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Advice Needed Regarding Player-Friend Absence


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I run a relatively new rp site.  A friend of mine plays an important canon character on the site.  However, my friend posted an absence request over a month ago as they were not going to have access to the internet.  This person returned briefly a little over a week ago but we have not heard from them since, nor have they answered DM's.  

 

What do I do? I consider this person a friend so the usual rule of "if you don't return, you risk losing your characters" is difficult to stick too.  This friend can also be quite moody and that alone intimidates me.  I feel like I risk losing them as a friend by giving them a gentle boot.  I have reached out to them in DM very recently and have yet to hear back.  How long do I let this go on for? Am I being too lenient? Please help. v.v

Anonymous poster hash: 39949...842

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if they're not communicating with you and have fallen inactive in accordance to the rules, archive them.

 

i'm very lax with activity, but i emphasize communication. i'm not rushing to archive people, but if they haven't posted in accordance to the rules and have not communicated with me about it, they'll be sorted as inactive.

 

it's not a good look for an admin to play favorites and ignore rules because a member is their friend. i've seen it happen and it's a turn-off. this is an important canon and this person isn't speaking to you at the moment. they probably don't even want to write, and only want to hold onto the character without doing anything.

 

if your friend would be upset with you for following your site's rules, then they don't seem like a good friend in the first place.

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if the canon is a role rather than a character (example: king, but not king Arthur) then you can open up the role without necessarily taking the character away from the player.  The character itself could then be used by your friend at a normal rank once they return, while the role could be made open for a player who can be more active.

Edited by Kazetatsu
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If they don;t have internet, then it is normal not to see DMs and e-mails (which I recommend more than DMs, because one can have e-mail on the phone but not other things which need to be logged in to something else on the computer). And they warned about it, so it makes sense to write around the character for a while. But if the person doesn't return in, let's say, another month, it is all right to take the character out of the story in a way which makes sense for further reintegration if he returns (the king can go to his summer castle, or fall ill, etc.)

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You can either be an admin, or a friend. But if you are an admin running a website, you cannot be both. Letting your friends get a pass while everyone else doesn't--is not the signal you want to be sending out to your community. 

If you were literally just role playing with you, them, and a few close friends as a group that's a different story. Once a role playing website starts looking for community members outside their comfort zone, it becomes more of a business mindset with the perks of having RP occasionally if you have time for it. 

Friend, fellow mod, fellow admin, regular user--they all need to be following the same rules and should not get a pass. 

Edited by GreaterRealms
Because I cannot grammar goodly
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Absolutely agree with the others. The rules are there for a reason. They're there for everyone, so everyone should follow them.

 

Good luck!

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The Next Incantation :: The Last Island
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In 2nd grade (communion year), my mother taught my religious education classes. At the end of the year, she bought a small paint-able angel statue for all her students to give out on the last day of class. She decided to paint them all a nice metallic gold - but mine she wanted to paint flesh tone with my hair color (as a communion gift). I told her no, that I wanted a gold one just like everyone else because I didn't want it to look like my mother favorited me over my classmates - I wanted to be treated equal to my peers.

 

My mom, you see, thought she was giving me a nice communion gift by painting my angel the way she wanted to, and didn't actually realize what it would look like to the rest of the class until I pointed out the unfairness (She ended up giving me two angels: the gold one that was the class gift, and a separate angel that was painted in my image on my communion day). Rules of an RP board are the same: we may think we're helping our friends out of a human desire to do good - but don't always realize the severe impact on the community at large and how it might hurt instead.

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Agreeing with everyone above and wanted to make an addition there. By giving your friend special treatment, you're not only hurting your community, you may be hurting your friend in the long run as well. At some point, your community might start going 'huh, why should I play with you? You're gonna get special treatment, if I do something you don't like you'll just run to the admins and have it done your way' and other not so nice thoughts. It's better to treat everyone equally and let your friend be a full member of the community.

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Shady McShaderson

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I once was in a position like this on an old board of mine and it really stressed me out. Eventually, I learned that if they are real friends they won't want to compromise your friendship or board to cater to their wants and needs. Things like that can seriously kill a community. I hold friends to the same rules/expectations as I would anyone else. Don't let the fear of them taking it personal hinder you from running a happy, healthy community.

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+ :: c o m i n g  s o o n  :: +

 

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