Francine Peters (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thatsamilkshake) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh_ooc2010-05-16 04:26 pm
thatsamilkshake) wrote in fandomhigh_ooc2010-05-16 04:26 pm
Entry tags:
Open Forum Round-Up: April 2010
Graduation has come and gone, and our new folks are all snug in their new beds too. What's that mean? It means, as promised, we've got the April 2010 Open Forum round-up ready for you! Reading glasses ahoy, mateys.
Weapons In The Dorms, Security, and ICA=ICC
The rule against weapons in the dorms has gotten hazy over the years, and a clear explanation was definitely needed. The short answer is that weapons in the dorms are forbidden only on an IC level, which means that if your character is going to break the school rules and have one there, he needs to be discreet about it.
Another thread of the same discussion involved the location of security cameras: while they used to be more extensive, they can now be found at entrances and exits to the building, so players can let their characters sneak around a bit and only get caught misbehaving if it's intended OOCly.
What if it is intended? This is a topic that came up in the Sensitive Subjects brainstorming but seems to thematically belong here: in-character consequences, AKA getting caught! If you'd like your character to get caught for something they're up to, huzzah! That hasn't been happening a lot these days, and it's fun. Players of students can contact the player of a teacher or an IC admin to catch them at it, or arrange with a fellow student to turn them in. Players of characters who are likely to witness misbehavior or who just think it would be fun to make that happen are welcome to contact the miscreants OOCly to suggest it, too.
If you don't want your character caught at IC rule/law-breaking, be discreet. Try to keep it off radio or mark that specifics are not for broadcast, don't do it in open spaces, shut the door to your room, and so on. Just be courteous and try to avoid situations where other characters would have to be deaf/blind/oblivious not to notice it.
We've updated the information page on school security with a more in-depth explanation of these issues, and it's now linked on the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fandomhigh profile page!
Applying from an Already-Established Canon
In response to the discussion on this subject, we've firmed-up a policy on informing potential canon-mates of an application you're putting in, and you can find it here, as well as linked on the FH profile page! We've also added a section to the application form for letting us know you've taken care of this.
Casualness when E-mailing the Admin Team
Go for it! We're your fellow nerds playing fake people on the internet; someone who will not be named endearingly addresses us as Dear Buttfaces. The only thing we ask is to please, even if you're annoyed or upset, avoid using insulting language about other players when you're talking to us about them.
Searching the Website Via Fandom!
There was some difficulty with this previously - we've made a few changes to the Character Directory to help! Characters who belong to more than one fandom category (like "Marvel 616" and "X-Men") are now listed under both. There's also a drop-down list for searching, instead of a text-box to type in, and the fandoms that have sub-categories are arranged that way, so you can see right away where a particular thing falls. For example, Marvel Comics as one gigantic fandom now looks like this on the drop-down list:
Marvel Comics
---Marvel 616
------Cable & Deadpool
------Generation X
------X-Men
---Marvel Films
------Fantastic Four films
------Iron Man films
------X-Men films
---Marvel TV
------X-Men: Evolution
---Marvel Ultimate Universe
------Ultimate Spider-Man
We've also changed the way the Character Directory displays, so there are fewer pages to click through and a bit more information available before going to the individual character entry. We hope this helps with searching; it sure helped give us tiny OCD-gasms.
Dearth of Pretty, Pretty People Due To Graduation
We invite our newbie characters for the summer to prove how completely unfounded and malicious this rumor is, in the comments to this post!
BDE Length and Advance Notice
We're glad for the constructive criticism regarding the most recent BDE not having enough material/activities to support the week-long time period. It's a valid point, and something we'll be paying attention to in planning future events. Where it seems appropriate, we'll schedule shorter events, and if they're going to be longer, we'll try to make sure there's plenty for you to do and time things so there aren't unnatural lulls in the progression.
