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Hello there, fellow members of the Initiative! I hope I'm not posting this on the wrong spot! I come to you, asking for help and insight from all of the lovely admins out there. I have recently, against my own best judgement, given in and requested a new skin for a site I'm running, and, while I will go through with it, it has left a very bad taste in my mouth, to the point where I'm having a hard time enjoying the site and the skin is not even done yet. Oh, well, what's done is done, and changing my mind now won't really change much. This is not the matter I'm asking for help with, it's just to provide some context. So, while I will neither close down nor abandon the current site, I am creating a new one with a different premise, and I refuse to have this happen again, because this one is going to be much more labor intensive than the previous, with plot, locations, characters, etc. So, my question is: how would you word on a disclaimer or on your rules that the focus of your community is the plot and creative writing, and not 'looking pretty', without it sounding, er, bitchy and bitter? My idea is to have a mission statement on the site, and have one of the points be similar to: We are a community that devotes itself to writing. Therefore, the focus is and will always be on the story and characters. For this reason, we do not use posting templates and our skin is geared solely towards ease of access to important locations and readability. But I still feel it's not really... making my point? I would love if someone could help me with that. Thank you in advance!

That's a super long title, but I didn't know how else to make it understandable. Here's the deal: in the past several months, we've had three separate members complain loudly about not getting posts fast enough - even going so far as to harass specific members in the cbox to reply to them NOW or complain in public that EVERYONE on the site posts super slowly - when they, themselves, are leaving threads hanging for many, many months. We've had more than one person leave in a huff, saying that replies are too slow anyways, when there were members responding to their threads regularly (AND QUICKLY - several times per day), right up until the members who were complaining about posting speed stopped responding to those threads. I'd go so far as to say that if they're not responding to their own threads, making their RP partners wait months for replies, then they have no right to complain about the posting speed of anyone around them. Other than that assertion, however, I really don't know what to do about this. Really, if this is our site's only major complaint - something that seems to ultimately be the roleplayer's own fault - that seems to be pretty good, right? Really, I guess I'm looking for suggestions about how to avoid this problem or commiserations, because I'm getting frustrated with the prevalence of this issue and have no idea how to address it. ...or, I guess, if it even should be addressed.

If you share a mutual member with another site, would you ever consider talking to the other staff about them? What would it take for you to cross that bridge? Would you limit yourself to good things? Bad things? Would you approach the situation to find out if the member acted similar there or if they were having similar problems? How would you feel if someone approached you about a mutual member? (Assuming, of course, you know without a doubt that the member is the same person.)

ASK MOUSIE ANYTHING I pretty much haunt boards like this in search of places to give advice, and new documentations I can write. I'd like to get an idea of what questions people have about anything/everything related to forum RP that I might be able to help with. Thus, I invite you to ask me anything! No question too silly, too dumb, or too out there. Feel free to use the anonymous function if you're not comfortable with having it attached to your username. I've been a board admin since 2003, with a break there between 2013 and 2017. During that gap, I continued to roleplay and manage communities---just outside of the forum RP space. My longest-running RP forum was seven years from opening to hiatus, and has been brought back online because it kind of felt like I was missing an arm or leg without it. In that time, I've encountered all sorts of things: Firing my whole staff Finding my "board philosophy" Ejecting toxic members On-board OOC drama Broken RP partnerships Learning to skin.. multiple times Changing board software Adding/removing features Running contests Running board-wide plots Establishing a strong community Advertising like a boss Surviving quiet periods Recurring ghost members Closing the board Reviving the board Investigating board issues Admin burn-out And so much more... Absolutely any questions are okay! About my board, my style, the RP forum sphere in general, particular trends, or even advice on a scenario you're facing. I'm here to help!

In any roleplay, problem members come up. Either they disrupt threads and plots, negatively influence the community, attack other members, etc. So how do you deal with it? I'm wondering specifically about warning systems, either those systems built into forum software or systems you created on your own. Have you ever set these up and actually used them? What was your process? Do you use a three strike rule, or is it more, or less, involved? And what constitutes an "official" warning, as opposed to a more informal talk? I'm also wondering how you communicated this system to your member base in a way that wasn't threatening until it needed to be. You don't want your members to get anxious and paranoid every time a staff member wants to talk to them about something that's probably totally unrelated! So how do you, as staff, implement a warning system while still making yourself approachable? Or do you keep this entire system internal until you have to use it?

Early again. I had a great topic in mind and forgot it. That's what I get for sleeping. So! This week in Tell Rune Your Secrets: Holidays! Does your board have any IC holidays that differ from RW's? How do you handle RW holidays in terms of activity requirements/posting? Do you cut them some slack or does nothing change? Do you do anything special for the holidays? Either IC or OOC.

