Hello everyone! It’s been about a month now since we moved to Wix and now that we’re starting to get settled in, there are a few rough patches that I’d like to clear up and minor changes I’d like to try in the hopes of making the website run more smoothly in the future.
Reminders
Over the past couple of weeks forum activity has been dropping, particularly in regards to high ranking characters. Members with high ranking characters should post with that character at least four or five days a week, with the exceptions of odd weeks out here and there where you might be out for vacation or otherwise offline. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be monitoring high ranking character activity and making any necessary changes, so if you’re still interested in having a high ranking character, please post with your character more frequently or let me know if you won’t be able to be online. Members without high ranking characters aren’t held to this standard, but if you are interested in having one in the future, it’s best to show that you will be active if you have one by staying active in the meantime.
In a similar vein, I’ve seen some members lamenting that they couldn't seem to find roleplay partners and other members in the Discord group weren’t reaching out to them to roleplay. It isn’t necessary to have a partner all picked out to jump into the forum, you can always have your character enter an already existing scene without discussing it beforehand out of character or start a new scene by posting with your character in a public area or having them approach another cat.
While these past few weeks have been pretty jam-packed with plot, we don’t actually have much of a plan of where the plot is headed from here. The Plot Planning Page has been very quiet and dominated by only a few voices, so please check that out when you get a chance and share your thoughts. Every post is helpful, even if all you say is that you don’t have a strong opinion or are happy with the way things are already headed.
Finally, please remember to post on the Character Updates Page in the exact format provided. If you’re uncertain of which update style to use or how to use it, refer to the Character Updates Guide. In particular, members have been struggling with the aging system, both in how to format and calculate birth dates. Both of these are explained on the Aging System and Birth Dates Guide, which also includes a cheat sheet to calculating birth dates.
Announcements
Starting August 1st, a few changes will be implemented both in- and out-of-character.
In-character, we will start the trial period for communal apprentice training in SunClan and multiple medicine cat apprentices in EarthClan. These changes are intended to allow more flexibility in-game when certain members are offline and to reinforce unique clan identities. In November, we can discuss the effects of these changes and decide whether to continue them or return to mentor-apprentice pairs in SunClan and only one medicine cat apprentice in EarthClan. These changes are discussed further in the new Clan Hierarchy Adjustment Trial blog entry.
Out-of-character, the “photos and videos” channel on the discord server will be removed. It doesn’t serve a purpose, as photos and videos can just as easily be shared to the general chatting channel, and frequently ends up as a place for conversations that would be better suited to the general chatting channel itself.
As well, I am adding an “owner” field to the new character form on the Character Updates Page, as the division between the log-in systems on that page and in the rest of the site have caused some confusion over these last few weeks and there are already a handful of characters on the pages without a listed owner.
Finally, this month’s Monthly Meow will be the last with a ceremonies list. These have been rendered unnecessary with the implementation of birth dates on the clan pages and the reliance of leaders on these lists- which are not updated to reflect changes in the clan pages- rather than double-checking with the pages means that cats that are dead or otherwise not on the pages are included, while more recent additions are skipped over. Removing these lists and having leaders base their ceremonies off of the character pages directly removes this problem.
Ideas
There are a few areas on the site that could be improved, but where I’m uncertain of how to actually make improvements.
The most important is regarding activity. Wix only allows me to see when members last logged in, which doesn’t well account for their activity in the forums, which is the activity I’ve used in the past to determine which members I should take off the Members Page during activity checks. I could add a forum thread where members post every day they post elsewhere in the forums, but members could easily forget to do this and be incorrectly counted as inactive. I could also start writing down a list of members I see roleplay daily, but this is also error prone and would be difficult to maintain during the school year. Do you have any ideas for how I could keep track of activity?
As well, the current art page is generally functional, but it doesn’t fit in well to the rest of the website as members can’t comment there or upload their own work. I have a friend who is working on an embeddable application I can use to replicate the appearance and functionality of the Webs art pages, but this ultimately may not be possible and may take a few more months to fully implement and debug. In the meantime, do you have any ideas for how the current art pages could be improved? An ideal system would be one in which members can post their own art, comment on others’ work, and which would only be accessible from the link on our website. That is, nonmembers scrolling through social media won’t stumble across it.
I would also like some feedback on how the moderators and I can improve activity, both in the roleplay and in the plot planning page, as our current strategy of directly asking people to participate and posting there ourselves and hoping that other people join clearly isn’t working.
Additionally, there have been some problems with new members joining the website and getting as far as posting a character and roleplaying a bit, but never joining the Discord server. Do you have any ideas how we could make the Discord chat more obvious and make it clear that all members are required to join, so we can get in contact with them if need be?
Setting Priorities
Finally, I’d like to set some concrete goals for this next month.
Our biggest priority this month is to maintain the momentum we have in the plot while expanding it to include more members. We can do this by increasing participation in plot planning and in the forums generally.
Secondly, we need to continue advertising the website and growing our active member base, which can be accomplished by directly inviting our friends to the roleplay and by advertising the website. If you’d like to help with this, please refer to the Advertisement Guide.
Next, I’d like complete the website move by finalizing the website design. To help finalize the design, you can point out areas that need to be improved and make suggestions regarding readability, clarity, and ease of navigation.
Last by not least, I’d like to get ahead on Monthly Meows, both by writing my own and getting some member submissions. If you have an idea for a Monthly Meow, please send it along, and if you’d like to write a Monthly Meow of your own, refer to the Member Submitted Monthly Meows Guide.
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