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This section of the site is setup for those interested in helping merp.com, or already volunteering and need a central area for collaboration. 

If you're interested in helping volunteer for Merp.com this section will provide the information you need to join this international team. 

We need all the help we can get.

We've been working INTENSELY on getting all the content from the old Merp.com 
website to the new one (development server still under way at 
http://dev.merp.com not ready for switch over yet). Update. of course this finally finished just after MerpCon III and we've now launched the new site.
The old site is still available (on and off line periodically) at: <a href="http://old.merp.com">old.merp.com</a>

But we really need more volunteers to help!

There are more than 11,000+ registered users on merp.com currently!

There is just so much stuff for our small team of volunteers to move over. At 
the current rate it will take many more weeks, even months to finish 
copying over, and adding the new content (especially wikis).

We need some volunteers willing to help a little bit each week right away, and 
then down the road maybe just 15 minutes or so per week keeping tabs on their assigned area of responsibility (of course you can always choose to spend more time when you're on a role. but the 15 minutes per week is the sufficient minimum commitment we need).

Even if you can only help a few minutes here and there each week, every bit helps!

Please take a look at the list below and please consider signing up to 
maintain that section, or a smaller sub-section of it, or several areas if 
you're able to commit the time. To sign up, just send an email to webmaster at merp dot com and we'll add you to the volunteers email list, as well as set you up with permissions for the area you wish to manage.

Merp.com depends on the work of volunteers like you to keep going, and 
growing, and getting better, we can't do it without you! 

Below is a list of all the areas we need volunteers for.
You can click on any that have a link for more details. If it has a question mark by it, that means the description has not (yet) been filled in.
If you have any areas you would like to help out with that you do not see listed, please feel free to edit this page (must be logged in to edit) or post a comment at the bottom of this page.

Areas needing volunteers to move from old site to new:

Catalogs. Old catalogs on <a href="http://asp.merp.com">http://asp.merp.com</a>
[Catalog 1] (chapter-one) adapted and copied into new site template.

[Catalog 1] Someone to [check images links] found and reported then someone to do the actual [fixing of links and images] to show up in the new pages.

[Catalog 2] ditto

[Catalog 3] ditto

[Home page edits and updates] (single page html).

Home page translations needed:

   Spanish (Have some, but need updates and review before finalizing).

   Hungarian

   German

   Russian

   Japanese

   French

   Finnish

   etc.

[Community page] (single page) translated into other languages besides English.

[Wikis translations].

[Downloads links maintenance] (verify links work, add new links when new files 
added (by already in place volunteer) to the mirror archives).

[Essays links maintenance]

[Essays content formatting] clean up (especially archived Michael Martinez 
Essays).

[Forums moderators] (can have different moderators for different sections of the forums.

[General Site links] (links to other websites of relevance)

[IRC] (Internet Relay Chat) [chatroom moderators]

[Tolkien Languages section]. We're wanting to get reference pieces of Tolkien 
languages in this section organized. (elvish names, adunaic names, grammar, 
etc.), pieced from existing documents and pages on old site, as well as from 
other resources. different people could be assigned different parts of the 
site (one for quenya names, someone else for sindarin names, etc.).

[General site images] checks, make sure no missing images, and/or find images to add to enhance portions of the site.

[Site artists] / graphics artists

[Magic section organizer]

[Maps organizer]

[Music organizer]

[News moderator] - someone who allows news submissions to be published once 
verifying that publishable (not spam for inappropriate material ie. libido 
drugs, etc.).

[News poster] - someone who keeps an eye out for the latest Tolkien and role 
playing related news, and posts it in the news section. This is in addition to the usual postings from regular users. Many people can do this. You just post the news in your own "my folder", and then after saving it, change it's state from "public draft" to "published", and it will then show up on the site's front new page.

[This Day in Middle-earth News Poster]

[Pure Tolkien] - take care of the "pure/purists" Tolkien section of the site. it's the area dedicated to non-gaming Tolkien facts and information.

[Wikis Admin] - someone to stay on top of a wiki, one person per wiki (or a person can of course take on multiple wiki's if they want). there are many wikis on the new site, some already started include the ice merps wiki, the decipher lotr wiki, the general rpg wiki, etc.

[Zines Manager] - someone to keep the information up to date on the out of print, and in print (physical and electronic) zines related to role playing in tolkien's world.

[Support volunteers]:

  [Forums support]

  [IRC support]

   [New member subscription support] issues (website) support

   [Email list support] (merp@merp.com)
   
[Reviewers] - people to post reviews of any essays, articles, content on the site, or anywhere in the world, online or published, related to Tolkien and/or Tolkien rpging.

Please see if there is any one thing (or more if you wish to handle multiple areas) that you would be interested in working on.

Thank you very much!  
-- 
*** Volunteer Team for the completely non-profit, non-revenue, 
non-business-entity dedicated to 
the Middle-earth Role-playing International Community at Merp.com
"Fighting the noble battle against the dark forces, trying to keep alive, and 
growing,
the dream and joy of role-playing gaming in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth"
http://www.merp.com
Mailing list subscribe: merp-subscribe@merp.com
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) Server: irc.merp.com (channel: #merpchat)
Yahoo=merpcom
ICQ=293-163-919
MSN=msn@merp.com

Be sure to sign up for the 3rd annual International MerpCon (2007):
July 27th, 28th, & 29th in Spokane, WA, USA.
This event is not run by merp.com, but by a different group of volunteers,
but merp.com has donated many services to help them out.
Show them your support by signing up, spreading the word, and showing up.
http://www.merpcon.com

"I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, 
and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. 
The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, 
and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, 
wielding paint and music and drama..." 
- John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, from a letter written to Milton Waldman, ca. 1951 
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