At 10/13/10 10:58 PM, Alfraydo wrote: The reboot seems to be going well!

I agree!

At 10/13/10 04:07 PM, life wrote: What do people think of a new thread?

I'm undecided on the new thread. Although it may attract more potential members, it would be the third one (if I am not mistaken). I would very much like to keep this thread alive rather than start anew again.

I think it would be great, though putting the NGDD into its Third thread may be a little bit annoying to the Mods. I do like the idea that we revise the OP, as the Portal department isn't spoken about in it (if I'm not mistaken) and the new Lit department (pending of course whether or not it takes... Also, I'm defiantly) for it. Of course we could probably get the OP revised in this thread, if necessary of course. I think it would also seem a bit more friendly to new comers to join in a club that looks fresh.

I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else has to say about it though.

At 10/13/10 03:41 PM, Gamewiz wrote:

Oh, My fault I must have misread the posts about the Flash department and Portal department. Oh well! I would like to accept both positions in the BBS and Portal departments! Thank you for taking the time to look over my application, and I'm ready to serve!

Great! Please sign up on the NGDD Private Forums and I will add you to the roster. :)
http://ngdd.freeforums.org/

At 10/13/10 04:07 PM, life wrote: Also, I agree on the lit section.

Maybe PMing people about the reboot from the last like 20 pages who were active posters and are still around would be a decent idea as well. I don't have time right now but if I check back and no one wants to do it I'll give it a go.

What do people think of a new thread? I'd like to keep this one since it's my baby but I can defiantly see how a fresh thread will attract new people and feel more like a reboot.

I'm thinking about whether to include the Literature Department now or wait until the Literature Portal comes out and then add the Department? I'm thinking once the portal comes out it would be better but I don't mind doing it now. What do you guys think?

I've actually thought about PMing some of the members that used to be part of the NGDD before it temporarily shut down. A lot of those users don't browse NG's anymore but it wouldn't hurt to send them a PM.

A new thread wouldn't be bad at all. We still have a few things to work out with the new LD System for the NGDD but it shouldn't take too long before all is it set and done.

At 10/13/10 05:53 PM, SpiffyMasta wrote: Hmmm revival of the NGDD huh? Well it looks like I have many old friends here that are joining up, I think I would fit in well.

I am SpiffyMasta for those that don't know, former Unit Ops Officer of the NGPD and current member of the EGB. I am also part of the memberlist of the Wi/Ht forums. I am sure Lizzardis, mwmike, TailsPrower and Fro can count as references for my application.

I would very much like to join the Portal and BBS departments, as those are the two main parts of this website I usually frequent.

Hi SpiffyMasta,

Your application has been approved and you will be added to the Portal and BBS Department! Please sign up on our private forums (link at the very beginning of this post) and I will add you to the roster.

Happy to have you with us!

Thanks,
- John

Hey guys, just got the message that I'm going to be the head of the Portal Department. Starting here in a week or two I'd like the main focus of those who are in the portal department to help look for submissions that are trying to steal awards. This is not only the easiest way that we can help newgrounds, but it's also the best way as well. With more people winning honest awards it'll convince more people to submit higher quality submissions more often.

At 10/14/10 06:54 PM, Fro wrote: Hey guys, just got the message that I'm going to be the head of the Portal Department. Starting here in a week or two I'd like the main focus of those who are in the portal department to help look for submissions that are trying to steal awards. This is not only the easiest way that we can help newgrounds, but it's also the best way as well. With more people winning honest awards it'll convince more people to submit higher quality submissions more often.

So basically, flashes trying to rig their way into the portal awards?
I think that's why last week's underdog was deleted. It had a really low score, and yet there were many really short, stupid reviews giving it a 10 score.

At 10/14/10 07:40 PM, Ronald-McDonald-LoL wrote:

So basically, flashes trying to rig their way into the portal awards?
I think that's why last week's underdog was deleted. It had a really low score, and yet there were many really short, stupid reviews giving it a 10 score.

Yeah, what we can do is set up a chat of some sort whether it be AIM, MSN, or on some website. We'll just patrol the portal before underdog and RRC is awarded. If we notice a bunch of reviews like this then we can contact a review moderator.

There's so many flashes to keep track of so it'll obviously get much easier as we get more members of the portal department.

