Staffing Activity requirement vs ...just knowing one's around?

[featherstone 69]

Activity. You can't be too demanding because people have lives. However I realize my issue isn't so much with actual posting (as long as it's not entirely neglected), but with having no sign of life whatsoever.  One can take all the time they need as long as I know they'll be back, but if you join all excited, we start plotting this and that, then poof for weeks I have no idea what to do with said plots. Especially as an admin who cares about plot consistency. Is there any diplomatically acceptable way to say a board has a fairly lax posting requirement, but if you're entirely gone with no warning I can archive your threads, reopen wanted positions etc in a shorter amount of time? If you are busy but still want to play I'm with you, if you don't care anymore it's not fair to make everyone else wait forever. Or not?

[Death Kitten 200]

One thing that comes up in all these activity checks threads is using activity check rules as setting expectations for people before they join. So you just have to set expectations. It's about attracting people who have similar availability and expectations, more than it's about enforcing the requirements on an arbitrary group of people.

 

My activity rules have fluctuated a bit and evolved based on the patterns my players have established in the time I've been open. But we make an effort to be clear about our expectations to our players. For example, here are my current activity rules:

 

 

Quote

• This sim uses a passive activity check, where the command team keeps an eye on activity and reaches out to players who may not be meeting requirements.
• The goal is for every player to release at least one log every two weeks. We recognize that sometimes logs require more than can be written in two weeks and there isn't always a good spot to split, or at least one readily apparent before the log of finished, so as long as you're actively contributing, you're considered active.
• If you expect to be more than 48 hours in replying to a log you're actively participating in, please make sure to let your logging partners know. If you're expecting to be away longer than a week, please take a leave of absence and make a good faith effort to resolve logs you're involved in before your departure. If you're going to be delayed more than four days, or you fail to let everyone know you're unavailable, the command team reserves the right to continue moving the plot forward without you in order to keep the sim moving for everyone else.

 

(A little context, my site is run on Nova (a RPG focused Content Management System), so a log is more comparable to a thread on a forum. So basically my rule asks people to proactively communicate if they're going to be less active than our targeted speed.)

 

TL;DR: Just outline your expectations, which to me sound like 'we're really chill about your reply time frame, but if you aren't at least logging in, pinging us in chat, etc, every x interval to let us know you're still interested, we reserve the right to archive your characters, reopen your claims, etc'

[Elena 546]

I am the same like you, reply to my e-mails, let me know that you are busy but not leaving, and it is ok. Only that... sometimes the person is busy for 5+ months and then... I can't ever be sure if they return or not. And then I start having problems with the character's presence where he is needed (for the cases it's only one character with the respective role, ie it can't be taken over if he is sick or something).

[Death Kitten 200]

Just now, Elena said:

I am the same like you, reply to my e-mails, let me know that you are busy but not leaving, and it is ok. Only that... sometimes the person is busy for 5+ months and then... I can't ever be sure if they return or not. And then I start having problems with the character's presence where he is needed (for the cases it's only one character with the respective role, ie it can't be taken over if he is sick or something).

This is exactly why I try to build redundancy into positions for characters, and include the clause about rerouting the plot around players who aren't active enough. Star Trek kinda has this built in due to the way the show's been written over the years, so thankfully this didn't require too much game-lore specific stuff to set up properly.

 

So, I guess in addition to establishing expectations up front, the admin/staff need to also plan flexibility into plotting and be willing to jump in and help players out if their personal plots get abandoned or neglected.

[Elena 546]

4 minutes ago, Death Kitten said:

I guess in addition to establishing expectations up front, the admin/staff need to also plan flexibility into plotting and be willing to jump in and help players out if their personal plots get abandoned or neglected.

 

Flexibility and helping with "damage control" is what I am trying to achieve too... but some positions are more prone to this flexibility than others. It's worse for the sitewide plot than for the personal plots, sometimes...

