Post by Alex on Aug 30, 2010 19:37:25 GMT -5
I want to apologize to Shelpey Alley for my irresponsibility. As soon as this fiasco sparked, I was leaving for vacation. When I got back and finally had time to check in on the site, things had escalated and I wasn't sure of what had happened. Then school started and I was caught up in that, and by the next time that I logged on, I saw how much the heat had risen and how many tempers had flared. I admit that I try to avoid conflict as much as I can, and I lurked on the site and hoped that if I left it alone, it would go away in its own time.
Things don't work like that, and I found this out the hard way. Shelpey Alley is something I'm proud of. I'm proud of its members, I'm proud of the characters and the stories they've created, and I'm proud of how far we've come and how long we've stayed active. I don't want this site to go down in flames.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, count yourself lucky. Anyone that's been around within the past few weeks can tell you that it's ugly.
Where to start.
Lore's post:
I have to say that I think it could have been put differently, in such a way that it isn't quite as arrogant. On the other hand, this isn't the first time that Lore's mentioned this problem, and the first few times it WAS a lot less harsh. We didn't all like what she pointed out or how she went about doing it, but she has valid points that need to be listened to.
Ex-members:
I'm talking about Milo, Elise, Brittany, and Tess, but mainly the points that Milo argued in her parting comments. First of all, I felt highly offended that Milo suggested that since we're of a younger generation, we know less about having busy lives than she would since she's older. This is going to be one of the few times I break my objective stance in this thread: Milo, that is complete and utter bullshit. Do NOT stereotype teenagers and tell us that we don't know anything about having busy schedules. I can tell you that if you had the time to sit there and write that accusation, you've got more time on your hands than you know what to do with. Second of all, never once did the staff get a PM from any of you regarding these issues that you brought up. Tell me: HOW are we supposed to help fix things if you never bring it to our attention? You can't expect us to be psychic. You can't expect us to stalk the cbox and see if you complain to other members about things. You need to take the initiative and bring it to us, which you did not do. Don't you dare pin the blame on us.
Pointing fingers:
This whole outburst isn't one person in particular's fault. It's EVERYONE's. You, me, the staff, the members trying to stay out of the conflict, the members trying to stop it, the inactive members who are blissfully unaware of what's going on: EVERYONE. We're ALL responsible for one part of this or another, whether it's accusing others, calling people out, trying to avoid this by leaving, or trying to reasonably argue one point or another. You are not free of blame, no matter who you are. So no one should be getting high and mighty and acting like they're not at fault.
I don't care WHAT reason you think you had, but there's no excuse for calling names. Seriously guys. You know who you are. That's something little kids do on the playground when someone won't hand over the ball. Lore didn't do anything wrong; she pointed out the truth and called upon facts to support herself. By calling her a bitch, all you did was kill the messenger; it resolves NOTHING, and just adds to the drama. The truth is still there, and now there's a dead person added to the pile. -_-; If you guys won't, I want to apologize to Lore. She was the unfortunate one to decide to take action and bring this up. It could have just as easily been me or Toki, or even another member, but Lore decided she'd take that responsibility. Thank you, Lore, for all that you've done, and I'm sorry that you had to take the fall for this.
On a slightly unrelated note, if I find out that anyone bashes anyone else on this site, I promise you that I'm going to be one fucking mad admin. Don't take this as a joke, because I'm serious as hell.
Starting with the time taken to reply to posts: It's been growing an increasingly bigger problem as of late; people nagging others in the cbox to reply to a particular thread. We've all seen it, most of us have done it, and most of us have had it done to us. I think that we can all agree that a few gentle reminders at first aren't so bad, but after the first two or so, we start to get really tired of hearing it, and it gets really tiring for the person asking.
The threads you're in: We all get random bursts of inspired muse and want to roleplay right THEN AND THERE, and then lose that creative drive a few days later. And how many threads do you now have piled up, waiting for a reply, that you don't have the muse to post in? I'll bet it's a rather large number. We need to keep tabs on how many open threads we have and how much muse we seem to have on any given day. There are only so many threads that you can have at a time; this number varies from person to person, but we each know what our own limit is. Lets keep that limit in mind when we go to make a new thread and ask yourself if this is such a good idea.
