Ladies and Gentlemen of our fine community.

Many of you know me if not personally but professionally as a writer. I write to entertain and to tell a great story as many others in our fine community do. It is only recently where I find myself ima. Word where such creativity is rewarded. I found this a pleasant surprise and it really encouraged me to continue to keep writing the business threads that many have enjoyed, or the common street collaboration. And for the most part can say have personally thrived because of my willingness to put myself on the page. So many of us do, and for the most part the rewards for our hard work is answered in spades. I however am here to address another long going issue that seems to be diluting the artistic integrity of some of our communities most prestigious writers, colleagues and friends of mine to boot. I am sure by now some of you can guess where my point is going. And before we get into the meat and potatoes I know there will be some of you out there that will think this is just about my own tier and rewards for posting. And when these allegations come forward you will find it is the diluters as I call them doing the complaining.

First and foremost, as most of you are aware I am an avid poster, I have many establishments to my credit and honesty enjoy offering services as such To the members of our fine community. I take time and put effort into each of my posts, and I think you would be hard pressed to find one that didn’t have a bit of thought connected too it, as I am well aware most of our communities writers have the same process. But today I speak to you about the spammers, those who post single paragraph threads and then post after themselves in order to maximize the amount of points gathered, some people, the individuals who find themselves using these cheap tactics will just play it off as being smart. But I think it’s damn shame any day when the integrity of the artwork and the rewards to promote more activity more importantly quality activity are diluted by the waves of spammed shit that I’ve seen wash up on our streets and business districts.

Look around you, look among the threads and tell me you cannot spot them? An individual writes a story and posts every paragraph instead of the whole story, let’s forget the fact that each additional part to the story is just as rubbish as the first, takes in more reward then an individual who writes out a complete story a good story and posts it once. I remember there was a time where double posting in your own threads was a no no even before people started to get credits for there artistic fortitude. And now look, people posting in their own businesses back to back without a single customer visit. I find this a cheap tactic, and I am calling out anyone out there who takes away from the hard work and artistic integrity of others for their own greed. 

I have always believed quality over quantity. I have always believed in the art form but more importantly fairness, and doing things the proper way. This spam a post for the numbers and credits is ridiculous. And the more and more I face this new age of poster the more it zaps my drive to produce quality works, why? When some moron can post the most stupid posts in his own thread back to back enough to eventually take away from those who have tried hard to earn and keep there place. So many little taboos go on unanswered and unchecked, and this one striking such a cord with me.

In my conclusion I would like to see people stop being the only poster in their own threads, if your story is long enough to be broken up into segments post it in parts by all means, but not ever single little paragraph needs to be its own damn post, it’s cheap it’s sleazy and I think any person who engages in such type of activities knows exactly what they are doing and why. I would like to see spam businesses without a single thought stop. I would like to see quality overtake the quantity. Because let’s face it my fine friends of the community if this continues, if we continue to let this type of behaviour linger on. Long gone will be the days of a grand and perhaps inspirational read, and the fine women and men all artists that create such literature.

I agree with you TM. On and on have certain people been posting like over 30 threads and having 100 posts within 3 days of making their accounts and most of the stories they do on the streets are full with barely any paragraphs or really there's no story yet the poster prides themselves to continue to post by themselves rather than have someone actually start a conversation and let it lead to something, have it made into a story but effort is being thrown out the window.

Knocking people off the boards when they rightfully deserve the spot for the effort they're putting in for said spot only to be taken out by someone who posts threads that go nowhere, the spam is ridiculous; Quality over quantity is what people should be striving for, don't create useless crap just because you wanna score some credits and experience, you just spit in other writer's faces when you do nothing but spam.

The streets. Role Play. That says it all. For me, that means writing stuff about the community. Thoughts, concerns and yes also stories.
It should, however, be a back and forth between people. Currently, the streets are littered with monologues...

I'd love to be more present in the streets, much like my father was in his day. At this time I just do not feel the need. Those people, not naming names, should do some soulsearching and ask themselves is this really how they want to portrait themselves? We had a massive war and a lot of people are rebuilding. I feel that in these times we should use the streets as a platform to open up as a community and let ourselves be heard.

