Administration Department Proposal

LONG TERM DEPARTMENTAL GOALS

To have a mature, professional staff to set a good example for the players.

This includes:

• enforce the codes of conduct for immorts and players
• revise & update the help files
• handle description requests in conjunction with PR
• handle pkenabling requests - both pkok and pke
• handle unpurge requests
• handle archive requests
• check for outdated & appropriateness of infomation on boards
• forward interesting and or relevant board posts to appropriate department mailing lists

I. Introduction

In the beginning there was only one sort of proposal, and it was what is now called the "Builder" proposal. In it, the immorts asked for a proposal for a new area. From that proposal, they could judge how well the proposer knew LegendMud (by how well the area fit in with the existing scheme, what it replicated, and what it did entirely new) and--loosely--how successful he or she was likely to be (by writing skills, originality, realistic conception of what could and could not be done).

Then the immort staff spilt up into Builders, Coders, Public Relations, and Administration. The old proposal style might tell us quite a lot about writing skills, which are necessarily important to builders, and yet not tell us much at all about whether or not a proposer possesses the characteristics needed to be a good administrator. So the pages that follow set out the unique requirements for proposals to join the ranks of Administration. Because Administrators do different things from Builders, the process for proposing to Administration is a bit different, but we are still looking for many of the same things.

II. Goals in Preparing the Proposal

A. General
The purpose of proposals, from the point of view of existing immorts, is to give them enough information about a candidate to judge whether or not that person would be a good addition to the immort staff. With as many players as we have, many of the people who vote on your proposal may not know you personally. Your proposal is your voice--it stands in your place in the application process and speaks for you. You will succeed or fail largely upon your proposal, which means the same time, thought, and care should go into it as would go into any other "job" application that your were making. As in real life, substance is most important, but even wonderful substance presented in poor form--hastily constructed and/or without attention to details--will reflect badly on you.

Try to keep the overall proposal under 10 pages in length.

Feel free to speak with an Admin immort about the work he or she does or to get further explanations of anything unclear in the proposal process, but remember that they cannot help you write your proposal or suggest answers to questions that are part of the proposal process.

B. Specific
Your proposal should be split into three parts. All are explained below.

1. Part One of your proposal is the general immort application. Because many of the tasks Admin immorts engage in involve enforcement of LegendMud's rules, if any characters you have played on the mud have been subject to punishments for violations of LegendMud's rules, please provide a full account of any and all instances. Previous violators are not excluded from application, but we do need to know upfront in order to make sure there are no lingering antagonisms that would make your life as an immort difficult or impossible.

Part Two

You should identify an issue within the domain of Administration that you believe needs correction, improvement, or development, and supply your proposal for that correction, improvement, or development. In short, identify a problem and propose a solution. You might think of this as the Administration equivalent of the Builder's area proposal. If your project is not something we can use, you are welcome to participate in whatever alternative is already in the works. You will be expected, however, to find some area where you can make a meaningful contribution.

We will look for several things in this section. For instance, your proposal and its solution will tell us some of the same things area proposals tell us about aspiring Builders--how well do you know LegendMud? Have you thought about what is going on here? Have you identified a need and proposed a solution that works within the existing scheme? Be clear and specific. Provide concrete examples or explanations of the problem you have identified, your solution, how you would implement it, and any problems you see involved in your solution. Be certain to conclude with an explanation of why what you have proposed is important and your anticipated timetable for carrying it out.

Examples of Previous Proposals:

• Placing helpfiles on the website
• Revamping and updating the current helpfile system

If you need some assistance with types of projects to propose with the Admin Department, please feel free to speak with Haley or any other Admin immortal.

Part Three

Please provide answers to the following specific questions:

A. A pkill frenzy starts up, with multiple members of 'Clan Pkill' being attacked and slaughtered. 'PlayerA' has his nonpkiller on and immediately logs off and brings PKillerA on to join in the war. You know that PKillerA is PlayerA's alt, what do you?

B. Same facts as in question "1", above; What would you do differently if PKillerA started multiing all the people that slaughtered his clanmates. All of the people he is multiing are low because they had just finished fighting and killing them all?

C. Same facts as in question "1", above; What would you do differently if lots of people began alting to join the 'fun' and a full blown pkill war began?

D. You are an Admin immort. As such, you saw the area proposal for the wonderful new "Cuban Revolution" area, complete with a step-by-step description of the "Fidel's Cigar" quest, which provides a 6-point con boost. The area has now gone in, and one of your old clan members is stuck just a step away from finishing it. He has to run off to class, and he knows if he logs out and begins afresh he will never get past the CIA-men-with-poisoned-ball-point-pens stage again. You know that you cannot give out quest information. In the same words that you would use to explain to him, please describe how you explain to him that you cannot help.

E. Which of the following do you believe is closest to the most important role of admin: ensure that all rule infractions are punished, and punished with consistency; reform rule-breakers so they don't do the same thing again; protect the rest of the mud community from having to hear/interact with rulebreakers? Please explain the reasoning behind the one you chose as the most important.

F. For each of the following description requests, assume that there are no keyword conflicts with existing player descs. State whether you would register the description or not, and if not, what explanation would you give to the player? (note, names are included only when they may be relevant to your decision)

    Name: Mistry
    Short: a figure hidden in a dense mist
    Long: Wisps of mist alert you to an eerie figure hidden in a shroud of darkness.

    Name: Lenore
    Short: a cute little dead girl
    Long: The faint smell of formaldehyde lingers suspiciously around a little girl.

    Name: Gottfried
    Short: Hauptmann von Luttke
    Long: The air seems unusually serene around a tall Prussian officer.

    Short: a witch with dancing green eyes
    Long: A vacuous young witch with dancing green eeyes stands beaming at the world.

    Short: The Dark Lady
    Long: A warrioress of darkness emerges from the shadows of your soul.

    Short: a confused man enclosed in smoke
    Long: A man enclosed in smoke pets his bong lovingly as he inhales deeply

G. The admin staff sometimes gets looked upon as the "bad guy", after all we are the ones who say "no reimbursement", "you're being deleted for this", and all that. How would you react to someone who disagrees with your decision?

H. PlayerA sends you a tell saying they think that PlayerB who dropped equipment in a box is also PlayerC who picked it up minutes afterwards. How would you go about figuring out if this was the case?

I. You are playing one of your mort characters and you are sitting at the Stag. You witness PlayerA swearing at PlayerB. PlayerB asks PlayerA to stop but he continues to swear at PlayerB. What do you do?

J. You're an admin immort, PlayerA sends you a tell stating that another immortal loaded equipment for PlayerB. What do you do?

K. PlayerA tells you they did not do something they have been accused of and, a week later, you discover they lied to you. What do you do and does the duration change your response?

L. You're the only immortal online and the you're being hammered with requests from players. You have a request for a restring, a request for a description, a query on the rules, someone who thinks they lost all their equipment due to a bug and another player claiming he's being harassed. In which order do you deal with the requests?

M. Please write a question, no longer than any of those above, that you think would be a useful addition to the Admin proposal questions. Please be sure to write an answer to your question.

Please feel free to ask us any questions on-line. Or, send e-mail to Haley.