[SHEPHERD]

so, my question is pretty simple, i guess- maybe? i don't know, it really depends on how you take it. either way, what makes a forum for you? what features do you like to see? what kinds of boards or plots or so on do you like to have? what have you wanted but never gotten? what can you not stand?

^{(quietly pulls out notepad)}

[Egao, Egao Everywhere]

I'm more of the fandom type honestly. I'm not into original rps much. I'd still join them to play my ocs, but I often don't go looking for them.

I guess what makes a forum for me is the community. I'm not the shy type when it comes to joining communities, but if the people don't appear to be open-minded and participating, I don't bother. Then, I guess there's the plot, which isn't really as important when you think of the people/characters who would be making it a reality.

I look forward to potential events and conflicts. And just general fun. I'm sure a lot of sites can meet my expectations but can't join em all lol.

The most important aspect for me though is the staff. I don't think there's ever been a horrible community from a staff team full of cool people. It could be the other way around, but never that. If the team is invested in the site, then the site will flourish. When the staff knows what they want and how they can make it happen, it's a site worth the time.

[Ai]

I first joined a final fantasy site as my first one and it was totally awesome. Sadly it met a decline and fell apart slowly because of issue with staff. It's still alive now but just barely, which brings me to the first thing that makes a site, obv the staff.

The staff is the heart of the rp site, it's like a managerial position wherein you have to treat the site as not just a job but as your child. You have to nourish it to make it flourish and staff should never EVER be lazy about their responsibilities. It only takes a dedicated staff team to make a site good. Members come and go, but there are those who go but come back because of how friendly and dedicated the staff are.

Nowadays I join original rp sites because I am very interested in a world others create. I'm staffing one such site right now and I can say I am completely mindblown by the amount of imagination these people have. It's very fun, the content is simple but rich and the community is fantastic.

Staff anf content aside, what makes me really stay on a site is the community. If I see the cbox full of kids being all douchebaggy or I observe and sense a lot of drama from the site, I bail right away. Community should be friendly and very open to newbies. Sites that ignore newbs could suck it.

I think that's it...sorta. I know I still have a few reasons but my phone sucks mako balls right now and I swear to god I will fling it to the wall someday. Happy rping tho~

[Zozma]

It's hard to say, really. You can't make a community that appeals to all people and community is the largest deciding factor for most, including me. If I don't like the people on a board, then I'm not staying, simple as that. If it's just one or two douchebags, I can deal but if the whole site sets a tone I don't like? I'm gone. That part's the hard part to pinpoint, though. What kind of people are cool and what kind aren't? Nobody can totally predict the kind of community they'll attract.

I'm a little shallow and I like a decent looking forum. Simple is fine, I like simple. But super ugly color schemes that are hard on the eyes or font that I can't read? Yuck.

I like the little bells and whistles, like member galleries and forums. I love sites that have regular newsletters and stick with them. I like events that change the whole forum rather than events like "the ball/party." I'm talking "this area of the forum is now effected by an unknown power outage, who knows when it'll come back!" or "Flu epidemic, get your shot or you might get sick!" I love those kinds of events. They touch characters and add flavor and give characters something to do or react to without changing their overall story if you have one. (And it might even take them in a new direction, like two characters who hate each other working together to work it out in the darkness.)

I also love sites that use their character's accounts as profiles. LOVE it. Not many do it but I think more should. Sites that use mini profiles, for example, you can just use the mini profile for everything instead of making a small application. Why not? Just cleverly fit all the info you need in there! Use tabs or hovers! And if you like to have the big ones like personality and history, leave those in the account, too or have a member forum area where characters can keep their histories. Histories pretty much reveal personality anyway.

[BIG FUCKBOI GAMBINO]

cbox

[SIFR]

I also love sites that use their character's accounts as profiles. LOVE it. Not many do it but I think more should. Sites that use mini profiles, for example, you can just use the mini profile for everything instead of making a small application. Why not? Just cleverly fit all the info you need in there! Use tabs or hovers! And if you like to have the big ones like personality and history, leave those in the account, too or have a member forum area where characters can keep their histories. Histories pretty much reveal personality anyway.

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Why the HELL have I NEVER thought of this? That's a BRILLIANT idea!

[Zozma]

<3 Right? I'd love to see it. A lot of applications are pretty small and cute nowadays anyway, so I think it would fit into the the mini profiles. Plus, it would look awesome and be convenient, too! I'm all about convenience.

[Egao, Egao Everywhere]

Mar 30, 2014 17:20:23 GMT -8 SIFR said:

I also love sites that use their character's accounts as profiles. LOVE it. Not many do it but I think more should. Sites that use mini profiles, for example, you can just use the mini profile for everything instead of making a small application. Why not? Just cleverly fit all the info you need in there! Use tabs or hovers! And if you like to have the big ones like personality and history, leave those in the account, too or have a member forum area where characters can keep their histories. Histories pretty much reveal personality anyway.

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Why the HELL have I NEVER thought of this? That's a BRILLIANT idea!

I once coded to get tabs working on miniprofile for this reason, but in the end, I'd advise against using tabs or hovers on miniprofile because it just seems like a clutter. I do use the account itself as a profile page. It's very versatile if you're familiar with Black's forum customization code in Jcink. The downside though is that you don't have a...more "tangent" copy of it. When the account is dead, you delete it and all the information is gone. A thread is still too handy to have; you can't replace it completely.

[Zozma]

For myself... I have a note in the rules telling people to save a hard copy of their profile information but I don't delete accounts unless I'm asked to so I haven't run into that problem. I don't personally use the mini-profile alone for a full profile but I've seen so many tiny little applications lately that it seemed like a better idea than threads for them. I know a lot of forums have links to profiles in their mini profiles but too many times, I've run into people who didn't link to it and it's annoyingly inconvenient.

I've seen Skullbeat and a few others implement tabs in mini profiles and it worked on mobiles too (for those worried about mobiles). I personally don't find it cluttered but that's because when I ran Tellius, we had a min-profile that had to be at least 500px long without a hover or tab at one point and that was cluttered to me. Most hovers don't work on mobiles, which is the downside. But I don't see how tabs would make it cluttered if you did it right.

Then again, for some sites, it's definitely not necessary. I, for one, like to see certain information at a glance, which is why we went with hovers in the first place. Ours wasn't always very fancy but then we learned how to style it on SMF so... If it can look nice and be functional/convenient at once, why not?

So maybe it's not for everyone but... It's a trend I would actually get behind.