Exalt/Smite

[Madame Lee]

Alright, this discussion has been spoken before, but I would like to bring it up do to the fact that I have personally been feeling that i am getting a downside to this system.

According to James, Staff members (that is, Administrators and Mods, not professors/shopkeepers) can raise or lower a person's RP Skill by one point for exceptionally good posts, or horrible ones, respectively. It is intended to be fairly scarce.

I decided to ignore the Karma System the first time I was smited. However, the second time, I feel that it is appropriate to speak up about it, and talk about making some guidelines like it was said before. So far, James has only given that much from above that gives a general information on how the system is worked. Here are some of my concerns iwth my deductions and the rules in general.

(Please do not give a negative tone on what I am writing. I just feel like I should speak out to the public on about the Karma system once again. I feel that guidelines need to be written down to make everyone understand the system. Please continue if you are interested )

I would like to say personal means first. I have been knocked down another point due to misinterpreting what the Admins have said. On the post, I have said that I would be going to a place that my character thought would be suitable for a Death Eater Base. However, later on, I was going to have my character feel that this is a better home. I know that I did not say this to the admins, and I should have.

One of my main problems about this post was the fact that assuming that this was going to be the base and exalting my for it was a bad thing to do. To be honest, there was two paths that I was going to choose from. The thread's Path was going to be Hilary managing to find the place due to another map being made. However, I was locked from the thread. Personally, I think that the Admins should have asked the member (in this case me) about the thread's topic before doing anything in general. We have all seen posts that lead to different outcomes. Otherwise, you would be assuming that t his post was going to be something efecting the plot. We all know what 'assume' means (to make an ass out of you and me ) Not saying anyone is an ass, but I think a pm of what the post was going to be about would have made things clearer for rp skill judging.

James also said that "raise or lower a person's RP Skill by one point for exceptionally good posts, or horrible ones, respectively." In personal opinion, I think that the only thing wrong with my post was that I feel that my post was decent seeing the one lined responses from other members. I even looked in the thesaurus for replacing words I thought that were a little bit elementary. I was exalted (to my understandings) for not clarifying to the admins of my post, not rp skill itself.

Also, in top of that, My other character was also exalted. This is also something I feel is especially unfair due to the fact that she was not even in the thread. yes, she was mentioned, but shouldn't be exalted.

So here are my main concerns with RP Skill.
RP Skill Itself- Is Exalting/smiting really for the posts itself or is it used for displionary action?

Guideline- A Clear Guideline to RP Skill would be nice to have so I do not feel confused anymore. Therefore, I would be able to follow things better so i can improve my roleplaying.

This is all I can write at the moment. I have to go, and will come back with some more reasoning/concerns.

[Jaden Aerins]

You rant was slightly uncalled for and probably shouldn't have been made a concern for the public. The RP Skill is strictly role play based. No one will smite you for disrespect or not telling us something. In the past, I know that we considered smiting you mainly for your poor grammar. I understand that you go through the trouble of looking up words so that your posts aren't 'elementary' but the fact that you misspell things frequently is something that you need to work on.

To comment on your request for guidelines, I don't find this to be a very good idea. The reason why our sorting system is stricter than the old TWoM's is specifically to make sure that those not qualified to RP on our site are not given the chance to cause trouble. Another thing is that it is said that we will smite for things such as bad grammar, frequent misspelling of words, and all around bad posting. If this is not posted somewhere than it is now. It is simply basic stuff like that we base our decisions on. Giving a guideline to RP Skill is like telling you what to post and I can't really imagine that happening.

If you have anymore questions, contact James. I am on vacation after all and only got on to see how things were coming along. Finding this kind of made me post even though I was only supposed to be on for a couple of seconds. I may be on a little later today so you can PM any question to me but I can't promise that I will respond before next Wednesday.

[Madame Lee]

Yes, I know I spell things incorrectly a lot. However, I am doing better in those kind of things. I received an upgrade for my computer to be able to see the misspelled words by having them underlined in red. This will hopefully stop my constant errors.

However Jaden, what I said up there is prime examples of what you have told me opposite of. The first negative karma was for misspelling, but my second one was not.

And this is not a rant. It is a single concern that has been bothering me and probably has bothered others in the past. This may be a bad example, but our dearest friend Jaime (lol=)) was smite without role playing I believe. She was not even sorted yet and she was already down -3. According to what I have been told about her, her negative Karma was deducted for disciplinary actions. With this in mind, I do not believe that her negative karma was not within your reasoning said above. I just think that the same thing is happening to me. My Karma has been lowered even more for something I do not believe is in the lines of negative Karma.

