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Post by ★SIRIUS on Aug 31, 2014 21:04:27 GMT -8
both admins and members are guilty, heck everyone's guilty or at least has been guilty at some point. i think debating whose fault it is will probably just make it worse. we've gotta help each other out instead of tear each other down, y'know? what matters is what we do about it now. a system would be cool, but i don't think we should pinpoint the site-hoppers and fickle admins. that's giving recognition in the wrong people who should get no recognition at all. everyone knows who opens and closes sites like the wind, but does anyone know who the admins are that have kept sites open? what would be even more helpful is if we recognise the rpers and admins who are actually loyal. ban together to promote sites that have been around for a while to keep them getting members and in the spotlight. i see the most promotion for new forums, and that's good to get them off the ground, but i feel like older sites are often pushed to the bottom of the pile and forgotten to make room for shiny ones. what if we start promoting sites that have been open for a long time? giving recognition and spotlight to admins who have had forums open for x amount of time? equally, members could also be awarded by the admins of these sites. i don't know how, but that's what we're here to discuss, yeah?
it's just kind of sad to me to see people getting all accusing and thinking it's a lost cause. it's like, it isn't something that's gonna happen overnight. it'd definitely take a lot of work to implement a system, but we've gotta start somewhere to make a domino effect. i mean, think about it, we have lots of systems in place, lots of rules that we just do without thinking about. things as simple as making separate accounts for characters. once upon a time, we all had one account with all our characters on it, but somewhere along the line it became natural to do the opposite. i doubt we can escape drama because, honestly, there's gonna be people you don't like anywhere you go in life, not just on the internet. i'm willing to own up and and say, hey, fair enough, the way i've boycotted sites in the past out of fear of them closing was a bad call. it's a new day though, i'm not gonna do that anymore. if anything, i'm motivated to go out there and try to make a positive change and give someone a new loyal member. that's really all it takes. if everyone who reads this thread goes back out to rp and keeps this stuff in mind and makes a commitment to keep sites open, to not site-hop, then that's a start. even if only three people do it, we're still three people better off than we were before.
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Post by eggy azoozoo on Aug 31, 2014 22:18:51 GMT -8
^^
Essentially like.. I know someone on here said that GS was meant to give a leg up to newer sites and get them that exposure they need to get off the ground? And there's definitely a heavy slant towards trying to build new sites but like other people have said, it's not all that often that sites that come as a result of those interest check threads actually thrive for a considerable amount of time.
So for all that focus on more new sites, there's not much effort being put into recognizing older sites that have stood the test of time, where you know you can join it and it won't shut down on you a week later. I guess what Tanz initially intended with the RP Directory would have given some sort of clue about that, but it was never implemented.
The way that talk about RP boards on GS goes basically sets it up for the focus to constantly shift to something different, something new. And that's not a knock for having multiple varied interests and wanting to see those be met, but when the most active threads on here tend to be "sites you want to see" and different site-planning threads, it's a little "ummmmm" when you want to complain about people having short attention spans and being constantly tempted by the next shiny thing. Nothing's really being done to anchor their attention on something else beyond that.
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Post by Ginger on Aug 31, 2014 22:51:57 GMT -8
I like the idea of awarding those who are loyal to the sites they join/create, I know RPG Directory does something similar, as well another site. Both those sites give ribbons or trophies that staff can put on their site, and guests click to view the contest or what the ribbon is for. Maybe if the system was organized and well known, kind of like the rating system website. Then rpiers will respect that reward of the site activity, then have a higher chance of joining and staying. Example: trophy for lasting 4 months or for constant site updates
Could there be a bragging thread? A thread where members can give shout out to sites that are still active, shout out to completing plots, or shout outs for being in active interesting threads? Though the thread might cause problems, and may die out.
I think the fear of joining older sites is not fitting in, or feeling excluded because of users already having plots and experiences with each other. When users rp with each other for a whole year, they know so much that has happened on that site, the new member who has joined might not get the inside jokes.
From my experience when joining older sites, I've always felt out of place and fear of the admin banning me for doing something wrong. Compared to that of joining a new site the admin is happy of all the people joining[thinking the site will be large success], the canon positions are always open [most don't like handing them over], and there's less popular faceclaims claimed [meh].
