Archives/Technology: New Calendar and Blog Schedule

New Calendar
There has been much discussion about a new calendar for Apple Valley. Many residents feel that the #Season-#Simday isn't reflective of the dynamic nature of the hood. Also, some residents are pushing for 2 simday rotations instead of 1 simday rotations. The hood council discussed that if we move to 2-simday rotations, then households will have to wait longer for thier turn and this will throw the publication of the newspaper and other news off.

Right now we require all households to be on the same simday (ie simMonday, Fall Day 2) , but this might change when families start to move into the hood (now requiring that they move in on the start if a season, not simMonday as before).

However, to make sense of the dynamical nature of the hood (who would believe that during the rotation of Doe's home, John Doe has a crush on Jane Smith and they have a successful date, but during the rotation of the Smith home, Jane falls in love with John and they marry-all in the same simday!) Thus we will revive the ancient tradition of SimLonic Calendar.

The SimLonic Calendar
-8 months
-one or more household(s) will be featured each month

Season/Month/Info

Spring/Hapar/Month of Happiness
Spring/Lovar/Month of Love

Summer/ Patar/ Month of Patience
Summer/ Remar/ Month of Remembering

Autumn/ Havar/ Month of Harvesting
Autumn/ Resar/ Month of Resting

Winter/ Givar/ Month of Giving
Winter/ Peacar/ Month of Peace

The new calendar will go into effect immediately (simTuesday) with the year 2000. The only changes will be the dates in the newspaper and website will no longer say simday.

Blog Schedule
Families will not which month they are updating for and blogs will now be updated every 4 days in month order. We will try this rotation and schedule for a while before re-evaluating whether or not to move to one blog for the entire community much like Lakeside Heights.

Infrastructure and Restricted Import Laws

Some good news and bad news.

New Infrastructure for the Hood
-The hood council approved the proposal for new infrastructure for the hood. We now have a slightly better system, however there is some bad news.

Restricted Import Laws
-Only the most necessary items will be allowed to be imported. Effective immediately, only items created by the MAXIS company can be used. We have already approved modifications of MAXIS appliances as well as a few tables and chairs from PiggiSims. Some wallpaper and floor tiles are being investigated from Parsimonious. Clothing has been ordered from All-About-Style and stylists have been trained for Nouk hairstyles and Lyran makeup only. Modifications of such MAXIS items will be allowed on a case-by case basis. Applications must be submitted for each item. To ensure that superficial requests do not flood my inbox, all families must wait until simThursday (it is now the dawn of simTuesday) to submit any requests. Requests will be handled based on how many families have a need for an item.

Archives/Technology Officer Note: Cleaning Up

It's time again to clean up the import files. Some residents have complained about congrestion in the roadways, so we are working on making things go quicker. Hopefully by deleting files that have vague names will free up lots of space.

Controversial 3rd Party Technology Approved

Controversial 3rd Party Technology was approved today. Business owners are now able to use an automatic register machine that scans customer purchases on the way out of the store and allows customers to pay at the machine. This eliminates the need for cashiers at business lots resulting in many residents fearing about thier jobs. The Financial Director will state more about this effect and the results.

Archives/Technology Note: Historical Roster and Anniversaries

Decided to keep an historical roster with the date of important events (any event that has paperwork associated with it). The roster will be an excel sheet and searchable by other hoods to research things like family histories, anniversaries of siblings, etc.

Speaking of anniversaries, the president asked me to address that here. Anniversaries are celebrated on the same day each season. For example, a couple marries on 1Winter-Day4; then thier anniversary is on 2Spring-Day 4, 2Summer-Day4, 2Fall-Day4, etc. The same format follows for all other anniversaries (ie-graduations).

Website Work

I've been reading comments and suggestions about the site's navigation and doing research on how to make the blogs easier to find and navigate. I believe I have a system, so it will be unveiled soon. Articles will be linked from the home page for quicker access and I will also be taking the articles from the old website and putting them in a blog type format-since the pop up ads have been annoying to visitors.

