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	papergiraffes 2010-12-31 05:47 pm UTC (link)
	From what I understand, a mirror community would be a test to see if Equations would work at LJ -- would we get new members? more drama? or would we still be a tight-knit community? I think the members would stay here, and if they chose to, post in the other community too to try this experiment. (Reply to this)(Parent)

61_keys_to_play 2011-01-01 08:40 pm UTC (link)

My vote is kind of a weird one, because it has several parts: Mostly, I would prefer Equations stay at Scribbld, relatively unchanged (A). However, some changes to the monthly requirements (B) would benefit community activity, and give credit to those who are active. Here is what I propose: 1. In addition to a required duel/steal and 20 points to remain a member, add that all members are required to vote in at least 5 duels/steals per month to encourage more votes. It would reduce the amount of "last minute so I don't get cut" stuff, because people would need to check in more than just at the end of the month to do this easily. 2. With the first idea, it would be nice if votes after the required 5 if you went with it helped for additional points - like 1 point/vote.  3. Working with both points, I think it would ease the work for the mods if members provided the links to their votes once they reached the required 5. This should not be hard to do, especially as there are often times we have 5+ duels/steals at a time. They could be listed as a comment on a mod post or elsewhere as a link on the site (like the ones we use for suggestions/cashing in points, etc.). 4. I think there should be a limit to how many times someone can be cut for inactivity and be accepted again, or a way of forcing more activity for those who continually do this (I'm personally getting really tired of voting on the same people over and over again when they get cut for this). My thinking is: A. If a member gets accepted before the 10th of the month, they should be responsible for completing all the same requirements for that month, period. You can obtain all required points in one day if you take an hour on it. B. If a member is a "repeat offender" of getting cut for inactivity, after their third time of getting cut/reapplying, in their first month back they should have a higher point level to obtain, and must vote on more duels/steals than other members in an attempt to establish a pattern of regular activity. C. If someone gets cut for inactivity more than 3 times in a year, they should have to wait to reapply - a month or more.  D. If someone does this more than 5 times in a year, is their membership worthwhile? A longer waiting period and/or harder application process or an additional community vote to voice concerns is necessary at that point - and at least 50% of the community should be involved in that decision/reach a majority. 5. I think there should be a limit on hiatus lengths - if it's more than a month, then people should have to put a reason to the community and allow them to vote on the extended time. If the reason is "OMG my life is too busy", perhaps they should just leave and reapply when they have more time instead of taking an extended break penalty-free. However, for reasons like family emergencies, personal crisis, study abroad situations, service deployments, childbirth, etc., I feel most members would okay an extended hiatus time, as long as they check in or have an end-date in sight.  However, if there is a majority for moving to LJ, I prefer to start with (D), and also implement some changes to the application structure/look into _BleedingBeauty and see what works there. I am happy to volunteer as a member for the mirror site, and it would be nice for people to gain points at either location during the trial. I think our participation requirements should be about the same (perhaps with some of my suggestions), but the application should be more extensive than it is currently to see if the applicants will fit well here. Existing members should need to complete any new sections of the application upon moving or submit a completely new application, get voted on, etc. I think choosing 10 volunteers plus mods would be sufficient to try this. I think 1-2 months of this trial period would be fine, and everyone should maintain membership in both places, even if they are only active at one site or another, then vote again for a move. Feel free to make my comment viewable if you'd like, I don't care who knows my positions/suggestions. :) (Reply to this)(Thread)

smellofautumn 2011-01-04 04:44 pm UTC (link)

The required number of votes per month is something I was just thinking of before reading your comment! I think that would definitely solve a few of the activity issues that we're having, especially with voting since there are only four or five votes per duel/superlative which is a bit depressing. If no one votes, it seems moot to even bother posting them to begin with. A more in depth might help us get to know someone better, but (assuming things are still the same) we are voting entirely on looks so it doesn't seem appropriate to put in questions that may sway our vote. Music, movies and the such just seem to be cake toppers. Although I think occupation, priorities such as work? family? school? (I can't think of a better term right now...), or passions could be decent questions. If someone lists gossiping and painting their dog's nails as their main hobbies, we would know they're not really a good fit for us. Exaggerations, but I hope that's clear. :) (I'm not sure if this will come up screened or not, but you can make it public if it is!) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

papergiraffes 2011-01-04 06:07 pm UTC (link)

