Below is a section posted in the Policies and House Rules board. I have a couple questions on this excertped section.

1) What determines if a background is excessively long? More then one page? 2 pages? I have written backgrounds anywhere from 2 pages to 16..and while I know the higher end is excessive, what about the lower end?

2) What defines 'Media character'? I cannot see a News Journalist as a Showdowrunner, and that is what I define as Media...What do you guys define as a Media Character?

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Dealing with Applications
   Applications should be handled on a first come, first serve basis.  Exceptions to this rule would be if an application requires special handling such as searching the books for the rules or required approval of an admin other than the staffer handling the application. 
   Another exception will occur based on the length of the application and the total number of applications.  If a background is twenty pages long, expect a longer wait period.  An excessively (although not discouraged!) long background may be moved to the end of the queue if the others are quick and easy applications. 
   Staff also holds the right to move any application to the end of the queue if the player is being disruptive or if the staffer doesn’t feel he/she can give the application an unbiased review.  However, no application should sit in the queue for more than forty-eight hours with a regular queue load.  The limit may be extended based on availability of staff and amount of applications, but all players waiting longer than forty-eight hours should be notified by @mail or IM. 

Questionable or Not Approvable Applications
   Applications classified as questionable or as exceptions to the normal queue process will have some element that requires clarification, such as searching exactly what year some event happened in, searching whether something is allowable by the rules, or some other event that is beyond the normal chargen process. 
   Included in the not approvable will be characters that fall into our house rules or the book rules.  This list may be amended at any time for any reason.  Such things in this category for Beta include:
   1.   Characters under the age of sixteen (NOTE:  This may be changed to   
   eighteen).
   2.  Any PC currently employed in legal law enforcement positions.
   3.  Any PC currently employed in covert law/government positions.
   4.  Any PC currently employed by a Corporation.
   5.  Metatypes other than Human, Ork, Troll, Elf, and Dwarf.
   6.  Any PC in the Media or Medical fields that is not a shadowrunner. 
   7.  Any PC concept denied by the book such as Toxic/Insect Shamans and Blood   
   Mages.

What determines what is excessively long?  It really varies, depending on how many other queues there are, and how many active staffers are reading backgrounds.  In general, five pages is not long to me.  Ten, probably not unless there is a load of other stuff.  Twenty, yeah.  It isn't a rule that if your background is more than ten pages you will constantly be moved to the back of the line.  That was included just in case it is more efficient and if we get backlogged. But with a twenty page background, you have to give us the time to read it which typically means that either we put off whatever else we are doing or we do things in between reading your background which makes everything take longer.  It also shouldn't take more than two days to get an application done, however, so it's really not that long of a wait no matter the length of the BG.

As for Media characters, you're right on the ball.  Journalists, news anchors, tv reporters, any type that of character that is involved in the media but is not a shadowrunner.  Now, if your character writes pieces on the side while shadowrunning, that's fine.  But the main thing is that there is not going to be support for non-shadowrunner characters in Beta, at least at first.  So if you were to create a reporter you would have no support, no admin gigs, no stories to write about, etc. 

Note that corporate and government men aren't allowed either, so your character is much more likely to say, be a hacker/blogger who contributes regularly to the ShadowSea datahaven rather than appear on the trid. Which is for the best anyway, real muckrakers and celebrities have a pretty short lifespan when they're crossing the corps or criminal underworld.

Can we include Rock and Porn Stars on the Media list? I mean, Adepts make you think...

I'd like to see a MUX that doesn't waste as much space with their clarifications.  I know that this sort of detailed spiel is really what MUXs have developed in response to pushy players and ridiculously sympathetic staffers.  I can sum up the entire thing that is and isn't allowed, and guidelines about BGs pretty fast.
-=Start=-

Backgrounds usually don't take longer than two days, but sometimes they will.

Don't try and play anything that isn't a shadowrunner.

All other entries will be denied, along with anything we have a problem with at the time. 
Be smart people, and write a BG only once.

