OTM

[Cheshire]

Before I say anything, I just have to say Spectrum looks great. Love the simple skin. But, since this is a full on creative freestyle rpg, perhaps you could add an "Of The Month" Kind of thing. There are some pretty creative, weird characters, and it might boost someones self confidence in creating wolves if theirs is the OTM wolf. Members could vote or just fill out a form to tell which one they think and then you could have a poll to pick the winner.

I've seen it on multiple sites and think it would really catch a few eyes. People might even join just to play with said character! Not only that, but you could also have a "Thread of the month" Or a "Member of the month", things along those lines. Though without this little category, it would have no effect on this great site. You did an amazing job, and I hope this place blossoms into something magnificent!

-Cheshire

[Forte]

That sounds like a great idea. I've thought about it before but figured it would take a while to get enough members for OTMs to really happen, but now I think we might make it work.

What does everyone else think about it?

[Marie Anne]

I think it would be really cool. Just to have the chance to see something you created or participated in be displayed. . . That would just be fantastic!

[Kailolu]

I think this is an awesome idea

[Forte]

The only reason I'm unsure about it is because I would want to add little avatars to the COTMs and I don't know about consistently having graphics of the characters.

[Kailolu]

Well perhaps for those who don't have pictures of their characters can come up with an alternative? Don't ask me what, I don't know XD Maybe someone in the graphic studio would be willing to make little avatars for the charatcers of the month?

[Marie Anne]

I think Kailolu has a wonderful idea. And once I have enough money saved up for my tablet, I'll be willing to do the drawings!

[Forte]

This sounds really fun. I think we should start doing this after the activity check is over.

[Accalia]

I think it's a great idea. Though you have to decide what categories you have.

The common ones are 'Character of the Month', 'Member of the Month' and 'Thread of the Month', but I've also seen 'Quote of the Month' (IC quote), 'Post of the Month', 'Graphics piece of the month', 'Staff Member of the Month' (though with only one staff member we'd know who's gonna win that one XD), 'Couple of the Month', 'Plot of the Month', 'Relationship of the Month' (friends, enemies, in love, whatever), all sorts... Some have 'Pack of the Month' but as there's only four packs that would be a bit boring at the moment.

Some sites just have 'Character of the Month', others have a 'Female of the Month' and 'Male of the Month', others have a 'Adult of the Month' and 'Cub of the Month'...

I personally like the nice simple ones, like Thread of the Month, Female of the Month, Male of the Month, Member of the Month, and Quote of the Month. But that might be too many. You could cut it down to just 'Character OTM' and 'Member OTM', or you could go the whole hog and have ALL of them.

As for the avatar problem, I'd be happy to oblige too Another alternative is just to do a pretty wolf silhouette button on a generic field, or to put their name on the button instead of a picture. I would link the buttons to the profiles, so everybody knows who it is.

Something like this? And just edit the silhouette colour for pelt colour, maybe add on any mutations they have? That would be easiest. I don't know. Whatever you think is best

Alternatively just make a 'Character Census' thread and require everybody to post there with their character and an image they want. That'd be useful for making sure we have an image of every character. And if there was ever any other info you wanted to keep track of, you could use the thread to keep track of all of that, too. Like, I don't know, the female/male and magical/nonmagical ratio of characters on the site (to help with banned/encouraged character types? If you ever decide we need those?)

Just a thought.

[KaiNaium]

I don't have much input, other than OTM doesn't have any real downsides and is quite often a real turn-on for potential members. Personally, I love OTM. If you receive a position in the OTM, even once, your confidence and eagerness for activity and roleplaying is instantly increased. Personally, I'd love to have a Quote OTM, Female OTM, and Male OTM. I'm not a huge fan of the Member OTM, and we may not have enough active members not to repeat ourselves within a decent spam of time. I also like the Graphics Piece OTM but, again, we may not have enough graphics artists yet to satisfy more than a few months' OTMs.

[Forte]

I definitely want to have a Character, quote, and thread of the month. Those are the bare minimum to me. I don't like the idea of Member of the month because it would kind of just be a popularity contest. It's different with characters than with members and some people might get offended. I also like Plot and relationship of the month.

I think to do this it would work on a nominee system; I don't want to base it solely on my personal favorites. The only thing about nominating is, members would have to have read threads they're not in and I'm not sure how many people do that. I glance around sometimes but I mostly stick to my own threads....

Lyta: I don't think we need to keep track of many specific stats; I keep tabs of the gender ratio in the Approved Chars board, and I think that's just about all we need. Although, pack tallies might be nice. I'll think about that once the activity check is over.

[Accalia]

I read threads I'm not in all the time. And even for those who don't, if somebody who you have threaded with nominates you, you'll still get on the voting list. And people will probably at least cast a glance at a few of each person's threads before they vote. I don't know... I don't think there's any better way than nominating, so we might just have to put up with the flaws in that system.

What most sites seem to do is have a nominations thread, and then there's a poll where people can vote for the nominees, or something along those lines.

If we're going to have character, quote, thread, plot and relationship, you might need to think of a way to organise it. Some sites have 'Character of the Month', and then the character's picture, and a little description of the character and reasons why the nominators said they voted for him, and a link to his profile, and whatever. But all that in the sidebar for all the awards would take up a lot of space. You might want to code in a scrolling div? Or maybe one of those things with the row of little images, one for each category, and when you hover over each one, the winner of the award's description and a 'well done' message appears in the box below?

If you don't know how to do that... In theory I know how to do both of those, but in practice I would go hunting for an internet Javascript tutorial, or another member who knows how, XD. If you got the code off me it would probably end up looking like a stampede of llamas had trashed the sidebar.

[Forte]

Lol. I like the idea of a hide/show OTM section in the side menu. A category avatar that shows the winner when clicked. I'm sure I can get a code for that on Support.