[Elena]

I have witnessed, in 5 years and a half of roleplaying, sites rather active, with 10-20-30 members and 50-100 characters, which functioned well... up to a moment when everybody stopped. Just out of the blue. And most often the site died.

Do you have any idea why it happens?

It wasn't happening only to the sites created by a certain administrator; I had seen several in this situation, in 5 years and a half. It always puzzled me, because it had a continuous activity, albeit not "very active" (not rapid fire sites), then... suddenly silence. And no, it isn't about the administrator making another site (I know that scenario too, but it is not my subject of discussion.) I could never understand why...

[Egao, Egao Everywhere]

People post absences + the staff stopping from advertising. It's easy to notice when the momentum slows down AND the topic of the cbox hardly relates to the site or is only about the same small group of people.

It's quite easy to tell. The staff get too complacent most of the time.

And I guess when the first wave doesn't reap any harvest.

[Kuroya]

I am going to add an important note to this that is a huge factor in things, whether people want to admit it or not.

Real. Life.

As SIFR has previously stated, most roleplayers are still tangled up in the educational system in one way or another. So if huge projects (midterms, finals, etc) come up, people have to take a break. And since the educational system is somewhat standardized, this seems to happen around in October/November/December and April/May/June. These are natural "slow" periods for sites. Now factor in the working world, which most roleplayers are also caught up in. Big holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving tend to knock a lot of folks out. Not to mention that sometimes the idea of coming back for winter holidays is nice but it may not happen - holidays are usually considered family time, and that can very much interfere with getting together for roleplay purposes.

Summer is a big boom time for roleplay, and most sites period tend to go belly up around October or November for the reason of school and work, though a lot of those sites are those that were founded in those summer months. People think they have more time than they end up having.

I also think that the community itself plays a role in it. If a community has most of the more relaxed players busy with real life, and what's left are those who are really gung-ho and less understanding of issues, well... in my experience that tends to push the people left away. Which makes the site "worse" on the living situation. And if the staff team is just not around entirely, dumping it all onto a couple people, or otherwise loses patience with the members (I always say don't forget that they're real people too), well... that can lead to the members leaving or the staff closing the site when it's still savable.

Really a lot of the whole "slow time" idea involves just having a bit of patience. If the staff is more laid back about slow times, it'll live. If you're not willing to wait out life, well... we have an "RP Epidemic" discussion thread for that, now don't we?

Edit: I got time and after some thinking, I'm going to sit here and add another few important parts from my phone.

Such as friends and member dynamics.

If a site is good, members will bring their friends. This can be both good and bad in my experience. If it's a solid group, you're golden, but then you also risk them all getting busy at once. You risk cliques shutting out potential new members, which is also important for a site. And if they're not good, well... you run into the problem of a large activity boost followed by a crash when the group up and abandons the site for something new. At which point it's very hard for the staff to do much to recover since the site is old and has this large member base that actually isn't there.

There's also the dynamic of the staff to consider.

Let's say there's a site for, idk, rping rpers. And this site has five staff members who are all active and get things done and the site is very active and shows the potential for growth. Now assume one of that staff drops off the face of the earth period and is rarely on. Two of them otherwise disappear for real life issues and fully intend to come back. One of them just doesn't work. If the one that's left gets tired of pulling all the weight, game over. If the one that's left is extremely picky of apps and judgmental of people who are different than them, game over. If the site is taken in other directions that aren't good for it just to suit the whims or ego of the remaining staff member, game over.

Really, advertising is good, but in truth, there's only so much it can do at the end of the day. It's nice to say that the staff are solely responsible for losing interest and/or backing off on ads or that the ads aren't bringing people in any more and that's why the site died.

But that completely ignores the fact that a site is made up of old members as well as new. I've seen sites that survive based on a handful of crap old members and large influxes of new every now and again. And yeah if that's the sort of site you want to run, fine, do that. But if you're going to say that's how a site should be run, then why bother pushing for long-term plots anyway when you're basing the whole site around just new members and not on all members, new and old? Pick your standard for decent roleplay because I'm sorry but I am not buying this system.

I'm sorry if I come off as rather harsh, but I am so sick of people blaming one side over another that the more I think about it the more it annoys me that as a whole, we push for this culture that's supposed to make new sites all the time while remaining active in everything and keeping up with life. There's a reason that things such as the "RP Epidemic" happen in the first place. And if you're going to ignore the problem, it's only going to get worse.

Period.

End of story.

