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A Pet Peeve that might be shared?


jadbaz
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I have to admit this out loud, I know there is a variety of reasons for why someone may leave a site, and I never begrudge anyone who leaves BUT I will say, that as an admin running a site I find it endlessly frustrating when someone just goes silent, and then out of the blue leaves. Especially when you have reached out to them and especially when they have taken up wanted ads or sought out positions/characters on the board. And by leave, I mean they leave the Discord, and then don't respond to messages and all that no matter where I leave them. I then don't know when to archive their stuff and reopen the wanted, or the positions. 

 

Sorry had to get it off my chest! 

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It is frustrating. I find it even more so when they don't leave the discord? They just lurk there, come online, just never talk or answer dms. They stop posting on site and you're not sure if something happened or if they just lost interest. But you don't feel like you can boot them yet because it hasn't been that long, but they're sitting on a wanted character or a canon.

 

Overall, I'd love for there to be more openness about leaving. I understand why there isn't. It's not a comfortable situation for anyone and there will always be the fear of upsetting the admin/getting a snarky reply from them. I will say, the every time someone has been honest with me and told me they're leaving- I've thanked them for letting me know. Because I'm genuinely thankful that they told me and didn't make me sit and wonder. I don't ever want someone to be afraid to tell me they're leaving, but I also understand if they don't (even if it annoys me a bit). 

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25 minutes ago, PixieMegs said:

It is frustrating. I find it even more so when they don't leave the discord? They just lurk there, come online, just never talk or answer dms. They stop posting on site and you're not sure if something happened or if they just lost interest. But you don't feel like you can boot them yet because it hasn't been that long, but they're sitting on a wanted character or a canon.

 

Overall, I'd love for there to be more openness about leaving. I understand why there isn't. It's not a comfortable situation for anyone and there will always be the fear of upsetting the admin/getting a snarky reply from them. I will say, the every time someone has been honest with me and told me they're leaving- I've thanked them for letting me know. Because I'm genuinely thankful that they told me and didn't make me sit and wonder. I don't ever want someone to be afraid to tell me they're leaving, but I also understand if they don't (even if it annoys me a bit). 


See that's exctly nail on the head! I do understand why someone might want to leave, there are a whole variety of reasons too and am sensitive about- and even if someone didn't actually want to tell me why, but were just being vague and just saying they were going to leave, I also wouldn't mind- the heads up alone is what I feel like I need. 

What do you think about when to archive things? How long do I wait until I put them into storage especially after reaching out? 

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Honestly, we approach this two ways.

 

IF the person has LEFT the discord and has not posted/logged into their account for more than a week- they're gone. We just archive those applications. I take leaving the discord as a firm "I'm not coming back". I also usually don't reach out to these people unless I have cause for worry, ex: they mention that something is going on in real life. 

 

For the rest, we have an inactive membergroup. It kind of takes the stress of things and it's a way for members to let a character go inactive by choice if they know they're going to be gone for a prolonged period of time (pregnancy is an example and we've had lots of babies on G&M recently XD).  The inactive group signifies to members and guests that Character is not available for plotting. 

 

The way our inactive group works is basically when we notice, or when we do a formal sweep after an on-site month (2-3 months real time). If you're inactive/haven't logged or posted in for a month, but are still in the discord (maybe chatting still, maybe not), we'll plop you into the inactive group and send you a pm through the site. If we don't notice until our formal sweep, it's just the same process- we plop you into the group and send out a pm. Everyone has one real month to get back to us. If they never contact staff, they get archived. It's longer than we'd like to wait, but it also ensures the person is actually gone/didn't have something come up. 

 

Every site has their own way of handling things. Part of the reason we took this method is because we've been open for 3 years and have a lot of long term members. We don't want to accidentally boot someone who is just having a really hard time and can't find the time to reach out to us/doesn't remember to. We want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. One month to get in touch with us is more than enough time. But like I said before: if they left the discord and aren't logging in, they're probably gone. 

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Ghosting will always be a problem for admins. I get the frustration of someone just ghosting from the staff point of view. I tend to take some of the same approach that PixieMegs mentioned. If someone has left the Discord I see that as they are not planning to return. I will quietly remove their accounts and archive their threads. If they return then we can work to get things back in place. 

 

About every six months I go through the lists to see if someone hasn't been active. I will try to reach out to them to find out if they are staying or no. If I get no response I tend to follow protocol and archive/delete as needed. We do try to keep up with each other through Discord and have had some LoA's happen. I do try to be fair. We also have guests in the Discord that are not part of the forum that are friends. I don't tend to discourage it because if truth be told Discord isn't the forum. It's just a tool to interact. So having some friends there isn't such a big deal. 

 

In my mind we're all adults and this is a hobby and not my job. In that vein I'm pretty lenient for the most part. I don't make much to do over things and keep things quiet. No sense making a fuss. While communication would be great, it's not a perfect world. It's not though so while frustrating it's just the landscape.

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Honestly, no. If a person answers, and it's vague, they probably don't want to talk about it. But my sites usually have no activity checks, and that's the exact definition of an activity check. If I want to make sure they're okay, I do so earnestly and offer them my ear because chances are, they need a friend, a break, or life happened. Unless you have an activity requirement or agreed time, you have no business knowing where they are, what they're doing, or even when they'll be online.

