OOC Seminar: Plots, FCs, Logs!
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Who: Everyone
What: Seminar about logs (submit them! Go do it!), FCs (apply for
one! Go do it!), plots (make some up! go do it!)
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Vincent nods.

Pixie says, "We'll give people about 3 or 4 more minutes to get here, then dig
in. My agenda is not that long, so there should be plenty of time for people
to raise their own issues without this dragging on forever."

Scott says "Hello, everyone."

Naga curls up and hisses at the late arrivals.

Christy looks repentant.

Vincent lights Christy on fire.

Lucius toasts marshmallows.

You say "All righty. Let's jump in. There's 3 topics, so I think I'll just go
over them one at a time and people can raise issues about each one when we
start to wrap that one up."

You say "Ok. The first topic is FCs, since that's the one I have the last to
say about. Basically: FCs. We have a lot around, yay. Feel free to arrange
RP with the FCs. A lot of them do try to come out in public, but even if
they're not, they should all be agreeable to meeting for a scene if you come
up with a decent reason for your characters to run into one another. But do
please keep in mind the ICness of it all. If your character is a Gryffindor
first year, Snape is probably going to be mean to you. If your character is
a Hufflepuff first year, Harry probably doesn't really care who you are, but
he'll at least try to be polite if you don't creep him out. So in other
words -- the FC in question may be rude to you ICly. And we're not going to
fault them for that. They should, however, be civil OOCly, so don't be
afraid of them."

Pixie says "That's really all I had to say on the subject of FCs other than to
remind people to apply for one if you want them. We have some open at the
moment that I'm sure will go fast. Did anyone else have anything they wanted
to say? Questions to ask? "

Pixie says, "Anyone? Anyone? All right then. Moving on. If you think of
something, speak up."

Pixie says, "The subject of plots and logs go somewhat hand in hand. I'll
start with plots."

Tengu unidles. Poor Pixie. Forced to ramble on and on with no questions. :)

Sprout says "She's just so succinct and informative!"

Ariadne nods in agreement.

Vincent blinks at Sprout using big words.

Lucius pats Vincent on the head. "There, there."

Pixie says, "Plots: We've heard some chatter that people are 'bored' and that
there's 'nothing going on'. So we wanted to clear something up: The admins,
with the help of the plot committee, do their best to keep a continuing,
overarching plot to the game. A backbone. But no plot can be all action and
excitement all the time; there must be a period of buildup and a period
where not everyone will really be ICly affected. Does this mean there is
nothing going on? Not at all."

Sprout smiles. "That's what comes of a liberal arts education."

Ariadne nods, "Big words and a lot of information that no one will ever ask
you about." :)

Pixie continues, "Now, to address the issue of boredom, it is not and never
/has/ been the job of the admins and the plot committee to make sure you're
all amused. We make efforts to provide activities for you all. But for the
regular day to day entertainment of the characters, it is really up to all
of you to come up with your own ideas. You don't need to be spoonfed ideas.
You've all got great ideas of your own. We highly /highly/ encourage people
to submit their own individual plots to the 'plots' alias. I know some
people have felt discouraged from doing this because they feel we're picky,
or they're afraid we won't allow it."

Pixie says, "Picky we may be, a bit. But that's not a bad thing. We want to
make sure that there's internal continuity to the game. That X can't do what
we told Y wasn't possible. We want to make sure that people have fully
considered the ramifications of their plots. We want to be sure that they're
reasonable for the characters involved. But most of all, we want you to be
able to do them. We are totally willing to work with people to make things
happen. If you have an idea, talk to us, and probably it can happen in some
form or another. We /don't/ reject things out of hand just because they
aren't something we would ever think of or because we dislike them. If it
seems reasonable ICly, we will okay it."

Pixie says, "Okay. Now -- that's more or less what I wanted to say about plots
to start with. Are there any questions here?"

Viviane says "Can I make a comment?"

Lucius eyes Potter.

Tengu says "Look, Pixie, a question!"

Vincent cracks his knuckles.

Harry skulks in. "Don't mind me."

Ariadne shakes her head, "Comment it sounds like to me Tengu."

Black joins a Tardy Club with Harry.

Tengu says "IT had a question mark on the end, didn't it? :)"

You say "Vivi, go. :)"

Viviane says "I like what you said about the Admins not entertaining us. I
feel that establishing ic relationships, whether they are friends, enemies,
or rivals is a fabulous way to get involved here. The more characters your
character interacts with consistently, the deeper the rp :)"

Ariadne shrugs and admits, "Point made." ;)

Pixie makes no comments on whether Black and Harry are tards.

Lucius coughchokes.

