Membership How do you feel about RP Lurkers?

[Squeeji 19]

I have a lurker that has followed me over like 4-5 sites just to read my stuff and the stuff of my RP BFFs, which is weird, but after I talked to him about it, he was cool...so I just shrugged it off as having a fan.  Still a little weird though, harmless, but weird.

[Sophie Hatter 38]

i love rp lurkers. i actually was one myself for a certain site that now closed. i just loved the writing and characters. i even considered joining, but the canon i wanted to grab was reserved, unfortunately.

 

and i just had someone join my site's discord who said they would be lurking until certain plots and characters opened up in the future, and asked me if it's okay. which i think is kind of funny, but i get why they asked. a lot of people get weird about people who lurk and don't join but i never see it as a problem. probably the opposite.

 

i mean, if i was followed site to site by someone? yeah, creepy. but if there's someone in our discord reading threads and keeping up with plots, then i just leave them be. not everyone interacting with the site has to be a member. 

[William 4]

RP Lurkers??? What does it really hurt? If they are not disrupting the story or interfering with the members, are they truly significant? If you believed in ghosts and one lived in your house... and you did not know it... does it matter? And what if you did find out you had a ghost after living there for 10 years? If they did not bother you or disturb your family, does having a ghost really matter? 

 

Same with a Lurker.  Maybe the Lurker is trying to get the intestinal fortitude to step in and become a part of the community. How much effort did YOU attempt to make that Lurker seem welcomed?

 

Pose for thought !!  I don't mind RP lurkers... til they disrupt my story or harass my members... and I can ban them...

 

Steal my stuff?? How can I truly stop that?? It is on the internet is it not?

 

I say live and let live the RP Lurker... til they step across the proverbial line and harass members or disrupt the story.

[Tsuki 0]

I have never been an rp lurker, but I have had many on my sites.

I think it's fine when the person is just looking and lurking and takes an interest. What irks me, however, is when someone joins, starts an application/profile, and then never comes back...

[Samantha 64]

I'm not sure if I really feel one way or the other with this. My site has had an issue in the past with people joining for nefarious reasons, like spying on a specific member or going through all our stuff. 

 

But in terms of lurkers, there's a pretty easy way to deal with this - at least on JCINK. Every two months or so we go in a prune our members with the guidelines to delete them if they haven't posted in a certain amount of days or been active since a certain time and you can go through and make sure you aren't about to delete someone who is vacationing or something like that, it's really handy. 

 

Generally, if I see someone who appears to be lurking I'll send them a PM, tell them that we're happy to have them and ask if they need anything and I tell them about our discord server and give them the link to join, if they don't say anything after that or join in I'll usually give it a little bit before I delete their account. I know that some people don't like to be involved in chats and whatnot, but if they don't respond to my PM either it tends to make me a bit nervous because we've had issues in the past with people posing as members, but that's just me. 

[ChrisOwl 59]

I don't mind people along for the read. I do wonder why they don't jump in and play but perhaps they are deciding or perhaps they are just in to someone's story. Some RP writers I've read are better than some published authors... they weave a good tale and it's fun to read.

I do get confused when someone makes the effort to develop an application and then never comes back. However, stuff comes up in life, or maybe they just weren't that interested. As long as people are nice I don't matter who is around. Even if people just joined the site to come around on the chat and talk about the genre I'm fine with that.

[Bamf 11]

Hello... my name is BAMF... and I'm a lurker.  (lol)

 

I've never just registered an account without the intention of rping somewhere. I usually am content with just reading stuff. Ever now and then I like to pop into the cbox and tell the site how pretty I think it is or the beautiful writing or plot- I'll swoon the crap out of your site. Then go back to lurking or running away. Cause I awkward. 

 

This is also why I get nervous when people say hello to guests in the cbox. 

 

Crap! I've been spotted! CHEESE IT!

Edited November 7, 2017 by Bamf

[Shades 676]

Eh, both sites I run are completely open to guests. My main one only has the steamy (18+) threads and staff areas closed off from guests. I'm not paranoid about people 'stealing' things, I don't know, just seems too much of a hassle for a hobby. Of course, I'm looking from the perspective of a site where a long app is not required, and everything is pretty lax. So there would be no need to create an account to lurk. If someone did, I would do what I have done before. Greet them, and ask if they have any questions. I have had people politely inform me that they didn't want to/didn't have the time to roleplay at the moment, but wanted to be a part of the site. I let them be, as long as they're not disruptive.