So I emailed Tom about the merchandise and here's our exchange:

life@newgrounds.com to Tom

Hey Tom.

An old school club called the Newground's Department of Defense (first thread: http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1218 37/1 , second thread: http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1218 37/1 ) is being rebooted. The basic idea of the NGDD is members do different activities on NG to earn ranks in the club. One of the prominent members proposed a new system where ng merchandise is used as incentive for the group. It wouldn't be a lot or too often, but would it be possible to supply these small prizes in store credit or discount? If not that's fine, it would just really help to get the reboot going since I don't think anyone is going to commit to financing random interneters all alone.

Excerpt from his idea regarding ng merch:

"So here's an idea that I have that we could hopefully build upon. For the point system, we will be using LD Points that will run like a currency. I'm thinking of allowing users to spend their points to buy items from the NG Store. The only problem is I'm not 18 and don't have a credit card, so unless someone would be so generous as to fund the NGDD for merchandise, we won't be able to make items from the store available.

But anyway, the idea is that as you serve Newgrounds, you gain more LD Points (which are like money). Once you get like 2500 points, you can buy 5 NG's Logo stickers, we then deduct 2500 from your LD Points. But this is like a first come first serve kind of thing. After someone buys the 5 Stickers, that item will be unavailable for a certain period of time until we find the funding to be able to purchase more.

Now, you don't have to buy items, you can save up your LD Points and show how dedicated you're to NG's. The items are just a nice thank you for helping protect Newgrounds. ;-)

The items would be something like this:
NG Logo Stickers - 2500 Points
Angry Faic Stickers - 7000 Points
NG Shirt - 15,000 Points
Calendar - 25,000 Points

How do you earn points? By participating in activities (contests) and earning points from your respective department.

If you're part of the BBS Department, every 10 posts will earn you 10 points. Ideally, each post is worth 1 point. At the end of each month, we will dedicate the last week of that month towards counting up points. So if you're in the BBS Dept. and you posted 100 posts this month, you have to let the BBS Department Leader know. The BBS Dept. Leader will then check to see if what you're saying is correct and if it is, you will be awarded 100 LD points."

Well that's basically it. You could tweak how often prizes or how much they cost any way you see fit. Here's the page with the club dying a year ago and at the bottom of the page is the start of the reboot. The nextand current page has everyone excited about the new start of the club.

Thanks Tom, and if it's not possible to help out that's no problem, I know you have much bigger site issues to tend to than a little club on your BBS.

Thank you

His reply:
What is the fastest an individual user can gain points (should there be a cap on BBS activity for example)? I'm curious to give this a try with store credit but it's hard to say how frequently and how much store credit we would be issuing as a result... Since it would be straight up store credit, it wouldn't follow the point structure below. Would it be disenfranchising if the store credit was based on a one-time milestone and not something they could score repeatedly? Or maybe a prize for the most active people each month?

-Tom

What do you guys think? I haven't sent a reply yet because I'd like to get some discussion first. It looks he might be able to supply certain prizes in the form of store credit.

At 10/14/10 05:57 PM, DarkSoldier wrote:
Hi SpiffyMasta,

Your application has been approved and you will be added to the Portal and BBS Department! Please sign up on our private forums (link at the very beginning of this post) and I will add you to the roster.

Happy to have you with us!

Thanks,
- John

Awesome, glad to be joining the team, will sign up on the private forums ASAP.

At 10/14/10 06:54 PM, Fro wrote: Hey guys, just got the message that I'm going to be the head of the Portal Department. Starting here in a week or two I'd like the main focus of those who are in the portal department to help look for submissions that are trying to steal awards. This is not only the easiest way that we can help newgrounds, but it's also the best way as well. With more people winning honest awards it'll convince more people to submit higher quality submissions more often.

This is great, two of my favorite people are head of the departments I am in.

I think we've already had this discussion at some point about trying to look out for awards being stolen. Maybe I discussed it with Malachy at some point as well. I can't remember, but yes setting up some sort of watch system on Tuesday nights would be a great idea. We should probably set up some criteria as to what to watch for and who to alert.

I think either using MSN or AIM could be a great means of communication.

