Your Tax Dollars at Work. Oh wait.
One of the things said in the open forum was that you guys wanted more transparency, and to know what it is that we as a team do here. We don't think that's a horrible idea, and we'd like to show you a little bit about what we do and how things go.
We do have a board. It's your basic standard message board wherein we put all the E-mails you send us, applications, proposals, and the ideas we come up with ourselves. It's nothing fancy, and business only. (Except, of course, for the surprisingly rare bout of insanity that involves Katie's title mysteriously changing to Mrs. Katie Michael Murray or Erin getting grounded.) It is our main method of official communication, where we talk and plot and come up with new things for the game.
Every E-mail you send, and about 95% of the ones we send to you (with the exception of the "Sounds good!"s) go up there for record. How many of them we get varies. Some days we won't get any, some days we'll have one or two, some days there'll be like ten things people have asked us about in a day. At newbie time, our inboxes fill up with E-mails. In addition to that, we make our own threads regarding random events, island-wide activities, general concerns and ideas. Every day is different based on how players' and our own creativity is working that day.
We all try to ping in on everything, even it it's just a "fine with me", but we found that waiting for everyone to do so every time took too long. We now work on a majority rule basis, so once more than half of us have had our say, we'll draft up an E-mail to send back to you.
People have asked how the E-mails are drafted. If it's a simple yes to something, one person can say they're going to send out the response just so no one else does, and it's just that quick. Normally, one person will go ahead and write up a response, with everyone else checking off on it. Someone can ping in saying "I'd like to word this part this way" or we'll correct typos or make fun of the Australian use of S'es, but for the most part it's a collaborative effort. This is sometimes why it takes a while to get back to you, too, because we are a team and we don't want to send something off unless we can stand behind it, good or bad. Also note, we have tried to stay a little less personal with our correspondence because we were criticized before for our tone when we were a bit freer with how we said things. This will be changing, though please bear with us as we try to find a happy medium.
So let's break it down a little.
Plot Proposals
Say you send in a plot proposal. What happens is it goes up in its own thread, and we all ping in on whether or not it's good to go at face value. If it's all fine, it's quick and we'll just send off a response. If there are issues, or if it's something a little bigger, it takes a bit longer. We're not immediately trying to find a reason not to do it or anything. Just the opposite, in fact. If there's something that we know isn't cool, if it looks like permission needs to be gotten or we know it could badly impact people peripherally, we'll come up with suggestions on how to do this or get around it.
An E-mail is drafted, we send it out. Sometimes there is up and back regarding the date, or details like the above. It stays in our Current Issues thread till it's solved. We go ahead and put it on both our own master calendar for the semester and on the plot calendar to make sure everything's kosher. Things that come up in the course of the plot get added to the thread. If there are no issues at all, as soon as the plot's over it goes into Solved Issues to stay on record.
And in case this explanation is too plain for you, we also have a slightly different take on it written by the lovely Tracy (and I'm sure you would have figured that out even if I hadn't told you *g*). To the tune of I'm Just a Bill:
Player: Woof! You sure gotta write a lot to get this plot submission form sent into the admins. But, I wonder...what happens next?
I'm just a plot
Yes, I'm only a plot
And I'm flying through cyberspace like a shot
Well, it's a short, short journey
To the admin email
It's a short, short wait
While I'm sitting to tell them my tale
BUt I know I'll be a plot someday
At least I hope and pray that I will a lot
But today I am still just a plot
Player: Gee, Plot, you certainly have a lot of patience and courage
Plot: Well, I got this far. When I started, I wasn't even fully formed and detailed. I was just an idea. Someone got an idea that I they wanted to put their character through angst or crack or sadness or many other emotions and my player looked at me and said, 'This needs to happen to my character.' Then he or she sat down and wrote me out and sent me into the admins. And I became a plot submission and I'll remain a plot submission until I get that approval email.
I'm just a plot
Yes I'm only a plot
And I got as far as the admin email
Well, now I'm sitting here ready to tell my tale
While the admins look it over and discuss and debate
Whether they should give me approval with the proverbial thumbs up
How I hope and pray that they will a lot
But today I am just still just a plot
Player: Boy, listen to those admins talking! Is all that talking about you?
