OOC Info Founder's Messages & Announcements

[Gossamer]

Hey Folks!

It's come to my attention that people can't seem to understand that MOVING IMAGES are not allowed on Mizahar. This is frustrating because they are distracting and detract from what should be a WRITING SITE. Please note that if you READ OUR RULES you will see that there are multiple places that this is stated.

http://www.mizahar.com/lore/Signature

" Please keep moving gifs and other animations off Mizahar. They are considered very annoying by most of the pbase."

http://www.mizahar.com/lore/Chat_Rules

"As with the main site, moving .gifs are not allowed in chat. We do not care if you are a Nitro subscriber or not. Aesthetics are never more important than writing and vanity has no place. You can always make a separate account for Mizahar Chat. We do not care if this is inconvenient to you. "

http://www.mizahar.com/lore/Avatar

"Mizahar does not allow moving images such as gifs because they detract from the overall writing experience of the site. "

http://www.mizahar.com/lore/Rules

"Moving images such as GIFS are not allowed under any circumstance. "


I think you can all agree that there has been a tremendous amount of effort to PASS THIS KNOWLEDGE onto you. If you haven't read and understood the rules as terms of use here, then you should go back and refresh yourself. When I see images moving on threads, I will DELETE THE ENTIRE THREAD. I don't care if its hard work. It's a direct rules violation. Please just skip the moving images.

Gossamer

[Gossamer]

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Hi Folks!

Please keep your Help Desk ticket issues in one concise thread. Do not take your HD issues to PM or start new threads on the same issues you are HD ticketing for. I'm not sure why people are doing this lately, but please keep all thoughts together in one traceable thread. Chasing conversations all over the site is not a fun task.

Goss

[Gossamer]

Hello Mizaharians!

Please note.... there is an addition to the Rules section in the wiki under 'accounts'.

Avatars and face claims are the responsibility of players utilizing them. Keep the ToU in mind at all times. Please refrain from using well known actors or actresses' or famous models as avatars and face claims. Avoid using images that are easily recognizable from television and movies such as characters from GOT or Marvel. These are so over utilized as to be abused. If spotted with one of these avatars, you will be asked to change your face claim to something more game appropriate. Mizahar would like characters to stand on their own based on their writing and not lean on already well known personalities written by other writers for popular consumption.

There will be no exceptions or grandfathering of these sorts of usages. People have annoyed the staff and this needs to stop.

Gossamer

[Gossamer]

Hello Mizaharians-

Please remember that NPC usage should be restrained to average everyday NPCs such as barmaids, generic city guards, street folks, etc. These folks should have very average statistics. NPCs that are written up in Location posts can be used as long as they are not somehow noted as needing moderator approval. If they are, get moderator approval before using them.

Any notable NPCs such as exceptional warriors, mages, people with rare items or knowledge, monsters, etc all must be approved through the local DS of the Domain you are playing in. If the NPCs have something extra special, such as a Lost Discipline, they must be approved through the HELP DESK. If NPCs are otherwise used, threads will be intervened on until the situation can be resolved.

Personal NPCs always need approval through the Help Desk. This is easy to acquire. See the Wiki entry under NPC for more information!

Gossamer

[Gossamer]

Hi Folks-

For the last year I've been accidentally making a ton of box codes 33 pixils over the limit of 700x500. So instead of resizing what will be dozens and dozens of images, I'm going to stretch out the size limit a little to now reflect 700x550 instead of 500 tall. I'm an idiot. But at least I won't have to devote my weekend to resizing code.

Goss

[Gossamer]

Hello Folks!

If a Founder like myself or any upper level staffer on Mizahar has issued an UNINVITE of your person or pc.. otherwise known as a Permanent Ban... don't return, get invested, brag about it, and then when confronted by a staffer flat out lie. You will find yourself greyed out faster than you know.

I don't tolerate liars very well.

We are a Writer's RPG designed for adults and teens. Grownups own up. I've allowed banned people back on Mizahar many many times before, but that only happens if they are honest with me and approach me for permission first.

Take this as a warning and know if someone you know suddenly goes grey... its because they opted to not take this very adult path to restoring their status on the site and returned without permission

Gossamer

[Gossamer]

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Grader Reminder

If you are grading a thread, please remember to check the levels a person has in a skill. We have a lot of graders that are awarding XP to people who are vastly under performing for their skill level. This is not the way grading works on Mizahar and your grading status might be revoked if it keeps happening. I've recently revoked a few graders for just handing out XP willy nilly.

