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Site dying because of inactive staff, advice?


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When a site's been screwed over by inactive staff but you don't want to see it die, what do you do? How do you know whether to walk away or stick around? 

 

A site I'm on was opened last summer. Things started going downhill in November. It was a classic case of nepotism and inefficiency dooming a site: it was opened by a few friends, and when most of them stopped doing anything, they were kept on staff despite their inactivity and more people were hired to pick up their slack. Who, predictably, went inactive in their turn. At this point a third of the memberbase is on the staff team and the majority of them haven't posted onsite or in the Discord for months. Only three members, none of them staff, have posted in the last six weeks, and people have bailed left and right. Multiple remaining members told me in private that they believe the site will be abandoned in three months. 

 

Recently one of the admins stated that they were going to become more active. They've made some attempts at plotting in the Discord but no actual IC posts. Normally I'd take this as a sign that the site will become more active again in the near future, except the site's core issues remain. The staff do jack shit, and the site's setting is by nature reliant on staff moving things forward. There needs to be a major overhaul of the staff team and removal of people who aren't doing anything, if not from the site as a whole, then at least from staff. Except there's a snowball's chance in hell of friends removing friends from staff positions. 

 

I genuinely like the site, and it has a lot of potential. Hell, if I thought the head admin had the balls to clean house and instate some standards among staff, I'd volunteer to help run it. But as it is, I know that if I volunteered to help now, I'd just end up being the staffer who does all the work while seven other people share the credit. No exaggeration, it's currently a site of seven staffers and thirteen members. I would bring up my concerns with staff, except... well, there's no polite way to essentially say "I don't know wtf you're doing but you've run your site into the ground and you need to get your shit together". And I'd feel weird about bringing up a big issue like this if I wasn't going to offer to help fix things, which as I said above, I don't want to do at this stage because I don't trust the other staffers to do their share. 

 

So what next? 

Anonymous poster hash: 02319...196

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So, gardening. Bear with me.

 

My parents got a basil plant from the grocery store once. It was lively and vibrant, and everyone was excited to see it well. It sat by the door window in indirect sun, and I'd remembered reading once to trim it to keep it from going to seed for flavor purposes.

 

Autumn came. I was busy with my life, my father wasn't really the "research this thing obsessively" type, and my mother probably figured it would die anyway and that it dying would be another valuable lesson in hopelessness. So, by the time I noticed it wasn't bouncing back, the best options were pretty much dried basil or rotting basil. I went with dried.

 

My point is: sometimes you figure out something's wrong too late in the game, but you can still harvest some fruits/herbs/storylines/etc. for your efforts. Maybe not the fruits you hoped for, but something you can preserve and sprinkle on something else.

 

It sounds like you and the active staff have much different ideals and ambitions for the site. Where you're already at the point of contemplating how you could do it better than this site, your energies might be better spent looking into how to make your personal goals happen rather than rely on a site with priorities that have morphed into something much different than you'd hoped. As the saying goes - "if you want something done right, do it yourself".


P.S. For those wondering past the gardening analogy and what the optimal basil solution is: a warmer fucking climate or turning your house into a greenhouse lmao; second to that, let it go to seed in August so you can collect and plant for next year. Mistakes pave the way to better future planning if we let them.

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To add to what Somniac already said; sometimes a good idea is wrecked by bad management. Whether it's a website, a company or even a TV show or book. Of course, I don't know the deets of your specific situation beyond what you post, but my first thought it "How likely is it that you can convince the staff to change their ways even if you were to get involved on the staff side of things?"

Experience says your chances are slim to none, especially not in the long run. Change like that requires serious commitment and actually change of the person(s) involved. I've not yet seen many people do that for their career, let alone for a forum where they volunteer, likely underestimated the amount of time and effort it would take before coming on board. And all this in a niche that's pretty saturated already.

 

Again, I say this based solely on your description but if staff isn't involved ... yeah, it's likely gonna die sooner or later because if staff can't be bothered, neither will (potential) members. 

Sometimes, it's better to euthanize the dog rather than continue to let it suffer. 