We're missing an opportunity and quite some depth of this game by using the streets as a grinding tool for credits/XP.
As the streets are RP, replying to yourself 10x over is the same as being the town nut talking to himself on the corner all day every day.

No bad words about "those people" honestly. Just change the way you treat the streets, and the streets will treat you the same.

That's an interesting point about the monologues N0b0dy. I have posted a few myself, I get where you are coming from, though. However, in my opinion I believe monologues are okay as long as some effort is put into them and they are structured well. Sometimes I have a story idea and I'd rather do it alone... Because I know exactly what direction I want it to go and I don't have to work around someone else's direction. Some people may not like my stories, but I do strongly believe it isn't a waste of time to read them and there will be people that enjoy the read. Certain posts are never worth the read and I'd be surprised if anyone actually scrolling through the poorly formatted mess.

I completely agree that spamming is a problem though, I do hope that we can come together as a community to try and sort this problem! 

I am new to writing in this thing of ours, I like writing stories and the only reason I post after the original thread back to back is because I have a whole story in my head and I feel putting it in one thread would be a lot to digest  but I now understand that this maybe annoying to some people. I plan to change the way I do things and I apologise if I have offended anyone with the way I have been writing. 

I attempted to address this in the streets, and it fell victim to what I was afraid of - Overlooked as it is difficult to distinguish between RP thread and actual discussion threads.

Everything I had to say was in that thread, simply put though, we can never have too much street presence. Character building, discussions, challenges - all acceptable content and would never tell someone that their RP is spam (unless blatantly obvious). Character building threads can be a very personal activity, either targeted for that persons group of friends who re playing characters with them, or just to have it recorded in our streets for a nostalgic visit int he future. I would still not discourage others from posting these.

What we need is a way to identify at a glance between these threads and the discussions, debates, etc that we use to develop the politics and dynamic of the game.

If that's a game change, lets suggest it, or if we can agree a better way to approach street content, lets hash it out. 

BlackPanther- I don't believe that the point is writing up and following up in your thread is the problem exactly or even breaking up your stories into different threads. I've written for many characters in the multi chapter stories and I don't believe there is anything wrong with breaking the stuff up. It's almost like paragraph structure. Let's face it nobody (if anybody actually takes time to read the stories posted on here) wants to read a giant block paragraph of just never ending words. It's offensive to the eyes and it turns people off. Another thing that turns some people off especially here on a game where you can do other things, is reading a story where it probably take an hour to finish because it goes on for so long even if it is well written and broken up into paragraphs. I think it's all about balance. Write too short and it's spam but write too long and people will be very reluctant to read it.

So I know when I come up with writing for my character I think of threads as chapters in that characters life. One thread should tell one story about what's going on with that character at that time, if it concludes that part then that thread should be finished and you can continue on another as a follow up. If I'm telling a story and I see that it's running on too long I'll go and get a second opinion about maybe needing to break it up into two different post, but both would be longish and certainly not be considered spam.

To be more direct with you Panther, the way you're telling your stories right now is fine. Each THREAD is a different story. You don't need to combine all your threads into one giant thread. I think that what you might should look into is combining some of the post in each thread into one longer post. Sometimes you might have to use line breaks or things if your gonna transition to another scene or something of the sort, but that may help to make yours seem less short and all over there.

I don't think the point of calling out the spam is to reprimand or even get on the newer players who are actually taking the time to post, but instead to call out those who only are doing their posting for the vision, and the xp and creds. Their lack of care really kinda sucks some of the enjoyment out of going to the streets and reading things. Also it's tough taking your first steps out into the streets and getting used to telling stories if you're not an experienced writer of some sort. I know it at least was for me and I didn't start off writing long posts either but as long as you're out there and want to do it for fun and improve then you're already on the right track.

Jamal_Thompson, Personally, I'd prefer big chunks of text over 20 paragraphs. But that's just a matter of preference but not really part of the problem. As I stated above, the streets are just as much there for the stories (like BlackPanther's)
It only starts to become problematic (in my eyes, and others) when the frequency is so high, and not only inside a thread but with new ones as well, that certain types of discussion threads simply get pushed to the next page in a very short time-span.

