____ _ _ / ___| _ __ _____ ___ __ | | __ _(_)_ __ ___ \___ \| '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / '_ \| |/ _` | | '_ \/ __| ___) | | | | (_) \ V V /| |_) | | (_| | | | | \__ \ |____/|_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/ | .__/|_|\__,_|_|_| |_|___/ |_| --- Some guidelines and the expected roles of Ministers --- GENERAL Ministers are an important part of Snowplains, since there always seems to be someone wanting to get net.married or net.divorced. To help you understand your job, here are a few pointers about how to be a good Snowplains Minister. MARRIAGE To ceremony or not to ceremony? Occasionally spods just want the business done and over with, but if they shrug, whip them off to the temple and give them the full works. It usually makes for more amusement all round! Down to business. Try and have a rough plan of a ceremony before you start.. It helps you to not get things round your ears. (There speaks the voice of much experience and embarassment.) If you're not sure how to pitch it, ask the couple what they would like. Try and keep the ceremony non-denominational. Remember, on Snowplains, the law is Snowplains Law, and the only religous deity(s) are the Ice Gods, and anything else likely to have you neck deep in arguments! This is VL, *not* RL. Which, of course, means you can do a ceremony in any way, shape, or form you like, as long as it's cute, sweet, and makes the punters happy! Use the say_loudly command (shortened to '') for your speech. This puts a -=> in front of anything you say, so the happy couple will be more likely to notice when they're meant to be saying "I do", particularly in the face of normal wedding spam. When things start to go wrong.. Keep ahold of your sense of humour at all times, and improvise in the face of muppetry. A good emote beats a prop or 3 at all times! If you have troublemakers in your wedding, they can be neatly removed from the temple using the "frazzle" command. Remember, thoght, frazzling Emperors or Kings may be fun, but they have bigger and better commands to play with when they get back! Finishing up. Don't forget to use the "marry" command on the happy couple, and remember you get to kiss the bride/groom too! Perks of the job, after all.. Videos? If you can log talker activity, log weddings (at least, the ones where you do them a ceremony..) If you are logging as your character, edit out all the non-relevant parts later, or ask another person there to edit it. Ministers who are also staff can log on their seconds as a cameraman, which usually works best! When the ceremony is over and the log is cleaned up, upload it to the Snowplains FTP site, and it will be put in logs/weddings/ for you. DISCIPLINE Marriage as a form of Discipline. If you see people spamming with the propose command (ie they have been net.engaged several times in a short time), you can use the "marry" command as a disciplinary measure. Nothing else can stop them, after all. If they complain, direct them to staff. Mail the ministers immediately to ensure no one divorces them until the end of the disciplinary period. DIVORCE Relationships on X Files. Divorces are *permenantly* shown on the x file. In face of complaints, point people at ?annulment. This states clearly that the relationship will NOT be removed unless one of the characters no longer exists. In two minds? Occasionally one person will want a divorce, and the other either doesn't know, or doesn't agree. Usually, the best way to resolve this is to email both parties (unless they spod regularly) to sort it out. YOUR VIEWS We're willing to listen to your suggestions and comments on these guidelines, and we may bend the rules occasionally if asked nicely :). However, if you disagree with them, discuss it with us, don't just ignore them. Please. These guidelines haven't been prepared with any particular historical incidents in mind. We've been meaning to do them for ages and just never got round to it. WRITTEN AND APPROVED Berry, Jarel, Marble, and Rillaith. 9th January 1998.