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What Welcoming Actually Means


Arceus
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7 hours ago, Arceus said:

It's just this weird type of synergy that is incredibly attractive at a distance but up close feels oddly uncomfortable to exist in the same space as.

 

Yeah, agreed. I looked at a bunch of different games back when I was on the hunt, and there were a few that really piqued my interest, but ultimately it was always some variation of what you've described here that made me not commit to any of them. Especially places with unique and expansive lore -- If there are ways to simplify it and have less jargon in the way you speak about it, it makes a big difference. Because a hefty lore is overwhelming enough, but then to feel like you don't know where to begin and that you'll never figure it out, it's hard to go all-in if you don't know and trust at least someone there already. 

 

Also, this isn't as much of a subtle thing, but requiring registration to view threads/activity. Not talking adult stuff, just generally. And I get it, and it's totally the admin's prerogative, but there was a site I was super interested in and I couldn't get over that niggling feeling you're talking about because they wanted me to register just to see the site content, and ultimately I felt unwanted there because of it.

 

Kudos for bringing this up; I think we definitely get complacent in our snuggly little groups, and it's easy to be off-putting without realizing it.

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This was a big problem on more than one board I used to be on. Individually, members (and staff) were generally very cordial and welcoming, and would do the "yeah, message me if you want to plot!" thing, but as a group... people were so tied up in their plots that there wasn't always an immediate in for new people. Combine that with a niche fandom with a super specific/complex lore and a few overbearing personalities and there was definitely more than one new person who got overwhelmed and left. 

 

Aside from the things mentioned (wide range of want ads, plot openings), what are things we members (or staff) can do to promote awareness of this tendency? Is pointing it out and asking people to actively think about it enough? If this were a real life setting (I tend to think in terms of classrooms), I would switch up the groups/seating or do more things to get different people talking to each other, but that's... harder online. 

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And that's the tough shit, isn't it? Because nobody does this on purpose. It's not a clique. It's not the same thing. It's just when people jive so well they start doing "in" things more often and other people see this chemistry and feel threatened by it. It is what it is. I don't think either side is in the right or in the wrong here. Because they're not trying to exclude anyone, they probably even really mean it when they say they want to plot with other people, and that's the hard thing. Do you tell people not to get along with or plot with their friends, or do you tell the players outside that group to grow a pair?

 

I don't think there's a right answer. Neither one feels fair. And I'm not trying to be like Oh woe is everyone but I've been on both sides of this. And I just don't know what the right way is. IMO, this no-real-right-answer problem also leads to people pointing this out if you're not ready to really understand what it means and the person pointing it out also doesn't really understand it either, you're going to probably have some hurt feelings and bitterness. Because "we're not a clique, what??? WE'RE LITERALLY REALLY NOT WHAT THE FUCK IS EVEN THIS," no seriously that was my first reaction to it and lmty it took me another... like four years to FINALLY have the epiphany that told me what they meant.

 

But all of this is subconscious. On both ends, both it happening and both others' reactions to it, because I think this is one of those unavoidable side-effects of interacting with other people for a long time. We do this in real-life, too, where we'll start picking up each other's slang and coming up with new lingo with each other and new catchphrases and such. It's just. How humans work, maybe? Like, I'm dealing with this same reaction from my boyfriend right now. He is intimidated by the chemistry I have with someone else. But it's also how humans work to perceive this as an environment that's not hostile, but not really welcoming either, because we have a lot of innate interest in sticking to "our people," whoever "our people" may be, and breaking into new social circles is much easier when they're neither our people nor clearly a people already exists there.

 

Idk. I think I could write an entire thesis on this but I'll spare everyone. Lol

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I am the darkness, always watching, always listening, ALWAYS THERE.
(If you're interested in Plain of Ice, message me, it's private. Bleach site, non-canon.)

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Exactly!! I would just quote your whole post and go "👆" but that would be ridiculous.

 

I've definitely been on both sides of it, too, and I think I probably had a similar reaction the first time something of the sort was pointed out to me. But then once you get past the... callout? you start to see it everywhere. Alas, humans as social creatures is both our strength and our weakness. 

 

If I had time and more actual ambition I would be curious to try some things with making breaking out of social circles more of a norm of a site and see what that does... but oof, that would require a lot of coordination and organization on my part. In the mean time, I guess I'll just try to figure out how to have a conversation about this sort of thing without anyone freaking out.