I've been mulling things over and occasionally talking to people, and I've been toying with the idea of a revamp. A sort of restart for the site that, hopefully, will give us the boost we need to get back on our feet and STAY on them.
This may or may not include actually switching to a new URL: I'd prefer not to, but it may turn out that the majority of the memberbase would rather that we do it. Version 2, if you will, would feature the same characters, same stories that have already happened, the same settings, etc. IC-wise, almost nothing will change. We've worked to make this much happen so far, and it would be pointless to turn back time and have to redo all of it. But the revamp would have a very specific, defined plot, with key turningpoints that we have to reach IC so that it doesn't become a scattered mess. The plot will be determined BEFORE roleplaying starts/picks up again, so that we all know what's going on.
The guilds/gangs will have stronger distinctions between them. I worked out a few differences in the newbie guide, but they need to be expanded on. These differences will be drawn up before roleplaying starts/resumes in v2.
Rules, bans, and limitations are going to get a revision. I can tell you that I was pissed beyond belief when Milo had the nerve to call me out for having two canine characters because I was administrator. Pretty much all the senior members had characters who were on the ban list BEFORE it was put in place, and we all agreed that it wouldn't be fair if we had to get rid of them. There WAS a case, however, of members banning together to give points to a newer member so that they could have a character who shifted into a banned animal. If that's not compassion, then I don't know what is. And then that member went inactive. But for v2, I think that we're going to need to go through the characters and delete the ones that we really don't have the muse for anymore. They're jamming up the works and possibly adding to the unbalanced animal numbers, and maybe if we did that first, we'd see that a ban isn't even necessary.
It still probably will be, though, to keep it from happening in the future. But if a ban (and you realize that when I say ban I mean more of a limit, right?) was to be put in place, it's going to be a completely fair one and not rely on number of posts. It'd be a one-special-character-per-account type of situation.
Threads and posts and nagging: First, nagging should be kept to PMs. If you want to give a gentle reminder, send the person a PM rather than posting a public comment for them that may or may not be overtaken by conversation and never read by the person. If it becomes too much like SPAM, though, we need to be notified. Again, we can't DO ANYTHING if we don't KNOW ABOUT IT. The staff is here to resolve problems. We're not thinking that there's going to be an actual limit on how many threads you have going at a time because, again, each person can handle more or less than the next, BUT. There IS going to be a posting requirement, something along the lines of 'you have to post in your open threads at least once per week.' This is where keeping a character log helps, so that you can keep track of threads easily, among other things.
One thing I've been noticing is that when I'm somewhat low on muse, I might TRY to reply to a post, but I'll find that there's a certain standard that's expected of me, usually set by the preceding post. Sort of like if the post you're replying to is 1000 words long, and you can barely scrape together a post of about 200 words. That's okay. One thing that I want to emphasize is that you don't always have to post something like 1000+ words. It's understandable that we lose and gain muse and can't always predict when we'll be up to posting or not. But it's almost always preferred that you post a short and museless reply than not at all. Maybe the post-once-per-week minimum will work hand-in-hand with this idea.
The new version will have a new skin; one that we can FULLY code and that hopefully everyone will like. It'll switch up every now and then for particular events, so it shouldn't be too dull.
The shapeshifter history is going to be expanded upon as well. We'll explain more about their powers and how they work.
As a last comment, I think that it might be about time that we expand our staff team. Possibly assign specific duties, such as managing the archives and moving old threads and abandoned characters, or accepting bios, or working on plots and the like, or managing affiliates. If certain small things were already being taken care of, it could very well help ease tension and pressure and allow for the staff to spend more time on the site NOT doing staffly duties.
This is an OPEN thread and I encourage you guys to post your thoughts about the revamp of the site. This is not a thread to continue talking about the drama that occurred: that's all over and done with. Those were my parting words on the subject since I never actually made any comments. I have opinions, you have opinions, and we're all allowed to have opinions. But from this point forward we're putting those opinions to the side and we're all going to join hands and skip merrily across a double rainbow and be best friends forever while we talk about the future of Shelpey Alley. Capisce?
