Minutes of TLS staff meeting #1 - January 2013
A full chat log is available
here.
Opening of the meeting
The meeting was opened. Present were Aaron (Rory Williams), Alex Strife, Carlie (Chloe Frazer), Cthulhu, Fangu, Flintlock, Prince Lex, Shademp and Satsufeis (Satsugaizake). Ryu (Ryushikaze) was also present but did not participate. Flintlock chaired the meeting.
Announcements
Prince Lex is going back to uni on Monday. New Year's Eve Skyping was fun. Alex Strife is going to resume Japanese classes. Aaron might be going on some dates. Fangu might be going to Thailand.
Reminder of what happened at the previous meeting
There was no need for this, as there was no previous meeting.
How TLS is doing
Consensus was that TLS is doing well, as evidenced by the above average number of new members joining recently. Flintlock said we need to get more of them to stay on the forum for longer. Prince Lex thought we should arrange more community events. Fangu liked the idea of an art contest for the Case of Shinra and said she would be willing to help pay for prizes if we arrange more contests. Shademp raised the problem of bots on the forum.
Aaron gave us the number of posts on the forum for each month in 2012:
January 2012: 10172
February 2012: 7391
March 2012: 10147
April 2012: 8864
May 2012: 10258
June 2012: 10372
July 2012: 5592
August 2012: 3885
September 2012: 4124
October 2012: 4027
November 2012: 6006
December 2012: 7701
Aaron pointed out that the stats for July and August were poor, but Alex Strife said that was to be expected in summer. Cthulhu suggested the preceding drama played a part in reducing activity as well. Aaron said that the stats for the last couple of months of the year were signs of a recovery. Cthulhu revealed that he received €2.19 in advertising revenue from TLS this month. Flintlock said that future meetings should be more structured to avoid everyone talking at once.
Fangu said she would make a change to the "happening now" bar on the front page, and reminded Cthulhu of the need to install a social plugin. Cthulhu agreed and asked Fangu to remind him.
Prince Lex said that the TLS Twitter account was getting about two new followers per day, but that our Google+ account was struggling to attract more people, probably because he was still figuring out how to use it. Flintlock said that the TLS Facebook account was getting new likes every day, and saw a significant jump after its details were posted on the TLS front page. He said the page now had 832 likes. Danseru-kun wasn't at the meeting, so Cthulhu told us that the TLS Tumblr account now has 39 followers after 10 posts. Flintlock asked who has access to the TLS Youtube account. Shademp remembered something he wanted to upload and said he would ask Pixel for access.
Events on TLS in the past month
Aaron said running the TLS awards wasn't difficult, and had become easier with the experience of running them before. Consensus was that the awards went well and passed without drama, though multiple explanations were suggested for why that was the case. Cthulhu complained about not winning the hottest male award. Shademp asked Aaron what, if anything, would be changed for the 2013 awards, and Aaron reiterated that he would allow multiple votes to be cast in categories that had a high number of nominees.
Events that will happen in the next month
Cthulhu said it was his birthday soon. Alex Strife provided us with some details about the upcoming Dissidia Project, which he is coordinating. He said it would be a collaboratively written story, in which the characters would be interested TLS members. He said it was not designed to be an RP but that there might be some roleplaying of background stories. He said that Gym Leader Devil, Midnight Rider of War, Carlie and Amy Pond have volunteered to be writers. He said the project didn't need any immediate publicity, but that we could reassess the situation later. He said there was no schedule for the project as it was designed for existing TLS members.
Any other business
Prince Lex suggested doing another community playthrough. Alex Strife suggest Kingdom Hearts as a possible game for it, but Prince Lex said that not everyone would have easy access to it. Flintlock wondered whether it might be best to do a game from the VII compilation to fit in with the site's focus, but others said they would prefer another Final Fantasy game altogether. It was agreed that I through IX, except possibly III, would be easiest to arrange. Prince Lex agreed to make a thread for game suggestions, which would lead to a poll.
Aaron said he had been considering setting up "post of the month", "thread of the month" or even "thread title of the month" contests for the forum. Cthulhu suggested we use the thanks system to determine the best posts, but noted that it is often pictures that are thanked the most.
Cthulhu suggested we arrange an Advent Children (Complete) movie night, and Carlie suggested Spirits Within as another film to watch. Cthulhu said he could organise a movie night, but only if others reminded him to do it. Carlie said she could do it too as she already streams things.
Prince Lex wanted to revive drinking nights. Flintlock asked what we would do to attract people to them again. Prince Lex suggested renaming Sephibot into something else, like Aerithbot or Cloudbot, while Shademp offered Mukkibot and Corneobot. Prince Lex said that the bot's functions wouldn't change, but he would need a new personality. Cthulhu said that the previously compiled lists of game questions could be scrapped and restarted. Flintlock agreed to make the changes but pointed out that not many people were drinking when the drinking nights were last held. Prince Lex suggested that trivia or live streams, possibly even the community playthrough, could be held at the same time.
Flintlock suggested a community visit to the Gold Saucer within FFVII. He said that everyone would play the minigames there and report their scores, which would then be converted into points and tallied up. He said that he would try to get people playing simultaneously while Skyping or IRCing, but that people could also play in their own time. Shademp raised the problem of the NTSC and PAL differences. Flintlock said that he would ask people to play on NTSC, but that they could play on PAL if they didn't mind being scored separately. Shademp asked when the event might happen. Flintlock suggested February but said it could be delayed if it clashed with other events.
Flintlock said he wanted to start a new article series for the front page: lists of "the seven best" or "the seven worst" things from FFVII or the whole series. He suggested "the seven worst plot devices in the FF series" and "the seven best lines of dialogue in FFVII" as two examples. He said that he would first ask forum members for their lists before compiling the lists for the front page, in order to make them into community events and not just opinion pieces. He said that about half of them should be about VII to fit in with TLS. Aaron said that we had to make sure they were funny, but thought they would be good.
Fangu asked whether we should write "the Lifestream", "The Lifestream" or "TheLifestream" in front page articles. Some thought that "the Lifestream" was best, but it was agreed that we would always write "The Lifestream" from now on, in order to be consistent. It was also agreed that we would no longer use the abbreviation "TLS" in front page articles.
Next meeting
It was agreed that the next meeting would take place on the first Friday of February, which happens to be the first day of the month. Flintlock asked if it could be made any later to accommodate more non-Europeans, but most of those present said they would not want it to be any later, so it was agreed that the time wouldn't change. Flintlock said he would review the situation after the separate North American meeting had taken place, and said that at least one person should be at both meetings - probably Aaron, in this case.
Flintlock said that he thought a TLS admininstrator could chair the next meeting, and Cthulhu said he could do it if he had to, but others said that Flintlock should continue as chair, so he agreed to do it.
Closing of the meeting
The meeting was closed after one hour and twenty minutes.
I don't hold my own time because I'm using someone else's PC
