VH Town Hall Minutes May 27th 2013

The minutes for the 2nd round of the first Vulpine Hollow Townhall of 2013 are presented here for open public perusal, having taken place in the Fourth Wall from the hours of 2:00 PM PDT to roughly 5:30 PM PDT, presided over by Kaoru. As a reminder, aside from Retna's Q&A and the information about the newer moderators, everything herein is the opinions of the community, and not any concrete decisions.

Retna's Vision for the Chat Q&A

• Encouraging people to use whispers for more one-on-one interaction. Which would also help the activity in the main room be less hectic.

• While not wanting to discourage people outright, we do want people to understand what the vision of the chat is and to make sure that it is clear what the community is for and if they want to be a part of it.

• Limiting the invites instead of outright halting growth was also brought up, a system is potentially being worked on for this.

• Some members are potential troublemakers and they are being discussed and helped along to aid in having them be more productive to the overall atmosphere of the chat.

• The issue of newer folks being intimidated by users with more senority and especially those perceived as popular was brought up, but tabled for later discussion more in depth in the future.

Community Opinions on Moderator Guidelines

• Should move or squelch discussions on controversial topics should they get heated, but also have good judgment on what is going too far.

• Applies the rules to users equally, does not consider themselves above the rules.

• Knows how to be fair to both parties in an altercation, without playing favorites.

• Also should be good examples, helping to stir positive discussion in the chat, talking to and helping newer members feel welcome, and helping people who just need assistance.

• Being attentive and a good listener to problems, while also being able to communicate clearly to everyone.

• Should be ready to deal with conflict and confrontation, and not be passive about letting situations go too long.

• Should NOT be trying to deal with too many interpersonal issues that people are capable of hashing out themselves.

• Communication with other mods to make sure their decisions are not out of line regularly should also be practiced.

• Depending on the issue, they should be letting the rest of the chat know in public that an issue is being taken care of in private so the other chatters do not feel tempted to jump in and backseat mod.

• The issue of dealing with illegal acts being discussed was also brought up, but it was discussed to be more of a complex grey area. There are, of course, some undeniable illegal acts that will not ever be okay, but some topics are a bit more victimless, and up to a moderator's discretion to know when the line has been crossed.

Recent Mod Team Additions

• Timber was added when the server moved to Mucktopia, as a temporary moderator by Leshana and Horror, to help while things were still being transferred over and situated. Once things were, he volunteered to step down, but the current mod team, Retna included, all approved of him continuing to be a mod.

• Regina was appointed because the entirity of the Mod Team up until that point would be at AnthroCon, leaving the chat entirely without moderation. As Regina would not be attending AC, as well as her friendliness, availability, and generally positive behavior. The Mod Team had multiple discussions on her approval, prior to her appointment.

• MiniMike was appointed also for the ability to cover the chat during AC, as well as because his schedule allows him to be up in the very early morning hours, when frequently other moderators are not present. He was also decided to be a level-headed individual that can step in when issues arrive. The Mod Team had multiple discussions on his approval, prior to his appointment.

Possible Feature Additions

• A new user mixer was suggested, to help new users integrate more smoothly, a "Meet and Eat" as it were.

• Multi-user whispers was brought up to help facilitate times when the main room gets particularly busy.

• New user status flags also was discussed, but discouraged as we don't want to single people out as "the new guy" and have them be less comfortable.

• Forced "highlighted" post from moderators to help for certain issues. Potentially even the ability to post an announcement across all channels.

• Whisper tabs to make things easier to manage when whispering multiple users.

• Status tags for the games such as: endo, digestion, or the other frequent statuses specific to the game. Stomach tags for even general rooms to show that you're currently inside someone. A mouth or some way to show you're currently in a scene. Digested, GM, and Open for Non-RP Whispers. Perhaps even a mod tag.

• Being in multiple rooms with the same character, not requiring different characters to be made.

• Different "layers" of interactivity for the main room, including being able to temporarily hide posts in OOC brackets, or hide Extensive RPs over a certain length of lines.

• Profile Creation system could be made more streamlined and friendly, not changed or overhauled, just retooled for ease of use.

• Ability to choose to have a bigger text input field, instead of having it as just a single line.

• Custom word filter for dings, specifically for people that have certain nicknames pertaining to them, e.g. Sikhoten_Tiger being called "Bitsa"