Ascendants Reorganization discussion

[clarence a.]

So!! it has come to my attention that maybe the current way of running a clan in Ascendants (and on BoB as a whole tbh) is not effective for the actual audience here, but instead intended for a younger, much more active audience. So I decided to try reworking some things to better reflect the community here. These are all just a bunch of suggestions to help out with Ascendants and will hopefully help improve RPing here and the overall expereince! I've sectioned things off in subjects and I'd really appreciate some feedback (either here or on Discord). There will also be a similar thread to this one put in the Helpful Hub to get some more general opinions if you'd like to take a look at that. I'll be linking it here once it's actually made.

Ranks

Spoiler:

The primary idea I have for this is simply to reduce our positions all the way down to only two to three positions. Currently, I feel like oftentimes positions just act as titles rather than being a way to encourage meaningful involvement, or only encourage someone to post quickly on a board but not to actually engage with anyone there. Also, I feel like there’s honestly a very toxic idea of the expectation of activity. RPing is not a job. RPing is not anyone’s responsibility. It’s a game that should be fun and I think positions oftentimes add more stress than they do fun.
All that being said, I’m thinking I would only keep the leader and deputy position, and then possibly a medic position (although tbh I’d LOVE to see this incorporated as a development challenge where the character has to gradually learn the skill and then earns a title after a certain amount of time).

But yeah! So basically the idea is to shift the emphasis on ranks to titles in order to make for a more open environment rather than one where people feel obligated to engage.

Development Challenges

Spoiler:

So this is actually the simplest section and it ties in with the previous one. Basically there would be a development prompt every week and completing them would get various OOC and IC rewards. I don't have a fully fleshed out idea of what these rewards are but I'm thinking IC ones will be special titles/items and OOC ones may just be some gems or, if badges are added by then, badges for various events. I’m definitely up for discussing what these rewards look like and what they are exactly, but I’m kind of leaning towards titles just because we already have a pretty good system in place for those and they have both IC and OOC value.

Characterization Threads

Spoiler:

This one is sort of a combination of what I’ve seen utilized well on other RP sites that I’d love to see have it’s own version on BoB. It’s sort of like an open storage thread that doubles as a plotting thread. You’d be able to store a bio/tags there, as well as any images, playlists, one-shots, etc there and there would be a lot of encouragement from the Ascendants for other members to take a look at them and plot through these means. The whole idea is that I really want people to actively seek out plots they’ll enjoy and to make an open environment where everyone is comfortable doing that, as not everyone has a Discord (or is on it consistently) and not everyone likes being messages directly on site. 

OOC Challenges

Spoiler:

This ties in with the previous section. Along with the direct development challenges, there would be OOC challenges directly related to the characterization threads. This might mean you have to make something specific to put in yours or it might send you off to someone else’s characterization thread in order to create plots. Like the other challenges, there would likely be gem rewards for these or some sort of badge. The entire purpose of these is to encourage development and communication in the community.

[aureate]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]I love all of these and will try to add in some more of my opinions later or tomorrow as I'm a little busy right now, but I do want to note that while I 110% agree with reducing the number of ranks and their overall importance in any group, it also means that there needs to be some other well-implemented system to recognize people for what they do? So I think in that case, titles should become much more involved and important to compensate. I'd even suggest badges for titles, though I'm not sure if that's something BOB implements? IMO it's just really important to make sure that there's another way to recognize what people do if the reward isn't a rank.

[clarence a.]

Yeah! I was definitely thinking those smaller ranks would esssentially be replaced by an overhauled title system (tho tbh it doesn’t need to be a COMPLETE overhaul - just a bit more in depth than it currently is) in order to recognize members outside of the dep/leader. I also definitely think badges would be nice but tbh idk if those have been implemented completely yet

[arcy]

[align=center][div style="0px; width:400px; height:auto; text-align: justify; font-size: 8pt; line-height:13px;"]i really like this!! its a good way to stand out a little more!! ive always felt like ranks were basically just fancy titles so, idk, i really like the idea xsdfsdfs. i dont have any actual suggestions rn but if i do ill shove em in the discord sdgsdfdf

[axiom]

[align=center]

I think under madi there were development oriented titles — i would love to see them come back or see another version of development based titles in the group!