Could there be a way to let guests know on older sites, even though they might feel a bit out of the loop, in time they'll join that very loop?
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Post by Starry Neko on Sept 3, 2014 14:56:20 GMT -8
No one responded yet? Okay. Since I babbled a bit too much previously I’ll actually just edit this one until it’s coherent. Like Sirius said, it’s not really a lost cause and it might take a while, but it could honestly have a good idea to start with. Debating who’s at fault, yeah, isn’t going to help anyone. The fact is we all know it’s both sides so trying to figure out what’s going to work and what isn’t is really the point. It’s been suggested we follow the RPG-D model, but to be honest I’m on RPG-D myself and I rarely pay attention to the site awards or anything like that. I know for some it might honestly be a good idea since it is important to other people. When I see an award, I ignore it, but I know for other people it’s…really nice to have. As for GS- yeah, I think it was a spot where someone did say that it was for newer sites. It would be nice to see that implemented somehow. To be honest I…don’t know what’s too much and what’s too little to use on the GS roleplay database thing? So I never filled it out. I should though. Japhet is right on the fact that “Sites you want to see” being the most active and that’s awesome. I however haven’t seen a lot of them last? I’m glad people have all kinds of new site ideas and stuff, and it’s really awesome that everyone wants to see new sites and stuff…but sometimes it’s like ‘chase the laser on the wall’ type of game. As for Ginger (I can’t remember if I’ve addressed all your previous points/things you quoted me in, and I’m sorry. XD) – But I’m not sure about a bragging thread since (This is my experience personally) those threads turn out to show mostly clique-like stuff and it just doesn’t work that well. I understand the fear of joining older sites- but I’m not exactly sure how one gets that out of their mind. There are some people that don’t explain the inside jokes or whatever- but most people I’ve seen never seem unhappy to give canon spots that are open, they are still happy with everyone that joins, and….well the animanga FC base is ridiculously wide and vast and there are similar characters everywhere. I don’t think you can give that assurance to someone to be honest. Well you can, but it’s more of ‘well it’s my word’ because some people just don’t feel included no matter what you do. You try to plot/post/etc, but they’ll still leave saying that it wasn’t good enough. To be honest, “In time they’ll join that very loop” is something that person has to explore. No one can assure everyone that they’ll click together like awesome puzzle pieces. Like I have terrible humor. I don’t know if this is going to annoy people. So I’m not sure there is a way- but if there is, I would love to know it.
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A seadog looking for crewmates
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Post by Elena on Sept 4, 2014 20:27:23 GMT -8
I think the fear of joining older sites is not fitting in, or feeling excluded because of users already having plots and experiences with each other. When users rp with each other for a whole year, they know so much that has happened on that site, the new member who has joined might not get the inside jokes. From my experience when joining older sites, I've always felt out of place and fear of the admin banning me for doing something wrong. Compared to that of joining a new site the admin is happy of all the people joining[thinking the site will be large success], the canon positions are always open [most don't like handing them over], and there's less popular faceclaims claimed [meh]. Could there be a way to let guests know on older sites, even though they might feel a bit out of the loop, in time they'll join that very loop? I think everybody should udnerstand that, if they are willing to catch up and get immersed into the story, they will be a part of the story. And that joining a long time site means more stability, and more reward for their involvement. And yes, the older members are friendly, as long as the newcomer is friendly and flexible too. (And reliable!) Why would you fear being banned for doing something wrong? I think this is the main problem, instead of approaching it with the knowledge and acceptance that you are human, you can't know everything, and of course you might do something wrong... but you won't be banned for this. You will be explained which is the correct way and why, and you will understand this. Yes, I am biased because some people who just joined tried to change the history of the ships and when I explained them that it couldn't be how they had stated, but ... (choose one of 2-3 variants possible), they didn't like it. Sorry, but it is not only your character we are talking about, it's several others' in this case!
