News & Announcements: November Update

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   November Update

I was actually going to just make an announcement regarding the post
requirements for new members until they can participate in battles. However,
I got the idea that we should post a monthly update announcement with some
of our plans and discussions. I would like to get the communities input and
any helpful suggestions. Some of your ideas may be better than our own. The 
staff here at LA want to make this a fun, enjoyable place for everyone here
and to do that we need your participation and help. It's time to help bring
LA back from the depths. 

Heat Wave

For those of you that have not been around this is the current tournament
that has reached it's final stages in both the topical side and the regular
text battle side. Since the departure of SS, this tournament had some issues,
however, Cuba picked it up where he left off. It has ran smoothly, thus far. 
Albiet, because of the lack votes from the judges, the voting has been opened
to the public and we were able complete the semi-finals because of this. I expect
this participation in voting to continue in a timely manner during these final
matches. This is the main thing we are waiting to complete and get over with
before we start on any new ventures.

Future Leagues/Tournaments

There have been talk about this already. Different events, leagues, and tournaments
and the way we will go about including and running them. If the any leagues or 
ongoing battle events (e.g. battle royale, pyramid-style) come into play, the 
first stages will be a trial run to gauge how successful they will be and if it will
be worth our time or the person running it. This means if and when this comes to pass
we expect full participation from the members of this site. That means showing up to 
your battles and voting on the battles accordingly so they can progress and not
be stuck in the same spot for months like many of our recent tournaments. 

Magazines 

This has been an ongoing discussion as well. We are definitely going to implement
some form of magazines for the site. One of the main proposals that has been 
discussed in this manner has been to create a separate board all together
for magazine-like posts. For example, instead of one person taking hours
to put everything together, members can make separate magazine style threads
on this board. So one person can post predictions and reviews from a certain 
tournament or league. Another can post a Open Mic magazine, or even a 
humorous gif magazine that U.N.L.M. would create if he was still around. 
This would enable us to place this thread into it's respected forum as well.
Take an Open Mic mag for example, someone posts it in the magazine thread.
I can move to the OM section and move it back without taking off the 
show move option and it will remain in the OM section as well. This will 
allow each specific thread to have the up to date mag's in them. There
have been other suggestions in the mod forums regarding this matter as well.
For the time being if you are creating a mag for something, when it's complete
go ahead and post it and will sticky it.

Voting Statuses

Voting statuses are something that we have implemented already and most recently
have begun using. These are vote ratings for each vote cast in a battle. This let's
moderators know the value of each vote and how well they have been cast. Below
I will post what I thought about each category. 

 The Law wrote:

Disallowed - Is one that is obviously not allowed whether by crew vote or per rules. As well if the vote does not give enough on the battle. For example, this one has good punches and flow, this person had good flow and multi's but the punches weren't as good so the other guys gets my vote. No matter how many sentences they put into a vote like that it's all the same. For a vote to be allowed we have to at least know that they somewhat read the verses and aren't just throwing votes around. All of the mods should pretty easily know what shouldn't be allowed and what should so I feel this is an easy category to justify.

Acceptable/Needs Improvement - Borderline disallowed. The vote did just enough to be allowed but doesn't do anything else. They gave very little insight to the battle but did just enough to show that they at least read the battle and gave a vote. I feel if a member continues to put out votes in this category his votes should be moved to the disallowed category until it begins to improve.

Good - A vote that clearly shows that the voter read and understood both verses. Gives a clear, concise post as to why the battler won and why the other battler lost. Most of the time these votes will have a little bit more than a few sentences. The voter may go into detail about a certain bar, or category that a battler excelled in or struggled in and will provide proof to his reasoning. 

Excellent - Is basically a good vote that goes into a more detail of each of the verses. Not only does the voter show that he fully understands each verse, his vote is able to help each of the battlers improve. Whether by the way he worded his vote about what they did good or bad, or by just giving them advice about certain things they can work on. This vote goes above and beyond the average vote. 

Battling Requirements 

 This is for new members that have came to site looking to jump directly
into battling. We have experienced that many new members have came
set up battles then disappeared leaving that for us to clean up. Others 
come battle until they lose and then disappear because their record
is no longer perfect. The requirement used to be 40 points until you
were able to participate in the battlefield. This has now been moved
down to 20 points. Points are earned by post and by likes on your posts.
1 point for each post and 1 point for each like. There are many ways
to get involved with the community whether you are having a discussion
or participating in one of the hip hop chat threads or sports, media and 
entertainment threads. There are plenty of cyphers to post in and you can 
post an open or audio mic and leave feedback respectively. Don't forget
to post an introduction. Just a word of advice with introductions, these
give us an idea of what kind of member your going to be. It's a first
impression thing. So for those that post a bunch of bullshit in their intro
that is how we view you. For those that realize they can't use the battlefield 
yet and post battle callouts in the intro section, you will be viewed as a 
potential pain in the ass. 

Moderator Staff

We have expanded the mod team. For those of you whom haven't noticed
already. You can welcome Nigma to the moderator staff.

Closing Statement

Hopefully, I am able to make these update announcements once a month. I'd
like to let you as a community know what is going on behind the forums. There
have been other discussions about things on the site we can improve on, etc..
That I have not mentioned. Crews for example, is one part of the site that
we have been discussing changes and ways to involve that aspect much more.
I will continue to keep everyone updated the best I can. Feel free to post your
suggestions, questions and any comments you have in this announcement thread. 

Edited by The Law - 11 November 2015 at 1:03pm