Schedule, Mods, Aff.

[Amethyst]

I'll begin with the good news- in its first official partnership, PokePlace Reborn is now affiliated with Pokemon Mysidia, home of various servers, fan-game collaborations and a wealth of discussion on its bustling forums. This, of course, is all thanks to Miss Kitty, who has thus inspired me to go hunt out some various other affiliations that I've had in the back of my head. So expect this to be only the first domino.

More good news, unless you're a trouble-maker, the new mods have been chosen. This week, we're welcoming members Will and Lara to the staff as they help police any possible issues arising from the new partnership, incoming traffic or the shifting seasons and schedules (accordingly, depending on activity and availability over the next few weeks, we may consider hiring one more additional person)


And speaking of scheduling, therein is the news that we've been waiting on. We- myself included. It also happens to be the bad news.

The unfortunate reality is that school is starting soon (or already has for some of you.) Yes, I can hear your cries from here. Now, as all of us fall into routine, our schedules will iron out, but there is one very big problem. I'm starting college, and my classes are in the evening. Much o' y'alls still in high school, or maybe not even that, which means, if I have to take a guess, you're probably limited by the age-old rule of the parents that you can only stay up on weekends.
Basically this means I'll be in classes until about the time that most of you need to get to sleep.
o shi-
So we're left with a couple options:
1. The Reborn League becomes a Midnight League- I'd get on at about 12:00 AM EST (which I could -probably- guarantee) and go from there as we usually do.
2. The Reborn League becomes a Weekend League- Mind, I have Fridays off entirely, and we pick an earlier time in the evening to meet. We could then run for a little longer, but only three days instead of six. However, I am not sure that I can guarantee my availability at a certain time every day.

Please throw a vote in the poll as to which you would prefer.
Option one keeps the League open for less time on more days. Option two means more time on fewer days.

Please keep in mind, these are only first drafts for potential schedules. We will also be working around Miss Kitty's schooling, but hers is more similar to all of yours. In any event, the number of allowed battles per day and Leaders' availability will be changing. I'll work out the details of the latter affair personally.


...Finally, and this is extremely last minute, it's been decided that AZKnight will be promoted to a Moderator position as well, however, he intends mostly on cleaning up the forums. I agree with him that the posting standard here has fallen below par recently, and so he'll be in in just a minute to make a note for you all about the new expectations.

[AZKnight]

Thank you, Amethyst. Hopefully I can help to improve the standards of the forum so there is a more enjoyable experience, for both new and old members. Might take me a few days to go through all my new powers and figure out what I'll be doing, but I can tell you now what I intend to do.

#1 - [b]Double/Triple/Quadruple Posting[/b]
I cannot tell you enough how annoying it is to see people do this without any real reason. Now it is completely understandable if you are trying to honestly revive a topic, but most of the time that's not what happens. What I see is people posting, then going back a few minutes later to add a thought. There is an Edit button, edit your previous post instead of making two or three new posts that are just one liners. I ask you now to remember to edit and if you don't I'll be editing the posts myself.

#2 - [b]Conversations[/b]
There will be two or three people that are consistently posting back and forth and again there are some situations where this is allowable. But again those situations are rarely the cause. People will post back and forth with only a few minutes between each post, clearly watching the thread to jump at replying. On top of that the posts are usually short, like one sentence long. If you are going to post 10 times in the span of 5 minutes with a total length of only 11 sentences, go somewhere else to have your conversation like PO or some other client. Don't clog the forum with posts you could text on your phone in a matter of seconds. Again, if you fail to do this I'll just edit the conversations into a single post or outright delete them.

#3 - [b]One-Liners[/b]
Now this one is a little more difficult to enforce and there is no clear line for it. What I'm talking about is when you post a single sentence or something that's just one or two words. I was personally raised under the internet etiquette that when you post, it should contribute to the topic. When someone just posts "lol Awesome lol," I cringe and attempt to reach through my screen to strangle the post. Sometimes you can just post a little blurb that is only one sentence. What is important is that it is relevant and not posting for the sake of posting.

#4 - [b]Proper Topic[/b]
This is something that isn't really a problem, but should still be addressed. People have posted in topics that didn't have any relevance to what they wanted to post about. This happens because either a) there was no appropriate topic or b ) there was an appropriate topic but they didn't look very hard. If it's the first one, go ahead and make a topic about it. It's always refreshing to see people starting new topics to spread the discussions out over the entire forum. A good example of this is the discussions on the Gym Leaders and the investigations, even if I'm not really involved in it. Try to find the correct topic or create your own. And in the same vein as this, if you have something brief but important to add to core topics like the rules, feel free to contact staff so we can edit the original post with your new information. It's fine for people who have done this already since they are contributing. I merely want to do this to keep such topics down to a few posts for organization.

