Guidelines


OOC BEHAVIOR POLICY

It is expected that members of this community are respectful of the mod and their fellow writers at all times. To this end, the following are prohibited.

• God-modding. You have control over your character, and that is it. You do not have the right to control the actions, thoughts, appearance, location, facial expression or attitude of any characters that do not belong to you.


• Crossing the line between IC (in-character) and OOC (out-of-character). There should be a distinction between you, the writer, and your character, a fictitious creation from the writer's imagination. Please do not allow your personal feelings about a player, character, situation, plot line, mod, etc. influence your character's behavior. Remain true to your character's established personality and background at all times. Please be aware that this game is home to several characters with somewhat nasty dispositions. The bluntness of these characters' comments in no way reflects their players' attitudes towards you, and you should react to them as your character, not as yourself. Please also note that characters found to be behaving badly in character for OOC reasons will not be tolerated.
  Please also note: Though we as players are using IJ to play this game, the characters themselves have no knowledge of icons, LJ-cuts, IJ outages, Tweak's sayings, etc. At no time should a character comment to another about a forgotten LJ-cut, just as they shouldn't comment about each other's icons. Characters should also never comment in-character on things that are obviously OOC errors. If someone has made an OOC error (misspelled a character's name, put the ship in the wrong place on the wrong day, etc), please contact the mod and the mod will address the issue if she deems it necessary.


• Changing the size or color of your font in your posts. With so many different browsers out there now, you can never know for sure how blinding or just plain irritating a change in font can be, so it is asked that you simply leave the font alone to be sure that everyone can read what you are writing. If there is an absolute in-character need to post something with a tiny font, a huge font, or a sparkly multi-colored font, you may contact the mod for permission, but unless it is absolutely essential to plot, it doesn't really seem necessary.


• Harrassment. We are all in this community to have fun and write a collaborative story. None of us is here to feel attacked, harassed, bullied, belittled, or hounded. If you can't get along with someone, you are under no obligation to continue playing with their characters, but you do not have the right to insult or attack them in any way. If you are found to be annoying your fellow players in a severe way - through name-calling, blackmailing, threatening, or sexually harassing them - you will be removed immediately. If you feel that you are being harassed and you wish to petition to have someone removed, send a PM to the mod, and comment to the mod contact post to alert the mod that you have sent it.


• Role hogging. This game has a very high character limit, due to the fact that it is now two years old and has two settings, with three different groups of characters. However, if you're playing a ton of characters and not posting for any of them, you will be asked to drop some. Applications will no longer be approved for players whose characters are inactive.


• Replying to anything that is crossed out. Crossed out comments are invisible to every character and should be treated as the private thoughts of the character that typed them, or as words that the character typed but deleted before posting.

Failure to abide by any of the above rules is grounds for removal without warning. If you are removed due to the violation of any rule, you will be sent a PM explaining the reason. Please note that the mod will never remove anyone without evidence that a violation has been committed.



POSTING TO THE COMMUNITIES

landlubbers is the OOC community.

letscruise is the in-character community for the Serendipity Surprise. All threads taking place on the ship, or in ports visited by the ship should be posted here.

serendipitycorp is the in-character community for the Corporate Headquarters. All threads taking place at corporate, or among corporate characters in the city of Ft. Lauderdale should be posted here.

When posting threads, please do all of the following:

1. Include the names of all characters involved, what the main action of the scene is, where the scene is taking place, and when.


2. Tag the thread with the names of all characters involved.


3. Include an LJ-cut to keep the friends page neat.


4. Post to the proper community.


5. Use proper punctuation, grammar and spelling as much as possible. Minor mistakes are okay. Eliminating capitalization and quotation marks is not. If no one can read what you write, no one is under any obligation to respond to it.

CHOOSING A PB

Any and all faces are welcome in this community, provided they are age appropriate and suitable to your character. This community previously had a policy against PBing Heath Ledger, due to his sad, untimely death, but now that more than a year has passed, the mod no longer wishes to uphold this policy. If you have questions or comments about this decision, please direct them to the mod contact post for further explanation.


CREATING A CHARACTER

Characters should be well-developed, with negative qualities as well as positive. Histories should follow some logic, and should suit the age, hometown, and socioeconomic status of your character. All characters in the game should be age 18 or over.

CHARACTER LIMIT

The character limit is currently set at 12, but 11th and 12th characters are only permitted if they are employees for the corporate headquarters, or guests.

FRIENDS LISTS

Journaling is a key component to this game due to its multiple locations, and its size. In order to fully participate, you must update your friends list each and every time new characters are added to the game. Friends lists checks are done randomly, and if your friends list is not updated, you will be given a very small window of time in which to solve that problem before you are removed. The button is posted regularly, and all you have to do to get up to date is click a button.


HIATUSES

If you plan to be gone from the community for a week or more, please comment to the mod contact post and go on hiatus. We are extremely understanding about real life emergencies and problems that keep you from posting, and the mod will be accommodating as needed. However, if you are online and clearly available, and you remain on hiatus for longer than one month, you will be asked to either become active or let go of your characters. Special circumstances can always be discussed with the mod if you are concerned about being removed.


ACTIVITY CHECKS

Activity checks in this community are done at the end of each month, with removals taking place on the last Sunday of the month. On the second-to-last Sunday, the mod makes a post in the OOC community, and each player is asked to comment with his/her most recent activity for each of his/her characters. You always have at least one full week to get everyone active, but the mod does not issue individual reminders to players who do not log in to read the post.


AIM

This game was originally created for roleplayers who prefer threading over AIM interaction, and as such, it does not require AIM of any kind. In order to play here, you must be open to threading, as that is the only form of interaction some of our players will use. You are free to RP over AIM, via email, or via Google documents, but only if the arrangement is agreeable to both players in the scene. When you post scenes done outside of the threading community, they should be straight narratives, with AIM names and character names edited out.

PLOT

scuttlebutt is the community plot journal. Periodically, the mod will post major events for the ship, for corporate, or for both, in this journal, with instructions on how your character can get involved.

MOD APPROVAL

Mod approval is generally not needed for most plots. The only times you need to ask for mod approval are when the plot you have in mind will involve the entire game, or a large number of characters, or when a character is either becoming pregnant or enduring a major medical crisis.

Mod approval is also required if you would like to change your PB, or change your character's job.


MOD CONTACT

It is very strongly preferred that you do not contact the mod over AIM with your problems, questions, etc. If you need to bring something to the mod's attention, please do so in the mod contact post, or if the matter is private, via PM. If the mod wants to discuss it with you further over AIM, she will let you know. This policy is intended to make it possible for the mod to sign onto AIM to discuss plot for her own characters without running the risk of spending an entire evening on mod work.


RE-APPLICATION

Members who leave the game and announce their departure are always welcome to come back any time. Simply fill out a new application and apply as you did when you first joined. If you are removed due to inactivity, and there are extenuating circumstances that prevented you from being able to post, please contact the mod about the possibility of re-applying. If you are removed due to inactivity because you simply failed to log in and comment to the activity post, please do not reapply, as your application will not be approved.