A Problem I've Been Noticing

[qwertyuiopaz]

More and more I've been seeing characters get called on being taken straight from another website, posted onto here, characters that are blatantly copies of another character from an existing series (or at least similar in many ways) or characters that would not belong in a KH world. This is becoming a problem. I say that perhaps we start a check to make sure the characters really are original, and not carbon copies. This check may take a very long time, so I'm just throwing that out there. Idea factory, no warranties, etc...

I think some members are getting a sense that they can and will get away with this, thus they are taking advantage of it. Perhaps we could PM the members who own the characters and watch them / make them edit their profiles to actually be original, who knows. I'm running on 3 1/2 hours of sleep, my parents are arguing about me getting surgery which is stupid, so I guess you can call this more of a rant than anything. Apologies for not offering many realistic solutions, but I really wanted to get this topic out and discussed upon.

[Admin]

I totally agree. All original characters should be original, that's the whole point of being able to create your own character.

We should create a thread of what is acceptable? List everything we do not want to see with original characters and things that are okay.

Once we do that we should have an activity check for all Original Characters and go over all profiles and decide which ones to keep and which ones must be changed. This will take sometime, but it will let all of the members know that we mean business.

[sephiroth]

I'll write up a draft of that, if you'd like.

[mutoman]

Thanks, Seph.

But I must point out: Where will we draw the line? It's one thing if an OC is a blatant copy of something else, but it's another thing if they bear similar traits or powers. Will we go into depth with powers and traits, or will we just be looking for downright mimicry? Where will we draw the line between being an OC with a few certain powers and an O-Copy?



*in the style of Phil Ken Sebben*
Ha ha! Okapi.

[sephiroth]

Not every idea is original. With most things, if you look hard enough, you can find a parallel; there is a point where you need to accept this. However, in the occasion when a) blatant names/places are listed, b) powers and abilities appear copied exactly, c) you recognize it via history....

Various transformation through masks does not necessarily mean you are a spinoff from a game (Majora's Mask), though having all the same weapons (complete with pictures) and abilities of a character from Devil May Cry does. Often, it comes down to a judgment call.

[mutoman]

*does indeed trust the 5 Instructor's judgment*

That good judgment is what I'm talking about.
...
*has run out of things to say*
That's it.

[Larxene]

I personally think the whole character acceptance process needs to be reconstructed and reassessed.

Our main concern here should not start with the quality of the characters getting accepted, but training our new staff members how to identify characters that do not belong in the KH universe.

Weeding out those who got under the radar is good and all, but what will happen when we need to fill that void and we can't get characters accepted? Black hole WD.

Thus far, I've seen but the same few staff members sifting through the profiles, and many more new members asking repetitively when their profile is going to be accepted.

Don't preach to me about offline life. I know. You're not the only one that has one.

What I'm proposing is that we get the newer staff members familiar with accepting profiles. Get them into the swing of things. Identify the rights and wrongs. Dotting "i"s and crossing "t"s.

Idle hands wither to dust.

Also, adding a (very detailed and specific) list of what characters are acceptable and what are not atop the Application page itself would perhaps better instill the idea upon new members. Ya know, like, no characters that blatantly use abilities and appearances of anime characters -- if the word "Jitsu" is found in your profile even once, red stamp of rejection; no characters from books -- like sparkly vampires ('cause you KNOW it will happen eventually); if you want to play a game or film character, it must be from either Final Fantasy or Disney, but be careful about the former because you may be treading on someone's personal plot. The usual stuff that is implied when considering profiles, only written out for the applicant to see while typing up their profile.

My last statement regarding this is short: let's actually DO something for once. I mean. we've been discussing for how long now? And how much has gotten done?

Action speak louder than words, after all. >>

I think I'll keep my pennies for this one.

[makaili]

I agree for the most part with Lin. And I know I'm probably the biggest culprit with not accepting applications... I think one of the problems is that even though it says only Disney and FF characters are accepted in the rules, new members are just making original characters that fit the cannon character that's not accepted.

Oh yeah, and thanks for getting Tick, Tick,... Boom stuck in my head.

[Larxene]

I don't think we accept profiles, Lir-Lir. Didn't see it mentioned in the Historian job write-up. And if it is there, I blame the cold medicine.

On a similar note, I noticed that most of those who do accept profiles come on later in the day (later by my clock, anyways @-@). Since I'm on during more early hours, I'd be happy to lend a hand in going through the apps - now that I can move them around to the proper boards - if requested.