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Are OOC boards important?


katherineespair
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I’ve been thinking recently about the amount of communication that comes from messengers, Private messages, and Cboxes. The rp world is in constant communication, but I never feel as if the OCC chat boards see much use on my site.  It is there, but it is mostly for games and communicating absences. 

So I’m curious what it is like on other sites. Sure, Initiative has plenty of communication (here i am!), but what about other roleplay sites. 
 

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I guess it depends where you go, and how you personally feel about them.

 

I know whenever I'm looking around at sites, I always take note of the OOC activity. I feel that a healthy site has even a small amount of OOC activity because, hey, it shows members are communicating with one another and such.

 

Yeah, most sites have a chat and there are certainly rp threads going on, the bread and butter of a site, but OOC threads just take it that one step further to make the place feel like somewhere you might want to be part of. Also, in a way, they're good for people to chime in on a topic that may have been missed in chat, you know?

 

That's how I feel.

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I don't personally use many OOC boards unless it's required or a game mechanic. I think the only OOC board I frequent (other than information forums) is game boards. Gif reaction games are my jam!

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I really like them and am always thinking of things to add to mine. But outside mine... I admit to not finding much to talk about.

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I would say that they are, probably more so than the c-boxes, discord, etc. C-boxes to me always seem to be the place where people drop off for a few moments to chat, but the conversation is soon gone, and the same can be said about discord.

 

They can be used to help players keep track of all their character's important info, threads they need to reply to, plotting, etc.

 

I find that they are good to display extra stuff if you like making graphics. If it's a fandom board, I wouldn't mind it if people posted their fan fiction and fan art creations, either. You can discuss your favourite books, movies, show off your collections if you collect fandom memorabilia. All of this gets people chatty and you can be social with other members of the board even when you don't feel like rping or have an rp post to make. I would say that if utilized properly, they'd make the rp board more of a community than without. (And it shows perspective members that the board is active!) I have this view probably because in the early days of my internet usage, forums were like this - they were places where I could share my interests and discuss things with like-minded people and I don't get this out of social media sites. I don't think I'd like a forum which was all 'business' - rp and nothing else. I also prefer to have my communications with other members of a site to be out in the open where everyone can see what is discussed - I don't like this idea of sending messages via pms, discord, skype and other forms of private conversation unless there's a reason for me to do it. However, I don't know how it is handled on a site where original worlds are done as I've never joined one.

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I love OoC boards.  If everything else on a site matched, I could overlook not having one, but ultimately, I feel at home when I have that aspect of the RP community available.

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I wouldn't say they're exactly important, but they're useful in their own way.

 

A games board lets you get the goofy stuff out of the way without spamming the box. Absence boards let you know whats going on with people IRL. CW also has a place to test code, post graphics, etc. It's nice to have a place to stash stuff, too.

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Do you mean ooc boards purely used for non ic related chat or are you including boards for plotting, brainstorming, applications and the like? For those I would say they are essential as it is part and parcel of forum posting. We really do encourage our members to plot on the forums since it is really unfair to plot for group things off site when there are many members who don't even have IM or social media...

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Guest Archaic Cyborg

I just need an away board and a general ooc area. I don't have a lot of time, or interest, to spend on ooc games and such- I get discouraged when the community is 'always' in the games area, neglecting (on purpose or by mistake) the rp half of the game.

 

I'm very much old school and only join an rp to write pretend stories, I'm not joining for significant ooc factors. Keeping track of both the plots and what the players do oocly is draining.

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I saw used of the OOC boards die out a little bit as Chatbox/Chatango/Discord/etc became popular. Personally I still like to see them, I just wish people used them more. Its a great way to stay involved in the story and the community while your RP "muse" is running a little low or you're not sure where to take a character/story.

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I like them for discussing plots and for OOC communications such as absences. To my new board, I also added an Introduction area, which hopefully will help building a sense of community. If interesting debates come up, they're nice, too. I'm not too much into "games", however. Nothing against them, but I don't have so much free time. What little I have, I'd rather spend it RPing or talking about something I care about.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm big on the OOC threads because I feel like it helps to build a sense of community.
My game is still very new though so my community is small, but that said I find the added benefit in having the OOC there for new players to engage with myself (admin) and other mods so we can collectively find ways to ever continuously improve our RPG.
I think collaboration is key, so OOC is great for that. Plus, it de-clutters the IC posts by putting them in their own designated area.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I like OOC boards because they give me something to do when I want to be on the site and interact, but don't want to put the effort forth into writing a reply. Bc I'm lazy. But I think they're great for putting up shops (like graphics or codes or make me a playlist stuff), putting things that gets talked about in chat into a more permanent home, keeping track of everybody's 'ship names, etc. OOC board topics and discussions don't disappear like they do in chat, and give everyone from different timezones a chance to chime in! And I like that. 

 

At OAMA, we also use our general chat area to ask for things from members, like share your favorite thread you think everyone should read, or what's your favorite thing that happened so far IC? That really gets discussion going and gets people reading other people's threads and I love that. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Everyone can only answer this question from their perspective, since what is important to someone varies from person to person. What is important to one person might not be important to you, and it isn't right to have OOC boards anymore than it is wrong to not have them.

 

I, personally, make use of them. They are a good way to keep tabs on some things that aren't good to have floating around on a Discord server, like dates for upcoming events and whatnot. They're also a good medium for having discussions imo, since it's easier to keep track of opinions and you don't have to scroll back through things and search for stuff. It's all right there.

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