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Hello, dear GS house club members!
I have been thinking long about the wide subject I want to bring for discussion.
It's basically about the written messages originated from the club for its members.
Usually we know nothing about the new people who arrive in the club.
We don't know their culture, technical qualification, english language proficiency, roleplaying experience, learning skills, mood, hormonal balance, et cetera.
From my own experience of being a warden of the club I can tell that many new comers get lost and confused while reading even those clearly well written rules somehow.
That situation isn't making me laugh loud and hard at them, instead it's making me think what could be arranged to make it all clear for the widest audience possible.
There I think we might consider using direct instructions.
Thus we might assume the reader to be an active participant, which is interested to know the story and wants to know what is he or she allowed/supposed/expected to do next.
Direct instructions will meet those assumptions while letting the reader know the activities disclosed within.
I would personally form the sentences as list of distinct activities and their status.
For example, most of the rules notecard text might be formatted as lists of grouped activities like
"Activities you may not do"
"Activities you should not do"
"Activities you may do"
"Activities you should do"
"Activities you must do"
Also I belive that would be fair to let the reader know which group of activities will cause a ban, or eject, or warning to them.
Some activities have their status dependent on the status or rank of the member.
And I would definitely put a few of direct instructions within the end of the rules notecard saying something like "And now click the zone rules board, take GS titler and wear it, and then click the computer near of the hunting board".
Let us discuss this paradigm of laying out the rules and other messages.
I am very curious to know everyone's opinion about this idea.
I would just like to note that whole the idea comes purely from trying to make it all more accessible and adaptable for our new comers.
Also I am planning to create monthly posts in this blog with toplists of the misunderstandings and confusions from our new comers that have surprised and even shocked me personally mostly.
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Sadly I don't see any comments here yet.
ReplyDeleteSo I will describe what outgivings have been caused in the GS group chat.
First of all, I'd like to mention that whole the idea is just an attempt to discuss the situation.
The final decision is always taken by the administration of GS house club purely alone.
This blog serves the purpose of being a platform for discussions and ideas, so I bring some up for discussions and observations.
Next following the observations, I confirm that my post has been poorly formatted and thus is not too easy for reading. This fact alone kept me away from posting it for weeks. Yesterday I've finally come up with a conclusion that if I worry too much about the formatting then I will never post it at all. I will try my best to improve the text formatting in future.
Further I will briefly list the opinions that I have collected from the readers of the post.
Here is what they say as I remember.
- Improving rules layout can possibly save time spent talking with new comers trying to explain them points they haven't understood.
- The possibility is quite low and the new comers might be given with advisory notices explaining the basics of SL and GS.
- A script can detect the age days of a visitor and offer them to visit another regions if they are too young, which will also keep alternative avatars away until they grow older.
- A new comer should always start playing only a victim role, which doesn't seem to be a reasonable idea to me personally, because then it will be much harder for us to gather a significant amount of top role (visitor/client/warden) players.
The roles subject is a very special case and I belive we might discuss them in a special post.
Dear colleague: I am sorry to not have posted sooner. The Glass and Stone blog rarely has anything new posted to it, so I have gotten out of the habit of checking on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteYour concerns are, in my opinion, quite valid. I, too, have noticed a marked increase in the number of new people visiting us as well has have noticed they seem very ignorant of our rules and concepts. It is my belief that our present rules and roles card (actually, rules card- last time I checked the roles card had been missing for weeks and weeks) are a bit windy for a first time read. I think people like a brief card summarizing what the sim is about and the hard cored "do not break EVER" rules accompanied by a lengthier card that provides them with more details about the different roles and rp themes available and other information about the sim. Our present one card format is overwhelming for many and they tune out most of it.
I absolutely agree with you that direct instruction in a welcoming, understanding OOC manner by GnS regulars will help to correct many of these problems and continue to supply us with a steady stream of talented RP'ers.
Some bullet opinions from me: 1) Making all newcomers start as victims is an awful idea- experienced doms will never put up with it. 2) Male Wardens who giggle should be tortured and then shot [kidding! Though I do plan to make it a fun rp theme between the two of us!]
Thank you for raising this issue. We all want to see GnS become better and stronger whenever possible. And thanks for your future posts to this blog- I'll make a point to check in more regularly.
Yours in solidarity- Warden Scarmon [fine branding rp the other day by the way and very generous of you to offer the honor to me!]