We have nearly enough dA points in our donation pool to upgrade one of the groups to Super Group status. As per the journal I posted on the group pages, my current intention is to upgrade DreamHaven-WestEnd, then upgrade Dream-HavenDA a little later in the year.

The reason for doing it this way is simple: items currently in AngelFalls-WestEnd will all have to be migrated over to DreamHaven-WestEnd, which will be quite a bit of work; upgrading Dream-HavenDA to Super Group status, however, will be relatively simple, as no file or member migration will be needed.

Having said that, I am willing to hear alternative views, particularly from people who have either donated points or submitted deviations to either group. If you think I should consider doing things differently, now's your chance to let me know.

I am hoping for a donation of 324 more points, at which time I will donate the final 800 points and upgrade one of the two groups.
The administrator’s chat from May 8, 2016

Due to scheduling conflicts, there were two chat meetings held. The first meeting was attended by :iconwhisakedjak:, :iconlady-quantum:, :iconieliara:, and :iconmoxiee:. The second meeting was attended by :iconwhisakedjak:, :iconlady-quantum:, and :icontrekkiegal:.

We had a fairly large number of things that had to be discussed- the usual madness of starting a new group and trying to do it right, I suppose, and the chats, between them, ran a total of about six hours, so there will, necessarily, be quite a bit of the discussion that I release in separate documents.

The agenda I proposed for the meeting was:

• Outlining the purposes of West End and Dream Haven
• Discussion of when/how/if AngelFalls-WestEnd will be retired and transferred to DreamHaven-WestEnd
• Defining the administrator duties for Dream Haven and West End
• Detailing the submission guidelines for Dream Haven and the West End
• Discussing the Character Creation Rules for Dream Haven and West End
• Talking about the Long Term Events in West End
• • Specifically, lay out the progression of the Faerie Invasion and its aftermath and
• • Get an idea what future events will entail
• Nail down guidelines for dealing with problems in the group

To this agenda, :icontrekkiegal: also added a degree of map discussion and a brief conversation about how administrator absenteeism would be handled.

The Purpose of the new groups, after a brief discussion, hasn’t changed much from West End’s original concept: :iconangelfalls-westend: is a group focused on family-friendly stories with an emphasis on group collaboration; :icondream-havenda: is a little looser, allowing adult content, cheesecake, and fetish material, provided it is still super-hero oriented. It is important to note that, while Dream Haven and West End are geographically isolated from Angel Falls, members from both groups have expressed a desire for the separate cities to continue in the same world. To that end, Dream Haven is located in Louisiana, near New Orleans. :iconteri-minx: has requested that the groups remain separate, however, so having characters cross from one city to the other will have to be okayed on that end before it can happen. Details regarding certain features of Dream Haven that should make travel between the two cities more plausible will be forthcoming in a future article.

The question of transference of groups- that is, whether or not we should maintain the AngelFalls-WestEnd group or surrender it in order to transfer over to DreamHaven-WestEnd is largely one of money and, to a lesser extent, time investment. At present, AngelFalls-WestEnd is a super group. Super groups have a great deal of flexibility in designing their front pages, galleries, favorites, etc. Deviant Art is currently running a sale on super group memberships- specifically, at present, super group memberships cost only $59.95 (4,796 points) for 12 months instead of $120.00 (9,600 points). While I have no objections to upgrading DreamHaven-WestEnd, I simply do not have the money at this time. To that end, I will open a donation pool (now active on :iconwhisakedjak:'s page); all points donated to the group will be used towards purchasing super group status for DreamHaven-WestEnd and, if there are any points left over, the remainder will go towards upgrading Dream-HavenDA. Regardless of whether or not these goals are met, I will purchase super group status for Dream-HavenDA within a couple months, finances permitting. If not enough points are gained to upgrade DreamHaven-WestEnd, I will upgrade it at the beginning of next year, when the super group status for AngelFalls-WestEnd expires.

The powers of the administrators of Dream Haven and West End- yes, we are pretty much exactly the same people, at the moment- are both broad and fairly simple. All admins in Dream Haven/West End have the power to accept or reject submissions, comment on submissions, accept or reject member applications, promote members to administrators, and the power to initiate and vote on procedures to deal with problematic material or members. :iconwhisakedjak: and :iconlady-quantum: both, additionally, have the ability to make changes within the administrative privileges sections of the group, including the ability to promote people to our current rank as needed, should one or the other of us need to take a leave of absence.