In terms of getting notice out to you as soon as possible regarding big events so that you can plot accordingly, we're doing our best to make sure that happens. Sometimes we can't give details far in advance because we don't have them yet, or they're planned but not finalized due to pending questions or discussion, but as soon as we have a date that works, we'll be blocking that out on the plot calendar!
Gamewide HMD
During the forum, a suggestion was made about posting a gamewide How's My Driving (HMD) meme every so often to give people the chance to give and receive constructive criticism. As something that is strictly voluntary, we're fine with this being done in the OOC community, and we'll establish a regular time for us to post these (probably once a month or every two months).
Those who wish to receive crit would ping in and specify whether they're open to anonymous responses or would only like signed-in crit, and those wishing to provide it can respond accordingly. Players who'd prefer to receive screened responses will be welcome to make a post in their character's LJ with commenting set up exactly as they'd like, then just leave a link in the HMD meme.
Remember, this will be strictly voluntary and you can choose to participate or choose not to! We'll get back to you with details on when and where as the time for the first one gets closer.
Mid-Semester App Session
At the current time, we're not looking to implement a mid-semester app session. While we will continue discussing this as we can, application session is an incredibly busy season for the admin team and takes up a lot of our collective time and energy. Increasing the number of application sessions could be detrimental to the game and its plots. Please don't forget that Townie applications are always open, though!
More Adult Activities
We would like to encourage any and all adults to both propose adults only plots and to organize more adults only gatherings/parties/outings as they can. The adult community is rather large (and we always like to see it grow) and we'd love to see the adults take the initiative to cultivate their culture a bit. The admins are definitely looking at jumpstarting some activities to help (and we hope the community center is just a start) but the adults in town can feel free to do this as well!
Brainstorming List
The newly created brainstorming spreadsheet has been linked on thefandomhigh user info and the sidebar of fhplotterywheel for ease in checking out ideas from the brainstorming posts! Feel free to give it a look and see if you'd like to run any of those ideas as a plot!
Mixing Up Regularly Scheduled Events
We all love our repeating events, the plots that happen at least once a year and are anticipated with much glee, but we definitely understand wanting to mix things up so students, teachers and townies can be surprised. Rest assured, this is something we're going to actively work towards because we don't want anyone predicting their future kids showing up and being ho hum about it. Expect variety for these events now!
Contacting The Admin Team
The admin team wants to hear from you about anything, be it problems, questions, or new ideas. There were questions on how and when to contact us, though, and how long it will take for a reply. We've drawn up a post on that which is now linked on thefandomhigh profile page.
To address one specific concern that came up during the forum, if you'd rather speak to us anonymously, we're okay with that, and changes have been made to the 'contact' section of the website to better facilitate that. Our website guru, Katie, has added instructions on how to contact us that way. If you choose to use that form, we will get your question/issue/concern and we'll work from there as best we can, though obviously we can't reply directly to you unless a real e-mail address is included.
Changes To Class Maximums, Class Scheduling and NPC Classes
A suggestion was made to help with those classes that are under-filled, by having a secondary sign-up period. We like this idea, and plan to try a streamlined version of it out starting with the 2nd summer term this year. We're also hip to the idea of NPC "normal" classes (beyond the usual PC classes) that students might want to have on their transcripts as they head off to higher education, and want to put that into practice.
How it will work:
First, we're relaxing one of the general scheduling limitations, which should let people have a little more room to pick classes based on their characters' interests. For normal scheduling, with PC classes, we're doing away with the 4-per-student maximum. There's still a max per player of 8 PC classes, and each student must have at least 2, but within that framework, you can spread them out as you please between your students. (So if you only have one student, you can now sign him up for 8 classes. If you have more than one student, you can do any combination that adds up to 8 classes or less, as long as all students have at least 2. )
Second, on the last day of class sign-ups, full or over-full classes will be frozen, and only those not yet full can be signed up for. On that day, if you are already at your maximum of 8 classes per player, you can add up to two more (for a total of 10) only from those classes with fewer than 10 sign-ups. You'd need to indicate in the sign-up that this is class #9 or #10 for you. Once there are 10 sign-ups for that class, it's no longer open for this feature. (But it's still open for people who haven't yet reached their maximum class-load!)
