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As thread title suggests, need some advice about unnecessary drama out of literally nowhere. Let me give you some context. Member A joined a month ago. Member A now has two active characters and three active threads. Her plotter was on fire with interest within a day of posting it, and a number of our old guard of members have joined threads. I wake up to this PM: I think I messed up with <character name>. Or at least her plot. I don't really feel welcomed or liked anymore. I'm considering leaving because I feel I don't amount to much here. All I want to do is make people happy, and write with people. Part of me wants to ask what's wrong. The other part of me wants to say that I don't play mind games. Members have been incredibly warm and welcoming to this player. We don't have a discord. We don't have a place where conversations are hidden. I've checked PM logs, nothing there. There is nowhere on this site where a single bad word has been said about this member. They have been included right off the bat, and are receiving replies to their threads daily. The second character they made had a RP partner within an hour of being approved, for instance. Any of you guys experienced this kind of thing before, and if so how did you handle?

As admin (or super fans) how do you guys deal with bad reviews? We had a really low review that included some surprising claims regarding Admin and other players. I have good conflict logs from previous admin but this particular review really caught me off guard by saying that we were unfriendly, neglectful and even downright rude. I've asked my hyper active players and ranked members if they had heard of anything specific. Unfortunately when we switched admin we lost a great deal of active players so there's no way for me to know who felt this way and how to fix it. Any advice on how to recover from such a scathing comment on our ranks?

In another thread, @kay expressed this sentiment and I really missed that. It can be impolite to go onto someone's chatbox and start talking, so I thought it might be cool to do that here. This is a thread where you can talk about your roleplay. What's going on in your neck of the woods? What are you dealing with? Did you have a fabulous roleplay thread? Are you excited about your grand opening? Did you get a new staffer who isn't looking so good? Are you disgruntled or disappointed? This is a place where you can just talk. And it's okay to have a side conversation, too! Maybe there is knowledge to be shared, wisdom to be gleaned, or just a smile to be had.

So as a member and as a staff member I've never cared for character groupings. Yes it is a visual way for you to tell the difference between groups but I find that groups can be too black and white for some things. Unless you do it by race or class but even then, if you want secret groups, this doesn't work. Also what if your character spans two groups. They are a Rebel and a Government worker so they are double agents? Do they pick the one that the character feels more in tune with or the one that they will be doing the most? Doesn't that skew numbers technically? I personally use "Active", "Inactive" and "OOC". It's easy on staff as you don't have too many things to sort through and it's easy to tell what characters are active and which are not. So, I've been around RP for a while and it's been a long standing staple to have individual groups for things. Is this something that attracts you to a site as a member? Does it make you feel like there is diversity when you see a bunch of character groups and characters within those groups? As a staff member is there something to this method of organizing that I just don't see? I'd love to find out if there is something I'm missing by having the many different groups for a roleplay.

Hey, I need a bit of advice. My site is an adventure RP that has two parts: 1. Characters (called “Subjects”) are taken from the outside world and put into a testing environment similar to the arena from the Hunger Games. It has many of the same survival/fighting mechanics, but ultimately characters can be of any age, and there can be more than one “winner.” 2. The isolated town of Mistwell that watches the above in the Documentary. Because they believe the Subjects are volunteers, these Mistwell residents don’t have many concerns for the wellbeing of the Subjects while they’re in the testing facility more than you would for any person on, say, Survivor. The living Subjects are sent to Mistwell to live where they are welcomed into the community like celebrities. The issue I’m having is that it’s a bit of a hard sell when it comes to getting people on board. It’s a very bizarre concept, and although it’s like the Hunger Games, it’s not. All the people who want these mechanics go instead to an actual Hunger Games site. Everyone else just doesn’t join because these mechanics exist, and it’s so foreign to play-by-post forum RPers. I love both “parts” to the site, and one can’t function without the other. If you only play the Reserve (#1), it would get so boring since you’re just in survival mode all the time. And if you only have Mistwell (#2), it’s pretty much the same as a small town RP. It’s about time for us to start another Reserve sequence since our first one ended, but I’m struggling. I want more members aboard so that we’re not just RPing with the same couple people and we can RP a wide variety of characters. But I’m considering stalling it so that we can build up the town of Mistwell. I’m even thinking about marketing the site mainly as a “twisted small town” sort of thing just to get people aboard. I don’t believe that everyone needs to play the Reserve if they don’t want to, and I’m perfectly fine having people play just in Mistwell. I'm concerned that if we don't get new blood, we'll stagnate. What are your thoughts? Do you have any advice? If you do think I should market it temporarily as a “twisted small town” RP, do you have any additional suggestions? Please feel free to ask questions if you need clarification on something, or check out my board (link in sig) if it helps.

