Rooms

[John a.k.a Sir D]

Hm, I've been thinking, and wondering lately about the ISRP rooms and other RPing places. I was randomly pondering over the fact of why ISRP doesn't have the temporary room creator and if it was possible to maybe put it in? The whole description thing is much better, as it is a hassle to continue typing in each time and having to break it up because the text box can only hold so many words. Just a thought, thanks, John.

 

[Ruthia]

I am not a Magi, so don't quote me on this one, but having helped moderate other chat places I think I know WHY ISRP doesn't have the temporary room button. It is because private roms/ temporary rooms are very very hard to moderate and that it would be to easy to get around the CoC in a non public room.


Just my two sense John, like I said don't quote me on it.

 

[Lince'sa]

they had one before. People started to abuse it and spoiled it for everyone else. Plus there was crying about people going off to their own rooms with their cliques. so now everyone's clique brushes people off in public rooms instead, and people with ligitimate reasons for needing a PR can't have one. since Den has been down longer than a Detroit Lions proffessional record.

 

[Rain Cloud]

Personally, I'd have to agree with the statement of its hard to control a bunch of unmoderated rooms. Not to mention the version of Flash Chat they have may very well not support it, its a possilbility. And even then, there is two rooms where people can already play it out as anything they want it to be if they needed it. So why make other rooms? If your afraid of people popping in on personal RP sessions then your probably hidding something you shouldnt be doing in the first place. If its that important ands its only a case of you dont want spys then ask the venturing player whos watching if they could leave. Or even take it off the chat onto a personal messenger. The first Magi who kindly kept this thing going even after Wizards removed the chat from there sight and brought it to Unlikely Heros then to here on Enworld I belive did alot for us in the first place.

If its really a problem with the two extra rooms we have then maybe ask for another one of them perhaps. I will agree that those two rooms this past month have been getting plenty of use. Which does make it hard if you really need the room.

A way around this if you need it is to maybe use the PM system the Flash Chat offers to do a private RP on. This way no one can walk into it uninvited and it can still be monitered if needed. This is about the only information or idea's i can offer you unfortunatly. But hey, all I can say is if you dont like how things are run you kinda have to live with it. It may sound harsh and condensending but its not ment that way. This chat is a gift, not a democracy where we vote on the laws it harbors. Im personally happy we even have it still.

 

[Magi_Gabriel]

There are a few good reasons why we don't have private rooms currently, I'll cover the two most important ones.

1. As mentioned above, private rooms are difficult to moderate, particularly as FlashChat's original software is not well designed for moderating to begin with and all the extras I built for ISRP don't encompass the private room issue.

Being able to moderate these rooms is important because EN World has standards of conduct they want enforced on their site and part of the purpose of the CoC is to ensure that everyone get to play in a reasonably protected environment they can feel comfortable in.

So until I work out ways to make the private rooms easy to moderate, they present that problem.

2. While we're perfectly aware that people will form groups and some groups will not be interested in accepting new members etc the main concern in relation to private rooms is that in a way encourages people to take it a step further and essentially use the function to make their own private chat host.

People roleplaying in a public room contribute to anyone who cares to be there, even if refusing to roleplay with you personally, are still adding the atmosphere, putting out ideas and roleplay for other people to read and soak up. People doing the same in a private rooms contribute only to each other.

The only reason we all went to the trouble of moving ISRP over from Wizards was we loved the community and what we contribute to each other. We removed settings, changed software but still had the community and that is what essentially makes it fun. So we want to encourage people to roleplay amongst the community as much as possible.

This is not to say we have any problems with any privately owned chat rooms, people using messengers etc but so long as you're using our chat on this server we ask that people keep the community feel in mind.

 

[Jeajea]

We removed settings, changed software but still had the community and that is what essentially makes it fun. So we want to encourage people to roleplay amongst the community as much as possible.

Amen to that! I couldn't really agree more; what really makes this site, always has and always will, at core, is the sense of community. Well, I think so anyway. Personally, I wouldn't welcome the ability to make private rooms. I feel we fragment enough as it is.

