Staffing Running a game by yourself

[Guest Archaic Cyborg]

Tips, ideas, stuff?

 

I have something in the works because I can't say no, and I expect it will be a small community as usual. I don't like recruiting staff beyond people I alreafy know and trust, though that isn't to say that known people are 150% guaranteed to work. :E

 

I know what it is that I want for events and character ..boundaries(?), but I'm worried about the community atmosphere. That is, I don't have the lifestyle to hang around on the board for hours. When I'm at the mac, 95% of the time I'm working on posts, templates, fixing a skin or advertising. If I get drawn into a c-box, I get distracted, then nothing gets done. >(

 

Have other staff ever run a game on their own, or with one other person? And it was a small game? Did it work, did it crash, was there a good middle-ground? I know that every game is different, has different players, expectations, activity, etc: but I don't really know how to approach this game, apart from sticking to my offline schedule / rp balance.

[Morrigan 1,826]

Running a game with just yourself or one other person is an uphill battle. Partly because of the ever expected immediate gratification that people want/expect from a roleplay when they join. As such that means that all of that "activity" falls onto you (and if you have it the other person).

 

I think the best thing that I have found for my own is automation. I know you can't do as much automation on like jcink or proboards but self hosting really allows for me to be around less when things don't have to be done manually. By this I'm talking "Who's who" or "playby lists" or things like that. The less that I have to update manually the more time I have to focus on other things and give to the game when I have the time for it.

 

Another thing that helps is making sure you are on the ball and that you setup really good expectations. Don't put things like "we will review your app as soon as possible" put in a time frame. "Once complete your app will be reviewed within 1-3 days" that way the person has a time frame that they can count on and so they aren't wondering "where the heck are these people, why aren't they reviewing" and get upset and rage quit before they even get accepted.

 

Have a note at the top of your shoutbox that it's not the best place to contact staff. While it doesn't work one hundred percent of the time it should help mitigate the 'is there staff around?' question. I also recommend to use the bad word filter or similar to filter out "is this site active?" questions.

 

Now that I've made a whole bunch of recommendations I'll get back to point one. It's a hard uphill battle but if you do it right you will find a good middle ground. I'll be honest, more often then not, I do not find a good middle ground with self staffing primarily because the lack of activity can be daunting at times and when I have so many other things to do I'll choose to put my energy into those (like my two jobs, my kids, this site, skinning etc) and the site can suffer like that.

 

I will say I've both had successful games (running for 3+ years) and unsuccessful games by running it myself but overall I'm normally happier when I'm not chasing flaky staff around and worrying that their inactivity is negatively impacting the site.

[Elena 546]

Usually there should be at least two administrators, hoping that if one gets busy, the other will be around to sort characters, approve, do things needed timely.

[Death Kitten 200]

My XO is super busy, and as such I do a lot of the day to day stuff, such as advertising, social media, handling things on our site, being available in our telegram chat room. He supports me by helping keep me in check on plot ideas, and filling in blanks when I'm not sure what plot cookies to dangle in front of players, and he helps out with plot NPCs. We talk through most big decisions for the game before they happen. This sort of balance seems to be the norm in Star Trek sims, though larger crews will often add a second officer to help in the workload.

 

I agree with Morrigan, anything you can automate, or failing that at least make self service, can help a lot when running a light staff. I honestly marvel at the talk I see of these boards with huge numbers of members, because every Trek sim I've been a part of usually didn't have more than between half a dozen to a dozen players. So a staff of two to three is normal for us. I would be absolutely thrilled to have a dozen or more players, because I have ideas on where our game could grow if we had enough players to support it, but I also know I'd have to start looking at more staff if we grew that much.

