The administrator’s chat from May 8, 2016
Due to scheduling conflicts, there were two chat meetings held. The first meeting was attended by
,
,
, and
. The second meeting was attended by
,
, and
.
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,
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:
is a group focused on family-friendly stories with an emphasis on group collaboration;
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.
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
'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.
and
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
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
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
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!
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