Hey Whyville! With all the votes counted from the first round, (and with some multi-account voting,) no one knows quite where they stand. Everyone is trying very hard to become one of the next Senators, and this is my way of "campaigning." I would like to propose my Senate Platform with a bit different of a spin on it, and with several new or revised ideas that I believe would help Whyville with a couple of its kinks.
Like I did in my earlier platform, I am going to start off with a list of my ideas. If you have any questions on them, feel free to send me a y-mail or discuss them in the BBS; I'd love to hear feedback!
1.) My first idea, and probably the idea I'm going to push the most if I am elected, is a Facepart Library system. In this Library system you could go to a room (that would fit perfectly in the empty room spot at mall,) and then check out used parts for a certain period of time, or could put your used parts up for sale. These sale prices would have to be a fourth less of the original price of the facepart. There could be a list of faceparts that are ready to be "checked out" somewhere in this room. If you check out a part, it belongs in your satchel with all your other parts, but instead of saying its expiration date, it will say its check out date, which would be a green number anywhere from 7 days, (when you first check it out) to 0 (when it will automatically be deleted from your satchel, and sent back to the Library. You might have a question like, "How long will my facepart be in the library?" The answer is simply as many days as it had left on its expiration date. If you wanted to renew a part versus having it dropped off, on the 1 or 0 day, you can see if your facepart has any holds on it, and then be able to renew it for another seven days. To place holds on a facepart that is already checked out, you can go to the "recently checked-out" section of this library that would have any faceparts checked out in the last three days. Also, there could be a search bar that you can look up a certain part if you were keeping your eye out for it. A serach bar like this would also be avaidable on the "shelves," where faceparts ready to be checked out could be stored. This idea wouldn't need a sponsor, so getting one wouldn't be an issue. This idea is just for anyone who buys a part and doesn't like it, or is pinching their clams but still wanting to have some nice parts to wear.
2.) My second idea, which is also another one of my big ones I would like to try to have happening in my senate term, would be a color pallet at Akbars. Have you ever wanted to buy, let's say, a green hat, but had no idea what it would be called? Instead of typing in green hat, you can choose a few colors from a drop down menu. These colors would be ones that the designer of the facepart has chosen right before he sends it in for Akbar to look over. After you select these colors, you can select the facepart kind, a ta-da! Green hats should appear. This idea I believe is realistic and in the near future if it is pushed and recognized as being wanted!
3.) Like many people have asked, a BBS Search bar is desperately in need. You can enter in a thread's name or poster's username, and then find it easily.
4.) This idea is for all those designers out there: a Face Factory Search Bar. It is very frustrating to have to pick through tons of pages of faceparts just to find a single one that needs a restock/price change, and wouldn't it be a lot easier just to type in a part name and have it come up right then and there? I sure think so!
5.) I'm not sure how many people out there are like me, but I like playing games. I like going into chat rooms and asking for opponents in Kalah and Checkers and Tic Tac Toe, and I'm sure there are some people just like that. What I think we need on Whyville is another game or two. There should be some rooms, located off the Game Zone possibly, that have a different game or different games than the previously mentioned ones. Some examples of possible games could be Poker (played for fun or for clams,) euchre, hearts, chess, scrabble, or connect four. These games could reward the winner with clams, or just be for fun!
6.) Is that music I hear? No, not the over-used Whytune noises, but actual music? Whyville had an excellent idea when they created the Whytune program, but its been several years, and some new sounds/back-drops are desperately needed. Also, it wouldn't help to cut back on some of those tacky sponsor advertisements to ones showing off some of the great features on Whyville such as the Whytunes program.
7.) I'm not sure if you remember, but back in my first platform I had an idea called "Chart it up!" This idea was basically asking for a chart of your successes and your downfalls. Well, although this idea sounded good at first, I think that an even better way to do this is to organize the mails sent from City hall. There could be different columns on the side much like the Mailbox, New Message, Address Book, Friend Finder, and Help buttons on the side of your y-mail inbox. These instead could say, "Clam Grams," "Report Decisions," "Trades," "Parts Expiring," "Face Factory News," and "Other." This would be a great way to see how you are doing with clams/faceparts/other things without having to pick through all that City Hall mail.
8.) Fixing the paint bucket is something that should be done! It's always a huge pain creating a facepart, thinking it's pretty awesome, going to fill it in with a solid color via pain bucket, and then having the whole thing go that color rather than the facepart. I believe that the pain bucket option is great, but needs to be able to work for all magnification sizes.
9.) Recently there has been the change from shrinking at the top of chat rooms to not shrinking, to back to shrinking again. This has confused me, and I'm sure other people out there are kind of pestered by the changing .I think in your info and preferences there should be a setting where you can select shrinking or no shrinking in chat rooms. This would be good for those of you who don't like whichever shrink option Whyville is using right now.
10.) The last idea I'm going over today is something that I would be more than willing to help with if I am elected, but might take switching Whyville to a different chat room provider. This idea is to have a cell phone/ipod Whyville application. It can cost anywhere from .99-3.99 (a great way to rake in a few extra dollars), and people could have Whyville on the go! (With WiFi) Some features of this application could be going into chat, checking the BBS quicker, reading and composing mail, checking city records, and reading the times without constantly changing the screen size in web providers such as Safari.
Those are my main 10 ideas I would try to have become a part of Whyville if I get elected. I know that not all my ideas will make it, but I truly do think that I could help make a change in Whyville if I was given the opportunity.
Some things that qualify me to be senator are that I have been a Whyville tour guide ever since the Welcome Lounge opened, I have been a Y-mail helper for three years, I have written over eighty articles for the Whyville Times, I read/comment in the BBS often and am acquainted with the challenges and updates Whyville has, and I chat in chat rooms often.
Thank you to all my past supporters/voters who have helped me get this far. I couldn't have gone this far without you! I would love to have your vote again for the second round, (or have it starting this time) and I thank you all for reading my platform.
Best wishes to all Senate Candidates; you are all very worthy and would do great.
-Kittieme (Marissa)