 

The way I see it you have various options;

1. Confront the staff with the cold hard facts (in a polite way) and see if that wakes them up without joining the team. 

2. Confront the staff and actually join the team - and face all the consequences that might entail (including doing all the work and sharing the credit)

3. Download/copy what you want to keep yourself and pack your bags while you still can. (I'm not one to assume staff would announce their closure very far in advance. It would be the decent thing to do but I've seen it happen that they do not).

 

I'd personally go for the latter but honestly, that's up to you. 

If you still see a future for the site, it might be worth it. Otherwise, it might be time to move on. 

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If I were in your situation, I'd cut my losses and head somewhere else. 

 

While the desire to go in and patch holes in a sinking ship can be incredibly powerful, especially when you really enjoy the ship, it's not your responsibility to fix all the issues the staff aren't willing to fix themselves. The frustrating part about watching a site go down is that in order to get everything back on track, it takes a team. If they haven't begun to do the work themselves, chances are high that even you stepping in to assist will not result in a strong enough turnaround to keep things going. 

 

As you previously mentioned, you'd most likely be the one doing all the work if you decided to help, and that's not something you want (or should have) to take on. Hopefully the staff can take this as a learning experience and you can find a place where the staff are active and engaged with the site and community. 

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I'm going to agree with what has been mentioned above, it sounds like it's time to move on. 

 

However, if the one active staff member is someone you feel comfortable approaching, maybe share your concerns with them and see if they are planning on shutting the site down. I know from personal experience, that it can be really hard to close something you put a lot of work into. Maybe that's what they need to do. If they are planning on closing and you believe that they, personally, are a reliable admin, offer to help them reconstruct a similar site and start fresh. Patching holes in a sinking ship may help the site short term, but if other people already are under the assumption that the site is dead, it is not likely that they will join. 

 

Sometimes taking those ideas and building on them to create a more stable environment is the way to go. That way the main admin doesn't have to feel like they have to boot their 'friends' or half the site off the staff, and they have the opportunity to try again. 

Edited by PixieMegs
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Watching a site die is painful for sure.

 

I'm gonna cast my vote for moving on. You can only do so much and, no matter how many good things came from your experience, you don't want to stay on a sinking ship.


If the staff aren't into it, then the site likely won't see any spike in activity. Don't stress yourself out over things and find a new place to write. If that site comes back to life, then maybe you can return. 

 

Anonymous poster hash: 4e9a7...fc5

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My vote is to move on. It may not die now, but it likely will eventually. And even if it doesn't, I've found from experience putting that much effort into something the admin clearly do not care about is not only draining, but a complete and utter killjoy. I've done it, I failed, and ultimately I realized it was a thankless task and moved on--along with a handful of others. Unfortunately, I can't get the years back that I spent doing that.

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You know what to do, even if it's a bummer. 

 

I feel like it's always a bummer when a game I enjoy, with writers I've enjoyed, is on its last leg. These things don't last long, more often than not, and it sucks to lose a good time when you're still interested and invested. It has happened to me a bajillion times over the years, and it never stops being crummy. That's why I always end up running my own games before long.

 

Still, there's really nothing you can do unless someone running a dying game hands it off to someone who is willing and able to take on the responsibility of running the thing (including making any necessary changes). If you're not willing to take this one on, and no one else is interested and able, and/or the folks who have ownership of it don't want to hand it off-- Just gotta roll with the flow.

 

The nice thing is that there's usually a way to carry the fun over to a new environment. If there are particular story elements or characters you'd like to continue with, you can always carry those pieces to another gaming environment or format. You can always reach out to people you want to continue writing with and make arrangements to do that elsewhere. If folks really want to keep some things going, they can! If the overall interest just isn't there anymore, you can still use what you've loved and learned to pursue new creative fun. 

 

If you find yourself wanting to run a game yourself, that's also a way to easily tailor the set-up to your needs/preferences and inject the elements you don't want to lose right now. That's really the only option for somewhat guaranteeing that you'll be able to invest in a game and do what needs to be done to maintain it longterm. It's always just a question of how committed you really are to doing the thing and whether your RPG interests and skills line up with managing a game.

 

Whatever you decide, and whatever's next-- good luck! 

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