To: All Shard Town Governors

[Petra Fyde]

From the management

At the request of Atlantic shard governors a private access sub forum has been added to the Atlantic EM forum - you can't see it!

Question: Do the other shards wish to have the same thing for their shard?

If yes, please send me a pm listing the shard and the Stratics user names of the governors who should have access.
Also accessed is the EM user group.

 

[Dag Nabbit]

What would be the goal of having a subforum that is hidden to all except in-game governors?

 

[Faeryl]

What would be the goal of having a subforum that is hidden to all except in-game governors?

Likely a way for them to communicate and possibly set up events that could involve multiple cities, perhaps pass around ideas for improvements, solve possible issues... *shrugs*

 

[Lord Nabin]

What happened to transparency and accountability in Government? Oh wait that's a different land without a feudal system

Carry on in your Pursuit of the 8 virtues everyone. I am looking forward to seeing what your huddle comes up with.

*Settles back down the to the fire and takes a sip of some Good Old Moonglow Red*

 

[Doubleplay]

It's called opacity (as opposed to transparency) in government.

 

[Flutter]

Next term I am building walls around skara brae
And a roof
And im making it a no recall zone
Then I am adding a toll at the gate.
TAKE THAT

 

[Dag Nabbit]

Likely a way for them to communicate and possibly set up events that could involve multiple cities, perhaps pass around ideas for improvements, solve possible issues... *shrugs*

And a hidden subforum is required for event plans? UHall or shard forums isn't suitable enough?

 

[Winter]

From the management

At the request of Atlantic shard governors a private access sub forum has been added to the Atlantic EM forum - you can't see it!

...

I'd suggest a better way is to set it up so that only the Governors can post, but the forum is visible for everyone to see. That way the Governors can carry on their own conversations uninterrupted, but deliberations are still visible to the citizens. At least that the concept of the Open Meetings Act.

 

[Tazar]

And a hidden subforum is required for event plans? UHall or shard forums isn't suitable enough?

No. UHall and Shard Forums are not suitable. Event plans need to be kept as an "unknown" or it can spoil all of the fun. For example:

As Governor of Moonglow - we are hosting an event on November 5th. This will be a scavenger hunt type quest which will lead players through the various cities ending at Castle Britannia where the event ends when a player finds "Barton the Butler" and says "Stuffa" to him. Barton then hands over the grand prize of a soulstone token. (Hypothetical event of course).

So - if it is posted publicly - someone skips the quest and goes right to Barton for the prize. So... why would so much detail need to be posted to the Governors? Well - on Atlantic - it is a good possibility that other governors would RP Roles during the event and having the details laid out would help a lot with the coordination. In addition - it helps keep 2 governors from hosting very similar events too close together - but also helps act as brainstorming triggering ideas for new events.

Transparency is great for a real government - but this is not a real government. It is a party planning group helping the shard have fun. What's the fun in spoiling the surprises early?

 

[Doubleplay]

This IS real government or will soon have the same problems as real government.

An excellent point is made about secrecy regarding plans for a fun event. I suggest that nearly everyone wishes for success in this endeavor. Why is secrecy needed? Because common sense tells us that the fewer people who know the plans, the less chance that the system plan will be gamed.

Call me a skeptic, but it would be highly unusual for a secret plan to remain secret if more that one person knows the plan. If you have 5 to 10 people involved, no matter how much you trust them and think you know them, the plan will be compromised. I would bet my tinker's legs on it.

 

[Nails Warstein]

Ah shucks, I thought it would be best if governors from every shard could have their own forum to share their xshard ideas, work together in unison in a more cohesive manner. In my opinion, dividing us along shard lines, will hinder change, and create animosity.

 

[Dag Nabbit]

@ Tazar

Fair enough reason that you gave for having the subforums I suppose. It's just that the first thing that crossed my mind when I read what Petra posted is "The governors just want a "super secret" forum just to ask for stuff from the EM's and Messana without the rest of us knowing about it." I know it sounds silly,but I really distrust the separation of the player base in this way. Am I jaded because of past experience of this kind of thing in other forums? Yeah,I am.