At 10/15/10 12:25 AM, life wrote: So I emailed Tom about the merchandise and here's our exchange:

life@newgrounds.com to Tom

Hey Tom.
His reply:

-Tom

What do you guys think? I haven't sent a reply yet because I'd like to get some discussion first. It looks he might be able to supply certain prizes in the form of store credit.

The difficult part would be setting up a point system. It needs to be fair and somewhat equivalent. Maybe a different prize for each department?

I was thinking that maybe having like the most active person from each department win something every month would be cool, but we might end up with the same people winning over and over again (let's be honest here some of us have a lot more time to waste than others, which could discourage those of us who have less time on their hands).

Maybe having a certain scale to go off of, like different levels. Once you reach a certain level you get a certain prize, increasing the amount of points required between each level, the prize getting better. Having it this way can encourage someone to keep going even if they go at a slow pace, because they can still get to the same prizes. And those truly dedicated will get better prizes. In this formula though, maybe we should have the top prize be a permanent thing, like say a 5% permanent discount to the store or something. Ideas for prizes can vary, but that's my opinion of what might be more encouraging and fairest.

Damn, Life, that was a quick response you got from Tom. :3 I'm waiting on a nine days old PM now, and I'm pretty sure his NG PM and email systems are merged. Anyways, didn't we have a point system in the past? Could we modify the values slightly, then rig that up with Tom's idea of store credit?

NGDD's Portal Department chat room. I went ahead and made a room for us, no password, and you don't have to make an account or download anything. I do ask that you type in your NG name though to avoid confusion.

I had talked to life about this last night, but I'm going to share my opinion publicly here.

I feel that if Tom is going to give us store credit then it needs to be a very small amount and it should actually be something that is a bit of a challenge to build up. I'm not sure about amounts, but I think it should be split between departments.

The user who has the most points in each department can win a small amount of store credit each month. You'd get the points by competitions run within the department and for the club as a whole if we had bigger competitions.

It should be something that you have to challenge yourself to get as this will help make the club active and will help us help the community as we try harder to be on top in the department for each month.

At 10/14/10 06:54 PM, Fro wrote: Hey guys, just got the message that I'm going to be the head of the Portal Department.

This is correct. Fro is the new Department Leader for the Portal Dept. Please join me in congratulating him on his new position!

We still have the Flash and Art Department Leader position open, so please apply for it if you're interested!

Our roster is now up-do-date with the newest members and promotions:
http://ngdd.freeforums.org/member-roster -t3.html

To life regarding Tom's PM:
The fastest way to gain LD Points is by posting on the forums and by voting on submissions in the portal. The point system can be viewed here:
http://ngdd.freeforums.org/point-system-
t8.html

I'm interested in hearing what everyone thinks about Tom's PM. So keep the discussion going!

I realize that for people that are not in the Portal or BBS Department, it would be much harder for them to earn LD Points. So let's say a member of the Art Dept. makes 20 posts, I think he/she should be awarded 20 LD Points even if they're not part of the BBS Department. The department(s) you're part of indicate which part(s) of Newgrounds you're most interested in but I don't think there would be any problem if someone earns a couple of points here and there from departments that they're not part of.

At 10/15/10 02:38 AM, mwmike wrote: Damn, Life, that was a quick response you got from Tom. :3 I'm waiting on a nine days old PM now, and I'm pretty sure his NG PM and email systems are merged. Anyways, didn't we have a point system in the past? Could we modify the values slightly, then rig that up with Tom's idea of store credit?

We did have a point system in the past which ran on XR Points. We probably had other point systems as well. The new Point System is a modified version of how the XR Points worked.

Congratulations Fro on your Portal Dept. Leader position! Also, congratulations to you too Lizzardis on the BBS Dept. Leader position!

I happen to like the idea of earning store credit, though how often Tom could supply with it is what I am worried about. Tom had mentioned that it could be based on a one-time milestone rather than something we earn repeatedly. Reaching x amount of points and then receiving the store credit is something I think would work. You would have the choice of either keeping your points or "cash it in" per say.

At 10/16/10 12:52 PM, rorypearce94 wrote:

Yeah, there should be a cap, I mean, I could probably get 100 posts a month, and I just don'tt hink that would be fair on everyone else, having no limits would just encourage pointless +1 posting, and I just don't think we should be that.