Plot: Yeah, that happens for all plots. Every detail is taken into consideration and discussed to make sure everything works. If it doesn't, I might get sent back.
Player: Sent back?
Plot: Yeah, sent back to the person who submitted me. So that person can make corrections and clarifications and send me back so I can get approved!
Player: If you get approved, what happens?
Plot: An approval email gets sent back to my player and I get slapped on the plot calendar!
Player: Oh wow!
Plot: Oh wow indeed!
I'm just a plot
Yes, I'm only a plot
And if they approve me in admin land
Well, then I'm sent back to the source
Where I'll start getting formed
With a lot of thoughts and things being planned
Then, I'll be a plot and my hope is that my player doesn't get swarmed
And if real life intervenes and my plot must be changed
Just send a quick email
So adjustments can be made and I can still go on to tell my tale!
*applauds*
Applications
This is a big subject, and will actually have a separate post coming soon to lend some more insight. But for now, an overview.
Every semester we start a new series of threads, for student apps, teacher apps, and classes. As apps come in we stick things in their appropriate threads, with us sending out confirmations to people. App period for me, btw, is like Christmas. Each time we do it, it varies on how many apps we get and when. I like the busy ones. *nods*
Throughout this time we're working on things like plans for the newbie influx. Starting to get the big sibling stuff up and running, figuring out who's going to be posting what and what changes need to be made, looking at new teacher apps and seeing if proposed classes are too close to what another teacher will be running... We're pretty much working the whole time you guys are working on your apps.
When apps close, the team takes the week to go through the apps we've received. We read them, do fact-checking if we need, and then post our app opinions for each proposed character. Some people are more detailed than others, depending on preference. And yes, we do need about that long to do this. The apps can be very long, and we read the whole thing, and now imagine getting between 20-40 of those (depending on the term). For students alone. Add in the time spent actually writing out what you think and it can take a while to do. And for the curious, yes, admins do submit apps and then get to watch them get picked apart. We do abstain from voting on our own, usually with a comment of "I'm abstaining but LET HER IN SHE WOULD BE PRETTY ON YOUR FLISTS" or something.
At the end of the week, usually a Saturday night for time zone reasons, we get the whole team together for what we call a knifefight, a term that's been around since we started accepting apps. No, I have no idea how it came about, and though the chats have always been fair and civil, the name's just stuck. This does not stop me from saying I'm bringing my machete every time like I think it's funny. (I don't even own a machete.) The knifefight is an admin-only chat for figuring out who's getting in this semester. We go through each character, voting yes or no or seeing if our opinions have changed after reading what everyone else had to say about the apps. This can take a while. My first knifefight ended up being four hours long, I think. Once we've decided on who we're accepting and who we're not, we divvy up the E-mails. Rejections can usually be handled by one unfortunate person, acceptances are split up further. And then we watch our inbox flood with confirmations, which is kinda nice too.
There are reasons we send acceptances so far in advance from when you get to bring them in, and it's only partially because the squee is fun. There's work that then has to happen on our part, with the big sibling program and roommates and teaching buddies. Much easier to send it out, get your acceptances, and then work, especially when the friending list depends on the confirmations. And there are almost always one or two people who we have to chase down to get their confirmation (especially in the summer months when people might be on vacation). It also gives people time to write up their pre-Fandom posts. And honestly, it seems kind of mean to know who we're accepting and not tell you guys till the last minute.
And then there is much newbie squee.
Townie apps are different because they're open year-round. We have one giant thread for all of them where we ping in on it right away with our opinions. If we don't get to you right away, it's usually because we haven't had enough people around for a majority, or there was a question someone had that didn't have an answer yet. We're going to try to speed this up for you, yes.
Open Forum
We should definitely let you guys know what we do during these. We find a weekend to hold the forum when we're all available, and then it usually changes because someone had something pop up IRL or something. Beforehand, we run through and figure out what problems have sprung up IG that we know of that we need to discuss. We write up a post, which everyone checks off on, and someone puts it up the morning of.
