Ministry Message

Kresslack

Allow Ministers to broadcast one message via Messages to all current aides for things are too short to warrant a news post, but still relevant to changes within the Ministry. This gets the message out to who it needs to in general without having to copy and paste it multiple times to every aide (and some Ministries have a lot of aides). Not something I'd recommend for general messages, but in making running a Ministry effectively I think it would be pretty helpful.

Kyrra

I don't really think it's necessary but I'm not opposed to it. I just prefer to be personal and actually interact with aides.

Kresslack

Kyrra said:

I don't really think it's necessary but I'm not opposed to it. I just prefer to be personal and actually interact with aides.

When you have a lot of them, and a conflicting schedule of availability, that's not always an option and basically boils down to sending the same message to multiple people anyway. I'd prefer a way to do this with letters, such as writing a letter and then doing MAIL LETTER TO <name 1>, <name 2>, <name 3> ,etc and just getting charged 100 gold per extra letter. Maybe only usable with letters which aren't sealed or something.

To put it in perspective, Ministries such as Treasury or Chancellor tend to have a small handful of aides, if any, while Ministries such as Security tend to have 20+.

Bluef

Could be a message or a MINISTRY ANNOUNCE thing similar to the way House and City leaders broadcast important news (the concern of course being that an announce often gets lost in the shuffle of log-in and all the other announces that fly past at the same time). I think it'd be cool and convenient for Ministers/Leaders to be able to send msgs in bulk to a pre-set group of persons (citizens, ministry aides, etc.

Kresslack

Bluef said:

Could be a message or a MINISTRY ANNOUNCE thing similar to the way House and City leaders broadcast important news (the concern of course being that an announce often gets lost in the shuffle of log-in and all the other announces that fly past at the same time). I think it'd be cool and convenient for Ministers/Leaders to be able to send msgs in bulk to a pre-set group of persons (citizens, ministry aides, etc.

Having a MINISTRY ANNOUNCE would be an even better option! I didn't even think of that, but thank you for doing so. 

Severina

I'd love a slightly modified idea of this (at least wrt messages): It would be great to have general multi-recipient functionality for messages. Maybe allow a comma delimited list of player names everywhere you could use a single player's name.

msg to kresslack,bluef,kyrra Yeah bby.
msg to hl,secretary1,secretary2 Check out this nonsense.
msg forward 17283 to hl,secretary1,secretary2

/semi-derail

Jules

I'm torn.  I really like the announce idea too.  It's a slick, elegant solution, but login spam means I don't actually see announces unless I actively re-check, which I try to be conscientious about, but the short of it is that a message gets my attention more than anything, and this would probably be great for those with lots of aides, as was mentioned.  I think sometimes what people mean when they say "I don't really think it's necessary" is that there are so many cool little ideas like this - so many it's hard to keep track of them when admin actually goes to the trouble of putting them in.  

Kyrra

@Jules, when I said it, I meant that I kick inactive aides and those that don't anything for a Ministry, and it's not that big of a deal to take the time to message people myself. Sure, sometimes it's the same message to everyone, and other times I add things that are relevant just to one or two people.

I do realise though that there are Ministers and Aides that prefer to automate as much as possible and have as little interaction as possible, which I guess is fine.

And going off what @Severina said, DiscworldMUD actually has something like that but at least for tells. @Melodie could probably verify if it's possible to message/mail multiple people because I don't quite remember if that was doable. (You still log on there Mel, right?)

Jonathin

I like the idea of messages because I don't always notice the login messages.

Melodie

Oh man it's been ageeees since I played Disc. I'm pretty sure a multi-person mail message was possible, but mail works a good deal differently there (it's more akin to the news system, there's no physical letters you're given, you just have to go to the nearest mail room to read them).

I imagine it shouldn't be too difficult, the message system has been revamped a few times so that should (hopefully?) indicate the code isn't too ancient to work with. I definitely approve of this idea because I often need to send multiple messages to people, not just for ministry/government needs, but for working together on House things, or whatever else. Mhaldor is very big on groups of people working on things.

Kresslack

Kyrra said:

@Jules, when I said it, I meant that I kick inactive aides and those that don't anything for a Ministry, and it's not that big of a deal to take the time to message people myself. Sure, sometimes it's the same message to everyone, and other times I add things that are relevant just to one or two people.

I do realise though that there are Ministers and Aides that prefer to automate as much as possible and have as little interaction as possible, which I guess is fine.

I think you missed what I was going for. I don't automate anything with my Ministry personally, but with my work schedule I don't exactly get to see a lot of my aides either. When there's a big change they need to know about, but not enough other information to warrant a newspost, I send out letters (because I have a signet ring, a taper of eternity, and a ship-themed stationary kit, and I fucking love using them), but that generally takes longer than simply messaging one person and then just copy and pasting the message to the next.

The idea is to let Ministers keep their aides up to date -when- they can't personally interact with them. You have like three aides, and you're around usually when they are (or so it seems), so I imagine it's not that difficult for you, but that's not the case with every Ministry, especially as mentioned, the ones with twenty or more aides at which point trying to seek out and personally interact with each of them just to tell them of a simple policy change would be a nightmare.

Florentino

I would actually love a fully functioning email system inside achaea for mhaldorian leadership affairs. can be either outlook or gmail interface, I'm not picky. thanks!