 

Finding more staff kinda terrifies me, because I've seen so many horror stories over the years and had a couple of pretty bad experiences. So I totally get your hesitance to pick up staff that you don't already know and trust, because bad staff can kill a game in short order. If you're expecting a small community, and probably not growing too quickly, you might consider promoting from within as things settle into place? Then even if you're not 100% familiar with someone, you'll at least have an idea of how they interact with your game and your players, and you can ramp up their responsibilities slowly to match need while getting used to them and developing a trust.

[KONYA 0]

I solo staff. I prefer it. Unfortunately you do have to kind of keep an eye on things like the cbox, simply because there's no one else around! What I do is I have the cbox open all the time on my in-phone browser and if I'm bored I just flick it open and see what's going on. That might be one way to approach it?

 

It can be hard to solo staff, but I don't think it's the end of the world. Embrace that you'll probably have a smaller site and try and build your community type around that. Streamline things like the application process, claims, any listings - I have people post in claims and also send me a notification for app reviews, so I'm not stressing all the time that I might miss something. 

[Kieran 15]

I have solo staffed for most of my 12+ years of RPing, and my currently longest-running such RPG turns 8 years old this year. I prefer adminning alone, that way I'm not dependent on another's time for the site as it's unlikely the other / all other staff members would be online at the same time as me and/or have as much time on a day X as I do. Things for the most part are likely to get done faster when it's just me making the decisions. Also, it's highly unlikely a fandom site would ever grow so large in the number of members that I couldn't handle it by myself.

That time frame for app handleing is a great idea. Though I never worry about the instant gratification type of people. Frankly, I don't mind losing potential members who are that impatient. I want team players for my site.

I visit my site daily and attempt to handle applications within a few days, and if I know I can't come around and do full-scale adminning for 1+ weeks I always post an announcement informing about my break, what I will and won't be doing during it for the site, and how long it will last. I mean, during a break I won't handle apps, won't reply to game events and won't do updates - but I still quickly visit my site almost daily to delete possible spam messages in order to keep the board nice and clean. (Although, I think I have managed to minimise the possibility of spam even turning up.) And reply to any really urgent private messages while leaving non-urgent ones for the time when I actually return from the break.

Solo staffing is hard what with usually not being able to take a 100% break for a longer period of time, but you can find a reasonable balance if you want to, and I believe I have found what works for me and my sites. Smart phones and laptops are your friend - as even if you're travelling somewhere without desktops available you can still visit your site. And you know, if you are hospitalized of if you're having a family crisis, I'm sure announcing it will have most people understand why you're not going to do any kind of adminning for X period of time and agree to wait. And I believe, if you take good care of your community and site when you're not in such situation the site isn't going to fall apart very quickly in your absence. And of course, if you do want an absolutely 100% break without having to worry at all, you could ask if a long-time trusted player who you know to care about the site and to respect your accomplishments would agree to care for it while you're gone and give them temporary moderator powers.

As for generally managing the site alone...I time massive updates to days when I know I have the energy and time to do it properly. If there's already an app waiting I won't do a massive update because then I wouldn't have the energy to properly read and handle the app if at all. If an app pops up right after a massive update and I just don't have the energy I let them know that it's going to take a few more days. And generally I attempt to make moderate size updates so they won't usually exhaust me, because I want to be reasonably active in game posting too. Also, I update Who's Who and Play-by lists right after the character has been registered so those usually don't become a chore. Of course, I don't always manage to balance ths perfectly but for the most part all's been well and members been happy on my sites.

 

Treat yourself as a human being and don't stress about those who don't realiae that you are just a human being as in that you can't do all at once and can't be around 24/7. Know and mind your own limits. And especially, don't try to please everyone - because that simply isn't possible.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Kieran

[Guest Archaic Cyborg]

@Morrigan ; if I was in the right situation, I'd be all over self-hosting: but free hosts and whatnot suit me best at the moment, so I'll have to stick with it. Like you, I'd say I'm happiest without having to chase after other staff: and I've had more bad experiences with staff who change over night, and.. the site goes downhill. Boo, hiss! All things considered, opening a new game is different each time, so I might recruit in a mod. I wish it were easier to predict openings, but not knowing is part of the appeal, right? =D