 

As for me, I lurk a lot, but I never create an account unless I'm sure I'll be roleplaying. But I'm a big fan of some sites, and just love to drop by and see what they're up to. If I could do it without it being weird, I'd probably join with an OOC account just so I could subscribe to my favorite threads.

[Phear Lap 6]

I like fans, lurkers not so much, but that's for rpers who join, lurk, get deleted for inactivity; they come back, do nothing, get deleted, and on and on it goes.. lke, if you want to read, having an account isn't necessary, but then some rpers have that hard a time thinking of what to make?

[Seneca 16]

For me, this is really simple. Lurkers (of any kind, registered or unregistered) aren't hurting anyone simply by being there. Whether they're just reading threads, talking every now and then in the cbox, exclusively posting in OOC sections, whatever - they're enjoying your site and shouldn't be considered creepy just because they may be quiet. It's flattering, really. 

 

Although this obviously isn't the case with all lurkers, a lot of the time it can be because they have some form of social anxiety and need a bit of time to get to know a place before they feel comfortable engaging. I lurk for a loooong time before I'm familiar enough with a new site to want to jump in and make myself known.

 

On the other side of that, if and only if they're causing trouble by stealing content or poaching members should they be treated as a problem. Otherwise, seriously who are they hurting?

 

[Uaithne 543]

On 11/5/2017 at 5:46 PM, Denethorii said:

I do get confused when someone makes the effort to develop an application and then never comes back. However, stuff comes up in life, or maybe they just weren't that interested. As long as people are nice I don't matter who is around. Even if people just joined the site to come around on the chat and talk about the genre I'm fine with that.

 

Sometimes the creation process is exhilarating, but then you get accepted and the actual participation process is more challenging.

[StormWolfe 557]

To lurk or not to lurk, that is the question!

 

The way my sites work, lurking is not an issue. In progress posts are saved and are available to the public for reading once they are completed and published. Our rating is 111 based on the RPG Rating system so no one is going to stumble on adult material by accident. Likewise, our characters in play are public as are our rules and the info on our wikis.

 

It is hard to determine if you want to join an RPG if you cannot see any of the content such as Rules, the work involved to create a character, characters and faces in play, how they handle posting, etc. If nothing else, provide a guest-friendly forum with "samples" so interested parties can get an idea of whether or not they want to join. Perhaps a solution for those with closed sites would be a Lurkers' Rule? You are welcome to join and read along with our stories as long as you are active in the community rule?

 

Personally, I would contact Admin and Staff to ask if I could read along, look over the rules, and some of the posts in order to decide if I wanted to attempt making a character and actively joining the RPG. If I chose not to join, I would let them know as soon as possible. Having had to deal with a stalker-lurker in the past, I also understand how it can make a person nervous and wary. To say the least, I'm cautious when someone contacts us to set up an account on our game site and then does nothing else. After two weeks, we delete the account.

[Vellamo 74]

I am one of those RP lurkers. There's sites that I have been following for months. I don't go on everyday but I'll check in every once and a while. Generally, it's because I am curious and love to see what others and their characters are up to. Some of them are also sites I can't join because I just don't have the time or I am not compatible as an RPer, but I still think is cool enough to read.

 

But I won't waste my time with making an account unless I intend to actually use it. I'm lazy, so I don't see the point in going through the effort of registering when those few seconds could've been used elsewhere. 

 

From experience, I've had both good and bad lurkers on my sites (as an admin). The way I see it is that they have the same probability as anyone else in being either good or bad. So I don't really worry about it anymore. 

[Raven 18]

I think it's fine to sit back and read the site, as long as you aren't holding slots that other people could be using. It's the people who keep coming back and making a new character every other month and wasting everyone's time by never playing them that irritate me.

[Bass 26]

I am guilty of joining sites and lurking for a while before making anything. I do it because sometimes you have to dip a toe into the community before you really see the true face of it. Sometimes the hype gets me and I make an account, second guess myself, and then wait, and then maybe work on something. If they aren't causing any mischief, I don't mind having someone hang out, but I do find it rude to create an account and not engage with the community at all.