The BBS Department members are suppose to be role-models on the BBS, they aren't suppose to post just to post. Their posts are suppose to be of good quality too. If they don't meet those requirements, then they don't get their LD Points.

Anyway, seeing as you're serious about a reboot, I would like to join, I'f you'll have me, in the BBS and portal departments. I do hope to be a part of the reincarnation of the NGDD.

I have reviewed your application and have accepted it. Welcome to the NGDD! Please sign up on our private forums and I will add you to our roster.
http://ngdd.freeforums.org/index.php

Welcome to the NGDD, rory!

Concerning the points system, people joining simply for store credit would be an issue. If this sort of thing happens, Tom may have to stop the store credit deal.

Let's address a few of the concerns regarding merchandise.

First off, the NGDD isn't about earning merchandise. So if you joined the NGDD for that matter, you'll probably be disappointed. The NGDD is about serving Newgrounds.com to make it a better and funner place.

Earning merchandise is a nice thank you for helping protecting Newgrounds. There are people that may join just for the merchandise but that isn't as bad as seems. The reason is because they will be protecting Newgrounds and the more people that help protect Newgrounds, the better. They will also find that with the current system, every LD Point they earn will be well-earned.

As I stated previously with LD Points running as a currency, being able to buy merchandise won't be something that happens very often. Mainly because we don't have the funding for it and so it makes it difficult for us to keep purchasing merchandise.

If Tom is able to help us out a bit with the funding, that would be very much appreciated. I don't think people will be able to abuse the system, it's not like the items will *always* be available, it's only when we have the funding to be able to purchase them. And I think most people will save their points to purchase the big prizes like a NG Shirt or Calender. Remember, if you have 2500 LD Points and you spend them, well then you're back at 0 LD Points.

Each Department having their own prizes isn't a bad idea but it is a bit unfair because some Departments don't have as many members as other Departments. So if two people are in the Art Department, well then we know one of those two people will be the ones earning the prize for the Art Dept. Also, splitting the money we have for merchandise between all the 7 Departments (including the Literature Dept.) sounds great but then the only prize that can be earned will most likely be stickers because it won't be easy to split the money we have 7 ways.

Hope that clears some things up. ;-)

- John

Thanks for the congratulations. I would have set up a little award watch tonight, but I had quite a bit of school work to do. I'll have quite a bit this and next week in general, but I'll try and set one up anyway.

I think the members of the flash and/or portal departments should check out this competition crew. The idea of the crew is to post a game with a scoring system and to compete within the club to try and get the highest score.

It really helps out if you pick games that didn't get that many views or the recognition that they should have. We get to have fun and in the meantime we're helping give deserving artists more views that they deserve.

It was actually an idea that I wanted to do for competitions in this club, but if there's an entire club made for it then it almost defeats the purpose. Anyway, if you have AIM or MSN I would appreciate it if you could PM me with your contact information so this next Tuesday we can run the award stealing watch.

At 10/16/10 11:04 AM, DarkSoldier wrote: I realize that for people that are not in the Portal or BBS Department, it would be much harder for them to earn LD Points. So let's say a member of the Art Dept. makes 20 posts, I think he/she should be awarded 20 LD Points even if they're not part of the BBS Department. The department(s) you're part of indicate which part(s) of Newgrounds you're most interested in but I don't think there would be any problem if someone earns a couple of points here and there from departments that they're not part of.

I like this idea, but how about instead of BBS posts, it's giving a constructive Art Review. For the Flash department, flash reviews. I think leaving a constructive review to an aspiring artist/animator would be a lot more beneficial to the NG community than just posting in some thread somewhere like you would have done anyways.

The BBS Department members are suppose to be role-models on the BBS, they aren't suppose to post just to post. Their posts are suppose to be of good quality too. If they don't meet those requirements, then they don't get their LD Points.

Is there a good plan in place to enforce this? There'll need to be some kind of guideline that says this is allowed, this is not, otherwise you're going to get a lot of arguing about decisions. When there aren't that many members, it wouldn't be a problem, but if word gets out that you can get free store credit just by posting like usual, a lot of people with credible resumes will join with no interest in being productive. Just going for the free stuff. These types of people would have to be taken out before they started earning items, otherwise we're wasting the store credit, and assuming it gets donated by Tom, we'd actually be hurting NG as a whole more than helping. If you include the Art and Flash department earning points from their posts, they need to be included in that. If Tom is intrigued by this idea, then that's not a bridge I want to burn by letting things get sloppy and tons of people who haven't helped much getting free stickers and stuff for just posting like normal.