Third, we're going to add an OCD thread for NPC class requests to the class sign-ups post. These NPC classes will be taught by our friendly, brilliant, and not-at-all insane Danger Shop computer, HAL 9000, via the fandomhigh network -- so the classes will be handwavily taken online and at the students' leisure, but will appear on their transcripts for college as having been taught at FH alongside the wacky stuff we know and love.
NPC class requests should be for "normal" high school subjects (though they can be the advanced/AP/etc. versions) and not duplicate something that's already being offered as a PC class. If there's a problem with the suggestion, we'll ping in ASAP and let you know; otherwise, all requests will be collected up, combined as needed, and presented along with the PC class rosters as NPC classes that any student may refer to having taken during that semester! No sign-ups necessary for those, and they don't count towards any maximums or minimums.
More details about class and workshop caps will be included in the sign-ups for next session!
What we as players would like warnings for was discussed extensively, as well as the best ways to do that depending on the situation, and suggestions for paying special attention when discussing/playing out sensitive topics in public areas. We've updated the guidelines on Handling Sensitive Topics with what we hope is a clearer and more in-depth policy on this. Included in that is an explanation of substance use vs. substance abuse, and the addition of hate speech and partner/spousal/child abuse to the list of warning/trigger issues. We've also added a link to these guidelines to the acceptance letter for all new characters.
The general concensus, including a related player to player discussion about characters whose offensiveness is part of their canon personality, seems to be this: we're all adults and don't want to limit each others' creativity, but we all want to feel comfortable playing here too. So please be considerate to each other, take a moment to think before you type, and warn appropriately where possible.
More Frequent Open Forums
We agree, and we're on that! We're going to start pre-scheduling them, and the next two are on the calendar for August and November. We'd also like you guys to know that if there seem to be current issues that might be best solved by holding a non-scheduled forum, you're welcome and encouraged to contact us about them. Our first action will be to try to solve the problems directly if possible, but if not, we'll make our best effort to get everyone's concerns heard.
FH Discussions on External RP-Related Comms
There were several player requests to the game in general to think twice about the forum in which you're airing FH-related concerns; we're pretty in sync with that sentiment. Our players are grown-ups and we're not about to ban discussion of our game in other places, but before you post, please think about whether that's the best place to communicate your issues. Contacting the admins or other players directly with your problems is more considerate, usually more effective, and definitely less likely to cause tension and bad feelings between players.
Pimp Mah Game!
This one is new, but we figured here would be a good place to put it. In addition to the items on the FH profile that were added or updated due to discussion in the Open Forum, there's one new one: an overview of stuff to know about the game for potential players who are brand new to it! So You're Thinking About Joining Fandom High! Here's What You Should Know has been added to the Applications section. So if you're luring someone over to the Dark Side where we have snickerdoodles made of people, here's a link you can throw at them!
You may now shower us with pictures of pretty people. Or questions. Or pretty people asking questions. Or pretty people taking showers.
Questions Round-Up
Weapons In The Dorms, Security, and ICA=ICC
The rule against weapons in the dorms has gotten hazy over the years, and a clear explanation was definitely needed. The short answer is that weapons in the dorms are forbidden only on an IC level, which means that if your character is going to break the school rules and have one there, he needs to be discreet about it.
Another thread of the same discussion involved the location of security cameras: while they used to be more extensive, they can now be found at entrances and exits to the building, so players can let their characters sneak around a bit and only get caught misbehaving if it's intended OOCly.
What if it is intended? This is a topic that came up in the Sensitive Subjects brainstorming but seems to thematically belong here: in-character consequences, AKA getting caught! If you'd like your character to get caught for something they're up to, huzzah! That hasn't been happening a lot these days, and it's fun. Players of students can contact the player of a teacher or an IC admin to catch them at it, or arrange with a fellow student to turn them in. Players of characters who are likely to witness misbehavior or who just think it would be fun to make that happen are welcome to contact the miscreants OOCly to suggest it, too.
