Search the Community

I know as a community we love things that are open and free, but stick with me here. Would you pay for a thorough, in-depth review of your site? I don't mean a few paragraphs on what looks good, what doesn't---I mean a fully developed report covering a wide variety of sections, including screenshots and actionable items that could improve the user experience, marketability, and function of your community. Three things I'd really like to focus on are: Advertising strategy (Suggestions on how/where to best market the site, the target audience, etc) Documentation analysis (up to 4 informational topics looked at in-depth, looking for tone/clarity/usefulness -- extra items by request) Action points (a summary of improvements that could be made, in a nice little list) Other sections might include: Navigation systems (and ease of use) Design features (colour, structure, images) Site performance (loading times, page size, etc) Cross-platform experience (mobile, tablet, different browsers) Community impressions (what the overall interactivity level appears to be, the general vibe as picked up from OOC areas) It's very much designed to give admins a solid base of advice, and perspective on their community -- plus some ways to move forward and continue building what they've got. I also want to help people really consolidate their vision of what their site is, and what it should be... most importantly, how to get there! And as usual, there will be space to look into any specific concerns/questions the admin has. Because it's such a detailed report, and I would intend to spend around 2-3 hours on each one, I don't feel it's something I can offer for nothing. I'm considering the following pricing structure: Full report as-is: $35 AUD (roughly $23 USD today) Additional documentation for analysis: $5 AUD for 2 (about $4 USD) In terms of time and effort, it's a ridiculously low price---but I understand that the RP community isn't exactly cashed up either. I want a price that is accessible, but also reflects the work that will go into the reports. Prices are in AUD as I need to know exactly what the income is on my end, to work out fun things like tax etc. The price does include 10% GST, so no additional sales taxes will be added on. Is this a fair price? Is this something you would pay for (if you had the money to do so)? Are there other sections that you think could/should be included?

Recently, I came across a jcink site that basically ripped off all of my board concepts, some of them still keeping the names I named them, basically referenced our rules and board information (in the same order, but isn't copied word for word), and adjusted it to fit their site. Is there anything that can be done to report such a thing? I understand if it were copied word-for-word it'd be directly plagiarism, but since it's copying ideas and our basic structure of our information, can anything be done about that? Thanks! Anonymous poster hash: 0f5a7...0e1

My interest in my own site is drying up and I don't know what to do. Members are still very actively creating characters and plotting/posting but I am not excited about anything that is going on anymore. It takes me ages just to get to one reply. The guilt chews at me. I go between wanting to close the site and breaking from staffing positions for a while (take a break) to thinking "well, it's not harming me to let the members have fun." I could get my muse back and regret closing it, too, so I hesitate to jump to closing it. Does anybody else have any tips for how to get past this? Anonymous poster hash: f2d9e...c8b

I'm starting to notice a trend that I really like. Back when I first got going as an admin, the forum software you chose was... very important. Members who liked Proboards would not join an Invisionfree board, and vice versa. There was (and can still be found) a strong reluctance to "learn" new software. Even though, as a member, basic forum functions are essentially the same---no matter what software you use. Register an account, create new topics, create replies... all that really changes is where a few things are placed, I never really understood the aversion people had to new/less common software types. Boards that were on phpBB or SMF were a hard sell, and the same with my beloved IPS. Now as I'm doing ad rounds, I'm finding a lot more self-hosted sites, and those on softwares other than Jcink and PB. I'm finding SMF sites that are incredibly successful, myBB is taking off, and even admins migrating over to IPS for the epic features (I have a whole guide dedicated to that alone). Do you guys find that self-hosting is becoming less feared, and more welcomed? Those of you who do self host, what steps have you had to take to ensure members feel comfortable coming onto your "foreign" software?