The duties of administrators basically come down to just a couple things. First, admins are expected to check their group correspondences regularly. As most of us are members that belong to a variety of groups, checking the correspondences manually is important, as it will help to keep submissions from getting buried. It is also our duty to read each and every submission and make a judgement call regarding its relevance to the group(s) it has been submitted to. If a submission works, we vote it in; if it blatantly does not, we reject it. If a submission is close, but not quite there, our job is to leave a comment and withhold voting long enough to give the member a chance to make alterations as needed.

We discussed new character creation rules and ratified them; these rules will be posted on the front page of both groups in a separate article. Overall, the new system rewards storytelling and collaboration and, the more substantive submissions you make to the group, the more stuff you will be able to do with your characters.

We really didn’t discuss the submission guidelines in much detail; as such, until we do, the rules will be as follows: Submissions to :icondream-havenda: must contain superhero content or content that serves to expand the world. This may include, but is not limited to: stories, comics, pictures, audio files, even movies. Submissions to :iconangelfalls-westend: must be suitable for submission to Dream Haven in general and, additionally, must be family friendly. This means, among other things, that West End content may not include graphic sexual situations or extreme violence, although either may be alluded to.

We talked about how the West End includes long-term events. When Lady Quantum and I originally floated the idea of the West End, one of the things we wanted to incorporate was the concept of long-term events. These are things that are going on in the world but which are, for the most part, not intended to be the main stories for most characters. Instead, with the exception of certain key events, long term events occur in the background of stories inside the West End (if you want to make reference to them in Dream Haven stories, that is, of course, also okay). Long term events are intended to unfold across multiple narratives and, generally speaking, take months to reach completion. Finally, long term events tend to be big things, and they can radically change things within the city. Because long term events are so massive, communication is imperative.

The current event is the Faerie Invasion. My original gameplan for this event read something like a flow chart but, unfortunately, recent events have taken precedence over my original ideas. The current shape of the event looks like this:

1. The Teind is misplaced.
2. Faeries seek asylum in West End in order to escape Hell’s retaliation.
3. Demons seek to acquire mortal allies within the West End against the Fae.
4. Due to material aid given to the Fae by humans and material aid received by humans from the Fae, Demons decide that they can treat humans and Fae as a single legal entity, thus binding humanity to the contract broken by the Fae.
5. Sometime between step 2 and step 4, West End is translated into Faerie.
6. Open warfare between humans, Fae, and demons commences.
7. After a series of costly battles, West End is returned to reality, but has been shifted from Angel Falls to Dream Haven.
8. Aftermath: Faeries and demons are known to be real even by the general public. While most Fae and demons return home, several remain behind as diplomatic envoys, treating with the government of Dream Haven (and, by extension, the state of Louisiana and the United States government) as representatives of their separate realms. Depending on how the war ended, they may treat as allies, neutral parties, or hostile nations. Additionally, some of the magic from the imaginary realms has seeped into Dream Haven, making certain doors function as gateways to other realities or places and times within this reality.

Events that will eventually supplant the Faerie Invasion are, in no particular order: A scandal involving the RWD Securibots and self-willed machines; the unleashing of certain divine powers on the city due to the disturbance of the Grand Library’s archives; an invasion by aliens from outer space; a government conspiracy. More events can be built from these as they shape the world and provide more opportunities.

We also made a gameplan for dealing with problems. I will post the specifics in another section of the front page, but the highlight is this: administrators will not censure any member without the support of at least one other administrator. Further, offenses against the group will meet with a scaled response based on how often the member in question has created issues. No bans will be permitted without a two-thirds majority vote from the administrators.

On a lighter note, we also talked MAPS! There’s a whole lot going on with the new Dream Haven maps; check them out here and give :icontrekkiegal: lots of love for them. If you have ideas, direct them her way, but be aware that she’s already doing an awful lot, and it might not be possible to accommodate every idea. At present, she’s given me a homework assignment: come up with names for power plants, amusement parks, beaches, and an airport. I invite you to contribute your own ideas!
Well because I mostly got the idea, that some of the names off places in Dream Haven itself, should be Superhero themed, because if Faerie was making a City, it would take names and such from Comic books, so we would have stuff like Schuster Avenue, Bob Kane Alley and Lovhaug Media. I was asked to submit this as a Journal, and I wanted to see what people think about that
To be clear: :iconangelfalls-westend: is not going anywhere. Although the district is being transplanted- and we believe we have a fun and exciting story to move forward with in this regard- the group will remain in place on deviantArt.