So I'm new to the world of opening forums. As it is I've found I have an affinity and specific love for the JCink forums, I've accustomed myself to the coding of them, can do most things within reason without aid, and have over 17 years of RP experience under my belt. Therefore I feel confident in my ability to both provide great storyline and offer wonderful support in a forum ownership position. That being said my only real experience is opening forums that were hosted on another social media site (with the initials VF if anyone knows where I'm coming from, if not don't worry. Lol ), and thus am falling under the category of teaching an old dog new tricks. I've recently come into the knowledge that some forums, if not the vast majority of them, perform what is called a soft opening. From what I've gathered so far this is basically where you gather your friends and such to RP on the site, test things out, find bugs and typos, etc. However, for someone like myself who is only just getting back hardcore into the world of RP, my friend list is relatively short. I'm not sure how to go about doing this when I've not got the filled list of friends that it requires to do so. So here are my questions in full: 001. How important do you feel a soft opening is to a forum? Does it make or break it? Will it aid in getting it off the ground faster? What are some pros and cons to doing this. I'm not just asking people whom have done it, but anyone whom has thought about doing it, or just plain old has an opinion of it. 002. How do you go about doing these sort of things? Especially when your friend list of 'beta testers' is about as pathetic looking as when you open your wallet for spending money and a moth flutters haplessly on passed your face. Are there places to post a link just for a soft opening? Or do you just advertise a couple of places? I find putting your forum up in any actual directories constitutes a full fledged opening, so that can't possibly count. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

How important is diversity of characters when RPing? I see people "encouraging diversity" in RPs, or talking about how important it is that a wide variety of people are represented through RP characters. To me, it's important that people have the opportunity to play different types of characters, but I don't force it. I've never been one to ban a gender or type of character, but rather I'd encourage the creation of the type of characters the site lacks. It's a little odd to me that people encourage diversity to the point where they're getting frustrated that their members don't have any [insert ethnic group] characters. One thing I like to do is to encourage members to play different types of characters than what they've played in the past. So if someone plays all females, I might encourage the person to try playing a male character. We actually have a thread where people list their goals, and they can think about these types of things to see what their goals are for character creation. The only time I'd get after someone for lack of diversity is if they make 5 characters and they're all the exact same. But I don't think I've been in that position where I'd have to do that.

So I'm working on a 'dashboard' type affair that has differing content based on if you're logged in or not. I'm working on the info for the guest view - and I'm trying to work out what I could put among reasons to join without sounding cliche. So far I've worked out for its genre the site is rather unique (its a post apocalyptic rpg but its mother nature that's the threat), and its set up is unique with active risk vs reward set up. But I'm struggling to come up with more reasons without falling back onto 'friendly enthusiastic staff team' and 'actively being developed while listening to its community' cliches. Probably not helped by the fact that the reason I made the rp was "I had an itch to scratch this thing and there was no other rpgs that would scratch the itch so I made it" Any other ideas I could use?

I've noticed a long-standing trend when it comes to creating a new roleplay site of a tiny genre. The genre tends to be tiny because it's based on something super old, or super-ceded by a bigger genre, or maybe you just have to read the books to understand, or maybe because it's just so little known, or maybe, it's the first roleplay of its kind. But the sentiment remains that these tiny genres are "mud-puddles" - you don't get new members flowing in, only existing genre members who hop from one site to another. And the trend that I'm noticing is death. Lots and lots of death. Some genres are so bad about this that the crowd flows from one site that's doing well to the next new and shiny site as soon as it appears, leaving the site that was doing well suddenly dying for no apparent reason (really, the reason was that a new site in the genre opened). I've been thinking about this for a long time and I don't really know why. What do you guys think about this?

