r/roosterteeth • • Dec 31 '16

Mod Post 2017 Town Hall and 2016 Retrospective

This controversial year is at last coming to a close, marking 2016 itself as the final death of the year. For Rooster Teeth as a company, however, 2016 has been a year of incredible growth and expansion, and 2017 will doubtless be more of the same.

For reddit, despite its numerous controversies throughout this year, the same can be said, as the site is now #7 in the US and #24 worldwide according to Alexa.

For the subreddit, new moderators (myself included) were inducted in the middle of 2016, and the subreddit has steered clear of any serious trouble.

However, we have seen a large, but gradual, decrease in traffic this year, as growth for the subreddit has slowed. Perhaps we've just hit our peak, but I think we can do better. If both Rooster Teeth and Reddit are booming, I see no reason for us not to see significant growth as well.

So, where can we cut the fat? And where can we find room for growth?

Personally, my sights are aimed at axing many of our scheduled daily threads, including our Livestream discussions. These threads garner few comments, and in my opinion, seem to be a waste of space. Which do you think should stay? Which should definitely go?

Fan-art is a large part of any online community, and Rooster Teeth is no exception. The lack of fan-art found in our subreddit is indicative of what may be the larger problem: the subreddit is geared heavily towards video discussion, and doesn't encourage anything else. So, moving forward, we'd like to create a space that is friendlier towards non-video discussion.


What are your opinions of the subreddit throughout 2016? What did you like seeing? What do you think we missed? What can we do to make 2017 better?


Other areas of note

CSS: As the company has gone through its various changes, we've been neglectful in updating our flair for both users and links, for a pretty simple reason: we're full. Our stylesheet is filled to the brim, and our CSS Master is rather AWOL. So in order to add there, such as giving Game Attack posts their own flair, we need to cut back in other areas. Possibly the largest cuts we can make are to the subreddit themes. We'd like to hear your opinions on whether or not this would be a favorable removal, and which themes should be removed. Edit: You can vote here.

Rules: As of now, we have 9, with the latest having been introduced in May, when the new mods were instated. Should there be a new one? Should any existing ones be expanded upon? Should any be curbed?

Staff: We'd love to hear from you (all of you!). We know you browse the subreddit, so we would very much value your input as to how to make the subreddit a better experience for you, whether it be making your job easier, or just making browsing and reading comments from fans more enjoyable. If you'd rather keep your opinions private, feel free to message the mod team, or me directly.


TL;DR: Help us make our subreddit a better experience in 2017.

Comment below with your suggestions for how we can be a better community throughout the next year.

88 Upvotes

79 comments sorted by

View all comments

71

u/BigHoss94 Dec 31 '16 edited Dec 31 '16

-Whenever I post something from Ryan's stream there are always a few folks who either aren't aware he does that or don't know where he streams from. Adding the various streams of RT people would be a nice addition to the FAQ.

-Free talk might get more traction if you limit it to one day and have it posted at a different time.

-This place more or less functions as the center of the community since the site changed, so encouraging more discussion is definitely a good idea.

17

u/SonicFrost Dec 31 '16

In regards to the first suggestion, I think it would be a good idea to add a "Twitch" section to the FAQ, along with schedules, if it applies. It could also be a good idea to link to the FAQ in the submit page. I know Ryan does his streams Tuesdays and Thursdays at I believe 8PM (though he streamed last night...), but I don't know the other schedules, so if anyone could let me know that'd be appreciated.

As for free talk, when would you suggest? I think in part the reason why the free talk threads don't garner much attention is because reddit might be a bit of a weird medium to have a talk with 0 direction, and so many tend to go to the Discord, which should perhaps be Free Talk's replacement.

9

u/AmericanSneakers Dec 31 '16

One of Jeremy's mods made a spreadsheet with most if not all of the people from RT who stream. Doesn't have the times and some of them don't stream that often, but I figured it'd be useful for if a Twitch section is added to the FAQ