[Lell]

Hello, folks! I would say 'happy summer' but, looking out of my window at the torrential rain down here, I think 'happy June' is a better way of putting it. Some of us are still at work, some of us are enjoying holidays but, here at WoH, we work as hard as we party and that's mostly what this announcement is about.

My soul sista fellow admin, Penni, has been ridiculously dedicated with her advertising of late and this has reflected in our current position as the most-visited Marvel roleplay site on the Ultimate Topsites listing, something we're very proud of (for those of you for whom this is news, check our sidebar to the left, just under the quick log-in and remember that those buttons represent links you can click to vote for us once a day.) Due to this, our age and our continued activity, you may also have noticed the absolute FLOOD of new members and characters that's hit the site of late.

Penni and I adore this. We love that, a year down the road, we're still growing and expanding. Recently, we made the switch from being an X-Men site to a Marvel one and, as the countdown on the sidebar shows, we have even more surprises and advances in store for you all with The Chaos coming for you all in just over two weeks. I hope you're excited because we certainly are, even as we work furiously behind the scenes to get things ready for our next Big Reveal.

But, thrilled as we are with all of these new apps coming in practically every day, Penni and I are only human. Those of you who've staffed before know how exhausting it can be sometimes, particularly because we so firmly believe in making app reviews as thorough as possible. You all put so much time and effort into these apps that we want to show our respect by checking, double-checking and triple-checking every tiny bit of them that you've all worked so hard to craft. Because of our promise to be careful and thorough with the app review process through every single step of it all, it ends up being a rather time-consuming process and, with the volume of apps we've had lately, most of our online time has been spent seeing to apps. Add onto this that Penni works and I'm bang in the middle of of my final project for my Master's and there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day. Plus, both of us TECHNICALLY have LoAs up now and, while we may not be the type to share details of our personal lives with the internet at large, that does also draw on our time quite a lot, though it's been clear that we've been trying to be an active presence on the site as well to keep it trundling onwards. Most of you have been very kind and understanding about our current situation, making an effort not to give us more work to do or being dismissive of our current personal problems, but the combination of the volume of apps we've had lately and the continuous juggling act we do wherein we try to balance wanting the site to be as open and friendly as possible while keeping everything to the standard expected of us AND maintaining the staffing process as fair and even across the board as possible no matter how long any member has been here...well, it's a lot.

So, quite simply, Penni and I have decided we need a vacation before we burn out. We've felt extremely pressured to address apps and other staffing queries before we write of late and, well, there's only so much of that you can take before a site meant for fun and recreation ends up feeling like a job. We miss what you guys have, which is feeling free to concentrate on characters and plots and posts. And, after how long the site's been around for now, we hope you agree that we're long overdue for a staffing break.

This means that, since we're giving everyone some notice about it, between the 20th and 27th of June the site will be closed to new applications. People can still (and are in fact encouraged to!) reserve canons, and we will be doing a special, one-time only period wherein all canon reservations are automatically for fourteen days to make up for the week during which apps will not be accepted, but Penni and I will be taking a week's break from reviewing apps, the most exhausting part of staffing a site as busy as WoH. Hopefully, this will allow us to catch our breath a little, become reacquainted with our characters, post like machines AND to really have time to prepare for the upcoming Chaos. We'll still be here to answer questions, update lists and the like, we just won't be accepting any new apps during that week.

The thing about WoH is that I'd like to think we're a writing community first, that above the posts and the plots and what actually gets written we're a group of friendly and like-minded people. Because of that, Penni and I are sure that you lovely, relaxed and understanding members will be happy that we're taking this break. We'd hate for WoH to start feeling like a chore for anybody and the point of this vacation for us is to prevent the risk of burning out, as a few hard weeks of late have been quite tough on the pair of us. SO, consider this your advance notice, and I hope everyone will look forward to the admin team having a bit more time for actually threading and writing and plotting with all you lovely people!

Peace out,
The Pell

[Nolan Christenson]

I've been on a lot of sites and adminned a few and you guys are seriously the most dedicated admins I have ever known. I think taking a break is definitely something that you guys deserve even if you weren't so busy. You do a lot of work for the site but you need to remember that you made it for fun and that the site is for fun and not meant to be a chore for you guys. All of us at WOH love you guys and are very grateful for all the time and effort you put into to making this such an amazing and well put together site.

Just wanted to express my thanks for the short time I've been here for how awesome you have been with everything. Take your break, enjoy your free time, and most importantly, focus on just having fun with WOH rather than thinking of it as work.

ANI