I’m going anon here because I’m in need of some help! Ive been running a moderately busy site for around three months. I’m so excited with activity levels and quality of members. There’s four staff, only that many because myself and two friends did all the work setting it up, and another friend helped me write the plots. This is where the issues start. First, the moderator- let’s call her Amy- who helped me with plots does not do anything. Not claims like I asked, not event planning, and she doesn’t even post more than the bare minimum with major canon characters she’s created. A new person, let’s call her Tina, joined. Tina was active and brought a ton of friends. I was so excited! That’s how sites get popular and stay active, when groups of people come together! Somehow, while I was at work, Amy added Tina to the staff chat. For the sole purpose of talking shit about another member. I asked how this happened, nobody answered me. The next day, Tina was given admin powers. Everybody claims I was okay with this, and when I asked who made her an admin, nobody will answer me. Accessing admin logs, I know Amy did this. I decided that since everyone likes Tina, I’d roll with it. She’s super active and has some good ideas for plots. However, she’s still done nothing aside from plotting. I now have Amy, who does nothing, and Tina, who only plots and does nothing else. Recently, Tina has started trying to push members out of the site to give popular characters to her friends. I’ve firmly told her to stop, she asks me once a week. Tina and Amy have done nothing but talk plots in the main chat, ignoring all guest questions, and never ever post. They’re about to lose characters in an activity check. Tina has now started messaging my other two admins, who built the site with me, saying she’s worried I hate her. Every conversation we have, Tina snaps at me. She claims RP is a hobby, and that me writing long posts is a waste of time and holding plots back. She’s called me stupid in the chat for reading books after I said reading is what makes me a writer. I was willing to work with the situation rather than cause an issue. Now it feels as if she’s pushing me off of my own site, since my other two admins are telling me to “please talk to her” when I ask their advice on how to handle this as a team. I’m done. I won’t be pushed off a site I have put four months of work into. I created custom everything for this site, it’s definitely my baby. I’m tired of hearing “I’m not trying to be a jerk I’m just saying” from Tina every time I make a call as admin. I want to handle this calmly and rationally, as an adult, and cause the least amount of issues on the site. I do not want this to cause the site to die. I need advice and suggestions! I know I should have done things differently, but this is where I’m at now. Any advice is so appreciated. Anonymous poster hash: 1b190...de8

We've all got rules for our rp - no godmodding, post requirements and character limits (or lack thereof), activity rules, etc. But, aside from the general "be nice to each other, treat others how you want to be treated" stuff, do you have any code of conduct rules for ooc chat and the community at large? Do you have any rules to foster a good environment for your players to hang out in while they're not writing replies? These could be Discord rules, c-box rules, or just some general chat rules. Do you even need them? If you don't, why not? Is there a point where you would consider making some?

Every now and then, I will come across normal small-to-moderate sized RP sites (not counting resources) that have 4, 5, 6, even 7-9+ staff members whether it's a just-starting-out forum or a seasoned forum. From my experience, having a lot of staff like that isn't actually beneficial. So far, I'm finding having only two staff members (myself and my mod) a lot easier to work with, and faster in every way. Perhaps this is just the teams I've worked with, I can't say? If my site gets much bigger, I might consider taking on a third but I don't think having much more would be all that necessary? So, my question is: why do you have a lot of staff members? What inspired you to have 5-9 staff? Do you find it beneficial in any way? What are the cons to having a lot of staff?

Not sure how to-uh-explain this without... going into specifics? I will try to make parallels as best as I can so I'm saying real specifics. We have... a couple members who are threading together and... are disregarding 99% of the site lore in threads, but have looked enough to know the locations in our site. So, hm... Let's say we're a mafia RPG. A certain area has a lot of attractions that were once pedestrian but are now headquarters of the mafia. Let's say there's a mall that had been abandoned and taken over by the mafia. As a result, unaffiliated persons would... not be welcomed according to lore. What these players are doing is... writing about their characters going to the mall, having a good time, it's just a happy hunkydory... outing, with elements that shouldn't be there because of the nature of the setting. So, like, they're going to different "functioning" stores, basically... I'm not really sure how to approach this. I'm almost inclined to leave them be because they're not threading or talking to one else, and it would feel awful for one's threads to basically... not count? On the other hand, there's also the fact that guests can see and read these inaccurate threads and get the wrong idea. How... should I approach this, especially when they're mid-thread? "*NOT saying specifics." My RPG isn't like this it's just the best parallel I could come up with Anonymous poster hash: 2ff39...d61

My site has been open around two months now. We're small, but our core member base has been amazing and active. We're a marvel based site, set right before Infinity War, and recently I've had a horrible time with members. Since the hype for Infinity War started right before its release, I've had an influx of people coming through my site, which normally would be great, except all of these people are causing problems. In the past two weeks I have had to ban two members for copy pasting applications straight from wikipedia, another member for being belligerent in the discord, and another member who joined, demanded that I share skin codes with them - demanded that I link them to everything on the site - and then posted an application that was again copy pasted from wikipedia. They promptly cussed me out when the application was denied. I have been running sites for years and years now, seriously for the past four years, and have done mod work before that. I have NEVER had so many issues with this, with members who have no regard for how a role play works, refuse to even read the rules, and seem to be just around to stir the pot! I have changed our site rules to make sure that things are clearly spelled out, but this still seems to happen once a week! Has anybody else experienced this lately? Is it just new fans coming into the marvel genre with infinity war hype? Are trolls out to get us? How do you handle belligerent potential members?