While you guys are commenting, we're in an admin-only chat room, where we catch your comments as they come through. We discuss whatever issues come up, which sometimes means we're figuring out things as we go. (Which is not to say that we're clueless to established rules, but specific instances sometimes mean we have to come up with a course of action then.) We decide on a response, someone grabs it and we post it. And yes, sometimes there is hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not, but we do take it seriously.
When it's closed and we're not getting any more comments, a recap will be written up of everything detailing the questions we've answered, things we still need to discuss, and comments that were put forth that don't necessitate further involvement from us but go in there anyway. And then we get to work on the things that came up. We do discuss everything. We don't make everything policy, but we do take everything into consideration and let you know the state of things as soon as possible.
Rule Making
There's no thread for this. This usually pops up out of something that happened in game. It's been said before and I'll say it again, the rules that we have are there for a reason. If we had to start saying no on something, it's because something happened to bring it about. We have to follow the same rules you do, and having a ton of them isn't fun. There have been cases where we've truthfully been burned pretty bad by something and tried to prevent it from happening again, which maybe does become an easy answer after a while. We are looking to loosen up on some of the rules. Just please know that we're not crazy people who are trying to just dictate the game (gametators?), and that the rules that have been set down were necessary for that time.
The Miscellany
We have a thread on the board called Minor Issues. It's one-shot comments from us saying "So and so posted to the wrong comm, I asked them to move it" or "This person pinged me to ask if it was okay to turn this character into a pumpkin for the day" or whatever. It's just so everyone else knows something was done, and if we notice a repeat issue we can talk to the player. Anything that's a very simple yes or no that doesn't warrant really any discussion and can be taken care of by one person goes here.
At any given time, we usually have I'd say two or three OCD projects going on at a time. Sometimes they're slow-moving. Sometimes it takes a while to get going or complete or even decide how to do. This could be anything from needing to tag a comm or redo the directory or create a master list of something or other. We usually have one person doing a project at a time.
We also do often have BDE plans happening in advance. There's not really any set procedure for these as each one is going to be different and people take on different responsibilities. Usually we have ideas in our heads for the next one months in advance, talking out ideas and trying to get things settled so when the time comes up, we can just do what we need to do.
That's the bulk of what goes on behind the scenes. Hopefully this gives you all a little knowledge about what it is we do and why.
We do have a board. It's your basic standard message board wherein we put all the E-mails you send us, applications, proposals, and the ideas we come up with ourselves. It's nothing fancy, and business only. (Except, of course, for the surprisingly rare bout of insanity that involves Katie's title mysteriously changing to Mrs. Katie Michael Murray or Erin getting grounded.) It is our main method of official communication, where we talk and plot and come up with new things for the game.
Every E-mail you send, and about 95% of the ones we send to you (with the exception of the "Sounds good!"s) go up there for record. How many of them we get varies. Some days we won't get any, some days we'll have one or two, some days there'll be like ten things people have asked us about in a day. At newbie time, our inboxes fill up with E-mails. In addition to that, we make our own threads regarding random events, island-wide activities, general concerns and ideas. Every day is different based on how players' and our own creativity is working that day.
We all try to ping in on everything, even it it's just a "fine with me", but we found that waiting for everyone to do so every time took too long. We now work on a majority rule basis, so once more than half of us have had our say, we'll draft up an E-mail to send back to you.
People have asked how the E-mails are drafted. If it's a simple yes to something, one person can say they're going to send out the response just so no one else does, and it's just that quick. Normally, one person will go ahead and write up a response, with everyone else checking off on it. Someone can ping in saying "I'd like to word this part this way" or we'll correct typos or make fun of the Australian use of S'es, but for the most part it's a collaborative effort. This is sometimes why it takes a while to get back to you, too, because we are a team and we don't want to send something off unless we can stand behind it, good or bad. Also note, we have tried to stay a little less personal with our correspondence because we were criticized before for our tone when we were a bit freer with how we said things. This will be changing, though please bear with us as we try to find a happy medium.
So let's break it down a little.
