Administration Newsletter 06/30/22
Jun 30, 2022 15:23:23 GMT -5
Post by Ren on Jun 30, 2022 15:23:23 GMT -5
Hey guys!
Nudging Starscream aside for the time being (he’s busy with other things since Megatron’s return), it’s time for another Newsletter, as it’s been a little while since the last one and we have some important things to cover that we feel come across better via the Admin team, rather than Starscream himself.
Activity
Starting with the big one, which is the general activity of the board. Unfortunately, it has seemingly been an ongoing issue at this point that activity levels have been gradually declining. This means storylines are either stalling out or dragging on for literal years on end with minimal progress.
It was a belief in the past that the forum had gotten itself a little stuck, as some characters were trapped in the Haven plotline, which was not progressing at a meaningful speed due to real life issues getting in the way for some. As such, this plot was ghosted over with a brief summary given to what happened, and the new episode was opened along with a time jump, freeing everyone with what was effectively a fresh start.
Only, the inactivity has continued.
Upon application to the forum, users agree to the rules that have been clearly written out. Among these rules is a posting requirement of one post every week for show canons, and one post every two weeks minimum for all other characters, both canon and OC alike. We don’t have a word count or anything, and think this expectation is more than reasonable to keep up with for the majority of the time.
We are understanding of life issues and how rough things can be with work, family, and school. That said, it starts to become a problem when months drift between posts. One that due to a lot of members falling behind, has added up quickly, and now threads have stalled and characters are starting to get stuck.
We tried to implement a hiatus channel in the Discord to keep a line of communication that was easily accessible, which at first was used but even that seems to have fallen by the wayside.
As such, starting this week, activity checks will be going into effect once again. What this means is we are going to be keeping track of who is posting, and when. A missed week or two is not the end of the world and we do understand that life happens. However, should we start to see patterns of long periods of time between posts, with no communication OOC, warnings - and in some cases, strikes - will be going out.
The timeslot starts on Saturdays at 10:00am MST, and ends Friday 12:00am MST.
We are a community writing forum, and while this may come off as harsh, please understand we are trying to keep stories progressing so everyone can have their character shape the little world we roleplay in, but we cannot do it alone and need people to actively participate.
Next Episode
Something that may help shake things up a little and bring some activity back, is the start of the next Episode, 3.5 - which will be going live shortly with feedback taken into account from a googledoc that was posted on the Discord a while ago.
With Megatron’s dramatic return on the last day of Episode 3, it’s only fitting that we continue forwards into the next episode. While things may seem quiet from an outsider's perspective in terms of plots, there are plenty of things planned for both sides moving forwards. While there are going to be overarching plots for the board as a whole, you are all of course still encouraged and welcome to start your own stories and conflicts among characters. We love seeing what some of you come up with, and look forward to seeing more!
There is obviously no time skip this time, so things will be flowing into the next episode as normal.
Writing Tenses
Something that needs a gentle nudge is that some folks seem to be writing in the present tense when writing posts. To keep things streamlined, and as written in the rules, we require posts to be written in the past tense. This discrepancy can disrupt the overall flow of reading a predominantly past tense post only to shift into one that’s written in present.
Present: Rushes, Observes, Has.
Past: Rushed, Observed, Had.
Mistakes happen, and we totally get it! Especially if folks are coming from a different writing environment, and while it isn’t a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, we request that users take an extra second to review their posts.
Avatars
Now for something a little more fun, and something that not many people have noticed! A while ago, we sneakily added a change to the avatars on the board. Again, nothing super massive, but instead of the default 150x150 pixel square, you can now use images that are 150x200. Those extra 50 pixels may not sound like a lot, but it’s a nifty little change that can help add a bit more creativity to an image crop.
To get the larger images to function properly, you have to bypass the usual upload on the Proboards avatar editor. Instead, you must host it on an external website (such as Imgur) and link to it via the URL box.
Profile > Edit Profile > Uploaded/Linked > "Or Link an image from the internet:"
If anyone has any issues with this, please reach out to Zercon and she can help you guys out! To see examples of the new size, a few of the Admin team's characters are using the new format.
Overall
If you’ve made it this far, then thank you! While we hate to slam you guys with mention of activity checks, we feel at this point that they are needed if only to get things moving again a little bit. The next episode should help, we hope, with this feeling of stagnation.
If you guys have any comments, concerns, ideas or questions, we’re always, always available via Discord or the email. We love this site and its users, and we’d love to keep going for many more years to come, adding to the ten or so already behind us.