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Post by sairri on Sept 17, 2014 14:10:02 GMT -8
Wow way late on this oops hope it’s not too late to bring a few (probably sorta out there) views to the table? Disclaimer: this mostly comes from my own personal reasons for ‘site hopping’ both as a member or admin as well as what I’ve seen around in general. (imo there are more reasons as to why sites don’t last and if there was a general rp system improvement thread I’d go into more detail, but they don’t directly relate to the rapid creation and closure of sites and this post is long enough)
First: I feel like there’s more openness to new site ideas? Original ideas are getting more and more popular, skinning is becoming less and less of a concern. The ‘sites you want to see’ thread is on fire. There’s kinda a hyperactive atmosphere of ”that is an awesome idea and I want to rp it, omg that’s also cool I want to rp it too, wait omg omg omg look at that idea let’s explore it” going on and it’s hard to keep focused on one site because there are so, so many other really cool plots and settings to play with. Which imo really isn’t a bad thing, honestly I love it. However it doesn’t fit well with the ‘full-on-site-for-every-plot’ setup we’re using, hence the ‘epidemic’
and kinda a weirder point: But How long should a healthy site last? 1 year? 3 years? 5? In the context of our young adulthood, that’s honestly a lot of time like, PARDON THE “IM GETTING OLD WHAT DO I DO” RANT but I think a lot of us are either about to enter the 20s or are already in the 20s in 10 years (give or take a couple) we’ll be around 30 and if a healthy rp lasts 5 years and we don’t multi-task sites (which is hard to do with jobs and school and life and also what people have pointed out to be a contributing factor to this problem) that means we get 2 sites to play in before 30, if sites should last 3 years that only grows it to 3 sites. Even if 1 year is considered a healthy age (which is really pretty short for the typical rp pace) that still isn’t a lot of time for those with lots of interests *
Looking at the ‘sites we want to see’ thread as well as the ‘bucket list’ thread on face it seems like the general populace wants to rp a lot more than 3-10 sites. And if we only have 3-10 sites, I think a lot of us subconsciously want those sites to be the BEST SITES EVER. And though I don’t think anyone’s consciously thinking this, I feel in the back of our heads that’s just kinda hanging there? So if you make or join a site and it winds up not being your BEST SITE EVER you really don’t want to waste more time when you could be doing something funner ya’know?
But yeah, to be honest, I’m not sure if ‘stick to it!’ is a really good answer for this. For every site that’s made another possible site has to sit on the backburner and with time running short it’s too hard for a lot of us to just let it sit.
*Ofc in practice the math would be a lot less rigid more give and take, some will rp past 30 some will quit earlier, some people can rp on more than one site (I always try), sometimes site last longer or shorter but IN GENERAL
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Post by Zozma on Nov 21, 2014 15:24:21 GMT -8
There are certain admins whose sites I will not join because of this. What I'm confused about is why they do it because the people I'm thinking of will close a site after 2-3 months and open up a new one exactly like it and tell all the old members to hop to the next one. While I was poking around the other day, one site led to three others by the same admin. I thought the first one looked really nice but it was closed and there was a link to their new site. Okay, cool. But the new one was exactly the same as the old one in terms of plot... So why? And then that one was closed and led to another closed one which finally led to a live one... but who wants to join it when you know the admin is going to close it in a week and open up a new one...? Seriously. I'm not even exaggerating here.
Now, for the ones who just get bored of a certain genre, I'm not really going to blame them. Sometimes we have a real hunger for a certain genre, then we play it out and we move on. I don't see much wrong with that but I personally like to spend at least a year in one place before I move on so I'm not a huge fan of the sites that live for a handful of months before their demise. :/ But after a year? I'm not going to begrudge the admins for wanting to try something else and guess what, we don't all have time to run or roleplay on 12 sites at once. So yes. I'll frown at the former and nod my head at the latter in understanding.
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RP EPIDEMIC
POST CREATED Nov 21, 2014 15:40:56 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by ROGUE on Nov 21, 2014 15:40:56 GMT -8
I hate the cliques that form on sites and then when one member leaves they all do,suddenly 90% of the site members are gone (some even admins!) However, my biggest pet peeve is when an co-admin opens up their own site and then abandons the one they were co-admining on, bring their friends with them. I just fins that to be rude, especially since they just leave the site to die and the head admin / creator to pick up the pieces.
