Organizing Estates

[Jenesis]

This is not at all a high priority thing but...

Now that there are a lot of players who own Estates, I wonder if there could be added a way to differentiate "Public Estates" (i.e., those with RP areas and catchable spawns) from "Private Estates" (i.e., those without such areas)? Right now there's no way to tell if an estate is visit-able or not unless I click on it, which means I spend a lot of time clicking on and scrolling through Estates that I can't visit.

I can think of a few ways to do this:

1) Have a pinned thread that contains a master directory of Estates, indicating which ones can be visited. Any limitations on who can visit would also be noted in the directory.
2) Include the tag [PUBLIC] or [PRIVATE] at the beginning of every Estate's board description.
3) Create two separate sub-boards in the Estates board, one for Public Estates and one for Private Estates.

If an Estate owner chooses to add (or delete) spawn areas, its directory entry, description, or board location would of course be modified.

[Pixel]

Yknow, I think this is great for new members or people just checking out estates for the first time. Even if it's just a bulletin of private vs public. (I also wouldn't mind including a [PUBLIC] tag in my estate name.

[Lamont]

Estates are invite-only-esc, since if you wanna be modded you kinda need the 'okay' from the estate owner. It's not really like the rest of the boards where members would just browse where they wanna go without talking to the owner, or the owner having directed them there in the first place.

If anyone wants to add a text notice that they're always 'open' or 'public' or whatever, just let staff know and we can add that to your board description. It's all written by the estate owner after all :p

I don't like the idea of adding even more management on staff around estates when they are not supposed to be heavily staff monitored. If an estate owner wants things to be public one day and then private the next, and then change it again the week after, that shouldn't require any staff involvement of updating a status somewhere.

[Jenesis]

Mar 18, 2024 14:25:41 GMT 11 Lamont said:

Estates are invite-only-esc, since if you wanna be modded you kinda need the 'okay' from the estate owner. It's not really like the rest of the boards where members would just browse where they wanna go without talking to the owner, or the owner having directed them there in the first place.

If anyone wants to add a text notice that they're always 'open' or 'public' or whatever, just let staff know and we can add that to your board description. It's all written by the estate owner after all

I don't like the idea of adding even more management on staff around estates when they are not supposed to be heavily staff monitored. If an estate owner wants things to be public one day and then private the next, and then change it again the week after, that shouldn't require any staff involvement of updating a status somewhere.

Maybe "public" wasn't the right word, but I'm using it as a shorthand for "has wild encounters" vs "does not have wild encounters." Feel free to substitute a different word that makes sense to you.

I understand that the general courtesy is to ask an estate owner before you visit their estate, but we do advertise estates as places where new players can thread while they're waiting on a mod, and because of differing timezones, it's not always realistic to reach out to someone in cbox asking to thread in their estate, or offering players to join your estate. The only place in the rules where permission is mentioned is in the "Explanation of Features" area, where it says "Sections of your estate accessible, with permission from you, where visitors can battle and catch Pokémon." and people who don't have their own estate are unlikely to hone in on that section. It might be a good idea to add a section to the ZZ Housing Commission thread specifically governing rules for visitors, and make it clear that you must reach out to the estate owner before beginning a thread in their estate (and understand that the estate owner's modding speed is their own to manage).

Even if we go with the "please PM owner first" rule, I can't be realistically expected to memorize which estates have encounters and which ones don't, so I think an easy to parse tag distinguishing the "no encounters" estates would be appreciated so people don't waste their time reading them. (i.e. an estate with encounters might be open, but an estate with no encounters is Very Definitely Not Open, so I can safely skip past it) It wouldn't require any additional staff work after the estate is created because if the estate owner wants to change their mind and add encounters, they will have to go through the process of getting staff approval anyway.

[Caramell 🍬]

Basically, it's almost like a Catch-22? Not to try to use this term 2 times in the same night. xD

We do advertise it to newer members largely because they want to be active early on and are more flighty before their feet have truly grown root in a site. Having to wait a few days when you're trying to set up roots is more painful than once you're settled in. It's part of the charm though, and needs to be understood because keeping an expectation of getting a mod in sooner [24-48 hrs] always or coddled to [for lack of better words] if you complain enough isn't realistic. It leads to staff burnout.