Also, I like Toms idea of a milestone prize. Instead of resetting the LD points, let people keep them. At 2500 you get a sticker, at 5000, calender, then maybe 7500, the shirt. I'm just spitballing with the numbers. Then someone could keep a roster of who has the most all time LD points, or most gained LD points this month, and people could find competition just in that. I'm sure there's plenty of people that would be tearing through points trying to get up to the top.

For those who were just going for the shirt for the fun of it, by the time you've made enough points to get the shirt, the DoD would be a big enough part of your routine that I'm sure almost all would continue to post here at the very least. Most would probably stay and contribute. It would also cover Spiffys suggestion about making things fun for people who don't spend much time here. It'd be like going for Supreme Commander with B/P. Some would hit it fast, some would hit it slow, but once you're there, you've got it. Like I said though, it's going to have to be enforced if posts are a big part of the point gaining process.

Also, Spiffy my friend, good to see a Marine on board. Lol. Congrats to Fro as well. Couldn't ask for a better guy to be in charge of the Portal Department. I <3 ewe corky!

Regarding the LD system and using it to buy merchandise, I stand with DarkSoldier's original plan. You don't have to buy an item. You can just keep the points to show your dedication.

I happen to like the idea of a most all time points roster however. It would make for some friendly competition between us.

I like the ideas that are being suggested.

At 10/22/10 07:25 AM, michelinman wrote: The BBS Department members are suppose to be role-models on the BBS, they aren't suppose to post just to post. Their posts are suppose to be of good quality too. If they don't meet those requirements, then they don't get their LD Points.

Is there a good plan in place to enforce this? There'll need to be some kind of guideline that says this is allowed, this is not, otherwise you're going to get a lot of arguing about decisions.

Ideally, good quality means when your post isn't one line long and actually contributes to the thread.
Posts like "+1" or "That's cool" clearly don't add to the thread. But when you give a response that's more than one line and 5 words, then depending on the subject of the thread, we can consider it a good quality post.

Also...

We did have in the past Dept. Points and NGDD Points. And we had a ranking system with titles but they didn't really mean anything once you got it. So it wasn't very useful. Your LD Points are your currency but we can have a list where we keep track of your total amount of LD Points even after you spend them.

At 10/18/10 06:25 AM, rorypearce94 wrote:

Oh no, I joined very much to make NG a better place, trust me, I'm just worried about people actually joining to get merchandise, although I hope that the selective application procedure will help with this, I really do.

It's usually pretty easy to tell the bad apples apart from the good ones. So I don't believe this will be much of a problem. Although, the new application system allows the NGDD Members to have a chance to post their thoughts on applicants in a period of three days. The poll for each applicant can be found in the NGDD Applicants section on the forum.

p.s. Your forum account is now set.

The NGDD is planned to be officially opened on November 1st, 2010.So if all goes well in the next couple of days, that will be the start of when LD Points get counted.

- John

At 10/23/10 01:20 PM, DarkSoldier wrote: The NGDD is planned to be officially opened on November 1st, 2010.

That is excellent news! life had mentioned a new thread earlier. What is the decision on that?

At 10/23/10 01:20 PM, DarkSoldier wrote: The NGDD is planned to be officially opened on November 1st, 2010.So if all goes well in the next couple of days, that will be the start of when LD Points get counted.

What's the status on all that? Been a little dead through these parts as of late.

Been waiting for this place to come back up and running.

Count me in.

At 10/23/10 09:20 PM, Alfraydo wrote:

At 10/23/10 01:20 PM, DarkSoldier wrote: The NGDD is planned to be officially opened on November 1st, 2010.

That is excellent news! life had mentioned a new thread earlier. What is the decision on that?

I'm not sure. However, there's no rush in getting a new thread set up. We are still finalizing a lot of things regarding the new LD system.

At 11/1/10 05:49 AM, michelinman wrote:

At 10/23/10 01:20 PM, DarkSoldier wrote: The NGDD is planned to be officially opened on November 1st, 2010.So if all goes well in the next couple of days, that will be the start of when LD Points get counted.