-I'd expand more but I am on mobile.
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Post by MASQUE on Nov 23, 2014 11:09:47 GMT -8
Oh dear, oooh DEAR. Why did you let /me/ find this?
DISCLAIMER: WHAT I SPEAK OF HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYONE IN PARTICULAR, MOSTLY HYPOTHETICAL SITUATIONS I CREATE FROM A MASS OF EXPERIENCES I HAVE GONE THROUGH AND BASICALLY I'M BLENDERING SO IT ISN'T YOU, IT'S MY OWN CHESSBOARD WORLD. I TALK A LOT ABOUT MYSELF AS AN EXAMPLE SO DON'T TAKE ANYTHING OFFENSIVELY, IT'S JUST GENERAL EXPERIENCES OVER 8+ YEARS OF RPING ON SEVERAL DIFFERENT BOARD FORMATS.
Okay so I scribed out Zenwriter just for this. I read the whole thread, but pardon me if I repeat some things here and there.
First point: there is no magical solution. At best, you'll get respect for some people, and maybe a better site community for a while, but in my blunt opinion, role-playing is a dying art. Let me correct, site based roleplaying. There are a great number of board hosts out there, jcink, proboards here, forummotion, zetaboards, invision free JUST to name a few. I'm sure there are more out there. And ever 'board' seems to have it's own... flow per say. Forummotion tends to... be weird. Proboards is visual but often has an off-hand make it simple attitude, jcink is a confusing board type to get around firstly, and then the sites just want to make it more complex so enjoy, invision free is heavy handed on the writing, and zetaboard is the new kid that's trying to imitate everyone. Those are my own general impressions sometimes, and it's quite amusing to think of it that way. Oh right I was making a point.
Roleplaying itself is becoming less and less popular. The kids of today don't really care to write, to create stories. I mean, how many of you know rpers under the age of 16? three? five max? Namely because the subject matters we end up doing are growing more mature as we are, and kids just don't get it. The RP boom crowd is fading, inch by inch, and it sounds pessimistic but it's happening. So that's one thing that, we cannot control really, that contributes. In fact, I think most of us, since we're not stupid, kind of instinctively know that this death clock is running. Some day, roleplaying will just... be small again. Until the next boom, however long that will take. Like when tabletop rping because super popular and then spilled over over irc chats and then later into full blown boards. And maybe it'll drift somewhere else. Like on youtube. Anyways, the point is that, we cannot just ninja solve this and rping in general is in decline.
Second: Drama. Oh the drama. It's been mentionned and here is where personnal Fallacy time is going to show. For example, I don't know what other people think my reputation as. I really don't, and I'm paranoid about it, convinced I'm seen as the scourge of the earth that nobody likes. Then again, I have crippling self-esteem issues, and a tendacy to be pessimistic rather then trying to remain optimistic when it concerns myself. But yes, Drama does a large part in this whole joining and skipping thing. Like a friend of mine ews one site, and then I get on guard and watch the site and then if I'm unhappy I bounce. Or if I'm on a site, and I was already kinda eh at one thing, and then soemthing just punches me in the ovaries of 'I hate this' then I'm out.
Why? because the times I tried to not just bounce, I got my face rammed into the ground, and I got my pride grounded into dust. If there's one thing that, even with my nearly non-existent self-esteem, that I take offense to, it's my writing. And I have an inb0rn dislike for anyone that wants to try and change the way I write to suit them, just because of x reasons. In fact, that's the reason I won't join a site or bounce pretty early. If someone suffocates your writing because it's 'not acceptable' to their standards, and by that I mean EXACTLY then I have problems, and that kills my muse and I'll just wander off because I've done enough fighting for things in my life. I could elaborate but no sob stories just hard facts.
Another thing is the community. Heck, if I walk in, sya hi, and I don't get a hi, and I just get buried, or if I get a hi, a how are you and then when I make a comment, not even a single answer no matter what I post, then I'm kinda not gonna be okay. And evne if that's at first and then evens out, it just strokes my paranoia of 'nobody likes me, everyone was better without me, I'll just leave.' again, playing into my own personal insecurities, so this is a more, FALLACY IS DOING THIS BECAUSE OF X post. But here, let's make this less about me, and more about general.
