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Ubique's Monthly
A Mutual Endeavors Publication
Issue #100 ~ 5 January 2008
The Blurb
The times they are a changing, and with them your Ubiquitous Mutual Endeavors newsletter. There has been a lot of speculation concerning what was to be done over the past several months. I, the Nefarious SM, have had a lot of doubts and extreme lack of motivation to write the newsletter week to week. Hopefully now that will all change.
For the last two weeks in December, we ran a poll asking whether or not to change the newsletter over from a weekly publication to a monthly one. By popular ME member vote, the decision was made to change the name, the structure and the layout to better fit into a month long recap instead. I admit having some reservations still, so we'll see how all this goes.
To commemorate your 100th issue of character and storyline news reported from an out of character perspective, this new year's issue is going to cover a lot less actual character and storyline information and a lot more explanation. This is being done in the hopes that readers and future contributors will better understand what the newsletter is all about so that you will all know precisely what to submit for which section.
We, the Ink Wire Associates, those who will be working on compiling the newsletter every month, will try our very best to remember to include everything that is sent to us. Everything that we may even see; all play no matter where it happens and by who. Every character and every storyline is important. We make no distinctions and play no favorites.
So I welcome you to the first issue of Ubique's Monthly. Not quite as informative in the regard of what is meant to be covered as we should hope for a first, but big changes require big explanations.
Top Story! Every top story of every newsletter is intended to cover anything hugely newsworthy that is not directly related to characters or storylines. According to our brief overview in the Mutual Endeavor's FAQ What are the sections of the newsletter?, this section is just so briefly explained. I believe, however, that it can be expounded upon.
Mutual Endeavors is a site that promotes and encourages role-play no matter where it happens. Though a vast majority of us prefer text-based free form role-play and take part in such activities on AOL, our news is not limited only to that service and the play that happens on it. There are a large variety of alternative services available on the Internet that also promote this recreational activity.
Some examples include but are not limited to Dragon's Mark which houses the new and probably improved Red Dragon Inn environment, once supported by AOL, the affiliated realm of Rhilshen, and newly risen organizations such as Burning Galaxy which is currently temporarily disabled. All of these make wonderful examples of groups and sites dedicated to the same cause of Mutual Endeavors. They could also make for great potential future articles. It would be nice to see some journalistic coverage of them to help promote them and spread the word.
Our goal is to have an article for this section every month, but we need your help. The Nefarious SM cannot be expected to write everything all on her own, can she? No. Of course not. Such coverage would be completely biased, and in some instances completely unfair. My opinion, my perspective, is not the only valid one out there. What is yours? What do you have to say? We want to know! Storyline Spotlight Our Ubiquitous FAQs briefly explain this section of the newsletter as where you can read about hugely popular global events. The concept is not unlike the RDI's Playables which is seen on the front page of the site, and in fact we find a lot of our news from that valuable resource. The difference is that we choose the one event that is most reported on or made use of through role-play interraction.
A good example of a primary candidate for a Storyline Spotlight is the Zombie Outbreak of 2007, which was covered in our 94th issue of Ubique's Weekly. A wonderful article written by the player of character Harold Lowe. That article, too, is a great example of what we look for in a Storyline Spotlight.
Though the overall theme of Ubique's is to approach character news from an out of character perspective. If you were to sit down and discuss play that had happened during the week, or now month, that had just passed with your player friends, what would you say? How would you go about covering something as tremendously involved as that?
We understand that every individual has their own unique style of writing, and we here at Mutual Endeavors highly value those perspectives. So how do we choose what is worthy of being a spotlight? We don't! In most cases we let our readers submit the material for us. If you're excited about an event that happened, write and tell us about it! Tell the world! Tell Ubique's Monthly and we'll tell the world for you!
We do not play favorites. Every person and every creative endeavor they represent is important. For those events that became a big hit, this section is perfect for you. For those that were small and arcane, then see the next section. This Just In Now this section works a lot more like the RDI Playables seen on the front page of the DM RDI site. The major difference being that you can't write your own and immediately post it. Our newsletter covers events that have already transpired in the past, not upcoming ones. As mentioned before, though, we get a lot of our information from that resource. We get a lot more of our information, however, from readers like you who submit it to us. We like it better that way.
