Board Game Arena

I think there was just a miscommunication, and am under the assumption they meant knowledge of English at a native-level. Know that this was written by French guys most likely, and they need the extra assistance there where they're lacking.

Hi,

Thank you everyone for your enthousiasm and comments.

I confirm we need a native English speaker here - so basically the probability is very high that the new BGA team member will be in UK/Ireland. We are a very international website and even if all of us are fluent in English, no one is a native speaker, and there are situations where we absolutely need this skill.

We also like to have a team coming/living from different cultures, so we are better to understand and communicate with all players. This is why the 4 current team members are living in 3 different countries.

Best,
Greg

sourisdudesert wrote: ↑21 February 2021, 05:07 Hi,

Thank you everyone for your enthousiasm and comments.

I confirm we need a native English speaker here - so basically the probability is very high that the new BGA team member will be in UK/Ireland. We are a very international website and even if all of us are fluent in English, no one is a native speaker, and there are situations where we absolutely need this skill.

We also like to have a team coming/living from different cultures, so we are better to understand and communicate with all players. This is why the 4 current team members are living in 3 different countries.

Best,
Greg

Yeah, but i think UK/Ireland people are mostly playing/post on forums whit an interest (propably not the hiring ones), so basically, it's would be hard to find one Native English there in europe, becuase most english that gose into forums are american.

xxerox wrote: ↑20 February 2021, 14:56 But based on what i see in the questionary all this is null and void. Basically: The questions are too simple. You can't judge a person based on the information we are asked to provide. You won't know if that person is diplomatic and fair. In fact, the only question that stands out is - "d: Is English your native language?"

That's true, it would be tricky. They did mention that there was an interview process following this, so that's probably where they will get to know more about a person and see examples of their skill so they can better assess them.

MacDuc wrote: ↑20 February 2021, 20:28 I do agree. I don't see how a native and only a native English speaker should be hired. What's the advantage? If you're fluent in English, what's the problem? Or what about professional translators, an interpreter... The number of candidates are considerably limited due to this rather strange condition.

Good questions. This could be because the majority of the community platforms are based in the English language - the Discord, Facebook, etc. As a person in the US who does this exact job for a mobile game studio based in Germany, they do everything in English internally as well. Google translate is amazing, but not perfect, and I respond to support tickets in Russian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, French, and Spanish to name a few, and sometimes the meaning is lost a little bit and occasionally it can be challenging to get those players the help they deserve in an efficient manner as a result.

TheClaudeQc wrote: ↑21 February 2021, 14:10

sourisdudesert wrote: ↑21 February 2021, 05:07 Hi,

Thank you everyone for your enthousiasm and comments.

I confirm we need a native English speaker here - so basically the probability is very high that the new BGA team member will be in UK/Ireland. We are a very international website and even if all of us are fluent in English, no one is a native speaker, and there are situations where we absolutely need this skill.

We also like to have a team coming/living from different cultures, so we are better to understand and communicate with all players. This is why the 4 current team members are living in 3 different countries.

Best,
Greg

Yeah, but i think UK/Ireland people are mostly playing/post on forums whit an interest (propably not the hiring ones), so basically, it's would be hard to find one Native English there in europe, becuase most english that gose into forums are american.

I also think they should open the position for people from USA too due to all of them being native english speakers.

Althrough "there are situations where we absolutely need this skill" sounds kind of awkward. I know many high level translators and interpreters that speak and understand english better than the natives due to studying it for years. They even understand euphemisms,sayings and a lot of regional quirks better. Having only a native speaker is no way more advantegeus than having someone who does this for living. Hell, I know people from England who do not understand the difference between American Quite and UK Quite.

I think, based on the information provided that you are in fact ONLY looking for someone from UK/Ireland and nothing else matters (Based on questions in the questionary, concerns raised in the thread and replies from admins in the same place.) In fact i think if 1 person applies from UK and 10 others apply from someplace else they would pick the one from UK.

Having a comminuty menager who speaks english should be the minimum requirement in my opinion. The same position in other sites and platforms is usually unpaid and free due to how easy it is to do. Most players that use the site are French or Russian and so on. English at this point of time is too widely used and too many people know it.

Let me ask you this: If someone lies in their resume that they are a native english speaker, how in the bloody hell you are going to figure it out?

