News Feed [Announcements]

Staff are aware of a current bug affecting the first posts of threads. Attempting to add any kind of tag when making a new thread or editing the first post of an existing thread will result in the tag "disappearing". We are currently investigating the issue, but have determined it is purely a visual bug. This means content warning tags will still work as intended (so please continue to use them if needed) and points can still be awarded to the first post. That being said, staff can not see if you tag the first post with something specific so you should comment when submitting threads if the first post is included until the issue is resolved. Thank you!
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A discussion regarding Canis' activity has been posted. Please use the following link to join in and give us your thoughts! https://canismajor-rpg.com/showthread.php?tid=1907
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NOTICE: Our FontAwesome icons are down momentarily. We are renewing the subscription so they will be back up soon!
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There are about 4 days left to reply to the Activity Discussion [link below]! Please do so if you have something to add, even if it's just something small! We are really enjoying the feedback we are getting and want to absorb as much of it as possible. Thank you! Click for the Discussion!
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Two small things:
1.) We are back up and running with FontAwesome! Please let one of the staff team know if you experience issues with FA icons!
2.) 2 days left for the discussion! <3
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Victus is in danger of disbanding due to member count!
Order of the Jade Lotus is in danger of disbanding due to member count!
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Announcement and changes coming tomorrow, following the discussion around activity requirements and other given feedback. Thank you for your patience!
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Hello, and thank you for your patience.

After reviewing your feedback in our latest community discussion, the staff have discussed and are committed to making the following changes:

Activity Requirements

Canis will always aim to be a relaxed pace site as we want our home to feel like a hobby, not a job. That being said, there was resounding support to move away from our original stance of no post requirements. We hear you, we feel it too. Canis has lost the momentum that allowed us to thrive without some kind of forward pressure. Beginning today, we will be implementing activity changes to push us back into an active, relaxed pace site. The rulebook will reflect the following changes and expectations:

Activity
Canis is meant for flexible activity. There are two states of characters:

Active: You are actively posting with this character.
Hiatus: This is for people looking to permanently or long-term remove their character from the game, though they are still welcome back at any time!

To keep canis up to date and avoid plot locking characters, the staff will move characters to Hiatus for the following reasons:

• A character has not posted in over a month
  

or

• A character is marked low priority and has not completed a post in over two months
  

Pups are exempt from the 1 post a month rule until they are 4 months of age. Then they must match normal post requirements or they will be hiatused.

Players are encouraged to switch their characters to Hiatus if they know they will not be available for quite some time. This lets your thread partners continue without you. You may use whatever excuse you'd like when bringing a character off Hiatus to explain their absence, though a common excuse is traveling or injury kept them away.

Low Priority Mode
Characters can be set to low priority when they are meant to be played at a relaxed pace and are not a primary focus. Low priority characters typically don't get rank promotions and won't be as "seen" in character.

Players can set their character's activity status or mark a character as low priority by going to User Links > Character Status at any time. If you are returning to the game after being moved to Hiatus, this is also where you may rejoin without staff assistance!

You may have noticed the lack of NPC mention. Staff have decided to remove the NPC feature as it is ultimately acting as a slow bleed to activity and prolonging a character's (lacking) "presence". Almost all characters marked NPC were done so by staff due to old activity rules. We are forgoing the NPC stage and sticking to Active or Hiatused as low priority offers a less intensive posting schedule for those who only casually write a character.

Additionally, we bumped the post requirement on pack leaders and admins to 2 posts per month. Leaders/group admins who can not upkeep their group and remain present may be approached by staff regarding the group's status and how to proceed with its presence on canis.

Existing active characters will be given a one-month grace period (regardless of low priority/NPC status) to meet these requirements and avoid being hiatused. As always, we will change our rules if they do not fit our needs. These changes may be revisited or removed if they are doing more harm than good, but for now, we all agree as a community that this is what we want.

Pack/Skill Requirements

We understand that pack upkeep and start-up have been difficult lately. It is our hope that the activity requirements help push the pain points around packs, making them feel achievable and manageable, as we believe the requirements for starting a pack and keeping it formed are easy enough; Canis simply lacks the activity to make it possible. We will be watching how our activity changes affect the site and commit to reviewing packs in two months to assess changes then.

As for skills, these are meant to be something that requires a bit of work to earn, but we do know the challenge across multiple characters can be grueling. We have plans to introduce a middle ground that will keep the recognized accomplishment of completing skills while offering a...boost to help push characters over the finish line so they can show off some well-deserved shiny badges.

