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The Member That Only Plots...


Sage
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So this is a problem I've encountered several times as a staff member on sites and that always leaves me scratching my head on what to do. So I've decided to turn to you all for help on how to approach this.

 

Here is the gist - Member A creates great characters. She has a ton of amazing ideas, she writes extremely well, and she always brings her A game when it comes to plotting - in fact, she's plotted some amazing things with just about every character on the board. She's fun and always coming up with new plot twists that can involve many characters to help tie them together. She's chatty in the c-box, super welcoming to new members and their characters, and is a very warm presence in the community. BUT, she rarely writes a post.

 

In the past, we've instituted activity checks where you need X amount of IC posts between X and X dates, but Member A always manages to make that for the check. Afterward, her posts will die down again until it's been a month or more since she made an IC post. It's not like she's gone or has told us that her real life is interfering with her activity - I'm always extremely accommodating when it comes to that for all members. She's in the c-box regularly and is privately DMing (either with me, other staff, or other members) about plotting and whatnot. In my current case, we talk all the time, and one of her characters and mine are extremely close. I'll gently nudge her with a "hey, when am I gonna see a reply in x thread?" and gush about the current IC situation and how I need it to continue. We'll then continue to plot a little and talk about what should happen and what would go down if X happened, etc. But then I'll never see a reply until there's another activity check. Its very disappointing because I'm very excited about the plots we've come up with, and they're even integral to what I want in my character's development. And I really do love Member A - she's more than just a writing partner at this point, she's my friend.

 

Which is why it's so hard for me to approach her and give her the hard line "post or you're out." Is there something else I should be doing to encourage Member A to post? Is there a way to go about this without giving an ultimatum? I really don't want to boot her from the game, but I'm getting tired of the endless plotting with no results. 

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A couple of questions - does she post sporadically like this with other members? Is it only you she posts like this with? Does she quick fire post with one or two people? Or does she just does lots of plotting and nothing else?

 

I ask this because I've come across people who would be on a lot, but they would favour one writer over another in the amount she posts, leaving leaving some people sitting around waiting for replies that either never come, or they wait days and days for. (Some people seem to do this if they're interested in one plot more than others but the unfortunate consequence is that it makes those waiting feel like they aren't good enough or that the person they're waiting for doesn't really want to rp with them.)

 

If she posts sporadically with other members and does lots and lots of plotting, it could be that she's just taking on too much. It's good to have ideas but  people have to make sure that they don't promise too much or that they burn out quickly. (I've known people to be really super-active and appear to be on the site all the time, but after a short time they drop off because they've burned themselves out.)

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4 hours ago, Icewolf said:

A couple of questions - does she post sporadically like this with other members? Is it only you she posts like this with? Does she quick fire post with one or two people? Or does she just does lots of plotting and nothing else?

 

Good question, and in past experiences I can totally see what you're saying. But in my current case, no. She only has 3 threads currently ongoing and I'm in two of them. Unless she's on other sites (which she may be, but I have no way of knowing), I don't know of any reason that's holding her up. She's also laid an informal claim on some open threads by posting in the cbox, but she hasn't posted in any of the actual threads and it's been a few weeks. So it's not just me. 

 

She and I will do some quick fire rping over IM every now and then, but I much prefer forum rping, so I try to nudge her that way instead. But she never seems to quite make it there. It could be that she just prefers instant rping. But it's starting to affect other players on the board as well. She thinks up all these great plot and thread ideas with them, but then leaves them hanging. And I don't want them to feel left out or anything, but I can't be everywhere at once and I already have a million threads going. So it goes beyond just me being affected at this point, which is really worrisome.

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Have you actually talked to her about this? Like a little note like:

Quote

 

Hey <name>,

Over the past while we've noticed that there's a ton of plotting going on and that's fantastic... but we've also noticed that nothing ever comes from that either. We have to poke and prod, usually via activity checks, to actually get things to happen. And when the check happens activity happens but then things drop off right after again. So we just wanted to check in see if there was something going on, if there was any issues we could help with or what.  