What's the status on all that? Been a little dead through these parts as of late.

Yes, things have been a little quiet. I'm assuming a lot of people are busy, I know I am... last week was very busy at school and now I'm sick. So I'm hoping for something to turn my week around. >.http://ngdd.freeforums.org/index.php

The last part from my previous post was completely cut off...

Anyway...

At 11/1/10 01:15 PM, AnalPenguinFarming wrote: Been waiting for this place to come back up and running.

Count me in.

Great to hear from you APF!

Where would you like to start at the NGDD? It would be great to have you back on the NGDD Leader team if that interests you.

Let me know! :)

Sign up on the private forums too: http://ngdd.freeforums.org/index.php

At 11/1/10 01:51 PM, DarkSoldier wrote: Great to hear from you APF!

Where would you like to start at the NGDD? It would be great to have you back on the NGDD Leader team if that interests you.

Let me know! :)

Sign up on the private forums too: http://ngdd.freeforums.org/index.php

Great to see everything has been going well with this new system and life is posting here. I'd love to be a part of the leadership team again if you'd have me. I'm sure I could provide some input to benefit this place and get it thriving once again. I'll hit the forums right now.

So today is the day, is it not? The official opening of the Newgrounds Department of Defense!

October has flown by, it seems. Take your time re-opening the NGDD and work out everything important. We'd rather get it right the first time than screw it up.

I've been lurking and i think it's time the NGDD came back.

At 11/1/10 09:22 PM, Alfraydo wrote: So today is the day, is it not? The official opening of the Newgrounds Department of Defense!

I believe it is but DS says when this place is reopening or going back to full operation.

Sorry for my absence the past couple of days, been extremely sick. :(

At 11/1/10 05:35 PM, AnalPenguinFarming wrote:

At 11/1/10 01:51 PM, DarkSoldier wrote: Great to hear from you APF!

Where would you like to start at the NGDD? It would be great to have you back on the NGDD Leader team if that interests you.

Let me know! :)

Sign up on the private forums too: http://ngdd.freeforums.org/index.php

Great to see everything has been going well with this new system and life is posting here. I'd love to be a part of the leadership team again if you'd have me. I'm sure I could provide some input to benefit this place and get it thriving once again. I'll hit the forums right now.

Wonderful!

Please join me in welcoming back AnalPenguinFarming to the NGDD and Leadership Team!

APF, your forum account is now updated.

At 11/1/10 07:51 PM, Madnessfreak wrote: I think I'd be best suited for the BBS, can I join?

10 good posts? You may wanna dig around a bit.

You have a lot of one-liners in your posts. Though, I believe the NGDD can help you with improving your post quality. :)

So... create an account on our forums and I'll add you to our roster.
http://ngdd.freeforums.org/index.php

At 11/1/10 09:22 PM, Alfraydo wrote: So today is the day, is it not? The official opening of the Newgrounds Department of Defense!

November 1st was the expected date, but I think it is better that we get everything ready first. I'm working on a thread to help the NGDD Dept. Leaders manage their Departments and getting some other things worked out.

I assure you, the NGDD will be open in good time. We've received lots of applications in the past month. We're growing and that is definitely good!

Let's generate some discussion here, how's the portal been lately? I see Lizzardis mentioned something about the BBS posts in the General forum degrading. That's pretty interesting though I think I must agree with that statement because I have noticed that the BBS has been getting lower in terms of post quality.

At 11/6/10 02:06 PM, DarkSoldier wrote: Sorry for my absence the past couple of days, been extremely sick. :(

It's that time of year!

Let's generate some discussion here, how's the portal been lately? I see Lizzardis mentioned something about the BBS posts in the General forum degrading. That's pretty interesting though I think I must agree with that statement because I have noticed that the BBS has been getting lower in terms of post quality.

Portal has been pretty much typical. I have no major complaints. Just a few stolen flashes here and there, some spam, but overall quality.

General has gone downhill steadily. A lot of reaction images and other general 4chan mannerisms have invaded and become common. Post quality is better than it has been in the past but there's a lot that can be improved. I would know, I visit General a lot. I feel that one-liners will never leave General.

A few interesting topics, however. My favorite over the last couple weeks was the "What NG Sees as a helpful Review" topic.