User blog:TimeForTheTea/Characters and Locations (and misc)

Characters and Locations
In regards to the previous meeting on December 15th, it has been agreed upon that recently the lines between S&S and OOC have been blurred. This is no way people’s fault but this blog is simply to clear the air out for the general community on the jurisdiction that covers each of the departments.

The first (and potentially only) change that will happen is the name of S&S. As of this moment, the words 'sorting' and 'stores' are rather limited umbrella terms to what the department actually covers. As accordance to the meeting, the name will be expanded to Characters and Location (C&L) instead. Under locations, anything from stores to organisations to rpable locations will be under the jurisdiction of C&L and there will be another forum where users can ask for locations to be made. However, it is still OOC jurisdiction for the upkeep of the location, such as categories. Under characters, anything that is done before sorting will be under C&L jurisdiction. Essentially, anything excluding character pages, character count and categories.

For exotics, it will be one of C&L’s primary focus to handle these characters. As C&L is dealing with these character’s approval, such as deciding whether they’re OP or not, they should be the ones updating the policy in regards to them. Some changes, of course, might be placed up for vote for the community if the change warrants this. It would be C&L's duty to organise these votes. Any other vote would fall under OOC. Furthermore, the listing and description of exotics and special abilities would fall under C&L rather than OOC. This is done to make sure it’s consistent and falls under one department rather than crossing jurisdiction of both.

As I said before during the meeting, C&L would be anything decided before sorting whilst anything afterwards would be handled by OOC. Character count, tracking them, categories and other things such as this would still under OOC. Anything related to characters and what is allowed with these characters would be sent to C&L.

Furthermore, it will also be done that C&L will be more stricter with age realism. The point of placing a picture and name of your model on the forum is that the sorters can decide whether they match the character’s age. If a model does not match, then they will take it to C&L department and the users will do a vote in order to make sure that the model matches the age. We do admit that one user's interpretation for a model might be different from another sorter and I don't believe it's fair if a user's claim might be let through by one sorter whilst another sorter would not. Thus, any sorter regardless of whether or not they're claiming that claim, can take it to C&L so the members can determine if the model is realistic.

New Exotics
While we’re here, as the introduction for new exotics forum will be in existence in the coming month, I’m informing you of the requirements for an exotic. As of right now, most exotics simply have dot points of strength and weaknesses. However, with the new exotics, we will require: Whilst one can argue we already have this, this lay out would make it more organised and set out. We will require at least three dot points with each section.
 * 1) Offensive
 * 2) Defensive
 * 3) Traits
 * 4) Supplementary

Furthermore, you will also need to explain how they would work in the wizarding community and how they would bend and fit to canon in order to make sure they would make sense. You will also need to provide an introduction for them. This includes historical background, if they have been mentioned somewhere in the JKR universe as well as any other information necessary. It will be an administration only vote but this will provide transparency to the general userbase as well as giving them the necessary information about the new exotics.

Dormitories
Another thing I will be addressing here are dormitories. I’ve been given the greenlight from the other bureaucrats to do this and I’m going to be implementing it in the new ic year. It won’t be too much of a change, just expanding it, and putting this aspect of Hogwarts to more use. As of right now, we have only one page to roleplay for dormitories for everyone. After this, people will be allowed to create their own pages (a subpage from the dormitory to keep it organised) for their characters and friends. There will be a roster to help both ai and ooc to keep track of who's with who. However, it is the user's responsibility to add their dorm to this roster. Once either the characters graduates from their seventh year or all the characters have been made inactive then the dorm page will be deleted by OOC.

The maximum will be four students per room. Admittedly, on the page it says two per dorm whilst in canon it is six. However, I don't believe we have enough characters to reach that number so four is a compromise of sorts. Plus it's the maximum, people can limit to two or three if they want. Another thing that will be allowed, due to the small number of students, is that cross year will be allowed by one year above or below. A sixth year would be able to share a room with a seventh and/or a fifth year given that there is a good reason for it IC.

It is not compulsory to have your character slotted into a dorm with other characters but it is an option for those who want this.