In general, yes the community is dauting to most people. Someone earlier put it in the exact terms I've thought of it as. ''People want to be accepted.'' and that's just it. They want to be accepted. The members, the admins, all sides just want to be accepted. Sure some people just like to argue because thing x isn't to their x standard, and it's annoying. Heck, every time I'm on a site, I often end up running as the middle ground for things, and I can tell you, it's exhausting. First, keeping yourself from getting your own thoughts and feelings involved, keeping that cool, is difficult. Managing to stay polite in the face of people being literally garbage is even harder. And what's even more difficult, and which would piss anyone off, is not being heard. If I say something to you, in a one on one convo, I expect you to listen, I expect you to use half a brain and try to think about it. Reactionary arguements are often the cause of so many rifts and an easy way to turn a member off.
In fact, that's caused me to close the Zelda site I was going to run. One of my friends was being an entire butt waffle about the WHOLE SYSTEM and at some point I just lost it. All of my hard work, the weeks of getting this system, writing it, putting it down, to have one of my friends just basically tell me I was useless at it? I closed it. Screw that guy I don't need him. We haven't been close friends since, because I personally, hold grudges if I feel my dignity, whatever of it I have, is trampled on. And he walked all over my little amount of pride and it's damaging. Since then, I was paranoid about a site, and then I made King's house.
Two weeks. Advertising everywhere. Not a single member. Not one. I closed it then because I figured, nobody liked the concept. Scrap that. In fact, it petrifies me to the point that I haven't pushed for the other sites I was starting to make, including a pandora hearts and an animanga harry potter. I just let them die, and I just quietly curled into my corner because I honestly think nobody will ever like my ideas. This is acerbated by the lack of replies on anything I make, the lack of plot replies, the lack of topics I'm getting, the lack of everything in the rp community. And it's demoralizing and it's to the point htat if I don't like what's going on, I can just leave. Who cares if I leave, I'm just a shitstain anyways.
And that dipped into personal but a lot of us have self-esteem issues, that's obvious. We can cover for it by acting like we don't, or by acting another way, but on some level, we all want to be valued, accepted, and treasured. And when we don't feel like we are, we just push away. Close the site, leave the site, abandon it, everything.
I feel like I ranted, but honestly, let's put it into really simple terms. If nobody wants you, you don't want to be there. Some people keep trying and then eventually, that keep trying just gets stomped out by the more that it happens. And then they don't try and flake. It happens. It's human. We can't... fix it, but we can try to understand it.
Some people will never want to fix it. Some people just don't care. But here's another question: the people that really care, often times dared to comment here. And that's good. It gives something. So it's about learning to not care about those that just don't want to stay, and just care for those that stay, as difficult as that sounds. And I know that's heard, I just have to look at my track record to figure that out.
But hey, the more we try, the more we understand and eventually we'll get it, right?
