Yearbook, faceclaims etc on OOC Questions and Comments

Chairs

March 28, 2017 8:57 PM

Changes to site structure by Chairs

Hi all,

Following discussion in the staff chatzy, a new structure has been decided upon for Sonora. These changes aim to ensure that responsibilities are shared out between more people, and to give us a clear structure for any problems. Hopefully this will see the site running more smoothly. Please let us know if you have any suggestions or concerns - input from everyone is always appreciated, as this site belongs to each author as much as the next.

The official structure is now as follows:

Admins:
DH Skies: miscellaneous - some previous duties may be overtaken by new joint role (see below)
Nathan Xavier: Webmaster
Isis Carter: Schedules
Mortimer Brockert: Sorting, and IC Headmaster duties

Furthermore, we are introducing the role of chatzy chairs. These will be DH Skies, Isis Carter, and Rory Taransay. Their role will be to oversee discussions in both the student and the staff chatzys, dealing with any problems and summing up decisions when whole group decisions need to be made. They will also be on hand to deal with any complaints or problems that arise throughout the site. They can be reached at sonorachairs@gmail.com.

Please remember that the http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=226297;article=13497;title=Questions%20and%20Comments”>chatzy rules were updated last year, and that - although we do have moderators - we ask everyone to take responsibility in keeping the chat pleasant, and resolving their own disputes. Moderators are there as a last resort.

Finally, we’d like to inform everyone that the positions of DADA professors and librarian are open. These are core roles which are a priority for us to fill. We are also interested in finding a new groundskeeper, having a counsellor and having elective subject teachers (e.g. astronomy, divination, muggle studies). If you feel inspired to create another character, and want to join in with the running of Sonora, please apply! Staff duties include regularly posting classes/staff posts, and being part of discussions regarding the everyday upkeep of Sonora, as well as the chance to be involved in planning new ideas, and sometimes to take on further responsibilities.

Subthreads:

Yearbook, faceclaims etc by Chairs with DH Skies, Brockerts, Nathan, et al, Louis Valois et al

PS by DH Skies

0 Chairs Changes to site structure 0 Chairs 1 5

Chairs

March 28, 2017 8:59 PM

Yearbook, faceclaims etc by Chairs

Amelle has left Sonora. The yearbook was a voluntary project run by her, and so this means there will be some changes, unless anyone wishes to pick it up as a project (this may involve doing so from scratch, though we will ask for handover if anyone is keen).

We’re looking at incorporating pictures into the new profiles or the student list as a bare minimum, and possibly finding other features to replace the yearbook (e.g. OOC awards such as ‘frequent poster’ to appear on profiles or in a ‘hall of fame’). Whilst we work on that, we wanted to ask your opinions on faceclaims. Recently rules have been changed on this (e.g. posting requirements) or requests have been made and denied by Amelle (e.g. re-using old faceclaims). We prefer decisions to be made by everyone at the site, as they affect everyone using it. These two questions are hereby open for discussion, along with any other thoughts/feedback people have on the subject of yearbooks/student awards/face claims. Whilst chatzy is the best medium for live discussion, please take a note/screenshot of any discussions that take place, as things tend to get pushed out before everyone can see them. You can also post your opinions below this.

0 Chairs Yearbook, faceclaims etc 0 Chairs 0 5

DH Skies

March 28, 2017 9:01 PM

PS by DH Skies

The position of librarian is being covered for this term, and sign ups will be posted at the end of the week, so library monitors, there is no need to panic.

13 DH Skies PS 26 DH Skies 0 5

DH Skies

March 28, 2017 9:12 PM

Opinion by DH Skies

With faceclaims, I think it would be weird to have two people in school at the same time with the same face but I would be open to:

Re-using any claims of characters who don’t finish
Re-using ones who have been gone a certain amount of time

There’s a bunch of minor details we overlook to make reality make cohesive sense. I don’t see why this shouldn’t be one of them. It’s not like anyone’s going to break the fourth wall by having someone flip through the yearbooks and see that these two people have EXACTLY THE SAME FACE and coming up with a time-travel conspiracy. We’re all smarter than that.

To a certain extent, I thought the posting requirements were a good rule. It definitely pushed people to post last year. However, there were a couple of problems I saw with it.

The law of unintended consequences.
It’s always hard to predict how these things will pan out in a system as complex as Sonora. My problem with prioritising sheer number of new threads is that’s not the only thing of value. Committing to a long thread and giving lots of replies, or writing posts in length and detail are both equally valuable and potentially pushed aside. We already see most threads stopped before a conversation reaches its natural end, and I can’t help but feel this exacerbates that problem.

