There are a lot of things that make up a community. They often require a core group of people volunteering a lot of time to make things happen. Resources to attract people in and a reason for those people to stick around. Anyone can just start a discord channel. Making a community out of one that is where the magic happens.
The Start
At first, Archdruid was just a place for the three gaming Curie curators @Geekgirl, @Playfulfoodie, and @Rasamuel at the time to work with each other. They wanted to focus on content creators who poured their soul, heart, and time into creating amazing content regularly but were not getting a lot of votes. The main focus was written content and it still is to this day. Granted the community has expanded since then to focus some efforts on gaming video content as well that gets passed over for votes regularly.
After some time of doing this, they decided it was time to expand out and try something new. Their intention was never to compete with other gaming communities. Instead, they just wanted to create a community and for many of our members a home. A place where these amazing authors could engage with each other and want to improve their own content while still having fun.
Back in May of 2018 or around then Archdruid started to leave inventions in the form of Discord links along with their community upvote. While some never accepted the opportunity at the time as no one even know what this community was. Many like myself did and it has been an interesting ride over the past few months.
Like many in those early days, I was looking for a community that appreciates me for me. I had been in a few over my year on Steemit. I never lasted long in most of them since I was often just left with an auto community upvote and I wanted much more than just a financial reward. Hardly any comments on what I was creating. I never fitted in with the spam of the general discord chat either. For one reason or another most where just not for me and I would just let them know I’m leaving and to please remove the auto upvote.
After joining Archdruid many of us noticed something was rather different about this community. They not only wanted our impute on things many of the things that community was going to set off and do ask for volunteerism. The curators just wanted to go about doing so in the background while just giving the slight nudge here or there in ways for the community to improve itself.
After what might be two weeks they ask if people would be interested in a new voluntary role called--Sage. Anyone who had been active in the community at that time from chatting in discord, engaging on Steemit, and upvoting each other’s works was promoted to this rank. This role stayed like that for a while till the people who wanted to be community builders were well know and established in the community.
Organization
One of the first things the Sages at the time needed to work out was how do we brand ourselves and more importantly come up with a way to agree on something. While many people would love to live in an anarchy society. Once you start having to ask quests like “how should we organize members promoting their own posts on discord?” Along with “which of the 5 tags we came up with would our community even use if any of them at all? Sure, everyone could just spam their own posts in any channel they wanted or use whatever tag. A disorganized community is not one that lasts in the long run.
The first step was not that hard it just took some careful thinking of how the groundwork would go moving forward. We simply have a voting period on new ideas member wish to implement in the community. They would be written up in what is called a proposal. That proposal then would be worked on by members of the community till we had something that felt like it was worth voting on.
Proposals
Here are two of the first things the community ever voted on after working out details and some options. At the time since all the active and engaging members where sages they were the influencers in such affairs within the community.
It was settled. Members would give a short description of what that post was about. Making it easy for members to find something they might find interesting. If you ever see someone posting this format in another gaming discord you know they are from Archdruid Gaming!
While this rule is not heavy enforced anymore it gives members a sense of who is here for the community and those who just copy/paste content into every discord. This is a massive issue in many communities and something hard to solve as well.
With all the different options member came up with that could be the future new tag we voted on keeping it simple ---archdruid. This also allows us to extend it to include other things in the future if needed like archdruidcontest for the contest we end up creating down the road as well.
Proposals also served as a way to just keep others informed in what is going on. Not everything required a vote and sometimes they where just a “this is what I’m doing anyone wants help” kind of deal. To date, we have had 12 official ones and a few that just where never written in the format. It has helped decide many things from our tag, footer design, logo, transparency changes, contests, and so many other things.
Volunteerism
This is something communities require for surviving. It is often a thankless, time consuming, and even infuriating experience. It is also how things get done in our community. On top of that, there are also just restrictions that have to be in place to protect the community as well. So at the end of the day there only so much one person can even do.
