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Not dead, coming back, cleaning house period extended, and some changes! (and bonus Twitter challenge!)

Tay

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Tay Fuwa Master

Tay

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Hello everybody,

 

As some of you know, I've been extremely sick lately. It's been more a dangerous-sick than just I-hate-life-sick, and so my absence on the site was unavoidable. I'm getting better, I've had solid medical care, and I'm putting my life back together. Thank you for your patience. This couldn't have come at a worse time (for my personal life and for Fuwa!)

 

I know that many of us were starting to get really jazzed for upcoming site changes. I want to spell out a timeline for everybody so we all know what's coming and what to expect. I also hope it'll help assuage any anxieties about stagnation.

 

  • The "cleaning house" period has been extended through October (since I've been out of action for almost all September!)
  • Between now and next Wednesday I will be finalizing some behind-the-scenes changes among the staff and writing materials for the board moderator program
  • By the end of next week I hope to have everything in place to roll out the board moderator program (members can be given moderator roles over particular "boards" on the forums and work under the guidance of a global moderator). I made a call for interested parties (https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/6292-are-you-interested-in-helping-moderate-a-corner-of-the-fuwanovel-forums/) and the initial roster will be selected from those who stepped forward in that post. If you're interested and fit the qualifications, speak up in that post! Again, at least the selection of board moderators should be done by next week, at which time I should have the training materials finished and in the hands of the global mods (and then we'll see how it goes)
  • I'm working on getting an up-to-date picture on where our server move is and what front-site changes are ready to be made. Nothing to report yet, but I have submitted a 2-page list of high-priority changes to our web development team
  • I finished my site analytics and I'm very pleased with the VN forums changes (traffic and participation are both up across the spectrum of user groups). I think the data also shows that the "Ongoing Projects" board has been very successful at driving traffic and attention to the projects featured within it. I can't say that for sure (I'm not awesome at the form of statistics my program is using), but if I'm reading the data right, then it's driven >3x as much traffic to each project than they were receiving before the ongoing projects board was made. I don't know about you, but I'd say that's exactly what we'd want for our fearless project leaders!
  • Still waiting to hear the details on software changes before I commit to any tagging add-ons for the Development boards (it could take a while, but it's a high priority for me. Don't give up, developers!)
  • The forums changes, like I said, have been very encouraging. The biggest (most important? controversial? fabulous?) issue to tackle, as we all know, will be the general discussion board with the G&C sub-board within it. Before I go into any details about the changes, I'l reemphasize that my priorities in changing up the organization will be: maintain a space for true general discussion, provide a separate space for Fuwanovel-centered projects and community work/discussion, give an out let for getting to know each other and having fun, and then filtering out the posts which are fluff or worthless and really just deserve to die (more on this in a minute ; )).
  • (In summary: better differentiate between topical discussion, friendship building, Fuwanovel work, and "fluff" posts which deserve death)
  • The details are yet to be finalized, but the current plans (written in a super secret notebook) are as follows:
  •      A. To create a community hub (focused on Fuwanovel) which will be dedicated to community projects, the improvements board system, a leadership council, etc.
  •      B. Restore the "general discussion" board to its true purpose (topically-based and focused discussion about stuff)
  •      C. There will be a Lounge section which will be the spot for getting to know each other, having fun, a little goofing off, etc.
  •      D. The newest addition will be something akin to an "Arena of Death" where pointless, fluff, and/or scum-and-villainy types of posts will be sent to die (or fight for survival). Details forthcoming.
  • One really big thing that needs to be addressed is site media (blog and social media). There will be some long-overdue changes coming to the blog, and a better workflow for how all these services work together and how they're to be used
  • There's more. I could talk about MOTM, for example, which has had a bumpy road due to my illness, or stances on games and translator groups and requests for takedowns. There's a lot more to discuss, but I don't have the energy atm to get it all down on paper. I ask for your patience as I recover. I'll put out as much info as I can on a regular basis.
  • Within the next week I will be finalizing the list of torrents which will no longer be linked-to on our front site. The links will go "offline" the last week of October.
  • The leadership structure of the community to which we're headed is going to be a leadership council structure with voting and non-voting members. I'm not going to say a lot more at this point (since it's still early, there's still too much to do, and because I need to maintain a tyrannical dictatorship power structure in order to accomplish everything listed above ;)), but I wanted to clearly state that nobody realizes better than I the logistical problems facing the site. I just wanted to assure everybody that soon enough we'll be in a position where responsibilities are better spread out and no life-threatening illness of any one of us puts all the forward momentum in jeopardy ; ).
  • I want to apologize to the logo contest winners! I'm sorry that I haven't been rotating the banners as I promised. I will be appointing somebody to do this and giving them restricted ACP access so they can make the changes per schedule in the future. 

