When I was a regular participant of the RP forum, Furtopia rules required that each and every single role-play be submitted to the staff for review and approval. This could sometimes take weeks, and overburdened the staff with several pages worth of information for every new game proposal, and was frustrating for members who had to wait. As an experiment, the rules were changed to see whether the section would stand on its own without as much staff involvement. Unfortunately, the results of that change have caused more stress than the old rules did. The staff have had to intervene and get involved in role-play threads far more than ever before. While we don't mind role-plays at all, and want to encourage this part of the community, it has become necessary for us to give some of the responsibility back to those who are running the games.
Rather than going back to the old method where each and every single game is approved by staff, we decided to find some sort of middle ground.
We want to make sure that GMs FULLY understand their responsibilities, and we need a way to handle situations where GMs do not take responsibility for what happens in their threads. But, we also want to make sure GMs are empowered and know what rights and powers they have over their threads. I have had so many GMs sending me PMs trying to make sure they had the right to do basic things every GM should be able to do, and it's important that they know what rights they have. This isn't to say that the GM is entirely alone in enforcing rules within their own threads, though. GMs should understand that if things start to get beyond their control, they may still contact Furtopian staff for assistance.
Understand that the more people you allow into each game and the more games you start the more you will have to read and be responsible for.Please read this thread for all the information on how to become a GM and what the GM's responsibilities are:
http://forums.furtopia.org/furry-role-playing/game-master-status-(please-read!-required-to-start-new-games!)/ We've decided to give a 1-month transitional period into the new role-play rules in order to prevent games from being interrupted. This thread will remain pinned while the transitional period is still in effect. Any threads made before now will remain open for the next month so that their GMs have time to get registered. After that month is up, any thread who's OP has not become a GM yet will be closed until they are able to register. Any threads that have not had the basic requirements for a new role-play added to the first post (Like rules, a story, etc.) will be closed.
Any NEW threads, however, will require GM status to be started.Additionally, the grave digging time limmit has been shortened in the role-play section to 1 month so that game masters do not have to worry about threads they are no-longer playing in starting back up when they're not paying attention anymore.
Any questions can be answered here, or in the other thread. But this thread is NOT to be used to bash or insult any others here on Furtopia, and is not a debate thread. Many strong words and feelings have been thrown around about the role-play forum lately and I would kindly remind everyone of the forum's first rule:
1. Be respectful of the staff and your fellow members at all times. Insulting or bashing other users will quite possibly get you a warning and/or a ban.
Thanks,
Alsek
