Guidelines for creating a Chatlands™ site
Many people would like to have their very own chat site. But, creating a
chat site can be difficult, and it does not happen all by itself. The truth
is that there's a lot of work that needs to be done in order to set up
and then run a chat site. Preparation is required, and cash or deltas will be
spent. There are many hours of effort involved, but when all of it is done,
you can sit back and admire your great accomplishment!
What follows is a list of things that need
to be done before your chat site will leave Dream Isles and become its own
site.
A Wolfhome "Ultimate"
Subscription: You start out by creating a private island on Wolfhome.
You have to have an Ultimate subscription to do that. Creating a private
island allows you to set up your own map and then to place the room dots
on it. It is generally the best way to get things rolling. Until your chat
site is operational, you will have to pay deltas for this "Ultimate"
subscription that lets you create your islet. This allows up to 50 rooms
at the start.
The Creation of Your Islet: You
can choose from a list of pre made islets or you can create or alter one
of your own. Most people eventually create their own but it's up to
you.
A To-Do List: This is a list of
the things you need to complete in order to reach your goal for your new
chat site.
A Theme:. How you want your chat
site to look. Do you want all ages or would you prefer 13 and older or
possibly just adults. This would be part of your TO DO list. A theme can
also reflect the storyline or mythology behind your chat world. Please
note that we want to have unique themes for each Chatlands™ site.
We may require that you alter your proposed theme if we feel that it is
too close to an existing one.
The Map: Please remember you may
not use everything you find on the web. It must be free and/or in the
public domain. You MUST adhere to copyright laws. You need a map (and room
dots discussed below) in order for people to click on rooms and enter
them. The Wolfhome Map is an example of this, although that one is a bit
special because it was created in Flash. Most of the other Chatlands™
maps are PNG or GIF images that appear to "float" above a background
(typically a field of stars). You do not have to follow this style. A map
can be designed to any way you would like it to look. You can create your
own artwork or commission someone to do the artwork for you.
The Rooms: We recommend at least
15 different rooms be set up on your map on your islet. It is not a good
idea to create a site with no place for people to go! You can create the
artwork for the rooms yourself or you may decide to commission someone else
to create them for you. As always, you must obey copyrights and other
intellectual property rights laws. Remember that a good design attracts
more chatters. The same applies for a good map.
The Pose Sets: You can get the
use of the free modern wolves with underdog's permission but a
2nd set is highly recommended so that people have a choice.
Sets take a lot of time to make and there are special rules that follow
upon their creation. They must be colored in a special way so when they
are put in your version of the body shop they will look proper and people
can change their colors.
Administrators: People must be
taught how to be an administrator. These people will represent your site.
Making a poor choice for an administrator can turn into a disaster. An
admin is there to guard the safety of the chatters, to watch for unruly
behavior, to check pose uploads, to check room uploads, and much more.
Choosing the proper admins can be crucial to the success of a chat site.
The communications between an administrator and the chatters are some of
the most important and challenging aspects of running a chat site. You
will want to make friends, not enemies. Remember that age requirements are
also a factor. You do not want to hire a 12 year old who may hear very
foul language or other forms of adult behavior not suited for young
children. While this is not a requirement, we strongly suggest that all
site administrators be at least 16 or older.
Choose Admins Carefully: Be sure
that the people you have chosen to be your administrators don't have a bad
history with other chat sites. Excessive use of vulgarity, sexual language,
indulging in "mocking" or irritating people, and "power hungry" people
should not be admins at all.
Privacy is Very Important: Always
keep the information in that is made available to admininstrators (such as
that shown on the admin pages) secret. Information such as email
addresses, IP addresses, private or public conversations said on the chat,
real life names, addresses, phone numbers or other personally identifiable
information, all of these things and other similar things should be kept
private. These things should should NEVER be divulged and
should be used ONLY for the official purposes of providing a safe
and fun experience for chat site users. These are our rules, but they are
also the law. Do not reveal things you have learned as an administrator to
anyone except other administrators, and then only when it is necessary to
do your job.