#5 - [b]Proper Grammar[/b]
This should be pretty straight forward. Think before you type. As someone who enjoys to read and the English language in general, I will throttle you. This means posts such as "lol u r funnez lol plz post moar lol." See that makes me scream bloody murder. And then beyond obvious things like that, just read through your post before submitting for errors. I've written long posts before and missed things like typing "an" instead of "and" and that's just a good habit anyway. Respect your language people!

Those are the basic things that I'll be looking at and just understand that there will be other things. I just want to make sure that the forum is more than just mundane posts that have no rhyme or reason. If we want to grow and add new members, standards must be met and currently many of us have fallen below them. Everyone knows how to do these things, it's just a matter of actively following what is right.

The Pokemon G-Men are here to restore order.

[Amethyst]

Thank you, Knight.

And relating to Knight's 5th point, I'd like to ask the members and mods of the the server to help keep on top of chat-speak on the server. Abbreviations like lol and btw are passable, but when you get into things like Knight's example, the line is crossed.
I'm guilty of being too lenient on it myself, so in order to keep as clean of a server as possible, I'm encouraging the mods to warn once and then go for the throat. Just a kick- Chatspeak itself should not need to be a ban-able offense. To the regular members, feel free to point it out if we don't notice, and remind the other members if they're doing it, not to.


One final news point- As we adjust to school routines, whatever that ends up being, this is our slow-down week. In this week, challengers will only be allowed a maximum of two battles per day to lead into the stricter schedule of the following weeks. Timing for the events will remain the same, however.


I think that's all. This now concludes your three-part news post. See y'all soon.

[Geo]

[quote name='AZKnight' post='3097' date='Aug 16 2010, 05:52 PM']Thank you, Amethyst. Hopefully I can help to improve the standards of the forum so there is a more enjoyable experience, for both new and old members. Might take me a few days to go through all my new powers and figure out what I'll be doing, but I can tell you now what I intend to do.

#1 - [b]Double/Triple/Quadruple Posting[/b]
I cannot tell you enough how annoying it is to see people do this without any real reason. Now it is completely understandable if you are trying to honestly revive a topic, but most of the time that's not what happens. What I see is people posting, then going back a few minutes later to add a thought. There is an Edit button, edit your previous post instead of making two or three new posts that are just one liners. I ask you now to remember to edit and if you don't I'll be editing the posts myself.

#2 - [b]Conversations[/b]
There will be two or three people that are consistently posting back and forth and again there are some situations where this is allowable. But again those situations are rarely the cause. People will post back and forth with only a few minutes between each post, clearly watching the thread to jump at replying. On top of that the posts are usually short, like one sentence long. If you are going to post 10 times in the span of 5 minutes with a total length of only 11 sentences, go somewhere else to have your conversation like PO or some other client. Don't clog the forum with posts you could text on your phone in a matter of seconds. Again, if you fail to do this I'll just edit the conversations into a single post or outright delete them.

#3 - [b]One-Liners[/b]
Now this one is a little more difficult to enforce and there is no clear line for it. What I'm talking about is when you post a single sentence or something that's just one or two words. I was personally raised under the internet etiquette that when you post, it should contribute to the topic. When someone just posts "lol Awesome lol," I cringe and attempt to reach through my screen to strangle the post. Sometimes you can just post a little blurb that is only one sentence. What is important is that it is relevant and not posting for the sake of posting.

#4 - [b]Proper Topic[/b]
This is something that isn't really a problem, but should still be addressed. People have posted in topics that didn't have any relevance to what they wanted to post about. This happens because either a) there was no appropriate topic or b ) there was an appropriate topic but they didn't look very hard. If it's the first one, go ahead and make a topic about it. It's always refreshing to see people starting new topics to spread the discussions out over the entire forum. A good example of this is the discussions on the Gym Leaders and the investigations, even if I'm not really involved in it. Try to find the correct topic or create your own. And in the same vein as this, if you have something brief but important to add to core topics like the rules, feel free to contact staff so we can edit the original post with your new information. It's fine for people who have done this already since they are contributing. I merely want to do this to keep such topics down to a few posts for organization.