-=End=-

I'd really like a MUX that was willing to say that.  Its in the staffers' hands, not the players.  Back yourselves up.  I know you are trying to make it easier for yourselves to not have to deal with the same question again and again, but excessive statements tend to pull oneself out of the game more and more.  If you are just a competant, logically thinking person, who cares but isn't a gullible duck, you'd tell the person trying to app for a corper to "Get real" and start being a shadowrunner.  Shadowrun here, not corprunner USA.  Then it just starts to become habit that Staff get looked to more and more as people with capacity to decide things, and gives them the freedom to make exceptions.  Now, you need two things.  Trustworthy staff, and a good player base.  So far we've got that, but those generalized terms are for the people of the future I suppose.  ^_^  Anyways.  Just wanted to make a note.

Clarifications are no real problem, unless they're really excessive.  It's ok for staff to be specific in order to quash arguments before they start.  Also, being specific is good so that all the staff are on the same page.  The problem comes when staff feel like lawyers, trying to enforce the policy based exactly on its text and believing that they have no power to do otherwise.  In reality, staffers are the judge and jury, while players are the lawyers.  Players go "It doesn't say I can't be a pornstar who's not a shadowrunner, and pornstars aren't media, so approve me!"  And staffers *should* go "No pornstar unless you're also a shadowrunner."  The problem is that often, staffers often don't believe in their own power as GMs, and they let themselves get drawn into arguments about what the rules are, and they get upset, and burn out...  So clarifications are fine, as long as staff remember that just because it isn't written doesn't mean they can't decide it.  If they're unsure, they can ask a higher-up staffer.  And if the player doesn't like it, they can appeal the decision.  But to the extent that the clarifications give players a more specific idea of what the rules are, they're a good thing.  You just need to watch out for them being so extensive that people don't even read them, because it would take too long.

Staffers are doubtful, I've talked to them. They sometimes fear or doubt their own ability to enforce rules on the playerbase. I've talked to staffers who basically felt they were continually at the verge of player walk outs, or that they had no real power.

If a staffer is too hard, then they have delusions of grandeur, and people leave. If a staffer is too soft, people get bored, and walk all over them, and people leave. It's a delicate balance, and the safezone is only about an inch in diameter.

Tear is right, though, on alot of things.

As much as I enjoy arguing against her, and every single one of her opinions, she's on a role today.

Tear and I have talked many times about just such a problem with staff in various MU*s.  I find them everywhere, and more often than not the one's who are willing to bow down to players and the ones who are most aggressive against them are the ones who quote the policies/rules/etc the most.  They aren't always right about the policies/rules/etc but they point to them more than the staffers I like.

The staffers I like don't need to spend 5 minutes looking something up, they just give me an answer usually.  They rarely need help with the rules, and are gracious when the actual rules are point out to them but when the situation demands and they want to avert the rules for a specific purpose they don't take sass from no one about it being against the 'rules'.  These staffers don't say to me ever, "You know, the rules even say a GM can alter the rules at any time as they feel is necessary."  They just do it, and tell you that they are doing it, and trust them, they will make it fun.  And they are fun.

The pushovers I will push.  They've got signs on their foreheads that say, "I'm too weak to decide."  And the staffers who are going on power trips have a great big sign which says, "Please, piss me off."  The staffers I like have no sign, they are firm, friendly and final with all of their decisions.  I never question them, because they leave nothing to question.  I have met these kind of staff a lot in my experiences MUXing.  They aren't always up to par, but I'm never the best I can be as a player either.  We forgive and go on, make mistakes and recover, but always in the goal of making the game better with a decisive hand.  I want to RP, I don't care where its at, and I want to RP my character in situations as best as I can.  In response for that my GMs hopefully will give me a fair, concise, and decisive world to play in.  If they tell me, "Your BG will be read when we can get around to it."  I don't whine, I don't complain, I just take it and go.  If they tell me, "Your BG will be read RIGHT NOW, unless its too long, or needs special attention from a particular staffer, or if I don't think I know the rules well enough to judge it, or if you've got something there that I need to look up and someone else doesn't, or I'm busy, or just cause."  That makes me want to push you over or make you pissed off.

The problem is... not a lot of people are like you.  A lot of them will page every five minutes asking if their app is being looked at, and when they aren't paging you, they're whining on channel about waiting for their app to be done.  Then you have the people who hint around bluntly about wanting their app looked at.  Or the ones who want you to review their application without ever submitting their application just so they can get it looked at NOW.  If we posted, 'It'll be read when we get around to it' then we'll have a million pages of 'when will you get around to it?'  Or 'How long do I have to wait?'  Now, granted, we'll get these anyway, but instead of repeating ourselves a million times, we can point to where it's already written out and they can go read it. 