 

You are running a ship on Star Trek too... but maybe you have it better than me because you have a whole fleet, not only a ship... And you can't replace an officer and send him ...somewhere (to hospital, to another ship, to accomplish a diplomatic mission, etc.) while the ship is in the middle of the sea, somewhere... You have to wait for the right moment, and NPC the character to the end of his current tasks somehow...

Edited February 10, 2018 by Elena

[Death Kitten 200]

As an intelligence ship, we're a little more isolated than the standard for Starfleet. I've had to run good chunks of a plotline with a character on 'auto follow' because the player left at the beginning of an away mission their character couldn't be extracted from and replaced. But I focus on making sure that multiple characters can do the same tasks, so that if the primary engineer character dips out, another can step into their place to fix the $_technobabble.

 

It's certainly hard to do sometimes, but if you try to plan for it and learn from past experiences, it certainly gets easier and easier to plan for it.

 

I also don't allow players to hold high level and important positions until they've been with the game for a while and it's clear that their availability lines up with the crew norm. It probably harms my recruitment numbers in the short term, but it's certainly gotten me less turn over than I've seen in similar games that allow new players to step right into high level positions if they're available.

[featherstone 69]

I'm considering setting different expectations depending on your positions or the individual plot you're joining. Say, if you have no IC status and only play sandboxy plots, you can post once a month. If you're involved in a major plot with tons of people and an impact on the setting, you should reply within a week, same if you are a ruler and whatnot. Of course more is always appreciated, there are times when I'm posting every day or more, but that's not always the case, and requirements are meant to keep the board alive.

 

I think, a stricter (or laxer) requirement can be stated in your plotter as well. So if the overall requirement is very tolerant, but you do want a reply every other day, you can let others know and won't be disappointed.

 

@Elena I agree there's a limit to eveything, however if you're in touch with someone you can always poke them and ask. While if you have no sign of life for two weeks you're really left wondering, even though you could normally wait that long without complaining.

[Death Kitten 200]

I really like your idea of people stating on their plotters their availability and their expectations for logging partners. Good communication is key, and building that into the site's structure helps establish good habits in everyone. My site's a little too small for people to have such a wide range of availability, we don't have room for much in the way of sandboxy plots. We tend to get more personal subplots that intertwine with the main plot, so everyone kinda has to be on the same speed, but with a larger site with a wider range of character types and more sandboxy plotting, I may implement that idea in some way. <3

[StormWolfe 557]

This is one of my Daycare of the Damned issues with RPing. I swear, I have tried everything from being the GM from Hell to not having any rules regarding participation and activity at all. What happened to common courtesy and just taking five seconds to communicate with people?

 

Everyone finds the rules and routines that work best for their site and the activity levels of its members. It is probably easier to be more lax with really big sites because a lack of activity by one or two people is less noticeable. Whereas, if you have six writers,  it's very noticeable when one goes AWOL.

 

Then, as you guys have mentioned, there's the whole are they gone, are they coming back hanging in limbo thing.

 

It's really just rude to treat other people that are depending on you that way!

 

We make reasonable efforts to keep everyone engaged. However, I have a hardcore rule against trying to track someone down and whine, order, cajole, beg, and plead with them to stay active.

 

Our first rule is that if you need more time to reply to a tag, just say, I need more time for this tag. Then tell us when we can expect the reply or put up a leave of absence. It is clearly stated that if they are participating in a main plot and go AWOL, we will move their character as needed until it can be written out and they can't just hop back in.

 

The next thing is that we are based on a tagging timeline or requirement, not a posting one. If you're in a scene, you are required to respond to tags a minimum of once per week (we prefer within 48 hours) or notify of delays, etc. If you are not in a tagging scene, we really don't care how active you are or not. I know that sounds bad...but hey, you joined the site, up to you to stay active. We'll help, but we won't do it for you. (*you refers to the gaming public not one specific person).

