Staffing Beginner on an Intermediate site

[Samantha 64]

So we got a new member a decent amount of time ago and it was obvious that she was completely new to the entirety of RPing - or Rping on a site, anyway. She was asking a lot of questions that any RPer who has been on a site or two would know. Now, this isn't the part I mind, everyone has to start somewhere and when we say we're an intermediate site we mean that in terms of the writing, not how long our members have been RPing or how familiar they are with the RP world/community. However, after having been a member for a decent amount of time now she finally posted her bio and before I could even read it one of my staffers told me that it was going to be a bad one for me to read and now that I've seen it I know why. 

 

The first things you see is that her character was born 57 years ago, but is listed as 25 years old, the lore in her history is completely wrong (which admittedly other people have done on the site before so that isn't the dealbreaker here, it just needs to be heavily edited), but in her RP sample there are edit lines from someone else. Telling her that they edited parts of her RP sample and why they did it. An RP sample is supposed to be a representation of a member's writing style and level, though, if I'm completely honest, we haven't had to deal with too many issues in this section at all since we opened. 

 

In my mind, we don't really have an RP sample from her - and it makes me wonder how much of her application she actually wrote if there are so many edits in her RP sample done by someone else. I'm not really sure what I should do here, I could review her app like I would anyone else's and tell her what she needs to change for her character to be approved or my other admin and I could talk to her about the fact that she might be on a site that is too high a level for her. Her RP sample isn't full of "cuz" and "u" but with the edits we know have been made by another person, we don't really know what her writing is like because the person editing it could have fixed all of those mistakes - including ones that could have been in the rest of her app. But as far as the actual writing goes it isn't bad and I don't know if that's because her entire app has been edited or if she was just having trouble with her RP sample and that's why we're seeing the edit notes from another person.

 

There are also some questions about whether she is old enough to be on our mature 18+ site, because she's coming off as quite young. Some things just don't line up for other things as well that makes it seem like she might be lying like she says she's on GMT time but said it was midnight where she was when it should have been 3pm GMT time. 

 

Any advice would be awesome and thank you all in advance. 

Edited July 7, 2017 by Samantha

[Kit the Human 759]

Besides, you seem to want to give her the benefit of the doubt (which is sweet), is there any reason to pend her app? 

 

It sounds like there are enough questions to make denial the most prudent move. Even more so if you doubt her age.

[Death Kitten 200]

You might try confronting her, then decide what to do based on how she responds. Some eighteen year olds can seem really immature, so I wouldn't deny her based on that alone... But why would she lie about what time zone she's in? That seems a silly thing to lie about.

 

Honestly, this sounds like it comes down to how much hand holding you think this will make you have to do, and if you have the time and patience to do it.

[CovertSphinx 710]

If it's an "RP Sample", what business does this other person have editing it for her, and WHY did they do so? I would have a talking with this other member about the fact that an RP Sample generally is to give an idea of the applicant's writing and them "correcting" it seems contrary to that intention. At the same time I would still ask for whatever corrections you need made to be done. And take it slowly from there - if there's an issue, or it becomes clear that said applicant isn't what they're claiming to be, personally I'd say get rid of them.

[VirusZero 176]

I vote for pend for now with potential deny after a bit more info. By that I mean the RP sample she posted is not of her own work, it's a copy/pasted with edits. It offers no true indicator of her post quality. If anything the fact she had someone edit it suggests that her post quality is sub-par at best. Furthermore she left in the notes left by that other user to boot showing it's been edited. So this means you should strike that from her application and ask her to submit a fresh one. (If she refuses, has another version with edits left in it or anything seems the slightest bit off then deny instantly.) At least this way if her app is sub-par then you can more easily deny with a clear conscious knowing that they were given a chance to fix things.

 

 

The fact she seems to be lying about her location is not a huge issue on it's own. But once you start lying about small details it snowballs quickly. So I'd keep an eye on her and see if she lets slip other details/issues. I mean not to be rude but most people who lie are shit at it. They inevitably slip up and reveal the truth. An offhand comment, a detail they don't think through well enough, forgetting what they said before, etc... 