 

@Elena ; I'm hoping that any really-busy days for me will just cover a day or two, so in that situation people should be alright on their own. I never understood the idea that just because the admin isn't online for, say, 3 hours or something, then time literally stops and no one does a single thing. If there's a big plot in effect, then I can definitely see a long absence being a problem. I'll probably have to include a foreword somewhere that the game's casual, Real Life takes priority, daily activity isn't expected (but it's welcomed~)

 

@Death Kitten horror stories of bad staff are interesting to read, since they can give you tips for any scenarios you might get caught in~. But I'd rather they stay as second-hand experiences. Or third-hand. >( I'm glad that with the Jcink ACP, only the root admin can lock the board down, whereas in Proboards (back when I used it, yeaaars ago) nearly any staff could lock or even delete the site over night.

 

@KONYA notifs are great, when Jcink works~. I've got plans for members to check-in with claims and whatnot, all linked in the acceptance stamp, so hopefully that system will work. :E

 

@Kieran I agree, small things like Who's Who can be done straight after acceptance, while advertising is done on days when there's nothing else to do. If people can't wait a few hours for an app review, then they wouldn't be happy all round: daily, instant gratification / assurance that the admin hasn't keeled over.. that's not healthy for anyone. That puts stress on everybody!

I visit my sites daily as much as I can, but time zones are a big problem: it's just a fact of life that I don't worry too much about, and despite having helpful sidebar notices and such, some guests still don't understand it. Ah, well. Adminning an rp isn't a career; it's just another hobby. :E There should be a drive to sign in and interact with one's own community, as opposed to shunning duties and finding excuses to run in the other direction~

[Death Kitten 200]

I've never played on a forum game, let alone a free hosted one like you guys frequently talk about here. I've had a domain and hosting to go with it for most of the time I've been online, so generally when I want something I just make a subdomain and install. The limited experience I've had with games hosted elsewhere (one of the fleets I'd been in provided hosting, but that was slowly sinking when I left), I got frustrated with the limitations of depending on someone else to maintain and fix things, and having limited access to be able to do it myself. However, if/when something goes wrong, it suddenly is a huge time sink for me to have to suss out how to fix it. I actually have multiple test sites set up to tinker with things before they go live now. >.<

 

All that to say, I am glad you can lock down who has access to change/delete/lock down things. I can granularly control access for people in Nova, and everyone other than my XO are actually pretty well locked down just because I've seen what can happen if someone blows their top and has no more fucks. I've even had one member leave my current sim throwing a temper tantrum, and deleted their character bio even though the rules explicitly state that even though the player retains copyright for all their writings and creative contributions to the game, by participating in the game they're giving us permission to retain their stuff for future reference, ie. while we won't continue to use their character/s, we will reference parts of our sim history that they participated in, and leave their logs up for people to read while browsing the site. I suspect that if the permissions didn't prevent editing/deleting of logs once they were submitted, they would have tried to delete those too... including ones that were written jointly with others. >.<

 

Being a one person staff makes these sorts of controls oh so critical.

[Morrigan 1,826]

@Death Kitten Backups, backups, backups!!

 

I have so many backups of things it's bizarre. I've restored whole sites or even partial sites based on backups.

 

@Blackjack Bart if it's monetary issues I recommend you see the Initiative hosting package starting at free to donations monthly. If not then I understand.

 

I want to add, I'm blessed with the small staff I have here on the Initiative. @Zozma @Amelia and @AKNyx are amazing peoples and I'm glad they are a part of my life, can't wait to extend it. To that segue, I was lucky with these ladies as we have had not so good staff here that have done some of the drama stories that have been mentioned. Not giving someone the chance limits you though. That's how you find diamonds in the rough IMHO. I definitely recommend a mod make sure that they just can't delete anything.

