MDA Restoration

[Curiose]

I was not sure where else to put this, so I put it here.

I don't know if I am just paranoid, or if I am simply over rationalizing everything, but, I am worried about my land. It may be needless worrying, but none the less, I believe it is warranted.

Overall, MDA has only 4 active members. Fyrd Argentus, Curiose, Rendril Revant, And Kyphis. Innocence isn't all that active any more. Other members have gone away. Is this the first sign of a decaying land? I certainly think it is.

In the past, MDA used to have a lot of factions and guilds/alliances of which many people have been part of. Most of which have died off. From the list:
[s]The Crafters[/s]-Moved to Loreroot
[s]Artisans[/s]-Inactive
[s]MDNP[/s]-Inactive
[s]Advertisers[/s]-Moved to Lands of the East
[s]Sotis[/s]-Moved to Lands of the East
[s]Dimensional Shifters[/s]-Inactive
Legend Speakers
Archivists


Out of the eight, only 2 are now left. In each, there are only 2 active members. What happened to the thrive~? What happened to the work that used to come from MDA? What about the importance that was laid upon it which has now been reduced to nothing? There is no Head Archivist. There is no activity other than what meager work Myself, Fyrd, and Rendril put into it.

I am not trying to complain, but I am needing help. I am wanting to restore my land to how it once was and [b]I can't do it alone.[/b] I can try, I can literally work my naked little rump till its raw and bleeding, but I don't think I can get anywhere without help. This is important to me, and if any of you ever gave a damn then I am sure you wouldn't have let it come to this.

I do not know how to fix this. I don't know if recruiting members will fix it, or if volunteer work will do it, but something needs to be done. Please give a list of ideas or thoughts of what you can do to help.

Please. I don't want MDA to go with all of the rest of its alliances.

Edited February 7, 2011 by Curiose

[Ravenstrider]

As you know, the situation is same in all of the lands. Do you think Necrovion has any more active members? Or GG? Or any other land...

Fixing it easy... Recruit people, divide labour, do something useful, come up with new ideas for game features tied to the archivists roles then bug the council to give you the tools to make it happen.

How long has it been since the bookshelves in MDA have had a new addition to them?



I find it funny how you object to Seighearts proposal to give the funds from the Artisans to Advertisers and then complain that there isn't enough people to do the Archives jobs...

[Curiose]

I wasn't complaining that there isn't enough people to do the jobs.
I was objecting because:


1. It is taking funds out of MDA of which belonged to An MDA guild which could still be restored
2. Advertisers is NO LONGER part of MDA.


Lastly, when I checked, I'm sure that all the other lands have more active members than MDA.
I see NO problem in asking for ideas or thoughts or SOMETHING to bring it back to its activity and to being what it once was. Last I checked, people didn't care enough to restore MDNP, Nor the advertisers until Mur made it a tribunal thing.

[Chewett]

My question is then, What do you do that is so time consuming and that you need more people?

If your land is so failing, and you cannot do it all why did you ask for jobs to do? It seems stupid that if you dont have time to do the jobs that MDA needs to do, that you have asked for people to "buy" you to do things for them.

[Curiose]

I was not asking for jobs of which to do it. I was asking for ideas of which to HELP RESTORE my land and maybe the COMMUNITY could possibly partake in because it seems that people don't really care.

I did not right this to be attacked. I did not write this to have people attacking what I am trying to do. I AM DOING THIS BECAUSE I CARE. DO ANY OF YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THAT?

Edited February 7, 2011 by Curiose

[Kyphis the Bard]

Curiose, I'm very interested in seeing the revival of the MDA. Since my second week of playing, when I met Je Souis, it has been my only interest in the whole realm.

The MDA may never be able to be what it once was. Its past is important, yes, but we need to build on its past, not emulate it. MD has changed since the last age of the Archivists, and I am hard at work on my plans to revitalize it.

But hasty plans fail easily, and the MDA is not something to be toyed with. Rest assured, while I still walk the land only Mur could kill the MDA.

I look forward to seeing, aiding, and participating in whatever plans you have to help revitalize the MDA, and I look forward to the same from you, when I am ready to tip my hand.

(PS: "Inno" is pretty active, she just isn't very public nor does she go on the forum much. If you don't look for what she is doing, you won't see it)

Edited February 7, 2011 by Kyphis the Bard

[Curiose]

Thank you, Kyphis.

My hopes is that maybe MDNP and Artisans will return to normal.

[Ravenstrider]

I believe you got your job of Mur's secretary because you were asking for things to do.