If for example, a master blacksmith (as per your grading question) makes a horse shoe, they do not get blacksmithing experience. They must be working on something challenging and intense that takes a lot of writing to get the credit. The same goes for mages. If a mage blinks auristics into action and looks around or flicks their fingers and produces fire to set something ablaze they are not eligible for experience if they are even remotely competent or above. True craftsmanship, true skill.... takes time, effort, and folks must be challenged in order to earn experience.

A really good rule of thumb is that if it takes a PC a sentence or two in order to accomplish then make sure you aren't giving XP for it if they are upper levels.

A really good factor is weapons work. Just because someone holds two weapons in their hands doesn't mean they get dual wield. They must be actively thinking about both weapons, using them, and making their moves complex enough to fit their level. Don't worry about people getting mad that you aren't giving enough XP. Just point to this post and remind them you are guarding your grader status. Once upon a time only ST's could grade and the backlog took years sometimes. Lets not revert back to that by abusing grading by being overly generous when its not merited.

Also, like always... feel free to come to me if you think your grade isn't fair or someone is grading obtusely and I'll take care of it. I'm more worried about accurate grades than beast mode graders plowing thorough request threads and wiping them out.

Gossamer

[Gossamer]

More Grader Changes

I've spent the morning going through the grader list and thinning it out considerably. There's just a few graders left. There's a lot of reasons people lost their grader status. Namely the following are predominant:

• You Haven't Logged On This Year
• You Haven't Graded Anything Ever
• You Haven't Graded Anything For A Long Time
• You Are A Retired PC
• You Haven't Posted IC This Year
• You Have Conflicting Personal Philosophies
• You Have Poor Grading Habits - I.E. Lack of Accuracy/Presence of Abuse

If you have considered being a grader, then now's a good time to apply. If you disagree with my decision, take it up with me. Don't take it out on the staff. If you want to get your grader status reinstated, retest and be active, accurate, and don't abuse it.

Here's who's left:

Ambrosia Alar, Anja Nightwatcher, Ashka, Asterope, Daedalus Dagwood, Dove Brown, Dovey, Duncan Rightstone, Firenze, Ialari Pythone, Kavala, Kelski, Loken, Madeira Craven, Nieve Glass, Orakan, Oresnya Cacao, Paaie, Quzon, Rook, Shiress, Ssezzkero, Tarka, Taurina

Thanks,

Goss


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[Gossamer]

Profile Changes

For the time being I've shut off the ability to comment in profiles. Why? We have almost 30K profile comments, most of which are hotlinks to porn sites. Of those 30K about 2K are Happy Birthday wishes. Now, traditionally we've started happy birthday threads full of memes and silliness for individual's birthdays.

Feel free to do that again.

I just can't sit here day in and day out deleting profile comments or accounts of spammers (I deleted like a hundred yesterday alone - accounts not profile comments) that were spammed full of Null, porn, and cheap airfare tickets. We don't have updated Captcha Functions to catch bots so they are rampant... but at least we can make new accounts.

So if you want to say hello, brighten someone's day, or wish them a happy birthday or thank them... please use all the appropriate threads or utilize the PM system.

• Chat - Multiple Uses - Mainly help, socialization, thread plotting
• Quick Thanks Thread- People, please say thanks more!
• Chat Quotes - There's funny shit in chat!
• Kudos! -Birthday Threads... Use and abuse this forum!
• Non-Miz Discussions- Weird New Sites/PS Help/Get Wells, D&D Talk, etc

I hope that helps!

Goss


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[Gossamer]

Sorcerer and Sorceress

This came up in a PM and in Chat today.

The term Sorcerer and Sorceress are not terms found on Mizahar. Please stop using them in game. If you are a magic user you are a MAGE or a WIZARD. Nothing more. Witches are people with Phylonura marks. Mage, Wizard and Witch are all gender neutral. Don't go outside the lore, people. As proof I've shown a screenshot of every time the word Sorcerer is used in the lore.

Guess what? ZERO HITS FOUND.

Stop using Sorcerer or your threads will not be eligible for grading.

Goss


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