Staffing How Do You Integrate New Members

[Uaithne 543]

How do you integrate new members onto your site? It's always something I'm looking to improve on because new members are so important to the growth of just about any RP forum.

 

One of the things I struggle with is getting the new member to RP with someone other than me because I find that if RL consumes me and I'm their only link to the site, the new member goes MIA. Of course older members are willing to RP with new people; it's just a matter of getting folks to take initiative and connect and RP with each other. (Not in and if itself a problem I'm currently having, though I've struggled with this in the past.)

 

I'd love to hear some ideas you guys have had that worked or didn't work, and how you've resolved issues.

[Verridith 66]

I was handed an interesting idea years and years ago by a friend who I only knew as Shake; the concept of pairing a newbie with an older member upon joining. I took the idea and ran with it, and it's gone through several variations over the years until now; a mentoring project that works super well!

 

What we do is we have a list of official mentors - older members with a good grasp of lore and the want to help new members out. A new member will look over this list and choose a mentor or two, and that mentor will help them create their first char, get them involved in their first thread, answer questions, and basically guide them through the entire process until they become full members and aren't newbies anymore. It's a tried and true system that's worked excellently for a long time now, and I hope to see it in other sites someday too!

[Elena 546]

I have been such a mentor on a site I joined in my first year of RP!

 

In my case, I do matchmake them whenever possible with other writers whose characters have sense to interact and I know them as being active writers, not the kind posting once at 2-3 weeks. In some cases, I ask for the newcomer to write an open thread, but in most cases I write a thread starter or I direct them to a collective thread where his faction gathers.

[Rune 1,099]

We have a vague "pay it forward" system that is mostly unspoken. New person joins, we swarm them like flies to honey and whomever clicks is off and running. 

 

The new player then tries to go out of their way to thread with the next new player. It's all unspoken and informal but works pretty well.

 

Another board has a welcome wagon. These players are actively responsible for threading with new players. It's a smaller site and this was just implemented so we'll see how it goes!

 

I really like the idea of the mentor program but with my shit luck I'd get paired off with people I just did not get on with over and over again. XD 

[Zahhy 130]

I send two messages as an admin & leave the rest to the community.

 

Admin Steps to Integrate New Players:

1) 1st message send shortly after signing up Includes:

a. A Welcome Message with Important links

b. Send to adoptables and wanted ats

c. Invite them to our Chat (Slack)

d. If they have a character I suggest my characters that would get on well for a thread

 

2) 2nd message send 1 month after nothing

a. Secondary welcome asking if they need any help

 

Once someone joins our Slack, or posts in General Threads or in our Plotter the Community takes over.

 

I have multiple active players that are all eager to plot and play with ANYONE AND EVERYONE new. New players never only hear just from me unless they never post a single thing and don't join our Slack Channels.

[CovertSphinx 710]

Traditionally, there hasn't been much I could reasonably do without feeling suffocating until the new member posts a character (or reaches out with questions). Once there's a character posted, I make sure to jump in their first thread (or reach out to a specific member that I trust if I don't have the time to add another thread to my load) and/or give the member a couple of characters I think theirs would interact well with / plotcrumbs they might be interested in pursuing. But after that, there's really nothing I can do unless the new member is reciprocating effort. 

[Quell 249]

Suffocating new members is my greatest fear when I'm hoping to bring them in. People are so complicated.  Sometimes people like to be bombarded with thread requests and love and other people just get stressed out. 

 

For instance, I hate when I get a PM from a staff account, even if it's a friendly PM. And there are certainly people who love when they get that welcome PM from a staff member.

 

I think the best thing you can do is be yourself and accept the new person, guest or member, for who they are. There is nothing that will make a player stay who doesn't want to be there; and there is (basically) nothing that will make a player go who wants to stay.

[Stat 60]

19 minutes ago, Thyme said:

Suffocating new members is my greatest fear when I'm hoping to bring them in. People are so complicated.  Sometimes people like to be bombarded with thread requests and love and other people just get stressed out. 

