DDD News

Greetings, ducks and duckettes, we're here again with some new preemptive new years resolutions-- Kidding, kidding, but we have been observing what has and hasn't worked for the community application wise and we've decided to refine the application process. We're purging the things that aren't working, adding things we've done before, and adding brand new shiny things to make it that much better.

First of all-- An old friend, the Character Limit. As you know, we already have a fandom limit--a player can have up to three characters from a given fandom--but the moderation/modpoleration teams have come to the consensus that it's about time to reinstate a total character limit. We don't want to limit you too harshly though, so we've made it a broad 9. For those of you who have more than that, like last time, we are allowing you to grandfather that amount in when the change takes place-- HOWEVER. Should you want to add to the brood, you will need to drop the necessary amount of characters to meet the limit with the addition of the character you hope to pick up. You cannot add more on.

The Character Limit will go into affect at the start of the new year-- so from January 1st onward.

Secondly, in an effort to make the application process more understandable, and to address the issue of character OOCness at its core, we've reconstructed the application process. We also realized a big complaint about the current application, from both us moderators and you, the players, is that it's to vague. So, we've re-built the application to include the following:

• More conclusive character notes section with some changes on our wiki policies.
  
  • We want you to show us you know your canon. We have encouraged wikipedia use before, but we are now strongly discouraging it. We want you to write something yourself and any application with information taken straight from Wiki or any other website will be rejected.
    
  • So simply, if we look at the wiki and you've re-worded everything they've said, flat out? You're going to get rejected. You can, however, link your character's wiki to help us get an idea of your character.
  
  
• Samples! They have multiplied!
  
  • Because of how often we do ask for a first person entry-type sample, we have decided to change it up some. We have officially removed the prompt system in favor of requiring both a third person and first person entry-type sample.
    -- Third person will have a word requirement of 150+, which is the current requirement for samples
    -- First person will have a word requirement of 100+ words, because we know it's hard to hit the mark with that.
    
  • As we've come across it a few times now, we want to remind you that lifting lines straight from canon is not cool. That's plagiarizing. Should you be caught doing this, you will first receive a warning, and then a apping restriction and then finally a permaban on applying at dramadramaduck. Please don't let it get to that last step. Another thing that constitutes plagiarism is stealing samples from other games players.
    
  • As a side note, we will continue listing prompts so you guys have something to choose from if you can't think of something for your third person. ♥

We will also be supplying you an example of a 'good' and 'bad' application so you can get a better idea of what we're looking for.

POLICIES~~~~~~~~~~~~
Regarding applications! They have been tightened up as well, to cut down on people taking advantage of the system. We have officially changed the monthly rule. Where before, you could apply until you had two accepted characters, it is now a strict two applications a month rule. Should you get rejected, that will still count toward your application limit for the month.

• Deleting your applications to try and get around this rule will result in a three month restriction from applying. Please don't do this. If you want your application out of the public eye, you can ask us to screen it and we will be more than happy to do so.

Other tweaked policies are as such:

• THREE rejections for the same character will lead to a three month restriction on applying for that character. We strongly encourage that you play the character as close to canon as you can get; while fanon is fun, it's not always true to the character.
  
• Should you get accepted for a character three times, and subsequently drop them three times, you will be restricted from applying for that character for a set amount of time, depending on the situation.
  
• That also applies to those who abuse the grace period by dropping and picking up characters frequently that way. If we see that you are abusing the grace period on the drop post, we will revoke your right to have one for a set amount of time depending on the situation. THAT BEING SAID, we understand situations that involve illness, school, family, etc so if you APPROACH US (yes, you can talk to us about this stuff!) and explain the situation, you can avoid being approached BY us about this. As a note, we will always approach you about the situation before exacting any sort of punishment or restriction if you have not taken the initiative. We like to work stuff out and handing out restrictions is the LAST thing we want to do.

FINALLY OH MY GOD WE LOVE YOU. It looks daunting, but please please please have faith in us. We didn't want to throw this all on you at once so this won't be going into effect until NOVEMBER 1ST (apart from the character limit). The new application format will be up at the last of the month, so look forward to that.

