Does a site hiatus affect your opinion of said site?

[Josie 198]

Nah, a hiatus doesn't impact my opinion of a site. And although there are plenty of people who have posted in this thread to say that it does, my guess is that it's not as big of a deal as it might seem. The RP world is great and wide- depending on how long your hiatus was, the name of your site might have completely dropped out of memory of all the people who are unimpressed and bothered by such things. There will still be plenty of people around who had never heard of your site in the first place, and will stumble upon it for the first time, perhaps completely unaware that there was a hiatus to begin with. 

 

My opinion is don't sweat the small stuff, and this is just the small stuff to me. It's none of my business why someone's site went on hiatus if I was never even there before, and if I had been a part of the site when it went on hiatus... then I already know why it happened, most like. If you want to share that info, that's fine. If you don't, you don't have to. 

[Jaxx 317]

Depends on how long it is, why it's happening, and how transparent staff is. I've been around a long time. The examples below are all true. If staff pulls something out of nowhere, or uses a hiatus as a means to ghost on the site, then I'm going to think poorly of that. If staff is open with people and lets them know what to expect, that won't affect my opinion of the site at all. 

 

Admins stopped logging into one site, which meant members did too, which meant I was the only person around that was still posting. Admins later came back and called it a 'hiatus' and gave a brief apology for ditching the site. They extended invitations to all former members to rejoin. I said I would consider it. When there was no further activity on the site, I declined. 

 

Admin put the site on hiatus with no warning but gave an expected end date. They stopped logging in entirely and would not respond to members' questions about a reopening date. I moved on to another site in the same genre, and the original never reopened. 

 

Admin gave a heads up that the site may be going on hiatus in the future due to real life things. They engaged with the community as best they could while the hiatus was in effect, and gave updates on the timeline to reopening. I stayed through the hiatus and to the other side. Eventually I left for reasons unrelated to the hiatus, and referred the site to other people on several occasions.