I don't know what everyone will think of this idea.. it is by no means officially decided. However a large group of people attending the 9/15 meeting of the Guild of Writers seemed to feel that electing ambassadors (named such to avoid "liason" ;p) to both Cyan and the four other Guilds will help exceedingly to establish lines of quick communication when there is a need. They might work into the full structure a little differently than I've anticipated, but I've tried to predict what services we will need of each ambassador.

If you are not a member of the Guild of Writers, check to see what we will require of your Guild of choice, and maybe see if you would like to implement this idea in your own Guild. If both Guilds have ambassadors, meetings can take place between two people bearing distinct messages representing the majority of their Guilds.

Here are some descriptions of each.

Ambassador: An ambassador will be an elected representative of the Guild of Writers. They will not be leaders; rather, in a way, they will be servants of their Guild. Most of the time, they will be an ordinary member, but when we need to contact one of the other Guilds (or Cyan) we will send our ambassador to them, who will represent the wishes of the majority of the Guild of Writers. Ambassadors will be elected by forum poll; anyone running for the position of ambassador should be around frequent enough to be able to fufill their duties at any time, not just during episode weeks. The following ambassadors will be needed:

Ambassador to Cyan: The Writers will have to establish a way of contacting Cyan when we have a new Age to release, as they will have to have a hand in uploading and giving access to any ages hosted on the MOUL servers. As "communicating with Cyan" is a rather difficult undertaking, those running for this position should probably have experience with dealing with Cyan in the past.

Ambassador to the Guild of Maintainers: We will have to keep in almost constant communication with the Maintainers, to whom we will submit Ages for testing and ranking before they become public. In the final phases of our building of an Age, our ambassador should keep the Maintainers informed as to its progress and details, including a tentative date it may be released to them. The ambassador will also be the first to be informed of the rank the Maintainers have assigned to the Age, and if applicable, the bugs they have found. If bugs are found by the Maintainers the process will have to repeat itself; if the Age is ranked low, the ambassador will return to the Guild to discuss whether or not the Age can be changed for the better. This will probably be our busiest Guild ambassador.

Ambassador to the Guild of Messengers: The Writers will want to inform the Cavern on their progress in Age Creation, and a good relationship with the Guild of Messengers will be the easiest way to do so. However, the announcements will involve a great deal of translation from the technical OOC jumble the Writers will often use to communicate amongst themselves into IC terms for almost everything. For instance, if we are in the testing phase of a notable Age, we can ask the Messengers to announce that we have finished writing a Book and are currently proofreading it carefully for any contradictions in the text. We will not have to detail our progress for every Age, but we doubtless will want to for our first and any Ages that represent significant advancements on the part of the Guild.

Ambassador to the Guild of Cartographers: The function of this ambassador will remain sketchy for the moment; we don't yet know how we want our relationship with the GoC to function. It may be that the Guild participates in Age planning; in this case, the ambassador will relay information about new Ages to the Guild so they can create maps we can build off. More likely, perhaps, the Guild will be mapping Ages after their creation and release to the public. If this is what happens we may decide to allow the Guild early access to large Ages and the ambassador would work that sort of thing out.

Ambassador to the Guild of Greeters: Not that this Guild won't be important for recruiting new members, but I don't really see the need for an ambassador to the Guild of Greeters. If anybody thinks something essential will be lost if we don't have one, please let me know, but until then my opinion is that this position is extraneous.

I would like to ask anyone, whether you be a Writer or anyone else just passing by, to take a look and see if you'd like to add or change anything I've put here. I think this can be a basic model for future communication but much of this will be determined by the ambassadors themselves.

Thanks, and shorah.

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Guild of Writers

I think a combination of my posting this at like 3 AM and it being a mountain of text caused this to be passed over.. so I'm going to push it up once and see if anybody has a moment to read over it.

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MOUL KI #: 7107443
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Guild of Writers

This looks like an answer in search of a question at present.

I think that a Guild having a specific position or positions whose purpose is to communicate with the other Guilds and Cyan is a very good idea. (Dare I use the L word and call it a 'liaison'? *gasp*)

That person could be a member of the Guild of Messengers as well - a joint position. Maybe it would be good to have a liaison from each guild in the GoMes, as inter-communication is its purpose.