I'm not saying you should or shouldn't. I merely state that because of it, a number of people stopped posting their stuff completely. I feel that's not a positive thing. This is not a thread to state things are broken and some people fucked it up, but more along the lines of "we aren't happy with the current state of the streets and how can we fix it, together?"

For example, you say it feels cleaner when you use multiple replies to tell your story. I disagree. Let's talk about that :)
You can achieve the same cleanliness while using decent formatting in a single post. This way "both sides" give and take a little and things could improve for all of us.
 

I don't think writing of any sort should be discouraged if the person is trying. Everyone's abilities are different and you can't improve without trying. Is it really so much different if one person is posting a few paragraphs in their own thread to write their own story compared to two people writing no more then a few sentences back and forth to one another (which is also something I've seen repeatedly?).

Since the inclusion of credits into VIP status, we've seen an explosion of writing. Whenever something becomes more popular, you see a quality vs. quantity issue. It's my understanding that the coding for VIP points looks at grammar, writing style, length, quality, and originality. So someone with a few well written excellent posts can still "outrank" someone with a bunch of small, poorer posts in VIP status. 

You keep doing you BlackPanther-. The only way to grow and get better is by practicing. Writing is an art form and no one becomes a master artist overnight. If you'd ever like to write together you just let me know, I'd be glad to help you :) 

I do think that there are people who need a lot of guidance in the posting field. I would really hope that Crewleaders could keep track of their members and make sure what they are posting is up to standard. I realize that is a huge task to take on but you have crews that can help you do that and teach better methods. We as a community have a great deal of information in the forums, even some regarding role play and active players that can teach well.

There is no reason as a community we cannot be encouraging those to post for more than just the credits, xp etc etc.

TM-Scarface I thank you for bringing this topic to the community because there is an issue and has been for sometime, yet I've witinessed  nothing being done or really said about it enough to change it, myself included.  I've noticed over time a bit of one line posts in threads involving roleplays which is beyond me really.  To me that is pure spamming, considering the writers would continue on with posts with a paragraph after paragraph in other posts.  

On the broken up posts in a thread, which in my opinion is nothing wrong per se, yet if the following posts Only contain a single short paragraph and the dreaded one line replies...why not combine them in one long post.  The appearance of multiple posts gives off the impression, certainly to me, that it is being written for quantity over quality, especially when the story is a continuance of the original thread. I know I've done a few posts in threads before to break up a timeline versus one massive long thread, so it was easier to read and be clear on the timeline of events.  It's just the single paragraph posts that are slightly annoying, and the one liner posts highly annoying. 

The one solid blocked paragraphs that seem a mile long....are just a no go for me.  Most of the time I refuse to even attempt to read it.  It hurts the eyes, and heaven forbid if you lose your place or click a petty timer, go for the rogue and swap back to the tab...just no.

Now with the new incentives of receiving the generous rewards for posting more, I know I've seen the comment that (and this might not be verbatim, but in essence as close to what I can recall being said) rewards are being given to reward those who actually put in the "work".  Now I don't know if this is based on the number of posts done or the actual quality of posts written, but I personally would wanna be rewarded for actual efforts on my part.  

For an example, remember the Pass The Baton events?  Those had a word count minimum to participate.  Not one liners and short paragraph posts.  Perhaps we should look at the example in those events and put that mentality towards our Forums because I'm sure the masses can churn out a simple 100 word reply to an OOC thread discussion or say a 400 word minimum for the Streets regular roleplays for a good chunk of experience and make the rewards for posting actually mean something for the work we put into it.

I don't want to discourage Any person who wants to write, and it has never been my style to do so.  I've always enjoyed teaching people, and also learning things myself.  Hopefully this thread and those who have spoken can be seen as encouragement to do better as a community and reach out, help and guide those who need it.  I've used shorter post sizes for getting someone into the rhythm of roleplaying to make them comfortable and not feel intimidated from the getgo of having to post a super long post right off while learning.

