We're constantly pushing the envelope on RP quality and making sure we have the best environment for creativity and immersion. Every year, I sort of step back and take a look at the things we've done in the years past and where the community stands today. We have an incredible player base, but as always, there's room to improve.

We need to work on maintaining a high standard for creative writing/roleplay. For the most part, we're doing a great job. I've been lurking as an alt to observe the kind of RP that goes around the city ... and quality ranges from amazing to simply unacceptable. I think with all the checks and guides we have in place, we should expect DE players to stay on the positive half of the scale. That said, I want to propose we talk about the following improvements and how we can go about encouraging existing players, as well as guiding newer ones to follow suit:

• We need to evolve beyond 1-line RP exchanges; we should encourage people to put more thought into their post and adding an extra sentence or two. The a single line can easily be augmented by descriptions of the environment or maybe address something a character notices that's going on with other characters nearby (thus encouraging a more inclusive environment)
• I will make an initiative with security to begin actively removing those players who aren't following RP protocol and etiquette we clearly define in the guides and registration process, especially non-members (ie. not following 3rd person perspective RP, double/multiple posting, not following scene orders, etc.). The community can also participate by reporting these people directly to security members who are online.
• Try to work with staff and community to organize RP/welcome workshops and publicizing them on a regular basis. if anyone is interested in this, please speak up here.

I think these are modest goals that we can accomplish and see real results by the end of this year.

It's important we foster this culture of self-improvement and drive to be better. That's what I do my best to keep things fresh and roll out new features and ways to better streamline things on the sim. If I didn't have that personally, I probably would have left SL long ago!

On a side note, this week, i'll be launching the new faction system. More details will be coming on this, but it's basically a way for us to better offer potential leaders to start factions, track their growth, and in return, those factions would have more opportunities to thrive in our community.

With a more established presence of factions, as well as this initiative to challenge each other to improve RP efforts across the board, would make for a huge impact over the coming months!

What do you think? Any volunteers for ideas or taking up classes?