New Global Channel: 'Announcements'. (Rules, Please read)

[Bassalisk]

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.

[Delvie]

Great idea:)

[Pharcellus]

No room for another channel tab.

I would suggest using Marketplace for announcements, as it fits within the scope and intent of that channel, and doesn't require having to add another channel.

[Bassalisk]

Heh, it does for me, as I'm not on that channel. But, if that channel houses any other form of discussion it completely defeats the entire purpose of this channel, which would make the whole idea pointless in the first place.

[Pharcellus]

Well, I think the point of announcements is for as many people as possible to be informed of them as quickly as possible. Generally, people will go to the more populated rooms and make announcements. Having a very low-traffic room just for announcements seems like overkill, especially for people in our situation that have too many tabs as it is. In addition, many announcements tend to be very topic-oriented, and lend themselves to specific existing channels, like trade-related announcements for MP, dragon-related announcements for Dragon, community project announcements for WP, etc.

Anyway, it's an idea. We'll see how well it pans out. Good luck with it!

[Xorith]

No room for another channel? Tabs got you down? Are you feeling a little overburdened in the window department? Fret no more! ...

One thing I did to ease my pain was to set up a "Misc" tab. This doesn't have to be a tab, it can be any window. Once you've got your tab, here's how you make use of it:

Under the Chat Settings, click on the Player Channels tab. Either click the checkbox next to your desired channel, or click the plus button and type in the name of the channel. Next, to make things easier on you, double-click the white square on the line of the channel and change the color to something you can read and recognize. For announcements, I'd suggest a bright yellow.

Next, so you can more easily work with the channels in this new tab of yours, you can do this:

/alias <channel> chat <channel>

What I mean is this:

/alias announce chat announcements

Now whenever you do /announce <msg>, it'll go to the announcements channel.

Downfalls:

You can't see who's on the channels that are being directed to this window. I've not found any way to /chanwho a channel. Also, if you have, say, Dragon, Marketplace, General, Community, and Announcements going to the same window, you're more than likely going to miss things as the combination of all those channels will create a great deal of spam.

Alternate Method:

Already have a Community tab? All you have to do is click on that tab, then click on Chat Settings, and follow the same steps above. The result: Announcements are sent to the community tab.


I hope this helps :)


-- Valerith Kosmos

[Phaereana]

This sounds nifty, but I do have a question:

How does one know what the channel rules are if one doesn't access these message boards. Obviously, I know there are rules. ;) However, not everyone comes here.

Was there any progress on the idea that botted channels get stickied and that there be some sort of welcome message for each channel that could include rules and reminders of how to use the channel (plus allowing this option for player-made channels)? (I've brought up the latter several times before in other feedback/board messages and I'm sure I'm not the first one to do so; the former is a new idea presented in Zideon's RP thread for Order.)

I think that'd be a vast improvement to the whole chat channel experience since it would help keep things a bit more focused -- especially for new players.

Just a few thoughts!