VH Staff Meeting Digest March 16th 2014

March 16, 2014:

Discussed at this meeting

The most recent townhall meeting was on Feb 1, 2014. User feedback from that townhall was included for consideration during this meeting.

• Using the Townhall discussion of room-crowding and tension as a starting-point, discussion occurred about whether any action could be taken to mitigate these issues short of new technical solutions or breaking up the group. Few non-technical suggestions were raised; talk eventually turned to interface adjustments such as split screens, tabbed or sub-windowed interfaces, and other means of grouping, as well as how to avoid community splitting, cliquishness, and other ills; this topic did not come to a 'decision' or consensus, and will likely continue to be addressed at meetings and townhalls in the future.

• Regarding the increased number of acrimonious and negative interactions between users recently, discussion turned to whether the issue was that people were being invited without being advised about or acclimated to the intended nature of this chat, and whether more should be done to encourage users to help to socialize the people they invite. A note was made to determine whether giving the Mentor program clearer direction could help. It was suggested that staff perhaps be able to see who invited whom so as to advise users about this; this suggestion was not heavily discussed.

• A request was made that people take a look at the site's rules and charter and assess what feels 'missing' and what seems most important, in order that clearer community guidelines can be drawn up in the future.

• Regarding the use of spoiler-tags, chatroom subjects, and criticism of others' roleplay content, it was largely affirmed that negatively commenting on others' roleplay content or preferences is generally to be frowned upon, and discussed whether the rules should be amended to clarify that spoiler-tags are not required for any content.

• Brief discussion occurred about where the line is drawn for language that is unacceptable to use in this chat, the only notable examples being racial or other epithets historically associated with acts of hatred.

• Discussion occured as to whether "Moderator" is the best term for the staff position currently of that name. Given that moderator primary responsibilities include user assistance and guidance and answering questions as well as exercises of authority, it was suggested that the post be renamed to 'Guide' or similar to make clear that this staff position is intended to assist with questions or problems generally as well. No definitive conclusion was reached; discussion will likely occur at a Townhall.

• Brief discussion occurred as to whether more user-driven inclusive roleplay events can be encouraged. While there is not an intention to make a staff-driven effort of this at present, the encouragement of users to run games/events/similar efforts is agreed to be desirable.