Discussion

Actually it's more a restart of the site. Finding a way to explain why half the wizarding world moved to Hogsmeade would be a logistical nightmare, I think.

But I'm glad to hear that you sorta like it

Of course, there needs to be some refining, but I think it's a possibility, and that most people should be able to deal with it - because lets face it, most people's characters are inactive right now anyway, so that wouldn't be a huge change.

Edit: In hindsight - it's a logistic nightmare that we're all in umpteen places at once, it could work, but I'd be doing it at the end of this plot.

The way a structure for forums would go would be.

Intro (as it is)
Character (as it is)
Hogwarts (Minor changes, but I wont go into it)
Hogsmeade (Category)
-High Street
- Three Broomsticks
- Hogs Head
- Post office (current owl post place)
- Shops
- Shop subforums?
- Ministry Outpost
- Local Courtroom
- Death Eater HQ
- Order of the Phoenix HQ
- Shrieking Shack
- Hogsmeade Station (?)
- Wizarding World RP
Past/Future/AU Category (?)
OOC Section

To share responsibilities around the shops could be run and staffed by members. It'd also cut down on the existing roles and create new ones which members could fill, such as "Head of Hogsmeade Ministry office" (Not the actual title of course) and the various jobs at Hogwarts. Premise could be that the House Elves have finally been liberated after the seed of freedom was planted via Dobby's Death.

:'( Dobby still makes me sad

Jess first. You know I'm usually against any idea that doesn't come from myself... haha. So my first reaction to this was obviously, wth, it won't work.But on second thought, its actually a pretty good idea. Combining graduates and students would definitely solve the problem of scattered posting that I was talking about, and we'd have enough characters to get events done.

But it is quite a radical change, and one that might not sit well with all members, and I can't really think of a reason IC wise why we'd do that. Doing jobs at Hogwarts and hogmseade? meh.. If we need a huge change, I'd like to leave that as a last resort. Personally I'd prefer we just limited graduates completely if we decide to focus on Hogwarts rather then force them into a small roleplaying space. Because Jess, what PA used to be, and was until two years ago, was a Hogwarts based site, student driven plot, with a limited focus on graduates. Even the factions were mainly driven by students :/

Anyhow, Chase is right, I sort of underlined the problems in the post but didn't present many solutions. So I'll try to summarize all the solutions I can come up with to our current problems in this post.

So our current goals should be:

To give impression of a more active site, both to our current members and guests.
Old members and new ones alike don't want to be roleplaying in a site that looks dead, with hardly any other characters to roleplay with. But we have 7 staff members and 5-6 dedicated members who still post a lot. We all need to be a bit more active, especially myself ><, and roleplay a lot with each other and other members. That alone helps a lot, but isn't all we should do. Posting on the cbox might seem a bit pointless to you guys, but whenever I've checked out a different site, I almost always go to the cbox as a reference of how active a site is. If our cbox isn't being used, then new members will probably not join. So even if there is only two admins on, and you both have each other on skype or msn, talk to each other on the cbox instead!


To sort out our plot better.
Saying 'oh, me and jess discussed it and I think we have it all planned out' is not good enough, because we hardly ever have it all planned out. Post your ideas here. We can discuss the plot and really plan what we want to do next with it.

EDIT: From what I know, we originally intended this Grindelwald takeover of Hogwarts to have a really big affect on it. educatonal decrees and the dark followers giving Grindy more control of Hogwarts and etc. It was supposed to have a big atmospherical change on Hogwarts but that hasn't happened. What we want to do next is to have a thread with Grindelwald followers and death eaters where their differences become clear. For that, we also need a death eater head. We also need some death eaters in order for this plot to work, because they will be allying with the order to take down grindelwald.

Grindys character needs to change a bit from a clone of Voldemort, even tthough in canon too that was all that he was... Which is why I opposed Grindelwald as a villain in the first place, he has no past, he's just come back from nowhere and is omnipotent and completely evil. Meh.

To encourage increased member participation
They should be voting, participating in factions, classes and etc. They should be participating in contests, plotting small events of their own... They are not, and I don't know how to get them to do all that. It is already alll quite fun isn't it? :/ We should ask them these things in a survey or something, and perhaps have a point system where posting in the areas we want them too will earn them more points. I can do that, I just need ideas to make the points useful for something :/

To increase quality of roleplaying and plotting
I know we were talking about reducing the word count to 75, but do we really want those kind of members who post very little and barely participate in the plot? Also, an increase in the word count previously made members like aurora and everyone post more.

Besides that, we need to get the members to plot more, as in the small character plots. Perhaps the best way is to plot more ourselves. I'm talking about the character plots https://www.pottersarmy.net/f151-character-plots there, that we no longer use. Why? I've seen other semi-advanced HP sites who mainly just use that forum to plot.