If you care, try things... Don't go to the community without thinking about the solution to the problem and just expecting us to hand you the secret to revitalising YOUR land. Try it yourself first.


New ideas, realisation of projects usually need new members, since as far as I can see it, you, the old ones can't handle the situation. New members come from the pool of new players. New players comming to MD is largely the result of advertising. Ergo, you're a hypocrite to complain on that matter.


Edit: The Artisan Guild has been disbanded and their job is now mostly done by an automated system. I don't see them being revived, unless there is a flow of new artists... I doubt any who do avys today can compare to the work Glor and the crew did back in the day.

Edited February 7, 2011 by Ravenstrider

[Curiose]

I am not that old. I only have 200 days.

I was not trying to have people hand feed me ideas. I have Story night and I have tried doing something for a legend night and then another thing which hasn't kicked off the ground yet. I want the community reaction to ideas, and I like the community getting involved more than one person doing things. If anything, if a newbie wants to start something, wants to plan out an idea they are more than welcome to try

Edit:
Mur recruited me for his own reasoning. I had no influence whatsoever. Have an issue with it? Bring it up with him.

Edited February 7, 2011 by Curiose

[Ravenstrider]

Two question: How many people besides the writers and the people who are involved attend Story Night?
Why haven't you listed any of your ideas?

"I do not know how to fix this. I don't know if recruiting members will fix it, or if volunteer work will do it, but something needs to be done. Please give a list of ideas or thoughts of what you can do to help."

This sounds like a plea for people to feed you ideas.

Edited February 7, 2011 by Ravenstrider

[Kamisha]

Ok this is very side tracked and I am quite sure that this is going to turn into a personal attack. The point of this topic isn't necessarily to attack ideas but to offer any ideas that you may have. The topic although supported by curi is not about curi.

I think I should just make that clear before a counter productive dispute erupts and somebody says something they will really regret.

[Jubaris]

I would like to help, since I am a history fan to the bone

First that could be done is documenting the major events of this realm that have only traces of them left deep in the forums (or some none at all).
Something that would give at least a surface picture about realm's activities through it's "life" to the modern day newb, since it takes a lot of time for new players to run into some stretched basic info about realm's history.

Tho, my opinion is that every land should document its history itself, but since that activity ain't that developed around here, MDA can might as well help about it.

It would take some time... perhaps interviewing "remaining" people about events you work on, create an objective short summary of events and such without going much into details that, as Chewett frequently mentions, get curved by the author, you know, just post basic thesis.
You can record many events, from conflicts to festivals, major game changes (RPCs - Kings), so new people get the idea "how was it done", who is the most experienced person in areas (like event-organizing), and such.

It takes a lot of digging on the forums, and GREAT CARE about chronology, but, I think it's worth it.

You can employ some new players to do you minor tasks, like, contacting certain persons and asking them something concrete.

[Curiose]

Thank you, Rhaegar.

It's just this isn't something someone can 'physically' restore, i.e. build it up with bricks and mortar. Sure, there is the idea of recruiting people and stuffing up those alliances/factions up again, but then where would they go from there? I don't know how MDA ran before I came here. I don't know how they did things, or what went on or how they were before. I only heard stories, and I thought that by maybe getting the community involved it would help at least get them something to do.

Anywho. I can do the digging in the forum, and I know a couple other forum worms who could probably help. For Story Night, we're going to be doing something different and asking people to speak about history, or philisophical ideas, or basically anything in triguing like it used to be.

Other than that, I think I might warp the idea of legend night into something more of a history class, and then work in what you suggested, Veggie. It'll just need volunteers and some figuring out to get it done.

[Kafuuka]

Sooo many things to say, so tough to phrase it being neutral...

The good:
Curiosa Shroom is a very direct person who I believe wishes good for the realm/game/whatever. She is a teeny tiny bit overtly direct, whereas most people are accustomed to hidden motives and all that crap.

The bad:
It wasn't all that utopic before, no matter how Curiose depicts it. The crafters were never very visible (if any of you lot wish to object now, i explicitly used the word visible instead of active so that I can rightfully claim I never saw you guys being very busy; maybe others did). The advertisers and artisans have a function that is primarily meta game and as such don't make the land more active. I've never heard of the Dimensional Shifters doing anything except for being founded and being disbanded...

The ugly:
MDA had two leaders and they both left soon after being appointed. Reasons aside, that is bad PR. The 'old lore' confusion makes the legend speakers role quite difficult to understand for new and old people and makes them collide with the archivists and other research guilds. It is a well known paradigm that if things are going well, they will attract people to jump on the wagon. If things are going bad, people will leave the sinking ship asap.