TL:DR This is two questions really: 1) How do you deal with claims of admin favoritism toward yourself as an admin? 2) What experiences have you had with getting new admin in place of the old, and what were your main concerns, or pain-points while it was happening? Background: I'm still only considered a temporary admin on our site while our main Admin figures out how much time they're going to be able to devote to the site. They've been entirely absent in an admin capacity for some time (three months or more) and log in intermediately. There are quite a few loose ends in regards to major plots and site maintenance (like managing the store) that I don't yet have the credentials to edit or manage. I plan on asking for these, but if I get full-admin status, what do you all use as checks for yourself in regards to being an admin? I bought a store item fair and square with my site credits, but the item says to contact Admin for official details. That would be ME now. How do you all deal with creating fun stories and getting items for your characters without it seeming like favoritism? Should I worry what others might think about me showing favoritism to myself? In addition to this weird thought of favoritism I'm worried of showing towards myself comes the fact that there may have to be some smudging of story-lines and character adjustments (maybe even major plot-points) if and when we transition the full site to me, particularly because previous admin do not want their characters to be anything more than NPCs. Have any of you experienced admin transitions? What was your experience as an admin or a player?

I was thinking about adding a section for "Member Comfort Sheets" (or something? need a better name?) for members to fill out listing the things that they're not comfortable RPing. The sections would be simple and straightforward: I'd like to try: Please talk with me before: I'd rather not: No: Except maybe a little more eloquent on that last one. However, in addition to this, there will also be a disclaimer that certain topics can't be avoided, such as kidnapping, murder, death, etc. since that's part of the board plot. I also will not make characters change their nature. So I don't care if someone doesn't want to RP racism; I won't make another member change their racist character's nature just to RP with them. The pros, of course, are that I get to know my members better and find out what themes they like or dislike. The cons are that I don't want people feeling like "Well I put it on my comfort sheet that I don't want to play it, so you're a horrible person if you won't let me leave a plot because I don't want to play with Susie because she RPs [classism/ableism/etc.]." Ultimately people are going to have to play with each other because their characters could be thrown together in a thread. I could also expand it so that it's not simply a "Member comfort sheet" but a sheet of information about the member, including contact information, list of characters, etc. What are your guys' thoughts?

So while I don't have any (at least none that I know of) for myself so I don't have a reason to use them however I do understand that others do. Things in ones past influences how anyone can feel about something and it can be extremely uncomfortable to read. However, I waffle on the best way to express this. Even here on the Initiative I'm not sure if they are set up in a way that works well enough for a majority of members. So that being said I have a few questions: What ways do you have trigger warnings set up (if you even do)? Does it work well for you? Do you have a generalized warning for anything that can be triggering (suicide, abuse, drugs sex etc) or something specific per trigger? For those that have triggers: Do you like have warnings? How do you like to be warned? (Topic title, top of the first post etc) Do you want to know the specific warning or just a general knowledge will let you know to be careful? Could it be done better?

I have my fair share of Administrative experience, however one thing I've always struggled with is Site Events. Usually drumming up interest isn't a problem but the execution is. So I'm wondering: Have you done site wide events? What kind of events did you do? How successful were they? Do you have any site event suggestions? What's been your overall experience/What's your overall opinion? One type I usually see is a masquerade. Do you think it's a good idea or overdone? One thing I did that I thought was a good idea was like a mixed bag thing. People signed up with whatever characters they wanted and then would get randomly partnered with another and they had to do a thread. People liked the idea but it seemed like not a lot of threads were completed. Should I judge it's success on completion of overall feedback? What do you guys think of site rewards for participation? Or is just the involvement in the plots reward enough? Many questions!

