OOC Department Meeting Summary

Alright guys, so I held this meeting yesterday, which was much quicker than I expected to have it, but HoR, myself, Foot and Jisk were all on chat. I realize I didn't have another Bcrat on, but I honestly don't think a second one is needed for normal department meetings like this. ...but I'll get to that later. So, here's what was discussed/decided at the meeting.

First, and most importantly, we all decided that the wiki will now be a dictatorship, with me at it's head. It will be reset-up with me in the new position of "Supreme Dictator of all Wikia", and we will begin our infultration of other wikis to set me up as the head immediately. HoR and Jisk, who already are off the book admins (temps), will be my admin hit squad, and take care of any problematic admins who don't fit into the new system. Foot agreed to server drinks. The best part of this was that with me as dictator, there would be no need for any more tedious meetings like this as I will just decide everything, so everyone should begin fearing for their lives, and sucking up to the new dictator in the hopes he will create a semi-decent position for you.

Alright...well maybe next meeting then. First thing we discussed was Categories. Some categories seem problematic, asthere are many similar onesfor the same thing. For example, 1st Years, First Years, 1st Year, etc. So, we're goin to attempt to standardize the categories a bit. Our HoRbot will be going through and changing all the 1st Years to First Years. Also, over the next week I'll go through every category, alter those done incorrectly to the correct category, and get rid or unnecessary ones. We'll also be adding common categories into the Start Up Guide for people to see, and try to keep the categories straight as we go, because they're a real mess. I'll also be posting a message about category use on the sidebar next week. I'll be working on this all next week.

Next we talked about voting. It seems that votes are getting put up, but people don't know they need to vote, and they're being taken down very quickly etc. So, to try to standardize this, I wrote up DAW:VOP, which is a policy on voting. It's simple, but I think spells out voting clearly. Also, I'll be implementing a Voting Forum. This forum will look a lot like the sorting forum, but everything that needs voted on will be added to the forum. Anyone can add things to vote on to the forum. As anyone can put anything up for vote, a B-crat can look at a vote and delete it as unnecessary, which will help keep down unnecessary or rediculious votes. To pass a vote changing wiki policy, at least 1 Bcrat will need to vote for the change, and it still must have a majority. Finally, all votes will go through the Head of the OOc Department for implementation. This means that once things are voted on, I have to go make it work, or re-write the policy for the new changes etc. The reason it'll be this way is that the head of OOC is basically responsible for all policies and that sort of thing, so if a new one passes that contradicts somthing else, the OOC Head should know about it and fix all the cases of it, and that sort of thing. I hope to get this set up this week.

We also talked about the new promote feature from wikia, and I set it up for our wiki yesterday.

Also, there have been some complaints from new users about not being able to find the start up guide, so I'll be linking it into the nav bar today.

Next wek talked about some changes for the next school year. One problem we're having is that all the important positions are taken by admins, leaving only regular characters for non admin users. This is a huge issue, and shouldn't be the case. So, for the next school year, we are going to do our best to try to give the Quidditch Captain and Prefect/Head Boy and Girl positions to those who don't have any admin rights. From now on they will only be filled by those with rights if nobody has filled them by the time the term begins. So, those of you on the Bcrat, admin or rollback teams, your characters may lose these positions, and anyone who is a regular user who wants them, be sure to apply or let myself know. We always seem to have way too many admins and not enough users, so the freeze on permissions will stay for the forseeable future, and anyone who isn't actively using their admin/rb abilities are asked to step down. This will help us build a strong userbase, which is much more important than having a bunch of admins (though admins are extremely important!). Hopefully this won't be a huge issue, but if it is, let me know and we can work it out. I haven't talked to the other B-crats about this yet, but hopefuuly this will extend to other important positions as well, such as in the Ministry and Hogwarts. People don't have to be RB's or admins to get these positions, but they do need to have shown that they have roleplaying skills up to roleplaying an important character. So, if that's been shown, they should be applicable for these positions. However, this will be discussed at the next Bcrat meeting for finalization.

Next wek talked about chat, and how it seems people are spamming emoticons, and flooding the room with stuff, including the new censor picture using (bleep). This is not allowed in the chat room, as it's annoying and disrupts normal conversation there. I will be updating the chat policy to make sure these are called out later today. If you are doing this, please stop. If you see this happening in the room, give the offender a warning, then kick them, or ask an admin to kick them. If it's an admin doing it, please ask them to stop, and if it continues, report it to me.

That brings me to my last topic. It has come to my attention that a lot of rollbacks and some admins are misusing their power. Some of their characters are overpowered, metagaming (knowing OOC info IC), gmodding, jumping into random rp they don't belong in, etc. The worst part is sometimes they don't even realize they're doing it. This is a major problem, and as head of the OOC department, it's my job to get it stopped. It's a problem because first off it's against the rules we have established for the wiki. Secondly, it tends to make those with admin/rb rights innately more powerful than normal users, which we don't want. Finally, when normal users see us "cheating" with our characters, they feel they can do it too, or need to to keep up with us. This just perpetuates the problem, and makes it bigger. If anything Admin/Rb characters should be WEAKER than normal characters, since our great rping skills can help make up for that. So, to help fix this problem, we will be enforcing these rules more strictly for the foreseeable future. The admins in my department (HoR, Foot, and Jisk have all been instructed to be on the watch for these things, and to give out warnings when they see them. They don't have to be official warnings, and I hope that they will at least try to help the ones breaking the rules fix their characters or roleplaying so they're within the rules. If you get a warning, please try to work it out so that the rules aren't being broken. Any conflicts should get reported to me for resolution. However, I also asked them to not give warnings out to admins/rollbacks, but to instead report those to me, and I will give out the warnings to anyone with those permissions. This is so everyone knows I will be dealing with this personally, and everyone will be treated fairly and equally by the same person. You all know I do my best to try to be helpful and think of ways to stay in the rules, but still have fun. So, if you get a warning from me, get with me to get it worked out. I don't really enoy this messy type work, and enjoy having fun much more, but it's necessary at least until this gets under control. If you have any questions, be sure to ask me.

Alright, well that was what the meeting was about, and what was decided. What this means for me is lots of OOC work instead of roleplaying in the next week, so if I'm not roleplaying much, you know why. It does annoy me when I have to stop roleplaying on the wiki to do OOC and Admin stuff, but that's what happens when you have responsibility. Well, I guess I better go start, because the sooner I get all this done, the sooner I can go win the quidditch Cup for Gryffindor. Bond_em7 (Owl Me) 14:59, August 30, 2012 (UTC)