Things don't work like that, and I found this out the hard way. Shelpey Alley is something I'm proud of. I'm proud of its members, I'm proud of the characters and the stories they've created, and I'm proud of how far we've come and how long we've stayed active. I don't want this site to go down in flames.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, count yourself lucky. Anyone that's been around within the past few weeks can tell you that it's ugly.
Where to start.
Lore's post:
I have to say that I think it could have been put differently, in such a way that it isn't quite as arrogant. On the other hand, this isn't the first time that Lore's mentioned this problem, and the first few times it WAS a lot less harsh. We didn't all like what she pointed out or how she went about doing it, but she has valid points that need to be listened to.
Ex-members:
I'm talking about Milo, Elise, Brittany, and Tess, but mainly the points that Milo argued in her parting comments. First of all, I felt highly offended that Milo suggested that since we're of a younger generation, we know less about having busy lives than she would since she's older. This is going to be one of the few times I break my objective stance in this thread: Milo, that is complete and utter bullshit. Do NOT stereotype teenagers and tell us that we don't know anything about having busy schedules. I can tell you that if you had the time to sit there and write that accusation, you've got more time on your hands than you know what to do with. Second of all, never once did the staff get a PM from any of you regarding these issues that you brought up. Tell me: HOW are we supposed to help fix things if you never bring it to our attention? You can't expect us to be psychic. You can't expect us to stalk the cbox and see if you complain to other members about things. You need to take the initiative and bring it to us, which you did not do. Don't you dare pin the blame on us.
Pointing fingers:
This whole outburst isn't one person in particular's fault. It's EVERYONE's. You, me, the staff, the members trying to stay out of the conflict, the members trying to stop it, the inactive members who are blissfully unaware of what's going on: EVERYONE. We're ALL responsible for one part of this or another, whether it's accusing others, calling people out, trying to avoid this by leaving, or trying to reasonably argue one point or another. You are not free of blame, no matter who you are. So no one should be getting high and mighty and acting like they're not at fault.
I don't care WHAT reason you think you had, but there's no excuse for calling names. Seriously guys. You know who you are. That's something little kids do on the playground when someone won't hand over the ball. Lore didn't do anything wrong; she pointed out the truth and called upon facts to support herself. By calling her a bitch, all you did was kill the messenger; it resolves NOTHING, and just adds to the drama. The truth is still there, and now there's a dead person added to the pile. -_-; If you guys won't, I want to apologize to Lore. She was the unfortunate one to decide to take action and bring this up. It could have just as easily been me or Toki, or even another member, but Lore decided she'd take that responsibility. Thank you, Lore, for all that you've done, and I'm sorry that you had to take the fall for this.
On a slightly unrelated note, if I find out that anyone bashes anyone else on this site, I promise you that I'm going to be one fucking mad admin. Don't take this as a joke, because I'm serious as hell.
Things need to change.
This is pretty obvious, I hope.
This is pretty obvious, I hope.
Starting with the time taken to reply to posts: It's been growing an increasingly bigger problem as of late; people nagging others in the cbox to reply to a particular thread. We've all seen it, most of us have done it, and most of us have had it done to us. I think that we can all agree that a few gentle reminders at first aren't so bad, but after the first two or so, we start to get really tired of hearing it, and it gets really tiring for the person asking.
The threads you're in: We all get random bursts of inspired muse and want to roleplay right THEN AND THERE, and then lose that creative drive a few days later. And how many threads do you now have piled up, waiting for a reply, that you don't have the muse to post in? I'll bet it's a rather large number. We need to keep tabs on how many open threads we have and how much muse we seem to have on any given day. There are only so many threads that you can have at a time; this number varies from person to person, but we each know what our own limit is. Lets keep that limit in mind when we go to make a new thread and ask yourself if this is such a good idea.