To ADVERTISE
Can't stress this enough. I was attacked last time I brought it up in our advertising plan, but the point is its the most important thing the staff members do is advertise and all we're doing right now is voting. Which is really good but I'd like for us to actually post sites we've advertised on, as it honestly doesn't take a lot of time. But if you can't do it.. whatever.

The members need to advertise too. The points system, if it actually could become useful, would be a nice incentive to get the members to vote and post our ad on sites...

To welcome new members in a way that they simply can't leave
If a new member actually gives the site a chance, we need to greet them and roleplay with them so that they don't leave. Perhaps we need a welcoming team or something. Cause recently, a couple new members have joined, but many have left and very few have stayed. Is it that we're not welcoming enough? Or that PA is too confusing for them?

Focus on Hogwarts? Or Graduates/b]
More of a question then a suggestion.
If we want to focus more on graduates and make them active then we have to put less emphasis on Hogwarts. Meaning decreasing the forums there, and stop putting emphasis on house points and classes. Or do the opposite if we're focusing on Hogwarts. We could have some character bans for old members to get them to create students if they have none...

[b]To increase use of cbox and posting in OoC forums.
As I already said, if we post at the ooc sections, the members will follow. I already talked about the cbox, but yeah, same thing.

And some other stuff..
We need to cut and recheck a few things and see if we really need them. The spell compendium? I think it was a good idea but hardly anyone looks at it. Tier lists? The same thing. Should we get rid of it all or do we really need it.

And anything I left out...


We could try all these and see if the activity comes back up. But by the end of October, if we don't have 2000+ posts, then its really time to click the reset button.

So nothing's changed then? Still the same cynical Darren we all know and love?

Hehe. But I get what you're saying, it'd be a big change, and it's one we should consider - it's an option, but it's not the only one. There are a few things which would need changing, and a few things which would be disregarded altogether, but I'm open to suggestions and I'm happy to explain any points that may not understand at this early stage.

I think it'd be something we'd have to ask them about, ask if they like our ideas, ask for their own ideas and actually integrate them into whatever we're doing, rather than just working them in at some little point.

IC, I think we'd need a better backstory than this, but my initial thoughts were that most people don't actually have a set residence, do they? Making a shift to Hogwarts can be explained for Healers (More needed in Hogwarts and an overstaffing at St. Mungos.), Ministerial people (The outpost needs workers and our people are the best of the best, naturally) and otherwise just a general need to jobs for people. Things on this site rarely make IC sense at all, so I think that we'd be ok for that, for the most part anyway.

The idea behind this would be that Grads, whilst still having a place on the site, would not be entirely separate to students like they are now. Currently existing Grad characters would mostly be able to shift into it, and future ones would dwindle. We wouldn't have to "focus" on either one, because anything happening at the school would greatly affect the grads, and vice versa.

And I do remember what PA used to be, it was Hogwarts based, but there were a lot of holes in it, and to return exactly to what PA used to be would be a huge step back in so many ways, such as students being professors and heads of powerful orders, as well as working at the ministry of magic as Aurors. We did have a few grads, and they fulfilled these sorts of roles, acting primarily as stocking stuffer characters and professors, so we'd be returning in that in a slightly more expanded way. We can make it clear to members that in creating graduates they will be running the risk of having characters who are not so heavily involved in the plot, and that that's just the way the cookie crumbles. They'd still have purpose, and I think they'd still have a sh*tload of fun. The grad plots would/could be smaller scale and thus could run without affecting the main Hogwarts ones too much.


The goals you set out are ones you and I have discussed many, many times in the past both privately and publicly, so you'll excuse me if I don't analyse them point by point. Suffice to say that I agree that these are the correct courses of action to take in order to help bolster activity as well as make the image of activity seem higher.

I just have one point I beg to differ on.

I find that many (not all) of the people who are obsessed with higher plot counts are actually the least involved in factions and plots. If you look at people such as Xem and Aurora, they were always very involved in many aspects of the plot. That's just what I saw anyway, and it was just a suggestion, it can stay as it is if you like, I just wanted opinions.

I actually also have an interesting little thought to share.

As interesting as they are, I think that battles and fighting is dying out on PA. The low paced action of any duels has killed off popularity, something which has shown itself through the past few years as the playful duel has died out completely and the massive battle has died down to a low roar. So I think that maybe the Tier List has lost its meaning for now. I think that most people can just discuss their positions between themselves now, or call in admins to decide for them if they can't settle it themselves...

I'm not sure about confusing... I've not been a member for... a very long time... so I can't actually remember any of it. How is it found confusing (details please) and I'll try and think of some ways to cut the fat down on the site.

