Ubique's Weekly

A Mutual Endeavors Publication

Issue #81 ~ 17 May 2007

The Blurb

"Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say." -- Samuel Johnson

Two years ago today, I compiled what I expected to be the very last issue of Ubique's Weekly.  The quote above is too very, painfully true.  I used this very same quote in the headlines section of the very last newsletter I had compiled.  Once upon a time, Ubique's Weekly was eighty issues strong and had a subscriber base of over fifty individual e-mail addresses.  What happened to discourage me to the point of deciding to no longer compile any more for two years straight?  That, my gentle readers, is a long story.  I'll spare you the tragic tale.  It may bring a tear to your eye.  I know it brings several to mine.  Our revival should not start on such a melancholy note.  No.

Some of you may be asking what it was that finally had me deciding to give Ubique's Weekly another try.  Most of the credit goes out to a good friend and recently accepted playing partner of mine.  One day she messaged me to say: "Hey. What happened to UW?"  This friend of mine was then subjected to the good long sob story of why I just one day gave up entirely.  It's thanks to her and the three surprising words she said to me that day that I decided to reconsider compiling the newsletter once again.  "I miss UW," she said.  I was amazed to hear this and of course asked her why.  You know?  I think this is a story that deserves to be told in full.

The following article and all accompanying comments can be read in full on our Mutual Endeavors LJ Community.  If you happen to have a LiveJournal of your own, you are of course free to join our community and stay informed and up-to-date on all UW and ME related issues.  See our Classifieds section for more details.


Hello, friends.

Back in the day, there was this wonderful little gig called Ubique's Weekly. It was quite possibly one of the best roleplaying functions I've seen produced. It worked well for a few reasons: it intrigued people into other character's and their roleplay, it kept people up-to-date on plots, it gave a common bond, and it attracted new players. Players like me. Now, many of you have been playing with each other for a damn long time, but I haven't. I was introduced into playing with you fine group of roleplayers from that very newsletter.

And then it died. Oops.

Now, a few of us have dabbled with thoughts of reviving UW.  I, for one, am all for it. Why the hell not? It gives the life (and organization) that I think is lacking right now. Beyond that, I think it will attract some vital fresh blood into this place and introduce new characters, new players. It's not a bad thing. I mean, what would you guys do without me? However.. I realize that many of you have or have had concerns with UW. Mainly, privacy.

Let me start this little song-and-dance by saying UW will be coming back, for all intents and purposes. It's just a matter of time and who is willing to get involved with it again. I, as a player, have never been concerned with who is behind the mask of a character. It's about the roleplay. It's about writing. It's never been about the person who does it -- and while I think some of you believe it is -- well, I'm apt to blame that on paranoia. As it is, I'm pretty sure we all know who plays who in this little band of ours. We've all recycled each other through roleplay and characters, after all. But don't get me wrong: I understand your issues, even if I don't really agree with them.

Whereas before you would have to email whomever was doing the updates (mostly SM), UW will be anonymous. Updates will occur via the website; you slap your email address and/or character name in one box, your update in the other, and send it off to the UW account where the update is organized and mailed off. Who are the editors? You won't know. Who are you? The editors won't know or care. They're not going to be there to gossip and cause OOC drama. They're there to organize it and that's all. If you're worried about someone updating for your character? I'm thinking that the page to access updates will be password protected. Some random troll can't prance in and pretend they're you.

Okay, Kelsey. You've been talking for awhile. It's six in the morning. You haven't slept yet. What, dear lady, is your god damn point?

Basically, I'd like a list of people who are willing to be involved with this again. By that I don't necessarily mean staff. I mean support. Willing to bring themselves and their characters into this again. If you're not willing to be involved? That's fine by me-- but please, don't bitch. Believe it or not, this damn newsletter did some good. And it's that good we're trying to bring back here.

-- Kelsey
Assistant Chief Editor
Ubique's Weekly
Mutual Endeavors

Storyline Spotlight

In the past, this section has been devoted to what the heading implies.  There was once a time in which storylines got so very large and involved so many people, that they landed themselves a spotlight summary here.  Depending on whether or not I receive enough correlating news, I cannot say whether or not any future storylines will qualify.  For now, however, I'm going to use up this space to discuss something else.

A little over a year ago, some six short months after my failure with this newsletter, another idea occurred to me.  I browsed the internet in search of hope.  I searched for stimulating information that might encourage me to revive this newsletter sooner rather than these two long years later.  What I discovered was an RP movement that I thought could work for the Mutual Endeavors community.  I discovered message boards.  So.  I created one.