We have a member on our site that just... clogs the general chat room with stories of themselves all the time. And you can't escape this person. You go into the plotting channel to plot with another member, they pop in there, suggesting things, immersing themselves into a conversation that has nothing to do with them; someone asks a question in the help channel? They're in there, sometimes genuinely helping/answering questions, but other times, not contributing anything helpful (we've asked them two times now to not chat there if they're not going to answer questions); You come on the general chat after a long day from work just to talk with your friends? They'll be there. And they'll tell you a long-winded story about what they're doing at that specific moment or what they accomplished that day. Anything you say, they'll change the conversation to be about themselves. It's possible to talk around them (by ignoring whatever they say, and just continuing the convo between the lines), but it's annoying. And as a staff, we want to encourage others to chat in our general chat channel, not be deterred by someone who's constantly gotta have the conversation revolving around themselves. And we want them to be involved in the chat, too, but the way they do it is just... killing everyone else's willingness to hang out there with us. We want them to contribute to the chat, but we want them to acknowledge what's happening to other people or other's stories. Sometimes people just need to vent, and that's fine. Acknowledge them, don't ignore what they're saying only to contribute something that turns the conversation to be all about yourself. The only break we get from this person is when they're asleep, it seems. Otherwise, they are always around, hanging out in the chat. The other staff and I are not really sure how to handle this situation. We don't know if a warning is the proper thing to do, but if it is, what should we say to this person without sounding like petty jerks? What points should we avoid, but which should we drive home? What should this member's punishment be, if there should be a punishment at all? No one talks in our General Chat Channel anymore except for us and them and a few other members that can deal with talking around this person, and we want to change that asap. As always, thank you RPG Initiative community. You guys are always so helpful ❤️ Anonymous poster hash: 9628e...c8c

So, there are: Discord, cbox.ws, chatango, and shoutbox that I know of in terms of "forum friendly" chats to use on forums. Are there other chats friendly for forum usage that people use or does the aforementioned list about sum it up?

I'm gonna try and keep this short. or as short as possible, bc I don't wanna accidentally drag anyone thru the mud. tldr cliffnotes version, I have a member that is... seemingly cherry-picking my site lore and ignoring and or outright attempting to rewrite, only for themselves, the parts of it they don't like. every time someone asks them to change something, they get all up in arms about how we're stifling creativity and being rude and mean and are gonna drive people away, blah blah, now they apparently feel 'unsafe' because people keep 'yelling' at them. one did, tbf, but this player had gone around in circles w them for at least half an hr about a piece of lore, which they wrote, that was written a certain way on purpose and they had completely sidestepped the restrictions for, before bluntly informing them they weren't staff and didn't know what they were talking about. just the sheer level of insistence that they were right and the other player was wrong was almost enough to make me snap at them, it was just all around an admin's worst nightmare, and I wasn't even on until the tail end of it. I'm stressed out irl, so I could just be being oversensitive about it all but just talking to them makes my blood pressure skyrocket, and idk what to do now. I want to work with them but I'm questioning if its even worth it.

The golden rule of drama and running a roleplay has always been to never let OOC drama impact the running of the board. Normally that refers to a person creating OOC drama among the community, where the solution is simple: they either pull their head in, or get kicked from the community for being negative and disruptive. But what about when the OOC drama only affects one person? And what about when that OOC drama is entirely offline, thus: not disrupting the community? That one person needs to just suck it up and deal with their real life crap outside of the board, right? But what about this: what if that person is you: the administrator? And the person causing you this offline drama is a member of the board? I had this dilemma in 2010, and it still puzzles me as to what was the right thing to do. The situation was beyond complicated: my best friend and housemate (and also a member of Tally) screwed me royally, kicking me out of our house, lied to me about why it happened, told our mutual friends it was because of things I'd never done (that she was actually responsible for), took money from me for rent but never actually paid the rent---and basically our friendship of nine years imploded in the most horrible of ways. I've never been more heartbroken in my life than I was after that. Once I'd found somewhere to live, I realised that she was still on Tally. She had connections there, friends that she RP'd with, and all that had really changed was that she went silent any time it was clear I was on the board. Meanwhile, I felt sick just looking at her usernames in the thread lists. Every time I saw them it was a reminder of how badly I'd been burned by someone I really cared for. Is that a good enough reason to remove someone from your community? At the time, I didn't feel it would be fair. I felt that our OOC problems were exactly that: and I did nothing about my severe discomfort in having her around. We didn't have a group chat outside of the CBox at that time. The people she RP'd with most stopped threading with me, and those closest to me stopped threading with her. No one ever discussed it, it just... happened. She finally left when she found it too uncomfortable to stay. What would you do in that situation? Wait it out? Or would you reclaim your space?