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I don't think it's the interaction part, though. Like, at least on the side where the user is in a close group and wants outside people to join them, like I said, they really mean that. Or at least me and mine always do, every other group like this I've ever seen do, and make every effort to include people. We at least once joined a site and went out of our ways not to plot or thread with each other at all, and it still happened, that people saw we were close and started to stop trying to interact with us, even though we were happily chatting and plotting with pretty much everyone on the site but each other. And I know it was like that because we could see them still interacting with each other. Like I said, it's not a clique: a clique refuses to plot and interact with people outside their group. There are stages of clique severity, but any reluctance to interact with others outside their friend group, that's a clique to me and they are a whole other ballgame. What I'm talking about here are just people that get along with each other, but still make every effort to include others. I've also seen groups like this accidentally end up shoving another group like this out of a site because there's only room on a site for one I guess.

 

So I don't think it's just a matter of the close group needing to interact outside their group, because from what I've seen, all the groups like this have absolutely no problem branching out; but for some reason, people still feel like they're being too much. I've had so many people I was actively interacting, threading, and plotting with, people I've straight up made whole entire characters for, tell me they didn't like how well I got along with my friends because it was intimidating. I've even tried things where we had a roulette thing where new players could get randomly paired with existing players for a thread, and nobody ever followed through with any of it, if they even bothered signing up.

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I am the darkness, always watching, always listening, ALWAYS THERE.
(If you're interested in Plain of Ice, message me, it's private. Bleach site, non-canon.)

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as well, sometimes the issue is there is no one else on a site but that core group. and u still get ppl going omg theyre so nice to me in chat and nobodys ignoring me but my gosh they're so intimidating.

 

ok?? and wtf is that even supposed to mean??? how do i not be intimidating when im making every logical attempt at not being intimidating?? ive tried everything but hello my name is tian and im not intimidating. and its the worst thing bc how do u figure out what it is thats causing this reaction? and if theyre really that upset about us just getting along what are we gonna do like open sites solo? but then the site wont be active and nobody will want to join it anyway. what are they gonna do when in a few years down the line member 2 and member 3 suddenly start jiving rly well? like are we all just gonna live in a constant state of OH MY GOD YOU'RE GETTING ALONG WITH SOMEONE, INTIMIDATING!!!!

 

really??? like, really? omg. lol i cant even this whole thing is an utter mess.

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Yup! I think the only real thing to do is for groups like this to try and remain conscious of how they interact. And at least stop the shortcuts and in-slang and that, so that people can at least understand what's going on. And maybe that loss of in-crowd lingo will make things a bit easier for others, idk.

 

It's kind of like "hey did you notice your hair grew 2 centimetres?" on the radar, but it's also kind of important to try remaining conscious of those sorts of things. Because to be fair to my past self, I did figure out there was something not-good about being lazy in writing, and I actually started being harder on myself and my friends when I saw that we were becoming lax. So I think at least recognising that writing lazily isn't good if you intend to remain a decent writer and keep your craft honed is a decent start.

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I am the darkness, always watching, always listening, ALWAYS THERE.
(If you're interested in Plain of Ice, message me, it's private. Bleach site, non-canon.)

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18 minutes ago, dragonborn said:

as well, sometimes the issue is there is no one else on a site but that core group. and u still get ppl going omg theyre so nice to me in chat and nobodys ignoring me but my gosh they're so intimidating.

 

ok?? and wtf is that even supposed to mean??? how do i not be intimidating when im making every logical attempt at not being intimidating?? ive tried everything but hello my name is tian and im not intimidating. and its the worst thing bc how do u figure out what it is thats causing this reaction? and if theyre really that upset about us just getting along what are we gonna do like open sites solo? but then the site wont be active and nobody will want to join it anyway. what are they gonna do when in a few years down the line member 2 and member 3 suddenly start jiving rly well? like are we all just gonna live in a constant state of OH MY GOD YOU'RE GETTING ALONG WITH SOMEONE, INTIMIDATING!!!!

 

really??? like, really? omg. lol i cant even this whole thing is an utter mess.

 

I feel this so hard. My fellow staff (and I before I temporarily stepped down) have been bending over backwards to balance being really friendly and open with the new people and the older people and try to help them get together. We have rewards for playing with new people, we have rewards for playing with groups, we have all sorts of incentives to encourage people to play with each other... and yet we get some people who just lurk; RP with one or two people and NEVER TALK TO STAFF... and then suddenly they come to me about how they can't talk to anyone about why they're uncomfortable and they feel alienated from the group. 

I'm trying to figure out how to nicely point out to them that they never TALK to the group, they're always on invisible and when they do comment in the discord it's usually to tell people who busy they are with IRL stuff; which keeps them from serious plots but doesn't stop them from RPing their romances. Then when the non-romance people watch them spree their love affairs and give up on them they complain to me that the other players aren't fair because they need extra time. 

and I'm like "Well if you're playing X character that day because you feel them, try to tag every thread, that way even if you spree with someone you can point out you did tag the other people back too" and they just say that they can't RP with that person because they're pressured and.... eventually all they're doing is talking about all the reasons they can't RP with everyone else in the group and I'm sitting here like.... "We built as many bridges to you as we could and you set fire to every single one of them... then complained about being alone" 

 

I mean, I run group contests for people, we offer community nights were we hang out and watch a netflix movie together using an app to host the party for people who don't HAVE netflix. We offer to play Cards Against Humanity together online. We do so much community outreach stuff but you can't make people take it. 