[Death Kitten 200]

@Morrigan Dreamhost automates my database backups, which are 90% of my concern. This makes me much pleased, as they do weekly backups for me and they keep a string of I think the last 6 or 8 available to me? I've had a couple of rough patches with Dreamhost, but overall, they've done me good. Then everything else, I'm a good little penguin lover, and stick old on the beginning or end of the file name of a copy of my file before I start editing, or on the original on the server before uploading the new one. It's certainly saved me more than a few times, especially since I learn by breaking things and experimenting. That's also part of the reason I have test sites, I can break those without users whining at me. ^^;

[Guest Archaic Cyborg]

@Death Kitten Even if I had less experience as staff at the moment, I'd still be wary of people going on deletion sprees: having the ability to control that is a main perk, and should be available at most, if not all hosts out there. Jcink allows me to give different member groups the ability to delete individual posts, or an entire thread (if the user started it). Even so, I usually stick to individual post deletions, not entire threads. I figured, if someone's going to delete shit, they can still edit the post and just fill it with filler or nothing at all. It's always a bother when someone leaves in a huff, but what can you do except move on and let them rage elsewhere?

 

If someone leaves-- it makes sense to keep their history intact. It's part of the game world, x y and z literally happened, so I don't get the reasoning behind ''delete all my posts, kthnx' demands. It's one thing if the staff flat-out claim a big PLOT as their idea, or that they created someone's  OC, but.. threads? General interaction? Covering your tracks and erasing your game input-- that defeats the purpose of joining a community. Once something's on the internet, it's there forever, and i can think of worse things that can be stolen.

 

@Morrigan money is definitely not a problem for me- well, it is, in the sense that I need to stop spending. I need to get fixated on the idea that there are free things available, that can do what I need, not what I necessarily want- if that makes sense! But I'll keep your offer in mind, definitely.

 

 

[VirusZero 176]

I won't lie, being solo staff is hard. It is doable but it will take work. The main thing is to balance yourself. Set aside time, if you can, to do certain things.

Spoiler

 

So maybe something like: 

Monday is Ad day. This way on monday you drop a spree of ads.

Tuesday is office hours (time set aside to be in the chatbox and answer questions).

Wednesday is post only day.

Thursday is backup day.

Friday is maintenance day (skin tweaking, affiliate adding, etc...).

Saturday is post only day 2.  

Sunday is day off and nothing gets done on site.

 

 

This way you have set days when you do things and can get into a routine. That'll make them easier to do. 

 

Also be prepare to handle everything. Solo staff don't really get the luxury of picking and choosing what they do. Can't delegate tasks to a mod. So that means brush up on the various features you'll need to use. 

 

And try to ensure that your game is as low maintenance as you can. Do you really need canon lists? playby claims? Who's Who lists? The more lists like this you have the more you have to keep updated. And that just eats into time. 

For your applications, if you use them, the shorter and less complex you keep them probably the better off you'll be. Trying to get fancy with html and bbcode just doesn't usually end well. You end up wasting time trying to fix things when people screw tags up. (Dohtml is especially a pain since an unclosed tag can suck half a topic into itself.) Plus these often take time to develop and/or implement. 

 

It's not really a necessity for a JFH site, but for a self-hosted site... have a test board where you can try out mods or themes before putting them live. This way if something goes wrong you don't break your main site.

 

 

 

As for my own game... I've been running Endless Fight for over 6 years basically as solo admin. (I say basically because there is another member on site who has staff powers but they aren't active staff and they don't appear as active staff either. They're a close friend but they just aren't interested in roleplay. So they're more or less there for emergency purposes.)

I have had staff here and there but they haven't been very reliable. (One was a friend at the start of the site, good person but they were just too busy. I needed people that could show up and post more than once a month. Someone who could help create topics. Someone who could look at what was working and not to help give feedback. I thought I had made that clear, maybe I didn't though. So it didn't work out.)