- <your name>

 

 

Now full disclosure, I don't like activity checks for the most part. But I do understand their necessity.

 

Spoiler

 

When I say I don't like them, I don't like them when they force people to post saying they are still active since it's a waste of everyone's time. Staff can generally already tell who's active and who isn't.

I mean offhand if someone hasn't signed into the site in over 3 weeks, chances are they haven't posted... And many ACPs will have a list of members feature that shows when they last signed in. Plus with filters to exclude say the OOC group or only look at one group at a time it makes it quick.

So it generally just comes down to those members who keep claiming they're active just to hang onto roles.

 

 

All that said, I have used them in the past for canon characters. But we had a slightly different thing, and this might be something you want to consider adapting and using... we had a bit where if someone was only making the bare minimum, just scraping by the activity checks repeatedly, we could ask them to give up the character even if they did "pass" the check. Basically as a way to stop people from just hanging onto canon/important roles they didn't really intend to keep playing. For any original characters that held important positions, like a faction leader, they'd be up for replacement. So someone not being active there would be demoted and another character would be given that spot. (Generally I'd try to leave a story reason for it happening... EX- a leader got sick/injured and needed to recover. )

 

Either way though I think the point is that you have to talk to her (again). If things don't change then it's time to consider more drastic action. 

Edited by VirusZero
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1 hour ago, Sage said:

 

Good question, and in past experiences I can totally see what you're saying. But in my current case, no. She only has 3 threads currently ongoing and I'm in two of them. Unless she's on other sites (which she may be, but I have no way of knowing), I don't know of any reason that's holding her up. She's also laid an informal claim on some open threads by posting in the cbox, but she hasn't posted in any of the actual threads and it's been a few weeks. So it's not just me. 

 

She and I will do some quick fire rping over IM every now and then, but I much prefer forum rping, so I try to nudge her that way instead. But she never seems to quite make it there. It could be that she just prefers instant rping. But it's starting to affect other players on the board as well. She thinks up all these great plot and thread ideas with them, but then leaves them hanging. And I don't want them to feel left out or anything, but I can't be everywhere at once and I already have a million threads going. So it goes beyond just me being affected at this point, which is really worrisome.

The only other thing that comes to mind is if she feels comfortable on the board. It can't be the case that she's not posting because she doesn't have any plots. The reason why I am sometimes quiet on a board is either lack of plots or not feeling comfortable there, but if she's active in other areas of the site, then not feeling comfortable might not be the case.

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See, I've encountered entire sites where everyone was like this and no one had a problem with it. It was what they considered fun.

 

Instead of saying something, have you considered just letting her be and letting everyone decide for themselves whether or not they want to engage with this person? This way, there's no confrontation and the site itself will probably weed her out.

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This isn't uncommon, but it's also misleading.  There are many reasons that someone may not want to roleplay, and people in this thread have covered some of them.  But other examples could include the fact that maybe she only enjoys the plotting aspect, or she gets bored of actually roleplaying, or she has low self esteem about the posts she writes, or she doesn't know how to keep characters afloat via RPing.  The possibilities are endless.

 

If it were me and the situation was really bothering me (which it probably would), I'd ask her.  "Hey, Member, you have such great plots and you're so welcoming to people.  Why do you focus on plotting and rarely RP?  What can I do to help you?"  It sounds like you're close enough to her that trying to find out more information won't automatically scare her away.

 

It doesn't have to be an ultimatum situation.  I think RPers in general are so fast to jump to "Do [this] or you're out."  It's like an activity check: Post here or you're out of the site.  Or claims: Reserve this feature or you've lost it.  Sometimes this attitude is necessary or we'd never get things done.  Other times we need to understand that sometimes we should address people with a little more compassion.

