Membership That's a deal breaker...

[Morrigan 1,826]

So we've all been there. You get to a site, you like the idea, you are looking through the information and then you find the deal breaker. Whether it be members or a rule or something else you find that thing and you go "nope, that's a deal breaker" and hit the x and move on. What are your deal breaker items.

 

Finding the rules and seeing that the admin was unnecessarily rude or overbearing.. that's a deal breaker.

[Rivfader 76]

I don't like when every single board description and important topic (like the site rules for example) is full of attitude and sarcasm. I mean, a bit here and there is funny and all, but everywhere? Not so much. So like you were saying, @Morrigan.

 

If I need to read through pages upon pages and topic upon topic of lore and setting information before I can jump in and create a character, chances are I just won't be bothered.

 

If there's no application whatsoever, I'm hiiighly unlikely to join. I don't really like the idea of not having character information stored somewhere for people to refer back to now and then. You also lose control when it comes to the kinds of characters that will be played. I don't like plotter applications too much either. That being said, I also dislike applications that go way overboard and ask for lists of my character's likes and dislikes, etc. Paragraph style with the usual old appearance, personality & history spiel is good enough for me. xD

 

If super small post templates with flashy images and colours paired with fonts that are nigh impossible to read are a common thing across the forum, I'm outta there. What is it about a lot of jcink sites and this? D8

 

And then of course, if the staff's level of writing (grammar, etc) leaves much to be desired (both in character and out of character) it's a deal-breaker for me. I'm fussy like that.

[Huskerdust 625]

I guess I already said this but mandatory templates have become a dealbreaker for me. Another one is if there is no recent unread posts option. Strict activity rules, word counts, and flighty staff are all in there too.

[Elena 546]

- No application

- Rapid fire

- dohtml post templates compulsory

- more than one post a week activity rule

- word counts over 200

Edited February 6, 2016 by Elena

[VirusZero 176]

For me it's:

- mandatory post templates. (I think at this point it's pretty clear why I hate these...)

 

- word/paragraph counts in general (though especially ones over 350 words or 2 paragraphs).

Say it with me... "Counts are not indicative of post quality." A writer might be able to pump out over 350 words but that doesn't mean they're going to be useful to you. (I mean how many times have you seen someone pad their posts with internal monolgues that you can't reply to without metagaming? Or adding descriptions of things just to add words to meet that arbitrary count ?) Plus I hate being told "Hey you need this many." even though in many cases I can easily hit a thousand no problem.

 

- if I see lack of proper capitalization, excessive spelling mistakes or syntax errors.

Though I should be clear, I don't mean like they use a comma wrong once... (mistakes happen to everyone so I'm not concerned with that) I mean like they don't use any periods at all.

 

- if I see any swearing or threats in the rules.

Shows me that staff are immature and really not fit to be staff. Plus threats are by and large empty and pointless. They only show how powerless someone really is. (Most threats can never be enacted so they have no weight to them.)

 

- required trigger warnings.

Sends the message to me that the site is heavily influenced by tumblr/victim culture and I want no part of that. I don't want to deal with people who expect everyone to ensure their delicate sensibilities aren't disturbed. And yes, I am aware that's not what trigger warnings are supposed to be for... except that's generally how I've seen them used. As an aside, I've heard all the arguments for trigger warnings and I'm not convinced so don't waste your time trying. If you like them and think they're valuable... use them. 

[Lusitano 0]

I just came across a site on another directory that was supposedly an 18+ only site and mentioned accepting characters who were under 18. Nope, nope, and nope.

[Buttons 9]

- Word counts, because sometimes what I need to say to move the thread along just isn't going to reach it.

- TINY FONT. I'm old and have bad eyesight, I need something readable. </grandma>

- Required dohtml post templates. They can be pretty, but yeesh. Let me write how I want, man.

- "Clique" mentality - what I mean by this is a general feeling of being unwelcome from members/admins.

[CovertSphinx 710]

Pretty much all of mine have already been said by one person or another.

 

* crazy posting rules - be it word counts, template bs, required activity level or whatever.

 

* Oddball layouts trying to be TOO fancy with big/moving graphics and extra features that get in the way (pop up c-box I'm talking to you and pull out side menu with six different tabs). I'm getting old (26), don't have time to mess with that anymore.

 

* Intricate overly complicated rules/stats/staffinterventionforthreads. I want simple, easy to remember stuff.

[Cloud 0]

• Restricting it's member base. 

 

This is rather broad. It can be done in the form of activity limits (only be allowed to do so much in a week/day), word counts, must have formatting for posts, gender/species ratio's, etc. Anything that can be done to choke it's member base or restrict creativity. 