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Post by Saska on Dec 2, 2014 12:12:51 GMT -8
I think one major reason that people pointed out is that for some admins -- and I say this from personal experience -- life has to take over, and roleplay has to go on the backburner. I had a site once that I was enjoying running -- but at the same time, I was hammered with depression, work, and applying to university, all of which were taking a hit on me. I had absent threads up. I gave my staff members everything they needed in order to continue the site. But it also seemed like no matter what I did for the site, it wasn't good enough. I coded my first Jcink skin and opened a major plot event for them to keep life going, and a total of two people used it. One of those people happened to be staff. And, of course, after a while? My staffers tried to take my original idea to their own new site. So I lost my marbles on them. I was pissed. And I had to walk away from RP for a while. Now? I don't have that problem. I'm busy with school, my staff pick up the slack. I have one that advertises for me because I don't have the time or energy to dedicate to it. If there's apps sitting, the other staff will do them because they know I am busy, and that leaves me time to post for them. And we trade off -- the times that I'm not busy, I'll give the other staff a break. I'll ninja on those new apps within hours. I'll start posting ads on the resource sites to entice people. I think, however, as MASQUE pointed out -- the biggest issue with the staff team is keeping the staff's muse. This means if the members flake, the admin's likely to as well. There's only so much energy you can put into a site until you have to move on to something that will be energized. Drama's a key factor, too -- it's hard when someone puts holes in your work. That's why I've stopped with the whole fandom site craze, myself -- I've become increasingly tired of people arguing "well x and y was present in the series so why can't my character have x and y" and then I proceed to having an hour-long argument telling them no. That'll drive members away from a site. That's why I prefer running something original -- somebody can try and argue something with me, and I have the grounds to put my foot down and say no, no matter how perfect it is, because I made the lore and I know what's yay and nay. It sounds elitist, but unfortunately it's true -- it means nobody can sit there and argue with me for an hour about it. All in all, it saves more than a few headaches. I can agree on one hand that people do want to be accepted, as well. What MASQUE said about saying hi and getting buried? I've seen it happen. I've had it happen to me. But at the same time, people have to realize that in order to be accepted, they have to make an effort to try to be part of the community. I see people who in the middle of five others having a conversation post random unrelated stuff or try and forcefully change the subject because it's not what they want to talk about. One or two people might comment on what they say, but then they go back to their original conversation. I think there's a trend with some people that they forget that online conversations work exactly the same as real-life conversations would -- if you try and butt in with your own conversation when others are having one, you're probably going to get ignored, because it's seen as rude. That, or I'll have people say "nobody wants to plot with me!" when I never see them on the cbox, they don't have a plot thread up, they haven't PMed anybody, or they haven't posted in other peoples' plot threads. But as for having to move from one idea to another, because your ideas won't kick off or other reasons? TO some degree, I think that's perhaps a sign to take a step back and look at how you're staffing. How are you responding to members? Are you friendly, do you answer them even if it's three hours later on a dead cbox because you went shopping with your mom (or something)? Do you utilize a welcome PM system that members can reply to that doesn't go to some dusty joint staff account? Do you advertise just by posting ads, or is it also on resource sites? Do you list your sites in your signature, on your profile information, etc etc? Do you ask friends on instant messengers whom you think would be interested in the idea? And most of all, does your site have structure? The last one is a problem I find with a lot of original sites, in that they have too much lore and it's a pain to read through, or they have almost none and the site seems to lack structure. Does your ad perhaps tell nothing about your site? Contrary to popular belief, the "let's just have an image with links" really isn't all that effective. Have some sort of small description or something to indicate what your site is about, a line or two of description, something to entice them to come. And for the love of all that is holy, try to stay away from the 'trends'. I don't know how many times I've come across beautiful sites that I want to join-- ....except for the fact that their fonts are 8px Arial and look like nothing but dots on my screen... aaaand then their overload of GIFs on the main page or when I tried to look at their canon list made my browser freeze and crash. Or then I see a skin that's the same typography style at GS' new skin but it's all aligned to one side and the forum itself takes up less than half of my screen, and I can't tell what's what on it because everything's the same damn colour. Or they think including a plethora of cusses and being totally vulgar for every category.... Yeah, you get the idea. Stay away from the really bad trends, and try to identify the good ones.
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the greatest general under the heavens
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Post by Egao, Egao Everywhere on Dec 3, 2014 5:30:22 GMT -8
Haha! There are certain admins whose sites I will not join because of this. It's too bad you just have to learn the hard way at the first try. I'm talking about not one or two admins. I know several who you just see again after one dead site and you're like, "Do these people even realize how silly they look." I still strongly belief it's a strong staff team that makes a site. Not one person, but a team. Inciting members, advertising, keeping things going IC. As long as you have one core group - the staff - leading by an example and advertising (advertise, advertise. It doesn't work so well with sites that aren't new though), the site has a high chance of running. I know this because I've seen a strong staff team (Katya, Sifr, and someone else) and I've been in a poor staff team (Me, Katya, and Jin.) There was also this Pokemon site called Let Fire Loose who had a member base running until the staff vanished. Same with its sequel/sister-side, Terror Among Us, which, funnily, was running REALLY active WITHOUT the staff and we members were just laughing in the cbox. It died when the staff got back xD - no offense to them ofc but you know, it's what happened. I don't really know what went wrong with that but it did that. PS. I didn't read the entire topic. I just wanted to share my story/experience about this. I'm not trying to attack anyone. Just honest talk about the rp trend.
