Rule Enforcements

[Tigress]

This isn't going to be everyone's favorite post but it needs to be done, sorry guys! Foxx is a softie and sometimes isn't as strict with her rules as she should be . We've been talking it over and decided to make one big post addressing the rules that people seem to have forgotten over the years, and give people a window of time to fix them before these issues become grounds for abandonment.

The issues at hand mostly relate to editing images and incomplete pages.

As per the rules:
Never manipulate/change my images unless you have permission.
This includes but is not limited to: resizing, removing the white background (the images were not made for transparency and it often does not look good x_x), adding gif-like effects to the image or turning the image into a gif, or merging images together. This rule applies to their official stat pages only, Foxx still permits editing of images for banners/avatars/index or "family" pages/etc! Just keep it simple and clean for the stat page, please <3.

The following is required on your webpage:
A paragraph describing the environment, or just introducing the page... More than two sentences, PLEASE!
Many of us are pretty lax on this, myself included. I actually have two that are breaking this rule that I never realized until recently ^^;. Most of us have at least one character with a bare description, so let's give them some love.

Don't crowd your Serian, no more than 4 creatures on a page.
I think the only people who are breaking this rule are unfortunately no longer active on the board, but I've sent out emails and PMs and with this topic in place there's nothing else we can do. We don't have time to hunt people down to make them follow the rules, but we really did try ^^;.

The time limit to fix these issues was the 18th of March, inactive adopters with page issues have had their Serians officially abandoned, and active adopters will have page statuses updated regularly now, preventing adoptions until the issues are remedied.

[Songhue]

I'm guilty of the editing, myself. They don't really fit on their pages without shrinking the image a bit, unless I completely rearrange everything somehow - and they were automatically resized in the flash version. The white square also looks fine on a white background, but seems awkward on anything else... At least the cutesy animation effects got lost with the flash!

Got some figuring to do. Seems a terrible reason for abandonment. Maybe if I just "frame" it? I don't think that counts as editing... Would help it fit better.

Is the compilation of everyone for the circle pages ok, then, if it just counts for their main pages?

Also - the clarification helps. I hadn't considered any of that "editing" since the actual reference was never messed with. No color changes, or wings added/removed, no alterations of the Serians themselves at all. If transparency/resizing is enough to threaten abandonment, best to know of such details.

[Silverdust]

Just a quick question for the paragraph rule I've pretty much committed to the story theme for my serian pages, and they do tend to take a while to come together sometimes--would it suffice to post an excerpt of what I already have? It would be replaced with the longer version once finished, of course. But, if there need be a description/setting paragraph instead, I can definitely crank a few out--whatever y'all require. ^^

[Vineda]

For what its worth, I generally just put down a few thoughts from the beginning of getting to know them and the description of the place etc. That usually gives me a good paragraph or two to work from and build on while also satisfying the requirements.

[Tigress]

Songhue- I understand the frustration, especially right after we dropped the bomb about flash support going down in the not so distant future. The timing could have been better ^^;. However these rules have been up for 15 some odd years so it's not like they're new, and with the multiple "revivals" we've had I'm sure people have gone back to look over them every so often. It also says on the rule page itself "If you break any of the rules AFTER you have adopted, I will re-adopt out your Serian and give it a better home, and you won't be able to adopt anymore." so we could actually be significantly More strict about it, but are trying to give people as many opportunities as possible to keep their lovelies while being a bit more professional about the rules. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but Foxx puts hours upon hours of her time into these images, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that if they aren't displayed properly that they may as well go into someone else's collection who will display them properly? I do graphic art work for a site that forces us to rescale images down to 200 x 200 though most of us work at 400 x 400 to 800 x 800 and the amount of detail that gets lost is... really disappointing . Even though the images don't look that different in size ultimately.

I was actually going to suggest putting the image in a "frame" as that's what I do when the background doesn't want to match whatever site I'm trying to put it on. Adding a frame outside of the image doesn't count as altering the image . So long as the image is the exact size you received, with the background in place, without any effects overtop that alter or obscure the image- you're good to go!

Silverdust- that's totally fine hun! If you want to do a story but only have time to build it gradually, so long as you have a little paragraph to start off, it meets the basic standard . You can put a "to be continued" or just make it so that each part of the story you add on stands alone, your call!

Vineda- thanks for sharing your tips! I do something similar. I either describe the setting or the character, depending on my mood. Going between both gives me different options for when I'm feeling uninspired ^^.

[Foxxfyre]

Rest assured, as long as you're active I won't abandon your Serians outside of incredibly extreme circumstances What I've done in the past is just change the status of the Serians that aren't complying so that their Bonded can't adopt until things are fixed to fit the requirements. This isn't going to be a massive purge, we're just going through and updating the statuses of the Serians that aren't in compliance, and giving everyone a heads-up before we do it because we haven't been enforcing it really before ^^;;;;;;

Basically we're just starting up the ol' engine of the site again, and this is one of the pieces I have been neglecting for a while ^^;;;;;

The risking abandonment is more for people who aren't active and haven't been for years so there's not much hope of them ever being -in- compliance. And I am definitely willing to work with people on certain things, like image scaling. If the template just doesn't allow it, I'd be ok with a link to the full scale image.