I poked around asking about this, but I thought this would make a good topic. I had intended to transfer a lot of our information from threads into pages on jcink, using the webpage maker feature. This became a huge discussion between an admin and I today on how we want it to look, how we want to use it, and how we'd organize it. For example, perhaps we could do articles and blogs as well as important documentation. Just considering all the possibilities and how we'd make certain things look and be easily navigable. So, I started digging up sites that I knew had pages for documentation to see how they did things, and that meant asking around for people to share their sites for inspiration. Anyway! Do you use the webpage maker feature? If so, then what do you use it for? If not, why not? If your site isn't hosted by jcink but has a similar feature, what is it? How did you organize yours? Layout, categories, etc. Did you use a lot of html, was it easy to do? Does this feature automatically use the skin theme you have for your site? If possible, link me to your site or PM me! I want to see it all.

So this is a problem I've encountered several times as a staff member on sites and that always leaves me scratching my head on what to do. So I've decided to turn to you all for help on how to approach this. Here is the gist - Member A creates great characters. She has a ton of amazing ideas, she writes extremely well, and she always brings her A game when it comes to plotting - in fact, she's plotted some amazing things with just about every character on the board. She's fun and always coming up with new plot twists that can involve many characters to help tie them together. She's chatty in the c-box, super welcoming to new members and their characters, and is a very warm presence in the community. BUT, she rarely writes a post. In the past, we've instituted activity checks where you need X amount of IC posts between X and X dates, but Member A always manages to make that for the check. Afterward, her posts will die down again until it's been a month or more since she made an IC post. It's not like she's gone or has told us that her real life is interfering with her activity - I'm always extremely accommodating when it comes to that for all members. She's in the c-box regularly and is privately DMing (either with me, other staff, or other members) about plotting and whatnot. In my current case, we talk all the time, and one of her characters and mine are extremely close. I'll gently nudge her with a "hey, when am I gonna see a reply in x thread?" and gush about the current IC situation and how I need it to continue. We'll then continue to plot a little and talk about what should happen and what would go down if X happened, etc. But then I'll never see a reply until there's another activity check. Its very disappointing because I'm very excited about the plots we've come up with, and they're even integral to what I want in my character's development. And I really do love Member A - she's more than just a writing partner at this point, she's my friend. Which is why it's so hard for me to approach her and give her the hard line "post or you're out." Is there something else I should be doing to encourage Member A to post? Is there a way to go about this without giving an ultimatum? I really don't want to boot her from the game, but I'm getting tired of the endless plotting with no results.

I've always liked the idea of actually getting to know your affiliates and the community you've decided to associate yours with. It would be lovely to be able to hang out in an affiliate's chatbox and have a talk with the members there, I think. On occasion, I do make attempts to get to know the admins behind the other sites and will sometimes add them to Skype/what have you. What do you guys think about this? Why don't sites do this?

In another location I saw it posited that in this day and age there simply are too many roleplays. That there are so many roleplays out there and not really enough people to actually enjoy them. (A case of too many chefs, not enough patrons as it were.) Could this also factor into why people are so reluctant to join anything but the perfect roleplay? (Because they have simply too many options to ever sort through and so no choice is made.) But is this the case? Do you think there are actually too many roleplays? What, if anything, could (or even should) be done?

I have a staff member, we'll call them "Star", who I'm having an issue with. The thing is, I really love them. I value them as a friend and care about their real life, as they do mine. They have chronic issues and got a job recently. I'm happy for Star, they needed it, but they are overworking. All they are able to do is go to work, the necessities of their home, and sleep. Because of this they have been on a long LOA and each time we communicate, I get promises but no results. I do believe that Star wants to, I don't think they are just saying it. I know they love the game. I think it's more than reasonable for me to demote them from staff member, but what do you think? Do you think it reflects badly on my board to have Star listed as a staff member? I'm already planning to release some of Star's canons should they not post in the time frame required, but I don't want to lose Star as a friend, or as a member, because of this. Anonymous poster hash: abfce...56c

