We will stand by your side, filled with hope and filled with pride~
Infy here, wearing her official modly hat because she has no lion icons, unfortunately to deliver a Very Important Public Service Announcement to everyone in Dollsy:
A few of us have noticed that, despite our best efforts, and despite the good intentions of our players, Dollsy has become somewhat cliquish. I know that nobody wanted this to happen, and it really is a shame, because our membership is as a whole so damned nice to know and play with, both ICly and OOCly--this is definitely not the image or game culture we want to cultivate. We're spooky enough just doing our horror thing, so let's not give people any more reasons to be scared away.
You may have noticed a few IC and OOC attempts to help rectify this situation--such as the plotting meme that now takes place on a monthly basis to encourage plotting and interaction between any and all members, the paranoia chocolates to help foster characters to stick together regardless of whether they're familiar with each other or not, and the Red String plot to widen people's horizons by pairing together characters that have absolutely no preexisting CR. So far, I'm thinking we've done pretty well with all of these, and I'm really strongly encouraging all of you to keep up with them. The more universally interconnected we are, no matter how long we or our characters have been in Dollsy, the better off we'll be.
Please try to uphold and foster the spirit of these improvements, and direct to the mods any further ideas you have, for them or any other questions, concerns, comments, or ideas for improvement or just potential material in general. That's why we're here. We all want to help you, and we all want to hear what you have to say and offer, and put it to use the best way that we can. That's why we have the additions and monsters suggestion posts, FAQ post, and the anonymous-commenting-enabled mod contact post available for you, as well as being available in the official OOC game chat (dollsyooc) on AIM, or on our personal IMs, or through the mod email, dollsymods@gmail.com. Personal IMs, the OOC game chat, or the OOC comm or Plot comm are all also excellent ways to discuss things amongst yourselves, make suggestions, plot things out, or just get to know each other. Please come to us if you're having trouble, or are worried about some issue, or have ideas you want to make happen, or even if you just want to help out.
I can't stress this enough, people--way too many times, I've found out about problems people have had too late, because they weren't willing to talk about them, or bring them to the attention of people who could actually do something about it. As long as you're polite about it and willing to sit down and talk about things, and work to make what you want happen, there's absolutely no reason why you need to be afraid of negative repercussions coming from it. We're a pretty understanding lot in general, I'd like to think, and we're trying to provide you all with as many tools to use and avenues of communication as possible, so that hopefully one of them will be the right fit for you. It really sucks to not know what's going on with the player base or what we can do about it.
Aside from requesting that everyone make the best use of the tools we're giving you that you can, this post also has a secondary purpose--discussing threading. We've been upset to notice a very marked downturn since early Dollsy in open threads, spontaneous and random character interaction and character relationship-building, unplotted threads, and willingness and confidence in doing things like threadjacking or requesting threads or plot with other people. To be more specific, unplotted threads are threads made with no ultimate goal in mind, where anything and everything is allowed to happen within the situation at hand, and events aren't following a pre-planned structure. Threadjacking is posting into an open thread, or joining a thread already in progress, if it's open to be joined.
These two things form the basis of unexpected interactions and character-relationship building, and in my opinion, are pretty critical to ensuring the health of an RP and keep characters from becoming too isolated or locked into a routine. These are also very important threads for characters who are notoriously antisocial or difficult to get CR for--by simply opening a thread having the character going about essential, daily business, like heading to the bathroom or getting something to eat, people can run into each other and provide interaction and connection, and keep characters from stagnating or isolating themselves completely. They're also essential for characters who have just arrived, and need to begin forming their characters' relationships from a blank slate. Early threads can prove extremely formative for a character's development within a game, and need to have someone post to them, if at all possible. Sometimes the least expected, most random things can also turn out to be the most enjoyable and important ones.
To this end, I'd like to offer a quick reminder on just what our threading system means--please remember to label your posts with these, and keep it as accurate as possible.
Open Threads: Open threads, as I've mentioned before, are very important, and we are suffering from a dire lack of them lately. Open threads are threads in which anyone can post into without requiring the person who's joining to seek permission first. This fact is very important, so please take note of it--you do not have to ask before joining. It is implicitly assumed, by posting an open thread, that you are welcome to anyone entering it. There's no need whatsoever to be shy, because open threads are blatantly allowing and asking anyone to drop in and start playing. If you have any conditions to modify this fact, such as wishing to restrict the number of people in one thread, requesting separate comment chains within a thread to represent different threads occurring as time-paradoxes or at different times of the day, or other such things, please mention these conditions or limits in the post header.
Needless to say, open threads are the preferred format when it is feasible to allow them; unless there is a good reason to make a thread closed or otherwise limited, please try and use unstintingly open threads as often as possible.
Closed Threads: These threads are strictly for the characters listed in the post header. If you see one that you really want to join, you can always try asking the players, but there's no certainty that they will agree--these threads, while not always pre-plotted, often are, and are almost always meant to have only the characters already decided on for them. If you have a good reason to not want anyone else in the thread, such as interfering with a pre-plotted event, then use this label. If you wouldn't mind people asking to join the thread, please say so in the thread header, and explain why they need to ask, such as to ensure that plotting can accommodate them. If there isn't any reason that other characters can't or shouldn't join the thread, then an open thread would be preferable, but it's the players' choice.
It's our hope that with this reminder and clarification, you guys can help us improve the game and its culture, by both working actively at opening it up to further interaction and spontaneity, and by not hesitating to take advantage of these openings; it's a good thing to keep in mind, whenever you post new threads. One of the best parts about Dollsy is getting to know each other both OOCly and ICly, forming relationships that nobody could have expected to happen, much less planned in advance--and one of the best ways to make that happen is to become more open to spontaneity and chance happenings as a game itself.
