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rookieskrp · 8 years ago

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ROOKIES ANNOUNCEMENT ROUND-UP!

As the title says, we have a few things to cover in this post, but it’s all important, so please buckle up for the long ride and take a look.

First of all, we have the issue of AIM statuses going away once and for all to deal with. As you can probably tell by the replies to the post I just linked, the overwhelming response was to use Twitter to supplement AIM without statuses. For anyone curious about the process behind that decision, I counted each platform someone suggested as a vote for that platform. I also counted anyone adding me on that platform as a vote! As such, when anyone said they’d prefer a combination of AIM and Twitter, I counted their vote for both AIM and Twitter. The final count ended up being 6 votes for LINE, 7 votes for AIM, and 15 votes for Twitter. I think I had two people add me on Discord, too.

All of your mods are already available on Twitter (and AIM of course, though not as regularly for all of us these days.) Some of us are available on LINE and other platforms as well, so in the end, the SNS you use to communicate OOC is entirely up to you. We’ll include the OOC contact information of all of the mods at the end of this post so you can get in touch with all of us on anything we’ll be using, however, we’ll all be easiest to reach on Twitter or AIM, and it seems like that’s the case for the rest of the roleplay as well!

We also have a Twitter account for quick staff updates to take the place of any more important AIM statuses we would make in their absence. Please follow and/or bookmark that if you haven’t yet!

Now that that’s out of the way, there’s something else we need to address in regards to AIM statuses, and our OOC communications in general. Lately, multiple members have been hurt by things said on AIM statuses and other semi-public forums by other members of the roleplay. There have even been more instances of anon hate lately. We like to deal with any OOC conflicts as privately as possible, however, this has become a recurring theme to the point that we feel it’s necessary to announce this to everyone.

We’re hoping as AIM statuses go away, that part of this problem will go away as well, but we’re also mindful that anywhere there are people communicating publicly, there’s a chance of people being hurt. We can’t stop all of that, but we can make an effort to prevent as much pain as possible. Life is already hard enough, and RP is supposed to be a safe, fun escape from all of that, so as we make the move to a new platform (or even if you stick on AIM without statuses) let’s keep that in mind and try to make Rookies a more positive environment all around. This isn’t meant to target anyone in particular, or single anyone out; in fact, we’re sharing this with everyone to make that very clear. We think this is something we could all be better at, so let’s be more mindful of the effect our words can have on one another, especially where lots of people can see.

We’ll touch back on this later, but bear with us for a detour. It’s related, we promise!

As you probably know by now, Mod Mira and Mod Carly have both had real life get in the way of Rookies recently. Some of that was covered both here and here. Mod Mira had to go on an emergency hiatus for almost the entirety of the months of December and January due to lack of computer access and personal reasons. She was finally able to return to us in full at the end of January!

Naturally, as it often happens, real life’s timing wasn’t great, because Mod Carly was terribly sick since legitimately the day Mira returned. Mod Mira’s return to us was brought about thanks to a new job and the ability to buy a new PC, which is great! However, she still has a lot to get adjusted to, with both settling into her new real life job and settling back into her job as a mod. On top of all of this, Mod Shannen’s real life job has kept her incredibly busy for the past few months, even though she’s still worked hard to help us. Mod Kyle is the most consistent mod presence we’ve had, but even he was incredibly busy with work during the holidays.

We’ve worked really hard in the past few weeks, and hopefully the increase in events and activity has made that obvious, too! However, real life interfering has gotten us a little bit off schedule. We’re sorry about that and for the inconvenience; we know things getting delayed is frustrating, and that many of the members here have spent a lot of time waiting. We don’t want to make you wait on us any longer than necessary. Sometimes, we get so excited about the events we have planned and getting everyone involved, we get them going quickly and don’t give ourselves the proper time to prepare to bring everything to you. Other times, real life emergencies interfere. Either way, we know all of the members have been incredibly patient during the more than three years of Rookies now, so we won’t request more patience from you. We’ll only request your understanding.

This brings us back to OOC comments. We see a lot of your tweets and statuses, so we see your excitement, (which we love!) but that also means we see your disappointment. This isn’t us saying that disappointment isn’t valid or allowed, because it is, and it’s also understandable. However, we’ve asked multiple times that if anyone has any questions or criticisms, either of the roleplay, us, or other members, that they would take it directly to a mod (or another member, where applicable) instead of talking about it publicly on statuses. We ask this, for one, so we can make sure we see anything you’re concerned about and can address and handle it directly. We also ask this, however, because some of the comments we’ve been seeing lately have really discouraged us, as well as other members.

We are mods because we love you, Rookies as a roleplay, and what we do for it. We dedicate our time to this roleplay entirely due to our passion, and it’s all volunteer, and sometimes, there are things we have to put above modding. There’s nothing we’d love more than to put out events and other work in Rookies that everyone is excited about and happy with, but we’ve been blessed with a huge and diverse collection of people in the roleplay, and where that happens, it gets more and more difficult (impossible, honestly) to make everyone happy. We can’t make everyone happy, but we constantly strive to improve where we lack as a team and create more things you can enjoy and better represent the members we’re lucky to have in the roleplay. Seeing public criticism of us and other members doesn’t help us to improve; in fact, it actually discourages us and saps our motivation, which in combination with the stress of our real lives, makes it even harder for us to bring you the content we want to in the timeline we want to. Naturally, this only frustrates everyone more, so we end up in a negative cycle.