Please please please offer any criticisms you might have, we want to hear them, all that we ask is that you be open to any explanations we have to offer in return. ♥

A lot of business to discuss this time, ducklings!

First of all: Shiro (Tieria-mun) has been added to the modteam! \o/ Congratulations and Welcome (Back)! She will be dealing largely with Public Relations so feel free to approach her with anything. ♥

Secondly: Slight addition to the application-- We will now be asking that you list what characters you currently play at DDD. ♥ This is for our own benefit and so we become familiar with who plays who. We've also swapped out the prompts, so feel free to utilize them in your apps next month, if that's your thing!

Thirdly: A kind reminder for all players to please respect locks and unhackable items. Sometimes it's easy to miss a subject, so we're asking to please please please try and pay attention and make note of what your character can and can't read. Please don't let your ooc knowledge affect your IC knowledge! ♥

Fourth: ♥ Thank you for making the HMD awesome. :D There was a little trip up but otherwise I'm really glad how it went and I thank you for being civil. Have I told you guys I love you enough, yet?

Fifth: I have nothing to say here but I feel better having five points. :|;; By popular demand, TIERIA IS A DUDE. A MALE. HE IS IN POSSESSION OF A DIDDLY AND BERRIES.

Whooooa, fifth post! This time, it has to do with worldhopping.

As some of you may know, some characters can create objects that aid other characters who can't worldhop, to worldhop. This is entirely fine, but the mods have requested that you run it by a moderator before you do so. We just want to make sure the object makes sense and that there has been thought put into it, so people don't abuse the ability without meaning to. There hasn't been any instances of it yet, so don't worry!

♥ Thats all! :D hahahaha, short post.

EDIT: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RUN WORLDHOPPING BY US~ The way you rationalize your character worldhopping is fine. If they use an item that is in their own world, that's fine too!

The issue is your character (if they can) making (or just having) a PHYSICAL ITEM that they can give to a character OUTSIDE THEIR CANON. We want you to run that physical item through us before your character gives it away to someone else (IE: Remember when Genie gave out items to some characters who couldn't worldhop, to let them be able to?) so that it makes sense.

Hey again! BD Third post and this time we're here to praise your activity!

DDD has grown a lot and we're sure you've all seen the influx of new characters, fandoms, worlds, plots, everything! We've done an absolutely amazing job about being a really involved community and we've avoided rumors of cliques thus far so lets keep this going! \o/ Consider this encouragement to start posting more on the main community, to comment around more, welcome new characters in (if it would be in character to do so-- don't sacrifice being IC!) and make this place amazing for people to play in!

So, thank you guys for being so friendly and welcoming! Lets see what new friends we can make both in character and out of! Simply, a little love from your mods. ♥ You guys deserve it. :D

Hi there everyone, you’re friendly neighborhood modcrew here with some proposed application changes!

We’ve been hearing that you guys would like to see a harder app process and we ran with this idea, deciding to change it around in a way we hope is for the better. What we have in mind is a new system involving prompts. Basically, each month, applicants will be given five prompts. Of these prompts, you will pick two and write a response, in character. It can be third person, first person, whatever person you want so long as you write 150 words a prompt. Each month, these five prompts will be traded out for something new, so that it remains ‘fresh’ and you have a variety to work with. (And we’d be open to you submitting prompt ideas to us!)

Before we come to a final decision on this, we'd like to have your input. Another option is to keep it to one sample instead of two, and simply increase the required word count. Let us know what you'd prefer.

Character notes will remain mostly the same. We will allow Wikipedia links in place of a written response, but we will strongly encourage you to write a history of your own. The more you show you know your character, the better chance you have of getting accepted, right? Writing a little about your character's history and personality will greatly affect your application’s final result. But as we said, you will still be allowed link to a wiki page.

Now, we’d like to know what you think! Comment away!

Edit: Considering maraihi's suggestion to have the option to pick a prompt to work off of OR to write your own sample post of a required length (to be debated)-- what do you guys think of that?