[/endrant]

[katya]

When it happens out of the blue, I think it's most likely RL getting in the way. At a small or medium sized site (less than 20 players?), just having a few members on hiatus or posting slower--especially ones with plot integral characters--dramatically slows down a site. Worse yet is when you actually lose a member with plot-centric characters and things actually come to a halt. Sometimes it's easy to find replacements, but I've mostly seen it as a death sentence. As soon as people start checking in just to see if they owe posts rather than to hang out in cbox, the site's days are usually pretty numbered. To a lot of people, a quiet cbox is THE sign of a dying site. It's hard to get new members with a quiet cbox, and it's ironically the time when sites usually need new members most.

When it's really extremely out of the blue, I'd guess it's because the site picked up a problematic member that no one wanted to deal with. Not so problematic that the staff could boot them, but awkward or annoying enough that people evacuate cbox. That either leads to a healthy bunch of chat groups on skype or gchat or whatever, or an unhealthy version of the same. And the same problem as above.

When it happens early, I'd say flaking is the problem--although "flaking" is probably a bit harsh. There are always flakers, but I think a lot of people tend to leave sites early on because they're lacking interesting plots and threads. Most people join a site because the site plot or fandom draws them in, but a site's early threads tend to be generic opens, and good plots often take a while to start rolling (or to show up at all). I know a lot of people don't mind the generic threads or even enjoy them, but I think if a member's at a site for a couple weeks, and there's no sign of the site plot coming to fruition, there's no real reason to stay. I think that's why a lot of young sites die well before their time.

Also, drama.

There's always drama.

[Egao, Egao Everywhere]

Dec 8, 2014 7:06:38 GMT -8 Kuroya said:

<KATYAEDIT: snip Kuroya's post bc jesus tanz you're just gonna quote ALL of it?>
[/endrant]

This is indeed a rant. Why do you think you're coming off as harsh? We're not here to attack anyone in particular

Since I know the context of what you're talking about, I should clarify that my comment was not on KoC alone. I was thinking of all the sites I've been, actually.

I know I might not be staff anymore but if I remember right, we don't want rants in GS anymore. My problem with this, really, is the who the "you" is. There's clearly someone or a group of people who you are implying. I'm sure me, katya, an sifr and the others don't mind discussing things in private if you want problems to actually have a resolution rather than tossing vague, hypothetical things in public.

[SIFR]

Kuroya, Egao, Egao Everywhere, break it up. Kuro, that was horribly passive-aggressive, and not something I would expect from you, that's too direct of a reference to be assumed as anything other than a reference to a real-life situation. If it wasn't, I apologize, but again, as Tanz stated, we try to prevent rants at Gangnam Style, especially when they could potentially have direct reference to another person or situation. Don't ruin Elena's thread with fighting. Tanz, thank you, but I don't want any fighting in this thread.

One more smack like that and it's getting closed and archived.

[Egao, Egao Everywhere]

katya 2 lazy to format anything these days


And sorry, Sifr, Elena, and Kuro. I do want this thread to continue because I think it's an informative discussion and useful information for staff in maintaining their site. I had no intention to have a fight/brawl. Just didn't want this thread to be swung to a personal matter.

Anyway, to get this back on track:

As soon as people start checking in just to see if they owe posts rather than to hang out in cbox, the site's days are usually pretty numbered.

Quoting this to present a few cases from my personal exp:

For the past 2 years, I've joined sites with a different behaviour. A lot of people probably knew me as the hyperactive Filipina who had too much time. Back then, I felt like it was my duty to respond in the cbox so I talked like hell. Sites where I was like this: Systematic Breakdown, Predormitum, Catharsis.

Then there were my side sites, sites where I just care about the posts I owe. Examples: Terror Among Us + various tumblr groups.

Then there were sites where I hated the cbox and the general community but loved my threads. Example: that's a secret

Then there were sites where I did whatever I felt like, like a true Chaotic Neutral person. Example: Knights of Cydonia and Fate/Alter.

And I think these sort of types exist among others. You're basically doomed if you don't have Type A, the hyperactive type hanging around the general community. Okay, even if they're not hyperactive but consistently interacting is what I mean.

People's interests vary but that's why to me, again, it's important to have a solid staff. Not because the entire site depends on them (it shouldn't have to be pointed out that the community is very important too) but because they're realistically the group you'd rely on to lead and influence others. Example? Knights of Cydonia and, to some extent, Terror Among Us before it suddenly died. From being apathetic I became very engaged.