 

Some people are only happy if they can take possession of other players and if they don't feel like they're the center of your RP world, it doesn't matter how friendly you are; they'll claim they're being neglected or left outside. 

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10 hours ago, Bolgron said:

eventually all they're doing is talking about all the reasons they can't RP with everyone else in the group and I'm sitting here like.... "We built as many bridges to you as we could and you set fire to every single one of them... then complained about being alone" 

 

Oof, yeah I've seen that happen plenty, too. At what point does it stop being an "us/me" problem and become a "them" problem? Because we *can* be doing everything under the sun right, and we're still not going to catch everyone...

 

10 hours ago, dragonborn said:

as well, sometimes the issue is there is no one else on a site but that core group. and u still get ppl going omg theyre so nice to me in chat and nobodys ignoring me but my gosh they're so intimidating.

 

...I have this happen to me in real life sometimes, and it boggles my mind every time. Eventually, with time and conversations, and sometimes someone else pointing out "I swear she's not scary, just talk to her," that intimidation factor goes away, but it does definitely take a bit of moderating on both my end and their end. It doesn't do anything if I put out my hand and the other person won't take it.

 

ETA: actually, as I thought about this as it was posting, I realized I want to say something about... learning to work through intimidation is definitely a learned skill anyway. Was I intimidated like two days ago when I joined? I sure was. Did I post anyway and try to have conversations? Also yes. Am I slightly less intimidated now than I was? Yeah, a bit, but this place is still new and a little overwhelming but that's okay because I know it takes time and effort.

...okay that was a longer note than I meant, but oh well. Point being, hello I feel smol and scared but y'all are cool.

Edited by emeraldas
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I can't help but notice the conversation seems to have gone something like this:

"Hey, I know we all try to be welcoming, but it's entirely possible to be intimidating without trying to be so we should talk about how to improve"
"I AM BEING WELCOMING DAMMIT AND IF SOMEONE'S INTIMIDATED TOUGH NUGGETS"

 

Woah there folks.

Do you just tell people "Hi glad you're here, ask if you have questions!"
Or do you ask new people "What are you looking for, what kinds of characters do you like to play?"


And do you listen? Are you able to actively help them fit their character concepts into your world, or are they left directionless and wondering if they've missed some critical part of the lore until they've put in all the work of building a character and submitted their completed app?

 

People know, when they get to a new site, even after they've read all the rules etc that they don't know everything about that game - but often at first they don't even know enough to know what to ask. If you brainstorm with them, though you will notice when they go off in a direction that doesn't fit, and can let them know before they get completely enamoured of an unworkable concept.

Do you just tell people "I'd love to plot with you, let me know"
Or do you tell people, "Hey, so what kind of plots do you like? There's a political plot going on in this forum, and some swashbuckling shenanigans in that forum, and so-n-so loves playing romances, or did you have other ideas?"
 

Do you actively welcome them into existing plots? Existing threads? Do you let that thread or plot go in a different direction than you were originally expecting it to because of the presence of a new character, or do you leave them feeling railroaded or like a useless tagalong?

 

Coming up with plot ideas is hard when you don't know any of the other characters. Existing players only have to learn about ONE new character in order to figure out how theirs might get along with a new player's. It's literally easier for you, don't make them do all the work.

Do you have so many rewards for playing with new people that newbies are left wondering if people are only playing with them for the prizes? Do your staff prioritize responding to newer players, and how long do you consider a player to be new for? Are they left feeling like people are only responding to the new guy when they don't have anywhere else to post? Or do they get a bunch of activity with their characters, maybe finish their first thread, but then there's a sudden unexplained dropoff because they're not 'new' any more, even though they're not really established either?

Is your expected posting frequency written down somewhere? Do your players actually stick to it? Do you say no minimum word count but then half your players write 1,000-word wall-of-text posts that are intimidating to read let alone respond to for someone who's used to 'no wc' meaning average post length is 100-200 words? Are they wondering if you expect players to match the post length of the others in each thread?

Anyway, just some thoughts. I've been on sites where people intended to be welcoming, but it was hard to break in, and I've been on sites where people not just opened the door but pulled new people in and sat them down at the kitchen table with a plate full of homebaked cookies. Sometimes it's VERY subtle things.

There is always room for improvement. ALWAYS.

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So I haven't roleplayed in almost a decade so, take with salt. 