At one of my sites, there is a particular staffer, "Amy", who is just terrific at attracting new members and keeping the cbox active and has been the cause of the site's massive activity and member boost since they joined it. I really feel like much of the site's success right now is due to their presence, and I'm really glad for this person. But. They lie. Their life is not so great so they lie about it, and it's not so easy to detect. It's gotten to the point where most of the staff can't tell truth from fiction. We've told Amy to knock it off but there haven't been any improvements; this makes sense because you can't tell someone to just stop having a mental health issue, right? We also noticed that some of the promising members that we got seem to have faded away and that there aren't as many longtimers as we feel there should be - the ones that we approached said it was because Amy made them feel uncomfortable. We don't know if it was Amy's lying, something else, or just that they were planning to leave anyways and Amy was one of those things but not necessarily the only nor the biggest thing. Advice?

I've been thinking over the last couple of days about what would happen if a forum didn't have a cbox. I've seen similar discussions before, and know that sites without cboxes just make more use of their OOC forums for discussion. (As I came to forum RP from Neopets, this isn't all that strange an idea to me, since there are no cboxes there and via forums and private messages was how we kept in touch.) But I'm curious! What do you guys think about the subject? Some questions for answering or thinking about, maybe: Do you think all sites should have cboxes? Would you ever join a site that doesn't have a cbox? What problems does having a cbox cause? Can you see benefits in not having a cbox? What are they? If you don't see any benefits in it- why not? What are the cons of not having a cbox? Why are cboxes important, do you think? How did they become so prevalent? Why are they important to you? If they're not important to you, why not? As a guest, what do you use cboxes on other sites for? Could you not do those things in a guest-friendly forum? Why or why not? As an admin, would it be possible for you to set up a guest-friendly forum and still get back to things posted in that forum quickly? Why or why not? Would you join a site without a cbox? Why or why not? Feel free to bring up anything else about the topic that you'd like to discuss! I'm sure there are other facets of the topic to consider. What problems does having a cbox cause? Personally, I would get pretty down and frustrated when I had a cbox on my site and people weren't posting in it as often as I wanted them to. Although we spoke very often through other means (IM), it bothered me when the cbox wasn't active because I felt it could make the site look inactive, from a glance. So for me, cboxes can actually be a source of stress. I think that cboxes can also sometimes make people feel pressured into interacting with others, or make them feel bad if they're not socially adept. On the flip side, some people who don't have much in the way of a filter can make the cbox an awkward place with their complaining, negativity, or simply by steamrolling over the conversation happening in the cbox. Can you see benefits in not having a cbox? What are they? If you don't see any benefits in it- why not? I think that there are maybe some benefits to a cbox, but I can't be certain. Some of the pressure behind interacting in it might be alleviated without one. It's likely more difficult to lose track of a conversation or get steamrolled in one too, since they take place in threads and that tends to take a bit more time to respond to. It might lead to some more thoughtful discussions as well, though I don't know. What are the cons of not having a cbox? The only thing I can think of is that it makes it slightly more difficult for guests to post things if they need to, but my forums also always have a help forum, so... Why are cboxes important, do you think? How did they become so prevalent? I don't think cboxes are important, actually, but I'm very interested in the story of how they became a thing (which I'm unfamiliar with). It's become a standard for RPs, but cboxes are an outside source that every forum has to go out and get if they want one. So it's kind of fascinating that pretty much all of them do that, in my opinion. I suppose they're popular because they simply provide a quick way for people to chat with each other. Why are they important to you? If they're not important to you, why not? They aren't important to me because I'm fine with talking in threads on a forum instead of in a cbox. In fact, on a forum where it was more normal to talk in threads I might be more inclined to be social on a forum that I don't own. It's not uncommon for me to be a little more quiet in that case, because As a guest, what do you use cboxes on other sites for? Could you not do those things in a guest-friendly forum? Why or why not? I bother people in the cbox alllll the time as a guest. I just stop by to have a chat sometimes, because I want to get to know the people involved. But if there was a forum where guests could post and participate in conversations as well, then I'd totally do that without a problem. Why not? As an admin, would it be possible for you to set up a guest-friendly forum and still get back to things posted in that forum quickly? Why or why not? Totally possible on a MyBB forum, and I frequently have a quest-friendly forum for questions and things like that. I subscribe to those forums, so I get notifications if there's a new thread posted there. There's also a plugin for viewing the latest posts, so it'd be totally feasible to get back to someone quickly if they posted there. Would you join a site without a cbox? Why or why not? Of all the things that turn me away from a site, whether or not they have a cbox is so far down on the list that someone else has probably already turned me away from the site by the time I'd notice LOL. The placement of cboxes often bothers me, actually, so being on a site without one would possibly be an improvement.

