Staffing Opinions on staff & member relationships

[Monroe 26]

While controlling relationships shouldn't be done... What are your opinions on staff creating (multiple) romantic relationships with your members?
And how should one feel when the majority of staff say "people are replaceable" in response to  bringing up the potential loss of these members and their friends?
Why am I the only one (in my staff group) seeing the risk here? Or am I being paranoid?

I want to know what is fair. 
 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Monroe

[JD Hart 72]

When you say romantic relationships, do you mean OOC or IC?

 

If you're talking OOC and multiple I would say no - that's a recipe for disaster. If you're talking a single OOC relationship then I see no reason why not, just be careful not to show favouritism within the community.

 

If you're talking IC - whether multiple or singular this shouldn't be an issue. It's fiction. If people are becoming possessive or jealous over this, they need to be very calmly and with friendship told not to get so attached, reassured that you love your romantic plot with them, and then explained to that you are not going to be limiting your character to only one. That you want more plots in order to grow the character and therefore give *them* something more to work with in *your* plot. 😄

 

As for the replaceable thing... omg no. I would never use those words or phrases. I understand that sometimes there is a concern that flitters through the community when someone leaves the site, so some admins go with the "don't worry - everyone is replaceable" motto in order to calm people down, but personally I just feel that all this does is tell people that *they* are one day replaceable. And no-one likes to feel that kind of pressure when writing...

 

Instead, I go with the tact of - "it's okay if people leave - if X person has to leave for RL reasons then we support them and hope that they do well. Roleplaying should be fun. And if it's not fun anymore then they're right to leave. And hopefully we'll see them again."

 

I find that being positive in this way helps to alleviate concerns without specifically saying that the person who left wasn't important. It also makes the person posting the absence or disappearance message feel more comfortable. We've actually had multiple members on my site have to leave for RL issues and then return a month or so later, because they felt that they could and wouldn't be judged for having to step away for a while 😄

[Monroe 26]

I'm sorry I forgot to mention, this is OOC. 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Monroe

[Garmr 106]

Just now, Monroe said:

I'm sorry, this is definitely OOC.

 

Nope. Nope. Nooooope.  If someone staff or even a member  is trying to play the field OOC with multiple members in your forum you need to give the individual the heave-ho out of your site ASAP.

 

[JD Hart 72]

Um... in which case... I don't want to sound like a prude or judging of other people's lifestyles (I'm a committed relationship with one person kinda gal) but I would suggest being very careful with the multiple romantic OOC relationships. There are far too many elements to be discussed to consider ( i.e. do they both know? are any of your seeing each other in RL (location wise)? are you all of the same opinion with regards to the relationship etc etc)

 

In the same way you would need to be careful if you were having a more-than-two relationship outside of a roleplaying forum, the addition of you being staff and member makes this even harder. Other than confirming that you probably shouldn't keep either connection a secret from the other (that will blow up in your face, I can assure you) I would advise making sure there's no favouritism or outward romanticism within the community. It can feel ostracising to others.

 

Other than that, I'm not sure what else to advise as this isn't something I would personally (just down to my own beliefs) enter into...

[Rhindeer 217]

I have so many questions!

 

Is this a single staff member dating multiple people?

If yes: do they all know? Is it a polyamorous relationship? Because if it's all consensual, then okay, that's fine. But if the person is playing the field and lying, and using the RP as their own personal tinder, errrr...that's fucked up, and that's a drama bomb waiting to explode.

 

If it's just staff members dating other members in general, and everyone is a consenting adult, and there's nothing creepy and unethical going on...my opinion is live and let live and mind your own business. Could there be drama if it doesn't work out? Sure. But if you're worried about that sort of fallout, might as well ban anyone from developing OOC friendships while you're at it because when those go south, they can be just as nasty and messy.

 

But haha, I'm actually an admin married to one of my members. 8D Granted we knew each other in meatspace for a decade, met in college, were BFFs, all that stuff, and I eventually dragged him onto my games. But he was a member there for a while before we started dating. Now we're married, and he's one of my co-admins. He does a fantastic job, is as passionate about my games as I am, and is my partner in crime and worldbuilding/coding buddy. It's no secret we're married. We're open about it. Some of our other friends and members attended our wedding. 8D

 

And years and years before we got romantic, I dated another one of my members. She joined, we grew close, met IRL, and one thing lead to another. Didn't work out for many, many reasons, but we dated a couple years. Again, wasn't a secret, but we also didn't make it everyone's business.

 

Friendships happen. It's a social hobby. And sometimes, romance happens. There are several couples on my games--some who were together before they joined, some that met through my games. I don't think it's wrong or creepy if, again, it's done ethically. Like, if you gotta be sleeping with the admin to be getting special in game perks and favoritism, that's creepy as shit. Eugh.

 

I also don't like the "people are replaceable" line. That's...not healthy. Like, I understand what they may be trying to express? Drama gonna happen if drama gonna happen, whether that's over a friendship or a romance, and people will leave or they won't leave. And while that sucks, you can still continue without them. You can't really live in fear of people leaving or drama happening. You just gotta deal with it when it strikes and move on.

 

But...people aren't replaceable. Roles are replaceable, yes. People? No. Will new people come? Yes. But they can never replace the people who left, because everyone is unique. What a shitty way of looking at things. 😕

 

Idk, your particular situation doesn't sound too healthy framed that way, because I get the feeling that if you're worried about what's happening, there's probably some dodgy shit going on.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Viscount Rhi-Rhi

[Kazetatsu 263]

I don't mind staff and members becoming friendly, but romantic relationships are dicey territory to me. I feel like these should never be founded solely on internet based interaction. Sure there are a bunch of sites out there just for such a thing, but it feels like it could become unsafe quickly.