Now the problem might be then keeping people engaged. The solution? Well...you have to try your best at the first part. It's something that grows. If you weren't able to keep people engaged and the link connecting everyone just dissolves, it would be very difficult to get it back up. And if you do that, you would need to keep pushing and not get complacent. That's why if you want your site to live in the long run, do your VERY best at the FIRST FOUR MONTHS. Try not to slow down the pace. Because you're building a member base here. Once you're past that, it WILL get easier. Members will keep each other engaged and all you would have to do is to moderate them.

Before you know it, 6-month anniversary will come and everyone would be like, "WOW REALLY WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING WITH MY LFE."

[DARKEE]

lbr sudden inactivity happens when a meteor comes and crashes into the earth and knocks it out of orbit and everyone dies because they're too close to or too far from the sun, depending on where the meteor shoved it to

but let's be serious here. i also find that sometimes, in sites with some sort of system in place - that being pokemon and their moves, or your character's fighting abilities, anything really - and it's not clearly explained, and so people get bored of asking or, sometimes feel too awkward about asking. sometimes, they feel like they're being dumb/stupid and don't want to ask because they feel they'll be annoying. the last point is personal experience.

if the, lets say, fighting system is not explained very well and people keep asking in the cbox, but no effort is made to rewrite the fighting system explanation so that it's easier to understand, people are going to get frustrated because people forget the answers they get. it happens to me. it happens to other people. partly this is the staff's fault for not realising that the fight system is hard to understand, and failing to edit the post it's located in so it's understandable. but i'm not talking about that. i find that members will eventually get tired of asking questions or even get tired of using the system in place and just kind of disappear.

this is... really bad but i hope i managed to get my point across. if i don't, feel free to tag me and ask me to elaborate and try to use an example that doesn't give away any sites that have happened. but yeah, the tl;dr is lack of coherent info and people getting tired of it not being revised/rewritten and disappearing

[Jacob]

Since you are acquainted with me on two other role-playing resource communities, Elena, I feel it worthwhile to relay my own perspective.  The ani-manga community is dominantly comprised of adolescents and early adults.  Such has and will always be so.  Elder people like pascaline, SIFR, you, and me are incidental occurrences; however, I know you are assaying to attract new members.

I hail from a historically minded family.  My paternal grandparents beguiled me into the genealogical field; my maternal ones, exposure to classic films and television shows Mother and our maternal aunt did and still adore.  Grandfather Carpenter proved his direct bloodline from a Revolutionary War patriot which earned him, Father, and me into the Sons of the American Revolution.  I firmly documented two on Mother's side alone at the age of nineteen; there were several more to do after I solved an 83-year-old family mystery in 2011.

Regardless, when a teenager, I found role-playing a comforting escape from school and those who relentlessly heckled my twin sister and I for being starkly introverted.  (I know not, our elder brother's experiences.)  The video games the latter refused to let me play faded as my writing skills developed and my creativity broadened.  At age 16 in 2005, however, I fell ill.

My physical symptoms took their toll circa 2008.  A boy once active on many sites with multiple characters in his lot could no longer keep up; he ended his first year of university "by the skin of his teeth."  Online friends were among my sole supporters, yet even they struggled with the lifestyle changes that come with leaving childhood.  I did contemplate leaving this pastime permanently in late 2009, yet reviewing a beloved film sparked my inspiration once more.

Toilsome as it was, I released possession of most characters and left most venues to lighten pressures.  That one original character of mine, Elena, you are aware has had a grossly turbulent out-of-character past.  I could give associated reasons as to why locales rose and fell, yet I would be ranting.  Such is against Gangnam Style's guidelines, and I should hold myself above petty feuds at the start.

Men and women are completing high school, entering colleges of varying levels, marrying and/or starting families, and all else.  I will admit I am frightened of the role-playing world's current state.  There is scarcely anything we can do except try adapting and trek forward.  Digressing, purely historical situations allegedly daunt many interested writers because of how straitening some' expectations are.

I know but one which is set in the seventeenth century myself, the very period I have focused my vocal efforts as a sopranist.  Its (the orientation's) demands don't allot for face claims; rather, only historically accurate film screenshots and portraits of historical figures may be used.  Members can further play what true royals, aristocrats, and citizens were notably about if memory serves me correctly.  I find that atmosphere too dull, no matter the game's success.

[pascaline]

Jacob, who the hell are you calling an elder? >/


In all seriousness though, this is just something that happens in the world of role playing. For the most part that member base will know that the site is closing prior to its closing through skype or other messenger with the admin, because the admin lost interest in the site's concept or feel. Sometimes the admin will open another site, and since a lot of people on the former site knew each other they will move to the new site in order to play. It's not just that the site closed, it's more like the member base moved with the admin or staff team.

