Starting a roll call - responsibilities?

[FlyingAnchor]

Hello! 

I have a cruise booked next year with no roll call at the moment. I'm hesitating to start a roll call myself for the sailing as I don't want to be responsible for the thread, etc. Beyond my first post starting the roll call - am I responsible for anything else? The discussion, responses, people's behavior on it, etc? 

Thanks and sorry for the rookie question! 

[TxCityKat]

 

1 hour ago, s5cmh170 said:

 

... Beyond my first post starting the roll call - am I responsible for anything else? The discussion, responses, people's behavior on it, etc?...

 

 

Howdy!

 

Don't worry, we were all newbies/rookies at one time!!

 

Nope.  Pick a few already in process, read through them, and then you will know how they usually go.

 

Also, there will be other Cruise Critic members joining in on the one you start that will be familiar with how Roll Calls work. Basically, everyone needs to be aware of what can or cannot be discussed on the Cruise Critic message boards. Most Roll Call forums have sticky notes at the top of the forums with reminders.

 

When you start it, make sure you title it correctly. From How To: Create A New Roll Call:

 

... In the Title Box, type the name of your ship, your sail date and year. 

• When you create a new ROLL CALL topic, you MUST include the sail date in the subject line, and here's the suggested format:    Example: January 1, 2016
• Please note the suggested date format with the month first and spelled out completely will help your new Roll Call topic appear on the Roll Call Finder tool faster...

 

From the Community Guidelines:

 

Roll Calls

 

Cruise Critic's ROLL CALLS are one of the most popular features within our community. In an effort to keep them fair and as safe as possible, the following is in effect:

• Roll Calls belong to everyone; there is no designated leader or owner. It doesn't matter who started the thread.
• On the other hand, if you are new to a Roll Call take the time to read the thread. Learn who is doing what, who made plans for an event, etc. before jumping in and making different plans
• If you plan an event, be sure to invite everyone!
• Please adhere to cruise line requests regarding setting up Meet & Greets on board. In other words, if they say contact us three (or two or whatever) weeks prior to sailing, don't contact them months in advance.
• ROLL CALLS are for people to get to know one another before their cruise; therefore, there will be all kinds of discussion!

SHORE EXCURSIONS

• Sharing shore excursions is fun and can help you save money.
• Get to know the other members in a Roll Call before attempting to get them to tour with you.
• Shore excursions should be arranged so that payment is made directly to the tour operator, do not be the collector of funds for a shore excursion.
• Do not arrange any shore excursions/tours if you are not going to be taking them yourself. In other words NO THIRD-PARTY arrangement of shore excursions are allowed. This includes people who are not participating on the Cruise Critic ROLL CALL *for whatever reason*.
• Travel agents may not arrange shore excursions on ROLL CALLS.
• Anyone attempting to "fill a bus" or making money from the sharing of shore excursions on our forums runs the risk of losing their membership.
• Do not post your email address so that someone can email you information about a shore excursion. If they have important info, they should be willing and able to post this information on the forum. We will remove posts, at our discretion, that are nothing more than requests for emails OR posts providing email addresses.
• Do NOT arrange to collect funds for shore excursion shares at any Meet & Mingle or Meet & Greet so graciously provided by the cruise lines. In the case of Princess Cruises, they have stated you cannot solicit other passengers for any reason once you have booked your cruise. If they observe you arranging tours on board, you run the risk of being asked to debark your cruise at the next port (verified via Princess Cruises March 2013).

Our Policy Regarding Facebook and Roll Calls

 

Cruise Critic loves Facebook. in fact, we maintain FB pages for all of our sites (Cruise Critic, CruiseCritic.co.uk, our Australia site, etc.). We have many people who participate on both our FB page and our message boards. We have no issues with people linking their own, personal FB pages in their profiles, or on your signature on Cruise Critic forums. You understand that doing so allows our members to know your "real life" name.

ROLL CALLS created on FB are not anonymous. Most of them are open to the public. Even if they are private groups, once you are accepted into the group everyone will know your real name. In doing so you have pretty much told all those people -- strangers -- when you will be away on vacation. The fact of the matter is most people do not understand how much personal information they are sharing.

On Cruise Critic roll calls, everyone is anonymous. You have the ability to remain as anonymous as you'd like throughout the entire Roll Call timeframe and throughout your entire cruise if you so desire. You can be JoeCruise101 until the day you disembark. The choice is yours, you share as much or as little as YOU choose to; everyone starts out on a level playing field on Cruise Critic. Anonymous user names only.

Also, FB Roll Calls have already proven to divide Roll Calls. People, for whatever reason, who cannot seem to get along may open a FB group and then want more people to participate, so they harvest members from the original ROLL CALL. There have been actual disruptions encouraged on FB directed towards our ROLL CALLs.

We believe a ROLL CALL created on Cruise Critic should stay here. We've worked long and hard to create this community, and have provided a certain level of trust and privacy for our members. If they choose to participate in a FB Roll Call, they'll have to learn about it somewhere other than Cruise Critic.

We request that you not solicit people to your Facebook page on any of our ROLL CALLS.

 

 

Also, don't forget the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle aka Celebrity Connections at Connections Info!

 

Happy sails,

 

Kat 🐱

Edited June 18, 2019 by TxCityKat
Fat fingers & skinny keys!

[FlyingAnchor]

21 minutes ago, TxCityKat said:

Nope.  Pick a few already in process, read through them, and then you will know how they usually go.

Thanks, Kat! I have joined one or two roll calls before. By the time I've joined them they've been 12-20 pages in it seems. I thought for sure there was no way I could keep track of all of that conversation! 😂

[Aulanis]

I sort of expect the person starting the roll call will welcome those who join later.  This can

be done by anyone but I dont know why you would want to start a roll call if you are not

taking an active part in it. Maybe leave it  a while for another to start it.

[Organized Chaos]

I started one for a past cruise, but it flopped. I think there were only 5 people in it. I tried to spark conversations about excursions, other things to do at the ports of call, things like that, but it never took off. So now I’m very hesitant about starting one for our cruise next year. There are Roll Calls for the cruises immediately before & after that one, but not for ours. I don’t want to start it because, for one, I’ve waited a few months since we booked and there obviously hasn’t been any interest in one and, two, I didn’t want a repeat of the last one I started. There’s nothing to it, so I guess it’s just kind of the luck of the draw as to how well used a CC Roll Call becomes.

 

Since there hasn’t been any interest in one on CC, for the first time ever, I joined a fb Roll Call. I hate fb and I rarely ever use it, but I read that there’s usually a lot more participation on those Roll Calls. Well, there are about 50 people who’ve joined, but the group is pretty much a ghost town. It’s lucky to see one post a week. And as CC indicates in their TOS, anyone can create a fb Roll Call group, so they end up with multiples for the same cruise because too many people want to be the host of one. All that does is fragment membership and decrease participation. So I haven’t had much luck with Roll Calls. 😕

[wwcruisers]

Nope -- you are not responsible for anything, on an r/c thread (or any other thread) that you start on CC. People often make the mistake of calling the r/c starter the 'host' -- which is incorrect. CruiseCritic is our 'host' and the mods/admins/techs are responsible for content. That being said, some folks who start r/c's are also 'born organizers', who will often cheerfully shoulder the burden of keeping the r/c list and organizing various activities. But, it is not a requirement.