A NEW RULE APPEARS

[these_balls]

Hey, Route!

Yes, more new stuff. Everything chaaanges, chaaaanges, it's evolutionary~

1) New apps rule!:
In the interest of clarity and app processing speed, we now ask that potential applicants post their application in comments rather than linking. If the app contains explicit references to 'hard' spoilers (think big reveals, like 'Dumbledore dies', I SEE DEAD PEOPLE, I am your father etc), players should put the application in their own journal or their character's journal and link it, making sure to mention the presence of spoilers within.

We've always gotten linked apps (goodness knows I'm guilty of linking an app or five that was spoiler-free!), but having them all on the page means the mods don't have to open a million tabs while processing, and spoiler links keep fellow players from stumbling onto things that might ruin a canon for them.

This is a rule; as of today (the 11th of October), if your app is linked but not marked for spoilers, it will not be processed that week. We trust all our players will read and abide by the rules list, which has not changed besides this.

2) Polling about the passwords:
RELAX, we're not changing anything concerning passwords...yet. But we're thinking it's about time this thing got an overhaul, don't you think?

Our proposed fix: What we'd like to do is remove the passwords altogether and replace them with something of a task system: on the rules and FAQ pages, tasks such as 'explain in one sentence how your character feels about strawberries in their personality section' or 'include a link to your favorite youtube video in the canon links section'.

The goal here is to make sure people have at least given a cursory visit to both pages. These tasks would change arbitrarily and be located arbitrarily within the FAQ and rules. Yes, these would be more work for you, and for us, but the current password system feels outdated and obvious.

Your turn: How do you feel, Route? Hate this idea? Love passwords? Have a better idea? Let us know!

[Poll #1785767]


If you have grievances, comments, suggestions or ideas concerning either the new app rule or the password system, you can: PM the mod account, PM any of us individually, catch us on AIM, or post (anonymously or not) to our (screened) Suggestions post.

Looking forward to hear from you!

Comments

[skillspanner]

It's not the worst inconvenience, it's not something that will deter me from apping (I think my current overall character count does that on its own). For me it's a matter of organization as aesthetics, which with stuff like apps just pings me in all the wrong ways. I tend to break things up by section when it's reasonable in apps if I have to do comment count. But then there's people who... overuse that and suddenly an app that can be 2/3 comments is 7 or 8 -- which is not only annoying to read, it's ugly to look at and wastes comments.

And I really, really hate having to edit/repost thing numerous times because I am a failure at typing and HTML. Don't get me wrong, I get the flaws with linking comments. It's just my personal preference and having a need to point out the things that are cons to it, because... well, there's a reason a lot of people link apps to begin with.

I figured that's what you meant with the spoilers, though I appreciate the clarification. Though again, a lot of these canons have just that, and yeah -- I get it with the Vanitas thing, but sometimes (especially when dealing with causes for personality changes) the spoilers are much more subtle (I could think of a few from Catherine that would qualify for a long time to come, for example.) As long as you guys realize that's a very slippery slope to play with -- some people are much more sensitive about spoilers than others, and someone getting really upset because they found a spoiler when looking for say - a castmate's app - will just be a headache for you guys. (in the oh dear god is someone really wanking about this kind of way)

...I see your point about the password system, though I still disagree with it for the sheer fact that I don't think it'll change much? In terms of new players -- people who are going to skim will skim either way, or will selectively read things to find what they want. Of course, you want to encourage reading the rules/FAQ and I don't know why you'd join a game without reading that stuff first, but I don't really think you can impress that upon people and expect it to be an effective means.

As an extreme example, it'd be like putting a password at the end of an iTunes TOS box for some people to see if they actually read it. I'M NOT SAYING THAT'S A GOOD THING OBVIOUSLY. But some people are just like that and I think they end up being weeded out quickly anyway when that's the case.

/shrug

I'm not trying to sound argumentative or anything, I just see things from the exact opposite side of the coin on the password system. It feels so... archaic to me. The apps thing is again, just an annoyance - something I don't care for but won't have an affect on me either way since I don't really have any app plans atm anyway.

[parkour]

I should also note my tl;dr is not proportionate to how strongly I feel on the matter, I just don't know how to be anything but long winded.

sob.

[these_balls]

Just a response regarding HTML fail, because it is a tricky thing: the solution could be to post the app in your journal, and then use that as a springboard to put the app into comments and test out your HTML and word counts. That way, you'd have everything perfect and accounted for when you go to post it 'for real', so to speak. Yes, it's more time-consuming, but it would save you the trouble of having to fumble around in the app post itself when you forget to close an italics tag. I just wanted to put that out there as a potential solution.

As for the passwords; nothing's been changed yet. Looking at the poll results, the results are only slightly in favor of changing the system, so we'll see what happens. We'll try to take into account the feedback we've gotten here as much as possible going forward.

Thanks, Aly! And for the record, you sound fine.