if any, of us knew about the existence of the Hylian Knight rank when we joined this forum. This was a place for us to enjoy talking to people about some of our favorite game franchises and should remain a casual place to enjoy such discussion.

 

[Snow Queen]

I truly believe that the community should be polled again about the HK rank. At this point in time, we could separate those who disagree with the rank by principle from those who disagree with the rank on an activity basis.

Also, changing the appearance of something does not change what it stands for. They'll be different knights, different promotion criteria, and different branding of the position, yet this doesn't address a common complaint of why certain members should be recognized for posting, something that every forum member should partake in and try to improve.

The one redeeming factor of this proposal is trying to increase community involvement. From what I understand, this would entail that members partake in the nomination process, while knights have the final say over who joins their numbers.

At the end of the day, this will probably only temporarily push aside the overarching problems of the Hylian Knight usergroup that have persisted for years. This past week I've been doing some research into past threads and since 2012 people have bee deploring the lack of activity in the Hylian Knights section. Yes, it's great if someone achieved what they consider an honor by acting as themselves, and I don't want to take anything away from that. But at the same time, what satisfaction really is there in a comatose section whose only purpose is to induct more into continuing an honorary cycle?

Everyone should be free to decide their own role models and every poster should have level ground in being perceived as others as such. Few, if any, of us knew about the existence of the Hylian Knight rank when we joined this forum. This was a place for us to enjoy talking to people about some of our favorite game franchises and should remain a casual place to enjoy such discussion.

We JUST had a poll about HK being removed entirely, and the majority wanted it's removal, and as such it should have been removed regardless of how much anybody else whines about it.

 

[Jamie]

Matt, no. ALIT was not one of the staff members who was fully following the discussion in the chat, and we agreed (by we, I mean me and other staff members) that we'd like it to be articulated better. It was not just me, as I said, one of the Hylian Knights actually suggested the idea, and another Hylian Knight is a strong supporter of it.

Furthermore, I actually wanted to keep it in the HK section. I originally advocated it to be in the HK section and I was told I should make a thread in Forum Suggestions and Feedback for community discussion. So do not make assumptions and tell me what I am/am not doing, you were not part of the chat, and you have no idea what was discussed. If you continue to attack me and tell me what I decided and what I think, then I am not going to discuss this with you. If you'd like to approach this maturely and ask questions instead of throwing around accusations, then I would love to answer them for you.

 

[(◕‿◕✿)]

Let's "rework" them by removing the group outright. Or will that require having Matt interpret our opinions for us once again? Or maybe we'll have to invent another voting system with such amazing logic as 6 yes, 0 no is not enough to get you voted in, but 6 yes, 1 no is. We could dream up all sorts of nonsense. Perhaps call it the Humpty Dumpty group and everyone can define what "voting" means each month. All of that would make just as much sense.

So, we could just remove the group and make a community effort to create some new things, be it awards, joinable groups, whatever, I don't know. The endless bickering about this is so insane. Either it's "we need to bring up this idea with the HKs", which really means the staff because none of the non-staff HKs are even active. Or it's "well let's rework them again!", which just means make one or two modifications (read: talk about it some more) and then do nothing. The community would be better off focusing on something that actually matters, for once.

 

[A Link In Time]

We JUST had a poll about HK being removed entirely, and the majority wanted it's removal, and as such it should have been removed regardless of how much anybody else whines about it.

I agree that the community should be the ultimate arbiter of the forums, but the final decision is not something for me to decide.

 

[Emma]

Matt, no. ALIT was not one of the staff members who was fully following the discussion in the thread, and we agreed (by we, I mean me and other staff members) that we'd like it to be articulated better. It was not just me, as I said, one of the Hylian Knights actually suggested the idea, and another Hylian Knight is a strong supporter of it.

Furthermore, I actually wanted to keep it in the HK section. I originally advocated it to be in the HK section and I was told I should make a thread in Forum Suggestions and Feedback for community discussion. So do not make assumptions and tell me what I am/am not doing, you were not part of the chat, and you have no idea what was discussed. If you continue to attack me and tell me what I decided and what I think, then I am not going to discuss this with you. If you'd like to approach this maturely and ask questions instead of throwing around accusations, then I would love to answer them for you.

I know who originally suggested it. He suggested it IN THE HK SECTION days ago, where it should have been discussed. And I argued against it then. Taking it outside of the hands of the HK is not something he'd do, I know him. It is however something others would do. And since you made such an effort to point out how irrelevant HKS are to deciding the future of the HKs, it's natural to assume you're pushing your own agenda. You can all it immature if you want. but it IS abuse of power. Even if someone else is telling you do it, in such case, they are abusing power. The right thing to do is to oppose such actions, even if people don't like such opposition.

