Hello, I'm Kaz from the RP Forums

And I strongly approve of the chronological ordering, and change in layout, as well as the color scheme. The layout still has a bit more to go before it's readily usable for an RPing system, but this is already grand strides in the right direction. The formatting is much easier to use, which is a big change since the last time myself and the RP Forums were here looking around. We'd still like to see avatars represented in some way so we can have a more unique sense of identity, even if just to display them a little more prominently and give the FEK guys something to use as a tie in or something.

That said, I was excited to see myself mentioned in an update, and as a result I came back to check the place out. I'm happy with what I see. It's far from perfect, but it's gotten a lot better. Consider this my seal of approval on the direction this seems to be heading for the moment. =)

Since you guys listened to the feedback regarding style changes and post ordering, I'd like to bring about another topic that has seen a lot of discussion particularly on the RP Boards.

"Community Elected Moderators" I'd mentioned this to RiotRunaan a while back and she had passed it on to Ransom since he was working with Community a lot more. Then, at Anime Expo, I spoke to a Rioter about the idea, and he took a genuine interest in it. I'd asked about it, and said "I know this probably isn't something that can be done, but..." and he replied with "Well, what if you could? What would you want such a thing to do?"

The result was a conversation about how several boards are actually "Communities" of people that come together and form their own guidelines for interaction within the boards. The RP Forum is no different, and we have a very strong and closely knit community there, along with many guidelines and guides to help everyone get along. But, the problem arises when people don't abide by the community's guidelines, and they cause problems. Despite my reputation and opinion carrying a lot of weight on that board, I have no actual power to keep the peace beyond LOTS of discussion. And, if that fails, the community can come together to downvote a post so the system automatically closes it. But, that's all of the moderation we can do ourselves. And, many times, it devolves into yelling and flaming, and that helps no one.

In a community as knit as the RP Forums, and I suspect a few other forums, we could use something more.

I'm not here talking about full moderation privileges, because that kind of power should be reserved for Riot's Forum Moderators. However, the ability to close offensive threads, delete offensive posts with a message stating why it was done being required, or perhaps "mute" someone who is causing issues within the community or starting fights for a short period of time would be extremely helpful. And, these small positions would be community elected, meaning the community itself would vote for the individual to have these privileges. And, if they were found to be abusing said power, one could file a complaint and have it looked into by the Moderation Staff.

It takes pressure off of Forum Moderators, because the sub-communities can now moderate themselves to some degree, and leaves the Mods time to focus elsewhere. It keeps more people happier and more content within the communities that Riot doesn't always frequent as well, and I consider that to be a great boon to everything in general.

If this idea can't be placed on the standard forums, then I would at least hope it could be implemented in some way for these new forums. I'd prefer both, of course, but I understand if there are limitations on things that just prevent it from coming to fruition. I have taken it upon myself to argue for the community, and try my best to see that the community I helped build stays together. This is just one more way that I could see the community grow and flourish, in addition to the layout changes already in progress.

Anyway, thank you for listening to the feedback, and I also thank you for listening to this suggestion as well. I hope to hear back from some of you soon.

• Kaz