Howdy, y’all!
Joe Hills here, writing as I always do from Nashville, Tennessee!
Last week’s planned newsletter was initially postponed so we could share the results of a staff meeting we had with guest accessibility expert Joanna Blackhart (and then more stuff happened), so let’s start there!
Accessibility feedback process review
I hired Joanna Blackhart, an accessibility expert in gaming and media, to join the staff and I for a meeting to review our existing processes for handling accessibility needs and requests.
The big take-aways were:
- Accessibility processes are most effective when they are pro-active rather than reactive, so it would be better for us to ask for accessibility feedback about anything on the agenda for next quarter before decisions are made.
- There is going to be diligence required before we act on any given request. The burden of that diligence ultimately falls on me, and while myself or my staff may ask follow-up questions of the folks making requests to speed up our research, we need to communicate clearly that they are not expected or required to provide that information for their request to be considered.
- Moderating the feedback on requests from other members of the community may require a more hands-on approach to ensure folks sharing their own experiences aren’t framing them in ways that invalidate the experiences of others.
- In the long term, having a staff member with a specialized role taking responsibility for the items above would be optimal, and I’ve approved a couple hours of research time for QueenDarkLady to draft what a position like that would look like in our community in more detail.
If you have thoughts on all this, please provide it on the Discord in the Joe-Hills-Meta > #feedback-accessibility channel.
What’s Tommy got to do with it?
In the past, if something isn’t someone else’s job already, I’ve tried to do it myself. Given the workload I’m facing at the moment, I can’t ensure a speedy turnaround on random things that just pop up, and so as community liaison, Tommy is taking point on tasks that don’t necessarily fit under anyone else’s purview at the moment.
As the community grows and changes, there will probably be a lot of emergent roles that will need to be filled immediately on ad hoc basis before we can figure out what they look like more formally and appoint someone else to do them.
I appreciate your patience with Tommy and I as we face new challenges. We encourage y’all to share your thoughts and concerns in the relevant feedback channels to help us better establish structured processes and roles to handle the tasks we are improvising responses to at the moment. Thank you again!
Still trapped on Empires!
Weekly Pinball Tournament
Medieval Madness results
We had a fantastic showing this week, with 17 participants! It might have helped a bit that I streamed playing the table for almost three hours on Friday night.
The results are clear, despite my best efforts, Forgantly has taken the crown with 122million points! Congrats, Forgantly!
Fish Tales
Forgantly wins again with 254 million points in Fish Tales!
This week’s table: Junk Yard!
This week’s table is Junk Yard, in which you find junk to build a craft capable of space flight, despite not being a billionaire! An angel and a devil are there to guide you as you break into a man’s place of business and throw toast at his dog! It’s a tale as old as time!
Minecraft Servers
Everstorm October closes
Our October Everstorm using the Ledger mod is now closed. If you have feedback about how being able to see what anyone changed around you felt and how it would affect your gameplay on a longer-running SMP server, please let us know in Joe-Hills-Meta > #feedback-everstorm.
Obituaries and Survivors
- SuperStone died after being clown-cannonned by the ender dragon.
- MisterLantz fell victim to the assassin enderman that had it out for him.
- Kindalas survived despite Tommy’s insistence that I be exposed to danger.
- MagentaAvocado: Supply short one pearl / Into the portal we dove / Victory was claimed
- Laxmi13 made it to the end and back, literally, thanks to the help of friends and overpreparedness.
Everstorm November opens
ToxxicGlitter’s new Everstorm is a friendship adventure through hell. Get started in Realms-and-Servers > Everstorm-November-2022
Obituaries
- While trying to set up in spawn village a zombie broke down the door and stabbed Chefnutmeg in the back with a pickaxe.
Petitions
Petitions for Deep Slate Nine Vanilla, Vanillish and Modded were held last week, and you can find all the details at: https://joehills.net/petitions-november-2022/
Other notable streams recently
Crafts!
Dracula!
Upcoming conventions
I hope to see some of y’all in March for Tennessee Game Days Spring!
- Tennessee Game Days Spring: March 3rd–5th, 2023 in Nashville, TN
Until next time y’all…
This is Joe Hills from Nashville, TN, joined by ThatTommyBoii, our fantastic community liaison!
To those who celebrate, Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels this week!
Keep adventuring!