If you don't want your character caught at IC rule/law-breaking, be discreet. Try to keep it off radio or mark that specifics are not for broadcast, don't do it in open spaces, shut the door to your room, and so on. Just be courteous and try to avoid situations where other characters would have to be deaf/blind/oblivious not to notice it.
We've updated the information page on school security with a more in-depth explanation of these issues, and it's now linked on the
fandomhigh profile page!Applying from an Already-Established Canon
In response to the discussion on this subject, we've firmed-up a policy on informing potential canon-mates of an application you're putting in, and you can find it here, as well as linked on the FH profile page! We've also added a section to the application form for letting us know you've taken care of this.
Casualness when E-mailing the Admin Team
Go for it! We're your fellow nerds playing fake people on the internet; someone who will not be named endearingly addresses us as Dear Buttfaces. The only thing we ask is to please, even if you're annoyed or upset, avoid using insulting language about other players when you're talking to us about them.
Concerns Round-Up
Searching the Website Via Fandom!
There was some difficulty with this previously - we've made a few changes to the Character Directory to help! Characters who belong to more than one fandom category (like "Marvel 616" and "X-Men") are now listed under both. There's also a drop-down list for searching, instead of a text-box to type in, and the fandoms that have sub-categories are arranged that way, so you can see right away where a particular thing falls. For example, Marvel Comics as one gigantic fandom now looks like this on the drop-down list:
Marvel Comics
---Marvel 616
------Cable & Deadpool
------Generation X
------X-Men
---Marvel Films
------Fantastic Four films
------Iron Man films
------X-Men films
---Marvel TV
------X-Men: Evolution
---Marvel Ultimate Universe
------Ultimate Spider-Man
We've also changed the way the Character Directory displays, so there are fewer pages to click through and a bit more information available before going to the individual character entry. We hope this helps with searching; it sure helped give us tiny OCD-gasms.
Dearth of Pretty, Pretty People Due To Graduation
We invite our newbie characters for the summer to prove how completely unfounded and malicious this rumor is, in the comments to this post!
Suggestions Round-Up
BDE Length and Advance Notice
We're glad for the constructive criticism regarding the most recent BDE not having enough material/activities to support the week-long time period. It's a valid point, and something we'll be paying attention to in planning future events. Where it seems appropriate, we'll schedule shorter events, and if they're going to be longer, we'll try to make sure there's plenty for you to do and time things so there aren't unnatural lulls in the progression.
In terms of getting notice out to you as soon as possible regarding big events so that you can plot accordingly, we're doing our best to make sure that happens. Sometimes we can't give details far in advance because we don't have them yet, or they're planned but not finalized due to pending questions or discussion, but as soon as we have a date that works, we'll be blocking that out on the plot calendar!
Gamewide HMD
During the forum, a suggestion was made about posting a gamewide How's My Driving (HMD) meme every so often to give people the chance to give and receive constructive criticism. As something that is strictly voluntary, we're fine with this being done in the OOC community, and we'll establish a regular time for us to post these (probably once a month or every two months).
Those who wish to receive crit would ping in and specify whether they're open to anonymous responses or would only like signed-in crit, and those wishing to provide it can respond accordingly. Players who'd prefer to receive screened responses will be welcome to make a post in their character's LJ with commenting set up exactly as they'd like, then just leave a link in the HMD meme.
Remember, this will be strictly voluntary and you can choose to participate or choose not to! We'll get back to you with details on when and where as the time for the first one gets closer.
Mid-Semester App Session
At the current time, we're not looking to implement a mid-semester app session. While we will continue discussing this as we can, application session is an incredibly busy season for the admin team and takes up a lot of our collective time and energy. Increasing the number of application sessions could be detrimental to the game and its plots. Please don't forget that Townie applications are always open, though!