As such I wanted to thank a few outstanding members of our community for the impact they have had.
@Yosuandoni our Barbarian who has done a lot of art asset creation. He has created many of the image covers in our contests, logo, footer, and most of our emoji’s as well. In fact, he is always willing to create cover images for our community projects. You just have to ask and kindly reward him in sheep and beer!
@Ggt for creating and getting our League of Legends division set up and running. We had a number of players who played that game. He created some organization and a way for them to game with each other.
@Ilazramusic who took over the torch and is running our League of Legends division to this day. He steps up when it was needed and we are thankful he did. Form playing and encouraging members to game with each other. He is also in the final process of setting up a contest for LoL players even once not in our community.
To the current and former gaming curators. They got the ball rolling on this place. They helped give guidance on things when needed and just let things progress when not. Without them, this place would not have existed in the first place. A very special thank you to @Geekgirl, @Playfulfoodie, and @Rasamuel.
Right now we have 8 Sages and a couple of them have not been mentioned yet. They sometimes perform introduction interviews, assign ranks, bring forward any issues that have raised, and help bring attention to things when needed as well. Without people like @Fromage, @Pixelbites, @Volderhein, @Marvel1206, and the rest mentioned beforehand it would be a never-ending task just for one person to do everything and the community would not be where it is today without people volunteering their time as they have.
Engagement
This sort of thing happens in a few ways and places. It can be internal, external, on the blockchain or even in discord. There are a few things we do to help such thing along without trying to force it. Many times our own internal transparency policy help foster engagement which is a wonderful side benefit to have. We want it to be natural, inviting, and not feel forced or like a chore.
Curated Posts
One measure is we have a curated posts channel where posts that get the community vote are shared into. The really amazing thing about our community is members just go out and engage with the content the community votes on. It does not matter if they are in the community or not. If they found the post interesting they will when they can leave comments, upvotes, and show support.
We have even had people join because our community showed up or we were recommended by our current members. We don’t have to ask or even require such things from members. If they are using our tag, flying our banner, and recommending us it is become they want to. These are not requirements of such things. This to me really shows who are community oriented people that do what they can to make a place amazing.
Another part of that is just creating educational awareness in what is being looked for and exactly what Is needed. While you don’t share everything you still need to include some insight so members can understand. A post like Curating Video And Written Gaming Content was created to shed some light and give insight. With some of the things mentioned in Authenticity Of Ownership being broken down into an outline for use in Discord.
Meetings
In our own effort to make sure members are up to date on what is going on, we hold meetings. Not behind closed doors but right up in the general text channel for anyone to read or even give some insight at the appropriate times.
While we have not been doing this since the start we have had 5 official public meetings and they happen almost weekly unless we canceled one due to things like Steemit being down and expecting everyone to be away.
In them, we talk about events going on in the community, anything that is being worked on. We hear from different groups within the community such as the person leading our League of Legends effort. This is also the time for us to take input on contest ideas and other things.
At the end of them, a short summary of what happened during the meeting is written up and place in a channel that anyone ranked gamer or higher in our community can read if they missed the meeting. The dialog does not stop there anyone during the week can continue to give input in the general channel.
While they can go on for up to an hour. The focus tends to be short, to the point, and allow further discussions later on if need be. We don’t want them to feel mandatory or like a chore for anyone involved. If the meeting can be over in 15 minutes that is just great.
One such example is this outline from meeting 5 that happened last week.
From them, we have other information that comes out such as our weekly schedule where we try and provide what details we can. This helps keep the community informed.
We also write up a weekly knockout list to help people further understand what is going on and what members are doing what during the week.
Discord Conversations
This has never been a big issue for us. All you have to do most of the time is just start talking about a game. People jump into the conversion like a mosquito towards the light. Part of our interview process also gets people to talk about some games. Many times chat starts buzzing away again as the next new arrives and we get to hear about what he plays.