Not everyone feels comfortable inviting or reaching out to others to join in their stories, and that's okay.  I don't necessarily have any issues with the threads/posts you wrote BlackPanther- especially being you attempted to make them a decent length.  And anytime you or anyone has questions or need a writing partner there are so many of us around that are willing to join in. 

Thank you for all your kind responses, I Definately would love people to join in as that's what it's all about, I have many things I would like to share with you all. Great ideas to get the community working together maybe like our own Pass The Batton event for people who love writing. At the end of the day this is an RPG game and writing is ment to be one of the main parts of it. Everyone should get out there share our ideas we all can have fun doing it. 

Can I just say something here? It seems like as good a place as any and I don't think a lot of people are aware that plagiarism is against the site rules. Copy/pasting a business, word for word, into each city is not acceptable. Copying an old post, changing your old character name to your new character name, and reposting it word for word is not acceptable. Copying someone else's work and posting it as your own after changing the names in it is unacceptable (<-- happened to me).

If you see these things, please report them so that they will be removed by the street sweepers. It is hugely unfair that these posts get free credits while others are obviously genuine attempts at creating something even somewhat original. 

Thank you for your time! Happy writing! <3

Adding to the above, copying a menu from an actual restaurant is not allowed. If you are using something that is not 100% your own work, it should be put in the quotes boxes so as not to qualify for XP/Exp. 

This what I mean by the quote box, just as an FYI

I realize that I am a little late to the discussion, but I feel compelled to share my two cents.

I started in this world of ours less than an year ago at a time when the streets were under the absolute hegemony of the powerful few. Wars and crew wipes were common. Threads upon threads would appear where a character would claim his/her badassdom in an isolated event. For instance, it was expected that someone getting an auth should write a tale. So they did, once. Never to be seen in the streets again except to indulge in discussions about conflict. Clickbait reigned supreme when it came to naming threads. I myself was fortunate enough to be part of a crew which encouraged roleplay and even more fortunate to be able to interact with people who wanted to write actual, meaningful stories. 

My own skill, satisfactory at best, would not have improved under such conditions if I had followed the advice of the top VIP posters and followed the existing pattern. I needed to follow my own steps, frustrating though they seemed before I could reach a level where I was satisfied with what I had written, even though hardly anyone else paid attention to my posts. That disheartened me and more than once, I thought of quitting. Perservering in the end after the guidance of some veterans, I eventually arrived to a point where I was asked up to foster talent myself and encourage roleplay in the newcomers.

The method I adopted was nothing special, most rp based crews of the time followed something similar. But it is one, I don't see around here much. The idea was to follow a 4 step program

1. Have enough interactions in the HQ bar that you feel comfortable enough venturing out or the veteran rpers advise you to do so.
2. Follow the same with business districts and street posts
3. Start and sustain a successful business of your own. 
4. Write a street thread of your own. 

While I never enforced it in my city, it was highly encouraged using incentives ranging from cash to credit rewards that I could scrounge. Having gotten used to a systematic approach to writing, the newcomers atleast, were guided in the right direction before they spammed the streets with the first idea they had. Beta readers and editors were recruited and paid to look at posts before they went live as a matter of habit. 

Ofcourse, my city was soon wiped over something pointless such as shooting a durden rather than a rogue and I went full Marc Antony with my vengeful monologue thereafter using a new character. Still hypocritical though it maybe, that's a different story. 

Then with the second character, I decided to move to a city that was on the opposite side of the war. This is something I think veterans fail to do as well. While yes there are benefits to associating with the same people, it also means that you tend to write with the same people, alienating a large section of the population. 

Over the course of this new character, I found myself a part of crews that fostered rp as an integral part of the lifestyle. Scheduling in house events, maintaining and utilising a dynamic jobs board regularly , creating businesses focused solely on allowing the viewer to experience a unique way of doing things. For instance, a casino would put out ads for bouncers, bartenders and dealers in the Jobs board at the hq and encourage everyone else to try and rob the place, handing out rewards based on the quality of writing in the attempt. 

These examples might seem irrelevant, but to me they seemed an interesting way to temper and train new writers before they ventured into the streets to do their own thing.