Month to month, as we have done week to week in the past, we plan on covering and reporting on every storyline we possibly can. No matter how small and unimportant it may seem to you, it's big news to us! I'll keep saying it in hopes that it sinks in. Every storyline and every character is important!
In this section we expect short synopses of events that happened in the previous month. We prefer no more than a single paragraph, but will accept up to three. If you can summarize the events you know of into five sentences, that's perfect. Anything more than that, however, starts becoming more of something we look for in a Storyline Spotlight.
Since this newsletter has been postponed for so long, we aren't going to worry about covering anything that has happened in the past two months. That would just make this issue more lengthy than it needs to be. Next month, though, perhaps we'll have something to report. I predict we will! Character Spotlight For many years now we have presented a section in our newsletter for storyline spotlights. See above. It occurred to me that since we take the time to highlight one specific and enormous event, why not also take the time to highlight one specific character as well? The idea behind this new section is similar to the Player Award that is given out each month on the Dragon's Mark Red Dragon Inn site. Though instead of commemorating a player, we here at Mutual Endeavors plan to focus on the characters created by these players instead.
Some characters are so very fascinating, in depth and intriguing, that they are impossible to ignore. They become popular. People want to play with those who created them. They want to interract with them no matter what the cost and no matter how briefly. We often want to learn more about them.
This idea is meant to compliment the Mutual Endeavors Fireboard's Character Portfolio in what we hope to be a new and innovative way. Our hope is to cover everything from a character's history to its development to who the genius is behind the mask and more. It is also our hope to compliment such devices as the Rhydin Wiki and the Encyclopedia Rhydinica.
Everything and everyone is important, no matter how small or large those people or things may be. How will we decide who to include in our monthly character spotlights? By popular demand of course! These decisions will be made through recommendation of our members, even through anonymous suggestion! Perhaps even through polls. You help us decide! In Other News... It is my great hope and fear that this section will remain unchanged. In the past, This Just In... covered all the individual character news updates submitted to us by our subscribers. Now that UW has become UM, it is likely that the way we handle this section and others will significantly change. Ubique's Monthly will no longer rely on the information submitted by subscribers, for subscribers themselves have changed more simply to readers.
With the larger exposure of our new site, so many more people are capable of reading reviewing our newsletter. Now completely anonymously! Though I can probably find out how many hits our site has received, or set up a program to tell me, I currently have no way of knowing. However, I can tell how many hits a particular article has received. That to me is a better option. I don't care how many people have looked at the site, but seeing how many times an article has been viewed (and hopefully read) is inspiring.
Our plan is to still handle this section in the same way. A small introduction of no more than a paragraph, three sentences or more, will lead you into the extremely huge list of individual character updates. All these updates will be expected to cover an entire month now, though, instead of a single week. This makes things a little harder.
We have always listed our character updates alphabetically by character first name. We plan to continue doing that in the future. Beside each name, in parentheses, is the most recently known user or screen name in which the character is played on from any given service. Since UW was first created using AOL, and since that service comes first alphabetically itself, if there are multiple user names listed in parentheses those ones are AOL screen names. In most cases.
Given the expanding coverage of Ubique's lately, however, we may need to rethink how we format this section. Perhaps two different colors to tell apart the services is in order. We now offer coverage of characters played on Dragon's Mark as well, for instance. And some characters are played on both programs. Color coding may be the way to go in the future, but we shall see.
I still have in my possession a group of character updates that date back to the first week of November. Our last issue was published on the 5th, and without any word or warning it seems I stopped writing the newsletter. However, I held onto those updates as I always do. All news is worthy of being mentioned, even news that is two months old. Haydee (Dark Harp String, Her Dark Strings): As of 11/10/07 -- Haydee, after her rather interesting talk with Renley, has apparently holed herself up within her room at the Red Dragon Inn for some rest and deep thought, though she had been spotted a week ago with her Shadow at the Red Dragon. She’s got a lot on her plate, life-decision wise and is taking it with the usual quiet grace and thought.
Irina Braeden (Irina Braeden): As of 11/9/07 -- There's not much of note going on in the pregnant Artist's life. She's still been staying home a lot, both to get ahead on her mechanicals (seven issues ahead!) and to catch up on that pesky, elusive thing known as sleep. Weird dreams and leg spasms don't help matters much, after all. After a longish absence from the public eye, Irina has been visiting the Rambling Rose Tavern off and on recently. She also had a welcome visit from Jos (Aversion Toward) on Halloween, which helped keep the Artist's mind off of what day it was. Pumpkin pie helps a lot! After one recent disastrous visit to the Rose, Irina started to regret her decision to be more social. But a shocking event happened the next day: someone who upset Irina actually apologized to her, in public no less! Is the world coming to an end? Who can tell? Stay tuned for more details.