-The Admins
Nudging Starscream aside for the time being (he’s busy with other things since Megatron’s return), it’s time for another Newsletter, as it’s been a little while since the last one and we have some important things to cover that we feel come across better via the Admin team, rather than Starscream himself.
Activity
Starting with the big one, which is the general activity of the board. Unfortunately, it has seemingly been an ongoing issue at this point that activity levels have been gradually declining. This means storylines are either stalling out or dragging on for literal years on end with minimal progress.
It was a belief in the past that the forum had gotten itself a little stuck, as some characters were trapped in the Haven plotline, which was not progressing at a meaningful speed due to real life issues getting in the way for some. As such, this plot was ghosted over with a brief summary given to what happened, and the new episode was opened along with a time jump, freeing everyone with what was effectively a fresh start.
Only, the inactivity has continued.
Upon application to the forum, users agree to the rules that have been clearly written out. Among these rules is a posting requirement of one post every week for show canons, and one post every two weeks minimum for all other characters, both canon and OC alike. We don’t have a word count or anything, and think this expectation is more than reasonable to keep up with for the majority of the time.
We are understanding of life issues and how rough things can be with work, family, and school. That said, it starts to become a problem when months drift between posts. One that due to a lot of members falling behind, has added up quickly, and now threads have stalled and characters are starting to get stuck.
We tried to implement a hiatus channel in the Discord to keep a line of communication that was easily accessible, which at first was used but even that seems to have fallen by the wayside.
As such, starting this week, activity checks will be going into effect once again. What this means is we are going to be keeping track of who is posting, and when. A missed week or two is not the end of the world and we do understand that life happens. However, should we start to see patterns of long periods of time between posts, with no communication OOC, warnings - and in some cases, strikes - will be going out.
The timeslot starts on Saturdays at 10:00am MST, and ends Friday 12:00am MST.
We are a community writing forum, and while this may come off as harsh, please understand we are trying to keep stories progressing so everyone can have their character shape the little world we roleplay in, but we cannot do it alone and need people to actively participate.
Next Episode
Something that may help shake things up a little and bring some activity back, is the start of the next Episode, 3.5 - which will be going live shortly with feedback taken into account from a googledoc that was posted on the Discord a while ago.
With Megatron’s dramatic return on the last day of Episode 3, it’s only fitting that we continue forwards into the next episode. While things may seem quiet from an outsider's perspective in terms of plots, there are plenty of things planned for both sides moving forwards. While there are going to be overarching plots for the board as a whole, you are all of course still encouraged and welcome to start your own stories and conflicts among characters. We love seeing what some of you come up with, and look forward to seeing more!
There is obviously no time skip this time, so things will be flowing into the next episode as normal.
Writing Tenses
Something that needs a gentle nudge is that some folks seem to be writing in the present tense when writing posts. To keep things streamlined, and as written in the rules, we require posts to be written in the past tense. This discrepancy can disrupt the overall flow of reading a predominantly past tense post only to shift into one that’s written in present.
Present: Rushes, Observes, Has.
Past: Rushed, Observed, Had.
Mistakes happen, and we totally get it! Especially if folks are coming from a different writing environment, and while it isn’t a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, we request that users take an extra second to review their posts.
Avatars
Now for something a little more fun, and something that not many people have noticed! A while ago, we sneakily added a change to the avatars on the board. Again, nothing super massive, but instead of the default 150x150 pixel square, you can now use images that are 150x200. Those extra 50 pixels may not sound like a lot, but it’s a nifty little change that can help add a bit more creativity to an image crop.
To get the larger images to function properly, you have to bypass the usual upload on the Proboards avatar editor. Instead, you must host it on an external website (such as Imgur) and link to it via the URL box.
Profile > Edit Profile > Uploaded/Linked > "Or Link an image from the internet:"
If anyone has any issues with this, please reach out to Zercon and she can help you guys out! To see examples of the new size, a few of the Admin team's characters are using the new format.
Overall
If you’ve made it this far, then thank you! While we hate to slam you guys with mention of activity checks, we feel at this point that they are needed if only to get things moving again a little bit. The next episode should help, we hope, with this feeling of stagnation.
If you guys have any comments, concerns, ideas or questions, we’re always, always available via Discord or the email. We love this site and its users, and we’d love to keep going for many more years to come, adding to the ten or so already behind us.
-The Admins