Continue to leave comments on how the site can be better or what's working!

Website Layout Changes

The website is horrible and in need of better organization. I have written out plans for each section and overall navigation:

Residential Directory

• Will add photos of the home and each sim to the directory. Thumbnail images only.
• Will add a census section to include number of sims grouped by ages/gender

Community Life

• Will add a more in-depth club/organization section
  
• Want to reorganize the site to make things easier to find-this section has become a catch-all section.
  
• Current page listing in community life includes:
  Apple Valley News;
  Administration, Laws and Rights;
  Archival Room;
  Pierce Apprenticeship Guild (PAG);
  Clubs & Organizations;
  Council Meeting Minutes;
  Office of Tourism;
  Residential Information;
  Tours;
  This SimWeek in Apple Valley;
  Yellow Pages;
  
• A better way to organize this information might be the following
  (bold=page linked from toolbar; normal=page linked from the bold page):
  
  Community Life:
  Apple Valley News;
  Clubs & Organizations;
  This SimWeek in Apple Valley;
  Office of Tourism (with Tours as a sublink of this page);
  
  Administration Office:
  Administration, Laws and Rights;
  Council Meeting Minutes;
  Archival (and Records) Room;
  Link to new page on Education: Apple Valley Academy & PAG
  
  Yellow & White Pages:
  Residential Information;
  Yellow Pages;
  Pierce Apprenticeship Guild (PAG);
  (links to the Community Store and A. Pentragnani)

Leave comments/suggestions. Feel free to leave any concerns/issues you have had with navigating the site as well.

Website Changes

I think the online paper could use a little more "jazz". Especially the annoucement pages. Perhaps we should ask residents for photos with thier annoucements (Engagement Photos, Birth Annoucements, etc)

Also, Blueberry Bluff allows other hoods to display thier news. I think that Apple Valley should participate in the endeavour, also we should aire local news broadcast on SBN. I would be the natural choice for news anchor.

Another thing, I think we should have id photos of the residents with thier resident profile. Perhaps similar to Simmerville's listing of households.

Archives/Technology Note: New Officer

As the newArchives/Technology Officer I was charged to go over the plan and present it to the residents of Apple Valley.

Assist in the management of family tree information: Will update the family tree document monthly and upload the updates once a quarter. Possibility of adding DNA information or at least special cases (ie-green alien race, blue alien race, ozian race, etc)

Collect community & residents registry: Will start maintaining basic residents information online for current residents only. Information will include: names, preferences, badges, aspiration, zodiac signs, career & education, hobbies and group membership. Must upload an updated map of the hood. Also started looking for TS1 photos and will make a collection for families to have thier historical photographs.

Test and implement 3rd party technology: Currently culling CC folders of little use items. Also looking to compile and combine items and use more MAXIS meshes.

Perform back-ups of resident information: Backups are current

Serve as local reporter: Online paper could be jazzed up a bit. Also looking to create telecast news broadcasts locally and internationally.

Manage the local library: Library is much smaller (in fact my office is in the "library" which consists of a few bookshelves). New titles are arriving each day, however there is a lack of local authors.

Manage the Historical Society: With the new land mass, the history of Apple Valley needs to be researched. The Historical Society is looking at creating three seperate histories (1) TS1 times and the land (2) TS2 before the great storm (3) TS2 after the great storm.

Archives/Technology Note: Historical Society

The Historical Society met concerning awarding Historical Preservation Awards. These little plaques can be mounted outside the local for all to see.



Eligibility for Historical Preservation Award:
This award will recognize the best work in protecting a threatened historic property in Apple Valley. The historic property may be a building, structure, object, site or district. Commendable community and individual efforts such as advocacy, fund raising, creation of a protective ordinance, physical stabilization, and repair will be recognized.



