Staffing Help with wording for rules/disclaimer?

[Shades 676]

Hello there, fellow members of the Initiative! I hope I'm not posting this on the wrong spot!

I come to you, asking for help and insight from all of the lovely admins out there.

I have recently, against my own best judgement, given in and requested a new skin for a site I'm running, and, while I will go through with it, it has left a very bad taste in my mouth, to the point where I'm having a hard time enjoying the site and the skin is not even done yet. 

Oh, well, what's done is done, and changing my mind now won't really change much. 

This is not the matter I'm asking for help with, it's just to provide some context. So, while I will neither close down nor abandon the current site, I am creating a new one with a different premise, and I refuse to have this happen again, because this one is going to be much more labor intensive than the previous, with plot, locations, characters, etc.

So, my question is: how would you word on a disclaimer or on your rules that the focus of your community is the plot and creative writing, and not 'looking pretty', without it sounding, er, bitchy and bitter?

My idea is to have a mission statement on the site, and have one of the points be similar to:

We are a community that devotes itself to writing. Therefore, the focus is and will always be on the story and characters. For this reason, we do not use posting templates and our skin is geared solely towards ease of access to important locations and readability.

But I still feel it's not really... making my point? I would love if someone could help me with that. Thank you in advance!

[Quell 249]

I'd phrase it:

"We at site name have decided to gear our board exclusively toward writing - story and character. Because of this, we have opted out of templates."

 

Unless you choose a skin that is painfully ugly, I don't think people will notice that you haven't chosen the prettiest one and instead nabbed one that's easy to read. ^^

 

Also, at the risk of sounding flippant... I'm not sure you need to put this anywhere except the rules. Turn off dohtml. Use a skin that focuses on ease of use and visibility. That should streamline your member base to the people you're looking for. (Also an option... I have both a "cute" skin and a "easy to read" skin. They're identical except for text size.)

[Shades 676]

Oh, trust me, the necessity lies in the fact that I use the main/basic skin. And I know a lot of people hate it, which, well, to each their own?

 

But the last thing I want is to be nagged about it to the point where I give in just to 'keep the peace', which I have sadly been know to do. So I want to make this decision clear, while at the same time not wanting to sound accusatory or aggressive. It's just a 'hey, this is how things work here, okay?' so people know what they're joining and don't join the site expecting it'll change in the future.

 

Now, I know using the basic skin is probably the most unpopular opinion there, but honestly? Eh. Even if I had the prettiest skin I'd never please everyone, so I chose to set my focus on what matters to me.

[Quell 249]

Maybe you could put a little explanation of why you chose to use the default skin as opposed to why you don't want to use others? 

 

Label it: "Why this skin?" Or something... Put it in FAQs?

 

That's how I make things sound nicer. XD flip to the positive. Say why something is great and what you're doing.

[Shades 676]

Thank you, I really appreciate it!

[Sadrienne 242]

I posted to your same topic elsewhere, and for the most part I do feel that there's not really much need for a disclaimer. The board is what it is, and you -definitely- do not want to imply that places that do use templates, have pretty skins, etc are somehow less focused on quality writing.

 

If you do really want to include one, putting it in the FAQs as suggested is a fantastic option. Explain your reasons for choosing the skin (simplicity, ease of use, readability, cross-compatibility), but avoid equating the choice of a simple skin with encouraging quality writing. 

 

The minute you suggest that pretty skins/templates/etc are a distraction from the focus of writing, you're going to get people off-side. 

 

This is your board, your choices. You don't see the need for a fancy skin and post templates, so you don't have them. You want simple, clean, accessible, readable. There's nothing wrong with that. You will find members who feel the same.

[Shades 676]

1 minute ago, Mousie said:

I posted to your same topic elsewhere, and for the most part I do feel that there's not really much need for a disclaimer. The board is what it is, and you -definitely- do not want to imply that places that do use templates, have pretty skins, etc are somehow less focused on quality writing.

 

If you do really want to include one, putting it in the FAQs as suggested is a fantastic option. Explain your reasons for choosing the skin (simplicity, ease of use, readability, cross-compatibility), but avoid equating the choice of a simple skin with encouraging quality writing. 

 

The minute you suggest that pretty skins/templates/etc are a distraction from the focus of writing, you're going to get people off-side. 

 

This is your board, your choices. You don't see the need for a fancy skin and post templates, so you don't have them. You want simple, clean, accessible, readable. There's nothing wrong with that. You will find members who feel the same.

Thank, you, I truly appreciate it!

 

I'll start off by saying I don't think sites where the admins choose to use a pretty skin or a template are less than. I wrote this as I was upset, so some of my writing may not full on objective.

 

So, putting it better, I believe in to each their own, and that no sites are less than. But it seems that the current culture is "if you don't have a custom/pretty skin, that means you don't care about your site/don't put in the work/etc" (all things from experience.

 

So in no moment I meant/mean to imply that sites where people care about these things are less focused on the actual writing. All I meant was that I would like to have a statement letting people know this is not what mine is about. I apologize for it coming out wrong.

[Sadrienne 242]

9 minutes ago, Shades said:

But it seems that the current culture is "if you don't have a custom/pretty skin, that means you don't care about your site/don't put in the work/etc" (all things from experience.

