If you have a room that you want to link to a public area you need to get approval from the ARB.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE ARB?

The Architectural Review Board is responsible for linking rooms to the key public areas of RiverMOO. If you want to link your room to one of these public areas, you need to get approval from the ARB to do it. The ARB has no role in passing any judgement on unlinked communities. It does pass judgement on rooms that players want to have linked to the public areas.

The ARB does not control quota allocation. That's the job of the Quota Review Board (QRB). The ARB will make sure that a proposal for a quota reimbursement is in place when a room is linked to a public area.

If you want to link a private room to an area zoned for housing in the main area, the ARB is only interested in how you've described and messaged your exit from that zone into your private area.

The ARB wants to see lots of interesting public building. It is not our goal to simply be bureaucratic and vote "yay" or "nay" on rooms. We want to help players make their rooms linkable. We'll work with players to get their rooms to that stage if they're almost qualifying when a link is requested. We'll also answer questions and discuss ideas with players who are just contemplating a public building.

HOW DOES THE ARB JUDGE A ROOM?

1) Your room must be completed. The ARB is not empowered to pass judgement on your plans for the future (which would be censorship). The ARB can only decide if what you've done already is good enough to link to a public area. A description that reads "This room is under construction" will not qualify under the completion test. To be considered completed, the room must have a name, a vivid and effective description, details, seats if appropriate, and messages (including exit messages) set. All spelling and grammar errors must be corrected before the room can be linked. You can ask an ARB member for advice before you finally request that the room be linked.

2) Your room must be public to be linked to a public area. This means that it must be unlocked and must be a room that any MOOer can use. It must be a room of some kind of public nature. It is *highly* unlikely that a bedroom will qualify under the public test -- even though it's unlocked. That kind of private building can be linked to hubs zoned for housing, can exist entirely in limbo, or could be linked to other players' private areas. However, this doesn't mean that your room will be disqualified from being a public room just because you've @sethome there. Where you choose to @sethome has no relevance to the test of a room's public nature.

3) Your room must be themely.
If you wish to link to the City area, your room should be something that would exist in a real life large city with high rises, gridlocked traffic, and all the rest. The City has a couple of interesting twists you might consider: a New Orleans area with the flavor of the French Quarter, and a Time Travel Museum for historical reproductions and futuristic fantasies.
If you wish to link to the Town area, your room should be something that would exist in a real life small town, or its surrounding farmland countryside.
If you wish to link to the Nature area, your room should be something that exists outdoors... trees, mountains, waterfalls, meadows, campgrounds and all the rest. No modern "buildings" will be linked to the Nature area. There are a couple of interesting twists here as well: an Elven community in the trees, and another community in the caves under the mountains.
If you're working on a really super public room and you can't figure out if it fits in any theme, have a chat with an ARB member. They'll try to help you with suggestions for where it could fit. It may only need a really creative exit message explaining the transition from an area to your room. If your room breaks completely new ground, passes the other tests for linkage, and simply can't fit into the structure that exists, the ARB can create a new attach point for a theme that would work.

4) Don't violate 'help manners' or 'help ethics'. Don't create rooms that will offend people. Don't put words into your visitors' mouths when they use your room. Don't tell them what they are thinking -- let the description itself do that work.

5) Be original and interesting. Once an area has a diner, it will be harder to get another diner linked there. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but the new building does have to distinguish itself in a meaningful way from the existing building. Interactivity in the room definitely adds interest. Creatively programmed verbs or creative message setting on the child of a generic will make the room score higher on this test. If you do have good ideas for a diner that would improve an existing diner, you might consider talking to the owner of the existing diner about incorporating your ideas.

ONCE MY ROOM IS LINKED AM I ALLOWED TO CHANGE IT?

This is a qualified yes. Public rooms should be usable at all times. You can't change it to something that would cause it to fail the tests that got it linked. If the ARB finds out that you've changed the description to "under remodelling", or changed the entire nature of the room to something that would no longer fit into the theme of the area it's been linked to, the ARB can unlink the room. The ARB can also unlink your room if you are giving out exits to other players, and their rooms would not be linkable under the criteria. In the words of our Arch-Wiz, "If I build a bar, and it's linked to an area, then I go turn it into a Used Flying Saucer Dealership, I think ARB oughta unlink me."

I WANT TO BUILD SOMETHING PUBLIC. ANY OTHER TIPS THAT WILL IMPROVE MY CHANCES FOR GETTING LINKED?

1) Start small. Build a one-room public space, but do it really well. Fill in all the messages, add interactive verbs, and it should be no problem to find a link for it. Then add on to it, only linking in the new construction once it's been completed. If you try to build a five room complex, you probably won't have enough quota to do the messaging needed to pass the completeness test, and the ARB won't be able to link it. If you really need to build that whole complex at once, try recruiting others into the project, and pool your quota through quota transfers.
2) Write an effective description. This is an issue of creative writing, and there are many styles of writing. It's one of the fuzziest things that the ARB has to judge: does your description succeed in making the reader see the room vividly? If it doesn't, then the room is more likely to fail the 'original and interesting' test. Here's some tips that might help.
3) Make use of all the features of the room's parent. Here's a tutorial that takes you through building a room that uses the features of the #854 parent. If you follow the steps in this tutorial, you're nearly certain to pass the 'completeness' test.

Environmental Graphics from Ann-S-Thesia CD