entranceway | + Activity Check Revision 3 : Son of Activity Check Revision +

Hulloh

entranceway!

So Kristen just announced the results of the activity check, and I'm going to tell you about the final tweaks we made to our new rules. We've had a look at how the rules worked out in practice, and combined it with some of the feedback we received, and hopefully made some further improvements and adjustments.

You can find the complete and updated version of our ACTIVITY CHECK RULES HERE, which is where they'll always be for you to read, along with all relevant dates of the next activity check period. Take a moment to read through the page, it should give you all the information you need!

To break down the changes for you:

► We have removed the pacing requirement. We would still encourage you to spread your activity somewhat evenly across both months, but we will no longer strictly enforce it from the get-go. This change should hopefully alleviate some confusion about our actual requirements, and prevent the requirements from making the AC a constant and looming concern throughout both months.

► We have added a third form of open activity. Open threads, that is to say, top-level threads which take place in mingle logs (such as the Thanksgiving party, or catch-all logs for events) are now acceptable forms of activity as well. This change will provide another option to acquire part of the activity, and should especially help players who might have difficulty dealing with the volume or setting an open post entails.

► The minimum thread requirement is now more precise. Instead of 4-5 threads with 7-10 comments we now plain require 4 threads with 7 comments from your character, in order to pass the check. Supplements are still possible to an extent (please see the AC page for information on this), but we would like to establish a clearer minimum requirement, regardless of individual tag length or style.

► The requirements for people on hiatus have been clarified. We now have a clear chart that will tell you how much activity you need to supply, depending on the amount of time you officially declare hiatus. You can see this chart on the AC page.

To sum up the activity check in a very tiny nutshell,

For our bi-monthly activity check you are required to submit

► 1 OPEN POST (which may be an open log, transmission, or an open top-level thread in a mingle log) AND 4 THREADS with at least 7 COMMENTS BY YOUR CHARACTER, made in reply to other characters' posts.

► You have 2 months to acquire the necessary amount of activity, but must have all entries and threads started before the last week of the second month.

► Activity can be made in all of entranceway's communities, however it must be provided by your Real character, and does not include Mirror activity, or activity made in IC inboxes, private journals, memes, or museboxes.

We'll be glad to answer any questions you may have in this post, but please note that this version of the activity check is now final, and that there will be no further changes to the rules in the foreseeable future. Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day!

~Mouette

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Anything still unclear? Go ahead and ask us here!

YOU'RE PERFECT THIS IS PERFECT but just to be sure:

Are we able to use threads from closed logs that our character started if they meet the comment requirement?

Hulloh and thank you, happy to hear it! And yes, you are correct, closed logs that meet the comment requirements can be used towards the 4 thread count, regardless of which player was the one to start the log.

Beautiful, thank you so much!

I think this is better, but I admit I'm still not a fan of the activity requirements.

The thing I don't consider fair is that you treat the one post as one piece of activity. If you have one post you create and 10 different characters tag into it, and you're running threads with 10 people, why does this count as only one piece of activity? If the point is to pass people who are getting CR with lots of characters, doesn't this meet your requirement?

In my opinion, if you create a post that has one thread with someone, that should count as one, but any additional threads with other people/chars should count as additional forms of activity. Otherwise, some people really are doing far more than others when it comes to tagging.

People who rp popular characters are being punished in a way because they can't control how many people are actively seeking CR with them. Smaller/lesser known chars are getting off easy for only have 2-3 people tag into their posts, for example, as opposed to people who are having 10 people tag into their post. And yet this is all counted as 1 piece of activity, despite the obvious difference in the amount of work that's taking place.

This is just my feeling on the subject! I know others are happy with the requirements, but I view it as being skewed.

Are you allowed to put a cap/limit on the # of people who can respond to your post? Can you make a network post and say, this is only open to the first 3 participants? I know this sounds kind of jerky, but I think making open posts for some people is like throwing themselves in front of on-coming traffic.

Hulloh, and thanks for your comment!

I'll go ahead, and try to reply to the points you made one by one. First off, our main intention behind the open post requirement is not so much CR with lots of characters per se, but rather to give everyone playing in eway the same chance to easily interact with all the characters we have available.

Say you have a new character, or maybe you're even a new player, you're not on plurk, your timezone is weird, you missed a plotting post - all those things can make arranging threads tough, which is why we'd like to make sure that, at least every once in a while, it really is as simple as 'here is a character, go ahead and tag them'.

That is the sort of availability we would like to encourage, and while it is true that some posts garner more interest than others, we believe that by valuing them all the same we can in fact avoid punishing people, should their entry receive no comments at all. As you say, people can't control how many characters might respond to their post, and with our requirements we can reward a player's effort of putting themselves out there, regardless of the responses they may or may not receive.

Of course being flooded with comments can be a very legitimate concern, for popular and lesser known characters alike (as the subject matter of the post itself often does a great deal to determine how appealing it will be to the game at large), and if that is the case, then I can suggest, for example, to acquire your open activity requirement at the very beginning of the AC period, so that you have ample time to deal with the volume of comments your post receives. Alternatively, our third form of open activity tends to attract fewer comments as a whole, as such that would be another option to decrease the amount of tags you receive.

Finally, to answer your question, putting caps on the number of people who can respond to your post would essentially defeat the purpose of our open piece of activity, and as such we would not allow such posts to count for this portion of the activity requirement.

Lastly, the activity check in its current form will remain final, but we hope that we could at least shed some light on our reasoning for setting up the requirements in the way they are now. Thank you again for commenting, and have a good day!