Jacob Arche (Jacob Arche): As of 11/10/07 -- Jacob has a love hate relationship with his job that’s currently taking up all his time. A blip in the radar with his friend, Storm, as she’s recently let him know she’d got some serious family issues to take care of. At this moment, he’s still longing for a couple of days off. Here’s hoping he get’s them before the Christmas rush of eager people purchasing pets for gifts, then flooding the shelters with them after once they’ve realized what a responsibility they are. Yeah. Jacob hates Christmas too.
Suliss'urn Xukuth (Natha Oreb): As of 11/10/07 -- The Drow seems to have made a reappearance after a short stint away from the realm of Rhy’din, and what a reappearance. First spotted by an unlucky Seamus at the Rambling Rose Taven and a yet, unknown male with leather wings and horns, she was hanging upside down from the roof, no doubt considering mischief. She disappeared only to reappear as a mass of shadow for Sin. Crawling up Sin’s leg, the drow and the Jester had a few choice words about her sudden change in mood. It seems that someone she’d been waiting for had returned. Before leaving the second time, she made a statement to Seamus which jarred him. She was last seen in the Medieaval Tavern giving the gift of another beaten, bloody, female drow to Cianan. That’s what friends did, right? They gave gifts. Perhaps Suliss’ will give more gifts to her ‘friends.’ Classifieds Our advertising has never stayed the same. In the early stages of the newsletter's creation, the UW Classifieds were horribly unorganized. They were a clustered mix of in character and out of character advertisements. At one point they were segregated into groups of ads characters might find in any Rhydin newspaper and links to places role-players might find interesting.
With the new Mutual Endeavors website, the need for these advertisements has significantly decreased. Our links section contains many of these role-play resources, but very little of the in character listings we once had. Perhaps someday that will change.
Since the publication is now taking a monthly turn instead of weekly, we are definitely going to have to rethink the way we organize and publish advertisements. This is something that is likely to require further member opinions and votes, so it may come up as another poll in the future. By next month the editorial staff is certain to have reached a decision, but until then all I can give you are these thoughts. Announcements It has been a long, long time since we have had any announcements to make in any issue of the newsletter. Once upon a time we had a member of the editorial staff who kept track of important character and player events. Birthdays, anniversaries, and so much more. This section was even once segregated into character groupings and player groupings. Nearly every week we had something to report!
My hope is to restore this long forgotten section of the newsletter. Though unlike the rest of each issue, this section is destined to cover events scheduled to happen during the month instead of the month previous. What does this mean? Quite simple really.
If you have a birthday that falls in February, let us know beforehand so that we can include it in the next issue! If your character has a birthday that falls in February, likewise let us know ahead of time! The same goes for wedding anniversaries and anything else worth celebrating that comes to mind. Such as Valentine's Day. ;) Final Thoughts Now I know this first new issue came out on the fifth of the month. My original plan was to have it finished and published by the first, but let's face it. That's crazy. With all the holidays keeping me busy, it just was not a feasible goal. Perhaps the future will be different. Especially now that I'm better prepared to face these journalistic challenges.
The plan is for Ubique's Monthly to be completely compiled and ready to publish by the first of every month. I had thought to perhaps extend it to the first Saturday of every month, but that just doesn't sit well with me. Something about a constant deadline that never changes feels better. So the first of every month you should expect a new issue.
This gives everybody a lot of time to play with. It gives everyone thirty days to pool together all of their resources. Send things early. But please do not send us anything late. Last minute submissions are such a drag. It only gives us authors and editors too much work to deal with in too short a period of time.
The plan is for the Ink Wire Associates to be able to gradually work on the newsletter as the month progresses. To have everything compiled and presented perfectly for that deadline date of the first of every month. Help us to help you by submitting early. Send us weekly reports to work from if you like. Send us whatever you can think of that is or could be role-play related. Send us anything.
Until next month, I'll be sitting here anxiously awaiting your news. And every month in the future I'll continue to be... Keeping you informed, -- The Nefarious SM
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