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The Reset - I and II
Topic Started: Sep 20 2009, 01:36 AM (925 Views)
Dancing With Tears
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Cat Spy?
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Hi. I wasn't very active, uni has stole my life.

But i'd be sad to see this place go.

Geez.

Wow.

Long time - eh?

I think that downsizing is a good idea, although perhaps unnecessary. The whole achievement points thing became very confusing.

I don't know how to put what i have to add into words without it sounding stupid ^^

Erm.. Well I'm off to learn some Quantum Mechanics....

Good Luck Tul.
Posted Image<----Tears's Mad editing skillz.

Rawr.
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Sir Galahad
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I have few words to describe my feelings. Over the time I've been here I've met so many stirling people. You people represent a facet of society that I have come to love and appreciate with all my heart.

To think that what started one rainy evening in my study because I found a sheet of paper from about four months ago with 'The United Literates.com' scrawled on it in black ink, would end with so much ceremony.

Anyway, I love this site, to see this creature flare and die would be truly heartbreaking, but that's life, I suppose; evolve or die. I like the idea of a new site with all the good bits and some new good bits.

I'd be willing to help with what I can (I've found a recent flare for organising stuff...), so don't hesitate to ask... Reaver has my MSN.

I'm gonna be flitting in and out of it for a while (A-levels you know...) but I assure you, whatever you decide to do, it'll be the right decision, I couldn't think of a better bunch of people to relaunch this old thing.

Much love to you all,

Sir Galahad, Bt.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
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Froen
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As far as how I meant for prompts to go, I've had a good amount of time to flesh that out.

We need no more than five prompts. If even that. Just to be clear on just how many prompts five is, five is metric crapton. This is where you say "No, five is five". That is where you'd be wrong. See, here in THE FRIENDSHIP STATE we have a little standardized test that we must take year after year; year after year they produce a prompt for the Writing portion of the test. The writing portion wants a highly detailed anecdote, a form of writing we'll never use in college, but I digress.

For eight years, I have received not eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or even two prompts. Each year I've been given the same prompt. Not obviously the same, mind you, however, the sob story of my fake life I have produced for them year after year has been the same.

Examples of this one prompt, you ask?

Write an essay about a time when you helped
another person.

Write an essay explaining how one experience
can have the power to affect a person’s life in a
positive way.

Write an essay explaining the importance of
accepting others as they are.

Write an essay about the effect that someone you
admire can have on your life.




"Why Viral, this is clearly a set of four prompts!" No. No it's not.

It's one. Here's why. To each of these, with only minor tweakage, I can write an expanded, highly detailed form of:

"Oh gosh golly gee, I do ever so love auntie. She's so weird though, she makes her freaking bed. I do ever so wish not to make my bed, why does she do it? She makes my bed for me sometimes. Sometimes she makes me do it, and I hate it.

Oh noes! Auntie died, I am so sad and am going to do everything in my power to have angst and make you cry. Boy did I ever learn my lesson though, I'll make my bed for the rest of my life because Auntie taught me that and I was sad when she died.

Auntie truly showed me [insert prompt here with appropriate changes to make it fit into the last paragraph of your highly detailed anecdote with upper level diction and stuff]!"





So, we collectively come up with five prompts, which we tweak and turn into the before mentioned metric crapton. The prompts should certainly be very general though, we want creative responses obviously. We're not writing for them, they're writing for us. At that, the prompts should be something of the tune of "Have a character react to ______"

With that explained, I move on to scoring/grading whatever. I'm more or less tempted to adopt and reword the general rubric for scoring AP English essays. We can make a system that scores 1-9, 9 being the best, 1 being the worst.

To properly decide on what we should build the rubric around, the most obvious answer is for us to write a response to our prompts and decide what qualifies as a 1, and what qualifies as a 9, and tweak the definition as we need to as the site (hopefully) develops.

I'll find us a good example of how we should "score" applicant's-- err - umm . . . "Roleplay Samples" (That's another dastardly duo of words I think should go, but thinking of something to replace 'roleplay sample' is another subject entirely)



If you'd like, we could just open up a topic just for designing a new application system. I could - pardon me if this sounds a tad cocky- probably formulate something by myself. I have a fair grasp on what I'd need, and can just run everything for community approval via forum topics until we have a solid system which is accepted by everyone. By accepted, I mean unanimously agreed upon, to be perfectly clear. ~~~For those that do not like to assume, yes, this means I'd be taking a rather large volume (for our relatively paltry member pool) input from everyone.

We need to do these things in very short order while we have momentum. At the present; we've only spoken (a bit gravely and super serious for my taste) so pushing action now is the best thing to do. We ought not let this putter out and die; we can talk all day about it once we've done it, yeah?
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Viraliu - formerly, desired a different name. I'm whimsical, what can I say?
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Locke
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Vi, make the topic, and I'll pin it in the Lounge. You can work around designing that and we'll help throw in our input.

Hurr, we are helpful links.
My Co-Workers | Message A Locke | Give us a Shout-Out! | Official Rules + Tips and Tricks | The Cafe

[it's just a new day in the old town]
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Froen
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Yay! I have a job!

Howwwwwwwwwwwever, I must sleep now so . . . I left you a poem! Bwahahaha! Literary masterpiece indeed. But yeah, I'll flesh stuff out and stuffypoo tomorrow when I have time.