 

[Aurelius]

Ah shucks, I thought it would be best if governors from every shard could have their own forum to share their xshard ideas, work together in unison in a more cohesive manner. In my opinion, dividing us along shard lines, will hinder change, and create animosity.

Plus, people should not underrate the ability to learn from (or steal!) good ideas from others, and learn from their experiences what does, and does not, work. It won't be a perfect example to take something from any other shard, because each has their own atmosphere, style and population levels, but just taking with people who do similar 'jobs' is always worthwhile.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Which do people want? Individual shard governor's forums or one forum for all governors together?
Either way it's going to be a major undertaking updating the access lists at election time, but if it's going to help, we'll do it.

 

[Lord Lew]

There was a dual reason that we asked for it to be private. One was the reason that Tazar stated above, the second was to limit the amount of troll activity associated with threads. You all know that certain people derive entertainment from throwing a wrench into a thread and trying to derail or get it locked.

as for the supposition that we might use it to gain favor from an EM or Mesanna, that's ludicrous. I can e-mail both of them directly with issues for the city I Govern, and have in the past. It does however allow the EM to view our threads, because this is a protected site that they are allowed to visit and interact on. If we set it up elsewhere, then the EM's could not log in to view or reply for various reasons I will not go into.

I for one would like to keep the sub forum for Governors private.. Sometimes meetings need to be in private, in the real world an in the worlds we create.

Petra would it be hard to also create a Governors forum that is open to all, shard wide.. one that is not private? I promise the people of all shards of Sosaria that I will post ideas and events there, as well as in the other sub gov room.

 

[Flutter]

No. UHall and Shard Forums are not suitable. Event plans need to be kept as an "unknown" or it can spoil all of the fun. For example:

As Governor of Moonglow - we are hosting an event on November 5th. This will be a scavenger hunt type quest which will lead players through the various cities ending at Castle Britannia where the event ends when a player finds "Barton the Butler" and says "Stuffa" to him. Barton then hands over the grand prize of a soulstone token. (Hypothetical event of course).

So - if it is posted publicly - someone skips the quest and goes right to Barton for the prize. So... why would so much detail need to be posted to the Governors? Well - on Atlantic - it is a good possibility that other governors would RP Roles during the event and having the details laid out would help a lot with the coordination. In addition - it helps keep 2 governors from hosting very similar events too close together - but also helps act as brainstorming triggering ideas for new events.

Transparency is great for a real government - but this is not a real government. It is a party planning group helping the shard have fun. What's the fun in spoiling the surprises early?

Consider your idea stolen.

 

[Tazar]

Consider your idea stolen.

lol

 

[Kelly O'Brian]

I support the ideas of an shard restricted governeurs forum each to plan "time critical" events and RP-story lines and the like. Plus a forum for all governeurs to share ideas, experiences and such. I consider the awareness of the appropriate EMs and other Event-Staff like the Dark Lady herself as helpful and nescessary.
I wasnt aware of the fact, that EMs are not allowed to interact with the players on other forums besides the Stratics Forums. So it seems, Stratics is the right and only place for such well-needed governeurs forums.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Petra would it be hard to also create a Governors forum that is open to all, shard wide.. one that is not private? I promise the people of all shards of Sosaria that I will post ideas and events there, as well as in the other sub gov room.

I'm probably being dense, but I'm not quite sure what you're asking for here. Can you explain in more detail? Where do you want this forum? Who can post it? Who can read it? What kind of access lists will I be needing to create?

 

[Victim of Siege]

I'm probably being dense, but I'm not quite sure what you're asking for here. Can you explain in more detail? Where do you want this forum? Who can post it? Who can read it? What kind of access lists will I be needing to create?

sounds as though they are wanting a public Governors forum to go along with the Private one, so the Governors can communicate with their citizenry. no special permissions needed, just a public forum

 

[Petra Fyde]

I'm trying to understand why a special forum would be needed for that. If (eg) a governor of Atlantic plans an event in the town he governs, wouldn't he post it on Atlantic shard forum?