2) Carrots instead of sticks
I’ve always been more of a fan of rewarding what people are doing well than punishing the bad. You could say being included in the yearbook was a reward but as it was something that we’d always had that authors suddenly faced being excluded from if they didn’t do well. I’d rather have a positive system.

This brings me to the above mentioned idea of author awards. These would be things like ‘frequent poster’ but also awards that reflect posting in a long thread, posting in detail, or whatever other aspects of writing people think should be recognised. If people are in favour of this idea, we can try to work out more details. It might be possible that it replaces the yearbook for a time, as this will take some work to get off the ground.

13 DH Skies Opinion 26 DH Skies 0 5

Brockerts

March 28, 2017 9:19 PM

My thoughts by Brockerts

I suggest getting rid of the one about how many posts you have to do to claim a face but NOT allowing people to reuse old face claims. I'd rather not have people take away ones I've been using since the site started.

Also, what do people think about claiming faces for periphs? I have a lot of them.

For student awards, what about doing what was done at Salem and just coming up with like awards for those graduating?

Also, I was thinking for advertising maybe it would encourage people to do it if there was like an Advertising Hall of Fame and the person who does the most reviews gets like listed on it.

11 Brockerts My thoughts 0 Brockerts 0 5

Nathan, et al

March 28, 2017 9:52 PM

Opinions by Nathan, et al

1) Yearbook: If nobody else claims it, and everyone doesn't mind waiting a term or two until I get other site stuff working on the new server, as well as getting profiles going, I can incorporate a yearbook thing into the site itself.

2) Posting Requirements: I don't mind a posting requirement for face claims, if only so someone doesn't claim a face and then disappear entirely after midterm. Just one post per term would satisfy that. But I'm not against a larger requirement because it did encourage some more neglected characters to get more face time.

3) Re-Using Old Claims: I'm with Selina in thinking that claims of students who did not graduate or graduated more than, for example, 10 terms ago, should be available to be reused. I'm not against people who do care and are still around reserving the right not to release theirs, but I, for one, don't care at all since actors often play multiple roles (sometimes even in the same universe) without it being a problem, and my character's grown-up faces are not necessarily the same person as their kid faces anyway.

4) Posting Award System: Sounds cool, I'm for it.

1 Nathan, et al Opinions 28 Nathan, et al 0 5

Nathan

March 28, 2017 10:00 PM

Re: My thoughts by Nathan

I'm not against claiming faces for periphs, however, that's going to put dibs on a lot more people if it is used heavily, so if we do allow periph claims, I think we'd have to allow multiple characters to have the same claim, so long as no current students have the same one (except in the case of identical twins).

Thumbs up to Advertising Awards.

I've forgotten what the Salem awards were. Was that something some or all graduates received from the staff at the Good Bye Feast/End of Year Event?

1 Nathan Re: My thoughts 28 Nathan 0 5

Brockerts

March 28, 2017 10:05 PM

Well then... by Brockerts

I change my mind on the periphs thing because I DO NOT WANT multiple people having the same claim AT ALL (other than identical twins)

Thanks.

And yeah, that was it. Except we'd do them at the Midsummer event.

11 Brockerts Well then... 0 Brockerts 0 5

Newells, etc.

March 28, 2017 11:20 PM

Mine too by Newells, etc.

I agree with everything Nathan said. I am especially interested in emphasizing part of his 3rd point: authors should be allowed to choose to release theirs or not. It could be easily noted on a list by putting an asterick by the name or something to denote that they're not open to reuse.

0 Newells, etc. Mine too 0 Newells, etc. 0 5

Brockerts

March 28, 2017 11:36 PM

Compromise by Brockerts

How about reusing the ones from the actor/model already taken list/ ones that didn't finish (except younger versions of people who did cuz I had like multiple pics of a couple of mine) but not the alumni at all?

11 Brockerts Compromise 0 Brockerts 0 5

Louis Valois et al

March 29, 2017 4:07 AM

Adding my thoughts by Louis Valois et al

I've just been reading through the comments, and everyone seems to have some really great points. Let me add my thoughts in a hopefully coherent fashion:

1)Yearbooks: incorporating these into the site sounds like a great idea, if that would be possible, and I'd be happy to wait for it. I also really like the idea of adding rewards for frequent posters, people who do long threads, those who advertise a lot (great suggestion there), etc.

2) I would like us to take the opportunity to change the yearbook rules a bit. I think posting requirements as a basic idea are good, as it helps ensure characters aren't neglected, but we could definitely make these easier (such as two posts/one long thread per midterm). I agree with DH Skies's positivity point. Another rule I would like to see change is the supplying of photos. I know some authors have a certain idea of how their character looks that goes beyond the face claim (hairstyle, hair colour etc), and so long as the photos look realistically like the age they are meant to be, I think we should be able to submit our own photos if we want to. It would surely make things easier for whoever would have to find photos, too!

