Kick things off

So, seeing as how Darren basically put his foot down and said 'think of ideas quickly', I have created this to basically get some things rolling around first. I guess we can do this with a 'compliment, complaint' situation here, start listing some things off the top of our head.

Compliment: Love how the new theme is, really looks stylish and otherwise fancy.
Complaint: If this applies to you, I would consider this, but I believe there are people here who have waaaay too many alternate characters on their list.

So I guess let's list off a few more of the CCs and then get down to discussing it.

Compliment: -
Complaint: Why do the members complain more than they do anything else?

Hey, I've tried to throw my hat in the ring, and I'm trying to offer a more positive outlook, yet this site isn't perfect I believe we gotta address these.

So, said PA council (minus AJ because I don't know where you were) already had one discussion on plot. This is what we came up with.

Big Brother totalitarian government. I KNOW I suggested it last time, but with their ideas I think we really got it nailed down.

This Poster Child type politician shows up. What the wizarding community doesn't know is s/he has 1-3 people with equal power. (I'm going to say he in a neutral tone, k?) He wows the world by saying he will rid the world of evil, and suddenly, crime drops. (The reason being his team has been inflating the rate of crime and they now stop, and they also 'forcefully remove' criminals, i.e. assassinate.) He rises to the role of Minister (Khaat, I think we can think of some really good IC reasons why, perhaps Robert steps down because his energies are desperately needed at Mungo's) and at first everything is great. The Ministry is booming, crime is going down, etcetera.

The reason crime is going down though, is this little alliance in charge is taking criminals in without warrants or arrests, refusing them trial, and torturing them and whatnot. They also list both the Order and Death Eaters as vigilante groups, naming the members as public enemies. Before the groups can react, this alliance begins taking family and supporters of these factions.

What we get is 3 levels of citizens, really. Those who are oblivious to these goings on (those are pretty much the members who never get involved in the plots); the citizens that are suspicious but scared; and those like the Order and DE starting to form a band of rebels trying to get into the Ministry.

As for the factions, I suggested moles. i.e. The Order has a spy in the DEs, and the DEs have a spy in the Order. This gives each faction two goals: 1) protect their spy and 2) Figure out who is spying on them.

Now, I KNOW this is an overdone plot. But it WORKS. It's simple, but effective. Jack was offered up as a potential spy, but I really don't think it matters WHO it is, so long as each faction has an active spy amongst them.

The main thing is to give members a chance to take roles. I know admins take roles out of need, but with all these old members returning, and new members getting more active each day, a withdrawal of admins from power roles are sure to encourage members to step up. The PA Council was chosen because we jump as opportunities to help. But I know we're not the only ones that would out there.

I'm sure I missed something. Matt and Chase can remind me if I did. And I'm sure your inquiries will help. But that's a skeleton of what we discussed.

I like the overall presentation of the idea, but to me, it just doesn't sound right to me for some reason. Although I would love the idea of having a 'V for Vendetta' kind of moment on this site, to me, it just doesn't seem to fit the hole. Personally, I love the idea of spies trying to figure out who the other spy is (cue the Spy vs Spy comics) and that sounds like a great idea, but when I think of totalitarian government, I think of 'corporations, technology, surveillance, etc'. You never see anything like that of the sort, so to me, the leader would have an equally frustrating time over a population that basically has it's own independence, unless he somehow came up with a way to control magic. Which is impossible.

The problem I have with it is that those sorts of plots have ridiculous amounts of obstacles that are so hard for a site like PA to do well that they fail. Over and over. We just finished exactly that sort of plot and it failed for many, many reasons that all combined together. It wasn't one particular reason. The failure was immensely complicated. PA does not have the ability to do those, and believe me, we have looked at those plots many times. I don't feel like I can adequately cover all the reasons why those plots dont work here, but here's what we've found.

Site plots that have a double layer seem to work well. When site plots allow for not only site level plotting but personal plotting seem to work the best.

The reason why admins end up taking some of the challenging jobs is because we need consistent IC players. Period. We dont' ask for the challenging posts, nor do we largely want to keep them. The admin job is full time enough as it is. But consistency of IC posting is one of the biggest problems PA has. And, I'm sorry some members have perhaps not noticed but we've offered up almost every 'challenging job' on the site. We're watching to see who steps up and shows leadership and who doesn't.

We are working on new plottage but in order for the new plot to work, we need members to actually get on and post IC. When people attend a faction thread, for example, and then post once and leave, site plot falls on its butt.

We love offering lots of new and creative ideas, but I really want to see your ideas for getting members to follow through once ideas are started.

@Andrew - Magic would be controlled by law. Laws would become ridiculous. Curfews and whatnot. And it wouldn't be spy vs spy because that only includes 2 people. It would be both factions warring.

@Khaat, but we didn't go through with that plot. Grindy never did any of what we had planned him to do. The totalitarian idea we had presented became watered down because it was "too complex for members." When did Grindy ever order anyone capture?

I know the reasons, I heard them presented before when I suggested this idea.

This does offer personal plotting. For those oblivious (like I said, the members who never involve themselves regardless) it's business as usual. For the others, there's kidnapping opportunities, loss of family, etc. Factions would have their work too.

I know you take it out of necessity, but no one can ever prove themselves worthy of a position unless they are given the opportunity too. I think all major roles, headmaster, Minister, faction leaders, should be limited when admins are on. After your term the job is advertised as open so someone can fill it as they wished. After the update when all the jobs were cleared, major ones could have been too to gauge interest. You have to give members a chance at least.

I don't like the meetings being used as an example, because look- meetings are boring. DEs are finally in gear because Aaron gave them a job and the meeting was interesting. The Order just talks. Give them a job and activity will increase. The PA Council has a rare view. We were all leaders at one point so we know the hard facts, but we're members now. We see the potential and we perceive PA the way you guys cannot as admins. I just think the members are waiting for something to do.

I'm going to comment on the last sentence because I'm bitter.

The members are not waiting for something to do. They don't want to do anything. However, you must cater the plot to them and this is where that one will not work.

They need to feel as if they are involved because plots are only for those who are usually involved because, bottom line, the members are not interested. If they feel as if they're included then they're happy and just potter around doing what they usually do which usually consists of torturing their characters and not much else.

Otherwise, they're pissed. -.-

They're impossible to be pleased because they don't want to do the work that comes with it.

I know there's a few that do want to do something of significance. Hayley is getting involved quickly, as is Jas, who already made a Daily Prophet paper. Then there's the 4 of us here that were, until yesterday, just other members who wanted to do somewthing for the plot. And I'm sure people like Jemma and Ginevra and Elizabeth want involvement once they settle in. There are active people who I'm sure would like a little control- Mis, Cec, Madd, Hayley, Aaron, Jas are all come to mind as people that, I'm sure if you called on them, they'd answer in some way. That's just off the top of my head.

Activity can be a problem, I know, but the problem remains true for admins too. I mean, I know Jess had his excuse, but that hurt the Order's plot too. Activity will always be a problem, even for the most active member.

As to what Eli said earlier, I have another suggestion. Possibly restrictions? I'm not talking about just characters (even though I believe that presents a problem within itself) or even just faction members, but I think, we need to get the members motivated to do something. If we show that we want members to be active and happy with the plot and everything else, then we gotta show that we want this to happen. Weed out all the inactive people who DON'T want to help, from the ones who really want to help make this site great.