Naga baps Lucius with her tail.

Viviane says "Choke on your cane Lucius."

Lucius says "I beg your pardon?"

Vincent attacks weakness, kills Lucy.

Lucius says "In your fantasies, boy."

Viviane says "Mr. Meanie"

You say "Hey now! Save the killing until after I'm done talking."

Black curls up in a corner and falls asleep.

Harry awws.

Lucius ahems.

Pixie says, "So, any other comments? If you're having significant trouble
finding interesting RP, come and talk to us and we'll see if we have any
suggestions. We don't /want/ people to be bored."

Pixie says, "Okay! Moving on then. Logs. Logs. Everyone's favorite thing."

Pixie says, "I know there've been complaints about these too. And I also know
there's a significant portion of the game's population who never submits any
logs of their RP at all. Now... we can't force you to do it. And I can
totally understand why it doesn't happen. I'm terrible about editing my own
logs and sending them in. It's not a fun task."

Viviane says "Complaints about what?"

Bradford sits and puts on a strange contraption. o_o

Sprout eyes the contraption?

Bradford has on a nice contraption.At least he seems to look pleased about it.
Ah the joys of enhancing hearing to make out some speech better over other
sounds.

Pixie says, "But that said, it's extremely valuable for you to do so. At least
one admin reads every single log that's sent in, which means that when
you've sent in your log, the admins are then somewhat aware of what your
character has been doing, who they're hanging out with and how they're
behaving recently. Which means that when we need something to happen -- your
character may spring to mind as perfectly poised to do it/have it happen to
them/be somehow involved. Because we have a lot of players, it's hard for us
to otherwise keep on top of everyone's doings. If you don't submit logs, we
may have no clue what's going on with your char or even if you're RPing at
all."

Pixie says, "The one complaint we've heard, Vivi, is mostly the 'too picky'
thing again. And we know this is an ongoing thing. We really try not to be
too picky. When we send a log back or ask for a modification to a pose it
may seem pointless to you, but we /do/ have a reason for it. Most often our
reasons for asking for modification are because a character has said
something which makes them look kind of dumb. They should have known X fact,
but their statement ICly makes it look like they didn't. Or else some fact
of book canon or game canon has been contradicted."

Pixie says, "A lot of times, things come up in logs which the admins never
decided on or thought about, and so we have to have a debate on the subject.
A large number of interesting points have come up this way."

Sprout has been asked to correct some missing poses from her logs, too. Where
if I didn't, the continuity wouldn't be right.

Pixie nods. Well, missing poses are a reason for asking for revision that I
don't think anyone would argue with.

Tengu says "Ph34r our canon knowledge! 2 years of digging through the books
for every nitpicky detail will adequately prepare you to be on Beat the
Geeks. As the Geek. :)"

Pixie hehs.

Jude says "And when Vince suggested having the muggle performer Tom Riddle at
Draco's bachelor party, the admins are the ones who told us it was illegal-
and suggested that the party get busted. >)"

Harry says "And hilarity ensued?"

Vincent eyes Jude, "I suggested nothing!"

Jude says "Something like that. DON'T LIE, VINCE."

Vincent says "You can't prove it. ;)"

Christy oooohs. The Slytherin motto!

Pixie says, "I know there are points where our interpretation of canon does
differ from our players'. Unfortunately, that's just going to happen
sometimes, since JKR hasn't been clear on a lot of points. We do our best to
make decisions that we feel will make things more RPable."

Roderick says "'hasn't been clear' is an astonishing understatement. ;)"

Lucius agrees.

Vincent nods, "We don't know if Crabbe can talk or not!"

Hermione says "*Some* central authority has to make those kinds of decisions,
after all - or 'canon' would end up referring to a varied collection of
widely-believed 'facts'. ^^;"

Pixie says, "So... are there any thoughts or feelings on this point? Do people
have suggestions for how we could make log submission less of an arduous
process? I will state up front that we will -not- be moving to a format
where logs are immediately posted on the site for all to see. It's an invite
to spammers, for one. Yahoogroups is rife with them."

Black says "Yea, some of you are under the delusion that Snape is cool!"

Sprout says "Now, now, Sirius."

Viviane says "He is"

Vincent siighs, agrees with Black, "Though, last I checked you were dead
Black."

Selina says "He IS! In that "Utterly creepy and abusive" way of his, of
course."

You say "Of course he's cool. The dungeons are darn cold and the man wears
robes and underwear only."

Lucius says "And I was in Azkaban. o_o"

Paul says "He's feeling much better now, Vinnie?"

Black says "Ffft, never trust a death if you haven't personally kicked the
body."

