CLIQUES & INCLUSIVITY DISCUSSION

[MADI]

[div style="width: 80%; font-family: verdana; text-align: justify; margin: auto"]alright! thanks for your input, everyone, and please still providing it! i've reached out to a few people who have left and sort of just been compiling information and general feelings i've gathered from others. so, an overview of things i want to focus on:
— with a lot of characters and joiners things are very fast and people are finding it harder to engage/get meaningfully integrated, they feel lost in the crowd, etc.
— existence of various friend or themed groups icly mean that people are likely to trend towards that group automatically, even if they try to include others, and some might avoid a group just out of fear of exclusion. those members then stick together. vicious cycle.
— a lot of information that is hard to explain to newcomers all at once / concisely. people are sort of confused by everything and they lose interest when they don't get what is going on, they feel like they're missing out on something / sort of just on the sidelines, never feel "in".
— current pace also usually means spread replies / missed threads when people are busy and things disappear off the front page quickly.
— discord use = ooc board plotting threads are used less, people feel like they aren't getting engagement from others.

and here is a list of solutions and responses to these problems that are either already implemented or are being developed and fully implemented now:

minor solutions — discord
— added a second plotting channel.
— added an open-threads channel for open ic threads that need replies.
— added an introductions channel for newcomers to give info about themselves.

ooc bonding/meeting new people solutions
— ooc icebreakers
— encourage more random ooc threads and games just for chatting on-site and not just on the discord

addressing group dynamics
— develop the buddy system to bring individuals out of their friend group and get them to interact directly and extensively with those from other groups: foster true interactions and getting to know others ic (and ooc as a result of planning tasks together).
— add more weekly tasks that pair off random members who might not know one another that well.
— many of the odyssey title tasks encourage engaging / plotting with others for things. 

simplifying and lessening the load of information
— revamping the titles guide a little bit, moving the pixel builder to a normal ooc thread just for funsies / where people can chat about them / i can help with the codes and stuff instead of cluttering the titles guide with it.
— most of the buddy tasks will address introducing newcomers to traditions, ranks, titles, etc.

full explanation of buddy system
— 2:2 buddy pairing, two older members and two newer members, can be 1:2 -- the 2:2 is just a safety net so that if someone goes inactive, there is still one older member and one newer member in the group, so that these tasks actually happen.
— the idea is to pair new:old to help integrate newcomers, but also to pair group A:group B to get older members to mingle with those outside of their circle. so it should be three-four very random members grouped together.
— buddy pairs will fall into different categories. idea there will be A buddy groups, B buddy groups, etc, for tasks and stuff.
— buddy pairs will have certain tasks to complete together, but there will be some that require them to pair up with other groups. there will be two different types of pairing: larger activities that ask them to work as a category ("category A buddy pairs do this together") and smaller activities that ask them to choose a pair from a different category to complete their task ("category A buddy group joined up with someone from category C").

buddy pair tasks (aka approx 3-4 ppl)
— getting their shards from the starpool and explaining the pendants tradition to newcomers, bringing them to the clerics to have a pendant crafted, reminding them to go to monthly ceremonies to get those pendants given to them ic
— ic game / get to know you game of some form

larger activities, category tasks (aka approx 9-12 ppl)
— tours of the territory
— scavenger hunt (secondary get to know the territory/observatory game)
— q&a on clan happenings and stuff so far

smaller activities, cross category tasks (aka approx 6-8 ppl)
— orientation, introducing the title and rank structures and giving some explanation for them ic on a more personal / one on one basis

^ these are just rough ideas so far and i'm still working on more for the buddy system.
does this seem like too much to ask people to do / are they likely to? or is it an engaging enough way for newcomers to actually learn about the group and do things together?