Suggestion Hosted Project Standards Update

[Lady Warlock]

This message might turn out to be rather long and explanatory and if that is the way it seems, I apologize. There truly is a point to it.

Hosted Projects are an awesome thing here on RpNation that are very unique to our community and very valuable in my opinion. I love the format and I think it's an awesome privilege for members to have access to. As such, I think it's completely reasonable that there are standards of activity and appearance for Hosted Projects.

When the hosted project system changed, HP creators were told that they needed to have activity once a month and that they needed to have a banner within seven days of creation among a few other things. I have three HPs myself and I put a lot of effort into making sure they all had nice looking banners and making sure that they keep to the activity standards.

However, I've noticed that there are several HPs that either a.) have not had a lot of activity or b.) still do not have banners even though they were transitioned when the system first started and it bothers me that I put effort into meeting the requirements in order to maintain the privilege of having HPs while other people have not and yet they still have the privilege as well.

I would like to suggest one of two things. Either a.) enforce the standards that have been established (which I understand might be difficult to keep up with for staff) or b.) relax the standards to a level that staff is actually capable of enforcing.

There are people who intentionally look through all the hosted projects seeking to join one and having some that haven't been active in ages really could turn people off from joining them. They might see that one is inactive and assume that they all are or they might see that some don't have banners and be simply discouraged because it looks messy - because it does.

I'm sorry if this seems rude or anything of the sort, but it's a thought that has been on my mind for a while and I felt like it was better to mention it than to not.

 

[Fable]

Lady Warlock

There are some settings that do not show sections of an HP, such as setting an entire sub-forum to private so that only members may view it. So, these inactive HPs may be active behind a member-wall. As far as the banner issue, it's something that is on a to-do list. Admins are the only ones capable of truly moderating HPs at this time, so yes, we know there are bannerless HPs. It comes down to priority right now, this is a lower priority vs getting the site ready for xF2.0 so it doesn't break horribly after the update.

We understand it's frustrating that enforcement seems lacking, but not having a banner isn't the worst thing requiring moderation at this time. We've added more staff, the moderators can now assist the admins with a few things to help make HP applications go through faster, rather than users having to wait literal months, etc.

I know this isn't the response you want to hear regarding the banners. :\

 

[Lady Warlock]

Fable

I recall (perhaps inaccurately) that new HPs weren't going to be looked at until the original ones were all set up. It just seems to me like there's a lot of things being changed halfway through that makes it hard to know which standards I as an HP owner have to make sure I keep to and which ones I don't. I go out and literally hound people to post so that there is activity once a month at a minimum sometimes - particularly times where a lot of students are enduring exams - and then despite me putting in that effort to meet all the standards, others are getting away with not meeting them.

It's just really frustrating and it makes me wonder if I even have to keep pushing people when everyone's busy focusing on exams for good reason. It's hard to know which rules are being enforced truly and which aren't and it makes it difficult to keep going.

I guess I'm just seeking some clarification on which rules we actually do have to keep to or risk losing the HP altogether.

 

[Fable]

I recall (perhaps inaccurately) that new HPs weren't going to be looked at until the original ones were all set up. I

These were the ones that were active during the switch from IPS back to xF. Those were given HP rights first before the current system. At first HPs were literal sub-forums of the site. Once we got an add-on, it helped reduce the process required to manually create custom sub-forums on-demand from HP owners and the permissions, pre-fixes, etc.

Once those HPs were then switched into the add-on HP system, and ownership transferred to the GM, they were supposed to set them up themselves as they had the moderation abilities granted to them with the new HP system.

Once that was done, applications for new HPs were opened. That's where we are currently at in the timeline. HP owners do need time to set things up, they are given permission to create an HP once their application is reviewed and accepted.

I guess I'm just seeking some clarification on which rules we actually do have to keep to or risk losing the HP altogether.

The standards in place are the standards for HPs. Inactive HPs will eventually face the possibility of being revoked and archived. The same goes for banners. It's a matter of admins having the time to do so. I do understand your frustration, but at some point there will be an admin review of HPs. There isn't an ETA (xF2.0 is actually speeding up their beta releases), but it will happen at some point.