Since late September of 2005, the Mutual Endeavors message board has been plodding along slowly but surely.  I wouldn't necessarily call it a strong message board.  Our member count pales in comparison to our rival Dragon's Mark.  It might not be fair of me to call them our rivals, but it's true that they've survived longer than us.  Perhaps the great wide world of Rhy'din was destined to move beyond the boundaries of America Online.  We here at Mutual Endeavors have fought against that change for the longest time.

Play still happens in the fictional world of Rhy'din.  Some people prefer that play to happen in rooms provided through a chatroom service that is no longer AOL.  Others still stand by the fact that AOL provides the best chatroom service on the web today.  No matter your preference, the show goes on here still.  Most of us here support the Rambling Rose Tavern, as it has survived the fall of the RDI and once fabled copy the SMI.  Here.  On AOL.  I'm not saying the RDI is dead and gone, only that it has moved on and away from the favored chat service provider.

I could ramble on and on about what was and no longer is, but that is not my goal.  My only intention here is to redirect some attention to forums and rooms that may have otherwise been forgotten.  These will be categorized and detailed further in our Classifieds section below.  Keep reading.

This Just In

In past issues, this section was dedicated to the summarization of feature storylines currently being enacted through continuous play here on America Online's member created chatrooms.  This section was once compiled and presented by an Ink Wire Associate known as the Collaborative Headling Editor (CHE).  It saved me a lot of work not having to compile this section on my own, and I was very grateful for the assistance.  This was also one of the sections that contained both in character and out of character information.

Future issues of UW will continue along that trend. Though, I have not collected any information from our reader base this week in order to compile anything worthwhile.  I can still give you a couple of small fabricated examples.

Headlines

Character News:  Any and all headlines that could possibly be read from an in character perspective are almost always presented with this red-brown font in bold in this section.  UW editors enjoy presenting the idea that this is information any character could pick up and read in a local fictional newspaper.  Therefore it is almost always written from the point of view of fictional reporter to fictional readers.  Except, obviously, in this case where I'm giving you players an example of how it should be formatted.

Player News:  True news is presented with this blue bold font.  The information provided following this indicator is intended to be read by players from players.  Examples include details concerning recruitment requests for other players to get involved with an ongoing, in depth storyline, as well as shameless plugs tossed in by the editors.  My hope is that color coding everything will make for an easier read and create less confusion concerning what is IC news and what is not.

Of course, I obviously don't have any storyline summaraizations to share at this point in time.  Hopefully this revival will present us with a large enough response and have people submitting us some news to share.  Stay tuned.

In Other News...

This section has been and always will be dedicated to the characters.  It was once compiled by an Ink Wire Associate known as the Character News Editor (CNE), an extremely huge section to keep track of, and one I desperately needed help with at one point in time.  I predict that I will need to hire help with this section again some time in the future.  Ubique's Weekly is just too large a project for one lowly editor in chief to compile all by herself.  Take my word for it.

Unlike the headlines section, however, this section is not color coordinated.  All news presented here should be considered Out of Character information.  The way the news is presented should make it obvious to determine why.  We offer the information of individual character news as a way for players to share information with each other in an anonymous fashion.  Sometimes your friends and fellow playing partners can't be online when you are, and there is always the possibility that their characters would know about something happening.  Characters make friends with characters and information is spread.  Sometimes this information is spread in game, through live play.  But other times we just can't be available for that to happen.  Therefore the character news section of UW was created to help with those small problems.

As you'll see, each character is listed alphabetically.  This system makes it easy for readers to browse down the list in search of specific characters that he or she may be involved with through play or just simple curiosity.  Each character's name is presented in bold red-brown type, followed by the character's known screen name in parentheses.  The news that happened to the character during the previous week is then listed after a bold colon.  We present it this way so that players may be able to contact other players through e-mail to discuss these small, personal summarizations.  You never know when someone might find something fascinating enough to say: "Hey. I read what was up with so-and-so in UW this past week. What's up with that?"  Such small questions can lead to scores of conversation which in turn result in future stimulating play.  Or, at least, that is our hope here at Ubique's Weekly.

Here are some examples.  Usually there are much, much more individual character updates than this, but with such short notice this is all I had to share this week.

Dris (BardGaIIant):  Within the past eight months, the once famous bard known as Dris has been seen constantly in the company of one notoriously flirtatious man by the name of Icarus.  What happened to Carmine?  That's a long story that Dris would prefer not to discuss.  Good luck getting the story out of him without a flood of tears drowning his every word.

Ehzoterik VonArcanum Tempestas (Ehzoterik):  Little is known about everybody's favorite, friendly, neighborhood crazy girl.  She still resides in Limbo and still makes a habit of stepping out of broom closets to visit the locals and drive them insane with her antics.

