Membership On My Own Again. . . .

[Elena 546]

Also, you can advertise for people to fill the roles in the big plot too. Not only family/ friends/ lovers, but also faction members with specific roles.

[Quell 249]

I haven't looked at your site closely, but I'll try to glance over it and see if I can find any suggestions for you in the near future. <3

 

In the mean time, though... Maybe put up an open thread every 3-5 days so that you've always got new posts flopping around?

[VirusZero 176]

I find myself in a similar situation. For the last week or so it's been only me on site. I try to post new stuff each day just so there's something fresh. I also created a channel in our Discord so all the new topics would be listed so people could see them quickly/easily at a glance. (And hopefully use to see new content that interests them so they can post...) Though that doesn't appear to be the case. People so far seem largely uninterested in the new channel and responding on site. Creating new topics feels like throwing everything (kitchen sink included) at a wall hoping something sticks. I've been tossing about the notion of reminding members that the forum exists and to basically not use discord for everything. Or seeing if there's a discussion to be had about ways to improve. (Though I expect that discussion will go about as well as others attempted in the past... with no one wanting to participate or getting answers being like pulling teeth without anaesthetic. )

 

 

Admittedly I have a hard time with the whole "it's the holidays"  as sole reason because there are always holidays or some event going on. Pretty much one in every month. But I won't deny it's part of the issue. 

I to have never had good luck with advertising. It's been an uphill struggle the whole time. (Without getting into victimhood narrative, I do sort of wonder if my outspoken nature in certain circles has lead to people not wanting to associate. Hard to know for sure since they aren't exactly going to tell me. That'd be too simple and straightforward.)

Spoiler

For a list of things I've tried so people can see I haven't exactly rested on my laurels.

 

- Guest ads didn't work for me (I'd go on sprees but nothing ever happened, I tried this for months without results... I wouldn't be surprised to see it hurt more than helped due to Google thinking the ads were spam and affecting ranking).

- Affiliates have resulted in people clicking onto my site, but only 2 have ever joined.

- Tumblr wasn't effective since many of the places there were heavily skewed for Jcink (with my ad being deleted/ignored). Maybe this has changed now but I don't know, might be worth another look.

- Twitter I tried but had no luck there. I probably wasn't using it correctly.  

- I refused facebook for a few reasons. But several members did try posting stuff (to no avail).

- Directories did nothing for me despite repeated bumps. (The only times I got hits from directories were when staff members did directory checks.) Though there were a lot of directories that I ended up unable to use (because when guest ads weren't working a year later I closed the guest ad section so it couldn't get spammed anymore by bots. This meant some sites, which relied on having guest ads, wouldn't let me advertise there anymore.)

- I tried posting buddy ads without luck.

- I tried responding to "looking for site" ads, you guessed it no luck there either.

- Even when I responded to others looking to roleplay (through email or their own sites) I oft got brushed off or ignored.

 

 

In a few months (February) the site will be 8 years old. But it's kinda getting to the point now where I'm feeling like "Do I want to keep doing this? Do I want to keep spending this money on something that essentially only I'm using?" Especially with the next round of costs approaching in February. 

Edited December 6, 2017 by VirusZero

[Kaycakes 78]

Hmm. I peeked at your site. Horror isn't usually my thing, but like you said, that's not really niche. I went over to your intro / plot pages to see if maybe there was something there that might need tweaking. The thing I've learned about helping to run and running sites is that people tend to be drawn to either internal or external obstacle in the main story arc their chars have to come up against. It looks like fear is a pretty good one, but I wonder if you need something more tangible. Upon re-read, being tested upon by the mayor seems pretty freaking tangible, but are there clues as to what that entails? And there's the decay stuff ... O.O Hmm.

 

I'm just saying, people usually like to have something to go against, like a Big Bad, factions, etc. They also like options to be the Big Bad or tangible ways of fighting back, finding answers to Decay, maybe hopelessly digging around for cures on their own and doing wild/crazy ass things to do it.

 

Another thing that I'm recently learning with my own site is that people can be easily intimidated by certain things. For example, with my historical, intimidation comes from not knowing about India, the culture, or the 18th century in that area because most everyone reads English history and assume that not much research is needed to play in Victorian or Regency England. But India? Lots and lots of research. I'm trying to think of a parallel for your site. Some stuffs I can think of off the top of my head are: Intimidated by not being scary enough, not being sure what getting involved with mayor subplot involves, ... that's about it. LOL.

 

In your advertising, do you play up the events? Like that mayor thingie. Your site is creepy, Uaithne. You did a good job with it LOL. 