Bit of trouble here that I'd like some advice on. - Member whines daily on cbox because not every female on the site will write smut with him. Passive aggressive, whiny, you name it. - Uses depression as an excuse. But happens to be completely cheery if a female is paying attention to him or his character. If not then the depression apparently strikes again. - I tell member to cut it out several times, he promises to but is back doing it days later. - I eventually catch member in one of these woe is me meltdowns as it's happening and tell him to 'cut it out'. - Member responds by saying he'll go commit suicide. Leaves us hanging for an hour then comes back trying to apologise. Has pissed everyone off and legitimately traumatised people. Naturally, gave him a big fat ban. Only problem? They have a dynamic IP, so I can't effectively ban. So I told them in PM to please leave and find another site. A day later they came back on a different IP and said 'hey I'm getting help, I'm much better!' I told them again to go find another site. In the mean time, he is contacting newer members of my site (the ones who don't know his toxic history), and playing the victim to them, telling them he's been unfairly treated. I didn't hear from him directly until last week. He adds me on steam and tells me how 'good he's doing', begging to come back. I say no, delete and block. Today he arrived in our cbox just casually acting as though he's on a voluntary break and can come back at any time, talking to a member about plotting. I delete the entire convo and explain in PM to that member the situation, they understand and all fine there. But he is always lurking. I cannot ban him because he has a dynamic IP. I will not consider letting him back, it's completely out of the question. He has burned bridges with like ten of the old guard established members and letting him back would piss all of them off. This is for the good of the community, the needs of many over the needs of one. But what else can I do? IP block his entire country?

I don't know how common a problem this is but It absolutely drives me insane, and particularly right now. I'm a pretty lenient admin, so if someone misses something then I just shoot them a PM, let them know and wait for them to fix it. I'm probably a little too lenient because I will do this several times. Especially on a new site when I'm trying to build a member base I want to be accommodating and helpful. But what do you do when a member is blatantly either ignoring or not understanding the simplest rules? Example: The number one rule on my sites is 1. Registration. Please register each character an account as Firstname Lastname just like that. NO OCC/ALIAS accounts. Applications must be completed as coded. I had a member who registered with an Alias account. They posted their application under the alias account. They included our 'rules phrase' in their application indicating they'd read the rules so I PMed them quoting the rule. Given them the benefit of the doubt that they just might not understand, I even wrote it out for them indicating Alias accounts weren't allowed, that we had a section in the mini profile for the alias, so could they please correct the user name to their characters full name 'insert me writing example of the character's fullname' (not their nickname) because there was also section in the mini-profile where the nickname can be indicated.So they 'corrected' their name but instead just to the characters one-word nickname. So I had to PMed them again and basically reiterate the same point a second time. Eventually, they got it right, and it was more or less fine (except they're using a different alias than the one they're listed so I'm kind of confused about that) Then, same member asked 'Can we used another site's application template and just post it here' again... I pointed back to rule #1 Fourth time's the charm? Member has now posted a new application, for a canon character for the site. Except they posted the application under their current character's account instead of creating a new account. So this is literally the Fourth time I've had to direct them back to our First rule in a couple weeks. Am I being a total pushover? XD