More Adult Activities
We would like to encourage any and all adults to both propose adults only plots and to organize more adults only gatherings/parties/outings as they can. The adult community is rather large (and we always like to see it grow) and we'd love to see the adults take the initiative to cultivate their culture a bit. The admins are definitely looking at jumpstarting some activities to help (and we hope the community center is just a start) but the adults in town can feel free to do this as well!
Brainstorming List
The newly created brainstorming spreadsheet has been linked on the
fandomhigh user info and the sidebar of fhplotterywheel for ease in checking out ideas from the brainstorming posts! Feel free to give it a look and see if you'd like to run any of those ideas as a plot!Mixing Up Regularly Scheduled Events
We all love our repeating events, the plots that happen at least once a year and are anticipated with much glee, but we definitely understand wanting to mix things up so students, teachers and townies can be surprised. Rest assured, this is something we're going to actively work towards because we don't want anyone predicting their future kids showing up and being ho hum about it. Expect variety for these events now!
Contacting The Admin Team
The admin team wants to hear from you about anything, be it problems, questions, or new ideas. There were questions on how and when to contact us, though, and how long it will take for a reply. We've drawn up a post on that which is now linked on the
fandomhigh profile page.To address one specific concern that came up during the forum, if you'd rather speak to us anonymously, we're okay with that, and changes have been made to the 'contact' section of the website to better facilitate that. Our website guru, Katie, has added instructions on how to contact us that way. If you choose to use that form, we will get your question/issue/concern and we'll work from there as best we can, though obviously we can't reply directly to you unless a real e-mail address is included.
Changes To Class Maximums, Class Scheduling and NPC Classes
A suggestion was made to help with those classes that are under-filled, by having a secondary sign-up period. We like this idea, and plan to try a streamlined version of it out starting with the 2nd summer term this year. We're also hip to the idea of NPC "normal" classes (beyond the usual PC classes) that students might want to have on their transcripts as they head off to higher education, and want to put that into practice.
How it will work:
First, we're relaxing one of the general scheduling limitations, which should let people have a little more room to pick classes based on their characters' interests. For normal scheduling, with PC classes, we're doing away with the 4-per-student maximum. There's still a max per player of 8 PC classes, and each student must have at least 2, but within that framework, you can spread them out as you please between your students. (So if you only have one student, you can now sign him up for 8 classes. If you have more than one student, you can do any combination that adds up to 8 classes or less, as long as all students have at least 2. )
Second, on the last day of class sign-ups, full or over-full classes will be frozen, and only those not yet full can be signed up for. On that day, if you are already at your maximum of 8 classes per player, you can add up to two more (for a total of 10) only from those classes with fewer than 10 sign-ups. You'd need to indicate in the sign-up that this is class #9 or #10 for you. Once there are 10 sign-ups for that class, it's no longer open for this feature. (But it's still open for people who haven't yet reached their maximum class-load!)
Third, we're going to add an OCD thread for NPC class requests to the class sign-ups post. These NPC classes will be taught by our friendly, brilliant, and not-at-all insane Danger Shop computer, HAL 9000, via the fandomhigh network -- so the classes will be handwavily taken online and at the students' leisure, but will appear on their transcripts for college as having been taught at FH alongside the wacky stuff we know and love.
NPC class requests should be for "normal" high school subjects (though they can be the advanced/AP/etc. versions) and not duplicate something that's already being offered as a PC class. If there's a problem with the suggestion, we'll ping in ASAP and let you know; otherwise, all requests will be collected up, combined as needed, and presented along with the PC class rosters as NPC classes that any student may refer to having taken during that semester! No sign-ups necessary for those, and they don't count towards any maximums or minimums.
More details about class and workshop caps will be included in the sign-ups for next session!
Warnings and Trigger Issues Round-Up
What we as players would like warnings for was discussed extensively, as well as the best ways to do that depending on the situation, and suggestions for paying special attention when discussing/playing out sensitive topics in public areas. We've updated the guidelines on Handling Sensitive Topics with what we hope is a clearer and more in-depth policy on this. Included in that is an explanation of substance use vs. substance abuse, and the addition of hate speech and partner/spousal/child abuse to the list of warning/trigger issues. We've also added a link to these guidelines to the acceptance letter for all new characters.