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Post by katya on Dec 3, 2014 6:55:55 GMT -8
I think, however, as MASQUE pointed out -- the biggest issue with the staff team is keeping the staff's muse. This means if the members flake, the admin's likely to as well. There's only so much energy you can put into a site until you have to move on to something that will be energized. Wanted to add onto this. Making a site is easy. It honestly is. The biggest hurdle is the skin, and sometimes skinning's pretty fun too. See the SITES YOU WANT TO SEE thread? Ideas are easy. And fun. Keeping a site alive is hard. It's a slog. It's constant customer service work with no pay for a product you provide for free--so why the fuck do people complain so damn much? That's what it feels like most of the time, and I can tell you that at a good site, admining should never feel like that. There is so much satisfaction that comes out of running a good site. The site with its characters and setting and members becomes a place, and it's a damn nice place. It's some sort of bizarre eUtopia of story-telling where everyone parttakes in the awesome and parttaking in the awesome creates even more awesome. It is immensely fulfilling. It's why I haven't retired to only private rps. There's an energy to a big rp group that is 100% without peer. When members are inactive, or even if they lack initiative, or (like I said earlier in this thread) they bring these shit ass Mary Sues to the party, it becomes harder and harder to run a site because the site stops providing fuel for the admin. It becomes give, give, give, and after all that giving, there's only events no one cares about, dull threads that move at the speed of molasses, members that refuse to talk to each other, members without initiative that complain about no plots, or whatever host of problems that sites tend to have. To be clear, I'm not blaming people that these problems exist. Sites will have problems. Staff should try to fix those problems--but with falling activity, why bother? I was telling Sifr this about a week or two ago. Running a site takes a lot of time and effort, but it's not like I can't find that time and effort if I really wanted to. The thing is, I need a reason to run a site. For me, that reason has always been because it's just goddamned fun to be part of a good site. It's worth it. In fact, it's a net bonus. Instead of draining you dry, the creative energy is a godsend through hard times. I guess what I'm trying to say is that a site (and it's continued activity) is a group effort, where the staffers have a different or at least an additional role. That additional role is a joy and an honor if the site is good. It becomes customer service hell if the site isn't. Obviously, staff should do their best to enable the site, but it's also up to the members to not turn your entire staff team into grumpy custserv employees. I know this because I've seen a strong staff team (Katya, Sifr, and someone else) and I've been in a poor staff team (Me, Katya, and Jin.) ...I thought we had an unspoken agreement to NEVER EVER TALK about the sad staff trio that was me, you, and Jin. If we didn't, WE HAVE A SPOKEN AGREEMENT NOW, Y/Y?
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the greatest general under the heavens
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Post by Egao, Egao Everywhere on Dec 3, 2014 7:57:59 GMT -8
I know this because I've seen a strong staff team (Katya, Sifr, and someone else) and I've been in a poor staff team (Me, Katya, and Jin.) ...I thought we had an unspoken agreement to NEVER EVER TALK about the sad staff trio that was me, you, and Jin. If we didn't, WE HAVE A SPOKEN AGREEMENT NOW, Y/Y? It's a warning to the people, to the good and the evil.
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MOTHER OF THE MAGICAL GIRLS
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Post by SIFR on Dec 3, 2014 8:04:43 GMT -8
...I thought we had an unspoken agreement to NEVER EVER TALK about the sad staff trio that was me, you, and Jin. If we didn't, WE HAVE A SPOKEN AGREEMENT NOW, Y/Y? It's a warning to the people, to the good and the evil. Eh, it wasn't so bad. The site ran itself.
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the greatest general under the heavens
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Post by Egao, Egao Everywhere on Dec 3, 2014 8:57:09 GMT -8
It's a warning to the people, to the good and the evil. Eh, it wasn't so bad. The site ran itself. and then we destroyed it if me, jin, and kat did a team relay, somehow a fissure would crack under the country and we'll be responsible for it
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