Culture/Staff/Respect

Topic numero dos


All are important to the site. It’s important that al of these work together to ensure that this place is an enjoyable one for all parties.



Where’s the line in the sand?


How flexible can/should we be before too much is too much?

So we know that the site and staff should have rules to follow to ensure a structured site. Is there anything you’d change about a process from the past? About how we ensure all members are made to be comfortable and respected? To ensure staff nor members abuse the system?

What are the consequences for breaking rules?


Strict or flexible?

If there’s any input, here’s your chance.

Provide a special board where members are allowed to voice their opinions on any staff decision made (jutsu approval, thread voided, etc.). Staff would not be required to reply to any of this because people could abuse this. At least someone from staff should be reading it and directing the concerns he/she finds valid to the parli. It's not a perfect system but it's a step in the right direction.

Introduce newbie stamps, basically allowing members to shield their character from death for a defined period of time. This would be done to ensure new members don't get nuked D1. To counter abuse-potential, someone who has a newbie stamp isn't allowed to kill anyone either.

Keep everything updated. Updated is the new sexy.

I think that if you want to keep the site long lasting and actually allow it to get off the ground, then you would have to curb a few of the behaviors that were very common on the forum. The first of those behaviors was banter that exceeded the limits of what most people would consider playful, such as when I would create organized harassment campaigns for specific members just to mess with them, or when people just started going off on eachother for stupid reasons in the chat. These sorts of rules are always in place in this community, its just no staff actually enforce them. A little bit of playful shittalk is to be expected, but when people start doing the equivalent of screaming in the chatbox using broken english and slurs, it's probably a good idea to throw them some warnings and get them to stop.

I don't have any specific line in the sand that I want to draw, but from what I could tell, one of the major contributing factors to the death of any forum that tried to emulate LR, was that the community just went at eachothers throats in the chatbox. Limiting this source of aggression would probably lead to more people being inclined to roleplay rather than just talk shit. There is also a rampant phenomena in the roleplay community where distraught people come into chatboxes seeking validations for the problems they have in real life. I think that such people should be told that the chatbox is not the place for that, and that they should make a thread in general discussions if they want to have serious conversations like that. Actively seeking attention like that in a chatbox can cause aggravation and make people feel uncomfortable. Making it against the rules to do so would only improve the experience of members.

When it comes to staff oversight, I would say that I prefer it when the staff conversations are completely public. It would prevent staff members from publicly acting bias (though they could still try in private). The only things I could see there being okay to keep private would be discussions about plots and about punishing members. It would be even better if the full debate about big punishments could be made public after the punishment has gone through, so as to try and keep bias rulings in check, though I am aware this could just stir up more drama if it's sufficiently controversial.

^ completely agree

So, even the reworking of a system? Transparent for all to see? o:

I will repeat that I don't think everything should be transparent (like a public parli). Keeping members posted about what is happening in the parli through a brief summary is much better imo.

ODa wrote:

Topic numero dos


All are important to the site. It’s important that al of these work together to ensure that this place is an enjoyable one for all parties.



1. Where’s the line in the sand?


2. How flexible can/should we be before too much is too much?

3. So we know that the site and staff should have rules to follow to ensure a structured site. Is there anything you’d change about a process from the past? About how we ensure all members are made to be comfortable and respected? To ensure staff nor members abuse the system?

4. What are the consequences for breaking rules?


Strict or flexible?

If there’s any input, here’s your chance.

1. The line is situational, sometimes you may speak a bit more reckless to a friend than you would a newbie. For the most part I assume most are 18+ so simple tact should be a requirement. The line should be where the insulted party says at the time. I would say just treat others how you want to be treated, break the rules and your put on punishment. No warnings. Be civil or cool off away for a few days.

2. As i said, it should be situational. But the punishment we have in place should not. Its a bit harsh, but i feel if were all lax about the rules and someone stills does enough to rock the boat; they should be sent away to cool off for a bit. Im not against a warning system, but when it comes time to deal punishment its indiscriminate.

3. I honestly dont recall the past method all that well, but I think a system where staff can be held accountable for issues if the member base have rallied behind the verdict. The community should have a chance to be more involved in the staff selection process or its removal. Ive had experiences where staff were only judged by other members of staff. While not immediately an issue, it soon came a time when complaints were assumed to be ignored by staff; specifically because we kept the members out the loop. This trickled down to more distrust, to outright disrespect, then the eventually death of the site. Taking a lesson from that, i think staff would do best to tend to tasks as normal but when it comes to the big changes we, staff and members, decide as one. Voting helps. Just my suggestion on the subject.

4. Thread locking, char locking, reductions to character builds (subtract a stat from thier character if its a star system or take ryo), 12hr - 7 day banning. Just to name a few. I actually like the idea if penalizing the offenders character by forcing reductions on them. It kerps activity and makes punishment carry even more weight. When they dont care about losing time away, take away the next best thing they love, thier characters build.

Despite me saying all this, i do feel we should be flexible. Most of us like to trash talk and have fun, its honestly part of the experience at this point. Lets just enforce that you can show some tact, some shit is funny and other shit is just plain hurtful.

My two cent.