Canis Setting and Wolves

Canis will remain a dreamscape with our level of magic and intrusion fantasy. We have no desire to lean further into realism or the magical, as we have carved something special in our niche setting. That being said, introducing new characters or joining the site as a new player often stalled at our "wolves wake up in canis" requirement. As it was pointed out to staff, wolves began appearing in Canis 5 years ago. This means characters who arrived or were born between then and now could feasibly already exist in the world. As a result, wakeup posts will now be optional so long as your character's history reflects their appearance in Canis (either birth or arrival) with the appearance of wolves in Canis (2021).

The rulebook will reflect this change as follows:

Your first in character post
You've joined with your first character! Now what? Our recommendation is to start an AW (All Welcome) thread somewhere near active groups, as it bolsters the potential that someone's character can travel to you. In Canis, wolf characters are not native, coming from somewhere beyond and appearing in this world as of 2021 — how they got here is anyone's guess. Some characters seem to just appear. Others wake in a weird place or wash up on a beach. It's your choice!

Your character can start in Canis anywhere you want, and for established members, a wakeup post is not required. You may play as if the wolf arrived some time after 2021. If your character was born in canis it must be after 2021. Be aware that if a character awakens in a claimed territory, they might be kicked out by the resident wolves!

Achievements, Challenges, and Events

As hinted at before, Canis does have active plans to bring in writing and OOC achievements! Unfortunately, we are facing a roadblock in physically implementing the system, as the method used for past NaNoWriMo events is not a traditional implementation. This is a strong priority for us, and the icons for such awards are in progress. We will keep the community updated on the progress of this new feature and commit to sharing some behind-the-scenes glances at coming achievements while we work on implementing them. We are now formally looking at implementing a word of the day prompt and will be dedicating time to creating smaller, optional writing challenges.

We will also be scaling down BWPs to region or location-affected plots that will be randomly picked on a more consistent basis. The staff recognizes that big site-wide events are not always the type of engagement you are all looking for. We want events to be fun and engaging, not stressful or something you feel FOMO for if you do not have the time to commit to them. We also do not want these events to stall or plot lock players until they are resolved. There are a lot of ideas circulating in the staff chat that will need fleshing out, but we are excited to bring you some events and challenges soon.

Additionally, we will begin yearly character superlatives starting this December, as there seemed to be several members interested in promoting characters and the waves they make.

Advertising

We have already been spreading our ads to sites over the past couple of months, and will continue to look for more exposure. We plan to introduce exposure to dA and further our presence on Toyhouse by highlighting posts that have been given stardust and linking to the full thread (with the writer's permission) on a regular basis. Any players who wish to help expose canis to new audiences will be eligible for recruiter achievements once they are properly set up, but in the meantime, you are more than welcome to share our ads now! Just keep track somewhere of your contributions so you can be properly recognized down the line. For those unaware, we have a thread of various ads that can be spread across different platforms here! Please make sure you follow any community guidelines in areas you are promoting Canis so that we may be in good standing with other communities!

Staff Activity / Member Feedback

Staff is committed to regular feedback from our community. We will begin polling or present community discussions every six months to make sure we are maintaining our community, seeking out improvements, and doing our best to provide a positive writing environment. We also recognize you wish to see more from the staff in terms of presence. We will be working on improving our visibility and activity, as any community should have a visibly active staff.

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We sincerely hope these changes reflect the Canis you want to see. Thank you to every person who took the time to detail out their thoughts and complaints. We know you all care about Canis as much as we do, and we never want it to feel like our community has stalled or been abandoned. This is the start of many steps staff are taking to breathe some life back into the game, and we ask that you continue to be so patient and kind towards staff and your peers as we work on new events and undertakings.
 

 — <3 Canis staff

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The colors of Open/AW Threads has been updated so that they are more properly reflective of their age.
- Green means the thread is under a week old
- Yellow means the thread is 1-3 weeks old
- Red means the thread is 3+ weeks old


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In an effort to help upkeep with advertising and community events, we have created a community helper role to work alongside staff! @naturaee is our first member to join this endeavor and will be responsible for aiding in member outreach, maintaining our offsite community hubs (dA, Toyhou.se, and any other ventures we explore), and organizing small IC events. Thank you Nat!!!
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