User blog:Bond em7/Admin Meeting

So, we had an impromptu admin meeting on Tuesday. It started with just User:Echostar and myself getting on chat to talk about a couple changes for this next year, and then User:Head of Ravenclaw, User:Windsword7, and User:Peislandgal all whom are admins joined the chat, so it became an admin meeting. We chatted about a bunch of stuff, especially some changes we feel need to be made for this next School Year. This next Year will be 2013, which technically shouldn't be happening if the world end this year right? For those of you wondering, I don't believe it will, but I guess you never know right? Anyway, here's some of the changes we talked about for this coming school year. First we decided that for all the optinal classes for next semester, we're going to have a sign up, so we know who to expect in what class and such. That will make it easier for the teachers to know who will be turning in homework, and how many students to expect. We'll run this sign-up like one of the shops in Diagon Alley, and people will use their character's talk bubbles to post that they're taking that class. This is especially nice as we have a bunch of optional classes offered this semester. There will also be only five required classes this semester (six if you're a first year). They will be First Year Flying for first Years, then Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Potions, and Transfiguration for everyone. We'll also be allowing all Years to take almost any of these classes, with the exception of Healing, Animagi Training, and Apparition as they all require older students. This will allow the classes to hopefully have more students, as we tend to have more 1st and 2nd Years than older students. The teachers will have a bit more work with more students, and with having to create homework for the younger students, but I think it will be more enjoyable for the users. We also talked about how this semester the DA only ran for a little bit, then was stopped, and most users seem to really enjoy this. This semester I will be running the DA and amking sure to keep it updated. It will keep me a bit busy along with everything else, but I think I'm up to it. We're also going to be offering a handful of nelasses this semester, from Wandlore to Wizard Home Economics. I think the new classes will be exciting, and go into some intresting topics in the wizarding world that are rarely explored. We also have some new teachers, both Characters and Users, who will help us expand our topics and styles of teaching so more people will be intrested in the classes. Finally we talked about who should be our new Head Boy and Girl, which I'll contact and let them know a week before the next Year begins. We also talked quite a bit about the gmodding that's going on here. The Quidditch Matches and Quest seem to be especially bad. For those of you who don't know gmodding or "God Moding" is when you act like god, and either do things you can't (like a 1st Year casting a Patronus), or not allowing the other person to defend (Ex. "I use the criatius curse on you, and you fall to the ground writhing in pain). Instead, everything should be phrased as an attempt, and the GM will make the calls.  For example, "I cast a disarming charm on you, attempting to make you lose your wand".  Then the GM would post somthing like: "The spell hits, and the wand goes flying".  If there's any doubt, just think about if you would like to be hit with something like that without even a chance to defend.  The same goes for Quidditch Matches, and generally most things where a GM is involved.  In personal Rping on Character pages, or public areas like the library, we'll be more linent as long as there aren't any problems between users.  User:Windsword7 volunteered to be on the watch for gmodding, and let users know when they're doing it, so hopefully they will learn exactly what it is, and how to roleplay without it. If you get a message from him, it's just a polite warning, so you know you've done it, and nothing more. However, after multiple warnings, you may get an official warning as you don't seem to be getting the message. If you have any questions, let any of the admins or B-crats know. Overall I think all these changes will be for the good, and help us get more roleplayers, and more people here. We also recently created a Admin Shoutout page where anyone can post to give us ideas about how to improve the wiki. Well, I guess that's everything for this post. I plan to try to post often to keep everyone updated on what's going on, so check my blogs if you want updated news.