Of course it gets itself covered up by something else the moment I post it -huff- No matter, I'll just edit a link in-desu.

http://s13.zetaboards.com/The_United_Literates/topic/6645187/1/#new

This is me having amused memories at the caption by the title of this thread. "Melodrama. Melodrama, a most exciting show. We garuntee that you'll enjoy a bit of Melodrama. Melodrama."

xDD I LOVE how awful that play is in the hands of a really bad theatre class.
Edited by Froen, Oct 2 2009, 12:14 AM.
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Viraliu - formerly, desired a different name. I'm whimsical, what can I say?
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Axel
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[the day breaks, your mind aches]
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Essays? I'm not down with any kind of essays. They're annoying as balls to write in school, who would want to write an essay to get into an online role play site?

True, I don't have much time before I have to go to work so I only skimmed the topic, but I've seen the word 'essay' crop up.

And I'm terrible at writing essays, but I'm pretty good at writing creatively. I don't think essays are a good way to show how good someone is. There's too much structure and topic sentences and all that.
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Roxas
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has got the edge.
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I've never liked grading systems. I was glad that TUL stopped it.
It's really just another label.

And "roleplaying sample" is a perfectly suitable name. It's exactly what it is and changing it would only be for the sake of changing it, which is a very poor reason.
17.03.08

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Froen
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No, the "grades" would not be displayed. If you want to even call them grades.

Annnnnd skimming is bad. It has nothing to do with essays, just borrowing a system.
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Viraliu - formerly, desired a different name. I'm whimsical, what can I say?
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Axel
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[the day breaks, your mind aches]
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I had a bunch of stuff to do before work, so I didn't have time. Still don't, heh. xD
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Scathach
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Actually, I was not thinking of anything as extensive as a paragraph as the application basis. I was thinking more along the the lines of a one-liner, left deliberately vague to allow room for creativity. For example, "a man is riding his horse through a forest - write (insert number of words here) about what he finds."
"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." (MacBeth, IV, 1) %mh%-10570%mh%
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Cab
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shame.
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We get these 'prompts' for out english exams every year and during my GCSE revision period I saw a helluva lot of them. To be honest, I love them.

For my final english exam we were asked five questions.. I can't remember the other but the one I answered was 'Describe your home', which I loved. Stuff like that kinda lets you judge how creative a person can be. This guy in my class described the earth with poetry whilst my best mate just wrote about her house.... I likelikelike this idea alot.



You wrote my name in the sand
In this endless summer
We will be together

%mh%-7590%mh%
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Dancing With Tears
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Scathach
Oct 3 2009, 02:52 PM
Actually, I was not thinking of anything as extensive as a paragraph as the application basis. I was thinking more along the the lines of a one-liner, left deliberately vague to allow room for creativity. For example, "a man is riding his horse through a forest - write (insert number of words here) about what he finds."
I remember suggesting this a few years ago.

Posted Image<----Tears's Mad editing skillz.

Rawr.
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Dancing With Tears
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Oh.

Maybe we should change the title of this board. Don't want new applicants to see we already think doomsday is coming.
Posted Image<----Tears's Mad editing skillz.

Rawr.
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Walking Softly
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Just a personal comment:

I remember a time when the C-Box was used plenty for people trying to hook up roleplays. It was an easy, really fast way to develop a concept with someone else who was on TUL at that very moment, and to get going on the roleplay within a day of wanting it.

Maybe its current purpose has evolved. I don't know. Back then, the roleplay ad section worked differently, too. All I know is that I've always thought it a boon to have a place where anyone can talk about anything (reasonable) without having to get each other's contact information first. As the 'anyone' and 'everything', it is fully capable of maintaining multiple threads of conversation simultaneously.
Posted Image<--- Silvarsh Posted Image <---Xoot Posted Image<---Aewyn. She finally gave me an egg - maybe she's bi?

Posted Image <-- I swear, I didn't hatch this one. o.o?

Status: Swamped permanently, due to being over the age of ten...
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Locke
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Walking Softly
Oct 4 2009, 02:21 PM
Just a personal comment:

I remember a time when the C-Box was used plenty for people trying to hook up roleplays. It was an easy, really fast way to develop a concept with someone else who was on TUL at that very moment, and to get going on the roleplay within a day of wanting it.

Maybe its current purpose has evolved. I don't know. Back then, the roleplay ad section worked differently, too. All I know is that I've always thought it a boon to have a place where anyone can talk about anything (reasonable) without having to get each other's contact information first. As the 'anyone' and 'everything', it is fully capable of maintaining multiple threads of conversation simultaneously.
The unfortunate part of the cbox is that this one is not the same as the old, paid for one. While it is fully capable of maintaining multiple threads of conversation, it's evolved to the point of just being the roleplay ad section - where anyone who ISN'T taking about roleplays is getting cut out, because that's all anyone on it is talking about. That, and the attitude of the people on the cbox, are the two main factors towards the alienation of members.

It also has a great deal to do with how it's done. The cbox is no longer used just for 'hey, want to roleplay?' comments and brief beginnings. It's used to completely plan out roleplays now, which is what blocks out everyone else who wants to use it.
Edited by Locke, Oct 4 2009, 10:06 PM.

Hurr, we are helpful links.
My Co-Workers | Message A Locke | Give us a Shout-Out! | Official Rules + Tips and Tricks | The Cafe

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