 

[Victim of Siege]

I don't know the why's just guessing at the what's

 

[Pandora_CoD]

I don't see why Governors cannot use the EM forums?

 

[Tazar]

I don't see why Governors cannot use the EM forums?

The governors do use the EM Forum for many things, but that's still not good for event planning.

I think what Lew meant was a single forum that all governors on all shards could use to brainstorm and "borrow" ideas for events to help out all shards.

 

[Lord Lew]

Yes Tazar is correct.. I was thinking a public Gov forum in General or somewhere outside of the shard forums. A place where everyone can weigh in and swap ideas, well ideas that we want to toss out there. But a separate forum so that these posts do not drown in the message blitzes that hit uo hall.

I still would like the private gov sub for the shard, but realize how much work that would mean each quarter for you . Also the logistics of authorizing the actual governor is mind boggling. But the ability to work with each other and have the EM and possibly Devs chiming in, without the standard derailing and trolling in public forums would be nice.

 

[Petra Fyde]

The private forums are agreed, those that have been requested are already set up. You should be able to see yours.
The public forum I can do, I'll need to find moderators for that. I have an uneasy feeling that's not going to be an easy forum to keep civil

 

[Bianca_CoD]

Petra, I am governor of Minoc for Catskills. I would say ONE FORUM for all governors would be useful with a prefix for the Shards... we do not need more forums, we need less.

For example, could we get rid of the individual "Shard Events" forums? We have ONE UO EVENTS forum, we can add a prefix for the shards to that one and just get rid of the others? Its so much easier to just post my events that I hold as governors to the one forum for all to see. This would definitely help to have folks from other servers perhaps attend our events on Catskills or other shards. The visibility is much more co-operative. I would even say the same for Event Moderator forums and Trading forums ... too many and merging them and using prefixes for shards would allow more cross-shard visibility.

Maybe should have posted these ideas elsewhere... but yeah one governors forum please with shard prefixes.

~ Sue.

 

[Pandora_CoD]

LOL you know we've talked about that a lot... hate having to dual post our events in two or three places.

 

[Faeryl]

I wouldn't merge all the EM forums... I can't speak for other shards, but on Atlantic we tend to occasionally post RP and hold discussions in the EM Forum. I really don't want to have to sift through the posts of every shard's EM just to find the ones I want to participate in.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I don't think anyone mentioned merging EM forums, it's the shard's subforums for events that Pandora is suggesting we remove.

 

[Tazar]

The Shard Events Forum was originally used to replace the "Event Calendar" in the old forum software and was intended for player run events. The posts there were supposed to be locked to replies so the forum would serve as a quick way to find events and the info about them on each shard without wading through tons of other posts. It would also serve as a record of events so that someone could later review it for ideas as needed. A 2nd post was to go to the Shard Forum so that there could be discussion if desired. Personally - I still like the system as it is. Maybe an RSS Feed from the Events Forum to the Shard Forum so that 2 posts are not needed?

 

[Bianca_CoD]

I would rather see one UO Events forum with the shard prefixes. There aren't huge numbers of active players that run (and therefore post) events, so the one forum is plenty.

~ Sue.

 

[Bianca_CoD]

I don't think anyone mentioned merging EM forums, it's the shard's subforums for events that Pandora is suggesting we remove.

I did Petra, briefly but I can understand why that wouldn't be a good idea. Yes Pandora and a lot of us that run consistent events have been talking about the redundancy of the individual shard events forums. Back when UO had 500,000 people in it, I could see how having them separate would have been beneficial, especially if there was like 10 or more people posting and running events. That's just not the case anymore. Now its mostly governors and a few folks in the more active shards that take the time to run events and would need to post about it. A shard prefix would be sufficient in this case.

I also think one governors forums with shard prefixes would be great for us (to get us back on that topic).

*formally requests access to the Governor's Forum*

~ Sue.