 

Still consenting adults can do whatever consenting adults do.

 

Where it becomes a real red flag in rp for me, is when the romance, or friendship is used to pawn rp favors and as an excuse to break site rules. Once the lines between what is acceptable on a site and what is acceptable in a relationship blur, the whole situation is begging for trouble.

 

As for the people are replaceable thing. I see it as a way to brush off losses in order to not feel their full impact, as well as a response from folks who actually  didn't care about the individuals in question, or who have seen so many losses that they have become jaded.  It's a way of making the loss 'easier'. That doesn't mean I like it's use.  I've had to show rp partners the door on occasion because of some issue or another, and it's very hard. I feel the conflict of losing a friend and doing what's best for the site, and later on, still miss them because no one can quite recreate what they were doing even when they try.

 

As staff, we sometimes have to make those calls and accept the potential of losing one or more players for the sake of keeping our sites healthy. Its best when other staff can support each other, and can honestly explain their reasoning to their site members for the sake of transparency, but they'll still need to come to terms with the letting go in some way, if they refuse to brush it off.

[Sage 289]

I feel like more context is needed here to give accurate advice or express more relevant opinions on what you're dealing with, @Monroe. Though it does seem to make you extremely uncomfortable, evidenced by the fact you mentioned in another topic that you closed your site because of this.

 

Still, I have to say that forming relationships through a social activity like rp is natural. You can't really fault your members, or your staff, for that. Nor do you really have the right to judge others on how they form these relationships or what becomes of them. As staff, your duty is to protect your members. But if they're not being harassed or if this staff member in question isn't showing favoritism, is that really reason to be so put off by how consenting adults behave? And is it really your business? All that said, I don't know the specifics of your situation. So I can't make an accurate judgement. My suggestion in a situation like this is to do what's best for your community.

 

As for the "people are replaceable" comment - I mean, I 100% agree with that. Everybody's replaceable. Life, and plot, can go on. It's a fact of life - we're all replaceable. I mean, maybe don't publicly tout that and threaten your member base with it, but when it comes down to it, no one plot/staff position/community is tied down to one particular person unless you let it be that way. I think you're just being paranoid. And maybe you need to share these feelings with your staff instead of with us.

[Surinen 7]

110% nope nope nope on all counts, from the multiple OOC relationships to the replaceable comment.  

Having gone through this myself as an admin, and then personally when my own ex went haywire and drove me off several sites I had been enjoying, I'd take a hard pass on any staff member exhibiting this sort of behavior.  The poly groups I've had the great fortune to know and befriend are open about who they are and what their relationship is, and they don't hide anything.   Not to judge everyone by the select few I've known, of course, but chances are any mature/healthy relationship among consenting adults will present itself as such. If you've got warning flags going up... RUN.   Don't even try to get to the bottom of it, just hard pass nopitty nope nope.  The rest of your staff and player base will thank you for sidestepping that drama. 

[Anonymous 234]

OOC? It would be one of the biggest things that would turn me off a site. I would question why the staff member/admin is doing this and it would appear to me that they are using it as a substitute for a dating site. (I'd be extremely cautious of people who also used IC romance in the same way, too, espeaically if that's all they do, because even though it shouldn't, there is the potential to hurt a lot of people doing it.) Some of the worst fights I ever came across on twitter were from people who knew each other in rl, had been in a relationship, used rp as  one of the activities that they do together, then had a bad break up. There was one person who even had access to the old computer of the person they'd been in a relationship with, and badly messed up their character accounts to gain a kind of 'revenge.' (And that's if you believe their story - while I rped with this person, there always seemed to be something dramatic going on in their personal life so I also got the impression that they enjoyed making drama on the site and was glad when they lost interest in what I was doing.)

 

I would find such a staff member or admin to be untrustworthy and if there was a hint of it happening on the forum I would leave. It's bad enough when you get two people in a real life relationship posting on the same forum and their RL disagreements spill over on to it, without it happening with multiple people on the site. It would be a major red flag for me.

Anonymous poster hash: 67f13...8c5

[Lilythe 12]

There's definitely risk here. I totally understand your perspective. However this is an area that is nobody's career, it's a hobby. Hobbies are where you're meant to make friends and possibly develop romantic relationships.

 

What I would encourage you to do, and what we practice on my site, is that if you're a friend off-site, romantically involved, or otherwise might be compromised by your emotions towards a person (be they benevolent or malevolent) ask the other staff members to handle the discipline and staff requests as often as you can. For example, my site does application reviews and we have members of the staff that aren't friends with the applicant review the application to ensure fairness. 🙂 Hope this helps ❤️

[Honorem 219]

It usually always ends badly. The staff member obviously has no restraint and little morals if they are getting 'romantic' with multiple different members. They might start playing favourites, giving these members special treatment, etc.

 

If it were me I'd be cutting them loose before the potential storm can become a reality.

[xexes 108]

Oh, you lovely person!

 

Some people like sites like that. Some people just really thrive and love all of the drama and romantic relationships and favoritism and all of it floats their boat something perfect! 

 

For the majority of us roleplayers, though, we run and hide at the first sign of just one of those things, let alone three of them! Sometimes it happens that you find yourself in the middle of birds of a different color. Their likes and lifestyles seem so yucky to us and rub all of our feathers the wrong way. I have never heard of someone who stayed in that situation and nothing bad didn't happen - it always does, sooner or later, and the later it is, the more awful it tends to be for all the time there for the badness to build up.

 

Trust your gut instincts, please don't stay someplace that makes you feel physically ill. Nor mentally ill!

 

Sending holiday hugs and good vibes!