Plot Proposals
Say you send in a plot proposal. What happens is it goes up in its own thread, and we all ping in on whether or not it's good to go at face value. If it's all fine, it's quick and we'll just send off a response. If there are issues, or if it's something a little bigger, it takes a bit longer. We're not immediately trying to find a reason not to do it or anything. Just the opposite, in fact. If there's something that we know isn't cool, if it looks like permission needs to be gotten or we know it could badly impact people peripherally, we'll come up with suggestions on how to do this or get around it.
An E-mail is drafted, we send it out. Sometimes there is up and back regarding the date, or details like the above. It stays in our Current Issues thread till it's solved. We go ahead and put it on both our own master calendar for the semester and on the plot calendar to make sure everything's kosher. Things that come up in the course of the plot get added to the thread. If there are no issues at all, as soon as the plot's over it goes into Solved Issues to stay on record.
And in case this explanation is too plain for you, we also have a slightly different take on it written by the lovely Tracy (and I'm sure you would have figured that out even if I hadn't told you *g*). To the tune of I'm Just a Bill:
Player: Woof! You sure gotta write a lot to get this plot submission form sent into the admins. But, I wonder...what happens next?
I'm just a plot
Yes, I'm only a plot
And I'm flying through cyberspace like a shot
Well, it's a short, short journey
To the admin email
It's a short, short wait
While I'm sitting to tell them my tale
BUt I know I'll be a plot someday
At least I hope and pray that I will a lot
But today I am still just a plot
Player: Gee, Plot, you certainly have a lot of patience and courage
Plot: Well, I got this far. When I started, I wasn't even fully formed and detailed. I was just an idea. Someone got an idea that I they wanted to put their character through angst or crack or sadness or many other emotions and my player looked at me and said, 'This needs to happen to my character.' Then he or she sat down and wrote me out and sent me into the admins. And I became a plot submission and I'll remain a plot submission until I get that approval email.
I'm just a plot
Yes I'm only a plot
And I got as far as the admin email
Well, now I'm sitting here ready to tell my tale
While the admins look it over and discuss and debate
Whether they should give me approval with the proverbial thumbs up
How I hope and pray that they will a lot
But today I am just still just a plot
Player: Boy, listen to those admins talking! Is all that talking about you?
Plot: Yeah, that happens for all plots. Every detail is taken into consideration and discussed to make sure everything works. If it doesn't, I might get sent back.
Player: Sent back?
Plot: Yeah, sent back to the person who submitted me. So that person can make corrections and clarifications and send me back so I can get approved!
Player: If you get approved, what happens?
Plot: An approval email gets sent back to my player and I get slapped on the plot calendar!
Player: Oh wow!
Plot: Oh wow indeed!
I'm just a plot
Yes, I'm only a plot
And if they approve me in admin land
Well, then I'm sent back to the source
Where I'll start getting formed
With a lot of thoughts and things being planned
Then, I'll be a plot and my hope is that my player doesn't get swarmed
And if real life intervenes and my plot must be changed
Just send a quick email
So adjustments can be made and I can still go on to tell my tale!
*applauds*
Applications
This is a big subject, and will actually have a separate post coming soon to lend some more insight. But for now, an overview.
Every semester we start a new series of threads, for student apps, teacher apps, and classes. As apps come in we stick things in their appropriate threads, with us sending out confirmations to people. App period for me, btw, is like Christmas. Each time we do it, it varies on how many apps we get and when. I like the busy ones. *nods*
Throughout this time we're working on things like plans for the newbie influx. Starting to get the big sibling stuff up and running, figuring out who's going to be posting what and what changes need to be made, looking at new teacher apps and seeing if proposed classes are too close to what another teacher will be running... We're pretty much working the whole time you guys are working on your apps.
When apps close, the team takes the week to go through the apps we've received. We read them, do fact-checking if we need, and then post our app opinions for each proposed character. Some people are more detailed than others, depending on preference. And yes, we do need about that long to do this. The apps can be very long, and we read the whole thing, and now imagine getting between 20-40 of those (depending on the term). For students alone. Add in the time spent actually writing out what you think and it can take a while to do. And for the curious, yes, admins do submit apps and then get to watch them get picked apart. We do abstain from voting on our own, usually with a comment of "I'm abstaining but LET HER IN SHE WOULD BE PRETTY ON YOUR FLISTS" or something.
