Changes Coming This Summer

[Joseph Witchard]

Myself and the RPG staff have been in discussion for awhile, and we've decided upon changes that will be introduced this summer that we believe will greatly improve Rebirth. Here are the changes, along with the date they're going into effect:

APPLICATION APPROVAL PROCESS CHANGES - NOW IN EFFECT!
Rebirth is getting more and more recognized as an RPG that has quality writing, and we want to encourage that. Therefore, beginning on the 15th, new applicants who get their first approval will then be given a scenario they must role play to prove to the Admins that they can hold their own with Rebirth's members. Once they have written the role play, the Administrator who set the scenario as well as another Administrator will discuss the application's quality and whether or not it should be approved.

Applicants will no longer be allowed to send requests to the staff for an approval, and will receive an infraction worth three points if they do. A lot of applicants are ignoring the fact that the staff have a lot going on in their personal lives as well as their Rebirth lives. From now on, only PMs and emails with legitimate questions on the RPG will be answered. This new rule will be clearly listed the RPG Rules and TOS.

Applications that are posted by applicants who have made little to no effort in following our application guidelines will be ignored by the staff until they have been edited correctly. These applications are ones that have none of the code words posted, have HP canon written in their character biography, etc. We're tired of having to explain all this to new applicants when it clearly explains it in the material we tell them to read through. We have decided that if they won't make an effort, we won't work with them until their attitude changes. There will be a thread that lists possibilities of why their application hasn't been reviewed that will inform them they're being ignored by the staff if they haven't followed our directions, but it's up to them to read it and make any necessary corrections to their applications. Other than that, we have no problem with leaving them in the dark if they don't even try.

From this date on (July 15th), all new applicants will be required to post fluent English. We of course welcome people from all across the world, but this is an English forum, and we have to respect that. Role plays written in poor, difficult-to-understand/read English annoy our readers, as well as make it hard for other members of Rebirth to reply.

MINIMUM SENTENCE REQUIREMENT INCREASING - AUGUST 15TH
For about a year now, we have required a minimum of eight sentences for every role play post, excluding quotations from a member's previous post in the thread. I am happy to say that our members have risen to the challenge, and many of them have gone beyond the call of duty and made the writing on this forum shine even brighter. In an effort to continue and encourage our writing, the minimum sentences required per role play post will be increased from eight sentences to 12 sentences, excluding quotations from a member's previous post in that thread. Please keep that in mind as August 15th approaches us.

NEW FORUM FEATURES - DATE TO BE DETERMINED
Our forum is going to get a new look this summer, as well as a couple of new features. One feature that I know everyone will be looking forward to is a new and improved multiple signature switch. The new design will be more efficient than our current design, and will allow users to select one signature as their default signature, which will be used in posts when you forget to select a signature and in Private Messages.

Another feature coming is the ability to interact with Facebook on the forum. Facebook, which is probably the best known social networking website on the internet, is now connected with the vBulletin forum software. You will be able to "like" different threads on the forum as well as publish notifications on your Facebook account when you have posted a reply or a new thread.