I've seen a few topics that discuss awards and trophies for members, badges and the like. People seem to enjoy them, so I'm considering bringing a system into Dead Before Daylight. So for those of you that run an award system, what kind of trophies do you give out specifically? For example, do you give awards for post count milestones like here on the Initiative - and if so, how do you handle those on sites that are account-per-character? Is it a cumulative award where, say, the player has 3 character accounts that have 25, 25, and 50 posts respectively - so they would have a 100 post badge on their OC account; or do you award per character account? As my site is an urban fantasy I'm very interested to hear how award systems on similar kinds of sites are run - are there awards for making certain species etc. However, I'd like to hear about any types of awards, what actions awards are given for etc regardless of site genre - that way this thread creates a pool of ideas that hopefully everyone can find useful.

Ok so on my advertising little stint I go on every once in a while I'm always hesitant to reply to those sites that say JCink or JCink only. In their posts I'll read they are just wanting the adult content to be available, but it made me wonder. Is it more than that? For those of you that chose JCink only, may I ask why? It seems these same people don't have any problem running around a directory as amazing as this one that is self-hosted, why must is the RP just for Jcink? Thanks in advance for the answers! I'm just curious really. Wondering if this if should be my next project. "I was able to self host, and so can you." ❤️

Hey guys! So I just wanted some opinions on app reviews. I know a lot of sites won't have the same kind of app reviews because our site has a lot of powers and species that other sites don't have but I think this applies to all sites who do app reviews. As an admin: do you do public reviews (post the review in the thread of their application) or private ones (through PMs, either on site or on discord? And why do you do them that way? Also: does one staff member review the apps, do you split them up, or does more than one staff member look over the same app? As a member: do you (or would you) prefer app reviews to be done publicly (posted under your app) or privately (the admin PMs you about edits that need to be done or issues with lore, etc)?

I've seen so many responses around here where people don't want the staff members of a site to engage them in conversation when they register. No saying hi in the cbox first, no pulling members into plots or shooting them PMs with ideas, etc. What if a site had a question on registration where members would choose an option from a drop down: a. Yes, please engage me in conversation! b. I'd like to take my time - I'll initiate contact. c. I'm indifferent And then the staff knows how to treat each person. With obvious exceptions for things like sending important messages overriding option "b."

On my site, we have activity checks from the 5th to the 10th of every month. It requires players to fill out a simple form and provide their latest post with each of their characters. Those that don't post in our activity checks get their accounts deactivated, and then a month later, deleted. This one particular person always misses the activity checks and then comes back on to get their account reinstated like 3 days after it has ended. And then they don't post afterwards. At all, ever. It's been a loop of three times already that we've deactivated their account only to have them come back on and reinstate it, but then never post to stay active or remember to post in our activity checks. We've warned this person about their activity, reminding them that they need one post to stay active onboard and they only need to post in the activity check with their one character. I don't think that's asking too much? However, it seems that didn't work out as well. This person is always complaining about being too lazy or too busy to post... and the staff and I are kind of tempted to suggest they come back at a later time when they're not too busy or lazy to post.... because what's the point of joining a roleplay if you're not going to roleplay? As a staff, have you ever dealt with someone like this? What was your solution? How did you handle the situation? What happened with the player - did they improve or leave? Thanks! Anonymous poster hash: d21d3...8da

I'm sure we've all encountered them. Those people that do nothing but talk about how they need to post, but never actually doing so. Needless to say, it gets old. Especially if it becomes a daily or hourly thing. "I need to post..." And then nothing. An hour later: "I need to do posts..." "I should write." "I should work on posts." "I should get tags done." "I need to do replies." Over and over and over again. Without any posts getting done. Just the repeated "complaints." How do you handle it? Do you get after them, do you ignore it? What is the limit? When do you break? What do you say when you do finally snap? Do you ban them? Ban the words? Filter it so you don't have to hear it anymore? Just ignore it and hope it goes away? Of course, there's nothing wrong with them doing this. If they want to waste their own time, that's on them. It's the fact that it's annoying as hell that generally gets to people.