 

But lying about age on a mature site... That's a pretty big issue so I'd consider asking them upfront if they really are 18. If they admit they lied then ban on spot. (In the past, on other sites, members that were underage usually admitted the truth when asked directly. Maybe if they are underage they'll admit it? Though if they still claim to be 18 then at least you've done everything you realistically could.) 

 

[Samantha 64]

Thank you all so much for replying, you all helped a lot. 

[anthrxmilkshake 86]

I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but I'm going to throw my two cents in regardless. Lol. Because I have a big old mouth, and all that jazz-matazz.

 

First, I always follow my insitincts when it comes to the maturity of an individual. If warning flags are going off in my head about their age, generally there's a reason. In my opinion that's a very important thing to pay close attention to, and as a mother it makes me cringe to think my child is out there writing smutt....<.< That last part is personal opinion, of course. Lol. That alone would cause me to pull them aside. Confrontation might suck, but, in the end, it could definitely help out here. Point out you caught their lie about their timezone, and just plain and simple lay out that you have serious doubts about their age.

 

Second, their app. I am notoriously picky about things in apps. ...well I say notorious but I don't think any of the people who would know that even frequent forums anymore. Lol. So....moot words there. Anyway, having help writing things in your app, in my opinion, is just fine, but there are certain sections you do NOT get help with. More specifically things like RP samples, which is where the staff gets a feel for your level, your grasp on your character, your grasp on the scene their RPing in. That alone would be more than enough to slap a huge "DENIED" on their application. That being said, I know most people would prefer a "pending" period, which is definitely advisable because it gives you time to point out 'look, we know what happened, we can see it happened, this isn't how we do things'. Than again it sounds like the history and age mistake is more than enough for a pend and a talking to. 

 

 

And there you have it, my late, unneeded, opinion! BOOM. *Drops mic*

[Anonymous 234]

It sounds to me that the bio has been pasted from different sources. I had a member do that on my site a short while back. She was pretty nasty when I asked her to make edits to fix the mistakes and I ended up banning her. It would be a good idea to do a plagiarism check on it with glaring mistakes like that. Her bio stood out because the descriptions of the character didn't make sense to what she was playing and had references to things in the bio which didn't match the fandom world at all.

Anonymous poster hash: c550b...3e9

[Uaithne 543]

Well I'm late here, but I thought I'd throw in my thoughts.

 

When I first read your post, my immediate reaction was to cautiously give her the benefit of the doubt and pend her application while sending her a frank PM. "Hey, you're not really on the right track and you seem to need a lot of help. I won't be able to support you this much when you start RPing, so are you sure you want to do this?"

 

But then you mention the age. Fibbing about location is weird, but I get that some people don't want to give away their location. But the age is a hard one, and if you point blank ask her if she's over 18, of course she'll say yes. There is no way to catch her in a lie when it comes to things like that. If you accept her now, it'll be hard to boot her off later unless she really screws up. This is the perfect opportunity to let her go.  So kindly explain that this isn't the site for her and point her in the direction of a resource site.

 

Out of curiosity, what did you end up doing, @Samantha?

[Samantha 64]

@Uaithne, she hasn't actually been online since posting her app so my admin and I are still debating on what we're going to do. 

 

At first we're thinking about telling her that her app will not be reviewed until she submits a new RP sample written completely by her and that if she isn't confident in her ability to produce well-written posts then maybe she should join a beginner site until she gets more comfortable. 

[xexes 108]

4 hours ago, Samantha said:

@Uaithne, she hasn't actually been online since posting her app so my admin and I are still debating on what we're going to do. 

 

At first we're thinking about telling her that her app will not be reviewed until she submits a new RP sample written completely by her and that if she isn't confident in her ability to produce well-written posts then maybe she should join a beginner site until she gets more comfortable. 

 

So the problem is solved.

 

She barely put in enough effort to complete all the application's fields, much less make it coherent/cohesive.  And now, that bare minimum effort wasn't enough to have her still be interested enough a few days later to log on. There's a phrase about how people who cheat in video games never last because they get bored of it... ?

 

Sometimes things just work out all by themselves!