Scroll down to the giant words later in this post to skip my blabbering.
Alright, first off. Nice to meet you. I'm K2/Fantasy/Ulrich/Sirius/Genesis/Drakon (with some fancy a and/or or or something, I don't remember)/...you get the point. I've had a lot of usernames on this site alone. I like Fantasy so far though. Ocean_Palm was a good name t- Oh, wait, sorry.
Thanks for recommending me as admin, by the way. I'd decline, of course. I retired like... Two weeks ago because I don't have the time or energy to manage this board anymore. I still find time to RP a lot though. I've been here since the start of the RP waaay back in ol' 2006. Along time, right? As I'm sure you can all imagine, not even Hikaru, Kai, Hawkeye, and I (probably the oldest of members) can remember great deals of the RP. We've done a pretty good job of writing down what we do remember, though.
Earlier this year, I set out on a project known simply as 'Indepth Plot'. I created a topic in Admin Chat and I began going around asking people who were originally on the board about what they remember, collaborating memories, and piecing together what happened plot-wise. I then began to write the entire plot (several years worth of content) up in the form of a summary. Outline. Something.
I took each event that occurred in the plot throughout the years, gave it a section, and wrote somewhere from a paragraph to a page or so about the event in summary. I pieced these summaries together in chronological plot order and included summaries of backstory events. Thus, I created a topic which could be read by somebody who was totally new (or a veteran member, either way) who understood little to nothing about the plot. They'd come out understanding just as much as I do.
The plot topic gives detail to events all the way up to December 2009. Why that month, you ask? Because the plot and all the topics/posts in their entirety from December 2009 and onward can be found on this message board. That's how long we've been here, on this board. Before, the RP took place on an older message board, but we moved here back in December.
So, why, as I'm sure you're wondering if you're still reading by now, can you not see this plot right now? Because it's not finished. The staff (*shifts eyes towards Hikaru*) needs to fix up a few sections which I got wrong and don't exactly understand. Once that's done, the plot topic will be put all together in a new topic without all the commentary from staff and posted for the public to see. That will clear up any questions people might have, but here's the thing...
You guys don't NEED that topic. That's the great thing about this RP. I remarked to Hikaru a few months back that I was in awe that the small little barely-an-RP nationbuilder topics she and I headed up on a small code lyoko fanboard had grown to such a degree. Here we are now. Four years later (to be fair, only three years actually consisted of actual plot, but the year in which we didn't RP this roleplay consisted of tons of brainstorming and such in the form of another RP we ran), here we are on an SMF Board with our own domain and fifty or so members with 30-pages-worth of summaries of the plot. She replied back to me something along the lines of, "It's because of what kind of roleplay this plot is. It allows for expansion."
What she meant by that is that, much as it is true in-character, there are no limits to what you can do here (I mean... you know... besides ripping off characters and godmoding and.... that's not what I meant.) as far as the plot goes. You can have a romance story. You can have a story of a planet just breaking into technology. You can have the story of a young boy who discovers he is the last of a long line of the best wizard family in the dimension and that it is his destiny to defeat the evil sage of Blorg and liberate the ogre people. It's your story. It's your roleplay.
The staff just helps keep it going. Or at least, it did. That gets into the point of what I'm trying to say here. You guys are right about some things and wrong about some things. But you know, you're more right here. Except for when you're wrong. But that doesn't count when you're rig- Right, I got it. On with it.
What you're right about:
The staff is as lazy (or in some cases, busy) as... well, a lazy (or busy) person. I was no exception when I was staff (I usually tried to approve stuff, but I have to admit, there were times when I'd just be so lazy that I'd skip right over the approval sections when logging on.) either. It should be the first thing the staff does when logging on, before they even hit 'Recent Posts' or whatever. Check approval forums. Approve, don't just read the topics. Don't skip ships, either. And if you approve a ship or planet or whatever, make the ship or planet.
We need staff reform. I wasn't qualified to be staff, and while I have to say that the staff are some of my good friends, some of them (not naming anybody) aren't always qualified either. But don't go bashing Hikaru. She's done more for this board then a lot of you know. She and Nisorin are basically why this board is alive. If anyone had to be booted off staff, they'd be the last to go. But all the staff members (even Orph) have done great things for this board. The results aren't always right there for you to see, but they are always significant things.
So, what should happen in this reform of staff? First off (and I suggested this a good month ago I think), the whole 'leader' concept needs to be ditched as it doesn't really work well with this kind of board. Second off, these guys are right. We do need to add some new people into the board staff. Not just having people who have been here for years and all.
UnStellar, Zak, Hiro/XANA, Zai, and even Lyoko222 would all make good choices. There's others, but I'm really tired right now and those were off the top of my head. Zumi would also make a great staff member. Take it from someone who knows... She can run an RP board. She may not be the most technological person, but not only is she a great RPer (better than me, that's for sure), but she's got leadership skills. The need for at least one new staff member is great.
Let me tell you why the staff is so hesitant to add new staff members. I said earlier that we've got, what, fifty members here? Take out about five of those for spambots and another five for duplicate accounts, and you've got forty members. I'd say about 25% of those registered members who are not spambots and duplicates are active. That gives you a little over ten active members. Let's say twelve. A little over 30% of those active members are currently staff members.
It may not seem like it, but that's a lot. On a board with one thousand active members, that's what? Around 300 staff members? I'm not very good with math sometimes, but I think that's about right. Anyway, my point is, that's a lot of staff members. And not too many members. Maybe we should boot out some staff, sure, but that only puts off a bigger problem which we should alternatively be trying to solve now before we worry THAT much about staff reform...
We need members. I applaud Zak for recruiting Thunder here, and I'm sure that he (she? sorry, Thunder) will be a valued member here. But we need more members. We need to start putting ourselves out there. We need to represent and advertise. We need to raise that number from 25% activity to 125% activity. We need more members.
That doesn't excuse the staff issue right now either. I think at the present moment it is important for the staff to add at least one new staff member (sooo not it). Otherwise, the problem will still stand.
What you guys are wrong about is the rips. I support Hikaru and UnStellar's opinions all the way.
FINALLY, as a comment to Zumi, the anime has potential to be something of entertainment value. While of course my image for it is far stretched, it could turn into something.