 

This is so true. For example, I need to get into a new site one toe at a time, and I do everything ve-e-e-ery slowly in the first few weeks. If everyone is in my plotter, and the admins keep saying hi on discord, and I feel like I'm not in control, I honestly feel overwhelmed and start feeling anxious about logging in on the site. So yes, confession time, I have left boards for being too welcoming.

 

I think for the most part, unless it's a particularly large board or a game with complex mechanics, new members don't need a lot more welcoming than old ones. Posting in their plotter, suggesting plot ideas and being overall friendly are things everyone should be doing anyway, and they are all a newbie needs!

[Guest LOVE ME AND DESPAIR]

On sites I've been on people tend to just drift toward each other when plotting — though this becomes easier with Discord and plotting in its channel I've noticed — though not everyone works that way. For the people that don't I know we've tried pushing them toward other players with characters who might mesh well with their own. Suggesting characters that might match up isn't a bad idea. You could add it as part of their welcome PM or something. Just a quick note of characters that might match up with theirs such as (to use my site as an example) if we got a wealthy nobleman's daughter we'd direct them toward others of that class. Or general examples: Characters that work in law enforcement might interact often with doctors/nurses, EMTs, etc. Teenagers with teenagers or teachers/tutors or coaches, etc.

 

Another option is a roulette/matchmaking type thing. It doesn't have to be specific to an event, just an everyday thing people can optionally enter characters into to get matched up for a potential thread. You can just match them and they can decide thread, or you can match them and provide a thread idea.

[Anonymous 234]

Overwhelming new members can be as bad as making them feel ignored. I joined a site once which looked promising, but I needed time to take it all in, espeaically as the admin seemed quite keen on keeping everything to a high standard. I wanted a week or two to look around the site, read all of their informative threads - there were quite a lot of them, and then start making my first character. I wasn't sure what it was going to be, but I wanted to take the time to find my feet. But then I noticed that the admin posted on my profile, sent e-mails, and then as I go on resource sites quite a lot, saw that they'd posted a thread about new members who don't post. I felt like they were following me around. After looking around the site a bit more, I noticed that the admin badgered members to make IC posts a lot and in the end, decided that the site wasn't for me, even though it catered to a lot of fandoms I am interested in.

 

I will point out that the messages weren't a lot, but the pressure to post while I was still trying to get myself orientated with the site's rules, documentation and way of doing things while also trying to come up with ideas for my first character was off putting. I would say that you need to give new members breathing space, as well as the welcome and encouragement, but do the welcoming after they've had a chance to get used to the site.

Anonymous poster hash: 0de77...a49

[peregyr 10]

In my experience, it's best to just let the new member get settled in. Some people like the welcome messages, others don't; I prefer not to send anything. For myself, personally, being addressed immediately by the admin makes me anxious. A lot of people in the RP world and on the internet are shy and quiet people who prefer to take social stuff at a slower pace. That's why I'm here posting this instead of doing something else, at least. :') As a rule of thumb I always let the new member make the first interaction. All you can do is respond in a way that's friendly and open.

 

Based on what you wrote in your initial post, I'm reading 2 possible things that are happening:

 

1) New members aren't putting in the work to become part of the site, and are only responding to you because you approached them.

2) Other members aren't willing to reach out and thread with new members.

 

If it's 1), then it seems harsh, but there's nothing you can do. RPing is a social hobby. If you want to join a site, then you have to be willing to work with other members and get involved with the community. It takes work and effort on the part of the new member to become part of the site--I've joined many sites in the past and I've always done my best to socialize, get involved, and plot with as many people as I could. If everyone is reasonably friendly and nice, then it's entirely on that new member to take the initiative and reach out to people--and if they're not willing to do that to begin with, then they're probably not ever going to be a very dedicated writer on your site, imo.

 

I don't think it's worth it to try and keep pushing. Sure, if you try really hard, you might get them to stick around--but what is that going to accomplish? You'll just be tying yourself into more threads and more work with someone who isn't going to reciprocate. Someone who really likes your site and is of a similar mindset will make an effort to be there--and I've always felt having just a few members who are very involved and contribute lots is much, much better than having 100 members who don't care. These people are rare and don't appear every day, though; you'll get a lot of people in between who kinda drift in and out of your site, and that's just a reality of the RP world. All you can do is be friendly and kind and give people a chance, but don't bend over backwards trying to make it work.

