The Professionals Program

Purpose
The Professionals is a one-way (players-to-Funcom) feedback program which exists to
- inform the Anarchy Online development team of the players' wishes for future development within their profession.
- confirm that bugs affecting the different professions have been reported to Funcom with enough details to allow the Anarchy Online development team to fix them without any unnecessary delays.

Composition
The Professionals program consists of
- the Funcom community team.
- 28 representatives of the players, two from each profession, known as the Professionals.

The 28 player representatives are appointed by Funcom based on applications, requirements for the position and evaluation by Funcom.

A potential Professional must
- have been a member of the Anarchy Online community for at least six months.
- have a character of at least level 150 (title level 5) in the profession.
- be active on the profession's forum.
- communicate in a constructive way to both other players and Funcom.
- be in fair standing with Funcom both in-game and on the bulletin board.

Activity
The Professionals maintain two separate lists for their profession:
1. Main concerns and wishes of the profession.
2. Bugs affecting the profession.

How these lists are made, their layout, and how often they are updated is entirely up to the Professionals, but one should remember that the players will most likely expect both to be up-to-date and include a prioritization of the bugs and concerns / wishes. Other initiatives than making these lists are also entirely up to the Professionals.

The Funcom community team will handle these two lists in different ways:
1. The top ten entries on the concerns / wishes list will be included - though maybe in shortened form - in a document about profession concerns and wishes to be presented to the developers at their request and prior to major content update and expansion pack meetings.
2. All entries on the bug list will be confirmed reported in the internal Funcom system for bug reports and assigned to the appropriate developer(s).

Important: To write bug reports is not a responsibility of the Professionals. Bug reports should normally exist in Funcom's system before they make it to the list, and the list need only be a list with short descriptions for double-checking.

Thread tools
To manage discussions, update the lists and keep the profession's forum in a constructive tone the Professionals are allowed - but not required - to use some moderator abilities (in their own profession's forum only):
- Opening and closing threads.
- Sticking (rooting) and un-sticking threads.
- Edit the posts containing the profession's lists of concerns / wishes and bugs.

Note: Moderation is the responsibility of Funcom and the ARK moderators, not the Professionals.

Visibility
The Professionals need to be easily recognizable to the people they represent. To ensure this each Professional will have "<profession> Professional" as their bulletin board title, and a list of the Professionals will be maintained (rooted) in the Community Corner forum.

Recruitment

The process for appointing new Professionals takes approximately two weeks, and the choice of Professional is made by Funcom. The process is as follows:

1. The open position is announced on the appropriate profession forum, and people are given 7 days to apply for the position.
2. Funcom evaluates the candidates and decides on the most suitable candidate and contacts the candidate. In the unlikely case that an agreement can't be made, the next on the list will be contacted.
3. The new Professional is appointed and announced.

The current Professionals

Adventurer: Vassilis and Glarawyn
Agent: Ebondevil
Bureaucrat: Malaxia and Lunaspell
Doctor: Mmba and Blondenurse
Enforcer: Kyai and Harios
Engineer: UaintSeenMe and Kuznechik
Fixer: Aratink and Breaks
Keeper: XPression and Wakizaka
Martial Artist: Britt9081 and Ciggy
Meta-Physicist: Shadowgod and Ebag333
Nano Technician: Steveo and Crisalys
Shade: Chaoticshade and Janglina
Soldier: Ocene and Spartanx9
Trader: Tergx and Axela

If you have questions or feedback regarding the Professionals, please address them to me. :)