I took a 6 months hiatus afterwards and missed out on the whole CATS/Ivory tower revolution, so I will not comment on that. What I do know is that when I returned a month or so ago, I found the streets in a very different situation than I had left them. While the content and the themes had diversified for the better, the style and quality of writing had worsened. When once anything below 800 words was considered not detailed enough, anything above 400 words is considered a rare occurrence now. In our attempts to involve a larger section of the community into roleplay, we have achieved a bittersweet success. 

I am happy to see the issue under discussion brought into the limelight but I do not think the fault lies entirely on the people who write posts that irk us all. They are the symptoms of the problem not the cause.  In my unqualified opinion, what is required is a radical change in the way crews and cities foster roleplay.

What we need to encourage with suitable incentives is more interactive events, such as the PTB in Seattle , more businesses that aren't just a variation of a speakeasy/flop house, active use of the Jobs board and HQ bars, employment of beta readers/editors, a defined structural path when it comes to rp which gives preference to business districts, more inter crew/city interactions, rp contests and things along those lines. 

Finally, I would like to sincerely apologize for rambling on this long and I hope atleast some of the suggestions I made can find practical application.

I can see where this is going.

 TM-Scarface I like that you've brought the issue of spam threads to our OOC Forum. 

Can I just say something here? It seems like as good a place as any and I don't think a lot of people are aware that plagiarism is against the site rules. Copy/pasting a business, word for word, into each city is not acceptable. Copying an old post, changing your old character name to your new character name, and reposting it word for word is not acceptable. Copying someone else's work and posting it as your own after changing the names in it is unacceptable (<-- happened to me).

I would like to bring more attention to what ChelseaCrossfire has said here. Firstly:

Copying an old post, changing your old character name to your new character name and reposting it word for word is not acceptable.

When our characters die we lose everything. We lose the gun we built, the money on hand/in our bank (unless transferred to a personal banker to then be transfered to a next of kin), we lose our post and thread count. We lose it all. We start new and fresh with a different character, a different story. You want your next of kin to inherit your old man's business - cool. But don't copy and paste the same thing your pops posted. 

Secondly:

I don't think a lot of people are aware that plagiarism is against the site rules. Copy/pasting a business, word for word, into each city is not acceptable.

An example of this is Criseria's Greasy Spoon. Each Greasy Spoon starts the same, a short introduction, a menu and a one line wrap up. I had first went into lounge to ask the community there thoughts on this and if it was said any where in the rule book that this is breaking plagiarism/spam rules. I used Criseria's Greasy Spoon as an example. Criseria explained that her Greasy Spoon franchise is not spam as she has changed a few things here and there. I present these changes to the community and I ask each and everyone one of you if you consider what Criseria has done as spam or plagiarism or both. 

The Greasy Spoon

*Note: Everything in bold is the same copy and past. Everything is blue are the small original changes that some how make this not spam. 

The Greasy Spoon - Philly

Criseria had traveled to Philadelphia several times recently for business and noticed a need for a Quaint Diner that everyone can bring their friends and eat, and that will serve Paper Bag specials for those on the go. So she decided to open a diner in Old City District. 

She found a storefront and decides to go for her dream. Once she gets the keys to the place, the interior design starts to come together. She even made sure there was a cute little awning. with a patio. There is a bar top tables, booths, and a few tables that can be pulled together to make one large table for the larger gatherings. She wanted to make this place an iconic for the city. The walls have pictures in black and white of the most beautiful sites throughout the city. She named the place Criseria's Greasy Spoon. 

The Greasy Spoon - Detroit

Criseria had traveled to Detroit several times recently for business and noticed a need for a Quaint Diner that everyone can bring their friends and eat, and that will serve Paper Bag specials for those on the go. 

She found a corner storefront and decides to go for her dream. Once she gets the keys to the place, the interior design starts to come together. There is a bar top tables, booths, and a few tables that can be pulled together to make one large table for the larger gatherings. She wanted to make this place an iconic for the city. The walls have pictures in black and white of the most beautiful sites throughout the city. She named the place Criseria's Greasy Spoon. 

