Open Discussion on a Few Suggestions

Well lovelies, tis your humble admin Kiku here with a few suggestions and ideas that have been floating around the board for some time.

Since summer is almost upon me, I'll have more time to implement many of your suggestions (as well as get to various plot ideas you guys have been sending me <3). I'd love to start off with a ton of good energy, so please take some time to really let me, as well as the others on the board, know what you think of these ideas. You can make suggestions and other comments, just as long as they are constructive (no 'your idea is so unawesome!' please! D: )

Questions in bold are the ones I humbly beg for you to answer...so that both Arthur and myself can have a good idea of what you guys want. Please be as honest as you'd like, and know that neither Arthur nor myself are opposed to you guys criticizing us, what's happening, or even voicing your opinions (we love that...I mean, sharing our freedom of speech with everyone is totally heroic am I right? *shot*)

Just know, I love you guys and appreciate you immensely for taking the time to write down your ideas. If you feel uncomfortable answering these here on this thread, you can always, ALWAYS PM either myself or Arthur the answers to this. I always love your feedback, and your suggestions as an entire board never cease to blow me away <3

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1. New AUs - We've been compiling a master list of AU ideas, and I've been chucking random ideas at Arthur for some time. We wanted to wait until we were positive the AUs currently in place were established with some ideas and activity before introducing new ones (because flooding you guys is NOT COOL, but keeping you stuck with the same AUs is also NOT COOL). However, our biggest fear is that we'll just pile on too much (not necessarily for ourselves, but for you guys). But we also want to give new members a chance to jump into something new, and Arthur and I have been discussing, almost from the founding of the board, possibly introducing a new AU in the summertime.

We'd have a series of polls to vote on which AUs you guys would want to see. The first several polls would be to figure out the top 2 AUs you guys want, and then we'd either put up one or possibly two new ones (depending on how you guys feel and how Arthur and I feel we can work it out).

Would you guys be able to handle more AUs? Would you want more, or would you rather see the AUs we have now further developed and plotted out before we introduce new things?

2. Chats - You oldsters will know why we've been hesitant to implement a chat. Among the chief reasons of chats sometimes causing really bad fights and timezones keeping people from chatting with everyone, there's also the chance a chat could bring the focus away from the in-depth plotting and RPing we've been doing on the boards. (We've seen it happen...we're not just saying it y'know?)

However, not only are the chief problem children of the chat (chat squatters) gone, those of you who are here have shown Arthur and I that we might just be getting old and a little too comfortable without the noise and random parties a chat can bring. We don't want to penalize YOU guys for something you never did, rather, the lack of chat was our way of eliminating extra stress for ourselves.

Would you guys like to see a chat? In what format (e.g. Skype group, chat at the bottom of the board, other?) would you like to see? Would you prefer a permanent group chat, or various scheduled chat sessions, or both?

3. Theme music - Suggested by our lovely Emil, but something that Arthur and I (and surely more of you guys) have thought of on random occasion, the topic of 'theme music' has come up. The idea behind this would be that perhaps you guys have a particular set of songs that inspire you as you're writing for a RP, or songs that give you feels about something going on in an AU...or even something you just feel 'fits' the general vibe of the story.

If you've answered 'yeah, I've had that' or 'That would totally be interesting!' then keep reading! There would be a nice little place in the Plot Central Thread of each AU, where the members of each AU can post up links to various songs or videos that inspire feels for that particular AU. (Example: Listening to all of the Pirates of the Caribbean music always makes me inspired in the Seven Seas AU) This would NOT be something mandatory, rather, something fun and possibly inspiring for us all! You can listen to the music, or go about your RPing without it.

Please also let me know (if you are interested) in what form you'd like to see this done. Links can be the easiest, but they can load very slowly if you happen to have a slow connection or on a mobile device. Furthermore, links can also vary in whether they work or not depending on where you are in the world (or if you have an account with the place, that sort of thing). But that doesn't mean that if you guys want links, we can't do it that way. (It's one of the questions below, so feel free to just answer it there)

(Please correct me if I have left anything out of your idea of this suggestion, Emil D: I hope I did it right, if not, feel free to post and I'll edit stuff in ^_^)

Would this be a cool idea? Would you guys be on board? In what format (e.g. all links, a flash player, or just song titles/artists, etc.) would you guys find easiest or even want for this?

1) As a new member, I haven't really had time to settle into all the AUs I wanted yet. I know it's not mandatory to join EVERY single one, but I think I still have a lot of work to do establishing Antonio in the verses I've already joined before throwing him into another one. I don't know if I'd be able to handle another one for a couple more weeks, at least. That said, I think a new AU would be really fun to give all of us new people the same starting point as the veteran members. I'm still a fan of the Wingtalia idea, but it'd be cool to see what other people have come up with and vote on it all together. Personally, I'd love to see the X-verse get some more plot action before anything, but there's no reason a new AU couldn't get started this summer. Two new ones would probably be too much, but that's just my opinion.

2) I've always been a fan of chat boxes, personally. I feel like they help you get to know other members better outside of RPs (some people are too shy/busy to PM, I think) and are useful when you want to plot with more than one person. My favorite use of them is just random group shenanigans in-character to exercise the dynamics a little. I also know that they can be stages for drama, though. I think most of us on here are pretty mature and can play nice, but if it turns out to be a problem, maybe we can try a three-strikes, rule? I think people are more likely to behave if a chat box is treated like a privilege and not a right. As for type, I like a permanent chat box on the bottom of the board the best.

3) I've never had theme music for a forum before. Sounds cool! I wonder if we can have some kind of audio player like they do on tumblr so we wouldn't have to open more links...