I was a "lurker" on the Stratics forums for the first 3 1/2 years that I played UO. I went to Stratics to read news and a few comments, but I only posted 3 times in all that time. LA had been without a reporter for a long time on the forums and when I found myself wanting to do something new I decided LA's forum would be an adventure to try reporting for! Crazy Joe took a chance and hired me even though I didn't have any track record with Stratics. Needless to say my post count has gone up a bit since then!

*giggles* I got long-winded the last time someone asked me this! Basically speaking, we have over 50 volunteer reporters at Stratics and I try to coordinate the chaos. *smiles*

I assist the shard managers and reporters, make a lot of personnel decisions, and also make sure that General News, Community News, and Developer Comments are covered as well. I do a lot of work with the shard managers on the shard newspage sidebars and work to get them updated and to add new features. I also personally feel that a duty of the position is to enthuse the reporters and make their work easier wherever I can so I coordinate some ongoing projects in that area as well.

*laughs* I'd make it take less time everyday!

I think communication is really important. There are multiple avenues that the staff use to communicate with both other staff members and with other UO community members… forums, PMs, emails, IMs, heavens! Normally I have at least three of these going on my desk at any one time! I think the most important component of the communication equation; however, is the human one. First the medium of communication has to actually be used and then the person on the other end must read and truly listen to it! I try to do both and respond as well as I can on everything I get to encourage people to communicate with us and the staff to communicate amongst itself. When I find flaws in our systems I try to find ways to get better communication paths going.

I'll just say that I don't have much time to get bored! I'm pretty much "on the job" all the time. I work with a lot of people, plus our staff members and players are all around the globe and in nearly every time zone on the planet. Due to that, and to the nature of the game, the action never stops and something is always coming up.

Sad to say, not as much as I would like, but then I still consider myself to be in the "newb" stage of this position having taken this on just in March. I have high hopes that I will see more of the game again as I get more used to the job and accomplish some of my higher priority goals.

* To increase the readership of our shard news pages by bringing new features and more visual interest to the pages and the shard sidebars.
* To make UO Stratics a really fun and rewarding place to volunteer your time working with.

It depends on what topic the news is on!

* Shard news is often sent to us by players. We are often requested to attend an event, or we go out and find something in our travels that gets reported on.

* For Community News we get special reports from reporters on staff or communications sent to us from other organizations and community members that we post onto this news list.

* General news comes to us from monitoring UO.com or from press releases from EA's UO community relations staff.

* Developer comments are done "the hard way." We read every single developer post out there on the Stratics Forums including the statements and posts that lead up to the comment. We try to understand both the content of the comment and the context the comment was made in. Then we post the appropriate lead-in question or information along with the particular developer's comment that responded to it. The end product may look simple, but getting there isn't necessarily a simple process! We want to make sure that what we post is accurately represented within the context of the conversation it comes from.

Well I would hope that we would never post anything that wasn't validated first! Any new contacts or special information that we aren't familiar with gets checked out before anything is "cleared" for posting. We often sacrifice speed of posting for time to verify details and get confirmations. I set high standards for UO news and all its reporters.

I intersperse a lot of sitting and tending to UO Stratics news business with breaks to do real world duties. I log into my IM/Email systems when I get up and don't turn them off until I go to bed, monitoring them all day. I try to catch news from EA and the UO community as it arrives and get it posted or responded to as quickly as I can. I talk to players and staff people in Australia and Asia in the earlier mornings as our waking / online hours overlap then, and in the later morning and afternoon I communicate with our European staff members during their evening times before they head off to bed! I normally get EA "end of day" news announcements at my own dinnertime, so often I eat and post at the same time! I tend to be a nighthawk, and so am often on until after midnight and I often work on articles and posts right up to when I go to bed! Sometimes; however, I sneak off and log into the game… but don’t tell anyone I said that.

I started playing on a copy of UO Renaissance in late 2002, 4 1/2 years ago. Not only do I still play, I have multiple accounts to play on. *blushes*

Absolutely. I even have a special dying outfit to wear to the Yew Gate Fel when I go. *smiles* As a person who also handles multiple shards' news issues I have an "El" character on every shard so I can appear wherever I am needed or want to be. Most of the "Els" are totally helpless newbs though and die to the first mongbat that attacks!

It's a bit easier for me to juggle real life and UO than for some others as life took care of placing me here in the first place. I had to retire from my career onto disability due to Multiple Sclerosis. Stratics, UO, and all my activities on them are my way of socializing and escaping what I call "terminal boredom"!

The standard I have set is for a minimum time commitment of about 6 hours per week plus a minimum of one story posted every two weeks. It is, I believe, a rather low threshold. We designed it to allow our volunteers to be busy people with careers, kids, and real life going on and still volunteer with Stratics without getting too stressed out. I prefer quality over quantity!

Well, yes, there are. Shard Reporters also carry a "monitor" status on their shard's events calendars in the Stratics forums. That gives them the ability to approve or decline calendar entries on the website, monitor the entries for accuracy and completeness of information, and get what is needed to advertise the events on the shard. Shard reporters also assist the Shard News Managers with reviewing establishments on the shard for addition to the establishments review featured on each shard newspages' sidebar.

Shard News Managers take on the shard reporter's responsibilities plus the job of managing and editing the Shard's Newspage Sidebar, which is the top left sidebar on each shard newspage. In addition a Shard News Manager works with me on recruiting new staff and managing personnel or shard news issues as they arise.

Well, of course, writing ability is important, but certain character issues override it as the supreme characteristic I personally look for. I know it sounds corny but I actually look for signs of the UO Virtues in applications. I would like to have honest, humble, compassionate reporters who believe in justice and valor! I look for a reporter with enthusiasm for the game but a balanced attitude that keeps the game in perspective with reality and allows for better objectivity. I also look for volunteers who not only are responsible about their reporting but work well with their co-workers.

Conflict is human. Put several energetic and outgoing personalities together and you will get some conflict… guaranteed. Put out a newspaper or a news article and you will have people who love it and people who hate it… its guaranteed. How to resolve it often varies by the nature and depth of the conflict, but generally I try to stay away from the nuclear option! Seriously, I try to find and deal with "core issues" to resolve conflicts and keep others from occurring. I have a hypothesis that conflict is often a symptom of a dysfunction in the system somewhere so I try to find the core of the issue and resolve that assuming that the surface conflict will resolve then as well.

Well after all my name is "El of LA," *giggles*… really though I do play Lake Austin and am basically 100% there. My original home shard of Great Lakes gets a visit now and then.

I am a devoted merchant/crafter. I just love building houses and keeping vendor shops. I wish I had more time to devote to it. I enjoy a good romp now and then in PvM and am not averse to PvP, just not interested in it either. My passion is making things and selling them and running a little virtual business in Sosaria. I would love to play a farmer if ever given the chance. I think it would be delightful. So ok… yes, I'm a trammie, but one who has a castle in Fel!

What a week to ask that question! Heavens! I think UO is evolving but at the moment I'm not sure what the evolution will become. I'm interested in hearing what EA/UO will have to tell us when they break their silence. One thing is for sure though, I will stay on LA and play until they kick me off the server!