This is turning into the Month of Policies™.   I actually had this typed up in the Administration forum back in December but forgot to post it.

We strongly prefer people to join existing projects rather than create new ones, but if you feel equally strongly about starting your own project, here are the requirements for applying for project hosting:

1) You must demonstrate significant progress on your project.  Examples of significant progress would be a modeldump or demo release, or evidence of strong and detailed internal project organization.

2) You must have a website.  It doesn't have to be very big, or very complex, but it has to exist.  And it has to be halfway decent, not something you threw together in five minutes.  You can put a temporary site up on GeoCities or Angelfire prior to moving it to HLP.

3) You must have a campaign outline.  (You don't have to release it publically, just show it to the person evaluating your hosting request.)  It can be detailed or vague, but it has to lay out a plan of attack.  This ensures that projects will make progress and will not wander aimlessly for years before settling down with a design.

4) We will not approve new hosting requests from any projects with campaigns longer than 20 missions.  History has shown that the failure rate for such campaigns has been very, very high, probably upwards of ninety percent.  Of those campaigns that do eventually release something, most languish for years, often going through one or more dormant stages before finishing.

The object of this policy is not to discourage projects per se, but to ensure that the energy expended on projects is profitable and productive.  There's nothing worse than pouring months and months of effort into a bloated albatross only to have it die off or be abandoned.  Smaller campaigns of 5 to 10 missions have a much higher chance of succeeding.

It is also worth noting that FreeSpace has been out for a long time.  If you have an idea for a fantastic new campaign of epic proportions, chances are pretty good that someone, or several someones, has already thought of it.  In this situation, you're much better off finding an existing campaign similar to your own and joining that instead.

Star-Epock has returned from the past and brings with him an archive of the old Temporal Mechanics campaign data.  Unfortunately, it's password-protected and he doesn't have the password.  Head on over to this thread and see if you can help him crack it.

Note to the new moderators... this is the kind of news post I'm talking about.

The second phase of our new forum policy is in place.  As you might remember, we floated the idea of nominating a couple of forumites to be moderators back during the last forum rearrangement.  Well, we finally got around to making a list and asking a few people.  Here are the ones that responded.  Treat them well.

General FreeSpace: Wanderer, Mongoose
FreeSpace Modding: Herra Tohtori, Snail
FRED: Axem, thesizzler
Missions & Campaigns: Swantz, Turey
Multi: FUBAR-BDHR
FreeSpace Support: Lobo

Lulz.

This was debated in the admin forum sporadically over the past few months ago, and I think it's high time to make it public.

There has been a substantial increase in new members over the past several months, and a corresponding increase in both the quantity of posts and the need for effective forum discipline.  We've come up with two responses to this situation, the second of which I'll announce in a week or so.  The first is a change in monkey policy.  The following rules will take place effective immediately:

1) All currently monkeyed users will be unmonkeyed so everyone starts off on the same foot.  (This was actually done a few months ago, back when the idea first came up.)

2) Members in the Monkey group will be unable to post in any public forums.  They will be able to post in private forums if they would otherwise have access.

3) Monkeying will last a long but finite and well-defined period of time.  Originally three months was proposed, but I think we might start with one month.

That's essentially it.  Post feedback here if you like.