Note: We're using Google Drive for this.

So, you’re starting a group or you’ve had a group for a while and want to get a bit more organized about a few things. That’s super neato. One thing that you should keep track of is your ban-management, and more importantly why a person received a mark. This kind of information will assist you now and later on. The system I’m giving a guide to you all on is simple to set up and is effective at what it does.

First off, use Google Drive for more than just your stories about X character doing Y for Z reasons. Let’s take a look at Google Drive in the top left corner. Click on the “Create” button:

And scroll down to “Form”.

It’ll open up a screen where you can choose a template. You can choose something more artsy if you desire, but I’ll be using default for simplicity’s sake. Also, be sure to give your form a name. It should look a lot like this:

Here’s how I set up my form for The Writer’s Group. Feel free to copy. Borrow what you like. We’re all admins here, so hiding this benefits no one!

How do you get it to look like that? In the picture before the one above, you will see a handy button called “Add item”. This button will let you add questions to your form and you can choose what types. From multiple choice to fill in the blank to the date to even adding videos. I can’t stress it enough: Google is your friend.

Now then, I’m assuming if you’re reading this part, you’ve made the form as you like it. Wicked, right? If you have not, go ahead and fill out the form with stuff now as you can always return to it later and change it. Please, at the bottom of the page you should remove check marks in the boxes below for privileges you do not want. You won’t want people to see the results, but whether or not to give them the link for another response is up to you. Editing their response after submitting is always nice because sometimes people make mistakes.

This is NOT the form you send to people, nor are you ready to. At the top of the page, there’s a button called “View live form”

When you click this link, Google will generate a page where your form can be filled out. The url above is where you want to send people, not the editable form. Giving your staff the form that can be edited is useless and potentially dangerous! Now we have the form, but how do we handle the results?

You are a very inquisitive and handsome/ beautiful/ sexy person. Good question. Do you see the button, “Choose Response Destination”? Click it. It will bring up this screen.

What’s beautiful about this is Google generates a spreadsheet for you that automatically keeps tabs on the responses and puts them in the appropriate columns! Be careful, the columns use the questions as the topic so try not to make your questions too long.

Now of course, make sure both the view form and the results spreadsheet can be accessed by either :
A) Anyone with the link (Only do this if you trust your staff absolutely and you’re lazy)
Or
B) Only people with appropriate permission can access

If you forgot how to access this or you’re new to Google Drive stuff, check the top right corner for this symbol:

And click it.

In just a few minutes, you’ve now created a simple, quick, and easy format system for you to keep track of members who have misbehaved and have the information forever and is accessible to any moderator/admin.

Note: Be sure to send both the link to the live form and the spreadsheet to all Admins/ Contributors. Google’s initial “Results” page is a bunch of graphs and statistics which is why we avoided it in the first place. It is cool to see how much of your group punishment comes from what though.

Bonus: Look around in the options in the spreadsheet and you can format your spreadsheet to do certain things when certain conditions are met. For example, my spreadsheet is automatically color-coded based on dates of received entries, has new entries shuffled to the top, and I receive an email from Google whenever someone updates it. I won’t say how, because I want you all to do a bit of work yourself.

Thanks you guys! Have fun and I hope everyone gets some use out of this!

Live, Learn, Let go
~Cosmic Afro of T.W.G.

2864819

Ban management? Bans last for as long as it takes me to remember the guy is banned!

I don't find bans enough of a problem to worry about ban management. I have had ban rules come up twice, and both were settled quickly. Maybe if the group somehow gets more unsavory/rowdy in the future out of nowhere.

2864819
This helped me out a lot, thanks Cosmic!

It's definitely more organized then my previous method of banagement. Thank you!

2906025
It's no problem :D

Great tip!