#5 - [b]Proper Grammar[/b]
This should be pretty straight forward. Think before you type. As someone who enjoys to read and the English language in general, I will throttle you. This means posts such as "lol u r funnez lol plz post moar lol." See that makes me scream bloody murder. And then beyond obvious things like that, just read through your post before submitting for errors. I've written long posts before and missed things like typing "an" instead of "and" and that's just a good habit anyway. Respect your language people!

Those are the basic things that I'll be looking at and just understand that there will be other things. I just want to make sure that the forum is more than just mundane posts that have no rhyme or reason. If we want to grow and add new members, standards must be met and currently many of us have fallen below them. Everyone knows how to do these things, it's just a matter of actively following what is right.

The Pokemon G-Men are here to restore order.[/quote]
Really Ame you should've pick someone who can take a joke or atleast Mello,someone like mashew.Seriously AZ is more of a Hitler.

[N8theGr8]

Luckily, the only one of those I'm guilty of is double posting, and that is something that I can try to work on. Oh, and about the investigations being posted in an irrelevant thread, the Investigation Squad (actually, I) made its own thread specifically because of that. Please don't accuse us of something we've already corrected. Anyway, my only fear about the new mods is that the only one that is here when Kitty and Ame aren't around are Will. Lara typically seems to be around for the leagues, but little otherwise. The same can be said for Knight. I definitely agree that they are very mature and are well deserving of this position, but I still fear that the server will sometimes be left without a mod/admin.

I'm really sorry for my terrible ranting

[Lara]

I'm along a similar line of thought as Knight. I'm honored that you want me to be a mod here, and I'll do my best to help out every way I can, even with school looming around the corner (next week! Aaa! I have so much to do!).

Nice post, Knight, by the way. As a person who tends to ramble in my posts, I agree whole-heartedly with all of your points. I'll do my best to [s]make fun of you for[/s] point out anything you miss.

In relation to the poll, while I'm not sure if either will end up working for me entirely, I ended up voting for the Midnight League (and no, not because it has a cool name [though it does]). I cannot do weekends for many reasons: a) I have classes throughout the day on Friday, including marching band from 4-6p.m., Marching band takes up my entire weekend (i.e., football games every Saturday, all day, yadda-yadda), c) sorority meetings on Sundays from 6p.m. on, which last many hours, and d) [s]all of the above[/s] the fact that if I'm actually [i]not[/i] doing something at any point on the weekend, I would much rather utilize my rare bits of free time to hang out with friends and get homework done (-coughyeahright-).

I hesitated to vote for the Midnight League mostly because by midnight I'll probably be tired and want to go to bed. Either that, or I'll have friends over, or be doing homework, or something. But I already know that no matter what, I won't be able to get on every day, so out of the two choices I'm more likely to be on for Midnight rather than Weekend.

Edit: -just saw that other people had posted- Nate, I'm pretty sure Knight was commending us on our investigations, not saying that they're irrelevant. =p He was using it as an example of people posting discussions. So high five!

[Amethyst]

[quote name='Geo' post='3099' date='Aug 16 2010, 06:27 PM']Really Ame you should've pick someone who can take a joke or atleast Mello,someone like mashew.Seriously AZ is more of a Hitler.[/quote]
Now, be nice. I agree with Knight's policies- just because he's enforcing them assertively doesn't mean he can't take a joke, nor does it mean he's like Hitler. Besides, these guidelines have nothing to do with jokes.

[quote name='N8theGr8' post='3100' date='Aug 16 2010, 07:28 PM']Oh, and about the investigations being posted in an irrelevant thread, the Investigation Squad (actually, I) made its own thread specifically because of that. Please don't accuse us of something we've already corrected.[/quote]
No, as Lara said, we weren't accusing you. He was exemplifying it. This was well done.
[quote]Anyway, my only fear about the new mods is that the only one that is here when Kitty and Ame aren't around are Will. Lara typically seems to be around for the leagues, but little otherwise. The same can be said for Knight. I definitely agree that they are very mature and are well deserving of this position, but I still fear that the server will sometimes be left without a mod/admin.[/quote]

That's actually part of why these people were picked. Lara is usually on for battles, and if she's on then Kitty can focus on logs and I can focus on hassling gym leaders to get their butts online- without having to babysit the server. Will is usually on during the day when the rest of us aren't, so he can cover those times just fine.
A legitimate concern though, and exactly what I'm trying to alleviate. We'll see who stays active through school though, and there may be reassignments accordingly.

[N8theGr8]

Fair enough.

