What is a contribution?

Contributions can take any form imaginable, depending on personality. What we ask is that a few hours are set aside and donated to the community, but what is done in those hours is entirely up to the individual and the administrator who approves it. Contributions are necessary to be raised from the level of Accepted/Soldier to Senior Member because the administration and the community in general want to be sure that potential Senior Members have a vested interest in supporting and maintaining the community and website.

Here are some examples of contributions:

• Projects for Ajahs/Companies
• Web design work for an administrator/staff member
• Being very active on the forums
• Being very active in our chatrooms
• Being very active at our real life events
• Assisting someone in the administration in their duties or special projects
• Holding an administrative or staff position
• Research or editing for our Library articles
• Writing articles for our Tar Valon Times
• Serving on a committee for a real life event or for an online event

Being very active as mentioned above should be constructive and helpful activity. High activity which is obstructive or consists mostly of spamming does not apply. This is a fairly subjective contribution, and only those who have gone above and beyond the norm qualify for these sorts of contributions.

Reasons for requiring contributions

As the community developed, it was decided that contributions were required. Originally these were projects that were done, which ranged from creating a website to writing a Library article, but the administration came to feel that what was important was that the Community Member proved s/he wanted to make our community richer and fuller and not that the Community Member did a specific project. Now, contributions take many forms. We require them so that we know that our Community Members care about our community's development.

Who can approve contributions?

There is a set group of people who can approve a Contribution to the Community: the Officers, the Directors, and Membership administrators. A list is kept of contributions, but if you think your Community Membership administrator is not aware of a contribution you have made, please alert them! This can especially happen with significant participation in real life events, given that we have so many Community Members who either do not attend events at all or do not attend the same events (European parties versus North American parties, for example). If you are in the administration and a Junior Member assists in the administration, please contact the appropriate Membership administrator and let them know.