Vincent wishes you were still there Lucy. ;)

Jude says "Maybe a committee like the plot committee could handle some logs?
So Naga doesn't have to do them all?"

Viviane says "Well as a suggestion, I have SimpleMu and it has gag features
for logs"

Naga doesn't do them all. :)

Naga has help.

Hermione says "Hm. I never felt that the log submission process was 'arduous,'
myself. The biggest pain I have is cleaning up and editing the logs before
posting, and that's entirely on my end anyway."

Pixie says, "We've considered that, Jude. (It's not just Naga -- all the
admins look at them, but it is Naga's primary responsibility). Our main
stumbling block there is that logs with issues tend to require discussion.
So it'd be like having a set of log admins. They'd not necessarily have
access to all of the discussions the admins have had on points... but it is
an idea that's come up."

Jude says "Maybe they could do nothing more than just skim the log and set
aside the ones that might require discussion."

Jude says "And then the admins handle it, if they wanted? I've never had a
problem cleaning up my own logs, but then I don't log much."

You say "That's possible. Sort of like the Patroni can do with apps."

You say "Well, that's another problem! What is up with all you people who
don't log everything? :) How can you remember everything your char has done?
Sheesh."

Vincent says "Logs are just the man's way of keepin me down!"

Jude says "I always forget! ^.^;"

Black logs everything. I'm just bad about editting them after. :}

Viviane says "I send in the log if the rp is intersting or funny. Sometimes
scenes just aren't log worthy :)"

Selina shrugs. "It's pretty easy for me, but then, I'm hard-wired to record
the written word. I forget things, but then, so would my char. (Plus space
is something of a premium.)

Ariadne sticks out her lower lip and looks at the ground.

Hermione is the same way as Black. Even if I'll never post something for some
reason, it almost always gets logged.

Tengu says "Even the worst, most boring rp session ever might include some bit
you've now established about your char. Like they like walnuts."

Vincent eyes Hermione.

Sprout agrees with Viviane's point. If a scene seems important or funny or
otherwise worthy of recording, I'll log it. If not so much, I'll not.

Lucius does the same thing.

Jude says "Everyone else is always logging, so I rarely do so >P"

Harry says "I log everything. And just about post everything, too."

Tengu says "I always start a log whenever I start rp. If I forget, then I will
almost always catch it when I go to turn the log off at the end and see it's
not on. Then I can /recall one."

Pixie can never tell from the start if something will be important, so just
logs everything by default. And when I go back through later, it usually
seems that it may as well be posted as not.

Harry logged every class he was ever in, etc.

Hermione has also found her absurd logging to be a lifesave to people who
*were* logging but whose connections died during the scene.

Pixie noddles.

Vincent backlogs important stuff.

Hermione says "Er, a lifesaver. Really."

Roderick grins. Listened, learned, thanks- must jet home.

Bradford doesn't log much at all because of hard driev space issues. he
usually ends up deleting logs that get over five megs. o_o

Tengu says "Logs don't take up that much space, Selina. Especially if you zip
them periodically. Text files zip /really/ compactly."

Harry says "Yeah, I have tons and they're still very small."

Jude backlogs if people ask. And only posts it if it's funny/important. There
are a few scenes that never got posted that I probably should have posted.

Tengu says "If you have a 5 meg log and zip it, it'll probably come down to 1
meg or less."

Paul says "Still huge, for certain computers. @;o)="

Tengu says "And if you submit it to the logs archive, then once it's posted
(be sure it has been) you could delete it. It'll be saved for posterity. :)"

Harry says "You could probably still send those in, Jude. I see old scenes
coming up from time to time. :)"

Hermione has a huge backlog of logs that she's slugging through, ironically
enough, some dating from a year ago IRL. o.o

Naga has sent in logs from up to six IRL months ago. :)

You say "Yeah, I just did that a couple months ago, Hermione. It was !fun. :)
But it's better to get them in."

Hermione says "Which brings up another point. The reason I have such a backlog
is that many (though not all) were scenes that I wasn't sure whether or not
someone else would be submitting. (The rest are a result of me being lazy.
^.^; )"

You say "But space issues -- I have all the logs from all my chars since I got
this computer on here. So 3 years worth of logging everything from mutiple
characters is under 10MB, zipped."

Bradford says "That's if you aren't restricted all the time. I have my own
reasons for trying to keep my memory in a certain condition. I don't want
the hassel of longer scanning times for one. And my last hard drive got
majorly damaged by something and was loosing storage ability left and right.
o_o Yeesh. So I don't feel that logging absolutely every scene I do is worth
the trouble. I could make notes or put it up on my spare LJ, but I wouldn't
try to keep them on my hard drive too long if they get to a certain size.
End of story. ... >_> That and my folks might yell at me for some of them."

