New Global Channel: 'Announcements'. (Rules, Please read)
Many of us have a lot of channels running, usually in a window full of tabs, set to blink when something is said on them. Most of the channels have a specific purpose, but we also use them for random discussion and/or roleplay when theyre not being used in that way. (and sometimes even when they are!)
However, as a side effect (at least for me and I imagine for at least some of you as well) I find myself missing the important stuff because I've tuned out those blinking tabs after a while. This is not good, especially when I find I've missed out on some things like attacks on Harro and Dalimond.
So, after speaking with some of our community reps we've created a new channel, called 'Announcements' which is intended to be a channel that anyone who has anything of interest to announce, (An attack! a building project getting underway that needs more recruits, even a party planned for two days from now!) that it can be mentioned here for everyone to see, and not miss in the spam of the other channels.
Ok, on to the rules as I see them as being appropriate. Please feel free to comment and add/request changes at your discretion!
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The goal:
Simply put, to have -one- channel where anything important can be mentioned in a way that does not get lost in the chatter of the channel.
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The rules:
1) Posting on the channel is to be limited only to announcements. Try to keep them short and concise, yet detailed. (EG: announcing theres an attack, without announcing where, will only lead to people asking for more information!
2) Announcements should not be considered open for discussion. If you want to announce something AND discuss it, /please/ direct the discussion to a different channel as part of your announcement!
3) Dont spam the announcement. If the channel is kept clean you shouldn't have to! It's okay to repeat the announcement every so often, but not once every 30 seconds!
4) Please help to enforce the intent of this channel when you can by reminding anyone who is beginning to turn it into a chatter-zone that the entire point of this channel is silence, and to please take it to a different channel.
5) The channel is open to /everyone/ to announce anything of significance! But please bear in mind some announcements are probably better off being done elsewhere. (for example, announcing you just became an adult dragon, would be just fine, but then technically by the rules of the channel no one should be congratulating you ON that channel. It's not intended to be a channel for people to respond to announcements as that rapidly devolves into spam-chatter! If you wanted to announce such a thing here, you should then include as part of your announcement to congrat you over on the [insert name here] channel. :)
6) It is okay to ask for clarification of an announcement, (such as an attack that didnt include the location) but try to keep that dialog just as short and concise as possible, and not to let it devolve into spam.
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This is NOT going to be an easy channel to maintain by any means. We are all loving to chat and its very hard to keep things like this under control, but I think if we all work together on this that this channel could come in very useful for many different purposes and would help to prevent a lot of folks from missing out on things that were important due to the clutter of the other channels, and so I very politely and humbly ask that we all work together on this one channel to keep it to its intended goal.
