Greetings!

The public conferences that the UO House of Commons puts on are moderated IRC chats. The format for this moderation is usually several question takers (3-5), one moderator, and sometimes as many as 4 to 5 members of the UO Development team there to answer each question. Questions are submitted, most typically, by /msg 'ing a question taker with your question. Many times, these conferences end in frustration for loyal citizens as their question was not asked. Sadly, this sometimes happens after someone has waited long hours for the conference to begin. It is even more frustrating attempting to explain to these people exactly why their question may or may not have made it "through" into the conference.

This small document is written in hopes that people will read it, and understand why their inquiry was not posed to the development team. If you finish reading this, and you feel better because you realized why you were ignored during a conference, then this document has done its job :)

We do not ignore questions out of spite. If you were ignored during a conference, it's likely that your question does not fit one or more of the points listed below. Listed below are suggestions for submitting questions. We do not believe in censorship, and thus these are not solid rules indicating which questions are completely rejected and which are not. However, they are guidelines to making certain that your question is asked during the conference. If your question follows all of the following guidelines, it stands a much better chance of being asked.

FIRST: Your question has to be ON TOPIC. This means it must be referring to or derived from that weeks conference topic. If it is not, it will likely be completely ignored. This is difficult to find an good example of. Simply ask yourself, "Does my question have anything to do with what the topic is?" If the answer's no, then you know why your question is likely being ignored.

SECOND: Your question needs to be something that HAS NOT BEEN ASKED repeatedly in previous conferences. The only exception to this rule is if it is widely known that progress has been made on the topic of your question. Previous conferences are located at uohoc.stratics.com . Please visit and read at least the most recent ones before coming up with a suggestion/question.

Examples of bad questions are:
When will Abyss be back?
When will Necromancy come in?
When will stat loss for Murderers go away?

It is not as if those questions are not or will never be valid questions. It is simply that they've been asked to death, and if/when the day comes that the community as a whole considers them immediately important questions, then we'll take them and give them to the team to answer during a conference. Until then, it's best to leave them on the back burner where they are, and stick to the topic at hand.

Re-asking/repeating your question wont help you any. If your question doesn't follow the first two guidelines, you can bet it will continue to be ignored.

THIRD: Given that the question takers get so many questions (200-400 for the hour that conferences usually last), it's best to get your questions in EARLY, i.e., within the first half hour. If your question gets submitted late, it will likely not make it to the development team.

As question takers, its easier to grab favorable questions early, queue them up on our own, and then shoot them off from there. Most of the first half of the conferences are really determined by what's sent to the question takers in the very first few minutes. Anything after that usually comes from queued questions that, of course, follow the first two guidelines.

FOURTH: State yourself clearly, and be specific as to what you're asking or suggesting.

A well stated question would be: When can we expect the full weapons revision to go in?
That question stated poorly might read as: When will weapons come?

We have no idea what, specifically, is being referred to with just that last question standing alone. Granted, the question taker would probably know/understand what the person meant, but the question, as stated, is simply too vague to put to the development team.

FIFTH: Use the "official" names given to upcoming changes. For example, when an OSI member named the new notoriety system the "reputation system", it was clearer for the people taking questions about it when people used the term "reputation system" instead of "new not" or "new system". That example may be splitting hairs, but the principle holds true. Questions that make use of current community "lingo" (for lack of a better term; and I'm not referring to d00dspeak) get answered more often.

LASTLY: Do your homework beforehand and have a good tabs on what's been posted on the various chat zones within the last two weeks. If you come to the chat with a question that a Development Team member perhaps answered on several chat zones, news sites, or on the Update Center you're not helping the chat to be productive for everyone.