A few of us have noticed that, despite our best efforts, and despite the good intentions of our players, Dollsy has become somewhat cliquish. I know that nobody wanted this to happen, and it really is a shame, because our membership is as a whole so damned nice to know and play with, both ICly and OOCly--this is definitely not the image or game culture we want to cultivate. We're spooky enough just doing our horror thing, so let's not give people any more reasons to be scared away.
You may have noticed a few IC and OOC attempts to help rectify this situation--such as the plotting meme that now takes place on a monthly basis to encourage plotting and interaction between any and all members, the paranoia chocolates to help foster characters to stick together regardless of whether they're familiar with each other or not, and the Red String plot to widen people's horizons by pairing together characters that have absolutely no preexisting CR. So far, I'm thinking we've done pretty well with all of these, and I'm really strongly encouraging all of you to keep up with them. The more universally interconnected we are, no matter how long we or our characters have been in Dollsy, the better off we'll be.
Please try to uphold and foster the spirit of these improvements, and direct to the mods any further ideas you have, for them or any other questions, concerns, comments, or ideas for improvement or just potential material in general. That's why we're here. We all want to help you, and we all want to hear what you have to say and offer, and put it to use the best way that we can. That's why we have the additions and monsters suggestion posts, FAQ post, and the anonymous-commenting-enabled mod contact post available for you, as well as being available in the official OOC game chat (dollsyooc) on AIM, or on our personal IMs, or through the mod email, dollsymods@gmail.com. Personal IMs, the OOC game chat, or the OOC comm or Plot comm are all also excellent ways to discuss things amongst yourselves, make suggestions, plot things out, or just get to know each other. Please come to us if you're having trouble, or are worried about some issue, or have ideas you want to make happen, or even if you just want to help out.
I can't stress this enough, people--way too many times, I've found out about problems people have had too late, because they weren't willing to talk about them, or bring them to the attention of people who could actually do something about it. As long as you're polite about it and willing to sit down and talk about things, and work to make what you want happen, there's absolutely no reason why you need to be afraid of negative repercussions coming from it. We're a pretty understanding lot in general, I'd like to think, and we're trying to provide you all with as many tools to use and avenues of communication as possible, so that hopefully one of them will be the right fit for you. It really sucks to not know what's going on with the player base or what we can do about it.
Aside from requesting that everyone make the best use of the tools we're giving you that you can, this post also has a secondary purpose--discussing threading. We've been upset to notice a very marked downturn since early Dollsy in open threads, spontaneous and random character interaction and character relationship-building, unplotted threads, and willingness and confidence in doing things like threadjacking or requesting threads or plot with other people. To be more specific, unplotted threads are threads made with no ultimate goal in mind, where anything and everything is allowed to happen within the situation at hand, and events aren't following a pre-planned structure. Threadjacking is posting into an open thread, or joining a thread already in progress, if it's open to be joined.
These two things form the basis of unexpected interactions and character-relationship building, and in my opinion, are pretty critical to ensuring the health of an RP and keep characters from becoming too isolated or locked into a routine. These are also very important threads for characters who are notoriously antisocial or difficult to get CR for--by simply opening a thread having the character going about essential, daily business, like heading to the bathroom or getting something to eat, people can run into each other and provide interaction and connection, and keep characters from stagnating or isolating themselves completely. They're also essential for characters who have just arrived, and need to begin forming their characters' relationships from a blank slate. Early threads can prove extremely formative for a character's development within a game, and need to have someone post to them, if at all possible. Sometimes the least expected, most random things can also turn out to be the most enjoyable and important ones.
To this end, I'd like to offer a quick reminder on just what our threading system means--please remember to label your posts with these, and keep it as accurate as possible.
Open Threads: Open threads, as I've mentioned before, are very important, and we are suffering from a dire lack of them lately. Open threads are threads in which anyone can post into without requiring the person who's joining to seek permission first. This fact is very important, so please take note of it--you do not have to ask before joining. It is implicitly assumed, by posting an open thread, that you are welcome to anyone entering it. There's no need whatsoever to be shy, because open threads are blatantly allowing and asking anyone to drop in and start playing. If you have any conditions to modify this fact, such as wishing to restrict the number of people in one thread, requesting separate comment chains within a thread to represent different threads occurring as time-paradoxes or at different times of the day, or other such things, please mention these conditions or limits in the post header.
Needless to say, open threads are the preferred format when it is feasible to allow them; unless there is a good reason to make a thread closed or otherwise limited, please try and use unstintingly open threads as often as possible.
Closed Threads: These threads are strictly for the characters listed in the post header. If you see one that you really want to join, you can always try asking the players, but there's no certainty that they will agree--these threads, while not always pre-plotted, often are, and are almost always meant to have only the characters already decided on for them. If you have a good reason to not want anyone else in the thread, such as interfering with a pre-plotted event, then use this label. If you wouldn't mind people asking to join the thread, please say so in the thread header, and explain why they need to ask, such as to ensure that plotting can accommodate them. If there isn't any reason that other characters can't or shouldn't join the thread, then an open thread would be preferable, but it's the players' choice.
It's our hope that with this reminder and clarification, you guys can help us improve the game and its culture, by both working actively at opening it up to further interaction and spontaneity, and by not hesitating to take advantage of these openings; it's a good thing to keep in mind, whenever you post new threads. One of the best parts about Dollsy is getting to know each other both OOCly and ICly, forming relationships that nobody could have expected to happen, much less planned in advance--and one of the best ways to make that happen is to become more open to spontaneity and chance happenings as a game itself.