From what I have seen, giving outstandings and Exceeds Expectations just for getting the minimum requirements turns more people away from bothering to do more than the minimum rather than promoting a desire to come back and try and do HW. 

Okay, but does it really matter? Being totally honest, I enjoy doing homework. I will put in the effort because I like it. And WoP is a RP site- a lot of the homework requires responses written in an RP format. Those who enjoy writing will write their best and/or write more if they want to. 

Take a look at topic forums. You see people writing six paragraphs and saying it's short, and you see people writing one paragraph and feeling like it's a long response. Is there anything wrong with either? No, because there's different writing styles and people have different inspirations, amounts of time, skill with the language, etc. Both are completely valid forms of roleplay and there's absolutely nothing wrong with either.

It's the same with homework. Someone wants to write an elaborate and long assignment with loads of detail? Great. Someone who maybe doesn't speak English as a first language writes a few paragraphs answering the questions in minimal detail? Still met the requirements. 

Most people are just doing the HW for the points and money anyways. And knowing someone who answered each requirement with a couple words and said it was from their imagination, but has to be given an outstanding turns graders off to grading unless they just want money or points.

Again, what's wrong with this? WoP is supposed to be a fun site where we can all come and lose ourselves in a world of magic for a little bit. So what if we're only doing homework for points or money? What difference does it make? How does that turn graders off to grading at all? There's a feedback box for a reason and it allows people the opportunity to comment on homework and share what they think could be improved upon. 

I completely understand where you're coming from, however. As said by other commenters, some people have different standards of what can be considered a lot of effort and what can't. Some people have disabilities, language barriers, and varying levels of skill and inspiration. Some people have been writing for years on WoX sites and others have never written in third person before. Some people just prefer to write short RPs where others enjoy making them long. As mentioned, "effort" can easily be mistaken for length. You have no idea how long it took someone to write an assignment or how hard they worked on it. And again, this is supposed to be a fun site where there's things you can do to kill time and enjoy yourself- homework is one of those things. By making it about effort, and length, and quality, you are taking that fun away from people. And possibly causing them to be less confident in their writing and skill. 

Thanks for the answer! Although I did already know this :D I don't think my question is entirely clear. I'm not really asking who is higher in the chat order, I'm just asking why fleks are higher in the moderation hierarchy seeing as (in my understanding anyways) smurfs/blueberries are more responsible for enforcing rules than fleks are (in terms of their job duties).

THIS. Selecting an X rating for your backstory would, as you said, make backstories so much safer to read for those who would rather not be exposed to this content. I would imagine it would work similar to topics, where you get a popup if it's a higher rating than what you've selected to be allowed in settings. 

This would also help backstory team- as a backstory lead and a member of the backstory team, constantly having to message people to ask them to include triggers or take out content is frustrating especially since the lines on what is allowed and not allowed in backstories is blurry. It would also save us stress in trying to decide whether content would be allowed or not. 

I imagine it as, when you edit your backstory, you choose the X rating above the editor box; similar to topics, and when viewing a backstory, it shows up below the user's name but above the content; again, similar to topics. 

I was legit just about to make a bug post about this. 

It's especially annoying with work topics, for example absence topics (if I don't have the time to look right away I would like to be able to tell who is absent). Also with plots, which are very fast-paced, it would be nice to see who replied and also to be able to tell when plot team replies via notifs, which can't be done because all of the replies are said to be coming from the same person.

Did you write a message? I had the same issue sending gifts from one character to another, but I ended up figuring out that you have to write a message to go with the gift in order for the gift to send.

As mentioned, there really isn't any point! Items without obvious practical purpose are just kind of cool to have. It's fun to save up for stuff and some prefer to only RP with things they own (although, this isn't really a "rule" dependent on the item). 

The idea is that we are not forcing users to see content that they do not want to. 

PG-13 and similar ratings have to do more with maturity at that age and what would be appropriate for people that age to be able to handle, and are based off of general classifications of an age, not specific experiences or preferences. There are users on site who have likely not seen the HP movies for the reason you mentioned, that there is violence and/or duels. The other thing about movies is there are trailers, summaries and reviews in which viewers can read/watch and decide if the content is something they would like to expose themselves to. There are no such identifiers in topics.

Site topic ratings don't have anything to do with outside ratings by other organizations. 1X topics are a classification for anyone who is at all interested in reading it- so basically, if I read a 5 year old a 1X topic, it should be appropriate for them. This is so that people on-site can have freedom to do what they want in their topics (with restrictions of course) but also so that those who use WoP as a safe space can have that safe space without potentially being exposed to triggers and uncomfortable topics for them. This is also part of why Prefects are so quick to identify/address topics that have incorrect X ratings and why sensitive topics require trigger warnings or are not permitted in backstories. 

Additionally, there is some debate as to what can be classified as PG-13- some people would totally disagree with the classification of the HP movies as PG-13 because they don't think it's appropriate for their 13-year-old. Some allow their 8/9-year-old children to watch it because they think it's appropriate at that age. The WoP X-rating, as it is an original system, eliminates some of that confusion and debate and makes it very clear and easy to understand.

So no, I disagree- 1X topics should be suitable for everyone, as stated in its description- it is not harming anyone to set their X rating a little bit higher. What you personally decide to view is your choice. There is a reason that WoP staff/creators decided to design their own rating systems versus just using a pre-existing one.

The specific details of what is permitted under each rating are, as mentioned, explained in the rules and the RPG guide for your reference. And you are welcome to topic under whichever rating you would like and read/view whatever ratings you would like.

I believe the illustrator team on EU was retired because there wasn't a need to have illustrators anymore as all the items needed were already drawn. 

Also if I remember correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong) the WoP sites are managed and paid for by Dan who has his own team of people helping to efficiently run the sites, including an illustrator. So any additional items could be made by that illustrator, whereas with WoX sites that are publicly funded they need an illustrator team as they don't have items yet. 

Would love this!

As someone who is not Australian but wildly obsessed with it and has ambitions of moving/studying there at some point, I would love to see this happen <3

Especially since, on a note of the timezone thing, I'm usually busy during the day, when EU (the site I'm mainly on) is active. At night (8/9pm) when I'm available, it's 2/3am site time and most are asleep. Where with an Australian site, my 8/9pm would be the site's 10/11am and I would have more of an opportunity to interact with people.