Deadlines. The e-world can not live without them.
There are two main types of deadlines, role-play deadlines and show result deadlines. Both are not equal by any stretch of the imagination, even thou they should be. The whole game seems to be like some sort of contract. The party of the first part (players) agree to write and post their RP’s in a timely manner on such and such a date. In return, the party of the second part agree to post results in an equally timely manner.
Role-play deadlines are the rigid deadlines that are when an e-fed places a time when RP’s must be posted before. Any RP’s posted after the time do not count for judging purposes. Getting the right amount of material posted before the deadline is the difference between winning and losing, in most cases. And most feds live and die by the dedication of it’s players to RP on time.
Show results deadlines however, are the softer, less demanded of the two. Most times, the owner has some sort of unwritten deadline of when a show should be posted, be it a few hours after the RP deadline or even a few days past it. More often than not, there is no “official” set time.
Owners have a weird sort of ways of looking at things. On one hand, they demand the roster of players conform and meet the demands of the role-play deadline. They stand firm and rarely let anyone slip past, regardless of the excuse.Your grandma passed away? Oh well, we’ll still have you lose but please, take some time off. However, when the coin is flipped and they are the ones on the clock, the same arguments that players failed with, are suddenly valid. Who amongst us has not heard an owner or staff member state that results will be delayed because of the following reasons…
Gee, wish I could just extend RP deadlines whenever I needed more time to tweek my RP’s in order to “do them justice”. Well, you get the point here. Sounds a bit familiar doesn’t it? These reasons are the same ones a lot of RPer’s use. But then, some owners tend not to stick to their own deadline. Which is why most of them do not have concrete formal rule on when results are posted.
I’m not trying to be difficult here or trying to start an argument for the sake of arguing, but let’s face facts here. On one hand, owners require players to conform to a strict deadline of when things need to be in. A very important thing to do and one players should take seriously. But, then when it comes time to post the results, owners and staff of some e-feds turn up the drama/guilt meter so that they can get the time they require to put up the results when they have the time, instead of on time.,
Almost every single fed I’ve been in has had this occur at one time or another. With some of the feds it occurred rather frequently. And if I dared to complain I got argued against with posts that made me the bad-girl. How dare I complain about results when staff were taking valuable time away from their families and friends, just so we could have a place to role-play. How dare I complain when the owner has to write out the results all by themselves, even thou it’s exam week or when he/she has a sick child at home.
Look, we all have lives away from the computer (at least I hope so). But as players, we budget that time in advance. We set aside the time needed to churn out our roleplays and make sure we have everything in just as the staff and owners ask us to. We have the same families, same events to attend, same exams to write and same time constrains as staff and owners do. So, why shouldn’t we, as players, also hold the staff to the same standards? Don’t they also budget their time so that sufficient time is set aside to write results and post their obligated part of the game?
But make no mistake, although late results are a common occurance in the e-fed world, they do not mean all is falling apart with staff and owners. It’s when late results become the rule rather than the exception, that you need to worry. I’ve looked at the corpses of about 23 feds in the past month and guess what? In 19 cases, late results were very common right until they ceased operations. I guess that lack of commitment to the Fed by staff was just a warning sign that should have been heeded.
But in conclusion, late results happen. Nothing wrong with that. It’s the repeated lateness that players need to watch out for. Because if you are constantly late with your roleplays, fed owners tend to dump you from the roster. But if e-fed staff is constantly late with results, chances are, that the whole fed may be headed for the unemployment line, so please watch out for that too. Deadlines are there for a reason, because time is a valuable and rare commodity in the world of e-Fedding. It should be equally as valuable to both players and staff. And it’s the respect for one’s time, that needs to be seen here, on both sides of the e-fedding fence.
Just an observation.