While we have a good way of mitigating that [politely explaining to members they need to wait and 5~ days before requesting is more realistic], it doesn't stop the fact that newer members are looking for their fresh dopamine hit from a site that is a bit more active with that. Most realistically like 24~, 48~ responses earlier on and sometimes even out after that, hopping from board-to-board until they find a spot like that. It's perfectly ok to not be that spot. It's also perfectly ok to not be everyone's cup of tea.

We kind of advertise Escapades & Estates in the same hand basket though. Up to the members [or estate owners] on their own activities. And the difference from Escapades and purely social threads [which are also perfectly acceptable] is that you at least get rewarded for the social threads in escapades. What those rewards look like largely depends on the word [IE: story progression and/or community behind it, such as having others in the escapade with you].

Newer members are more likely to feel more nervous about messaging a list of estate owners only to get a handful of rejections, though. But largely, I do see Lamont's point. Lamont is about the only one realistically reviewing new Estates (I think only Admins can?) especially when it comes to encounter areas. So keeping up with every estates that are largely supposed to be kept up with by the member themselves with minimal oversight from staff [ensuring catches / exp or levels / etc match right when requests are made] I can see that...

I also can see from a [newer] member's pov wanting to know which estates are open and accessible to me. But even if we mark them "Public" and update as members change their mind, it doesn't meant its open to the member. You can be Public and require all 8 badges first. So it doesn't really solve that issue especially for newer members. That might just discourage me more from asking the next estate owner, personally.

[Lamont]

If the point of it would be to point out the ones with Visitor Areas versus not, that's already fairly obvious from the Thread Count. Estates without Visitor areas only have 3-4 threads whereas all the ones that do have many more than that. And as Caramall has pointed out, just because an Estate does have Visitor Areas doesn't mean it's visit-able by everyone; it could have progression restrictions. So to act on this idea we would essentially have to come up with a template for all the board descriptions which is just a repeat of the 'info' thread for all estates.

We could, but I don't think the ask that someone interested in an estate RP can't take the 5 minutes required to click through any interesting estates to glance the info threads.



We may advertise Estates, but not as 'come RP anytime here'. Our ad just as it as 'Estate Services', and otherwise official info is very geared toward the Estate Owner and what they can do with their property; not visitors. Members advertise themselves to potential visitors.

Am fine adding a little note to the Estate info thread about visitors 'should' ask the Estate owner first, but I don't know if any visitors would see it cause the rest of that thread information is written as info for Owners. I imagine a visitor would open it up, see it wasn't for them, and close it.


*Just amending that I'm totes up for ideas on making Estates more navigable :3 In case my responses seem 'shut down-y'

[Jenesis]

Mar 19, 2024 1:40:25 GMT 11 Lamont said:

Am fine adding a little note to the Estate info thread about visitors 'should' ask the Estate owner first, but I don't know if any visitors would see it cause the rest of that thread information is written as info for Owners. I imagine a visitor would open it up, see it wasn't for them, and close it.


*Just amending that I'm totes up for ideas on making Estates more navigable :3 In case my responses seem 'shut down-y'

This information would probably be most helpfully located within the Thread Limits section in the guidebook. Something like:

In addition to your normal journey threads, you may also have one thread located within an Estate, which are player-run locations that may contain Visitor Areas for social RP or catching wild Pokemon. Before threading in an Estate, please communicate with the Estate's owner so that you have their permission and negotiate how fast you will expect responses to the Estate thread. Estates are not managed by staff and are exempt from the five-day modding limit.

[Lamont]

S'a little wordy and would double the amount of content already in there but just about Estates which is a side-piece. We can simply expand on what's already in the Thread Limitations section:

EXISTING NOTE
"Beyond this you are allowed 1 Estate Modded thread, but it falls upon the Estate Owner to manage."

Update to..?

Beyond this you are allowed 1 Estate Modded thread, but it falls upon the Estate Owner to manage. They do not promise any timeline for replies like the staff-managed RP areas. Communicate with the owner if you want to RP in their estate.

[Caramell 🍬]

I personally love the short note Lamont pointed out. Our issue before was things being way too wordy and not getting read. Anything that requires more than a few seconds of concentration for a yes/no answer ("Can I post a thread here") is falling on deaf ears realistically.