Anyway, I'm not sure you'd need more than one to start off, but more (especially as things ramp up with the Maintainers) could always be added if needed.

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MOULagain KI#27460 - Second Life: Vax Sirnah

Quote:

This looks like an answer in search of a question at present.

Yeah, agreed.

I'm sorry, but communication among the community is not a problem.

In fact, having just one representative to communicate with each guild (informing the MoMa when an age is ready for testing, for example) is actually a bad idea, as it will create information bottlenecks.

Individual project managers and age builders can communicate to other Guilds for their services/notification. The elected leaders of the Guild can speak for the Guild in all other matters.

The only thing that I I see here that I like is the notion of a "Ambassador to the Guild of Messengers" which should actually be called the "GoW Press Secretary." All the other ones are pointless/redundant.

And as for Cyan, well, I think we shouldn't expect much communication there anyway but seriously, folks, we shouldn't need much direct communication with Cyan (at least we won't need a specific line from the GoW), since they will have developed an unambiguous mechanism for submitting ages (*fingers crossed*) to MOUL anyway.

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The Noble Robot wrote:

I'm sorry, but communication among the community is not a problem.

I don't see how. I think there are a ton of concerns as to communication as we all hole up in our individual forums and meetings and pubs. I haven't read a single thread on this forum concerning the Maintainers, Messengers, or Cartographers and I don't intend to. It's too much. It'll be the individual Guilds' responsibilities to send messages to other Guilds when they have information that crosses the boundaries between them, and there should be some sort of established line of communication that ensures the Guild as a whole hears the message instead of some individual members a random guildmember has on their buddy list.

We discussed this at length at the GoW Pub meeting on September 15th and the idea had a lot of support, so I volunteered to post a description of each position and see if the concept met the approval of the other Guilds. I think it should be the Guild of Maintainers and the Guild of Messengers and the Guild of Cartographers who should decide if one person should be sent to them with information or not. But I'm having trouble getting anybody's attention, which is kind of the entire point of having ambassadors in the first place. I don't really care what they're called, if you want GoW Press Secretary that's fine by me. I'm just going by what we discussed in the meeting.

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MOUL KI #: 7107443
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Guild of Writers

Keeping the lines of communication open are always a good idea... But without a formal structure to any of the new guilds it is hard to find the explorers to fill all these positions.

You may find as we get more specific guidelines through whatever "official" communications, DRC or Cyan, that this will be a much easier idea to get support for. We are all still testing the waters and seeing who wants to do what- where. Your idea is not going unnoticed and the more ideas offered the better- but without two corresponding parties among the guilds the position is just a label and not a workable job description.

Keep bringing it up from time to time, and you may find that it is naturally adopted as the individual groups finally come together as a whole and get more comfortable with their own inner working relationship.

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"Always consider the Whole, Atrus. Always look at the interrelatedness of things and remember the 'whole' of one thing is always just a part of something else, something larger." wisely spoken by Anna- "The Book of Atrus"

I'm trying to form lines of communication, not merely keep them open. There are always people raving about how there shouldn't be leaders, merely bodies of explorers, and yet the most crucial communication doesn't take place on public forums, it takes place in chat rooms or in our own Pubs or private KI conversation. The people who show up are the people who make decisions. I don't understand why we should wait around for the decisions to be made for us.

This is merely a proposition for how we can form solid lines of communication. As for DRC/Cyan communication, that was listed for completion's sake; obviously all communication with them will be on their terms. But everything else listed will be crucial to the Guilds. We will need people who will be active in multiple Guilds to form a public link between them so we all know what's happening.

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[ Pryftan Wing ]
MOUL KI #: 7107443
MOULagain KI #: 91132

Guild of Writers

I understand your point. There will need to be communication between the guilds in some form at some point. And you have a great solution for how to help control some of the issues that will occur when the guilds are finally going to finalize their ideas.

Maybe you could set up temporary volunteers that could be watching what the other new guilds are currently doing and keep your chosen pre-guild or guild up to date on their progress. This way when we all finally see what each guild really is and who wants to participate- you will have already created a bond between the two groups that could easily translate into your ambassador idea. All, in cavern if that is where you think the focus should be.

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"Always consider the Whole, Atrus. Always look at the interrelatedness of things and remember the 'whole' of one thing is always just a part of something else, something larger." wisely spoken by Anna- "The Book of Atrus"