And about the Investigation Squad, sorry Knight. I thought you were talking about us conversing in the Gym Leader Fan Club thread. I actually thought picking Knight was a smart choice, as he won't feel sorry for anyone he decides isn't following the rules.

[Bullet]

Eh, weekend is the only that could work for me, since I'll very seldom be able to get on if it's around midnight or so. So, uh. good to see more votes for Weekend League so far.
And I sorta agree with Geo.....

[Ninpen]

Weekend is the only thing that works for me. So yay.

[Miss Kitty]

I'd like the Weekend League. At least for now. So I can step in my new sleep routine for school and work.
Go to bed at 2.30 am, getting up at 6am, then coming home from school around 12.30pm, sleeping til 3.30-4pm, coming home from work around mehhh, 10ish(pending on my schedule), then do homework til the league starts, and then go to bed at 2.30. Sounds reasonable, right? WRONG. I don't get to spend any time with my Ame. ; -; So. I'm for the weekend league.

And N8, that's why before we go to bed, we set the automod on. >.> And I don't want to hear anything about it being glitched. It's enough. And if you don't like it, tough. Very much tough. Sorry. <3

[Mashew]

Woow so much new news hmm interesting.... Im indifferent about what Geo and Bullet say it could be good for the league but ehh...... Nice choices wolfie and my vote goes for either considering I might just give up the league entirely.. but yeah good luck all of you and
Edit
---------------
And Also a weekend league would be good but the Server would become a ghost town the weekdays We thrive off the league battles it keeps us all pumped and entertained and the weekends are fun just on their own

[N8theGr8]

Just a reminder, automods are only going to kick people if they're spamming, and the smarter trolls out there aren't going to spam, they're just going to try and annoy the living shit out of us.

[Miss Kitty]

... It's only late at night anyways. So don't come on if you don't like it. >.> It's that simple. Does nobody like to use their common sense? Or has that been lost generations ago?

[Mashew]

I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of arguing and sadness an storming off Nowadays >> But thats jsut a feeling and Kitty we do have common sense but we do like the server and talking to our friends thats WHY we stay on late >>

[Miss Kitty]

I don't plan on arguing a lot. Nor do I even want to argue. But you people are making it difficult. These things usually happen VERY late at night. After the league. Like at 4am. And you children should be in bed. >.> It's either when it's very late, or when Beta crashes. I'm trying to make things work, and you people won't just sit there and SHUT UP for two seconds to look at things from a different angle. Sorry I don't have a pretty little wand to wave to make everything better. >.> I'm REALLY not trying to be mean, or anything. I'm just tired of you people rising against what we're doing.

[N8theGr8]

Well, that was a bit harsh...we're only trying to make it easier on you guys so you don't have to be here as often...

Just because you're not trying to be mean doesn't mean you're not coming off as mean...

[Mashew]

I agree with N8 we are trying to be nice and take some stress off and it seems you two dont like it or something >>....... I know you didnt mean to be mean but it came off very meanish....... But that isnt your fault jsut the wording

Edit
-----------------------
I'm following the rules lol

Kitty Maybe we should have a weekend league it lets you and Wolfie have the weekdys o yourselves but then again the server would be dead mmm I think your health comes before the league so Ill vote for weekend I suppose lol jsut for you Kit Kat and Wolfie

[Bullet]

I think that you're just making Kitty be hard on herself...
She's trying her best, and is obviously stressed. I think she just needs to be alone (possibly with Ame) for a little while, which may possible explain why Ame is so late.....

[Geo]

[quote name='Bullet' post='3187' date='Aug 17 2010, 10:17 PM']I think that you're just making Kitty be hard on herself...
She's trying her best, and is obviously stressed. I think she just needs to be alone (possibly with Ame) for a little while, which may possible explain why Ame is so late.....[/quote]
pretty much.

[N8theGr8]

Agreed. You two take your time.

[Amethyst]

Sorry about last night, everyone. Thanks for understanding... Normal timing tonight- I think we're feeling a bit better. Stress is kinda rampant what with school starting soon, but let's power through it.
I say to myself.

[Ninpen]

Take it easy, Ame. My school starts in 5 days, have a test in a week.
We'll be here when you have stuff straightened out.

[N8theGr8]

Like I said, take your time. We can wait.

...Although we do love ripping into you when you're late, but that's what friends do, right?

[Mashew]

lOl that's what we do n8 and I agree with him tsk your time try to relax take some stress off and calm down lol