The Greasy Spoon - LV

Criseria had traveled to Las Vegas after opening her flagstaff store in Detroit, and found that Las Vegas also had a need for a Quaint Diner that everyone can bring their friends and eat, and that will serve Paper Bag specials for those on the go.

She found a storefront and decides to go for her dream. Once she gets the keys to the place, the interior design starts to come together. There is a bar top tables, booths, and a few tables that can be pulled together to make one large table for the larger gatherings. There was a selectophone (Jukebox) that would play music. She wanted to make this place an iconic for the city. The walls have pictures in black and white of the most beautiful sites throughout the city. She named the place Criseria's Greasy Spoon.

 The Greasy Spoon - LA

Criseria had traveled back home to Los Angeles and noticed a need for a Quaint Diner that everyone can bring their friends and eat, and that will serve Paper Bag specials for those on the go. 

She found a corner storefront and decides to go for her dream. Once she gets the keys to the place, the interior design starts to come together. There is a bar top tables, booths, and a few tables that can be pulled together to make one large table for the larger gatherings. She wanted to make this place an iconic for the city. The walls have pictures in black and white of the most beautiful sites throughout the city. She named the place Criseria's Greasy Spoon. 

The Menu is the same in each business:

Greasy Spoon Menu

Burgers

1. Classic beef burger -  with flame grilled bacon, topped with cheese.  0.25
2. BBQ Burger - Beef burger with crispy beer battered onion rings and hickory smoked BBQ sauce   0.25
3. Greasy Spoon Burger - Beef burger with double cheese, back, then drizzled with tomato sauce.  0.30
4. Fire eater burger - Beef burger with onion rings, chilli relish, and jalapenos.  0.30 
5. Chicken Burger - Grilled chicken marinated in lemon and then coupled with citrus mayonnaise   0.25
6. BBQ chicken Burger - Grilled chicken with signature seasoning then covered in Hickory smoked BBQ and topped with cheese.  0.25

Diner dogs 

1. Classic - Chargrilled hot dog with crspy bacon and shredded american cheese topped with mustard and tomato sauce  0.20
2. BBQ Dog - Chargrilled hot dog marinated in Hickory smoked BBQ and finished with bacon bits 0.20

Sides

1. Crispy fries with our signature seasoning   0.10
2. Loaded fries with cheese and bacon   0.10 
3. Beer Battered onion rings   0.10

Drinks

Sodeepop
Shakes - Chocolate, Vanilla, or Strawberry
Floats - Coke or Root Beer

The ending in each business is also relatively the same minus the change of the city name.

Now that everything is done including the menu she was ready for the Grand Opening.

TM-Scarface, your partner in crime Criseria explained to me that you made this thread because you were tired of BlackPanther- and let me quote her on this:

To: TulipDubois
From: Criseria
Sent: Jun 06, '18 17:09
Subject:

TMs post wasn't attack on what I had done. It was about Blackpanther's spam threads. You may ask him yourself. I helped him proof that thread he wrote I know what it was about because he was tired of putting forth effort and people who were making spamming threads getting all the credit when they weren't doing hardly any work. 

I am sick and tired of this, these spam threads where you get perks. These perks being: In game points, Credits, Durden mapping, etc. 

TM, you yourself have posted multiple copy paste "franchises" of the same business across our world. Would you like to explain to the community how Blackpanther's threads are bad, but you and Criseria's threads are okay? 

For anyone who is interested here is the lounge conversation. 

Lounge logs

Just as ChelseaCrossfire said:

If you see these things, please report them so that they will be removed by the street sweepers. It is hugely unfair that these posts get free credits while others are obviously genuine attempts at creating something even somewhat original. 

I would also like to fully encourage the community to REPORT these sort of spam business franchises to the street sweepers. Threads like these only further encourage poor posting. If no effort is given in the original thread why should OP have any expectations for replies to be given effort. Postings like these are only for one thing - point and perk grabs. Just like when wars happen for no reason - kill grabs. We don't like when this happens in the community but we are okay with posting for point and perk grabs?

I also fully encourage everyone to create ORIGINAL content.