At the end of the week, usually a Saturday night for time zone reasons, we get the whole team together for what we call a knifefight, a term that's been around since we started accepting apps. No, I have no idea how it came about, and though the chats have always been fair and civil, the name's just stuck. This does not stop me from saying I'm bringing my machete every time like I think it's funny. (I don't even own a machete.) The knifefight is an admin-only chat for figuring out who's getting in this semester. We go through each character, voting yes or no or seeing if our opinions have changed after reading what everyone else had to say about the apps. This can take a while. My first knifefight ended up being four hours long, I think. Once we've decided on who we're accepting and who we're not, we divvy up the E-mails. Rejections can usually be handled by one unfortunate person, acceptances are split up further. And then we watch our inbox flood with confirmations, which is kinda nice too.
There are reasons we send acceptances so far in advance from when you get to bring them in, and it's only partially because the squee is fun. There's work that then has to happen on our part, with the big sibling program and roommates and teaching buddies. Much easier to send it out, get your acceptances, and then work, especially when the friending list depends on the confirmations. And there are almost always one or two people who we have to chase down to get their confirmation (especially in the summer months when people might be on vacation). It also gives people time to write up their pre-Fandom posts. And honestly, it seems kind of mean to know who we're accepting and not tell you guys till the last minute.
And then there is much newbie squee.
Townie apps are different because they're open year-round. We have one giant thread for all of them where we ping in on it right away with our opinions. If we don't get to you right away, it's usually because we haven't had enough people around for a majority, or there was a question someone had that didn't have an answer yet. We're going to try to speed this up for you, yes.
Open Forum
We should definitely let you guys know what we do during these. We find a weekend to hold the forum when we're all available, and then it usually changes because someone had something pop up IRL or something. Beforehand, we run through and figure out what problems have sprung up IG that we know of that we need to discuss. We write up a post, which everyone checks off on, and someone puts it up the morning of.
While you guys are commenting, we're in an admin-only chat room, where we catch your comments as they come through. We discuss whatever issues come up, which sometimes means we're figuring out things as we go. (Which is not to say that we're clueless to established rules, but specific instances sometimes mean we have to come up with a course of action then.) We decide on a response, someone grabs it and we post it. And yes, sometimes there is hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not, but we do take it seriously.
When it's closed and we're not getting any more comments, a recap will be written up of everything detailing the questions we've answered, things we still need to discuss, and comments that were put forth that don't necessitate further involvement from us but go in there anyway. And then we get to work on the things that came up. We do discuss everything. We don't make everything policy, but we do take everything into consideration and let you know the state of things as soon as possible.
Rule Making
There's no thread for this. This usually pops up out of something that happened in game. It's been said before and I'll say it again, the rules that we have are there for a reason. If we had to start saying no on something, it's because something happened to bring it about. We have to follow the same rules you do, and having a ton of them isn't fun. There have been cases where we've truthfully been burned pretty bad by something and tried to prevent it from happening again, which maybe does become an easy answer after a while. We are looking to loosen up on some of the rules. Just please know that we're not crazy people who are trying to just dictate the game (gametators?), and that the rules that have been set down were necessary for that time.
The Miscellany
We have a thread on the board called Minor Issues. It's one-shot comments from us saying "So and so posted to the wrong comm, I asked them to move it" or "This person pinged me to ask if it was okay to turn this character into a pumpkin for the day" or whatever. It's just so everyone else knows something was done, and if we notice a repeat issue we can talk to the player. Anything that's a very simple yes or no that doesn't warrant really any discussion and can be taken care of by one person goes here.
At any given time, we usually have I'd say two or three OCD projects going on at a time. Sometimes they're slow-moving. Sometimes it takes a while to get going or complete or even decide how to do. This could be anything from needing to tag a comm or redo the directory or create a master list of something or other. We usually have one person doing a project at a time.
We also do often have BDE plans happening in advance. There's not really any set procedure for these as each one is going to be different and people take on different responsibilities. Usually we have ideas in our heads for the next one months in advance, talking out ideas and trying to get things settled so when the time comes up, we can just do what we need to do.
That's the bulk of what goes on behind the scenes. Hopefully this gives you all a little knowledge about what it is we do and why.