I like this, I miss proper discussions.

I'm just thinking here...dangerous, I know. Haha. Shoot me down by all means but I think this might be a little bit important. By putting everyone in Hogsmeade/Hogwarts, we're streamlining the site aren't we? That's basically it. I think what they enjoy [the members] are the different places you can rp so by cutting it all back we're going to have to keep them interested, aren't we? I think if that is going to be a just in case plan if everything does go tits up then we need bits of plotting that we can periodically hit them with. I think the problem I've always had with the plots is that they never actually seem to affect members IC. That might be because we're rubbish or just because they don't take any notice. It's probably a mixture of both.

If we do that then they'll need to be affected at every twist and turn. I think it would also be an idea to get rid of closed threads if we actually do that - put a blanket ban on them. With everyone concentrated in one place, there is no way the two/three people in the thread won't encounter someone else. It would probably bring everyone together too if people were just wandering through threads -- it would bridge some of the gaps between the little groups of rpers we have.

Also, here's a thought, perhaps with such a high concentration of people, hygiene goes a little bit west and there is an outbreak of Dragon Pox -- allowing for the plottage Khaat and I had regarding the Pureblood Dragon Pox which was called the Welsh Green Itch or something of the like. That would be quite good. Then maybe Grindy, thinking it was the Mudbloods or something causing the infection, could lash out a little in panic/rage. That would then perhaps go into the idea of the Muggleborns being rounded up that I had in the initial stages of us making that plot. In doing that, maybe we could open up a few more areas where more skirmishes could take place.

My point might've been somewhat lost there because I was getting carried away with ideas. Ahaha. But my point was that if we're containing them then we need to affect them, hit them at every twist and turn. Personally, I want to set fire to things again -- perhaps Gladrag's first? Haha.

Well the problem is we've always set them up to all be affected. A smaller scale example is Hogwarts - we set it up so that they'd have their things confiscated as they entered the school, something which affected everyone at the school and would've surely been something you couldn't just ignore - yet from what I saw, I was the only person who was attempting to bring it to light, and only the people who RPed with me made much of a reference to it. The point I'm getting at is that it's hard to affect the people who don't seem to want to be affected and wont be motivated into being so...

As for the Grads in this plot, admittedly there's more that could be done, but no one seems to care about the things going on which should at least affect them minorly - such as the injustices going on at the Ministry and Hogwarts. Instead people either choose to ignore it, or it's not big enough, which is why I'm thinking streamlining the site to a close knit community would have a really good affect on it, because everything would affect everyone.

And yeah, that's what I'm suggesting, condensing it a little more so that it's so much easier to create and run plots of any size, be it a wave of diseases that result in the quarantine of the Village and school, or a series of arsonist attacks which leave everyone on edge.

That's always been my biggest boundary for plotting on this site, it's too hard to effectively plot for the entire site, which is the difficulty we're facing right now, I believe.

As for this plot I think that everyone's next characters they make should be aimed wholly at contributing to the plot in some way. I think that the Death Eaters should be allowed to include 6th years and up (Draco, whilst it was a special case, was admitted into their folds in his 6th year) so as to add some membership there.

Grindelwald, as cliche as it sounds, should just start acting more directly evil, a lot more adults need to be sent to Azkaban over nothing and there should be random intrusions for threads in London... I do like that Idea of a blanket ban on closed threads though... It might ruffle feathers, but it shouldn't be that big a deal.

Send Jack to Askaban for awhile. Maybe we can talk someone into sending their DE (also for little to no reason) and she and the DE can work out an alliance between the Order and the DEs. I already PMed Red saying that possibly Vito and Jack could work out getting the groups together. Normally, I would suggest someone else do it, but I don't know any other Order members who have a good enough relationship with a DE to agree- and as of yet, Jack really hasn't had too big a role in the plot besides participating and calling the Order in. I'm sure Jack's been enough of a nuisance to be sent to Askaban I think. Her cell could be close to another DE.

Or overcrowding could mean they share a cell together.

Is Vito a DE though? I've never really seen him do anything with them, he was at the battle, but so were Grindy's non-DE followers...

But yes, that would be the way I'd do it. Make it a week long visit or something just as a warning.

He's part time, but he'd be more involved now that Grindy is restricting people.

I'll check with Red. If not, we'll find another DE.

Mmmk, otherwise perhaps speak with...

Scans list.

maybe Aaron Marcheti. He's a new member and I'm sure he'd love to be involved in that sort of thing. Shoot him off a PM and ask, otherwise if he can't, go for the safer option in... gosh. It's slim pickings huh. Ne'os could lose a week in Azkaban, I think.