There is no common sense when it comes to groups of people, and just because you may think you know something doesn't mean everyone else, or you, know it.  And thanks for telling me your opinion of me and phstaff, and how you'll act when you submit an app. 

This can be easily solved by setting everyone OK for the IC news boards. If I were to run a PrP, I could post a simple News Report, then a media character if he or she wished could contact me to follow up or investigate more in depth. Yet, though we have very few staff, and fewer plots, no one on staff seems to like that idea. Is it the fear of relinguishing a little bit of power?

The last few times I was in chargen, the process took anywhere from a month to two months. So I log on, check the app, read a few boards and logoff. Repeat every few hours or everyother day depending on my schedule. However, being that everyone has been waiting for a year and a half for the "new grid" and "code" to appear out of the vapour, I think that there is somewhat of a lack of patience. While I do expect my app to take longer than others. I have to ask what is a reasonable wait time? I intend to have things from the compatiable source books. My sheet will not look like any of the examples in SR4. I have been told by staff that the entire city is represented on the grid,(Is this true?), from that I do not intend to be in the barrens period. From those few things, what would you estimate my wait time to  be?

First, if you bring up the last time you were through chargen, you need to mention just how long ago that was.  It's been at least three or four years.  And magic applications have always, in the past, taken forever because it's not just an 'app as  you please' process, it was a competition process.  So thanks for trying to convince everyone that we take forever without bringing up the circumstances that caused it to be a wait.  And whatever characters you've had before the last time happened long before I ever came to the mush, so I can't say what was going on other than that it only took me a day and a half to get approved with my first character. 

And amazingly, the characters I've dealt with in the past year and a half have been some of the most patient, so don't even attempt to blame annoying players on just the wait time for the new mush.  I'm sure when the new mush opens, and just opens for Beta in the Barrens, which you've said you won't be playing in, I'm sure everyone will have a little more patience and knowledge that others are apping at the same time. 

As for your wait time, being the special cookie that you are, without knowing anything about your character, I'm guessing yeah, it'll take a little more work to see if what you want makes sense and is legal.  Because I'm sure at least two staffers will have to read your app. 

As for a reasonable wait time?  See my point in people asking even though it's already been written down and please read the policy relating to the application process. 

I made a char on Seattle, and it was approved very promptly with a minimum of hassle.  And then I forgot about her in the nuke room, and she got nuked!  And Dreamer wasn't even mad at me...  So as I see it, there are no major problems with the grid at present, other than a somewhat crippling lack of players 

I have had 5 characters on this mush, Each one has taken at least a month sitting in the finishing touches room. If the hoops you have to jump through have been removed, then Wunderbar!

However, if you figure on half of the forum users apping then I  think that 48 hours is a little short sighted. I'm using half the forum members as a median. You might get less, you might have more. No one knows.

Could you clarify a point. Noor has told me that all areas of the city are to be open. A vague statement, yet, the forum has threads which talk about vast open free RP areas, PrP rooms, Private spaces, etc...  From this one can conclude that we are free to RP in areas other than the barrens. If that is not true, then a post clarifying that should be made. What good will it do for people who app "downtown" characters if they have to be in the barrens?

The direct quote from the Beta chargen application policy.  In bold, so you notice it this time. 


You've had five characters, and the last one for at least three or four years.  If you don't know what current policy is on approving characters and are drawing from experiences from longer than three or four years ago... then you really don't know what you're talking about.  It doesn't make any sense to say your character waits for a month when one, you haven't made a character in years, and two, no has waited for a month in years. 


Exactly, no one knows.  But I doubt every single person, even half of the mush, will app at exactly the same time.  With the addition of new staff plus old staff being focused on apps, I can't see it taking much longer.  And if it does, if you'll read above to the place it's been listed, then we will let people know that it will take longer. 

As for clarifying, I haven't seen Noor since you're post and I am still under the assumption that while we do have the entire grid built, Beta will take place in the Barrens.  Until she posts and/or I talk to her, that is still my belief subject to change.