 

 

Immediate Timeline:

  • I still need some rest time, but I should be in a better position by Tuesday
  • By Wednesday night I should have a fairly comprehensive proposal ready for my inexhaustible and ever-patient counselor and friend Rooke to examine. Details of above proposals will be discussed and refined for up to 2 weeks or until we're both happy. No later than that point I'll reach out for additional opinions and thoughts/further refinement
  • Concurrently: I should have the staff worked out by Tuesday. The global mods (at least the ones who head board moderator teams) will be given several days to choose from a list of willing members to build their teams. I will also be selecting board moderators and assigning them to particular global mods/boards.
  • While the global mods are working on their team (and, again, this is concurrent with Rooke and I working through proposed changes), I will be finalizing the staff handbooks which will contain rules, policies, important information, and workflows for typical tasks. Once that's done and the global mods have built their teams, the new board mods will be contacted, I'll set up their permissions, and the global mods will conduct training for their teams.
  • Front site: This is an email-based workflow which I'll initiate tomorrow (Sunday).
  • The upcoming forums changes will be enacted once we have  a set plan (on my end) and an army of board moderators willing to help us manage the transition. I estimate this'll go down within 1-1.5 weeks
  • Some basic blog changes are going to be happening in the next week as well: integration with social media, aesthetic changes, and additional un-annouced changes should roll out.

 

That's probably as much detail as is helpful right now. Please note: I have >40 PMs and emails to go through, so if you don't hear from me right away, don't think I'm ignoring you!

 

 

 

 

LAST POINT! The Bonus Twitter Challenge!

I'm not currently able to spend a lot of time up and about, meaning my time for working on Fuwa is somewhat limited. "Working on Fuwa" includes stuff like PMs, emails, reports, TL group sessions, and photo shoots. (<- one of those has yet to be requested. Wonder why...). SO! I'd like to suggest that anybody who urgently needs to contact me should do so through Twitter (at least for the next few days). 

 

My twitter handle is @ArchmageTay

 

I'll try to get up and be here on the site, but again, if you have a pressing concern or issue, send me a DM/Tweet. Also! The challenge part: my twitter avatar is pretty bland (but awesome! Yay HP!). If you're tweeting at me and get bored of my avatar, feel free to send me alternates you think I should use instead. If your submission is really awesome, you may just see it go up ; ).

 

That last bit was just for fun, but really -- it's difficult for me (at least in the short, short term) to get up and around, so if you need me, let me know through Twitter. (Unless you're batman. Then just send me a bat signal through Skype).

 

 

(read the post below- elevator music to accompany things, placed here by me, Kaguya)

 

 

 

If you read all of this... wow! Way to go! Thanks for your time, and I'll see you soon.

Edited by Tay
Might as well take a joke seriously from time to time~
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Tay Fuwa Master

Tay

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If any brave soul wants to suggest background music for reading the above post, feel free to share a link. If it tickles one of the mods, they have my blessing to insert it into the above post (in case I don't see it).

 

Joking aside... Truly -- thanks to everybody for your patience. So many people have stepped up and are doing great things. You're wonderful.

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Kaguya Fuwa Master

Kaguya

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If any brave soul wants to suggest background music for reading the above post, feel free to share a link. If it tickles one of the mods, they have my blessing to insert it into the above post (in case I don't see it).

 

Joking aside... Truly -- thanks to everybody for your patience. So many people have stepped up and are doing great things. You're wonderful.

Took you up on that :P

Hope you get better. 

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Heizei_koukousei Fuwa Elite

Heizei_koukousei

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Tay. I want to greatly thank you for taking the time to write in so much detail in the face of such difficult times where you have other priorities to attend to. Your post is very reassuring to the faithful members of this community.

You even took the time to come up with an idea to get the community at large involved. However, please focus on your health! We need need a healthy Tay to lead us into a future where visual novels are a main gaming medium.

 

There has been a lot of discussion around the relavance of the General Discussion and its sub-board G&C. I am very excited to see the upcoming changes. I hope that once a new wave of moderators come on to the scene that the site will continue to move forward in a meaningful way.

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Tay Fuwa Master

Tay

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Tay,

 

I hope you didn't make this message based on your health because I housed concern about your absence. Please don't push yourself; this makes me feel awful, and I feel like a huge dick now.

No, no, no, no. This was something I meant to put up a long time ago. I've been discouraged at how long it's taken to build up muscle/motor function again, and I've simultaneously missed everybody here and felt guilty that the "cleaning house" period was running out. I haven't actually seen that message, but I'm really looking forward to the podcast you and I talked about!