I was reading @Naen's into thread and the discussion of maps. Maps are great. I love maps! But aside from hand-drawing one, I'm not sure how to make one. There is software you can buy, but that costs good money. A few sites have free mapping programs (I'll have to find the links when I'm not on my phone) which might help some, though they're heavily fantasy / world-sized maps. Any suggestions for town maps and maps for modern day RPs? (Besides using a map of a real town, which I'm not comfortable with when it comes to roleplays with violence or things that could be construed as a RL threat.) Do you use maps for your site? As a member, do you need maps? What are your favorites?

As Staff: What sort of contests do you run? What kind of IC events do you run? Do you run OOC events? What type of event seems to be the most popular? What would you like to do but can't quite figure out how to make it work? As members: What kind of contests do you enjoy? Do you like when sites have a lot of IC events to participate in? Would you rather they be a setting or occurrence based event? (Examples: Masquerade ball vs serial killer on the loose.) What sort of events/contests would you like to see more of?

Let's say Bob joins your board. Bob proceeds to cause hell, start fights, and is basically a terrible member. You ban Bob. You later see Bob on another board. You know it's the same Bob because they have the same characters. Do you tell the admin about the problems Bob had on your board in an attempt to warn them? Or do you let them find out for themselves?

Apparently I'm doing one of these a week now or something. Maybe I should give them a fancy name. RUNE DEMANDS YOUR OPINIONS. Do you use a site shop? What do you stock in it? As a member, what do you like seeing in them? What kinds of items do you think should/should not be considered "buyable" on a site?

Every forum encounters, roughly, the same things. Whether it be that first breaking of the code, or the first application that, clearly, didn't read anything. What would you consider some less-than-wanted "accomplishments" for every forum to achieve? Applicant doesn't use supplied form. Applicant whines because their extremely popular face is taken That random account that appears, never posts, and never comes back Admin that shouldn't touch the code, touches the code. Proceeds to break something Member can't quite grasp a plot. Someone asks a question in the FAQ. They then ask at least 3 more. An app doesn't even make sense for the setting. Seriously, where do they think they are? Someone yells at you about your ad. The code broke again.

Hey guys, I run a survival horror site. I'm sure most of you have seen enough of me posting around here to know the general gist, but here's the quick recap in case it's relevant: There's a town that is being overcome by the Decay, this strange rotting/rusting phenomenon that brings with it death and monsters. The town as a whole is cut off from society due to this Decay, but otherwise most people can live a normal life. We recently had an event where the Decay "surged" across the entire town, and for about 24 hours the town was ripped apart by monsters. Then it subsided. The event was really fun, but I don't want the entire board to be a face-paced monster mayhem all the time. It gets boring really fast (I've played on similar sites before) and I also like to allow members to play their characters with some "down time" where they aren't running for their lives. The problem is that I'm trying to pump up activity and interest and to make the board actually . . . somewhat scary. It's hard to make a roleplay site scary, but it's even harder when people likely dismiss it because it's not 333/premium. (I'm poor. That's why it's not.) My staff and I came up with an idea to give people a miniature "event" when they reach a certain post count. (I believe it was 15 posts.) This event is very simple, such as a mysterious phone call in which the character receives information about themselves that nobody should really know, or they start to hallucinate dead people, or something. The member is supposed to incorporate it into their RP somehow, either by referencing it in another thread, or by actually using it as a plot device in the thread (RPing it out). Then at about 50 posts, I'd do a more direct one-on-one thread with the member that fleshes it out a little more. Personalized, if you will. I made the first post goal 15 because it's relatively low, but I'm not wasting ideas or energy on people who aren't sure if they will be sticking around. The next one (50 posts) is higher because it requires me being able to put time and energy into creating a personalized quest/storyline for the character for a thread, and I want to make sure that the member is invested in it well enough. There is no time frame, so it's not like they have to reach the 15 or 50 posts in a week or a month - it could be after a year, though opportunities may change based upon the general site plot. Members wouldn't be able to choose which event they received (a phone call verse hallucinations verse whatever), though somebody could politely decline to participate if they really didn't want to. In order to assign the events, I'd try to roughly match it up with the charcter's profile or personality or history or whatever so that it's something that would be relevant to the character. (I wouldn't want a character who never answers a phone because they have some anti-phone religious belief to be given a plot involving phones, for example.) At first I wasn't going to publicize it because I wanted it to be a bit spookier with the element of surprise. But now I'm wondering if it would be better to let people know up front as a selling point for the site so that they know that there is an advantage to participating and being active. People were really interested in the Decay surge event I had, and then activity backed down afterwards which wasn't entirely unexpected, but I'm afraid that people are going to rely entirely on said events and not participate when they don't exist. So I wanted your guys' thoughts about it. I'd also love to know if you have any ideas for a survival horror site. We have no vampires/werewolves/witches/demons. Our monsters are literally monsters, but they stay mostly in the limited areas of town affected by the Decay. I also don't want to rely on them too much because, as mentioned, it'll get boring after awhile. So having some other spooky happenings that are personalized to each character would be really neat and add an element of horror I have never seen on a horror site.