After a discussion with @Gothams Reckoning here, I told him that a discussion about staffing a site is more suitable in the forum. I think, ultimately, it is a matter of preference and control. Some want to share, some want to keep all control for themselves. I want to share. I knew sites with only one administrator and one moderator (or no moderator at all) which were doing well, and sites with several who were doing well. And the same thing for the same numbers, who weren't doing well. I think it is a matter of investment in the story. Sharing the duties and sharing the fun is the best, so that nobody gets tired or overwhelmed. A site having a few core people invested in it from the beginning, has activity which lures other members to join and has the chance to last more, because it has already a core of interested/ enthusiastic people. And this is what I am needing, in general, first and foremost. A second (or third) staff member is needed because hopefully people don't get busy at the same time, because then there is a serious problem among the staff... I think that two people staffing a site can write among themselves and create activity until others join. It is also wonderful when there is one staff member in an opposite timezone, to be there when the other isn't. Staffing a RPG is a volunteering job, which shouldn't take all one's free time. Also, if somebody doesn't want to do a certain task (such as advertising or commenting on bios) nobody can force her to, as long as she contributes with other needed tasks. And I think that involving more people, with more focused responsibilities, avoids burn-out and, at the same time, helps with the community spirit (being invested, a feeling of belonging, of ownership... of being important and meaningful, something like this enhances motivation to help.) Sometimes, when my staff is busy, I feel overwhelmed with doing too much myself and not receiving enough feedback, at least (when I would have preferred concrete help too, not only feedback). Sometimes it feels lonely that I don't have even to whom to ask an opinion (timezones adding to it, but not only this) and I think this is the worst part. They all know that I’ll manage somehow, I always do – but for how long? Everybody sees the site survives without their help… but I am always saying that I need help, because I really feel I shouldn't do it alone! And if everyone pitched in, nobody would feel tired and overwhelmed, because it would be little to do for everyone. Many people judge the number of staff only from the point of view of the number of members, and think that staff duty is only to approve bios and to update lists, needing access to the control panels. There is so much which gets overlooked - the research, the plots, the creation of events.... And we are all people who have a life outside the board too, one wouldn't need to get overwhelmed with duties. A few responsibilities that one can perform while still having time to write. The number of staff shouldn't depend on the number of characters and members, because there are sites for which, no matter how many members/ characters are there, the staff has certain tasks to perform anyway. Or even more tasks if there aren't too many characters/ members, because they have to replace /complement for the missing ones too (eg NPC-ing their role). I found that most tasks have to be done when the site has 4 members equally as when it has 30 members, and most of them don't even require access to panels (except the coding and graphics staff, who of course needs access to administration panel). One needs writing NPCs, researching, leading stories, writing chronicles and lore., no matter how many or how few members you have. And mostly this is what I need help with/ sharing tasks with. You said also why not members? I would have loved if all members wanted to help as if they were staff, everyone with what they love doing: some with advertising, some with leading a thread or another, some with writing NPCs, some with writing articles for the monthly chronicle. And at the same time, if people want to help, why not be appointed as staff, in charge with the thing they want to help, just to make it official and their work recognized? This doesn't mean access at the control panel. It means their names listed among the staff, eventually (not necessarily) the names on a different colour, or a title below them.

Hello! So on my site, we have a one-month posting requirement. All normal characters must post at least once a month or their account will be labeled as inactive. All high position characters have to post at least once every two weeks or their character will lose their rank. I knew that these requirements were loose when I made them. I've been on sites that you pretty much have to post every single day, and you get pressured into having to force out posts to keep your account active. So I wanted to make sure my site wasn't that. But now my staff are talking about raising the activity requirement to at least one post every two weeks for all characters. In some ways, I think this will help, and in other ways I'm afraid that it will put too much pressure on my members, and they will get upset that I'm putting pressure on them to post. So what do you think? Is one month too long? Is two weeks just right? Or is it too short or even too long? What do you use on your site?

Does anyone else employ filters in their Cbox/board? CW puts ones for random words just to see how long it takes people to catch them then swaps them out after they're discovered. I've also filtered "I'm bored" to "I should look at shippers." I'm considering filtering "Is this site active?" to "Yes, we're active" but was curious to see if other people employed such a devious thing and what they filtered specifically.