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Stray Cat Fuwa Master

Stray Cat

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I was going to suggest this music personally.  :P  

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUBATLiCcNA

 

Jokes aside glad to see you are doing better Tay.  Thank you for giving us this information (and quite a lot of information it is), although right now your recovery should be your main priority.  I wish you a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing you around more soon.  :D

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Tay Fuwa Master

Tay

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Tay. I want to greatly thank you for taking the time to write in so much detail in the face of such difficult times where you have other priorities to attend to. Your post is very reassuring to the faithful members of this community.

You even took the time to come up with an idea to get the community at large involved. However, please focus on your health! We need need a healthy Tay to lead us into a future where visual novels are a main gaming medium.

 

There has been a lot of discussion around the relavance of the General Discussion and its sub-board G&C. I am very excited to see the upcoming changes. I hope that once a new wave of moderators come on to the scene that the site will continue to move forward in a meaningful way.

Thank you for the nice words. I'm also really looking forward to giving GD/G&C a good scrubbing. I think I said more about this on a podcast with Ren, but I've been concerned for a long time about the stigma/bastardization of G&C when, really, providing a place for us to get to know each other and build friendships (which transcend Fuwa) has always been really important. It's been really instructive to me, actually, to watch it all play out. Organizational behavior has always been interesting to me, and now I've learned first hand that if a community doesn't provide a "space" for a particular type of discourse or activity, then those elements will be categorized very dualistically by different segments of the group. tldr: I'm really excited for the upcoming changes.

 

Also, your user location (Cyrodiil) was an awesome choice. Why did I never think about ES locations?

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Nosebleed Fuwa Cheater

Nosebleed

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I like this post, this is a nice post.

 

I'm glad you're doing well on your recovery and I'm glad there's some deadlines set already which were desperately needed.

I look forward to these changes that hopefully happen once and for all :P

 

While I don't have much to add I do want to mention I PM'd you about the logo contests earlier today, I know you've got a lot of messages but it's related with special ACP permissions as well and I wanted to know back from you on it since you've mentioned it in this thread.

 

That is all, I'm going back to bed since I drank something a few hours ago that completely flipped my stomach inside out.

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Zenophilious Fuwa Master

Zenophilious

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No, no, no, no. This was something I meant to put up a long time ago. I've been discouraged at how long it's taken to build up muscle/motor function again, and I've simultaneously missed everybody here and felt guilty that the "cleaning house" period was running out. I haven't actually seen that message, but I'm really looking forward to the podcast you and I talked about!

Holy Zombie Jesus, Tay, that's horrible.  I mean, I knew you were pretty sick, but that illness must have been even worse than I thought.  Hope you feel better soon!  It's weird not having you around.  I miss our benevolent overlord.

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Ceris Fuwa Master

Ceris

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While I never got to know you, Tay, beyond just knowing you're our main Admin, hearing about this serious illness and then seeing this huge post earned you my utmost respect but then...

Holy Zombie Jesus, Tay, that's horrible. I mean, I knew you were pretty sick, but that illness must have been even worse than I thought. Hope you feel better soon! It's weird not having you around. I miss our benevolent overlord.

The part you bolded, Zenophillious, took what I have above this quote to an even higher level. Really glad to hear you're getting better, Tay!
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Kendjin Fuwa Master

Kendjin

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Such a comprehensive post, hopefully this will allow everyone to see a nice workflow being worked out and I hope you are all as excited as I am for the up and coming changes.

 

I started the music in the post and spent the last 30 mins being unable to find the source again. I blame my alarm waking me up at an ungodly hour. :)

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Tay Fuwa Master

Tay

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Update 001:

 

- Behind-the-scenes moderator work (due tomorrow) - complete

- Board Moderator program selection (successfully started, was due by midweek) - complete

- Server tech stuff (due sometime) - progress

- Logo switching permissions - complete. Nosebleed's now the Minister of the Logo!

- Blog work - conversations started, work to do itemized

- Server Host tech stuff - hopefully all sorted out

- Blog-Social Media link - waiting for server work to be finished

- "Comprehensive Proposal" for Rooke (proposal due in next 2 days, plans confirmation within 2 weeks) - not so done, but I'm working on it 

- Global and Board Moderator Handbooks (due before BM program starts next week) - They're written in my head... promise! But nothing on the page yet.

- Twitter challenge: @Flutterz has taken an early lead! Fate Tay Night (the upcoming sequel to FSN) looks HOT.

 

 

If you didn't read carefully:

A note to those who said they were interested in being board moderators: the global mods are going through the list over the next few days. After they're done I will set up the teams. Some of the selections will be based on global mod requests, others by me.

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