We can talk about animation comedy relief (which I find to be a breath of fresh air in an MMO) in another thread.

What clothing are on NPC's do you want for PC's?

There is a maximum number of "posting credits" you're allowed to bank up at any given time, though there is no longer a maximum number you're allowed to have in the voting process at once.

The primary reason for this is that in order to be able to post, you have to contribute to the system's health -- you have to help in the voting process.

We don't want to stifle the ability of folks who aren't abusing the system -- quite the opposite: we want folks who post great items to be able to post quite often, so the number of good contributions goes up.

Killing the ability for designers to post items, even if temporary while waiting for other items in the system to get approved, would have that effect, so it's definitely not a direction we're interested in taking things.

Instead, we wanted to turn it around, and "penalize" folks for posting garbage and throw-away items. They still can, but they have to contribute in another way (voting) to be able to do so, and those items will fail to meet the first threshold for staying in the system in pretty quick order.

This design was originally approved earlier (it was submitted on the 17th of January and approved just a few days ago), but didn't show up correctly in-game. They submitted a support ticket, so we corrected the file and had them re-post their design for us to re-approve. I don't know exactly what the glitch was, but the error seemed to be within our converter -- not their original submission.

No "connections" here beyond our regular support system.

Not sure what you mean by keystone cop animations. Usually that refers to 20's movies that played at hyper speed. How does that apply to a shark?

Good morning everyone! Sorry I haven't had time to chime in until now -- I had rehearsals last night. Two jobs and an active musical career on top of it make me very scarce on Wednesdays

A few things I want to clear up right away:

1) Flags and sails are NOT going to be rejected on the basis of a single vote. It's going to take lots of votes -- at least 100 -- to move anything out of the system.

2) Given the number of votes it takes (which are guaranteed -- there will always be more votes cast than submissions coming into the system), the statistical likelihood of an "average" flag getting passed up for consistently "hot" flags is effectively nil. We see a huge quality range and don't expect that to change At worst -- if everyone voted completely randomly and with no regard to what they're actually seeing on the screen -- a flag or sail still has a 50/50 chance of getting personally reviewed by FLS staff. That worst-case scenario requires everyone turning into robots, however.

3) The top reasons flags and sails get sent back for more work -- use of over-saturated colors, incorrect size and/or format, and the like -- are being dealt with at time of submission. That means lots of folks will get redirected to our guidelines right away, which seems to be the #1 concern I'm hearing right now.

4) We're not planning on changing how you see User Content that has been processed -- you'll still be able to see approved flags and sails after the fact. But, you'll no longer be able to link directly to a submission that's in process. If you want your friends or Society members to vote on your flag or sail, they'll have to do a lot of clicking to find the needle in the haystack. This eliminates the "popularity contest" feel some have complained of in the current system.

That's all for now. Again, change is scary and we understand that -- but we truly think that once you see User Content 2.0 in action, you're going to love it, because it will be providing results much, much more quickly.

Panadeine, which I'm taking lots of. :-(

I realize where you're coming from. There are a couple of things that led me to this:

1) Unlike the SOE relationship, the reaction to Telstra took me by surprise, because I'm not part of this market. And since I can't talk about potential business relationships, no opportunity for feedback.

2) I kept thinking we'd be able to wrap up the contract sooner. FYI, not wrapping it up sooner was entirely my fault, not theirs.

3) I made some hints as to what was coming, but clearly not enough. Again, I kept thinking I'd be making an announcement sooner.

4) We won't be making an official announcement, because we consider that the place of our partner (which is how it works for Russia and Asia as well). However, in discussing communication with Bigpond today, we'll coordinate the flow of information better.

Sometimes I make a lot of what seem like reasonable decisions at the time, only to come up with a bad result. Going back in time, I'd redo a lot of this, but I had some ideas today that I hope will take a little of the sting out of how I've mishandled this.

Some of your questions (forums, user content) I've been out of the loop with, so I need to find out from my guys back home what we're doing on it. Of course we'll figure out something for you, as user content is a big part of our story.

Up until now, all of my meetings have been with press people. I met with the Bigpond business people today, and we came up with some exciting ideas. I need to make sure I can take care of deliverables on my side, so nothing on this until the end of next week, but I think you guys are going to be surprised at what we've got up our sleeve.

Oh, one thing I can definitely answer: Bigpond will get updates day and date with the US/EU updates. Worst case is a file transfer gets messed up, so they might be slightly out of synch, but it'll only be for hours. And there's nothing saying that Bigpond won't get it first.

Also, no on character transfers, but give me until the end of next week for my mysterious project, and let me know if we haven't helped alleviate the pain a little.

Hi Screwloose,

Thanks for coming up with an idea, and I'm sorry I wasn't around to answer earlier. I got caught out later than I expected today without internet support, but it did turn out that I'm really not up for being out today. :-( However, the brief times I have been out I've really been enjoying the fantastic weather, and amazing food, and I hope to get out this way soon, but the next time will definitely be with Misha, than you get two of us for the price of one! :-)

That's exactly what this system is built to do, if you consider the committee "everyone who's interested enough in good content to vote".

Nope, we're locked in with our current number which is why the coats are weighted to the legs.