Past and Future Hatchings

[Clancey]

Hello!

Just some notes about the future of goldriders and Hatchings.

- Firstly, we know there have been two Hatchings missed due to the members in questions being on extended LOAs. We are sorry for that! We are currently working on a policy to prevent that from happening in the future. Your patience and activity despite that is MUCH appreciated. Also, once we talk to the goldriders in question, we will be publishing an updated Hatching schedule for 2010.

- Second, if you wanted to Impress in either of those two Hatchings and do not want to wait until the next one, please let us know. If we have enough interest, we will look at doing an "NPC Clutch". Post back to this topic or send us an email!  

However, if you don't mind waiting until the next Hatching, that is fine, just keep posting away. Also, If your Candidate wants to transfer to RBW for the December Hatching, you may do so with both a very good IC reason and permission from the L1s involved.

Thank you to all of you for your patience and posting. The policy we are working on will prevent this from ever happening again!

Thank you!
The Council

[Jane]

If you guys have been advised they're on LOA, would it be possible for you pop a note on the LOA forum on their behalf?  That way we'd know why things weren't happening or emails/coposts weren't getting answered.

[Eimi]

Well, unfortunately Jane, that has been part of the problem.  There have been times when we also don't know that someone is LOA, or when we have been told that they are working on it only for nothing to happen in the end.  Probably in most cases there are some real life reasons that have caused the situation, but we're working on a policy to make sure that, no matter what happens that might prevent a member from writing their posts, the Flight/Hatching/Clutch will not be missed entirely.

[Jane]

Perhaps the Council could post 'EA' notices instead of LOAs for people who disappear ... effective abandonment.  :geek:

[Eimi]

I want to make it clear that the Council is not laying blame on ANY of our goldriders who have missed their scheduled posts.  We understand that there are some serious issues popping up in people's lives right now.  There are things that are out of a member's control - health issues, financial issues, family issues.  These are real life issues, and this is only a game.  Real life should ALWAYS take precedence over Triad.  The Council understands and supports that.

What we are trying to do is not to blame anyone or accuse anyone in any way.  We are making a policy of the COUNCIL's own behavior, how we handle the situation, how we pick up the slack, and how we can make things as fair for all the members as possible.

[Amanda N]

I understand that this is only a game and yes, definitely real life should come first, but an email or a post to the forums doesn't take more than a couple of minutes and it would just be really helpful to know this person hasn't just abandoned the club or disappeared. It's also nice to know this person hasn't been tragically hurt (which I hope isn't the case for ANYONE!)...because to be honest, I worry about that more than anything else when someone just up and disappears.  That's one of the things I'm worried about Ainsley...I just can't help imagining what horrible things might have happened. :(

Is there a policy in place for when someone doesn't respond to emails?  If a person who has a goldrider doesn't post or respond in say...two months, what's done then?  What about four?  Six?  What about for other positions like Weyrleader or Lord Holder?  It's hard sometimes to play in areas where the L1s and/or L2s aren't posting.

Seriously, though, I hope the issues people are having get resolved soon.  I much rather have people missing because of good things rather than bad. :(

[Eimi]

There does come a point when the Council does encourage the member to step down, yes.  But I can't tell you where that point is.  It's taken on a case by case basis.  We consider what is happening in the member's life at the time, the possibility that it would get better, whether or not the member is responding to the Council's e-mails, and of course there is the timing issue.  For example, if a member has a close family member who is critically ill and they are feeling a lot of pressure and stress, the last thing they need is a letter saying "Hey, make reqs or your out".    It's much easier if the member is just bored with the club or has other stuff they're interested in.  Then we can easily send them a nudge and say "Hey, don't you think it's time...".  But we do want to take into consideration what is best for the member since, let's face it, we're all friends.  How would you treat your friends in the situation?  How would you want to be treated?

I know it can be frustrating, but you can keep going even if the L1 or L2 of an area is not responding to e-mails.  If you have a SL you want to play and you want the L1s permission, if they don't respond, send it to the Council.  We can also give permission for SLs in the absence of an L1.

Anyway, we will let you know soon what we come up with as far as the Council's policy on missed Flight/Clutching/Hatching posts.

[Amanda N]

Hey Eimi, I didn't mean to sound like I thought everyone should be kicked out - I'm certainly sorry if I did, that was not my intent!  Certainly if a person's got something like that going on, then it's understandable why they don't respond.  At the same time, I would assume that you've received notice from them regarding the situation.  My question wasn't regarding that type of situation but a situation where a person just disappears with no notice and no reason and then doesn't respond to emails. How is the situation handled in that case?  