Maybe you could also use the site wide cdc for the development ideas? Maybe add titles or the like for completing a certain number of them?

Also, I think reducing the number of positions would be good. In the Pitt I think it works really well to just have leader, second, healers / warlords, and recognition rank. I think the Pitt is more complicated with ranks than you’re talking about, though I think it helps show that groups don’t need an elaborate rank system. I’d like to see a group with leader, dep, healers and title system just to simplify things.

[Grimm]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 420px; line-height:120%; font-family: arial; font-size: 8.5pt; text-align: justify; margin-bottom:5px"]I really like all of these ideas and feel they work a great deal a great deal better then we have now

a lot of what is going on is either push to be as active as possible, which pushes plots aside, or focus heavily on development, which at times means less ss chance of getting a position as activity is slower to get everything set up and done right, so breaking it down to the essentials is a better way of doing it. I would say badges for every title is a bit much so maybe it is grouped, a set of four to six tasks need to be completed and you get a title which has its own badge, this can be time, development, as you said healing expertise and showing how well they have done especially with the fall of interest in healers

I really like the idea of focusing more on development but along with the break down of the ranks I would say we need to have a strucutre of time leaders and deputies can be inactive before a takeover can be staged. I would say maybe two to three weeks of inactivity without a notice from the leader allows the deputy to step up, if both are inactive for that time a member may step up but the group must agree to this be it ooc or ic but it has to be something everyone can discuss and decide on together

[clarence a.]

Yeah!! That’s kinda what I was thinking. Tbh I’m not looking at badges rn simply bc to my knowledge members can’t actually make them so I have to figure out what ooc rewards are going to look like but I do like the idea of grouping various tasks together to get badges! Some of the tasks will be weekly, others will be ongoing or themed or whatever so grouping them would prob be best if we’re ever able to add badges.

Unfortunately inactivity is regulated by staff, not by individual clans so I can’t really speak to that. The only thing I really have control over is the hps in Ascendants. Currently I know the policy is 4 days of inactivity without a notice (by a leader) is cause for warning unless it’s changed from when I last took a look at it.

I was actually thinking a different way of picking leadership would be good rather than based on what one person thinks but idk. I feel like a vote would just be a popularity contest so I’m not sure how to make it objective, but I’m open to ideas if y’all would like to see that change as well.

[megiji]

i don't have much of an opinion on everything else since i just got here, though i do appreciate ideas to encourage more development, especially development between characters / clans.

however, when it comes to picking leaders, i have questioned the way it has been done on forums for a long time. i agree that a vote would just end up being a popularity contest and may not reflect the leader's ideas of what a good successor would be, however, it is definitely more inclusive than the system that is in place now. i would suggest appointing multiple candidates - maybe four or five at the most - and having members vote on those candidates? that way, the leader can choose people who they deem to be good potential successors, but the clan still has a say.

as for the ranks, that sounds like a great idea! i would definitely keep the medic position available (though im biased bc im a ho for medic positions and the struggle to get into one for my characters), but yeah. there seems to be an over-saturation of high positions that don't differ from each other enough to constitute their own individual ranks.

[aureate]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]Personally I'm very against the idea of voting for leadership. In my opinion, that would turn into both a popularity contest and a campaign of sorts, with a "vote for my leadership if you want to see x" kind of vibe. The community already does have a place in deciding the next leader, since it's based on how active and helpful the members are. If anything changes, I would prefer that it was only on the IC side? Perhaps characters can state that they're interested in the position and then there are IC "trials" or competency tests of sorts with the final decision still being up to the leader? Since even if there were rules about stuff such as campaigning or asking people to vote for a certain person, that's really hard to monitor.

[Orion]

Going to track this for now, but I'm DEFINITELY agreeing with Aureate. Voting for leadership is conflicting.