This is us breaking the cycle.

This is the first rule in Rookies: “While IC drama is encouraged, OOC DRAMA IS NOT TOLERATED. Please be respectful to one another, and if you can’t, avoid each other. If there’s an issue, don’t hesitate to let a staff member know so we can help you.”

Some of you that were in Rookies longer may remember when the rule was something worded more strongly: “OOC DRAMA IS NOT TOLERATED. You cause drama, you’re out. No warnings.”

We changed this rule because even with countless ups and downs Rookies experienced in the realm of drama while running more than three years, no one was ever kicked out. We wanted a set of rules we would be sure to uphold, and we don’t want to kick anyone out. Everyone’s time is limited, and we respect the amount of time and effort the members have put into this roleplay so much, and are grateful you choose to spend some of your limited time with us.

What are we asking you to do? Think before you post something on social media outside of Tumblr. It may be cliche, but ‘treat others how you want to be treated’ is a good rule of thumb. Is there anyone you wouldn’t want to see what you’re about to post? If you saw the status or tweet you were about to make and it was directed at you, would you be hurt? If the answer to either of those questions is ‘yes’ or you aren’t sure, it’s best to keep that comment to yourself, a private chat, or take it to a mod. Please keep the first rule of Rookies in mind; be respectful to one another, and if you can’t, avoid each other. If there’s an issue, let a staff member know privately. Addressing drama on a public platform may seem easy, but it only tends to get more people involved in the drama, and get more people hurt in the process.

It’s easy for intentions to be misunderstood online as well, and sometimes explaining things to each other can sort out a lot of drama. Let’s listen to each other more, and if it turns out you hurt someone entirely unintentionally with something you said, apologize. If you’re the party hurt, and the person that hurt you apologizes, do your best to be forgiving and move past the issue together.

On the other hand, if you see a post and think it’s about someone you know, if you have the urge to screenshot it and show anyone, please bring it to a mod first so we can address things without them getting out of control. Sometimes, it’s best to just leave a comment be instead of spreading it and again, getting more people involved, and subsequently, hurt.

In general, passive aggressive or ‘shady’ statuses, tweets, anons-- anything -- don’t do anyone any good and certainly hurt people more than they help.

If these problems continue even as AIM statuses disappear and we venture into a “new era” of OOC social media, we will take more serious action, even though we all wish we didn’t have to make these kinds of rules. As the people running this roleplay, our top priority is keeping this environment as safe, positive, and fun as we possibly can; remember, having fun is the point of roleplaying in the first place! We want this to be an enjoyable place for our members and for ourselves, and we hope you’ll join us in cultivating that kind of space.

For more on what we stand for in Rookies, we’ll leave you with this post by our admin as a good reminder, both to our members and ourselves. If there are muns you’d rather avoid, please let a mod know that as well. We can’t always promise to keep everyone that doesn’t get along with each other apart (especially if there’s an issue we aren’t aware of), but we can promise you’re never obligated to interact Ic or OOC with anyone you’re uncomfortable with.

We’ve talked a lot about how you can help us to improve Rookies, but we’re serious about doing better ourselves, too. We’re far from perfect as mods, and we’re aware of the mistakes we’ve made and are working hard to learn from them. We know we haven’t done the best at upholding our “no tolerance for drama” rule. We know that it’s easy to say ‘bring issues to a mod,’ but is much harder in practice when a mod isn’t always around or easily accessible to communicate with. We also know it’s frustrating to anticipate the next part of an event and not have it come out on time, and these things are on us. With how chaotic life has been for all of us lately, we acknowledge now more than ever that we need help!

So to end off on a more positive note, we’ll be opening up applications for mods in the coming days. We love Rookies and our members, and we’re committed to keeping things running smoothly and according to plan even when our own lives interfere, and in order to do that, we need at least one new addition to our team. This post is already more than long enough, and we need some time to prepare for the process, but look forward to more information on that soon.

Thank you for the time you took in reading this, and for the time you’ve devoted to Rookies so far. We hope you know that even in tougher posts like this, we appreciate you all more than we can possibly express. But we also want you to know that you have our full support in dedicating your free time to things you enjoy, that are positive outlets for you, and help reduce your stress. If Rookies isn’t fun, or becomes more draining or stressful than it is a positive part of your life, we’ll never force you to stay. We want to emphasize again that roleplaying should be fun, and if it’s not, you should find a way to make it fun or take some time away from it. We’ll be happy to try to help you find ways to make it fun, but if that isn’t working, we’ll also fully support you stepping away from Rookies if that’s what you need to do, and that will always be the case.

As promised, here’s our OOC contact information to make getting in touch with us as easy as possible! If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please direct them to one of us here.

Carly

twitter: hentaekai aim: hentaekai line: patchworkclouds discord: hentaekai #6032 always available on taeminrk’s tumblr ims!

Kyle

aim: [email protected] twitter: kylekrp

Mira

twitter: yulbins aim: k.yulhee line: yulbins can often be found lurking on yulrk’s ims or rkevent’s inbox

Shannen

aim: howonie

#rkannouncement

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