I am also not saying that the RP Skill is prejudice toward certain members. I am just saying that perhaps the lines on what is smite and what is not is appropriate for all the members.

[James]

Woah, okay... There's a few misconceptions here.

Hilary was smited for a completely unrelated reason. Revan was the one who did it, I asked him to PM you about it since I know it concerns you. He said he was going to, perhaps he forgot. I wont bring that up here - check your Inbox on your Hilary account, if there isn't a message there about it then PM me. It's not a secret, I just figured you'd rather not have that kind of stuff posted here... (although you did start a thread about it, but whatever )

Jamie Smith's -3 RP Skill was not "disciplinary". She did not lose any RP Skill for starting political arguments/spamming/not listening to staff (though she did nd up suspended for 3 days at one point - an actual 'disciplinary' measure). She lost her 3 points for her profile. It's not uncommon for people to have -1 or +1 RP Skill (usually the latter, actually) after posting their character but before making any in-character posts.

Jamie's errors and overall dreadful profile (at least initially) was what warranted her smites. And no, we don't do more than one point change for the same post, at least not by the same staff member. Having more than -1 would have been due to second smites due to not properly fixing her profile, and possibly multiple staff smiting her. We dint plan it or gang up or anything, its just the way the system works - its up to each staff member to decide whether any in-character post (incl. profiles and diaries) they read deserves RP Skill changes.

As for Juliet being smited for the Lower Grounds thread - I did approve the locking but wasn't aware that you were also smited for it. I can tell you that it should not have been a punishment for not getting permission (if it was, that was Revan's error and should be reversed). I can't vouch for why you lost the point, but I'm guessing it has to do with conflicts with your profile - the fact that such a major thing has never been mentioned, and probably also to do with the fact that this place that has been around for a long time, with no real explanation of why they and only they know about it, but I'll let Revan explain that since he was the one who smited you.

On a semi-related note, it should also be mentioned that RP Skill can also be taken for poor RP etiquette (like posting over people who are absent, joining "closed" threads or repeatedly taking back posts that have already been replied to - stuff that's not explicitly against the rules). I'm sure I've said this somewhere before, it may have only been on sorciere so my apologies if I have not mentioned that anywhere here.

I understand Jaden reversed your RP Skill changes from yesterday - I'm going to leave Juliet's karma until that's resolved with Revan but I'm putting Hilary's back down.

I hope I've explained everything you've mentioned as well as I can.

[Revan Haine]

Wow Juliet, you are WAY off. I did send you two personal messages, that you have read and replied to, regarding the reason I locked the Lower Grounds Thread and why I smited Hilary. However, you do not seem to understand, so I will have to tell you again.

I locked the Lower Grounds quickly after seeing your post and checking with James; the idea of some magical building that was build "a very, very long time ago" that only two of your characters know about and was not mentioned in your profile. You didn't even ask permission for it, or check quickly with staff regarding it. We know how you overstep your boundaries, and I was just double-checking to make sure it doesn't happen again. But I did not smite you for this post.

I DID smite Hilary, however, for not only roleplaying a needless thread with yourself, and then you, in dialogue, referred to Lord Voldermort as Tom Riddle while Hilary Rodham. Rodham was speaking to (what she thoughts was) a complete stranger, she would either say "Riddle" or "Voldermort". Various spelling mistakes also added to this. The reasons stacked on one and another, until I found it necessary for -1 RP Skill.

As far I see Juliet, you only started to complain after your smite's. If you want a "Guide to Good Roleplaying", to act as sort of guidelines, I might make one during our short holidays.

Please do not think I have it out for you; I nearly exalted Juliet once during her and Madam Torfoal's thread when Juliet was persuading her, besides the giant titles stating she was beginning and ending her persuasion, it was very good. And then you refered to Voldermort as Tom Riddle again. *sigh* I know your reasons for doing so Juliet, but remember, Voldermort was not an English Lord. He was a self-proclaimed Dark Lord who happened to be English.

[Madame Lee]

Oh, Revan, I know you are not out to get me. I even said this earlier ^.^

Pm are, for strange reasoning, slowrerin coming to me than probably others. I do not know if it is because of my computer, but it happens. I did not recieve your Pm until moments after I talked to Jaden and posted this thread up.

