Note to Campers: It would be truly appreciated if you didn’t stalk this forum as we use it to plan surprises and activities, and it will just ruin the experience for yourself. SWC is based on an honor system: we trust you to act honorably ^^

And now. . .

Welcome, hosts, leaders, cos, and the occasional stalker to the official SWC leader forum for the November 2021 session!

Out of more than a hundred apps, we searched through and found fifteen amazing people to lead our lovely cabins. We are more than happy to give you our best wishes and good luck! To newcomers, welcome to the leading community, and to returners, welcome back <33

Important: Please read through this entire thread before going to choose your co-leaders!

Co Leaders

~ You can choose one or two cos - however, keep in mind that the current cap for campers is 500 (Yes, we’ve changed it again this session, though this number may change) and that your cabin will probably have around 30 people.
~ Don’t ask more than two cos at a time; you might have to reject someone, which would be sad.
~ Go through all the apps you can and don’t just choose the people who remixed first/are your friends. Also remember to base your choice on answers over design - answer quality is far more important!
~ Don’t choose two people together just because they ask to be together.
~ Remember timezones! Similar timezones will be good for you if you want to do lots of planning (e.g. in-cabin activities/storyline) with your cos. Very different timezones will prevent word counts building up and potentially keep your cabin more active overall. However, it’s up to you and your priorities - either is fine, but choose wisely ^^
~ Cos advertising their apps to leaders is 100% banned; don’t choose them, and let one of the Hosts know straight away. There’s also a more ‘subtle’ way where people say ‘hi, congratulations on becoming leader!’ and then turn the conversation towards co-leader choices. We would advise against choosing based on that, but it’s more of a blurred line and quite hard to discourage.
~ On asking your cos to join your cabin, remind them to wait at least ten hours before accepting your invitation, in case they get other offers from leaders in different timezones.
~ When your co(s) have responded, send them the link to this leader forum (preferably in a private place) and ask them to delete the comment once they’ve seen it ^^

You have until September 30th to choose your co leader/s! Please take your time and think carefully about your choices.

Cabins & Leaders

We saw exemplary honesty, personality, and maturity in the answers of the leaders we chose. And finally, here they are:

Imacreamoo: Mystery | Red, black and grey
-seiun: Science Fiction (Sci-Fi) | Turkish rose, muddy waters, contessa
AmazingMech2418: Contemporary | Blue and white
-redredrobin-: Realistic fiction (Real-Fi) | Yellow, black and red
Polarbear_17: Horror | Black and white
Rey_venclaw: Thriller | Dark purple and crimson
-Pika-Cat-: Adventure | Pale green and gray
-everlasting: Historical fiction (Hi-Fi) | Purple, white and gold
Fawnae: Fantasy | Dark blue and olive green
The-Book-Worm: Dystopian | Gold, black and navy blue
blxez: Fairy Tales | Reddish-gold, dark scarlet, turquoise
amyfarthing-: Mythology | White and gold
Elvin_Wonders: Poetry | Liver chestnut and sunray
Cherrie_Tree: Non-Fiction (Non-Fi) | Silver and dark blue
PartyPo1son (now KenzieTentay): Fanfiction (Fan-Fi) | Brown, gold and red

*This list is in no particular order!*

Cabin Descriptions and Plans (Important!)

After you’ve chosen a color (scheme) and theme for your cabin, feel free to start setting it up! You do not have to tell us what your theme is, but to tell us your cabin colors below would be appreciated ^^
(Note: Cabin colors and themes are simply aesthetic choices and they won’t change anything about the actual cabin! They help in creating thumbnails, cabin-related graphics, and potentially your cabin’s pages in the SWC memory book.)