 

[Jamie]

Well Matt, maybe you don't know people as well as you think you know them, because if we are referring to the same person, I actually asked him if I should post the thread here and he said "yes". In fact, almost every staff member was okay with me making this thread, and the ones who didn't thought we should redo the original poll instead. So do not act like you know exactly what happened. It is immature. Perhaps, as I said, you do not know people as well as you think. Or we are thinking of different people, because the person who originally suggested this suggested it weeks ago, perhaps even before I was promoted (do not remember fully when it was).

 

[(◕‿◕✿)]

Matt, this is not Rep's idea alone, and it never was. It is indeed a staff discussion, as literally all the staff are involved and have been discussing it. You make these blind accusations, yet your only evidence really just boils down to "powers that be" and "shadow government" style accusations.

Stop with the personal attacks and accusations. You clearly do not know what it is you are claiming, or you do, and just don't care. Regardless, what you are accusing Repentance of is just false, so please stop.

 

[Djinn]

I have a few concerns, first of all, Repentence, you have no right to declare this isn't an HK issue. Becoming an admin doesn't give you power to make those declarations on your own. So let's get that out of the way now. It is an HK issue.

This thread exists because both because this is something that much of the staff wanted to see the community opinion on, and because Repentence wanted to weigh in on as well but we thought against his posting his opinions in the HK section. So he made a near duplicate thread in the Forum Suggestions and Feedback section so that he and Kitsu may post as well. Since this is a community issue I would like to see what the rest of the community has to think about the possible concept of a fresh start type of action since the HKs have simply stopped functioning, as well as lost a lot of confidence from the members.

 

[Emma]

Well Matt, maybe you don't know people as well as you think you know them, because if we are referring to the same person, I actually asked him if I should post the thread here and he said "yes". In fact, almost every staff member was okay with me making this thread, and the ones who didn't thought we should redo the original poll instead. So do not act like you know exactly what happened. It is immature. Perhaps, as I said, you do not know people as well as you think. Or we are thinking of different people, because the person who originally suggested this suggested it weeks ago, perhaps even before I was promoted (do not remember fully when it was).

It doesn't matter if one person does it or if fifteen do it. An immoral act is still an immoral act. Your post was a very clear attempt to appeal to the hatreds of some people who have been vocally against the HKs. It prematurely biases them the to the suggestion forwarded in your post. The post saw fit to point out the irrelevance of the current knights in deciding their own fate. The suggestion focuses on demonizing the current knights by suggesting demoting them all, which is something the people who hate the knights will gleefully support.
You and the others have ignored everything knights have said about what the real problem is, namely the unwillingness of people to be knights. Constantly ignored is the danger of what you are proposing turning into a popularity contest. If all the knights are voted in by a public vote, then they are essentially only going to be the most popular people. And it WILL be a status symbol because only people who can convince a huge number of people to like them will get it, increasing its meaning and status. This is illogical because that is EXACTLY the reasoning being used to hate on the knights and insist on a change. If a public vote for nominations is held, and than then knights themselves vote on the nominations, the public will be resentful if people they want don't get through. And the choices are still going to be solely a popularity contest, and you still have the problem of status.

This proposal is an insanely stupid idea. There's no other way to put it. And insisting that HKs are irrelevant to it was an obvious attempt to bias people against them. The best idea that we have had is one we already agreed to, but was never done. The clan idea. In which case it's converted into one of many new clans, and then ANYONE could join it easily and it wouldn't be any big deal. If we want to actually solve this problem. We should look at the clan idea again instead of going over various versions of a popularity contest that is completely hypocritical to the arguments used against the knights by the people insisting on change.

 

[A Link In Time]

I think the course of this thread is a great example of the discord that is present whenever the Hylian Knight rank is discussed in a community setting.

Yes, the Hylian Knight usergroup is separate from its members, but its reputation gained across the years comes to be represented with the individuals who carry the position, while certain knights feel inclined to defend the rank seeing it as a reflection upon themselves.

Why does there even need to be argument about a rank on a Zelda forum? And will altering the rank in question really alleviate any of the current problems? Disputes over such petty matters worsen the forum experience for everyone. I believe that if certain problems continue to progress with the path of a rank, the real problem may lie in the rank itself and those cannot simply be solved by disguising it behind a different face.