Posting incentives - What personally works for you?

[HotPinkUnicornMess 51]

What are some posting incentives that a forum might offer that makes you eager to post/write? I've been wracking my head how to get my free form RP board members to come along and post and I'm pretty sure I am missing something, somewhere. I've got a board wide event right now, and am working on medals for various thanks for participation--but I'm not getting too many people posting or playing yet. What is it a forum can offer you that keeps you wanting to post? 

[Huskerdust 625]

Honestly nothing except pure interest can motivate me to write. I need to love the characters and be invested in their storyline. Otherwise I’m just meh. 

[Jaxx 317]

One site I'm on does little badges that display under the miniprofile for different posting achievements, which I love and definitely motivates me to post. But I also post a lot no matter what. So I think, no matter the situation or the rewards or whatever, your players need to be invested in your site and what's going on there if posting is going to happen. Best of luck with that happening! Sometimes there's just slow spots that you gotta weather.

 

If you're worried that something might be up, a lot of directories let you request that someone take a look at your board and point out anything they think could be causing you problems with getting/keeping members. Or you can always ask your members themselves. Every so often, I put up an anonymous feedback form or survey on my site using SurveyMonkey, so that people can bring up things even if they would be uncomfortable saying it directly to me. 

[Rhindeer 217]

Advancing the story, the curiosity and desire of seeing what will happen next...that is its own incentive. If I love my threads, my characters, and the characters of my partners, then that is its own incentive and its own reward.

 

Nothing else will do it. I don't give a crap about badges and such. That's a fun extra, but that's not gonna motivate me to post. I have to care and be excited about my threads.

 

Also, I have to have the time! I fell behind on posting for months, not for lack of interest but because I had no time and was too tired and just wanted to veg on video games. Nothing external is gonna motivate me except finally having the time and energy. No one can really do much about that.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Viscount Rhi-Rhi

[Shieb 47]

Yeah, everyone's pretty much posted my same thoughts.

 

I write when I enjoy the story, whether it's a forum or just a story I'm doing myself. I like opportunities for stories, too. That can keep me going. I'm also one of those people who does not want to mess with someone else's lore, though, so I have to sort of be invited in sometimes? I've got an amazing admin right now who gave my character a hook by using some in-game lore I'm not hugely acquainted with, and then I got to learn more by going through that discovery in-character. And now we're planning other potential threads. It helps that the admin can make things fun without flexing their lore, though. I'm excited for plots with fellow members, too.

And yeah, sometimes I won't write for ages. I just had to end a year-long relationship that was toxic as heck and it's knocked me out. If I don't know a site's culture well, I won't always tell them that I even have problems getting in the way.

Look, if everyone was writing previously, give it a little while longer before you start panicking. There are fast and slow periods of every site. The fast periods are amazing and threaten to leave you behind, and the slow ones give every admin anxiety. That's normal. Idk what your situation is, but if they were writing before, chances are you don't need to listen to your anxiety. Just keep writing when you can.

TL;DR: The badges, OTMs, etc. That's all accessories. I write for stories. 

[Kazetatsu 263]

activity breeds activity, excitement breeds excitement. It's important than the rper's involved feel like their input is worth something not only to the story, but to their story. It's always rewarding when other players come and tell them their plot or story or character is awesome, and when that happens, they might do so as well as getting a muse boost from the positive feedback.

 

but like the others said, there will be slow periods on any site. just keep making posts/threads/events and as long as your players are still invested in your rp, you'll weather it through.

Edited March 9, 2019 by Kazetatsu

[HotPinkUnicornMess 51]

I definitely think I have some admin panic brain. I mean, the community literally banded together to help us upgrade to a paid forum software and get a few paid add ons to boot, so I should remind myself that the love is there. It just may be a quiet period. 

I am not sure what else I can do to encourage members to play with each other, other than just keep going. Thanks all, so much. 

[River 57]

I have a very bad case of ADHD, and one of the ways that manifests itself is a predisposition towards goal-oriented hobbies. When I was a little kid, my favorite things to do were puzzles, LEGO, and coloring -- all things that had a very clear end point. Now, obviously RP isn't super conducive to an "end point," because even if each individual thread ends, you're supposed to keep the characters and the story going. I've mentioned in a couple of other threads that I make a to-do list every morning so that I can get the tiny dopamine rush of physically checking off a task I need to do, such as writing a reply, but one of the things that motivates me the most to write is feeling like I'm actively working towards something. So, in the 2.5 boards I'm on (one being two sites with a joint Discord and a lot of overlap), one of them has a little place to store your pixel awards for completing various tasks in character, and the other allows you to put little GIFs in Discord when your character hits a certain posting milestone, like 50 or 100 or 200 posts.

 

Additionally, for my own sake, I compile a spreadsheet every month with all of my characters, their post count, and their word count, and I use that as a way of tracking how well I'm doing for the month. I'm satisfied with at least 100 posts or 50,000 words, whichever is more, and generally strive to crack either 200 posts or 100,000 words a month.

 

When it comes to incentives towards posting in specific threads, that's usually the other person's writing, having enough to go off of and knowing that they'll reply in a timely manner. Every so often I'll end up in a thread that I'm not feeling, and at that point, I get a different kind of posting incentive, which is that I'll start writing for that thread more so that it can get to a clear end point and I can be done with it while also collecting whatever secondary rewards there might be. If I'm really enjoying a thread, it can get up to 50 posts in before coming to a natural end.

[Josie 198]

I enjoy games with systems and stats. I like coming up with game mechanics that make the game more challenging to play in a strategic sort of sense. But that isn't what makes me want to keep writing or playing, it just impacts the way I do it. What keeps me going is having fun plots to write in, so perhaps the thing to incentivize would be communicating and plotting with each other, and rewarding people for actually making threads with one another after.

[Gothic 307]

I like getting badges and things for posting. I get excited and happy when I get them. That being said, I will want to collect them all so long as they are attainable and fun to do it. lol

 

That being said, they aren't the main reason why I post and are the icing on the cake. I post because I want to continue the story and I enjoy writing with whoever I happen to be writing with. 

[jshort 3]

I've run the same RP for almost 10 years. There are always going to be periods of high activity and periods where it feels like you're pulling teeth to get other people to post. As others have said, the only "cure" is to continue to be active yourself. The stories you write will attract other people and eventually it grows organically from there. All the extra stuff like medals and points are just that - extras. Some players can be really motivated by them. Frankly, I've never been able to offer much in the way of "rewards" except for things like avatars & custom tables, so they haven't had much of an impact.

 

Good luck getting your site up and going!

[Foxypaws 44]

On 3/8/2019 at 7:30 PM, GreaterRealms said:

I definitely think I have some admin panic brain. I mean, the community literally banded together to help us upgrade to a paid forum software and get a few paid add ons to boot, so I should remind myself that the love is there. It just may be a quiet period. 

I am not sure what else I can do to encourage members to play with each other, other than just keep going. Thanks all, so much. 

I'm experiencing this right now. Everything's gone dead silent. After a bit of asking around I found out that the simple fact is that everyone is busy right now. Ever so often folks trickle back in and say that the interest is still there, but I've also had people quit due to lack of free time. Sad, but I know it will get better.

As for your question about posting incentives...all I want is to be interested! I want threads that will drive my characters forward. I want excitement. I want life!