 

I agree and disagree with @xexes - many, many sites are based entirely around plotting.  They're very active in the cbox and on the plot areas of the forums, but the actual RP areas are empty.  But at the same time, just because it's acceptable elsewhere doesn't mean that you (@Sage) should live with a behavior that clearly bothers you and doesn't fit into your site atmosphere.  She might not realize that plotting only doesn't mesh with the attitudes of other writers on the site.  You don't want to lose her as a member, and therefore there isn't any point to "weeding" her out.  She's a friend, she's loyal, and she's an active body on your board.  Gather more information about why she's doing what she's doing before you make a decision on how to handle the situation.

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One of my friends used to be like this. When a mutual friend and myself would ask her about threads, and what was holding her back from posting, some of her explanations were as follows:

 

"I just don't have muse for the thread atm"
"Eh... I forgot what I planned for that thread"
"Oh I have more muse for xyz at the moment"

Which eventually turned into:

"I feel too pressured"

"Alright Alright don't nag"

"When you ask I don't feel like doing it anymore"

 

Generally speaking, in HER case, she just got bored of the threads on an individual basis and pretty much functioned similar to ADHD. I eventually let the old threads die abandoned and let her be the one to ask me for a thread. We still talk, and we're still friends, but I haven't RPed with her in over a year now.

 

 

 

I never hurts to ask what goes on in somebody's head. And letting the lack of posts take its natural course won't necessarily kill your friendship.

Edited by CovertSphinx
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38 minutes ago, CovertSphinx said:

One of my friends used to be like this. When a mutual friend and myself would ask her about threads, and what was holding her back from posting, some of her explanations were as follows:

 

"I just don't have muse for the thread atm"
"Eh... I forgot what I planned for that thread"
"Oh I have more muse for xyz at the moment"

Which eventually turned into:

"I feel too pressured"

"Alright Alright don't nag"

"When you ask I don't feel like doing it anymore"

 

I can relate to this. There was a time when I was very active regarding social media rp but some real-life problems I had (such as health, losing my uncle, harassment from neighbours, our dog being ill/having problems in general because he's getting old, my partner's chronic illness (I list this here not because it's the least important, but because it's the one I have to deal with constantly) and finally minor irritations/inconveniences such as getting the computer fixed can build up and if you ask a person at the 'wrong time' has the danger of putting them off completely. They wanted to do it, but when you ask, it's the final bit of pressure that they don't want at that moment and sometimes people need space. People might not always tell you what's going on in real-life because they don't want to share their problems or seen as bringing negativity to the board.

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Wow, thanks for the advice everyone! You've given me a lot to think about and you've all been super helpful. I think what I'll probably end up doing is just asking her about it outright one time and then leaving it up to her. I do like having her around as a presence in the community - she is fun and a good friend! - but probably won't reward her in-game without her making an effort. Leaving the ball in her court and then moving on until she decides to do something with it may be the best course of action right now.

 

I'll think on it some more and let you know if anything further comes of it. But you guys have really settled my uneasiness on the matter and given me confidence on approaching similar problems in the future. If anyone else still has something to say, though, I'd love to hear more thoughts on the matter!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sometimes great plotting can lead to thread death. It's all exciting in the cbox or chat forum, but once that is all talked about and decided on, the actual writing of it can become a drag for the serial plotter. The excitement has gone out of it because you both primarily wrote it already in the chat, and for them, the writing of it in a thread is basically a rehash.

Maybe ask them: "How about we get in and write this instead of talking about it and see where it goes?" Capture the muse when it's there and try to channel it into actual posts before the ideas get too detailed.

Edited by Dusty
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My site has one particular member who is this way; very bubbly, very fun, very energetic, always chatting.... never posts and threads with her last months and end up cutting short because my members tend to just be like "hey, so-and-so, can we be done with this thread?" because they want to keep their plots evolving.

 

I'd be careful of the way you address a member about this issue, though. A previously mentioned, what may be an issue to you (no IC movement, etc) might be seen as fine for her. They may also find the task of writing an IC post very daunting or very time-consuming... requiring a set mood or a set level of muse before they will even consider starting. That is sort of the reason I suspect my slow member slow posts; her owed posts may be some sort of unsurmountable mountain. 

 

Pointing out your displeasure with her behavior may add to the stress if it is something anxiety based.

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