 

• Poor Layout

 

If a website's skin is difficult to navigate due to it's layout, difficult to read or there is just TOO much hovering over each other, it's a deal breaker. If it destroys me internally to just look at the site, I can't be a part of it. 

 

• Communication

 

If I have a difficult time getting in hold of a staff member (be it Cbox, PM or w/e) and I can't get answers to my questions. That's a deal breaker. Or god forbid, three be an account approval process that takes several days. I'm too ADHD to sit around and wait for three days to get my character even looked at (or in some cases, get my account even activated to BEGIN working on the character). 

 

[Elena 546]

12 hours ago, Diana said:

I just came across a site on another directory that was supposedly an 18+ only site and mentioned accepting characters who were under 18. Nope, nope, and nope.

 

Being 18+ is about the writers, not about the characters. Characters can be any age needed in the story.

[Huskerdust 625]

12 hours ago, Elena said:

 

Being 18+ is about the writers, not about the characters. Characters can be any age needed in the story.

 

I agree. Just because dirty stuff is allowed or the staff prefers adult players doesn't mean the kid characters are going to be partaking in dirty scenes. That's like saying a baby can't be in a movie because there's a sex scene somewhere in the movie. 

[Honorem 219]

As already echoed, no app is a deal breaker. Unless the profile is highly customized to act like an app or something, but even then it's habit to see apps in an approved area.

 

Also, when rules and documentation are written like a daycare guide with first person references. Like 'now I don't want you lot doing blah blah blah' or 'we aren't going to take kindly to that'. All this kind of filler is redundant and unprofessional. All that needs to be said is the rule and possibly the penalty for breaking it. All that 'I will do this' or 'we shall do that', it gives me the impression of a crazy dictator.

 

As many have said in the least favourite skin trends, lack of capitalization. If you have a paragraph of text with no capital letters that I can barely read, you can bet your ass I won't waste my time reading anything more.

 

Ultra REDUNDANT rules like ... dare I say it? 'Register your character name like this: FIRST MIDDLE LAST, in ALL CAPS. One, I only assume the full name is wanted because it makes the name longer and the online list bigger. Two, all uppercase can be applied to username field using text-transform: uppercase. Why chew members out for not registering in all caps when it is fully within your control to enforce it with a code (thereby avoiding that headache all together)?

 

Roleplay trials. Seen it a few times. After approval you have a trial thread with staff, lol. Nah thanks mate I'll go somewhere else.

[Rune 1,099]

If I have to date posts I'm not bothering. I can't remember what day it is in real life, much less attempt to keep track of your special timeline. I have an idea of when my posts happen, that should be enough. If I know X happens before Y, what does it matter what day and time it happened on?

 

Requiring "trigger warnings." I can understand marking threads with sex, violence, language, etc... But only because some people play at work on a shared connection and don't want to risk their employment or whatever by clicking those things (My board has a guy that is an EMT and frequently at stations so we implemented this solely to help protect him from accidentally clicking smut.) But if I have to tag a post with someone getting slapped, sex, language, violence, people being something other than white, drugs, etc I'm going to assume you have no idea what a real problem is and spend too much time soaking in tumblr.

 

Requiring post templates, threatening rules, no application, no lore...

Edited March 3, 2016 by Rune

[KARA BELLA 18]

my only real deal breaker for joining a site is actually the contrast of the skin/layout colour and the text colour.  if your background color is a dark colour  don't make your text a dark colour as well, it's just not readable that way, like tiny sized text is unreadable to other people, dark text on dark background is unreadable to me.  although i haven't actually seen that on any of the kinds of sites i'm interested in.

[Honorem 219]

18 hours ago, Rune said:

Requiring "trigger warnings." I can understand marking threads with sex, violence, language, etc... But only because some people play at work on a shared connection and don't want to risk their employment or whatever by clicking those things (My board has a guy that is an EMT and frequently at stations so we implemented this solely to help protect him from accidentally clicking smut.) But if I have to tag a post with someone getting slapped, sex, language, violence, people being something other than white, drugs, etc I'm going to assume you have no idea what a real problem is and spend too much time soaking in tumblr.

YEEESSSSSSSS thank you.

 

A bit more specific or 'taboo' warnings I have no problem with, such as sexual violence, it's fair enough to warn against that.

 

But just plain old violence (like killing some bandits in on D&D site), or plain old consensual sex, nope I'm not tagging that. If the site is mature 3-3-3, then you're expected to find all those things on there, so don't join if they offend you, simple.