MDA utopy as I see it:
[i]MDNP[/i] - the most ambitious project to undertake, it only makes sense if you have like a dozen of regular staff and publish a short journal of about two A4 pages every two weeks. Don't effing save up to get ten pages every two months because the quality will be low and nobody will read it all in one go. The concept of a paper is to write about stuff happening the very moment, so this also requires the entire realm to be more active and nobody should ever be forced to read the papers of two years ago to figure out important events.
[i]The Archives[/i]- ideally it should be easy to find all ingame (and not meta game) facts that are important easily and the lesser important facts only if you want to. What is currently in there is things like 'the inhibitor theory' - which is a horrible 4th wall breaking thing that I personally consider more damaging to roleplay than the dreaded old lore and the silver-denying werewolves who transform more often than the moon appears - and literal transcripts of the adventure log and chat logs. At one point we were also denied to write funny yet real stories and store them under 'amusing lore'. Currently the time since the last entry is half a year and several categories have 'no associated content'. Certainly denying people adding minor true readable stories was the right move. (Yes I realize this is post hoc and very mean... sue me.)
[i]The Legend Speakers[/i] suffer greatly from the ancient lore thing. I think the easiest thing to do is to allow people to tell the stories that their character believes in, as long as you make the explicit distinction that is just that. If you post creation theories in the archives, you're claiming them to be fact. If you have a creation mythos and tell that you and say everybody underground, especially next to the nightshade patch, believe it, but nobody else - blasted heathens - then nothing should be wrong with it. Except for trying to explain all that every single time again, with some people inevitably having a different opinion on what is fact and what is fiction.

The workload:
1. A structured debate on what should be in and out of the archives. imo the current 'rules' and structure are outdated, abandoned and proven to be dysfunctional.
2. Sanitizing the archives. Some stuff should be burned; no regrets.
3. Refilling the archives. A fresh start should attract attention of creative people. You can have people dedicated to writing things, others to recruiting, still others to editing the stuff from 'noob' writers. Don't be like me and say X and Y suck, but try to give constructive criticism and guide people to a structured but pleasant writing experience.
But mostly: tackle one task at a time and don't try to do it with just a few people over a loooong time period. People want results, people want to have coworkers. The lone hermit who completes his life work all alone in the mountains does not have internet access and hence does not play MD. Once people see there is something good going on and that people are recognized for it, they'll be easier to persuade to partake. You already broke some eggs and got people's attention, now make an omelet or a cake. Depending on how the debate n°1 turns out, I might write something for the archives even.

[Curiose]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Thank you, Kafuuka Bear. x3
I will get started as soon as I can talk to some people about this.

One thing that I find, is that it is hard to recruit people because they normally get gobbled up by other alliances, or they find MDA too boring [this is just my perception]. Do you think that if MDA is back on its feet, that perhaps other things will follow, such as more activity in the land?

Because, just because the AL is gone, doesn't mean the stories cannot be written, that they cannot be published. I mean... hell, when Knatty was taking over Tribunal, I found that to be a perfect thing to write about and, yet, there were not any resources of which to write it for.

As for Legend Speakers, the best way that I was told about our alliance function, was that we were the 'extension' to the Archivists. But at that being said, I feel it steps on their toes. But, if we look at it as Archivists write the hard copy of what goes on and then the Legend Speakers go out and talk about it, do events, have people talk about it etc, then maybe that would be a more fitting role. However, as I see it, it would take the work load that you described, Kafuuka, to make all of this actually happen.

This is what I was talking about. I was partially wanting event ideas, but at the same time, I knew that it wouldn't do anything. I just knew that something had to be done that wasn't overtly expressed and that is what I meant by saying I didn't know what to do. Now that I know what could be done, I was right to suggest that I can't do it alone because some of this takes outside hands to take care of or just an extra pair of hands.

So again, thank you kafuuka for your insight.

[Passant the Weak]

OK, I'm a very newbye here, and I obviously don't understand MD world well enough to know where to search things. I sometimes don't even know what I am searching. So take what i say with a grain of salt...

As a newbye, what intrigues me the most is Lands, alliance and their history. I would like to find a place wher I could see a word about past wars and dispute, or inter-Lands weddings and so on.
From your last post Curiose, I understand that might be more dealing with archivists. But if someone would take some past facts and make buzz around them (you know like a documentary show on a TV channel, that explains how such war started and bla bla), then i think I would jump into it in order to better understand this world, even if it's a small piece of it.