There are also rare cases where the admin and/or staff team have angered the general member base, and so the majority of the member base boycotts the site. I have seen this happen twice.

Then there's the domino effect: if a certain member isn't posting, they will most likely be tying up two members from posting. Those two members aren't posting, so another two may not feel very inspired to post as well. And then all of a sudden no one is posting. I have seen this happen too. The staff of a site as a whole has to be incredibly active and be willing to role play with everyone and anyone on the site in order to help activity along.

[Jacob]

pascaline:  My particular composition style is rather formal, so I tend to use "elder" as opposed to "older."  By it, I meant those beyond adolescence and early adulthood; I'll be age twenty-six-years next March.  Still, I do apologize if I offended you or anyone else!

[pascaline]

Dec 8, 2014 18:23:43 GMT -8 Jacob said:

pascaline:  My particular composition style is rather formal, so I tend to use "elder" as opposed to "older."  By it, I meant those beyond adolescence and early adulthood; I'll be age twenty-six-years next March.  Still, I do apologize if I offended you or anyone else!

...Oh my gosh you took me seriously.

People actually take me seriously?

I was kidding around with you :'D I've been role playing for fifteen years so, you could consider me an elder in the RPG community since I practically grew up on it and with it. No offense was taken, I was just trying to tease you.

[Elena]

Kuroya, katya, Egao, Egao Everywhere, you all have good points. When I thought better, there was always a mix of 2 or 3 reasons - real life as in several people happening to be busy at the same time and others giving up because some were busy and they had less posts to answer to (instead of writing more between themselves, those less busy) and having too little patience and attention span to wait for the recovery times being the main cause. But you enlightened me about others too, which might have had a contribution in some cases. Thank you!

pascaline, you are extremely right with the domino effect too. I know you since RPG-Conference, I think it was called, in 2009 when I discovered RPGs. You had there wonderful resources from which I learnt a lot.

Jacob, I am not sure if RPGs are dying; there might be less young people interested in writing, indeed; but the older writers... they say one is a writer until death. So I think they might keep the torch and, some of them, teach their children...

[redox-kun]

lmao and here we have an old people circlejerk (sans maybe darkee. is darkee young)

[MASQUE]

idk why people were saying Kuroya was ranting, when the /end rant is legit a method of saying someone is done rambling these days or they posted a huge wall of text important to them. but not to screw the can of worms so I'll just. And I know what you guys were on edge for, and well it's not what you guys thought she's talking about. /should know is on the end of the actual rants tyvm

Ah inactivity. the same disclaimer then in my rp epidemic is here. basically this is all about me, shove off if you get offended b/c it's not even you plz.


As a NEET, not necessarily by my own choice mind you, I have literally all of the time in the world to rp. and it shows because I can take on massive amount of characters, and not lose a beat. the problem, I find, with my activity, comes from interest, muse and drama levels.

I've always done much better muse wise on sites that made me feel like I earned my character. Like for example @cheri's sites always either had a good post needed or a 'you need to buy this slot' thing. The activity is good so that I can get them timely (unless the domino of non-posting happens) and that I feel like I've earned each slot. I was very active on TEG and I'm decently active on DDO I think.

My problem comes from the cocktail bomb that is, what I call, the triforce of inactivity. Real life, muse and drama.

Real Life: It takes a toll. school, jobs. But PF, you don't have either of those! Well anyone that knows me at any length of time, knows that food is expensive, and that despite pouring all of my remaining funds into it, I can barely afford enough food to eat healthily each month. A normal week grocery is like, 100$ and more. I only have, at most, around 200 to play with. And that 200? Food, clothes, my entertainment (buying new games, computer, etc.) other needs such as shampoo, laundry soap, dish soap, toilet paper - need I go on? Luckily for me, hydro and internet are cumulative with rent. But notice how much I listed? And 90% of the time, I have to spend more money on food to have some semblance of a normal diet, and the rest on what is the cheapest or easiest accessible. Because I live out in the boonies, don't have a car (thank the heavens I'd die okay) and have to take the city bus which is now at 2.90 in cash fare. There and back. That's over 5$ of my money for each trip I would take.

So you see that stress right there? And that's not even counting friendship drama, or even family drama or housemate drama, verra forbid that my housemates can be /understanding/ but that's ranty so no. But needless to say, that's just me, without school or a job. Now imagine the rpers that have to think about some of the issues I do, along with school or work. Rping is fun, but sometimes it becomes a chore because people expect and expect, rather then try to be understanding. It's why I take my stance of 'I don't expect you to rapid fire, post when you can, and have fun' kind of attitude.

this leads into my second triforce.