Faye: She Who Tends the Dead (Faye Random):  She Who Tends the Dead is still around.  Of course she's still around.  Faye is one of the eternal ethereal, after all.  In the past two years she has acknowledged the existence of her son and played an active role in his life.  Whether this is for good or ill remains a mystery, however.  She is reluctant to discuss the details.

Rose Wylie (Katie Rose Wylie):  Rumor has it that the Mrs. is pregnant again for the fifth time. If this continues to happen, Seamus and Rose will have successfully bred their very own soccer team in as little as two to three years.  Someone call the people at Guinness.
 
Salvador Delahada (Karmic Venganza):  The child of the Linewalker still roams the streets of Rhy'din.  Much has changed with him, though.  A long winter's sleep and much, much more.  Many are of the opinion that these changes of his are only for the greater evil as opposed to the greater good.  Can people really trust opinions over facts?  Is he truly pure evil or is he at the mercy of some other obscure cause?  Only time will tell.

Obituaries

Classifieds

Once upon a time, this section used to be overflowing with information.  It was maintained and compiled by an Ink Wire Associate known as the Advertising Editor (ADE).  Since UW has been dead for two long years now, I'm reorganizing the entire newsletter, including this section.  Many of the advertisements that once sat here are long out of date and need to be replaced with something new.  However, some of our links are still valid, so don't skip over them entirely.  They are listed alphabetcally for your convenience.

Mutual Endeavors Forum :  The freeform role-playing group more commonly known as Mutual Endeavors has moved its storylines and characters to a message board forum for player convenience.  It was decided that it would be beneficial to allow players a less time-restricted venue in which to present their characters' stories and participate interactively.  Not everyone can be online at the same times all the time.  Therefore we opened up this forum to the masses.  If you're interested, registration is completely free and unmoderated.  Check it out!

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Subscribe Now! : Ubique's Weekly is a publication provided by the not-for-profit organization known as Mutual Endeavors.  As a free source of literary entertainment, you as the reader have the liberty to send out copies of our publication to whomever you think might enjoy the information shared.  To save yourselves the hassle of constantly forwarding what you might find amusing, feel free at any time to inform your friends and coconspirators to contact the Editor to request their very own future copies of Ubique's Weekly at no cost to them whatsoever.  It's as simple as clicking this link here above.

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Ubique's Archive :  For several years now, the Ink Wire Associates and I have been trying to archive every old issue of Ubique's Weekly onto the internet.  It has been a slow-going process, and I assure you that not every past issue has been completely coded and uploaded to the site.  The work is, to say the least, very tedius.  We're doing the best we can.  In the future, we may also simply move all new issues to the site and do away with a mailing list entirely.  We'll see.  Until such a decision is reached, old news is still news and well worth the read.  Do enjoy.

Announcements

The ADE used to also be in charge of this section as well.  Here we once listed character birthdays, player birthdays, holidays and more.  Births and weddings were also listed here so that players could offer their congratulations as necessary.  Even the fictional ones.  I admit that I'm not as good at keeping track of these important dates as my old Advertising Editor used to be, but in the future I will try my best.  Of course, my ultimate goal is to hire someone who is just as good at keeping track of this information as our old ADE was, but until that time what you see is what you get.

Final Thoughts

We are currently in the process of reorganizing our entire operation according to my ACE's ideas detailed above in our Top Story section. My ultimate goal with Ubique's Weekly was to provide subscribers with an anonymous way of sharing their information with the masses.  Some people prefer not to share their multiple screen names with the world at large.  There were issues, in the past, over this.  Subscribers simply didn't trust the people that I trusted, and that was disappointing, to say the least.  The Assistant Chief Editor and I are exploring different options regarding the ensuring of player privacy and anonymity. I've also been considering moving the entire newsletter to a website and ceasing to send e-mails such as this.

Your thoughts and opinions on this matter are encouraged tremendously.  Without the support and dedication of readers such as you, Ubique's Weekly would be nothing.  Truth be told, I'm a little lacking in ideas myself.  I just can't figure out how to construct an anonymous method of submitting updates.  My HTML skills are limited, and I've tried any number of free help programs found on the world wide web.  If anyone has any ideas, please tell me.  Until we get everything sorted out, just bear with me.  Also feel free to e-mail me any updates you would like to see in the next issue.  I tremendously enjoy feedback.

Again, I'm also considering moving everything immediately to the internet along with our archives.  See our advertisments for more information on the archive.  All links are completely valid and will not direct you to any porn, I assure you.  Just trust me, and I'll continue to be...

Keeping you informed,
-- The Nefarious SM
Editor In Chief
Ubique's Weekly
Mutual Endeavors