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Post by YORK on Mar 22, 2015 14:55:07 GMT -8
when it comes to rules on sites, they always depend typically on the experience of the staff. what they've had to deal with in the past and things they would most likely not have to deal with again. one of them is character restriction. whether they have any or not. so i've got to ask people's thoughts on it.
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Post by Verse on Mar 22, 2015 16:20:51 GMT -8
when it comes to rules on sites, they always depend typically on the experience of the staff. what they've had to deal with in the past and things they would most likely not have to deal with again. one of them is character restriction. whether they have any or not. so i've got to ask people's thoughts on it. There's been some sites where I've made extra character slots purchasable after their first two characters, the idea was to force people to really think "Do i wanna spend money on making this character, is it well thought out enough to garner making it?" Rather than just allowing people to make as many as they want and not doing anything with some of them.
Although not all members do that, of course. I've head plenty active people hold all characters equally, but I had hoped to discourage members who made characters on a whim. You sacrifice money to spend on a character slot instead of a skill slot or something to level up a current skill, making you question if you really wanna go through with something you may or may not have thought up on a whim.
Now a days I usually just say that your character(s) have to have X amount of posts on all accounts before making another. It's a little easier checking on the staff, and generally if the character isn't active by the time an activity check rolls around I slap them a warning "Hey, you don't use this character that much, your last active thread with them was on X" or whatever, ask them if the wanna keep it.
If they do keep it an another AC comes by, and they still haven't done much with it or at all, I archive it regardless of if the person posted in the check with them or not. You haven't used it, please don't hog face claims.
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A seadog looking for crewmates
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Post by Elena on Mar 24, 2015 4:12:34 GMT -8
On my site one has to get 20 posts with the first character (which means usually 1-2 threads) before making more characters, because those who are flaking usually don't last for 20 posts. After those 20 posts, you can make one more or three - four more characters, nobody complains as long as you keep them active as needed. If someone is a serial character maker who collects characters but don't bring them to the story where they are needed, I discuss with that person.
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Post by Zozma on Apr 1, 2015 11:46:59 GMT -8
Eh. I hate restrictions. I have 100+ characters on one site and 15 on the other and I hate this notion of "hogging" face claims. I'll "hog" as many as I want. There are millions of celebrities to pick from for the first one and my 100 is just a drop in the sea. The second site is basically anything animated so I don't care if people are drawing their own people or using dollmakers or western shows or whatever. There are so many similar anime characters out there, too so if the one you want is taken, it's not that hard to find one that looks alike. (Unless you're using a super unique looking one I guess.) But yeah, absolutely no restrictions for my sites. As for sites I've joined, it's actually not a deal breaker because if I do join a site that's not mine, I only play up to three characters anyway.
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Post by ★SIRIUS on Apr 1, 2015 13:55:27 GMT -8
i def lean towards character restrictions. i mean, let's face it. character making is addicting for us rp nerds. most of us have probably bitten off more than we could chew at some point. so yeah, i think it's helpful. it weeds out character whores who spew out characters like word vomit but never post with any of them and site hoppers who join, make 20 apps, and then leave the entire site a week later sirius's #1 pet peeve
i don't set a max character limit, i just go on a character to character basis and use the whole x number of posts thing. the only problem with the x amount of posts rule is that once people get to the x amount of posts, what if they stop posting with that character? so i try to make more consistent guidelines like 'one post every week' or w/e.
also, just for the record, i don't really care how many characters anyone has. the important thing to me is can you keep those characters active? if so, gold star for responsibility. if not, pls stop making more. i know the ideas are endless but it's sad to see characters collecting dust in the darkness of the archives never to see the light of day again.
