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If want to replace me, just get it over with. Don't toy with me. I really don't appreciate when people beat around the bush.

If you want these elections so badly, let's give it a shot. When things continue to be as stagnant as they were, I'll be first in line to say "I told you so."

If I wanted to replace you, I wouldn't go through the time and effort of changing the entire way we do things in the Cabinet to do so. The proposed election system isn't about you, and it isn't even about the RP Guild. It's about the Cabinet as a whole, and if we adopt the system it would impact taulover, Emoticonius, and Justinian as well. It isn't reflective of any individual that's currently in the Cabinet.

If the guild is failing though, I'm curious what's been discussed or decided by the guild to try to overcome the issues causing it to fail.

That statement in particular wasn't directed just at you. It was directed openly to everyone advocating for elections within the Guild.

That's the thing. Aside from Gerrick and I talking, there's been little to nothing discussed about problems within the Guild and how we can go about fixing them. The council has been mostly silent even after I replaced more than half of the members. The Guild is not actively seeking out problems and trying to solve them. The members have more or less stuck their heads in the sand and just kept going with how things are.

That statement in particular wasn't directed just at you. It was directed openly to everyone advocating for elections within the Guild.

That's the thing. Aside from Gerrick and I talking, there's been little to nothing discussed about problems within the Guild and how we can go about fixing them. The council has been mostly silent even after I replaced more than half of the members. The Guild is not actively seeking out problems and trying to solve them. The members have more or less stuck their heads in the sand and just kept going with how things are.

But ultimately it's my decision, so I want to make sure it's clear that if we go that route it's not because of any individual in the Cabinet.

@taulover @BraveSirRobin @North, you guys are listed as the council, if things are so bad why hasn't there been any discussion about these problems?

For me at least, the answer is simple: I don't think the Guild is failing. The Guild remains the location where RPs are planned and, when the rare need arises, disputes are resolved.

We simply can't expand further into regulating RPs; as was discussed when the Guild was created (IIRC Wintermoot made the decision), we have no authority over the RPs themselves, because everyone, not just Guild members or even Wintreans, are allowed to participate in the Gathering Portal RPs. Nor do I think we should: the flourishing of our RP community has been achieved thanks to independent LMs who've created a diverse set of RPs. Here, the Guild still exists in the occasional advisory role, but typically, things are and should be left up to the LM and participants.

However, if there are problems that I'm unaware of, I do think that perhaps the currently more active, prolific, and now-experienced RPers, such as Cin'ciri or Elbbsas, would certainly be helpful for identifying/resolving them, as well as improving the Guild as a whole.

I don't think the guild needs to control or regulate the RPs themselves, but it could discuss issues such as how to better promote them and get people interested in them, or how to make things easier or faster for RPers or LMs if the issue is people being busy elsewhere. It could even do things like make sure that RP news is covered in the Orendi, or request that regional telegrams be sent out with information on RPing.

Whether or not there are actual problems, there are always things that can be improved on, and there's no reason why a group whose purpose is to promote and grow roleplaying in the region shouldn't be looking at how things are in that area and considering how they can be improved.

As far as I am aware, I dont think there is a problem with the council. It is working as intended.

As far as I am aware, I dont think there is a problem with the council. It is working as intended.

How so? How is it working as intended?

There's certainly room for improvement, but that doesn't mean there's a problem with things as they currently are. Even if the elected Council doesn't come to fruition, though, I don't think I'm in the best position to lead such an expansion. I'm much less involved in the region's RP scene than I was in the past, and it might be best for a more active RPer to take my place.

That said, I would like to address Wintermoot's ideas and suggestions:

I don't think the guild needs to control or regulate the RPs themselves, but it could discuss issues such as how to better promote them and get people interested in them, or how to make things easier or faster for RPers or LMs if the issue is people being busy elsewhere. It could even do things like make sure that RP news is covered in the Orendi, or request that regional telegrams be sent out with information on RPing.

• Promotion of RPs: Anyone on the forums will see interest/signup and IC/OOC threads. Anyone on the RMB is participating in an unaffiliated RP, and many refuse to join/participate in the forums anyway. Hmm, perhaps a mailing list to notify people of new RPs? Though I'm not sure enough people would sign up to make it worthwhile; I certainly wouldn't.
• How to make things easier/faster for RPers/LMs: RPing requires individual initiative. Beyond somehow completely changing the medium by which we RP, or incessantly bugging people until they post, I don't see how anything could be done
• Orendi: Nice idea, though it's still a minor side issue.
• TGs: Would probably be a bad idea, considering that most people active in the region page are mostly concerned with their own RMB RP and can get annoyed when we suggest that they also join ours.

