It makes it kind of scary to write anything about Lusternia, IMO, since anything you write can be 'made wrong'. On top of that, you get insulted, too. :|

It makes it kind of scary to write anything about Lusternia, IMO, since anything you write can be 'made wrong'. On top of that, you get insulted, too. :|

Correction: It makes it kind of scary to write anything that uses IC sources and is a scholarly work, because they might all get changed and you get insulted too.

You can write literary works all you want though!

As I recall, the information in said book was based on statements made by mobs - statements that conflicted greatly with long-established fact that continued to persist. The mobs' conversations were clarified to conform with established fact. (This happens - it's the result of one or two individuals working on projects, and sometimes factoids don't get recorded when they should - or facts aren't checked when made)

It's a bit out-of-sorts to accuse admin of changing dialogue merely to prove their point. The tone of the criticism, however, may or may not have been overly harsh - it was, though, quite some time ago, and critics come and go. If Janalon really feels deeply wounded and upset about the comment still, Janalon is welcome to take the matter up with support (via ISSUE ME or e-mailing support@lusternia.com - I generally suggest the latter, as that is its purpose).

If this thread is going to become a matter of dragging up old complaints, though, there's not much use for it to continue.

If you think the administration is going to go out of their way to actively change established history out of spite, though, you have a pretty low opinion of us to begin with, and I find that pretty sad.

That's a weird response to this kind of criticism - basically saying your bad for thinking we could do something bad after someone who works for us did something bad.

Unfortunately one member of an administration acting out of line draws ire to the entire organization. You're supposed to deal with those people (fire them) and apologize for the abuse of trust...not move the blame to the victim.

And if a company does do something like that to one of their customers, that customer doesn't have to try to settle it privately with the company. If that were true no company would care about their reputation, if customers weren't allowed to share their experiences with other customers and complain about it if need be. That's capitalism.

Honestly telling your users to not talk about it and telling the user in question to take it up with you privately just makes you look shadier.

Not trying to accuse you of being part of a conspiracy, that was just a weird response to the whole thing instead of just apologizing.

Especially when it's an issue that a lot of players/customers sympathize with and seem to be concerned about.

Deschain:

That's a weird response to this kind of criticism - basically saying your bad for thinking we could do something bad after someone who works for us did something bad.

Unfortunately one member of an administration acting out of line draws ire to the entire organization. You're supposed to deal with those people (fire them) and apologize for the abuse of trust...not move the blame to the victim.

And if a company does do something like that to one of their customers, that customer doesn't have to try to settle it privately with the company. If that were true no company would care about their reputation, if customers weren't allowed to share their experiences with other customers and complain about it if need be. That's capitalism.

Honestly telling your users to not talk about it and telling the user in question to take it up with you privately just makes you look shadier.

Not trying to accuse you of being part of a conspiracy, that was just a weird response to the whole thing instead of just apologizing.

It's not really my place to say if said administrator acted out of line or not. If we fired every admin who made a bad decision, there wouldn't be much of a Lusternia for you to engage in.

You're welcome to sympathize and have concerns about it, however it seems pretty contrary to the nature of this thread.

My comment wasn't meant to 'hush' it up, it was merely intended to explain what seemed like a pretty one-sided outcry - and my comment wasn't made to 'turn the tables' and 'blame the victim'. Quite simply, if you're accusing this (or any admin) of this kind behaviour, I'm pretty offended. Many of us have poured thousands of hours into producing a world for you to engage in - the pieces don't always line up properly, and mistakes happen. A mistake the admin involved weren't even aware was made, and then were forced to clarify the strongly conflicting points and clean up. Having that turn into 'If you submit a scholarly piece and they don't like you, they'll change areas and lore just to spite you' is a hurtful accusation towards someone like myself, who has spent the better part of five years producing content, at times at a pretty break-neck pace, and struggling to make sure such errors occur at a minimum all the while.

However, none of that is relevant. Since its inception, Lusternia has always held the policy that complaints from players regarding administrators should be forwarded to support@lusternia.com, where they will be handled accordingly. If you disagree, you're welcome to e-mail estarra@lusternia.com and take your disagreement with said policy right to the main lady. We've always had the policy that admin will not be publicly vilified on the forums, as they cannot defend themselves. Particularly in this instance, where said admin was anonymous - and for good reason.

There's really nothing more that needs to be said on the tangent, honestly.

It did cut Janalon deeply, she has stopped writing.

I would rather see someone take a step up and take the initiative on it, because making her have to pursue it seems humiliating.

But no we cant kick out every admin that makes a mistake. Most mistakes are subjective. Is a badly coded skill a mistake or a bug? Subjective. Was the smob old man in Mag mob bad? Subjective. Should guard mobs count as what they come from for the sake of quests? I think so, but that could be subjective.