Kyrra

Kresslack said:

Kyrra said:

@Jules, when I said it, I meant that I kick inactive aides and those that don't anything for a Ministry, and it's not that big of a deal to take the time to message people myself. Sure, sometimes it's the same message to everyone, and other times I add things that are relevant just to one or two people.

I do realise though that there are Ministers and Aides that prefer to automate as much as possible and have as little interaction as possible, which I guess is fine.

I think you missed what I was going for. I don't automate anything with my Ministry personally, but with my work schedule I don't exactly get to see a lot of my aides either. When there's a big change they need to know about, but not enough other information to warrant a newspost, I send out letters (because I have a signet ring, a taper of eternity, and a ship-themed stationary kit, and I fucking love using them), but that generally takes longer than simply messaging one person and then just copy and pasting the message to the next.

The idea is to let Ministers keep their aides up to date -when- they can't personally interact with them. You have like three aides, and you're around usually when they are (or so it seems), so I imagine it's not that difficult for you, but that's not the case with every Ministry, especially as mentioned, the ones with twenty or more aides at which point trying to seek out and personally interact with each of them just to tell them of a simple policy change would be a nightmare.

I had a lot more aides when I ran Development and I'm not always around. And you're missing the point that interaction can still count in messages when they're not the same automated report that goes out to everyone.

If I'm not around or I choose not to log in for a day, I have no issues with sending or replying to messages through the website. Nor is it that big of a deal to actually compose stuff in Notepad to copy and paste over, which I am fairly sure that 90% of people do before using the in-game editor anyway. It's actually encouraged for crafting for proofing. I never said I was opposed the idea, I just don't think it's necessary, because people are only as efficient as they choose to be. 

Kresslack

Just going to point out, again, that some Ministries have 20 or more aides....which effectively makes it just as inefficient to copy and paste the same message to that many people, let alone take time personalize every single message. No one has time for that. If you've not run a Ministry with a lot of aides, I can see how you might not think it was necessary.

And that's not to say even if you -prefer- taking the time to personal every message to every aide for your Ministry, you could do that and just not use this feature. Saying you don't think it's necessary just because you probably wouldn't use it doesn't change that the general consensus so far seems to be it would be a great tool for Ministers to have. 

Thanks for all the input so far people.

Also, @Kyrra, when I saw the first line of your lengthy message pop up just now calling me 'one of the laziest people in Achaea', I just deleted it without reading further. Sorry to be too lazy to read your hatemail.

Xith

You should write a script to bulk message people the same message.



(lazy bum)

Kresslack

Xith said:

You should write a script to bulk message people the same message.



(lazy bum)

If all else fails!

Aodfionn

YES PLEASE OH SWEET JESUS YES

Synbios

Thought as well: Considering login spam, once you log in, there should be a delay of around 3-5 seconds BEFORE all House/Order/etc announcements come in.

Adet

Severina said:

msg forward 17283 to hl,secretary1,secretary2

So you're responsible for all of the lag!


This sounds like a good idea - both in having Ministry announces, and in a change in the way messages are sent.  Personally, I'd like a message outbox as well: on multiple occasions I've sent someone a message, they've replied a couple of days later with a single sentence ("Yes, I'll do that", or "Go ahead"), and I have no idea what the context is.

Severina

Adet said:

Severina said:

msg forward 17283 to hl,secretary1,secretary2

So you're responsible for all of the lag!

Hey hey, I don't generate all the nonsense. I just forward it.

Jules

Synbios said:

Thought as well: Considering login spam, once you log in, there should be a delay of around 3-5 seconds BEFORE all House/Order/etc announcements come in.

This, or some version of it is a good idea.  People can chastise others to take care of it themselves all they want, but the whole point of announce is that it's totally passive receipt of high priority information that in theory, makes announces the most important messages in the game at any given time, and I think it's usually org leaders who end up pulling their hair out over it, not the random person who didn't get the memo.   

Antonius

I thought announces were already delayed/staggered on login? It at least feels that way to me.

Sarieno

I can't speak for others, but I have to scroll up to see announces when I login due to everything else going on. Anyway, what about some added functionality like. MSG AIDES TRADE HASHAN for example?

Amarillys

Sarieno said:

I can't speak for others, but I have to scroll up to see announces when I login due to everything else going on. Anyway, what about some added functionality like. MSG AIDES TRADE HASHAN for example?

You could just... CITY ANNOUNCE... heck, add it and HOUSE ANNOUNCE to the end of your DEFUP so it shows up as the last thing you load?

Jules

The problem is that some people just won't care, and then some dutiful org person who put up an announce is the one upset that half the org didn't get the announce, not the people who didn't get it.  Lots of us try to be careful about scrolling up, some people probably even do some little coding workaround like you suggest, but the problem is that it's the people who post announces who probably experience most of the irritation of others not seeing announces.  It's one of those cases where you really do want receipt to be totally passive.  

Herenicus

Florentino said:

I would actually love a fully functioning email system inside achaea for mhaldorian leadership affairs. can be either outlook or gmail interface, I'm not picky. thanks!

Am I the only one who dreads the prospect of mass-messaging? I already struggle at maintaining Inbox Zero in real life