My point wasn't that my ideas should be adopted, it was that if even I as a non-RP person could come up with a few on the spur of the moment, the RP Guild that should be at the forefront of RP topics and issues in the region should be able to come up with more even better ones.

Why isn't that the case?

Edit: Actually, it goes further than that...for the life of me, after looking through the topics in this forum, I can't figure out what the guild actively does at all.

And my point was that even though anyone could come up with such ideas, most are already reasonably addressed and pretty much the rest are incredibly minor and/or unnecessary.

As for what the RP Guild does, well, as you put it in the subforum subtitle, it's for RP discussion. All the interest threads and such are the Guild (ie, basically the entirety of the forum RP community) actively discussing RPs that they're about to do, as well as other aspects of RP. As for the Guild Council, we have been rather inactive, but the few discussions I have been part of have largely been by PM. The Patriarch bounces ideas off of us, and vice versa.

I too think the council is working as intended.  I suppose I thought that it only really existed as an entity of last or near-last resort which functioned as a neutral body in the event there were nasty roleplay disputes/popping ideas around every so often about new roleplays.  Then again, I usually take a rather laissez faire course when legislating.

And my point was that even though anyone could come up with such ideas, most are already reasonably addressed and pretty much the rest are incredibly minor and/or unnecessary.

As for what the RP Guild does, well, as you put it in the subforum subtitle, it's for RP discussion. All the interest threads and such are the Guild (ie, basically the entirety of the forum RP community) actively discussing RPs that they're about to do, as well as other aspects of RP. As for the Guild Council, we have been rather inactive, but the few discussions I have been part of have largely been by PM. The Patriarch bounces ideas off of us, and vice versa.

Like I said, there's always room for improvement. I don't accept the idea that there's no room left for roleplaying to grow.

I'm not sure interest topics really require a RP Guild to happen...it just needs prospective loremasters that want to start a RP and roleplayers to show interest in playing them. How does the guild help with that? I don't know what discussions you've had over PM, but there's obviously a disconnect when the Patriarch feels things are so bad that the guild is failing and the council feels things are just fine. You say you're having discussions and bouncing ideas off each other, and he says the council has done "little to nothing" to discuss isues or seek out problems.

You guys obviously aren't on the same page, and for that reason alone I'm inclined to believe there's a problem here.

I too think the council is working as intended.  I suppose I thought that it only really existed as an entity of last or near-last resort which functioned as a neutral body in the event there were nasty roleplay disputes/popping ideas around every so often about new roleplays.  Then again, I usually take a rather laissez faire course when legislating.

Perhaps there's been a misunderstanding about the purpose of the guild. To me, it was important to have a group that focused on RP issues and was constantly trying to improve and promote it because I'm not a RPer, so I'm not sure how to go about doing those things like I do with other areas of Wintreath. Because of that, after the initial success of the guild under Laurentus in setting up RPs, I was happy to let it run its own affairs under the aspects of the Ministry of Culture.

To me it's a model even, because I know that as Wintreath grows and prospers, it's going to get into things that I'm not personally involved in, and that would be a good thing, so long as there are people that are building and promoting it in my place. Wintreath should be about what the community wants to get into, not just about what I want to get into, and on the other hand I shouldn't feel like I have to get into everything the community wants to do either.

Yeah, I think there's definitely a misunderstanding over what the Guild is supposed to be. When you say this, for example:

I'm not sure interest topics really require a RP Guild to happen...it just needs prospective loremasters that want to start a RP and roleplayers to show interest in playing them.

My immediate thought is that prospective LMs and RPers are the Guild, or at least part of it.

It's like asking what the Gaming Lounge does; it doesn't do anything, it's a place for gamers to organize and discuss.

The Gaming Lounge doesn't have a Patriarch, a council, membership, or direct, specific representation in the Cabinet. When I say the RP Guild, I'm talking about the guild as a body, not this forum.

My apologies, perhaps that was a poor analogy.

Still, the RP community needs some form of leadership, both for quality control and to resolve disputes, even if said leadership doesn't actively do much. This is especially important because you don't participate in this area of the forums.

So just so we're clear, your position is that there simply isn't much to think up or do to further build or promote rolepaying in the region, and that's why the leadership can't actively do much.