Maximum Administrators: We want
you to have 2 administrators that are well prepared for the launch of a new
site. Have others in training while the 2 main people are working and
learning the proper way to run a site. Why do we say 2? It's because you
can't have 5 chatters online and 5 administrators. Chatlands™ needs
to make enough money to stay online. Sites like this can't be created
without making any revenue. If there are 10 admins and 1 chatter, no one
is paying for the server the site is on. It is lost revenue.
Copyright Laws: YOU are
responsible for the content on your chat site. You don't want to have your
site shut down, or worse, to have a lawsuit brought against you because
you or your admins knowingly allowed poses, room images or other content
in violation of copyright law (or other laws). You must do your absolute
best to prevent people from making illegal use of intellectual property
(copyrighted artwork, music or text, for example). Having someone in the
art field as an administrator is a good idea. If you don't enforce this,
not only will you be harming the very community that gives life to our
Chatlands™ sites, but your site will be shut down. As you can tell,
we take copyright laws seriously and you should too!
Your Home Page: We strongly
suggest that you use a free web site that makes it easy to create your
home page. For example, webs.com
provides a selection of pre-made backgrounds and you can create your
FAQ, rules page, and other pages there as well.
Home Page Picture:
You will want to have an image (gif, jpg or png) on your home page that
represents your site. Have links in the form of informative buttons on
the side so they can read information about your site, log in, check your
rules and whatever else you need to keep people informed
Other Pages: You'll want to
create many other pages that will link to each other and cover different
topics. Some things you will need to create are a rules page, a
help page and a price page to explain subscriptions to new
users. You may want to have a pose sets page that shows the poses
for each subscription level, or a page that tells the background
or storyline for this chat site, and tells your visitors what makes
this site special. You might publish other information about the
site, about it's creators, or provide links to other websites that
share a common interest.
Cash and Deltas: Unless you have
a lot of artists who can make rooms and poses for you for free, and
someone who can create web pages and understands links, along people who
know how to do the many other things that need to be done, you may end up
spending a lot of money or Deltas or both to create your site. Do not
expect people to do this for free.
RegardingDonated or Purchased
Content: Unless you create all of the content for your site, which is
definitely a very large job, you will end up with more than one person
working on the project, and possibly quite a few. These people will be
creating the images and writing the text for the site. Make sure
that there are clear agreements in place in advance that explain
who owns the copyrights to the artwork and other creative content. The
reality is that some people, no matter how well they are getting along
today, may decide tomorrow that they no longer want to
permit their poses or room backgrounds or other contributed work used on
the site. The best policy is to make sure that everyone understands and
agrees up front on how such situations will be handled, should they
arise.
Responsibility: It is your
responsibility to create the TO DO lists for your chat lands site. It is
your responsibility to keep the site in proper order and to make sure that
the terms of service for all
Chatlands™ sites are followed. Unruly behavior, trolling to other
sites by your admins, or running to other sites to try to draw people to
your site is considered rude and abusive.
We are all in this together. Trying to compete in unfriendly ways
with other Chatlands™ sites is not only inappropriate, it can end up
shutting down your site and possibly getting you or your admins banned.
Let's work together to grow this and draw in new people, because, after
all, there's an awful lot of room to grow!
Once Accomplished: The more you
accomplish while on Dream Isles, the faster the site will be put up.
Remember, on Wolfhome rooms are approved and put up typically within a
day or two. The same applies for your islet and maps. Once you have
everything set up, and you are ready to launch your site, keep creating
these to-do lists and build them up before handing them to underdog. He
can accomplish things more quickly with a detailed list than one item
at a time.
Once You Are Up and Running:
Don't expect the site to be loaded with lots of people "instantly". It
can take time for people to learn about your site and decide to explore
it. If you are in a hurry, you might want to try these things: Advertise
on web sites. Use Photobucket, Deviant Art, Facebook, Twitter and other
sources to get the word out about your site!
Great Big
THANKS go to Wishspell (Mystical Realms) for the first version of this
document!
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