 

On the other hand, if the new member is really trying to reach out to other people, but finding resistance--then you might be dealing with a clique mentality. Unfortunately I don't have much advice to give if that's happening; maybe someone else here can offer more.

 

[eleholly 118]

On my site, we tend to just overwhelm them with love and stuff in the Discord. We're super great about coming up with ideas, but the new person has to be willing to ask for plots. I'm a firm believer in not holding someone's hand to get them to jump into the board, but that's not to say that I won't assist in trying to integrate them. It's what they do with my assistance that really makes or breaks the experience. I don't thread with every single new person that joins - not because I don't want to, but because I play a dozen or more characters and have 40+ threads at any given time, so if I take on a thread with every single member (35+ at the moment), that would...that would just not be good. 

But the implementation of plotting channels in the Discord has been HUGE. We don't even really use our plotting section on the site anymore because it's so much easier to get people into stories when you're chatting real time. And you can tag people to continue the conversation as you can throughout the day. Honestly, the Discord has really made the site so much more cohesive because of the real time talk features. We also do once weekly voice plotting because that makes it even easier to come up with storylines than through text. We've only done it once or twice, so we'll see how it continues.  

 

[StormWolfe 557]

We encourage new people to join our Discord as we're more available there. We're friendly and welcoming, offer help if they need it, then let them settle in at their own pace. We allow two weeks to complete their first character bio (more if they communicate a need for extra time). Basically, we just try to be there when they need us to be and let them know they are welcomed into our community.

 

Once they have an approved character, we'll offer to do scenes with them and give them the option to write solo (we do a lot of joint posting). Again, we try not to pressure, just let them know who is available to write with them.

 

We try to encourage engagement, but it's really up to each individual to determine how much they want to do in regards to writing and staying in touch with the group. Not chasing them down or babysitting!

[SYRE 6]

On 05/02/2018 at 4:24 PM, Verridith said:

I was handed an interesting idea years and years ago by a friend who I only knew as Shake; the concept of pairing a newbie with an older member upon joining. I took the idea and ran with it, and it's gone through several variations over the years until now; a mentoring project that works super well!

 

What we do is we have a list of official mentors - older members with a good grasp of lore and the want to help new members out. A new member will look over this list and choose a mentor or two, and that mentor will help them create their first char, get them involved in their first thread, answer questions, and basically guide them through the entire process until they become full members and aren't newbies anymore. It's a tried and true system that's worked excellently for a long time now, and I hope to see it in other sites someday too!

Why have I never thought of this...

[D-S 21]

1. When the new players are not in game yet:

1.1) When they are at the level of not having joined just yet, we try to answer any questions they have, and poke the c-box in between conversations perhaps once a day or every few days with messages about which admins are here if anyone has questions, mostly when there are a number of guests on the site who are not obvious bots. But people are free to roam anyway!

1.2) If people do participate, we answer how we can, or point out the site Discord if they prefer it that way. A lot ends up going on, on the Discord, so we try to keep track. The accepted members get a colour change on Discord, so we can spot the character-less newcomers more easily, and answer to their demands faster if they ask anything wherever.

1.3) we also direct people to our link directory, which is an index of all important pages, from basic information to further information if they want to know more about the universe

 

2. When the new players have joined

2.1) The love and support keeps being offered, and current members are very helpful as well, at this point, anyone can initiate it. Making sure no one is ignored no matter what was currently being discussed, since it can be intimidating to be caught in the middle of a confusing discussion filled with obscure inside jokes for example. Unfamiliar members are offered ways into talks, thanks to the magic of the internet allowing more than one subject at the time

2.2) Me and my co-admin make sure to hit the plotter/shipper of every new member's first character at the very least, and we managed to do the same with any additional characters too. We suggest site-wide plots, and others in link with our current characters if they want to start faster. We feel it's important that new members are being offered doors in on a plot point of view as well

2.3) We are working on ideas, but we may implement some form of plot roulette or match-making agency so I could call it, to help people having more difficulties taking the first steps, or lacking ideas. We often see many ways characters could interact, and sometimes a little pointing is enough to inspire!