Historical Preservation Award Criteria:
Nominations will be evaluated by the following criteria:
-The degree to which projects have overcome a significant, tangible threat to the historic resource (the type and degree of the threat to the property should be identified)
-The degree to which the project has successfully protected a historic resource from harm
-The degree to which efforts have been made to ensure the future protection of the property through fund raising, covenants, reuse, and rehabilitation plans or other measures

Archives/Technology Note: Historical Register

The Historical Register will consider a location historic if:

The quality of significance in simmish history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, and:

A. That are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of simmish history; or

B. That are associated with the lives of persons significant in simmish past; or


C. That embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or

D. That have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.


As a result, some families are interested in rebuilding thier ancestoral homes from TS1. I think that instead families and the hood should focus on maintaining the historical locales here already, such as Celebration Park.

Archives/Technology Note: Website

Many residents have expressed confusion about the website and how often the website is updated and the difficulty in keeping up with updates. Not to mention the increased job duties of the Archives/Technology Officer (me).

As a result, the website will now be updated at least twice a month and at least one blog will be updated each day, however this will no longer be reflected be any special notation. Instead when the website is updated a list of blogs (by family) that have been updated will be listed.

This will be effective Dec 1, 2007

Archives/Technology Note-Update

Another update report:

Assist in the management of family tree information: Goal is to update the family tree document bi-monthly. Uploading this as we speak along with an updated map of the hood. Revamped the family tree to allow links bewteen each family and to allow the database to be smaller. This is taking more time than anticipated and will be uploaded later this year.

Collect community & residents registry: Template and tools are now online for other hood administrators to download. Trying to decide if we should collect skill and badge information since this is very dynamic.

Test and implement 3rd party technology: With the new deal working on implementing a "patch" to the hood's infrastructure. The testing folders are quite large as residents buy more items online and ask for it to be tested. Will look into limiting the amounts of items residents may purchase. Also, the folders are due for a cull-will do inventory of cc items and delete little used items by the end of the year.

Perform back-ups of resident information: Another backup was done right before the "patch" was implemented. Patch was implemented, still in testing to note any changes and ill-effects.

Serve as local reporter: on track.

Manage the local library: Still not so well. Plan on creating a reading incentive plan with the community director.

Archives/Technology Notes: Update Report

Another update report:


Assist in the management of family tree information: Goal is to update the family tree document bi-monthly. Missed August's deadline-next update is September, along with updated map of the hood.

Collect community & residents registry: Will offer template to other hoods by request.


Test and implement 3rd party technology: Going well, technology is held in testing folder and changes are noted due to the usage-however the folders are getting quite large as residents buy more items online and ask for it to be tested. SOLVED-recent apprearences of menu-options on fridges for "management/make single plates/bank controllor" or "management/make single plates/colonial window" due to the massive imports of new food items from TSR2. All new recipes taken out and will slowly be reintroduced to find the culprit-might be a conflict bewteen the foods and Monique's computer system the hood uses.


Perform back-ups of resident information: With the new deal -another backup was done right before the hood council signed it.


Serve as local reporter: online paper is published each simday, new section of paper added with reviews of local establishments.


Manage the local library: Still not so well, residents don't utilize the library, perhaps creating special events? Incentives for reading?

Archives/Technology Notes

Apparently I must submit regular reports to the hood council on my tasks and progress.

Assist in the management of family tree information: the family tree will be updated in August. Goal is to update the family tree document monthly.

Collect community & residents registry: going well, the file is rather large, perhaps we can offer the template to other hoods to manage thier resident data.

Test and implement 3rd party technology: Going well, technology is held in testing folder and changes are noted due to the usage. Currently investigating recent apprearences of menu-options on fridges for "management/make single plates/bank controllor" or "management/make single plates/colonial window"

Perform back-ups of resident information: Going well, perform back-up of data each simday

Serve as local reporter: going well, online paper is to be published each simday, new section of paper to be added with reviews of local establishments.

Manage the local library: not so well, Community Director wants a children's reading hour established, need to encourage more residents to utilize the library.