We also try and only create channels when they are needed. Having too many channels in a discord that are never used leads to people missing out on conversations and can make things rather boring. Unless there really is a need for something we do our best to just keep it simple. It also helps with engagement.
Author Showcase
Part of curating is more than just casting upvotes on great content. For many on Steemit, the upvotes are just one of the many ways content can get a reward. You want to help outstanding authors find a bigger audience and get some amazing comments on those posts as well.
One way of doing this is through the Author Showcase. This does require someone to be a member of the community rank at least gamer (easy to get) and share that post with us during the week in our discord.
We have had 13 showcases in total. While our community tends to focus on written content there is some video content included from time to time as well. The community is still very young and growing so we do have a lot of repeat people in them. We are after all looking for the best content during the week from the community. What exactly that is comes in all different shapes and sizes.
Author Showcase Issus 1 To 13
- Issue 1
- Issue 2
- Issue 3
- Issue 4
- Issue 5
- Issue 6
- Issue 7
- Issue 8
- Issue 9
- Issue 10
- Issue 11
- Issue 12
- Issue 13
Contests
We have been blessed with some really amazing entries into our contests. While I will be writing a far more detailed report later on this week. This was something to be included in what we have been up to.
First off they are open to everyone even if you are not a member of our community. A number of people who end up entering do become members as well. Which is always great when we can provide a community with amazing content at the focal point.
They help spread the reward pool around and find undervalued authors connect with some decent upvotes and even prizes. More times than not it’s not about the prize money or even the upvotes. Granted those do help. Entries get some amazing comments as well. Even better if they get some new followers or a community out of it!
They also help people see that gaming can still be about the written content. Yes, a large chunk of the gaming tag is just video content these days. As such many people think they have to create only video content. There nothing wrong with written and this helps people see that.
We always try to take a topic that can create unique and amazing content but that is also something even a casual gamer could enter into. They run for two weeks in total to give people time to create something more than just a daily post. As of late, the community has been suggesting topics and helped in voting the next one in. Along with that, we have members who volunteer to be judges for them as well.
Contests We Have Had
Breaking The Steemit Bubble With Gaming Divisions
One of the more unique things gaming can do is go outside of the Steemit Bubble without much issue. Gamers play with others online in guilds, alliance and other forms of groups. None of these people need to know what blogging is. Let alone a Steem or Bitcoin. They can even be invited into our discord for just a place to hang out with a new gamer friend they met. Then they start to see amazing gaming content being shared in our discord, some income it is generating, contents, and how much of a community we are of gamers.
While we don’t keep track we have had a couple of people who start asking questions like “what is steemit?”, and “how can I go about blogging on that site you guys are using?” Causing some to create an account and make content. Even more so once they find out all the dapps that are on this platform.
While it is not our goal to be an onboarding beacon it can just be something that happens without even trying or thinking about it much. Even more so when you need to “afk” in a game and tell people I need to write my blog for the day. That can sure get some questions.
Right now we have a League of Legends division lead by 
On top of that, we are working on building up a Tabletop and RP division (so far as a single division). We have given members a channel and are waiting for someone to lead the way and start to form things. There are a few in the community interested so it should work itself out over time. Not something we pursue or try force on anyone. It just is cool to see it becoming something over time.
This is one area our community can expand more on in the future. Having different gaming community within our community. More times than not it just takes having a few players from a certain game or genre and someone willing to volunteer their time to manage it.
Closing
Archdruid Gaming is a Curie sub-community. It was asked if an update on activates and accomplishments within the community could be provided. While it was asked from a point of view of curation efforts I think this post does that and so much more.
This is only a part of what makes Archdruid Gaming a community. I like many others within the community got an invite out to a discord one day and this is what we have done in only a few months. Well done everyone keep being amazing!!!
The short answer is: we made a community out of a discord.
Information
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Are you a gamer who produces outstanding gaming content here on Steemit? Come to check out Archdruid Gaming on discord: https://discord.gg/nAUkxws. We are always looking for new and old amazing authors.