Here you can find a list of things to include in your cabin description!
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/531202970/
More important things, as the list has yet to be updated with these:
There are new word updating systems in place this session, put into detail in this project. https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/564931660/ Please take a look at this and decide what system your cabin will be using with your co-leaders!
It would be greatly appreciated if you could include a link to the suggestion forum at https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/514261/?page=1 as well <3
We also expect you to put this in your cabin descriptions (as well as go by it yourself): “If you need to post writing in the forums, PLEASE LIMIT YOURSELF TO ONE WRITING THREAD AT THE VERY MOST! All stories/writing threads should go in the Things I’m Making and Creating forum; all Cabin Announcements, SWC ideas/suggestions, or anything generally explaining what SWC aids/does should go into Show and Tell; and all Leader forums/discussions should go in Show and Tell and/or Collaborations.”

Quick note on cabin plans: Make sure that your unique/plans activities for your cabin don't go against the scratch guidelines ^^’ I've seen a few of you say things about kah()oots, bloo()kets, skribbl().io, out of()context, or even blank()slate, but all of those have the potential to get you or your campers reported or worse. Please enforce that unmoderated chat, or even unmoderated inputs, are not allowed – as easy as it would make cabin bonding </3

Another note on adding main cabin points: We will contact leaders privately about the details of our solution, which we are still working out.

Cabin Wars

As we’ve seen in previous sessions, cabin relationships/plotlines are super cool, and friendly competition really encourages motivation and activity (+ makes it more fun for everyone involved). Keep this in mind when you’re choosing your allies, neutrals and enemies ;D

Maximum amount of Allies: 5
Maximum amount of Neutrals: N/A
Maximum amount of Enemies: 5

- As always, allies and enemies are not compulsory. If you don’t want to have them, that’s fine!
- Don’t pressure anyone into being an ally/enemy of your cabin.

Schedule

Bakie (-ChocoLoco-) is, yet again, our queen of the schedule this session! Contact her with any daily or weekly ideas, or questions you might have about these activities - or put them in the suggestion forum at https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/514261/?page=1 !

Host Schedule:

Leader thread: September 17th - Birdi
Main cabin: September 24th - Alba (In November, studio ownership will be transferred to Birdi so that Alba doesn’t have to change dailies at midnight ^^)
Camper signups: October 1st - Birdi
Sort campers: Kat, Alba, Birdi, Bakie, Honey & the sorting team
Backup campers: Kat
Word wars: November 7th - Honey
Writing competition: (undisclosed date) - Bakie
Results: December - Alba

Memory Book

The incredible team of Mira (MiraculousLover05), Poem(PandasCodingGames) and Faer/Creamie(bIxez) is running the SWC memory book this session! If you want to get involved, hop on over to this thread: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/543919/?page=1#post-5618811

Drama

Alba and I have the veto rights to this thread, meaning we have the power to stop any arguments (or at least the discussion of them). Please keep drama of all sorts out of this thread - it clogs up the forums and could be humiliating for people involved.

In the case of a suspicious word count…
This issue should be handled by the cabin leader. Nitrotype racing to prove WPM and asking for proof of words should help solve this issue. However, we still want to hear about it – monitoring and reporting the honesty of your campers should be encouraged, if not required, for all leaders! Please report all suspicious word counts to the hosts *privately* (Don’t bring it up in this forum ^^).
In the case of personal drama…
Drama between friends should stay out of SWC and the leader forum. If you are really struggling with someone involved and there is something the (co)Hosts could do to make your SWC experience easier, contact one of us personally (ideally in a private location: e.g. bottom of comments on a project).
In the case of refusing to give proof…
In the past, we have issued exemptions for people so they don’t need to give proof (for all sorts of reasons, from technical difficulties to anxiety). Contact us if one of your campers needs an exemption like this for any weekly or daily - however, remember to always assure your campers that they won’t be judged on writing skill and that this is a safe community in which to share their creations ^^
In the case of bullying or any other cruel behavior…
In the words of the Scratch Community Guidelines: “If you think a project or comment is mean, insulting, too violent, or otherwise inappropriate, click “Report” to let (the ST) know about it.”

ALSO: please don’t ask for a summary of what has happened in the leader forum while you weren’t online. It clogs up the forum and leads to spam + people repeating themselves. If 50 pages have appeared overnight or something and you really need a summary, contact someone who was online then personally ^^

Other Stuff

If you quote a long post, remember to snip!

