And on behalf of our dear Tribble, here comes another discussion! This will be open for two weeks, which brings us nicely to the end of the month at 31st August.

Discussion – Location Creation Abilities Restrictions on Ships (LCARS)

Problem – Since changing from EffWebb to Web Space, all crewmembers have been able to create their own locations, and have been able to change locations at will in the middle of a thread. This applies equally to rping ships as well as those for the government side of STF. In EffWebb, the ability to create new topics rested with the board administrators (CO, XO, GM, FComm, AFComm, QDir, AQDir, Pres, VeeP) who could choose to give this ability to their crewmembers. While this means that people are able to be more creative with regards to locations, and sometimes it is handy to identify that the events in the thread have now moved location (eg transporter room to planet’s surface for example), the problem occurs when locations become something like “Jack and Jill being chased through the Caverns of Darkness by a Big Green Monster on the USS <Whatever>” … as this is really not a location at all but rather more along the lines of a topic. Changing locations mid thread can make it difficult when trying to track down one or two specific posts that may or may not be in a particular post.

Solution – I am proposing that we change the current situation back closer to the way it was in EffWebb. My suggestion is that we return the power to add new locations solely to the Board Administrators (it aids the relevant people in their efforts to maintain their area of the club effectively). For ships, these people would be CO, XO and GM, and the relevant staffing people in the Government parts of the club … probably just the Cabinet Member and their assistant/s.

Discussion – Of course, this is a change that will impact the whole club, and a discussion in Command was suggested as the best way of getting people’s thoughts on it.

Ease of implementation for the Coder and IDept would be something that would need to be considered. So, Larry, Will, is such a thing feasible or possible? As part of it, is it possible to bring up a dropdown list of locations on the individual ships much like on the old EffWEbb?

It will impact on COs/XOs/GMs as they administer their rping environments … if control over this came back on your shoulders … is it something you’d welcome?

It would have an impact on the non-command staff on ships as well, as they’d lose an ability they previously had … ie to create their own locations. Rather than being able to create their own locations, they would need to fit in with the existing locations list on the ship, and if there was something additional they needed, they would have to get the CO/XO/GM to create the location for them. Would such a change cause an issue/problem for you?

Finally, it would impact on the Fleet, Department and Command Administrators as they would be able to restrict new topic creation in their area of responsibility. I suppose that the question for these people would be the same as for COs/XOs/GMs.

Any other questions/comments on this discussion also welcomed.

Andy