And if they are not, what if they are originally from USA and have absolutely no understanding on how to deal with the discrepancies from the mainland english?

xxerox wrote: ↑21 February 2021, 21:18 Having a comminuty menager who speaks english should be the minimum requirement in my opinion. The same position in other sites and platforms is usually unpaid and free due to how easy it is to do. Most players that use the site are French or Russian and so on. English at this point of time is too widely used and too many people know it.

Is it possible you are confusing Community Manager with Moderator? There is some overlap, but the Community Manager is more of a PR/Marketing role and not just a community moderator to ensure everyone follows the rules in chat (that's underselling the stress they deal with a bit, I don't mean to downplay their importance in large communities.)

Community Managers are much more than mods. They often also run the support desk (sometimes the only person doing any sort of support ticketing at all,) manage social media posts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc and post updates and respond to comments there, respond to reviews on Google Play, oversee the Discord (sometimes even build it from scratch, though not in this case I think,) usually have to take art assets and combine/edit them to form posters and posts to announce new updates, etc (so you have to have some basic photoshop skills to be able to do like drop shadow on text, etc.) and depending on the company, might also be responsible for organizing any incentives for streamers and content creators, managing player-facing knowledge bases and FAQs for the game, providing patch notes to the community, and so on.

They are the "official voice" of the brand within the community and social space, so how they conduct themselves is extremely important.

It's a good idea if you understand things like Agile development practices, so that you can work within the development flow of the team (at least if you're managing the community for a piece of software or video game.)

Granted, these are not high paying jobs typically, but depending on the roles and responsibilities of the position, could be in the $50,000 annual salary range.

I also can‘t make much sense out of that language requirement, and the residency even less.

kmessary wrote: ↑21 February 2021, 23:24 Is it possible you are confusing Community Manager with Moderator? There is some overlap, but the Community Manager is more of a PR/Marketing role and not just a community moderator to ensure everyone follows the rules in chat (that's underselling the stress they deal with a bit, I don't mean to downplay their importance in large communities.)

Community Managers are much more than mods. They often also run the support desk (sometimes the only person doing any sort of support ticketing at all,) manage social media posts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc and post updates and respond to comments there, respond to reviews on Google Play, oversee the Discord (sometimes even build it from scratch, though not in this case I think,) usually have to take art assets and combine/edit them to form posters and posts to announce new updates, etc (so you have to have some basic photoshop skills to be able to do like drop shadow on text, etc.) and depending on the company, might also be responsible for organizing any incentives for streamers and content creators, managing player-facing knowledge bases and FAQs for the game, providing patch notes to the community, and so on.

They are the "official voice" of the brand within the community and social space, so how they conduct themselves is extremely important.

It's a good idea if you understand things like Agile development practices, so that you can work within the development flow of the team (at least if you're managing the community for a piece of software or video game.)

Granted, these are not high paying jobs typically, but depending on the roles and responsibilities of the position, could be in the $50,000 annual salary range.

This all goes along my growing assumptions, that they actually are not really looking for a „Community Manager“ (as the job description and questionnaire suggest, and which, for the largest part, aligns with the moderator requirements, which already made me wonder whether they plan to stop working with volunteer mods), but a „Communication Manager“, or „Head of Marketing“.

What then doesnt make sense though, is the skills checked in the questionnaire („How do you answer the following - simple - user questions?“ and „are you able to resize a screenshot?“, while they probably much rather should have asked for „do you have experience with volunteers coordination, press releases and social media strategies?“).

I can‘t really make much sense out of all of that, except if you take such assumptions a little further, based on the other recent announcement:

xxerox wrote: ↑21 February 2021, 21:09 I think, based on the information provided that you are in fact ONLY looking for someone from UK/Ireland and nothing else matters (Based on questions in the questionary, concerns raised in the thread and replies from admins in the same place.) In fact i think if 1 person applies from UK and 10 others apply from someplace else they would pick the one from UK.

xxerox wrote: ↑21 February 2021, 21:09 I also think they should open the position for people from USA too due to all of them being native english speakers.

I'm conjecturing, but I think that part of the reason for wanting applicants to be resident in Europe would be that for a company based in Europe, employing someone in the USA would be considerably more complex in terms of compliance with tax and employment laws.