How do you divy up jobs? Does each individual have their own responsibilities? What is the difference between your admin and your moderators? Do the jobs vary depending on the 'rank' they hold in staff? How do you go about inducting new staff? (And, of course, any other details relevant to this topic are always welcome!)

I asked this elsewhere, but wanted to get more bang for the buck. I'm curious to know how y'all choose what goes into the sitewide wanteds and what goes into the personal wanteds. I'm guessing it's a lot easier for those of you who have canons based on fandoms. It's a fair assumption, I think, but please correct me if I'm wrong! I'm very curious. The site I run isn't based on anything but historical events. My staff and I were debating on this a few nights ago, because we seem to have blurred the lines and gotten confused over what is defined as sitewide and personal on our own site and for posting our own personal ads out on directory resources as staff members. I'm working on streamlining the process better since our site has sprouted large groups apart from the historical BEIC and native groups that we consider canon. The problem, I think, is that we over complicated things. So, to simplify matters, we tried to distill the process down to these scenarios. Do we define a site wide by: 1) By the group they are in by forum (BEIC, native, etc) 2) The group they are in by world built creation 3) Roles 4) Any combo of 1-3. I know for sure that personal is what it says... personal. So personal plots, personal wanted family members / friends, etc. I consider some of the groups to be personal smaller groups, but those are considered by others to be potentially part of the site wide wanted. So, hit me with it. As a staff member: What goes into your site wide wanteds across the directory resources? What goes into your personal wanteds across the directory resources? Have you ever experienced too much blurring between your own sitewide and personal wanteds?

Hey guys, I've seen the RP community on this part of the internet move towards having characters and members provide "pronouns" rather than saying sex or gender. I understand that for the members, but I'm not sure about the characters. When I'm RPing with a member, pronouns are useful because then I know how to refer to that person. But when a character is interacting with another character, knowing gender/sex seems more intuitive to me. The last couple games I've played, the characters had to have biological sex stated for the sake of the RP, but in my new one, it's not going to be that big of an issue. This is a bit of a "new" topic for me. So I'm just a bit uncertain if I have characters state sex/gender instead of pronouns if it's going to throw everyone into a fit.

Random question: What do you do when somebody comes up and tells you that another member is portraying something wrong, but you don’t have the experience/education/knowledge to actually know if that person is wrong? Couple of examples. Firstly, once long ago I had a member who made a gay character, and somebody complained about it for some reason I don’t really recall. There was a specific reason related to the character—I think the complainer had interpreted the character to be mocking gay people or something. So I acted upon the complaint and ended up scaring away the person with the gay character. In hindsight, I realized that I had not acted appropriately and that the person playing the gay character hadn’t actually been mocking gay people but had been playing that specific character appropriately for the situation/personality/history that the person had created. Oops. I had just been afraid to offend people that I hadn’t really thought about it. Secondly, I’ve had people who grossly misrepresent mental illnesses. Such as characters with multiple personality disorder / dissociative identity disorder (MPD/DID) who switch back and forth rapidly, or the bipolar characters who are literally two separate people smooshed into one body. But back then, I knew that the characters were portrayed outright wrong. The problem was that had they been wrong but not so obviously wrong, I wouldn’t have been able to tell that they were inaccurate representations of these illnesses, so I wouldn’t have been able to correct the person. Which would mean that we’d end up with poorly written and potentially offensive characters on the site, which in turn may scare away people who might think that we knowingly supported a stereotyped or offensive character. I ended up banning all characters with MPD/DID because I couldn’t tell if they were really being portrayed accurately and I was tired of the people who played them very wrong and didn’t do any research. I remember once I ended up with somebody who made a rapid-cycling bipolar character, but I didn't realize that people could rapid cycle (because I had always heard that the dramatic switch back and forth was more of a myth), so I told her that it was wrong. Then she was like, "Er, no, this is what I have, and I rapid cycle." And I was like. Oh. If she hadn't been nice enough to call me out on it and just slunk into the shadows while dismissing the site because I was being "dumb," I wouldn't have ever known better. These are all things of the past and it’s not something I’m currently struggling with, but I was thinking about it recently. What do you do if you don’t know if something is wrong? How have you handled similar situations? What are your stories?

I'm in need of some advice, I'm sure a lot of you have dealt with that member that comes along and wants to completely ignore or try their best to skirt around your sites rules and lore. I'm dealing with this right now and they are being very very forceful and literally trying everything in the book to get us to allow them. They are even calling it a "special request" which is beyond annoying because that's a can of worms we have no intention of opening you know? My question is how do you deal with these people? It's like they refuse to hear the answer is no even when you flat out say it is. Anonymous poster hash: 9420e...7ad

Who likes / has used / would consider stock photos not only for site graphics, but for characters as well? Personally they're my favourite resource when looking for faces. Not only they are actually free of legal hassles, but they don't come with all the baggage that celebrities have. I'm trying to encourage their use in my boards, however I realize that it's not a popular choice. Thoughts? Experiences?