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Post by MASQUE on Apr 3, 2015 7:40:18 GMT -8
Like personally I don't mind character restrictions on some level - it won't effect how I join a site. if I hop off it's because of people or cliques or being straight up ignored/forced to leave because people are dumbWhat pisses me off, is a site or staff team adverts themselves as 'friendly' and 'open' and then retroactively inputs a restriction. Like say, you have 15 characters, you keep them active, and are working on five more, you just need to get to it, and then admin puts in you need 50 posts on each to get more and they knew you had those characters for new people to plot with. That's just douchey imo. I was banned because I pointed that out once. if you're going to put a limit, don't do it arbitrarily like by member or retroactively. Decide initially and keep to your guns, it's the easiest way. That's legit #1 cause for me to leave sites, since it's dumb and easily targets people for no reason. Although an actual real problem is balancing how to restrict. Buying the slot is nice, but how much money per post? Is the cost equitable to the amount of effort? That's up to each person but here's an example. Old BCO had 20 post per new charrie. They didn't limit what kind of posts, just asked some be ic. So you could games to your next character or just plot until the next one. In that case, it's up to the person to decide how they want their new charrie. I just did at least half of it in ic posts. Old TEG had a 50 post rule. Which is fine. The problem? People posted once a day, maybe once every three days. See how tedious is gets? And another site I was on made you spend like 500$ for a slot, but you only got 5$ per post. It's all about pacing the site and your community - if you're going to restrict your community because of activity concerns, then make sure it's equitable. If your community is a slow posting one, make sure it fits to their pace - if it's a fast posting one well you set it up pretty decent. People have different pace but if you communicate, heck, even ask your community's opinion about it - you might get a lot of feedback. It just really depends on your community. Like I tend to word vomit characters, I won't even deny it - but if I feel like people want to post with me, and I'm included in the community, it's no chore to keep them current for the most part. Considering I have high and low rp periods, it's just asked for a measure of patience. Some people can literally get to 400 posts in a month because they're impatient for posts, and others only get up to 50 because they take a while or are busy. But the best rule of thumb is what you're comfortable with, because as the admin you have to live by your rules too. The people that join and leave just don't conform with whatever you're doing and you shouldn't worry about them - what you should worry about is the people that stick around. 'Instead of worrying about the many, worry about the few.' is a saying, and it's absolutely right. So take care of the people there then to worry about some joe shmoo. If they don't like it, they can leave - there's other fish in the sea both for rpers and both for sites. I had to learn that the hard way, to stop distorting who I am for the sake of the people that seemingly accept me. /got a little long sorry haha. It's a think that's literally one of my pet-peeves/what I look for in a site.
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Post by EMMIE on Apr 3, 2015 11:52:56 GMT -8
Like personally I don't mind character restrictions on some level - it won't effect how I join a site. if I hop off it's because of people or cliques or being straight up ignored/forced to leave because people are dumbWhat pisses me off, is a site or staff team adverts themselves as 'friendly' and 'open' and then retroactively inputs a restriction. Like say, you have 15 characters, you keep them active, and are working on five more, you just need to get to it, and then admin puts in you need 50 posts on each to get more and they knew you had those characters for new people to plot with. That's just douchey imo. I was banned because I pointed that out once. if you're going to put a limit, don't do it arbitrarily like by member or retroactively. Decide initially and keep to your guns, it's the easiest way. That's legit #1 cause for me to leave sites, since it's dumb and easily targets people for no reason. Although an actual real problem is balancing how to restrict. Buying the slot is nice, but how much money per post? Is the cost equitable to the amount of effort? That's up to each person but here's an example. Old BCO had 20 post per new charrie. They didn't limit what kind of posts, just asked some be ic. So you could games to your next character or just plot until the next one. In that case, it's up to the person to decide how they want their new charrie. I just did at least half of it in ic posts. Old TEG had a 50 post rule. Which is fine. The problem? People posted once a day, maybe once every three days. See how tedious is gets? And another site I was on made you spend like 500$ for a slot, but you only got 5$ per post. It's all about pacing the site and your community - if you're going to restrict your community because of activity concerns, then make sure it's equitable. If your community is a slow posting one, make sure it fits to their pace - if it's a fast posting one well you set it up pretty decent. People have different pace but if you communicate, heck, even ask your community's opinion about it - you might get a lot of feedback. It just really depends on your community. Like I tend to word vomit characters, I won't even deny it - but if I feel like people want to post with me, and I'm included in the community, it's no chore to keep them current for the most part. Considering I have high and low rp periods, it's just asked for a measure of patience. Some people can literally get to 400 posts in a month because they're impatient for posts, and others only get up to 50 because they take a while or are busy. But the best rule of thumb is what you're comfortable with, because as the admin you have to live by your rules too. The people that join and leave just don't conform with whatever you're doing and you shouldn't worry about them - what you should worry about is the people that stick around. 'Instead of worrying about the many, worry about the few.' is a saying, and it's absolutely right. So take care of the people there then to worry about some joe shmoo. If they don't like it, they can leave - there's other fish in the sea both for rpers and both for sites. I had to learn that the hard way, to stop distorting who I am for the sake of the people that seemingly accept me. /got a little long sorry haha. It's a think that's literally one of my pet-peeves/what I look for in a site. You mentioned BCO and I climbed out of my hole. Honestly, I don't care what kind of post they are. They can be ten post for a tracker for all I care. I just need people to have their mandatory site stuff up before making a new character. That is the only reason that the restrictions are really up in the first place. And to limit those who like to make a lot of characters and then poof disappear the next day onto the new prettier and more popular site that just came out. If it is someone who is on the site all the time, active, has been there from the beginning or is still posting around the site, I normally let them slip by. I might be strict with those who just joined a week ago and want five characters when they haven't even plotted / posted with anyone just yet.