Overall I think the library system has been fixed and that this thread may have run its course. I didnt start it so I cannot be sure of course, but that is just my thoughts. To my knowledge there has never been another incident where a mobs discussion was changed to fit a critique. So I do not think this is something you need to actively watch out for or fear.

Whoa whoa whoa.

My point here wasn't to derail the thread, as the point of this thread wasn't to dredge up this spectre; I wanted to bring up a major concern I have about Divine Scholars, as Tacita expressed a desire to have them back. That point is best illustrated by an example. I think the point was made clearly and the admin will be thinking about how to handle similar situations in light of how this is still a very hurtful issue of trust now, just as it was a couple years ago. I am confident they're better equipped and will be more diplomatic going forward.

Let's get back to the ideas. I still am for a way to try and clean up the 'subjects' in books and have them not so player-dependent, given the vast differences in labels one person may give as compared to the next.

The best way to do it would be to make the publishers set default subjects, imo. You could leave it up to the Author, but people often categorize their own work in ways that wouldn't occur to anyone else. If it's the Librarian doing it, it's more likely to be objective.

Honour for book submissions. Honour for book submissions. Honour for book submissions.



Honour for book submissions.



....Honour for book submissions.

Thank you.

I think Lendren mentioned this in another thread, but one of the core issues I have with the Library is that it's so little reward for what can sometimes be a big investment in time. Honour for book submissions makes perfect sense and would help to push publishing to be more desirable, especially for up-and-coming families.

Sorry for the minor necromancy, but I had a thought this morning.

Maybe the best way to encourage writers is to not try to encourage writers at all, but to encourage readers. Perhaps you should start offering gold, credits, orgfavors, pats-on-the-back, divine favors, etc. to people who read the books recently published in your library, or watch the productions on your stage.

I can't be the only one for whom one of the reasons (not all, but certainly one) for directing creativity in directions other than Lusternia is that sense, once you've written something in Lusternia, that you might as well have just put it in a box in your attic, for all the reaction you get. Contrariwise, when I was actively writing, no amount of bardic credits ever got me as enthused as getting a reaction -- even a negative one, if it was actually thoughtful and based on really reading what I'd written -- from people, and especially people who seemed to be attuned to creativity themselves. And nothing's as damning to motivation as when someone whose opinion really meant something to you, egged you on to write something, then never whispered a single syllable to you about it afterwards.

So maybe where we've all been going wrong is to try to focus on the writers. As I noted upthread, writers come with their own wellspring of motivation, or they're not really writers. All they really need is reasons to direct it here instead of somewhere else.

I think there are several things that can be done to make the Library a better place.

One thing that really bothers me is that when you view a library shelf you are always starting with the first that was ever published in the library. No one wants to go through pages of books just to find the new books. There are a few people that are willing to read, but can be dissuaded because of the mass of books they have to go through to get to the books they want.

It is sad that there isn't more books that are categorized correctly. I know a while back Shric and I went through a lot of books and added subjects. It is a huge task now, because in the past Librarians in Celest (I may have even been one of them, sorry!) did not put subjects to their books. You need a few good aides to do this. Please don't make the mistake of forcing your aides to write books. It's a very daunting task to write a book, and forcing it on aides doesn't produce more books. Encourage them to write, but don't force. There are a lot of other jobs that need done, not just writing books!

There are lots of things we can do to encourage writing beyond that of just credits. Celest has an excellent credit reward for authors that get published, however this doesn't always encourage people to write. In order for a person to write a book they have to want to write the book in the first place.

Some people want to write but don't know how. Sure, it's easy to think of a story that would happen in the real world, but in Lusternia? You have to know quite a bit about Lusternia before you write a fiction story based on the world (if the person doesn't know Lusternia they end up writing fiction that has nothing to do with Lusternia). It's best to start a new person on poetry and Scholarly works.

If poetry doesn't come easy to a writer then you are left with scholarly works. Finding a subject for a scholarly work can be like pulling teeth. If the person doesn't know anything about Lusternia they can still write Reviews, Biographies and Observational pieces (which may end up being more literary) to name a few. I really wish there were more biographies written myself, because a lot of people get forgotten after a few years of being important.

One thing that never seems to work is contests to write a book. You could offer a million gold and a thousand credits and only see a handful of books written for a contest like this. Contests for shorter works are much better. The best contest I've ever seen on Lusternia is Joli's one day poetry contest. People in Celest had one rl hour to write a poem based on a subject (I think it was rainbows or colour). The winner of the contest was Unitos (someone I would have never thought as a poet). It brought out a lot of people's creative sides and (I'm not sure if it ever made it to the library) the result from the contest could be a new book for the library.