 

 

The culture has been like this since... basically ever. But it's not everyone, and if that's not the culture you want to establish---then don't have it. People will see the level of work you put in, and respect that, and your choices.

 

Anyone who can't look beyond the lack of custom skin and ability to use post templates is exactly the sort of member you're -not- trying to attract.

[Shades 676]

2 hours ago, Mousie said:

 

The culture has been like this since... basically ever. But it's not everyone, and if that's not the culture you want to establish---then don't have it. People will see the level of work you put in, and respect that, and your choices.

 

Anyone who can't look beyond the lack of custom skin and ability to use post templates is exactly the sort of member you're -not- trying to attract.

Thank you! You are right indeed, and I really needed to hear (well, read) that!

[Icewolf 258]

Personally, I wouldn't even draw attention to the type of skin that you use. When I've been to sites which have a plain skin, it's not the skin that puts me off joining the site. It's usually something in the rules which I don't like. (A fancy skin that's difficult to navigate, awkward templates, etc is more likely to put me off joining it.) As long as the skin doesn't look like those plain websites of the mid '90s, I think you should be fine with it.

[Shades 676]

1 minute ago, Icewolf said:

Personally, I wouldn't even draw attention to the type of skin that you use. When I've been to sites which have a plain skin, it's not the skin that puts me off joining the site. It's usually something in the rules which I don't like. (A fancy skin that's difficult to navigate, awkward templates, etc is more likely to put me off joining it.) As long as the skin doesn't look like those plain websites of the mid '90s, I think you should be fine with it.

Thank you! 

[Uaithne 543]

The people who care about skin a whole lot probably won't even stick around to read the disclaimer once they see the default skin. They probably won't read your rules or plot or anything, quite frankly.

 

I want to note that whenever I see the default skin, I'm immediately turned off. This is coming from someone who doesn't care much for templates and is perfectly fine using the default. The issue is not in the default skin itself but the fact that pretty much every site I've seen that uses the default it a n00b board whose admin abandoned it two days in. It's clear that they haven't put time into their site.

 

I tell you this not to discourage you from using it but to give you a heads up. Overall, I see no problem with default skins because they're made to be very functional.

[CovertSphinx 710]

I'm in the middle of doing a bit of a overhaul so the skins are a mess, BUT, on one of my sites, I opted for something similar to what you're saying. Aside from adding a side table, I kept the default layout and style of the boards: The only change I made was color scheme and the main page Icons. This way, it wasn't THE DEFAULT, but it wasn't a full out skin-job either. 

 

Also, I don't think you need to bother with a disclaimer to begin with, as like Uaithne said, the people that care about the skin a lot aren't even going to make it off the main page. 

[Shades 676]

46 minutes ago, Uaithne said:

The people who care about skin a whole lot probably won't even stick around to read the disclaimer once they see the default skin. They probably won't read your rules or plot or anything, quite frankly.

 

I want to note that whenever I see the default skin, I'm immediately turned off. This is coming from someone who doesn't care much for templates and is perfectly fine using the default. The issue is not in the default skin itself but the fact that pretty much every site I've seen that uses the default it a n00b board whose admin abandoned it two days in. It's clear that they haven't put time into their site.

 

I tell you this not to discourage you from using it but to give you a heads up. Overall, I see no problem with default skins because they're made to be very functional.

Thank you for the input! I really like hearing people from both sides of the table and knowing how they think. And I do know it's a risk I'm running, and I'm okay with people not joining for that, it happens. I usually add little changes to the default (links on a sidebar for ease of access, and other minor things), but I happen to really like the clean look and the fact that they work and load quickly.

31 minutes ago, CovertSphinx said:

I'm in the middle of doing a bit of a overhaul so the skins are a mess, BUT, on one of my sites, I opted for something similar to what you're saying. Aside from adding a side table, I kept the default layout and style of the boards: The only change I made was color scheme and the main page Icons. This way, it wasn't THE DEFAULT, but it wasn't a full out skin-job either. 

 

Also, I don't think you need to bother with a disclaimer to begin with, as like Uaithne said, the people that care about the skin a lot aren't even going to make it off the main page. 

Thank you, honestly, that was where I was torn. On whether or not it's even a necessity. 

[Kit the Human 759]

I'm in the, you probably don't need a disclaimer boat.

 

[deletes a load of waffle that I'm disagreeing with now]

 

There are really only three assumptions (that I can think of) that you need to combat. Assumptions about commitment, laziness and incompleteness. Obviously, if someone is 100% will not ever use the default theme, you're not going to convince them. Forget them. You can implicitly combat assumptions based around commitment and laziness by your effort levels everywhere else. I think it comes across when an admin has put a lot of love into their forum concept, their world, their lore, their plots and characters. You can read it in the writing and how excited the admin is when they talk about their forum or to their interested guests.

 

Incompleteness is combated implicitly by simply being active and having a big ass we're open! message on the index when you first open. 

 

As an aside, when you advertise, never sound wary about someone's reaction to the default skin. Turn it into a feature! I mean, if advertisers can market water, you can advertise the default skin.

 

So....you do you! Let your love for your forum shine in everything that you do and stay on that sweet cheesy positivity train. You don't need a disclaimer.