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Mister Biz Grills the Candidates
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misterbiz



Joined: 10 Jan 2010
Posts: 461
Location: a chair in a cold dark living room

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 9:36 pm    Post subject: Mister Biz Grills the Candidates  

This is the spot for me...Mister Biz to ask my questions of the Mayoral questions. If you got questions of your own, start your own thread...this one is mine.

Now for my first question:

After each of the last few elections, the winner has been active for a month or so but then disappeared. So my question is this, can you guarantee that you will not fall victim to the Mayoral Curse?
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Tikanni Corazon



Joined: 25 Oct 2009
Posts: 1286
Location: Running through the plains of my mind, my wolf spirit at my side (but doing so in the UK!).

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:18 pm    Post subject:  

Well, no one can make any concrete guarantee that they won't disappear. Life doesn't allow for one to make such promises. All that one can do is promise that they will be as active and present as possible for the duration of their reign as Mayor/ess.

~~~

As for evidence that I will do my very best to keep to this promise, I think I only really need to draw attention to my current record since I joined IF three and a half years ago. I've been a near constant presence throughout that period, and I do my utmost to try and make the City as active and fun as I possibly can, to the extent of my means. I think that, due to my occassional rants about activity and that people need to buck up their ideas and make more of an effort, it's probably very obvious to all that City of IF means a hell of a lot to me. I guess in order to illustrate just how much, I'd have to explain in more detail.


When I came here three and a half years ago, I was a hugely shy, retiring, unconfident person, which anyone who was around back then will vouch for. I had pretty much zero social life, I had trouble interacting with people, and I was very depressed and had been for a long time.


I found IF by accident, when I was looking for...you know, I can't even remember now, but it had very little association with the activities on IF. That much I do remember. Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to check it out, and I was much intrigued by what I saw. The extent of my nervousness at the time meant that I was actually too scared to join at first...don't ask me why, I really couldn't detail the mentality behind such an irrational fear. But I was. I offcially joined IF in October 2009, after lurking in the background for about three months, it having taken that long for me to work up the nerve to post a comment in one of the threads. It took a further month (ish) for me to have the nerve to enter the Inn.


Over the next few weeks, I started going to the Inn regularly and interacting with the people there, and making friends. Friends that I still know and love to bits to this day. Some of them I still talk to on a regular basis and regard as some of my best friends, and others are more occassional presences in my life. But they've all added to my love of the site and my growth as a person, though of course, there are some that have played a part more than others...*points to former Mayor Smee* And I think that for anyone on the site now that speaks to me at the Inn, or reads my critiques in the SG threads, or feels the brunt of my rants about making more of an effort...they will find it hard to believe that I was once that person.


For anyone who's been through difficult times, you will understand what it means to meet people that make such a difference to your quality of life in general. It makes you value them hugely, and any associations with meeting those people becomes special to you.


And so, after all that babble, I give you the reason that you can trust me when I say that I will do my best to stick around and be there for the City and it's citizens. It means too much to me for me to just give up on. I try so hard to make this site work and to make people active because I love it, and I love the people I've met here, and the idea of the place where I met such wonderful, life-transforming people not being in my life just sounds...wrong. I can assure you that there is little chance of me going anywhere, if it is within my power to stay. :)
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PopeAlessandrosXVIII



Joined: 10 Oct 2010
Posts: 1858
Location: Surrounded by many beautiful naked men

Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2013 9:38 pm    Post subject: Hmmmmm  

Well, seeing as I can't see the future, I'll have to say there is nothing I can guarantee about it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I have every intention of being on as much as I can. As a human, that's the only promise I can make at this point.
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misterbiz



Joined: 10 Jan 2010
Posts: 461
Location: a chair in a cold dark living room

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 7:51 am    Post subject:  

What are your current plans for the council? Do you plan on making it bigger? Smaller? Assigning more responsibility? Just what are all your plans?

Also, just because I can be selfish at times and I must know: Is my seat on the council going to be safe if you are elected?
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Tikanni Corazon



Joined: 25 Oct 2009
Posts: 1286
Location: Running through the plains of my mind, my wolf spirit at my side (but doing so in the UK!).

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 8:45 am    Post subject:  

My plans for the Council...Hmmm...

