So, I've been thinking about this for a while now and I feel like I should bring this to the site's attention. But more important, to the Admin's attention, so that it can be put to consideration.
After some squabbles here and there about new users coming on and developing insanely powerful characters from scratch and veteran users having problems with how they go about this, I thought about how we could possibly reconcile this situation and give everybody what they want. We have to remember that while the purpose of BFF is to have fun and enjoy ourselves, we can't forget maintaining the manual of style here and keeping the standards of our content consistent. That is crucial. I have decided to put the following idea to the community's attention in the hopes it will be implemented.
The RPCQE, or "Right to Powerful Characters Qualification Exam", will be essentially a simple assessment that the admins will have to put all new members through before they will be allowed to create powerful characters. In order to maintain the standards of BFF, all users will have to create a character for consideration. One that is properly written, with a sufficient appearance section, personality section, a decent history put up, a carefully-written summary of powers and abilities, and maybe even a quote or two. The most important aspects of this character will be to keep them below the level of a Third Seat officer (or lower, I am open to suggestions), while still writing out extensive content on the character with attention to detail. As such, a minimum of at least 25,000 bytes (or more, I'm still thinking about this) will be expected of the entire article. We will have an Administration division assigned to administer this test and grade it, and choose whether or not to pass them.
Now, to make this fair, I believe another thing should be that no user can be grandfathered in. We should all have to participate and undergo this assessment, including the most veteran users such as myself, which means we can't make any more powerful characters above Third Seat (or lower) power until we pass it. Sound fair? After all, us veterans should prove that we can make interesting and arguably weak characters.
There is more specifics to this exam and how it will be graded and such, but I want to put the idea to everybody's attention before putting it all down to paper. If this gets positive feedback, I'll make another blog with all the details in regards to this exam and the method at which it will be graded.
So... Ideas? Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? I'm open to hearing them. Please tell me if something doesn't come across as clear, I am writing a lab report while writing this blog.