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I propose to you this question: Is roleplaying harder than it used to be? This can, of course, have a variety of meanings. What I'm more specifically looking at is that I've seen people post many places on the Initiative (myself included) about how things are more challenging or more time consuming or more intensive than they used to be back when most of us started roleplaying 5, 10, 15+ years ago. This has been said about being a member and about running a site, so although I had to choose a prefix for the topic title, it could apply to either. In my opinion, I believe it is more difficult than it was previously, and I believe that this perception stems from the overall aging of the roleplay community combined with the onslaught of labor-intensive trends upon which people place so much value. Maybe it's because I myself am getting older (I'm 30 now and I was 18 when I started RPing), but the general age and "maturity" of roleplayers has shifted noticeably on this part of the internet. Those who were 15, 16, 17 are now closing in on thirty. The genres and topics that captivated the attention and interest of teenagers and early 20-somethings are now something of the past, replaced by more mature themes and premium boards and roleplays that don't accept people under 18. Things don't appear to be as "lighthearted" as they were. That's not to say that lighthearted roleplay doesn't exist or that more mature and darker roleplays weren't around before. But the proportion of each has changed, and it seems that there are higher standards held in place for people in order to join and be a part of communities. Due to the fact that we are aging, people's IRL schedules have had to adjust to make way for adult commitments and relationships. Writing a few posts between classes has translated to trying to squeeze time between coming home from work and putting the kids to bed. People are more considerate of their time constraints and are less likely to jump into new sites. This means that they want to know with more certainty that they really want to be a part of the community they join rather than just joining to see how it goes and ending up sticking around because it turns out that they like it. Historically speaking, I used to get a fair number of people who joined because they weren't certain but they had the time, energy, and interest to take a risk by trying something new. Similarly, around RP community discussion forums, I see topics about flakiness and how to handle people who go MIA and how irritated people are when members vanish. Quite understandably, this can be very irritating for a staff member. But at the same time, if you're not certain you want to join a site, you don't have tons of time, you have matured a little bit over the years, and now you are also aware of the impact that hit-and-run members can make on a site, you're probably going to be less likely to join because you don't want to be that person. People have also become much pickier. Which might be somewhat subjective, especially because people have always been pretty picky to some extent. To some extent, I think it goes hand-in-hand with what I've already mentioned. People have matured, they know what they want, and they don't have the same amount of time that they used to. However, I think there is another component in here, in that people really have become finicky about what they want, and they're not going to settle. Instead, they search and search and search in order to find something that caters to whatever long list of stuff they desire in a roleplay, which means that overall they're joining fewer sites to try things out. Compromising and trying new things is becoming less of an option, which is a pity because sometimes you end up missing out on cool opportunities. The trends, as mentioned, have become more labor intensive. We used to know basic skinning, but now that people have extended their skills, the few elite have set new standards and now we need to have super cool fancy skinning skills. The amount of time and energy that goes into making all of the fancy codes and html templates and whatever else is absolutely insane, and though I don't think anyone is actually insane for doing it, I do think it's a bit silly that all sites are expected to be fancy to the extreme in order to be competitive. Even if you use a pre-made skin, the installation process is quite intense. It used to be that you could drop in the HTML/CSS and a few graphics and you were good. But now you also have those things plus mini-profile templates, HTML templates, do-HTML / BB code post templates, etc. And that's just for getting the board started. Members need to now sift through do-HTML applications and other coding, provide a plethora of images for their character (which may or may not include moving gifs), use templates on sites for just regular posts, etc. It's so time consuming in order to get involved in a site, that if you were uncertain about a board, you might not join just because you don't want to slog through all of this crap. It would be easy for someone to say, "If you don't like the trends, don't do it," but I also don't think it's a realistic mindset if you want to capture people's attention. People have become used to seeing the visuals and judging sites based on their visuals . . . it's hard to turn off that part of the brain that has been trained to "judge a book by it's cover" because that's what covers are for - to give you insight into the book you're about to read. Further, I find that when previous trends were going around, it was easier to say no to them. For example, word counts used to be all the rage. Sure, people might pass your site up if you didn't attach a word count, but there were still plenty of people willing to join said sites. Nowadays, you find fewer people making "non-pretty" sites than you used to find people making "no word count" sites back in the heyday of word counts. Possibly things will change, and I hope they do. (After writing all that, I should probably switch my major and write my thesis about the rise and fall of roleplay communities or something.)