 

Also, it's not ghosting unless the person chose to depart completely and entirely on their own. Sometimes, people have to be gone for a month or more without being able to or letting someone know. In my experience, if they leave the discord: that's ghosting. If they are lurking, they either forgot they are in the Discord, or something probably got in the way.

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I think I agree with Grim.  While I have seen negative types that do ghost-mostly its IRL that has them and often they cannot let you know till its done or over.

 

We dont do activity checks. There was a time we used to but as we all grew and moved into careers and life happening- we just do not see the need. Stories will wait, people often get busy but always return. 

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I got used to it after a point. If you've got activity requirements in place, whether that be for general activity or for having wanteds/positions/etc, then both you and the players understand what is expected, and what action to take and when. If someone's gone for longer than the allotted timeframe in the rules, they get archived, I set wanteds/positions/etc back out on the floor, and everyone moves on. If they come back, I don't delete anything, so no problem just picking back up.

 

I get it's frustrating but to me being overly frustrated about this kind of thing speaks more about the admin than the phenomenon. Maybe rethink your activity rules and how you handle this kind of thing going forward, because it sounds like you're leaving yourself in the lurch. This is something that's just going to happen no matter what. You can have the bomb diggitiest site in the whole wide universe, and this will still happen.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yes to all of the above... the leavers, the lurkers... 

Currently banging my head against the wall over discord plotters that never post on the board. I'm happy to have members but let's do what we're here to do, please. 

And, I'm the Admin, I have staff, I ADORE them, but the newbies aren't grasping that we have other things to do than just post. You have to give staff time to do what they need to do to make things run smoothly and beautifully for you.

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On 12/11/2020 at 8:51 PM, Arceus said:

I got used to it after a point. If you've got activity requirements in place, whether that be for general activity or for having wanteds/positions/etc, then both you and the players understand what is expected, and what action to take and when. If someone's gone for longer than the allotted timeframe in the rules, they get archived, I set wanteds/positions/etc back out on the floor, and everyone moves on. If they come back, I don't delete anything, so no problem just picking back up.

 

I get it's frustrating but to me being overly frustrated about this kind of thing speaks more about the admin than the phenomenon. Maybe rethink your activity rules and how you handle this kind of thing going forward, because it sounds like you're leaving yourself in the lurch. This is something that's just going to happen no matter what. You can have the bomb diggitiest site in the whole wide universe, and this will still happen.

 

This. 

 

For me Wanted ads need to be determined by the user that put them up on what they want to do. Sometimes a person is so involved that its just more worth it to wrap it up from the requestors end and move on. I know that I've gotten so involved in plots that the other person disappeared that I just wrote the wanted ad out of my plots and moved on. It was my choice because it was my wanted ad.

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  • 3 months later...

I was actually going to create a thread based on a similar topic, but I'm glad I read yours first. I'm of the opinion that not every site is for every person, and that's okay, but there is nothing I hate more than people who just disappear without saying anything. Sometimes, this happens because real life sucks (and if I know there are issues I will certainly reach out to someone and check on them, etc) but much like PixieMegs said in their response: if someone leaves the Discord Server (and they've been previously chatty/active and have not indicated that they're leaving it for another reason) then I take it as a sign you're no longer interested.

 

On the flip side of all of that, however, you have to keep in mind that real life can be a pain in the ass and roleplaying is a hobby. That's part of the reason that I also don't delete accounts unless they've had no posts and the person hasn't logged in for a couple of months. Just in case. Even if they're a part of a wanted advertisement and the person in question has decided that they want to make that character playable for someone else, we usually just append an [i]-Old[/i] or something to the end so that we don't lose the account but the new person can register.

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  • 4 weeks later...

In my experience, it can make a big difference if you explicitly state somewhere like the rules page that it's OK to 1) drop any character, or 2) leave the game entirely, for any reason, and that the mods don't need an explanation but it's a big help if you can just let them know you're leaving. I come from a journal RP background, where dropping characters is so common that most games have a dedicated post for it, but there can still be a stigma attached — Like you're bailing or are flighty regardless of the reason (and the fact that we shouldn't need to give a "good enough" reason regardless). I've found that just putting out there that folks don't need to explain if they need to move on both increases the likelihood they'll reach out before they do, and helps the overall game culture with regards to the stigma of dropping/leaving. I've gotten way less ghosting when I have that stated someplace prominent, and it keeps things on a positive note so the player can return when/if they want.

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I generally have a leaving notice in the rules and member guides to say something along the lines of "Look, we all know every site is not for everyone. If you decide to leave for any reason, please do let us know so that we can wish you well with your next site."

I don't need reasons, but I reserve the right to get annoyed when people leave without notifying (especially if they've been around for a while.) It's just rude to ghost, in my opinion. 

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I was trying to think of some more of mine. Many have listed them already. 

 

So let me see.

 

1. The exiting without notice as mentioned above grinds my gears - especially if the typist does it repeatedly.

2. People that haunt you to plot and when you do ---forget the thread and you are left holding an empty sack. ( member and staff btw too)

3. People that drive you batshit trying to force lore that is not your lore and you try hard to accommodate but end up with a bitter little pisser you are glad to see leave.

4.  Those who blatantly ignore the rules with the excuse ' I never read them'

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