Thanks for letting me know about the storyline.  I'll keep that in mind if I have a plot that comes to mind.

[Jane]

Since it's sort of related, when it the point where characters and membership is 'put into storage' (the inactive settings on the webpages).  Is it missing one roll call, or two, or a year's worth?  Are there scheduled times for roll calls?

I notice it particularly in the flight lists and birthday lists! LOL  Most of the people on each have long abandoned (i.e., not advised anyone they're leaving) the club but their membership and characters are still appearing in lists.  It also gives us a huge (and not very useful) membership list.

[Clancey]

Amanda - those situations are on a case by case too...  sometimes they come back, (like me) sometimes we do find out.... mostly we try to handle each one as it comes up.  We don't always know what or why when folks just disappear or stop posting or answering emails... either for tough RL reasons or no reason...  :(   Our emails go unanswered too.  We try though to do what we can when we do figure things out.  Only ranking personas have to post, and the LOA policy handles those for the most part.  At least that is the policy we use when talking to absentee members.  But even then we do always try to give the member as much leeway as is reasonable and possible... (they let me come back! LOL)... For non-ranking personas, lately we have started sending out "Hey! how are you? Whats going on with ya? We miss ya!" emails, so that is helping us keep things on track

Jane.. as far as roll calls and people on lists, I'll have to check with the Webbies, but as far as I know at this moment, there is no way to take Inactive people out of the flight lists...  other than when you generate Flights, you just don't "check" them to get their next Flight but as far as I can remember that does not remove them.

For Roll Calls, yes we are supposed to have them certain times a year.   That is my job, and I apologize, but I am quite behind on it. The last one was in spring.  Usually at a roll call, if you don't answer 1, we move you from the main member list to inactive member.   But I know I am behind on that too.   Some people change from member or ask to stay on the list, so we leave them, even though they aren't posting and don't have personas.  Lurkers essentially.   With so much else going on, that sort of fell off my radar.  I'll check with the Council, but normally we try to run a roll call at the beginning of each year, so we may wait until then to do another one.

[Eimi]

Just to add to what Clancey said:

Actually, there have been very few cases for a L1 or L2 persona's writer to just disappear without giving us some kind of warning.  I suppose we have been lucky in that regard.  Usually, if they have stopped replying to e-mails we will give them a deadline.  If we don't hear from them by that point, then we do assume that they will not be able to continue and decide what to do with their personas and storylines from there.  In the case where a member does just decide to disappear with no warning and no apparent reason, we are usually not very lenient in those cases.

And don't worry, Amanda, I didn't take it as you saying you thought everyone should be kicked out.  I was just trying to say that there's no one policy I can tell you.  We take it on a case by case basis, and it depends a lot on what is happening in that member's life.

Jane as far as the roll call, we try to have one twice a year, once in January and once in June (or there abouts).  If a member does not respond, they are assumed to be inactive and their personas are either put up for adoption or archived along with the member sheet.  Sometimes, though, a member will respond to the roll call, but it does not necessarily mean they are planning to actively post.  It just means they want to still be part of the club.  Since non-ranking personas, and personas who are reqs-free are not required to post each month, they could just respond to the roll call indefinitely without doing anything else.  

And both archived personas and members still show up on the newsletter.  It's something that we've been aware of, but it's fairly far down on our list of things to do on the site, unfortunately.

[Amanda N]

If you guys need any help with the site, let me know.  Kurt can help too.

[Jane]

Actually, there have been very few cases for a L1 or L2 persona's writer to just disappear without giving us some kind of warning.

I think there's a difference here between what the Council know and what the Club knows.  Which is bringing me back to my suggestion that the Council could write up LOAs for people who are missing. We don't need details or anything, just "XXX will be away until further notice" is fine.  Then we know to write around them for as long as it takes - and to not pester them with emails.

[Eimi]

Often times after the Council talks to them they post their own LOA/LIA notice, or they've already posted one before Council gets more details.  But I don't see why we couldn't post it for a member as long as they give us their permission and haven't done so already.  We will certainly talk about that.

[Chelle]

so maybe Im missing here but I was reading this and thinking to myself-what did the policy end up being ie: when someone does miss a flight/clutch/hatching which did happen again this year?