User blog:Bond em7/Big Changes

Alright guys, as you may know if you read the User blog:Bond em7/Dec 21st Admin Meeting Record some big changes are coming to the wiki. The Crats have discussed the current situation on our wiki and decided some changes are in order to try to help pick things up around here. So, in this blog I'll be writing out the major changes that will affect everyone, the effect we hope they have, and how it will change your RPing. If you have any questions, need clarification on anything, or just wish to post your opinion, feel free to do so below in the comments. As always, this is where we would like to go and what we would like to do, but if things come to light we will change our plans in accordance with the needs and wants of the users. Alright, let's get started.

Hogwarts
We have always put RPing at Hogwarts first, and though at one point we had the userbase and staff to also run the British Ministry and outside world events, we no longer have that capability. As such, we are shifting the wiki's focus back to Hogwarts. This will mean some definate changes both to Hogwarts itself, the Ministry, and the wiki. First off, students (1st-7th) years will only be allowed to RP in Hogwarts and Hogsmeade Village. Both will be open for RP all the time to students, and they can mix and mingle with adult characters in Hogsmeade. RPing students anywhere else won't be allowed. This is to help keep our focus at Hogwarts and on the students more than the adult characters. To help this, all Bcrats and Admins will be expected to teach a class at Hogwarts to ensure that there are reliable regular people teaching and the classes will get posted on and updated. We'll still need additional teachers so anyone who wants to try it may, but at least the core classes will be covered by the admin team. We're also looking to increase the powers and such of Prefects/Heads and to get a bunch of stuff at Hogwarts going (clubs, activities, events, House rivalries, etc) to make things more interesting and fun around Hogwarts. If you have any ideas, let me know. The next event coming from the Activity Implementation Department will focus on Hogwarts also, so have your characters ready! Finally, we'll be implementing a sorting ceremony at the start of each year. this meas that any 1st year characters won't be sorted if they're submitted in the last 2 weeks of a school year (or if the user requests they don't get sorted until the start of the school year). Then, the first day of a school year all the 1st years not sort3ed will be sorted by the Sorting Hat in a sorting ceremony.

Hogsmeade and Shops
So, with the increased amount of activity placed in Hogsmeade, any stores wishing to relocate from Diagon Alley to Hogsmeade will need to put in a request with the Head of the S&S Department Red to have their shops moved. As we'll be moving shops and going though everything, all shops will be required to sign up on the Stores Registration page and be approved or they will be deleted. This goes for all shops, since this is a good time to go through them all and clean out old shops that are no longer used.

Ministry
So, you have a Ministry character that you want to keep RPing? Great! However, with our focus shifting away from the Ministry those character will only be used when needed. So, for example while we have characters involved in the Wizengamont and ICW, they will fade to the background, unless something major comes up at Hogwarts requiring those characters. That being said, there will be positions open at Hogwarts and Hogsmeade for some characters from the Ministry. For example we'll need more aurors in Hogsmeade to keep it safe for students, and at Hogwarts for the events and such.

Diagon Alley and London
With the focus being shifted, that leaves London/Diagon Alley to be RPed on freely by adults. This means that the Ministry will no longer be monitoring those pages/conversations and that the aurors won't be nearly as active, and they won't be as safe. Yes, if people are dying, the Ministry/Aurors will react, make arrests etc, but it won't be nearly as common and Auror's won't show up somewhere unless one of the character's there calls for them. However, other than extremem behavior, such as murder, the Ministry won't interfere. This will allow the adult areas like this to become a bit darker and more dangerous. This allows all sorts of new types of unsavory characters to be created and RP in this environment. It'll also allow underworld orginizations like The Black Parade:Registration and The Shrouded: Registration to have more freedom and do more things.

Characters
We're also making some minor policy changes about character creation. First, we're still keeping the 10 character limit, and only allowing new users to create 2 characters in their first month. However, new users will only be allowed to create characters without special abilities (we're making a list and checking it twice) and only 1st-3rd years. Once the've been here a month they'll be allowed to create characters like anyone else, but in the beginning this will help them to get to know the wiki and it's policies better. We're also going to get rid of all old characters during this time. Any character not currently used will be deleted. So, for this to work, any characters that you don't want deleted need to have the and Template:Preserve on them. All characters should already have the Characters catagory, so any characters you don't want deleted will need to have the template added at the top. The template also allows for who's saving the character, so please use that. An example of how to use it would be. We're also working on a Character Memorial page for users and characters who are no longer used, but had a large impact on the wiki. These characters will also be saved from deletion.

I think this encompasses all the new changes we're making. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to leave them below, or contact any admin.