However, I believe that roleplaying with yourself is not against the rules on this site. It was also not like I had each post with only one sentence each. I took some time in posting them and made a paragraph or two in jsut about each post I wrote.

And the place was not nessesary a building either. It was more of a room underground as it was mentioned before. However, that is not the opint. My main concern about this is that other Shopkeepers did not have to (I believe) write a history on their places. I mean, it takes a lot of money to open up a shop in Diagon Alley (its like freeking Wall Street in the Muggle World lol.) Did you ask where these people got the moeny to open up the shop? Did you ask the reasoning why these people wanted to open up this shop in the first place? Was it because of passion. A shop is just as important than any other hideout or place on the board.

I put those titles in because I wanted to reveal that Juliet has a talent for persuading people into having her ways. In the pass with my character, many people have just blew off my words, and killed the very talent Juliet is best at. For this, I put those things in just to tell people that I am using my ability.

I also do believe that I did not have any spelling errors in those posts. I checked every time I posted in that area by copying the thread into Microsoft Word, seeing the errors underlined, and pasting it back for psots. However, I will check now if I have anything mispelled under those posts.

A guide to good roleplaying would be nice to have if you have any spare time in making one. I feel that this could be a helpful thing for me to follow as I roleplay on the board.

[Jaden Aerins]

Okay, this is absolutely the last time I have access to a computer until next week.

Juliet, The thing with those spell checks is that you may have spelled a word wrong but did so in sch a way that it was a diffest word spelled right. And another thing is that you do tend to misspell alot of words, even if you don't realize it. I know that my spelling isn't anything amazing but I do at least try and type slow enough to tell if I made a mistake. I can point out 2 words off the top of my head in your last post that are misspelled.

((e.g

In the pass with my character, many people have just blew off my words, and killed the very talent Juliet is best at.

and pasting it back for psots.

))

Those are just a few of the minor mistakes you make regularly. I don't mean to sound rude or anything and I'm aware that you've worked on it a bit. I mean no disrespect.

As one last little bit, it really bugs me that you spell Jamie's name Jaime xD WRONG! =P

[Madame Lee]

No worries. You do not sound rude at all. Thanks for pointing it out for me. I shall look more closely for words like that. Perhaps I do need to type a little bit slower. I'll give that a try too.

[Revan Haine]

But Juliet, people's stores in Diagon Alley are public. Your's is a secret base that only two people know about and was made a long, long time ago. They are ENTIRELY different, just ask any other member on the site.

[Madame Lee]

True, but they still both pop out of no where. There is no history background on how others got a shop in Diagon Alley. Also, just about every store there has been set and built easily 20 years ago (making most of our shopkeepers at least 10). I know there are the Weasleys, but other than them, there has not been another store saying that it has only been open shortly. It was also said that the store cost a lot of money according to Fred and George. That is why Harry pitched in some money.

But I do see the differences from a base and a shop and respect what you said. My place was something from a while ago, but I feel that I am having to to so much extra work comparing to other people that opened up places. You see where I am coming from?

[James]

That's a valid point - perhaps we should make people describe their stores more.

But in reality, a lot of businesses only last a few years, so there would be a lot of stores moving in and out of Diagon Alley all the time. The successful ones are more permanent, but there would be a lot of change there just like any mall/shopping center, I would imagine. Although, you are correct in assuming that opening a shop in the first place would be quite expensive.

We want you to do more work because you are creating a secret ancient base, that could potentially be very important, and supposedly has all this history that we've never heard before.

[Madame Lee]

True. I guess that having a secret base needs a little but more information than what I gave. According to Revan, I can not have the base have any relationships toward my character. It would force me to redo my profile which I assume that it can not be done.

So, if you could allow me to give some information on a new Death Eater's hide out that is explained thoroughly, would I be able to post up a new thread?

[Revan Haine]

I never said that. I was just merely saying that you didn't mention anywhere in your profile about this base. You can change your profile however with James' permission, and perhaps a pm detailing exactly what you are going to say.

Lots of problems like these could be resolved simply if you pm'd a staff member about it. Letting us know about new bases, or potential-site-altering-or-plot-changing plans would save us a lot of trouble. I'd prefer plot things to go to James to keep things totally secret from plot-involved characters.

[Madame Lee]

Alright. Sorry, i must have misinterpreted. I think I would like to personal message the information to the both of you before submitting it to my profile. Would that be o.k.? I will keep in mind what you said about personal messaging for role playing problems/plot shifts.