Tengu says "Every computer has a floppy drive. Drop your logs onto a disk or
CD. I have some /really/ old logs on floppies somewhere."

Tengu says "Okay.. /most/ computers have floppy drives. :)"

Viviane raises her hand.

You say "Anyway, we can't make everyone log. But we highly encourage it."

You say "Vivi?"

Pixie says, "Hermione, I have that problem myself sometimes. There are certain
players whom I know will submit the log if I don't, so I get lazy if I RP
with them."

Viviane says "Look how appropriate I am rl :) But seriously, I was wondering
about updates. I know it's a bit of a hassle and I haven't done it myself
but wouldn't it be great if we did a push to get people to update their
ICinfo?"

Harry will always submit if he's in a scene with someone. :) Unless it's
Snape, then I get to be lazy. :)

Hermione thinks that's a good idea, Vivi.

Pixie coughnotes, in relation to that, the website /will/ be getting an update
now that I'm on vacation. I have everything that's been submitted for it
since oh... *whistles innocently* *mumbles*last January*mumble*

Viviane says "a rahh rahh go team go bb post about updating info to highlight
character's lives, accomplishments, and quirks"

Naga patpats Pix.

Vincent is always lazy, just to keep you people on their toes.

You say "I think Kirin might bbpost about that, since I believe she's going to
work on the game Chronology soon."

Sprout says "I have actually been working on the game Chrono, though it stil
requires more work."

Sprout says "Submitting stuff for alts and such."

Jude ohyeahs. "Old!Lucius said a while back that he was working on compling
Pureblood family information- did he hand that off to anyone?"

Bradford hates having only one computer that all five people in the house have
to use. >_< Argh. Oh yes, he can immagine buying a box of 1.44 disks to cram
logs onto. Pretty soon he'll be needing a shoebox to hold them. o_O Food. afk

Lucius says "The last time I spoke to Old!Lucius, he said he'd send it to me
and he never did."

Christy knows she sent information to Old!Lucius, should we just +mail what
Luci had sent us back?

Tengu says "There will be a news and +info update sometime after I get back
from my parents. Hopefully before my next class starts on the 5th. :)"

You say "Yeah. I was going to bbpost about that, but then Old!Lucius said he'd
send it along, so.. it got sidetracked. If people have information, go ahead
and send it along to 'admins' and we'll figure out somewhere to put it all."

Pixie will, at the very least, try exporting some family tree files from
Family Tree Maker so people can poke at them.

Black makes his own tree and blasts the Malfoys and Lestranges and all other
Blacks but him off it. Pencils Harry in.

Hermione would love to take a look at those, indeed, Pixie.

Christy thinks that sounds pretty neat, really.

Ariadne nods. Me too.

Lucius eyes Sirius.

Harry beams.

Vincent AKs Harry.

Lucius pays Vincent.

Pixie has a Weasley/Black/Malfoy tree at the moment, which we made when we
were trying to figure out how they were related. So I'll put some up for the
FCs too, probably.

Lucius has one in the new Clues from OotP book.

Sprout has seen that Black family tree on the HP Lexicon.

You say "Well, ours is the game canon one now, so may not be completely
identical to that one. But it should be identical to what was described in
OotP at least."

Lucius ahs.

You say "Anyhow. Were there any more questions on our official topics? :)"

Black says "My parents have names on the game. And they're not dead either. :)"

Harry says "Mine are. Sniff."

Black says "That's okay. I'm cooler than James anyway."

You say "Snape. Just in time for us to be done. :)"

Snape says "Gah. Forgot about the meeting. Mind like a sieve."

Sprout thought we fixed that, Severus.

Snape gives Sprout One Of THOSE Looks.

Viviane says "Can we all do it? Get it out of our systems?"
Viviane bothers Snape

Harry bother bother bother.

Black says "What'd I tell you about replacing your brain with a pensieve? Tsk."

Snape says "Oh no. Stop. Get off."

Lucius says "You didn't say that last night, Severus. ;)"

Christy giggles like a fiend.

Snape hmphs at Black "Yes, and look how well THAT turned out." *glares at
Harry*.

Harry says "Huh? What? :)"

Sprout says "Now look what you've done! you've made Harry swoon. Oh, there he
is again."

Hermione laughs.
Hermione says "We love you, Snape!"

Snape sidles over to Luscious. "Not in front of the children!"
Snape sidles over to Hermoany. "Not in front of the adults!"

Lucius snortsnickers.

Harry says "Did you sidle to me and I missed it? *pout*"

Snape says "You fainted."