And have you ever done it?

You know what? Fuck you. Yeah, you. Mr. High and Mighty that thinks that setting your name as Guest and going on to people's cboxes to complain that their ad broke your rules is worthwhile. How the fuck are we supposed to solve the problem if you don't indicate where you are from? Bonus points: The ads you are complaining about? You said yourself that there were MONTHS between them. Rule of thumb is ads dropping once a month. Two weeks in some cases. So what if you're a fucking resource site. You allow guests to post... And you "pend" their ads if they don't follow your rules (which, by the way, no one ever reads those.) You literally clicked the link, and took the time to type out a paragraph (with no capitalization or punctuation, real professional,) to complain about how we've posted three ads. Total. Over the course of several months. Because we weren't in your "directory" so any future posters didn't know you had some magical "pending" stamp on us. Probably because we posted as guests. Over the course of several months. Advertising - And this includes on your precious resource sites - should be simplistic and easy. Fucking delete the goddamn ads that break your rules. Who the hell has the time to track down everyone that might or might not copy your fucking form? The form that, by the way, varies on every resource site and contains absolutely no useful information that can't be obtained from a good ad or a click of a link. For fuck's sake. At least tell me which site you are from so I can potentially fix the issue. But you won't. Because you don't want the problem solved. You just want to complain. Which is why you opted for "guest" in the cbox instead of something more helpful. Fuck. In four YEARS CW has had fewer than 500 views on our ad rules thread. No one fucking reads them and for good reason. They're pointless and stupid and all the same.

Hey guys. I need some advice. Since we opened our site, it's grown quite large and, to account for the extra work, we've recently brought on some new staff from our existing member base. However, it's come to our attention that one of these new staff members isn't respected by some members of the community. We'll call this staff member Red. There was an incident with Red a few months ago when she was still quite new staff that was a huge misunderstanding (not Red's fault, per se, just a communication issue that rocked a lot boats). It ultimately led to another new staff member, Blue, stepping down because she disagreed with how we handled it. Emotions were running high at the time and a lot of feelings got hurt. Because of the fallout and the stress it caused the team, we gave Red a warning so that she could learn from it and we could move on. If it happened again or no improvements were made, she'd be demoted from staff. The crisis was averted and we've since grown a lot stronger as a team and know what to expect from each other now and what things aren't acceptable. It aired out a lot of issues that we were able to fix. For that, I'm grateful. However, drama of the same nature has since popped back up, and though it's much smaller and more isolated than last time, it's still there. Red has made a lot of improvements, and her work on the staff team is valued! But some of her communications with fellow staff are...increasingly passive aggressive, which is causing stress among the team. And we know she can't work with certain members because they don't respect her authority due to things that happened in the past (both the past incident and things that supposedly happened before our site) that are out of our control. And, frankly, we don't know what to do about it. We value Red as a friend and a great writer, but it seems her presence in the team is causing anxiety. And I find myself making excuses for her because of that. We just don't quite know what to do, so I'm asking for some advice. How do you deal with drama within the staff? Have you ever asked someone on your staff team to step down? Would you do so in this case? And how do you do so while still communicating that they're a great member of the community, but maybe not the best for staff? Anonymous poster hash: 2daba...d6e

How do you integrate new members onto your site? It's always something I'm looking to improve on because new members are so important to the growth of just about any RP forum. One of the things I struggle with is getting the new member to RP with someone other than me because I find that if RL consumes me and I'm their only link to the site, the new member goes MIA. Of course older members are willing to RP with new people; it's just a matter of getting folks to take initiative and connect and RP with each other. (Not in and if itself a problem I'm currently having, though I've struggled with this in the past.) I'd love to hear some ideas you guys have had that worked or didn't work, and how you've resolved issues.

When do you go about looking for additions to your team? How do you go about finding someone to promote? Do you have applications or just approach people blindly? Do you hire from off forum? Have you had any particularly successful methods? As always, horror stories are appreciated! (Trying to get back into the swing of regular discussion posts!)

Whenever I'm gone, my members go utterly, utterly silent. They don't even put in an effort to chat with each other. I'm a pretty talkative person and I like being involved, I like hanging out with them, but if I'm away, everything is dead. Is this a consequence of me forcing myself into conversation too often when I'm around? Am I actually prohibiting them from getting to know each other? Or is the issue something else? I feel this is a common thing admins have dealt with as I've heard the same thing from others. Anyone ever solved this/Remedied this?