I've been mulling things over and occasionally talking to people, and I've been toying with the idea of a revamp. A sort of restart for the site that, hopefully, will give us the boost we need to get back on our feet and STAY on them.
This may or may not include actually switching to a new URL: I'd prefer not to, but it may turn out that the majority of the memberbase would rather that we do it. Version 2, if you will, would feature the same characters, same stories that have already happened, the same settings, etc. IC-wise, almost nothing will change. We've worked to make this much happen so far, and it would be pointless to turn back time and have to redo all of it. But the revamp would have a very specific, defined plot, with key turningpoints that we have to reach IC so that it doesn't become a scattered mess. The plot will be determined BEFORE roleplaying starts/picks up again, so that we all know what's going on.
The guilds/gangs will have stronger distinctions between them. I worked out a few differences in the newbie guide, but they need to be expanded on. These differences will be drawn up before roleplaying starts/resumes in v2.
Rules, bans, and limitations are going to get a revision. I can tell you that I was pissed beyond belief when Milo had the nerve to call me out for having two canine characters because I was administrator. Pretty much all the senior members had characters who were on the ban list BEFORE it was put in place, and we all agreed that it wouldn't be fair if we had to get rid of them. There WAS a case, however, of members banning together to give points to a newer member so that they could have a character who shifted into a banned animal. If that's not compassion, then I don't know what is. And then that member went inactive. But for v2, I think that we're going to need to go through the characters and delete the ones that we really don't have the muse for anymore. They're jamming up the works and possibly adding to the unbalanced animal numbers, and maybe if we did that first, we'd see that a ban isn't even necessary.
It still probably will be, though, to keep it from happening in the future. But if a ban (and you realize that when I say ban I mean more of a limit, right?) was to be put in place, it's going to be a completely fair one and not rely on number of posts. It'd be a one-special-character-per-account type of situation.
Threads and posts and nagging: First, nagging should be kept to PMs. If you want to give a gentle reminder, send the person a PM rather than posting a public comment for them that may or may not be overtaken by conversation and never read by the person. If it becomes too much like SPAM, though, we need to be notified. Again, we can't DO ANYTHING if we don't KNOW ABOUT IT. The staff is here to resolve problems. We're not thinking that there's going to be an actual limit on how many threads you have going at a time because, again, each person can handle more or less than the next, BUT. There IS going to be a posting requirement, something along the lines of 'you have to post in your open threads at least once per week.' This is where keeping a character log helps, so that you can keep track of threads easily, among other things.
One thing I've been noticing is that when I'm somewhat low on muse, I might TRY to reply to a post, but I'll find that there's a certain standard that's expected of me, usually set by the preceding post. Sort of like if the post you're replying to is 1000 words long, and you can barely scrape together a post of about 200 words. That's okay. One thing that I want to emphasize is that you don't always have to post something like 1000+ words. It's understandable that we lose and gain muse and can't always predict when we'll be up to posting or not. But it's almost always preferred that you post a short and museless reply than not at all. Maybe the post-once-per-week minimum will work hand-in-hand with this idea.
The new version will have a new skin; one that we can FULLY code and that hopefully everyone will like. It'll switch up every now and then for particular events, so it shouldn't be too dull.
The shapeshifter history is going to be expanded upon as well. We'll explain more about their powers and how they work.
As a last comment, I think that it might be about time that we expand our staff team. Possibly assign specific duties, such as managing the archives and moving old threads and abandoned characters, or accepting bios, or working on plots and the like, or managing affiliates. If certain small things were already being taken care of, it could very well help ease tension and pressure and allow for the staff to spend more time on the site NOT doing staffly duties.
This is an OPEN thread and I encourage you guys to post your thoughts about the revamp of the site. This is not a thread to continue talking about the drama that occurred: that's all over and done with. Those were my parting words on the subject since I never actually made any comments. I have opinions, you have opinions, and we're all allowed to have opinions. But from this point forward we're putting those opinions to the side and we're all going to join hands and skip merrily across a double rainbow and be best friends forever while we talk about the future of Shelpey Alley. Capisce?