The general concensus, including a related player to player discussion about characters whose offensiveness is part of their canon personality, seems to be this: we're all adults and don't want to limit each others' creativity, but we all want to feel comfortable playing here too. So please be considerate to each other, take a moment to think before you type, and warn appropriately where possible.
Other Stuffs!
More Frequent Open Forums
We agree, and we're on that! We're going to start pre-scheduling them, and the next two are on the calendar for August and November. We'd also like you guys to know that if there seem to be current issues that might be best solved by holding a non-scheduled forum, you're welcome and encouraged to contact us about them. Our first action will be to try to solve the problems directly if possible, but if not, we'll make our best effort to get everyone's concerns heard.
FH Discussions on External RP-Related Comms
There were several player requests to the game in general to think twice about the forum in which you're airing FH-related concerns; we're pretty in sync with that sentiment. Our players are grown-ups and we're not about to ban discussion of our game in other places, but before you post, please think about whether that's the best place to communicate your issues. Contacting the admins or other players directly with your problems is more considerate, usually more effective, and definitely less likely to cause tension and bad feelings between players.
Pimp Mah Game!
This one is new, but we figured here would be a good place to put it. In addition to the items on the FH profile that were added or updated due to discussion in the Open Forum, there's one new one: an overview of stuff to know about the game for potential players who are brand new to it! So You're Thinking About Joining Fandom High! Here's What You Should Know has been added to the Applications section. So if you're luring someone over to the Dark Side where we have snickerdoodles made of people, here's a link you can throw at them!
You may now shower us with pictures of pretty people. Or questions. Or pretty people asking questions. Or pretty people taking showers.
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Besides that it's aaaaaaaaaaaaaall good.
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after*before Iron Man films.(The reason we have "Iron Man films" instead of just "Iron Man" is that the terms can't repeat under more than one branch of the tree, so "Iron Man" by itself would be reserved for 616 Iron Man characters.)
* Hush, I can alphabetize, rly.
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I have not yet read further than this, but this line alone was worth OMG THANK YOU NEKKID DANCE!
*does the lurid thanky dance. Mostly by giving shiny icons*
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1. Are characters signed up for 5+ classes going to be first in line for dropping/RNG in overfull classes, like characters played by the same mun? Or is the RNG blind to the total number of classes signed up for?
2. I'm assuming that classes with 9 students and a TA will still be open for someone looking to sign up for class #9 or #10?
3. Does the less-than-10 rule count only when signing up for classes #9 & 10? For example, lets say I sign Karla up for her 9th class when there are 5 other people in it. Then 7 more people sign up for it, all signing up for classes 2-8. Since the class is now over 10 people, will Karla be dropped or will she be okay since there were less than 10 people when she was signed up for it and there are still fewer than the max number of people in the class?
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1. Good question. Magic 8-ball says we'll probably decide that one closer to apps-time and include that as part of the "more info" in the sign-ups post.
2. Yep. TA never counts towards class roster totals, just player totals.
3. She'd be okay! Unless the class got overfull, and then we're back to question one.
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*stares happily*
*very happily*
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(And thank you, for all of this.)
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"Hold still, Scully. I'm checking your spine for alien devices." *stares at...spine. Yes.*
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My show brings the deadpan drugs, yes it does.
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Pretty and yet non-existent ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
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...not that it's anything to sneeze at.
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PINATA: SURVIVAL ISLAND.
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(You still can't make me screencap King Cobra though. Mostly because it's frankly unusable.)
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Number 2, and mostly completely unrelated to this post: If you guys want/need help doing web stuff, especially weird stuff involving databases and backends (not that kind!) feel free to let me know. I figure you've got it covered, but that it couldn't hurt to toss the offer out there.
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