I did seek to get the group name changed- I petitioned a moderator about it- and was informed that it cannot be done. With that in mind, The West End will continue to bear Angel Falls in its name at least until the beginning of 2017.

In her blog entry, :iconteri-minx: made several statements that managed to range from disingenuous to outright dishonest.

Her statement that the founders of West End never asked to use “our” setting is insincere- it is true that, as the founder, I did not seek her opinion. I did, however, observe the rules on the front page as well as discuss with a number of people who were present in the group and not on an extended leave of absence before deciding to go ahead and form the group. I was given to understand that not only was what I wished to do feasible, it violated neither Angel Falls policy nor deviantArt policy and, with that understanding, I went ahead and created the group. Given the tenor of the several correspondences I received from Teri, I declined to share the names of those I spoke with, as I was- and remain- unconvinced that she will not seek to penalize anyone who is or was associated with West End.

Her next statement is that we- meaning the founders of West End- never gave any assurances that we would follow Angel Falls’ rules regarding the use of other people’s characters. This is not only misleading, it is plain wrong. The original rules for West End required that rules for membership and submissions followed to the letter the submission rules for the parent group. Now, because I have been asked to remove any references to Angel Falls on the home page, those rules will be in a state of flux until they can be fully updated and submitted, but the simple fact is that West End does not and has never accepted submissions that did not comply with the Angel Falls submission rules.

Before going further, I will add that the submission rules for West End will continue to be similar to those for Angel Falls- you may only use another person’s characters with their express permission. Rules for blanket permissions have not yet been established, nor have rules for use of characters without restriction; no decisions regarding such matters will be made until the group has had an opportunity to review them and weigh in.

Finally, :iconteri-minx: stated that members of Angel Falls had no permission from us to use the West End icon. The West End is a family friendly, collaborative setting. Of course people may use the West End icon if it is appropriate to their work, just as they have always had that permission.

Because many of our members- at present, all of them- had their start in Angel Falls, we will not be requiring anyone to remove the Angel Falls icon from their private works, nor will works that reference Angel Falls be penalized. While we will not restrict these entries, :iconteri-minx: has made the decision that submissions to Angel Falls cannot include the West End icon. That is fine. Pursuant to the rules, all submissions to West End will be reviewed and accepted or rejected based on their content. As there is no requirement that a stamp be included at the bottom of any deviation, I invite anyone who wishes to include a submission in both groups to include only the Angel Falls stamp, as it is not necessary to include a stamp for the West End. If you wish to include the West End tag, of course, you may do so- if your work is rejected by Angel Falls, that is entirely because of their policies.

With regards to the use of the West End setting, no submissions will be denied for including references to Angel Falls, provided those references are based on work that the writer or collaborators hold clear ownership to and provided that those works do not attempt to embroil the current West End timeline with the current Angel Falls timeline.

Moving forward, the West End will be a separate entity, but it still maintains a degree of history with the original setting, which was acknowledged in a private note. For that reason, and because we wish to make the transition as painless and as successful as possible, we are using the Faerie Invasion to justify the separation of the West End group and all of its environs from the world of Angel Falls. Within the context of West End, this means that a section of the city has been transplanted into Faerie and inhabitants of the district will be struggling to return their district to what they perceive as reality. How Angel Falls chooses to handle this- perhaps the district literally split into two timelines, one that continues in Faerie and one that has no memory of any of those events- is up to the leader(s) of that group.

Having been transplanted to Faerie, inhabitants of West End who venture beyond the borders of their district will begin noticing hazy, indistinct buildings, people, and constructs- things that are sometimes there, and sometimes vanish, as an alternate reality is also being imposed on the area surrounding the city. These shimmering illusions and mirages will, over time, become more solid as the outside reality merges with West End, and the larger city will come to be known as Dream Haven.

I apologize for the bad feelings this has generated; I can only hope that moving forward with all the cards on the table will allow the air to clear so that we can get back to the business of having fun in a truly collaborative, shared setting that seeks to help all contributors to attain the best art and stories on deviantArt.
**************************************!!!!!ATTENTION!!!!!**************************************************
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but we were unaware that contests of this nature were not allowed in Angel Falls.

The voting portion of the 2016 Penelope's Personals Lingerie Brawl will be cancelled, and all the pictures will still be included in the West End Weekend edition as promised.

We would like to say thank you to all that have participated thus far, and hope to get even more before the deadline.

Thank you, and once again, we apologize.

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