I cannot be the only one! I know a lot of roleplayers out there think "I can do this better" or "Man I have a great idea I want to RP out". How many of you have actually ventured into an attempt to own your own forum? Were they as unsuccessful as mine? Because, let me tell you, I failed so hardcore it was actual comical. What are some of your horror stories and fails when it came to your adventure into forum ownership? Note this is not a bash thread, and if you're coming here to bash a member, or someone else, for the fall of your forum, this is not the place. Just here for those of us who pushed, tried, and fell on our faces.

So I didn't see a topic that covered this, but I'm currently experiencing a mod on my staff team that over the months have slowly become well... unhelpful and entitled. The mod barely does anything to help the other mods, story, or members. This mod doesn't do anything unless its to benefit their character in story. However, this person feels entitled to boss the other mods around when I'm not online or around. In fact, I've seen this person give important information to non-staff members.. Also this mod plays an important cannon character and has made themselves entangled in almost every character's personal plots. Which brings me to this important question..... This mod has stated to me and another mod; that if demoted they would leave the site to screw up other character's plots. What do you do, when you come across something like this? Do you demote the person anyway and hope that they don't mess up other people's plots if they decide to leave?

So I have seen tons of different platforms for forums. Personally I've come to love the way jcink works. It's a little more complicated than some, but in my opinion the end result is a smoother, more visually defined forum. On top of this the admin section, and additions, are incredible and easy to understand. However, the truth is I've only used proboards and jcink, so I have absolutely no experience with any other platforms...in fact I don't even know what other platforms are out there, or how hard or easy they might be to use. What do you use? What do you suggest people try? Am I the only one severely prejudiced against proboards forums just because they're proboards and to me they look a little chunky? XD Does that make me a bad peoples? Lol

All boards I've been on use PayPal for donations. But, a bunch of banks around here have started offering PopMoney and it looks pretty easy to use. I just, you know, haven't heard of it until now and wondered if anyone else has any experience with it.

In a work environment, staff receives benefit for their labor usually in the form of cash but also in terms of insurance, discounts, and other benefits. But in roleplay, staff members are expected to do the work without receiving anything that you wouldn't give a regular member. I was trying to list the benefits of being staff for a staff request form, but I'm falling short. (Suggestions would be lovely.) The above realization made me wonder why we don't "pay" staff members - in fact, we discourage it. They don't get in-game points to spend in the store each month, or pinned plot threads to thank them for their hard work, or special characters for upholding their position. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic. There are many pros and cons to "paying" staff (more cons than pros in my humble opinion) but there isn't really a "right" answer . . . How we chose as an RP community to reward (or not) our hard-working staff could be vastly different from an RP community on the other side of the internet.

Activity checks are probably my least favorite thing to do but I have to hold them. We just turned 3 weeks old and so we haven't actually had one yet but in our rules, we say once every three months. Do you think that's fair? Also since we have a fandom board I was wondering how others dealt with canons and if they had different requirements for activity checks? Or really just checks in general. My biggest fear is someone will sign in and post in the checks and then disappear. I'm leaning towards them having a certain amount of posts in the last month, how do you guys go about it?

I started thinking following the activity check thread (and the post I made about people not following basic instructions), how lenient are you when it comes to members bot following coding or format instructions? On one hand, it is such a ridiculous, miniscule thing to get irritated about. There are so many greater problems in the world. But on the other hand, if the instructions are clear, and everyone is following them and it's clear everyone is following them, it's so frustrating when people come along and don't follow the instructions. There were points where I'd have a small bb code template to fill in (name, user group, age sort of simplicity) for claims or whatever, and people would copy the example so it would lose it's coding when when they reposted it and filled it out. Realizing that not everyone was an expert on forums and coding, I then wrote clearly to copy what was in the code tags. That didn't work. So I used bold, red font. That did not work, either. Heck, even with graphics people don't follow the rules. I don't care if you have a PB or not. Just make sure that whatever image you choose fits the avatar box appropriately. Don't have images that are too small, or ones that get stretched, or ones with half the pixels they're supposed to. But alas! For some, this rule is too challenging to follow, I guess, even if I have resources for cropping/resizing images or I offer to do it myself. Over the years, I've simplified things down to relieve my frustration at this. I don't use any sort of BB code or HTML code for people to fill out if I don't need to. (Added bonus is that people can do it on mobile easily.) I'm pretty clear when specific formats or templates are needed, and I try to post reminders for those formats. People still mess things up sometimes, and I sit there and wonder if it's worth the battle.