~~~

Well, I'm not planning on making it any bigger, that's for certain. I think far less gets done when there are more people to argue about it. I think the size that it is right now is just fine personally, so I'll very likely be sticking to that. I will, however, be making Seraphi the General Fiction Mod, if she will consent to take the job. Her level of activity and dedication to the site since she joined has been admirable, and I desperately want her as a Council member, lol! Other than that, I'm happy to keep things as they are. Andi has consented to being my Vice Mayor should I win, and as long as she's happy with that decision, I'm only too glad for she and I to continue our partnership here on IF. Both Sagi and you yourself Biz are on the site daily too, so your positions are safe as long as you both want them, which I hope you do. I myself cannot quite relinquish my hold upon Fantasy Forest, so I will be remaining the Mod there.


As for responsibilities, again, I see no reason to change anything technically. All of you moderate your own forums, and I'm quite reassured that you're able to do so. And the main responsibility of the higher members of IF is to influence other members to be active and take part in the fruits we have on offer. I would encourage my Council to be as active as possible and take as much interest as possible in the activities on the site just to encourage others to be the same. I think these are simple and untaxing requests on my part, and little different from how things are now. Though IF is generally rather quiet these days, a small surge of activity has occurred over the last month or so, and I'd like that to remain the case. In order to make the site appealing to potential new members, we have to make it seem as bustling and full of life as possible. The example should come from the Mayor and their Council, and I intend for that to be the case.


Other plans that I have include the following:

Spotlight Competitions - I intend to make these, or something similar a regular occurence. Should I be elected, I will be clearing out the inactive individual member forums and sending them to the Vault, and we'll be starting afresh. Of course, Sagi's The Hidden Crime and Rai's Children of Leyond will both remain, being active, popular forums.

Regular Council Meetings - I would like to get together with my Council on a regular basis to have a general discussion about the site and any potential ideas that the Council Members might have for activities we could set up on IF. This will allow the individual Council Members to form plans in advance and bring up any problems or issues that they or another member might have, and we can discuss them in a sensible, but I hope also fun manner. I don't want the responsibility of being a Council Member to turn into a chore after all. ;)

Fun Ways to Improve Writing Skills - The details of this section will likely be disussed in the aforementioned Council Meetings, but after talking briefly about such things last night at the Inn, I realised there are likely some fun activities that we could do on the site to push our capabilities in writing and help us to work through any vices that we might have. I have a few ideas up my sleeve, some of which I related to those at the Inn last night. But I think that as well as being fun, IF has a responsibility to help it's members improve and grow. I personally have gained much from IF since I joined and I've heard others say the same thing. It's something that I'd like to encourage in a fun and engaging manner.


I'm certain that I will come up with others as time goes on, but for now, those are a few ideas that I've had, and I hope they appeal to the rest of the population of IF! :)
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PopeAlessandrosXVIII



Joined: 10 Oct 2010
Posts: 1858
Location: Surrounded by many beautiful naked men

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 1:45 pm    Post subject:  

My plans for the council? Well, seeing as I'm not on it, I can't rightly make any real plans for it because I don't rightly know who's on it or what it's up to. I don't mean to sound lazy, just being honest. You can't plan out a house without first surveying the land. If you try, the house will fail. Generally speaking I don't suppose making it bigger is an option, from what I remember from my time on it it felt a little crowded when I was there. Who knows, after the slim down, it might be just the right size. Other then that, I'd need to know more about the current council set-up to make any true plans. Oh, and Biz-kun? I've always valued your advice. If you wish to keep giving it to me via the council, then on the council you will stay. There are a select few people on IF that I truly value the council of, and even if they've no place on the council, I will still take their advice when given.


As for what are my plans? I don't have too many, but I most certainly want to get the Spotlight back to being a regular thing. Once every two months sounds nice to me. Gives our more on-and-off IFians more time to vote or get up their chapters.


The one big thing I have any solid plans about is something wholly contingent on our illustrious King Key's consent and cooperation. I would like to do a site re-design. Now, before you all pounce on me, hear me out. I have invited several people to IF over the years, and mostly, they vanish after a single post, or a week or two. I finally put together all the reasons they left and for the most part it came down to one big issue: Navigation. Take my roommate for example, I had to sit with her for an hour explaining how to get around IF, and she STILL comes to me to this day for help finding things. She was inactive for over a year after joining because she could not figure out how to get around, and looking at it from a n00bs point of view, I can see how confusing this place can be.

I know we have some new members that took to IF like a duck to water, but if the 7 friends I asked about their absence are any indicator, people who can understand IF easily are truly hard to find. I know the site is designed nicely, and we've all grown to love it just the way it is. The changes I want to do are not catastrophically huge, but hopefully will make IF a more inviting place to the wayward travelers who traverse our city each day.


Other then that, I'd rather go with the flow after the election and see what changes, if any, need to be made.
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