 

[John a.k.a Sir D]

1. As mentioned above, private rooms are difficult to moderate, particularly as FlashChat's original software is not well designed for moderating to begin with and all the extras I built for ISRP don't encompass the private room issue.

Being able to moderate these rooms is important because EN World has standards of conduct they want enforced on their site and part of the purpose of the CoC is to ensure that everyone get to play in a reasonably protected environment they can feel comfortable in.

So until I work out ways to make the private rooms easy to moderate, they present that problem.

2. While we're perfectly aware that people will form groups and some groups will not be interested in accepting new members etc the main concern in relation to private rooms is that in a way encourages people to take it a step further and essentially use the function to make their own private chat host.

People roleplaying in a public room contribute to anyone who cares to be there, even if refusing to roleplay with you personally, are still adding the atmosphere, putting out ideas and roleplay for other people to read and soak up. People doing the same in a private rooms contribute only to each other.

The only reason we all went to the trouble of moving ISRP over from Wizards was we loved the community and what we contribute to each other. We removed settings, changed software but still had the community and that is what essentially makes it fun. So we want to encourage people to roleplay amongst the community as much as possible.

This is not to say we have any problems with any privately owned chat rooms, people using messengers etc but so long as you're using our chat on this server we ask that people keep the community feel in mind.

Oh...wow, I didn't realize that I had suggested Private Rooms...not my intention at all. I personally cannot stand Private Rooms, as almost everyone seems to go into them, and leaves you alone sitting in the lounge, which is evident on The Den. I was merely suggesting the use of a Public Room creator, as the Carpe DM and Ahoy Adventure everyone stays out of because they think it's basically a Private RPing session. I would half the time, love people to join me in those RP sessions in the Carpe DM or Ahoy Adventure. That was my only suggestion, I vote -against- Private Rooms.

 

[Elf_Ariel]

Invite us in then! Muhahahaah. I avoid those rooms for fear of stepping on toes so to speak. Call me a bit odd.

--grumbles-- I hate not being at home. No net access

 

[Alek]

Trust me dude, you do *not* want to be invited into some of these private RP's.

 

[Tyrian_Spellstealer]

I was merely suggesting the use of a Public Room creator, as the Carpe DM and Ahoy Adventure everyone stays out of because they think it's basically a Private RPing session. I would half the time, love people to join me in those RP sessions in the Carpe DM or Ahoy Adventure. That was my only suggestion, I vote -against- Private Rooms.

...that's actually not a half bad idea. Private Rooms obviously have the problem of keeping RPs private, which isn't good for community development, but the concept of creating open, public rooms in the chat space I think is a great concept. The Carpe DM and Ahoy Adventure rooms can be used for any setting in any place, but they have a rather distinct personal feel for whoever is in there first. The ability to create a public room with a title of, lets say 'Sharn Skybridge' or even 'House Sivis Message Station' (and I use Eberron related examples here simply because i'm dying for a room with that setting) gives an open public impression that anyone can just jump right in.

Inevitably though there is down sides, most outstanding probably being moderation and implementation. I can't imagine it'd be any easier to do that and keep it well moderated as what a private room would be, and I imagine it'd involve quite a bit of tricky programming to pull off in flash chat.
Another inevitable problem is that you (the player) are creating a mini setting that will inevitably have its own setting restrictions. Can't have a titan walk into a lightning rail coach. The Magi would then have to consider if they want to hand over power of creating setting restrictions for a persons own public rooms over to the users or not (which could, I believe, be done if guidelines are enforced). Ontop of this, somewhere down the line someone would manage to stuff it up for everyone by naming a public room 'My bedroom' - which obviously doesn't have a very public community contribution feel to it.

In short, its a great idea and one I think would be a great feature to the ISRP community, but it would involve a lot of work, and probably a lot of new rules, coding and moderation problems that would indeed give the Magi a headache.