We are no longer notifying people for camper signups this session, so there is no need to offer to do that.

If something unexpected comes up and you will be forced to engage in a long* period of inactivity, contact me or another (co)Host so we can sort things out
*a week or more

We still don't have judges for the writing competition! If you are interested in judging, contact me on my profile.

Special thanks to all the current and past hosts, as well as the amazing @caramelize and @Chromesthesia ^^ And another thanks to @-Alocasia for some of the writing in this post.

And that’s it. Congrats, thank you again, and I’m so excited for this session!

Birdi <3

CONGRATS EVERYONE!!!

First?
NO HONEY
AND YES CONGRATS

AYYY CONGRATSSSSSSS YA'LL DESERVE IT SM <3

YESSS CONGRATSSSS

ADKJHASJDHASKJDH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE!!

HI <33

SAJLFAL:AKSLK:FLS:LKJLSA AHH OH MY GOODNESS I CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT ACCEPTED!?!?!? ACK THANKS SO MUCH IDK WHO TO THANK SO THANKS EVERY BODY FOR BEING AMAZING PEOPLE

i have another idea for keeping track of word counts if anyone wants more options - each of your cos would also create a studio where they would have a copy of the desc (or just the camper section) and at the top, they would put the date and time of when they last added words. when someone was about to add words, they would find out which studio had been updated most recently and copy the word counts from there into their own before starting adding

honeybreeze wrote:

snip

Ngl this sounds like one of the most reliable word count options - and it’s also pretty safe against unexpected leader inactivity

With the new host transfer option you could also potentially have one studio and rotate between who’s the studio owner and therefore adds words - e.g the leader spends three days adding words as the owner before transferring the ownership to a co who adds words for 3 days before transferring ownership to the other co etc etc

Congratulations everyone <33 Cabin colors for Horror are black and white

Polarbear_17 wrote:

Congratulations everyone <33 Cabin colors for Horror are black and white

dang polar you're on task! but those are such a great classic combo >:)

ayyyyyyyyy hey guys! mira here, i'm leading the memory book with kilua (blxez) and panda (pandascodinggames)! you won't see me around here too (around once a week depending on how close we are to december) but i'll be hanging out here to discuss the memory book with whoever would like to join. congrats on being (co)leaders, hope to see you there!

HEY FRIENDSS I THINK MOST OF Y'ALL ALREADY KNOW ME :D in case you don't- i'm robin, leading real-fi! (third time in this cabin ayyy i'm so happy to be back in it)
congratulations everyone who got chosen- the quality of apps were super high this month :DD

lEadErssSsSsSs
chOoSe YoUr CoS I aM dYiNg tO knOw WhO's gOinG To bE aSkEd
This sounds exceedingly unprofessional oops

Bellevue91 wrote:

lEadErssSsSsSs
chOoSe YoUr CoS I aM dYiNg tO knOw WhO's gOinG To bE aSkEd
This sounds exceedingly unprofessional oops

ahhhh but it's so hard!! everyone's apps are so amazingggg XDD but I think I narrowed it down to who I'm gonna ask ;D

Bellevue91 wrote:

lEadErssSsSsSs
chOoSe YoUr CoS I aM dYiNg tO knOw WhO's gOinG To bE aSkEd
This sounds exceedingly unprofessional oops

YOOOO A UNPROFESSIONAL HOST?? I COULD NEVERRR x'D /j luv ya birdi <333 but yes please let us know beucase im so invested x'D

-Pika-Cat- wrote:

ahhhh but it's so hard!! everyone's apps are so amazingggg XDD but I think I narrowed it down to who I'm gonna ask ;D

GO PIKA! YOU GOT THIS

Yayyy <3 Also, don't be scared of rejection! It's happened to me, it happens to everyone, and sometimes miracles can come out of it :>

Bellevue91 wrote:

Yayyy <3 Also, don't be scared of rejection! It's happened to me, it happens to everyone, and sometimes miracles can come out of it :>

it just leaves more opportunities to get to know more people!! sometimes a risk can provide some extrodinary results >:)