Again, forgive me if I'm off topic on this, but at least I tried.

[Jubaris]

I think that MDA, in difference to mainlands, doesn't need great population, it needs several dedicated people, and help from aside that can easily be received even today.

I personally don't like being labeled as a neutral, but I like to do objective/neutral projects that have some positive effect, so when you put up a concrete project you're gonna do first, you can count my help, if it means anything to you (just be prepared that I can be very lazy at times x) )

[Pipstickz]

[quote name='Curiose' timestamp='1297060790' post='78555']
In the past, MDA used to have a lot of factions and guilds/alliances of which many people have been part of. Most of which have died off. From the list:
[s]The Crafters[/s]-Moved to Loreroot
[s]Artisans[/s]-Inactive
[s]MDNP[/s]-Inactive
[s]Advertisers[/s]-Moved to Lands of the East
[s]Sotis[/s]-Moved to Lands of the East
[s]Dimensional Shifters[/s]-Inactive
Legend Speakers
Archivists
[/quote]
Just gonna point a couple things out;
Crafters were never in MDA, they used to be called "The Creators" and were in Loreroot with a totally different logo n' stuff, then item creation was created and the Creators were revived and then changed into the Crafters.
MDNP was not an alliance or guild, it was a project that could still be revived, though a format change would likely help.
Soldiers of the Inner Sun was Mur's admin alliance, and was most likely put in MDA to stay neutral. Imagine Mur with Marind Bell or GG homeland
Advertisers were never really active in the first place. In the time I spent in there, the most work I did was going through toplists and deciding whether to allow Redneck in. The leadership was lacking, to say the least.

In any case, MDA itself won't die. There will always be people who write things, they just may come and go at different times. For example, Awiiya is not technically a citizen of MDA or a member of any alliance, but could you not call him a Legend Speaker for the stories he writes? (At least, if I remember correctly; sorry Awiiya, I haven't read your stuff).

Similarly, you could put together a group of people who, say, enjoy RPing and call them an alliance. On alliances though, from the perspective of a newb, an alliance is a group of old, scary players who'll never let you in because you don't know anything and you suck. Obviously, that's a bit extreme, but you get my point. So...y'know, be newb friendly if you want some new talent. Scout it out n' stuff.

Yeah.

[Curiose]

I wasn't sure if MDP was made an alliance, but I did state something abotu factions, alliances and guilds. but meh.

[CrazyMike]

You can start with the MDNP.

There are lots of players who can write.

Go thru the previous editions and you will find contributors still active in the game.

You just need someone to consolidate the articles.

Like what Kafuuka said, have it every month even if its only 2 to 3 pages long.

Do not make an epic edition of a 100 pages or something.

Start with something simple to keep the ball rolling, and the most important thing, keep the momentum going.

As for helpers, as long as you do not insist on players joining MDA, you will find players from other alliances helping you out.

[Curiose]

I was fiddling on the idea of MDNP with Burnsy, and I think that maybe he could get something done with it. He has some good ideas which will be wonderful.

I had no intention of ever drafting people in MDA. If they want to join, they can. My only fear is people being affiliated with things that are affiliated with MDA, and then having those people being yelled at for it.

[Kyphis the Bard]

[quote name='Pipstickz' timestamp='1297121596' post='78612']
Crafters were never in MDA, they used to be called "The Creators" and were in Loreroot with a totally different logo n' stuff, then item creation was created and the Creators were revived and then changed into the Crafters.
[/quote]
I'm 90% sure the Crafters where in the MDA for a while, as I remember them being moved back to Loreroot. I'd need to confirm this, since I am not certain (however, prior to you saying they where not I was certain they had been. My memory is usually pretty good on data older than 3 months >.>)

[Burns]

Sweetie, I'm a writer at best. English is just my second language, I'm not good enough to do chief of staff.
And apart from that, I have no tools, knowledge, time, or creativity, to bring pieces together as a paper. If I was doing something, it'd be a section of the forum, not what Gargy did. xD

Find a chief to do the layout stuff and final editing, then we can talk about writing a paper again.

[Udgard]

To clarify on the history of the Creators/Crafters, it was never in MDA. The Creators (the initial name) was based on an old alliance (from the first alliance test) in Loreroot, and later on the name was changed to the Crafters. Kragel and I had wanted to move the Crafters to MDA to ensure neutrality, but the transfer was never done. So the Crafters were never really on MDA, it has always been on Loreroot.

[Kyphis the Bard]

Ah, okay. Must have been the planned move I was thinking of.