I was thinking, for the application, if we placed in personality questions just to see if the person would fit in to the type of community we want. But in order to keep the "equations" aspect, maybe this would work: If we feel that a person wouldn't fit in, then someone can vote with "abstain". If the person is okay the person joining the community, then they'd rate them as normal. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	smellofautumn 2011-01-04 10:19 pm UTC (link)
	I just figure if we got that particular with our applicants, that people wouldn't even bother applying. Like we would get a bad reputation or something. It's all so scary! lol (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	papergiraffes 2011-01-04 11:00 pm UTC (link)
	hahaha yeah it's hard to make everything ~perfect :( (Reply to this)(Parent)

61_keys_to_play 2011-01-05 04:16 am UTC (link)

Okay, so...thoughts on the application. I think that it should remain primarily on looks (to stay true to the "root" of the community, as it were) but I really like the idea of being able to "abstain" if we don't think someone would be a good fit - meaning "hey, you may be pretty, but I have some reservations about how well you would work here". I really don't think that making as extensive of an application as _bleedingbeauty has would benefit us, but I have the following ideas: 1. Raise the application age to 18+, but if any current members don't qualify under that, they should absolutely remain (not sure if anyone here is actually under 18 or not!). 2. I think adding sections on musical preferences, political views, and the like are pretty irrelevant to our community - seriously, how often do we actually discuss anything like that here? So, we could strip those sorts of questions as possibilities pretty easily, IMO. 3. Questions that ask about the true "root" of the person in question, however, would be useful in determining a little about them and if we think they would be a good fit or a source of drama here. For example, we could add 3-5 relatively simple questions that would not need to have more than a one or two-line answer, but could be in depth should the person so choose. Things like: - What are your ambitions/goals in life? - How do you handle drama, online and offline? - What is one accomplishment you are particularly proud of? - How do you describe yourself? - What would you bring to this community, and what do you hope to get out of being a member here? - What are the things that really interest you? (These just being examples I came up with off the top of my head, I'm by no means saying that they are the right questions or necessary!) Anyway, basically what I'm advocating for on any change to the application is a chance to see a little bit about the personality of anyone who applies, and maybe a 80/20 split to the looks/character of the person applying. Changing the weight ever so slightly off of completely how they look, but not so much that we lose the "standards" that have occurred here, while still allowing us to be careful about avoiding people who would not work in the community or be a source of drama for us. In other words, you can't get in on one part or another exclusively, period - but they aren't equally weighted. You could also do a different scoring/rating method with this if we wanted to do so, perhaps doing a 1-10 on the looks as before, but adding a second 1-5 on how well we think the person would fit here or their personality, however you want to see it. Then, a score would look like (as an example) 9/4, 8.3/2, 5.5/5...you get the idea. The score of the personality would never outweigh the score of the looks, but people would have to get over the same 6.5 for looks, but also above a 3 for the personality. These are just the thoughts I'm throwing out there - I'm not trying to "run the community my way" or anything - just getting some stuff out there for purposes of discussion. Disagree with me if you do, I don't mind - just trying to figure out how to integrate things a bit differently if we implemented the changes that I suggested before, and if I'm proposing changes then I only feel it fair to suggest how to work with those changes...but there are many solutions to this sort of thing, and I'm all for hearing other points of view. :) Mods, once again, please feel free to make anything I say public, I'm happy to put my views out there and encourage discussion/debate. :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

diaf 2011-01-05 03:48 am UTC (link)

Since people have shown an interest in adding application questions to get to know our members better, I'd like to propose an idea (this can be made public, if you want): Instead of adding questions to the application, which may sway peoples' votes and discourage people from joining, why not require that they fill out a short "get to know you" survey after joining? Nothing lengthy, but enough to find out a little bit more about the person. That way, we would get to find out peoples' interests, hobbies, whatever... but it would in no way affect the voting, since we are supposed to vote solely on looks (assuming there are no drastic changes). It would also create a little more activity within the community. (Reply to this)