3) As for reusing faceclaims, I don't see why long-gone authors should have the right to reserve their faceclaims if someone else wants them. That being said, I agree that active authors should have the right to reserve their faceclaims for as long as they want. Also I do like the idea of periph faceclaims (I have a lot of unofficial ones!) but in reality I think that would get too complex, and restrict those looking for Sonora student faceclaims.

9 Louis Valois et al Adding my thoughts 314 Louis Valois et al 0 5

Brockerts

March 29, 2017 4:30 AM

Agreed... by Brockerts

about the posting requirements. I feel like last year when we had to do so many, I neglected replies.

However, with regards to the long gone authors, sometimes people come back though.

11 Brockerts Agreed... 0 Brockerts 0 5

Jen White

April 02, 2017 11:41 AM

Returning author by Jen White

As one of the returning authors mentioned - it has been over 10 IC terms since my last character graduated - I thought I might as well add my opinions. This is sort of rambling, so keep with me if you can.

In my opinion, face claims should not be considered as anything more than a basic and rough pictorial presentation to make writing tools like journals, profiles, etc. more visually appealing. The more we rely on photos, the less we rely on writing, and as this is a creative writing site, I feel that's where the focus should lie. Having said that, I do accept that having the same faceclaim for multiple characters in the same school could be confusing.

I also feel, however, that the author should be in charge of choosing the face for their character. This will, in some circumstances, help a more accurate representation to be found, and may also reduce instances of multiple pictures if same faceclaims are made. Consider, for example, an actress with or without make/up, with long or short hair, with blonde or brown hair - the author is the person best placed to select the picture. With that in mind, if two authors want to use entirely different images of the same celebrity I don't see an issue with that, providing both the authors in question are amenable. However I appreciate that might be further complicating an already not so simple conundrum.

Concerning using pictures of characters that have graduated, or the author leaves and then returns (like me), I certainly don't mind if people would have used the same photos in my absence. It's hard to find character likenesses, in my experience, and being limited by characters that were written years ago, or who didn't even make it past second year, would be annoying. In short: I'm all for reusing faceclaims.

I appreciate that some authors may not share my opinion, and would prefer to keep their own pictures exclusively for their character. While I understand that it could be jarring to see the same RL person used for a character who is not yours, I think we need to remember that we do not own any of these RL people, or their photos, and that we are only borrowing these pictures temporarily for characters that exist in our writings regardless of a chosen RL representative. Perhaps it may be feasible to state explicitly you require an exclusive claim, on an opt-in basis, with all other claims assumed to be automatically fair game for anyone else to use.

Peripheral characters should not, I feel, have official claims, merely because they will not be featured in the yearbook or on student profiles and so claiming them seems like an unnecessary kerfuffle.

I don't know what posting minimums are in place to be awarded a place in the yearbook, but two threads per midterm seems reasonable to me to be considered active (but I haven't been here for a while so feel free to disagree on this point, as well as any others I have made or am yet to make). Also rewarding authors with recognition seems a good idea.

I like the sound of having the yearbook be integrated more into the site (while I'm here, just mentioning that lots of the links onsite are broken and/or outdated, which is probably very confusing for newcomers).

I recall doing yearbook surveys every year was exhausting. If that is still a thing, I fully advocate just doing awards for the graduating year.

Um, that's all I can think of right now. Thanks for sticking with me folks.

0 Jen White Returning author 388 Jen White 0 5

Selina

April 03, 2017 8:52 PM

Any more returners? by Selina

Thanks for the input, Jen. It's good to know that as a returning author you wouldn't have found that upsetting or off-putting. If there are any other returning authors who would like to voice their opinion, especially if it differs?

I also can see 'opt in' rather than 'opt out' having merits. Anyone who is very passive or not really feeling strongly about this argument may well never bother to say 'yes, it's fine, reuse mine' which means they're keeping hold of faceclaims without really caring either way. I think that, in the first instance, an email would go out to all authors prompting them to answer one way or another. It's probably best if silence on the matter (after a decent amount of time to respond) is taken as a 'no opinion/you can release them' rather than meaning their faceclaims stay in limbo.

13 Selina Any more returners? 26 Selina 0 5

Brockerts

April 04, 2017 11:56 AM

Not one but.. by Brockerts

I fully agree about yearbook surveys being exhausting.

11 Brockerts Not one but.. 0 Brockerts 0 5