 

Edited to Add: OH by the way, is there a way on the site to chat you or your members up without having to join Discord officially? Easy guestie access? I didn't see one.

Edited December 6, 2017 by Kaycakes

[Gothic 307]

December is definitely a slow time of year. People tend to be working more, family time, the holidays, and more. Don't beat yourself up over it. As others have said, keep going! Do your members pop in to talk much? If so, that will show potential guests that they are still interested. 

 

My advice isn't really great, unfortunately. But hang in there. 

 

I also love the look of your site, although horror isn't really my cup of tea when it comes to RPing. 

[Rune 1,099]

Do you have any family members of characters your could request? Friends, etc. Tossing them up as wanteds in directories might help lure people in. (Or at least I hope it does as that's what I'm doing!)

[SoulsRPG 15]

I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said, but I do like the look of your site overall except for the small, tiny font.  It's a big legibility issue for me and I'm sure many others - maybe you could consider increasing it a bit.

[Uaithne 543]

Now that I've had a few minutes, I went through this thread and actually wrote down all the advice you gave me so that I can start comparing it with what I have / improving things.  Thank you very much for your help thusfar.  I do have a couple of follow-up notes:

 

A few minor changes have already been made, such as changing the rules so that they weren't as confusing with the inactivity stuff.  I rewrote the subplot information so that the stuff in there is a bit clearer.  These subplots will be linked to the main info guide when I revise the info guide.

 

Documentation will be changing a little.  I'm pulling the timeline out of the info guide so that it's its own pinned thread.  There will also be a thread for the Decay (to explain what it is) and a thread for the town of Pine Ridge Creek so people are familiar with the setting.  I may put the timeline thread in one of these, though I don't know which yet.  None of these changes have been published yet.

 

I made a new profile template that looks a little nicer.  Whether I like it or not, people do judge based on appearances.  I am also testing out different looks for the claims so they don't appear so bland, and I'm going to be re-working my main template to make it match better. Essentially things will look as sleek as the skin and the profile template.

 

@Kaycakes - I have a guest-friendly forum.  I even posted there as a guest to show that it's guest friendly.  I'm used to having a cbox rather than a Discord, but it seemed a bit too much to have both a cbox and a Discord.  If people believe it makes that big of a difference, I'll figure out the code to put the Discord directly on the site, but on all of the sites I've seen so far, the Discord area just comes out as a giant blob that doesn't actually show you the chat inside.  (I'm still a bit of a Discord n00b.)

 

@Sunchance - Ahh!  I didn't realize the font was small.  Which font are you having difficulty reading?  (Or, rather, where on the board are you referencing when you say that the font is small?)

 

Also, I have plot requests up for characters, but somebody literally took my character's sister, made an app, and then vanished.  *big sighs*  I'll have to boot them if I can't get ahold of them.  I also have plot requests up on resource sites for the big group family, though I doubt it's superbly popular because it's religious in theme.  That's okay.

 

(I'm still more than happy to have advice, though; especially since others are reading this thread hoping for advice that will apply to them.)

[Shades 676]

Just a note here: You can use Titan Embed for Discord, and if you set it to allow guest users, your users can see the chat directly from your site.

 

I have it enabled on my own site, hit me up if you want to take a look! (As I'm not linking it here, it wouldn't be nice!)

[SoulsRPG 15]

@Uaithne I was talking about the main forum page's descriptions, but the rest of the site seems the same.  I Inspected the element on Chrome and it seems that the font size is set to 11px, which is super small!  I think that 14px is a good minimum for legibility, with 16px being excellent / the most legible for a serif font.  For sans-serif fonts (which are recommended for computer screens), 14px should be good.

[Uaithne 543]

@Shades - I have no idea why I chose "agree" to your post instead of "thanks" or "like" or something else.  I think I just got so excited I chose the first thing I could. XD  But anyway, I'd love to see what it looks like on your site.

 

@Sunchance - 16 point font is huuuuuuge! Haha.  No offense if that's what you need in order to be able to see.  At that point, I actually find the font too big and can't read it very well.  That said, your overall point is made and it's a good one.  I plan on working more on my site once my finals are over, and experimenting with font size is going to be one of the things I definitely do.  The font size on the application is changing for certain.

 

I'm actually struggling a bit with font in general.  I find that not all light colored greys look good on all dark colored greys.  Sometimes the contrast is too much and then it's blinding.  And sometimes smaller fonts with a larger line spacing look better than larger fonts with equal or less line spacing.  It's a delicate dance.

[Shades 676]

PM coming your way!