 

The last site I was really active on, part of why I had to step away was feeling like I couldn't break in to the in group, even though I didn't have any sense they were actively trying to exclude people. They were actively trying to include people! There was just this weird dissonance. I think the thing was back then I didn't know what I felt I was missing. I couldn't put my finger on it. I think what it was was a sense of continuity (continuality?) of plot, and this entangling effect that happens where a tight group's characters all know each other so what happens in one thread gets mentioned in another thread. 

 

And with a considerable amount of distance I can see pretty clearly what was going on was I just didn't have the story-telling skills to know /how to follow up on a thread/. I didn't know what the proper way to be like "hey let's keep telling this story between the characters" and I think part of that was because I didn't know how to confidently suggest plots to another character. 

 

So for example I had threads with two people who wrote with each other all the time. Their two characters were IC very close, and if I were in the same position today I'd get those two players in chat together and go "cool, is there anything interesting my character can do that could make interesting tension for your two later on?" and offer up some specific ideas. 

 

I don't think it was so much a sense of closeness and in-crowd lingo that was causing issues, ooc I felt quite close to those people, I think it was this neither side knew how to communicate that something wasn't quite working? Because I'm sure I came off as distance and that must have made it uncomfortable to suggest continuations- not to mention that'd be a lot of work on their end. But I was not smart enough to put that together back then.

 

All of FizzyElf's post is very good but I wanted to zoom in on the part I bolded for emphasis, because that was like a lightbulb moment, just exactly the word for what I felt, and what I feel like the whole situation was. 

15 hours ago, FizzyElf said:

[...snip...]

And do you listen? Are you able to actively help them fit their character concepts into your world, or are they left directionless and wondering if they've missed some critical part of the lore until they've put in all the work of building a character and submitted their completed app?

[...snip...]

 

My other thought is from doing some light research into how to get people to buy in to participation when it comes to group stuff. Seems the biggest repeating factor is that if people aren't participating, it's because that somewhere on the chain to doing thing there's a step that's too big a leap to feel comfortable. But I don't know how to apply that to this, because the fix for mine was just a decade's worth of new social skills, like emeraldas said:

 

On 9/22/2019 at 9:59 AM, emeraldas said:

[...snip...]

ETA: actually, as I thought about this as it was posting, I realized I want to say something about... learning to work through intimidation is definitely a learned skill anyway. Was I intimidated like two days ago when I joined? I sure was. Did I post anyway and try to have conversations? Also yes. Am I slightly less intimidated now than I was? Yeah, a bit, but this place is still new and a little overwhelming but that's okay because I know it takes time and effort.

...okay that was a longer note than I meant, but oh well. Point being, hello I feel smol and scared but y'all are cool.

 

So I'm left wondering, where exactly do we think the gaps are, and what could we do on a site to help make them smaller?

Edited by Ozfiz
My mouse glitched and posted it for some reason before I was done ;o;
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On 9/25/2019 at 4:49 PM, Ozfiz said:

So I'm left wondering, where exactly do we think the gaps are, and what could we do on a site to help make them smaller?

 

 

I think the gaps are probably different for every person, and it's mostly dependent on their previous experiences. Someone new to RP in general is going to have wildly different gaps than someone who's only new to that site. It probably mostly just comes down to communicating with people...

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On 9/24/2019 at 11:39 PM, FizzyElf said:

Anyway, just some thoughts. I've been on sites where people intended to be welcoming, but it was hard to break in, and I've been on sites where people not just opened the door but pulled new people in and sat them down at the kitchen table with a plate full of homebaked cookies. Sometimes it's VERY subtle things.

 

I think it boils down to laziness and being tired. I'm at fault here as are many of my members, especially when a site starts to get large. People want the new person to come to them and that's not how it works. You have to reach out and offer them 'ins' because otherwise they will flounder and eventually leave. Communication is exhausting for me, which it part of the reason it's so hard for me to stay on top of. But since I know it is a problem of mine, I'm working on fixing it. Take a day to not post (or admin if you're an admin) and just reach out to people who are new or don't have many plots and plot with them. Offer them threads. If you don't have any solid plot ideas, who cares? Thread and see where it goes. If they don't mesh, now you know. But you won't know until you try. There is nothing as unwelcoming as feeling like no one wants to thread with your character. It doesn't matter if you're nice in the discord or chatty with them, because ultimately they are there to write. We are all writers. It's what we do and when someone doesn't seem to want to write with us, we notice. 

 

I also post rapid fire open threads and sometimes I straight up tell my normal rp partners to not take my opens. 

 

Also, if someone doesn't post in the group discord or chat, maybe they aren't comfortable with it? Post in their shippers or pm them. Not everyone likes to be in a crowded discord with ten people taking at once. It can be overwhelming. 

 

I feel like I'm just all over the place so I'm gonna end here XD

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