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Post by Starry Neko on Apr 3, 2015 14:32:38 GMT -8
-do you prefer character restriction?
I'm iffy on this. On some sites it's really nice and on some sites it's ridiculously stupid. To me, I take it a case by case basis. If someone's barely on the cbox, not posting, and in general isn't part of the community, I state that I don't want them making more than the characters they're comfortable with. You are assuming responsibility in my head when you make that many characters to keep them up. If you don't, then you don't, and they get deleted.
As someone who has practically 30 characters on a site in general, I'm active, I'm in the cbox, I'm constantly posting when I have time, and I'm making active plots with other people. Other people who have even more characters than I do have the same response. Active, posting, in the cbox, and in general being rather healthy about it- even if they have a lot of characters and there's no need to post constantly.
In general I believe if you're a responsible person and you're making a impact IC and OOC wise, feel free to character hoard. If you're not, you're probably going to need it. To me it's also less micromanage-y. Like, I have to read the profile and come to a coherent thought to it. I'm going to know who's making characters and who's not making characters and who's honestly plotting and making an impact.
-what would be the rule on character restriction? do you limit to x amount of characters allowed? do you give a post limit before 2 or 3 character is allowed to be created?
There are some sites that I'm okay with doing this- and I previously had a rule like this because we had so many site hoppers. Plus some members who were only active OOC were trying to make a bajillion characters and hoard faceclaims/want ads without actually doing anything. It was to discourage this behavior that was previously common before. Even if I had just wanted OOC/game threads, they still had to put enough effort in to do so- which they didn't.
It helped discourage those people and it was easy to keep up with. It wasn't a strict rule however to do so with those who were active IC/OOC. I however do make a notion to say speak to that one person instead of making one rule across the board that only really...deals with that one person? For example if only one person is being a general abuser of the character creation board, don't make a sitewide rule dealing with them, deal with the person instead. I think this is a good system to those who have generally active sites. As someone who really just wanted to have fun and didn't really care about how many characters one had if they were active...I didn't really care. So I believe this is mostly admin styles. I do think that a lower post count is better since well...100 posts is not as easy as it used to be to make if you have a mostly small memberbase and relaxed posting standards? So I would fit it to the site.
-does it actually help with member focus and disallow for multiple characters being made who hardly see any action? or is it pretty much useless?
To someone who had the 5 or 10 post rule...not really. To one who had the no post rule...not really. I believe it's a way to manage the site. It's not really a way to manage members, because members should be able to handle themselves. It's addicting to make characters- but if you're the one who makes them and loses them, that's more so your fault. Whether I had posting/rules or not, some people in generally could care less and still do nothing for the site. They would complain they couldn't have the character, then when they finally got that character spot, they would drop like flies to the next new thing or continue to in general do their thing.
Tldr version - Case by case bases are good and should be used to create a system where the admin feels is better suited towards their site. If you don't like it, don't join. If it doesn't matter that much to you, don't make one. If it does, make one. Don't make it completely a random site-wide rule to deal with one person. It's up to the admin to foster a site and community with their own expectations and own rules. You're the leader of your community, and you're going to have rules. Make sure those rules are what you want to see in your community.
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