 

There have definitely been issues. And I would love to have another staff member to help pick up some things. (Or fill in the gaps with things I'm not so good at. Like advertising. I am so bad at that.) Some days I just don't have the time or energy to do anything due to work. Even when there are days I do have off, I often don't have the energy.  (Maybe I'm just burned out.)

 

Though getting staff is stupidly difficult. I've tried on various sites. But I've never had any luck. People only seem to want to be staff on sites where they don't actually have to do any work. They just get the instant glory of the title. Most people will pass over sites where they have to work. (I've seen too many times where people will say they're looking for work, but then they say they only want large/established sites. Well that large/established site doesn't need them/their help nearly as much as a smaller site does. )

 

[Guest Archaic Cyborg]

AAaaaal of what you said, @VirusZero ! Though I haven't written anything down, on terms of lore, what I've got in my head is as low-maintenance as I've ever made something- but without sacrificing the 'completed' or finished look. Some things can be combined, like the Who's Who and the Cast page; and after taking a look at other games in similar genres, the info for my member groups is considerably less. It should be relatively simple to keep track of things; I don't expect more than a handful of players will join, if even that. I'm at the point where I just want to write in X world; all the major micromanaging Big Events and such is better left to rapid-fire communities, I believe.

 

Finding staff is probably the biggest problem, I agree. I've rarely seen a good story about recruiting,  from within known circles and from outsiders. Getting hired of staff is really just snagging the shiny title and shunning as much responsibility as possible. Small/new sites require work, whereas established games only need (in theory) an occasional clean-up.

[sid 5]

I've only been admin on one site with the help of my friend. Between the two of us the site has been open and active for 2 years now. Personally, I don't know if I could handle doing it alone. I know for sure our current site would have shut down by now if I'd been on my own, but that was mainly because of a bunch of IRL crap that ended up happening. I would really need to have the time to dedicate to it, and I would need to have a stable IRL situation before I could feel comfortable handling it. 

 

One thing that might help and has already kind of been mentioned with "automation"... Kimmy (the other admin) and I took some time to really evaluate what was important to us. We realized we had a bunch of admin duties that we were doing because we felt we had to, but that were really unnecessary for our site. I want to stress that I really do mean for OUR site, because every site is different and every admin has different goals, so the list of stuff below might not apply to you at all but maybe could give you some ideas of tasks you can nix to suit your needs.

 

• We stopped doing ads. Not completely, obviously... we kept our listings up on DF and RPG-D, but we completely stopped doing the whole "link back" thing. It didn't affect our influx of members whatsoever. The only thing we do now besides the directory listings is to keep an eye on RPG requests. If we see someone who might be a good fit on the board, we post a reply.

• We made as many things "self-managed" as we could (i.e. we as admins don't need to touch it or approve it or do anything at all... the players post/delete it themselves). The main one for us was the wanted ads, the who's who, the open threads masterlist... there were a couple others I'm forgetting, but now the members update and delete the posts themselves.

• We did away with accepting apps. This is really touchy depending on what kind of site your on, but we realized that in 2 years we had never denied an application or moved it into pending approval. The site is a modern-day Chicago crime AU, though... so obviously this won't work for everyone. If you have something that is a fandom or has lore, historical background etc it would be probably more problems than not, but in our case the nature of the site made it pretty easy to transition into just accepting whatever the member fills into their profile, and if we see anything that needs fixing we just contact them afterwards. 

 

The biggest issue is really the cbox. As a player, I usually have the attention span of a gnat. If I'm hunting for a game, I'm probably going to hang out in the cbox for about thirty minutes before I move onto somewhere else, unless I REALLY REALLY REALLY am digging the site. This is something that's just unavoidable, though. Even with 2 admins who are online most of the day, we still miss the occasional guest and they disappear before we see them. I think the suggestion to put a notice that it's better to contact an admin some other way is probably the best option.