Muse: Is our favourite thing to blame for lack of activity. And to be fair, it's true. Muse is, in so far as I can tell, the creative juices, energy, motivation, will and all of those fun things to keep ourselves writing. It's a dangerous mix that can go from a bright sparking explosion when it hits, fizzling out when it's burnt out, to a slow burning furnace, growing more and more intense as it goes on. Muse is different for each person, so factoring this is hard because each person is different. But let's go back to me personally. My muse hits hard, and fast, and sticks around, so long as it's promoted to grow.

The second that I feel my muse is blocked or taken down, bam, they're gone. It ties into my entire personality of course, since I never did well under intense regulations. I never did well with inflexibility either so I often end up losing it the second that it ends up restrained. Let's just say my muse took an arrow to the knee. But to some people, losing muse is catastrophically catatonic. Like they lose their muse and it's game over. Regaining it is impossible.

But as muse is a highly difficult factor to count in, it's like the Link to Zelda. So intricately tied to the last triforce, Drama.

Drama: This could be talked about for days. The bottom line is that, Drama destroys muse. Pure and simple.

Feel targetted by a staff member? You struggle against adversity, but then the bullying becomes too much and kills your muse. The constant abuse, rebukes and jealous fits done against your person causes you to just give up. I've seen this happen to a few friends of mine.

That one member, that's constantly pestering you. Eventually, their innocent pestering goes from happy go lucky to intense, abusive tirades about how you're this and that, and they try to turn the entire situation back at you. They try to guilt you, they try to bully you in a more subtle manner, and unfortunately, you're already caught up in it because you were nice to them. That slowly drains you of whatever muse for that character, and they, knowing that, try to latch on to your others. You refuse them, and then they turn the community against you, crying wolf because you won't let them parasite you. Been there, done that.


Or even worse, when an entire site turns around and outsets you because of word of mouth, over a dissatisfied experience? (ps: this is actually my fear currently so it's really personal) You play the accepting line, you try your best to bend to someone's wishes, despite the fact that it's not even positive, and at some point, they try to foist the whole blame on you. When all you wanted was to try and explain your situation, why you made the choices. Present real, actual evidence, and they still call you a liar. No matter how much you try to explain, present proof, they'll just use generalizations at you, throw you labels and then make you slam your face in the ground to try and be accepted. That sort of drama kills your muse faster then you can say 'Assassin.'

But those are generally active dramas. That doesn't even cover teh whole, you join a site, but nobody posts in your plotter (why are we so reliant on those?) or your threads. Or even talks to you in the c-box: you say hello and everyone just ignores you like you were never there.


This all touches back on something I mentioned before. The need, and want, to be accepted. RPers seek this like a drug, and it is a drug. We take a hit, it feels good, but them drama happens and turns it into a bad trip. We try again, and again. Of course, there are large variations as to how we find ourselves addicted, but it all ends up somewhat the same. Bad experiences are bad trips, and then the negative overwrites the bad, since to survive, we need to note what is bad to avoid it. Natural instinct.


So inactivity might come in suddenly, might come in slow. But it's generally a combination of those three elements that end up clinching the deal. Either it starts with one, and then that wound bleeds and fester, and then another hits, and then the last one comes in like a wrecking ball.

I personally, am the type to try everything. I've come to realize that if I'm unhappy, I'm not meant to suppress those feelings. Sure it frustrates people, but I join, all excited, and then some of the triforce starts to take effect. And then domino.

This can be applied to both members and staff. For example, my Horror based site. I was excited. I built everything in one night, because it was supposed to be flexible, do it yourself within the setting. I built an entire town, with every typical location for horror, leaving little plot ideas everywhere. I advertised, I started building my character, I tried to get my friends to join.

Two weeks later, I shut down the site.

Everyone ignored me, nobody wanted to join, I was over-working myself. My muse was dying because of the 'drama' component, where nobody wanted to acknowledge my hard work and come play with me. I hung on desperately, I wanted it so much. But then, my muse died. I never finished my character. Nobody wanted to join a dead looking site. I had not one member to change that. No follow staff, nothing.

and as my muse died, finally, the third component came in. My paypal took funds from my bank, and then I had a deficit of -50$ rather then the -5, because of 'extra charges' for a deficit in the first place. I ate very little that month, since I still had my phone back then, and only had about 120$ then to play with. with the -50+ and my phone being 50....

I paid only a portion on my phone that month, because I needed food.


And that's how I ended up closing the site.



Well I've written quite a lot and now I'm too scared to jokingly but /endrant buut yolo.

/end fallacy rambles