 

After one month of zero activity and zero contact, your writing partner (if there is one) is given the option of writing the scene to a close or sending to the archive for abandoned scenes. After 90 days, we delete inactive accounts and threads.

 

All-in-all, we are happy, delighted, even delirious when it comes to working with people and their schedules. All we ask is that they communicate with us so that we know we need to cooperate.

 

Bottom line - as was said - just decide on your activity rules and guidelines and stick to them (I've sucked at this advice so good luck!).

[Kit the Human 759]

Set up your expectations. An active member is someone who posts X amounts of time. Then follow up with what happens when you fall in the inactive range. Put these in your rules so that members know what your expectations are going into the game. You don't need to be actively enforcing those rules, for me, activity requirements are really my get out of jail free card. Someone poofs, well my activity requirements are in the rules.

 

Another addition is the usual, communicate with your partners rule and encourage your members to be realistic on how much they can be involved with.

 

Weeding out characters that are no longer active is just part of the admin gig and I think it's important because you don't want the rest of your members to be held up. There is nothing rude about writing a character out of a plot when the pllayer has gone AWOL (though where possible, I try and leave room for them to get back into it should they return.) 

[Shades 676]

For the roleplay I'm starting now, I have a very clear rule: we're having a posting order (that's fully optional, it's just something I like to use to keep threads organized), and if your turn comes and you don't reply within (x) days, you (general) will be automatically skipped but not removed, so you can post on the next round. 

Maybe some sort of rule like this (giving them the option to have more time if they place a warning to everyone or the admin before their time runs out) would help keep people accountable and the plot running?

I'd say a bonus for this style is that expectations can be set on a case by case basis, having a lax general requirement, and another one for faster-moving plots?

I hope I've made some sense. 

[Arceus 1,082]

My go-to thing has been something along the lines of "there are no strict activity requirements or anything, but if you're not feeling a thread or a character atm, or maybe not at all anymore, or don't have time, just say so." I do eventually archive people (players and subsequent characters I haven't seen around in over a month get filed inactive, but if you just log in once in a while, I'll leave you alone). If someone happened to want an inactive character's rank or claims or position or something, I'd probably archive them sooner. Once they're gone for a week or so, they're usually not coming back, in my experience.

 

It seems kind of stupidly lax and still allows things like players logging in every day and never doing anything, but, I'm really not a babysitter? I guess is my standpoint here? I'm not going to remind people to post or, to tell their partners what's what, and people that can't wait however long so and so needs them to, will stop playing with them. Similarly, I guess I've had way too many people join and then drop off almost immediately after, so, I've stopped bothering with wondering, and I just do what needs to be done to keep the site moving. If someone's not there to defend their "claim" on a rank or something, I get the feeling that PMing them will produce nothing but a waste of time, and they've not told me they were on personal leave or the like, then, well... darn. I will say, I've replaced a lot of people's ranks on my long-runner military-style board, and I've never once had someone get at me for it. Yeah, they don't tend to come back.

 

So, yeah; tldr I think outright saying "Just let people know stuff, and if you drop off the planet entirely your stuff's free game" is perfectly acceptable. It does set a solid expectation, and many have a much easier time with expectations being stated, kind of like with word counts -- vague doesn't tend to work so well, and is often frustrating for many.

[Anonymous 234]

My main problem with activity checks (unless they are unreasonable, like, you have to post every day or so, or some silliness about if you don't post with your canon character every week, you'll lose it.) is when staff and admin don't keep to them. Occasionally letting it slide is alright, but when it goes on for six months or more, then your ordinary members are going to lose interest. Non-activity is a circle that feeds on itself - x doesn't post, so y doesn't post, so z doesn't post, b wants to post, but h, who they want to plot with because of their character, is never around, r sees that x, y, z, b and h don't post, but they want to write with them, t, who is posting, doesn't want a plot with b because their characters can't get into a plot easily... If x, y, z and h all happen to be staff/admin, then you can see why it becomes a problem.

 

(Apologies about it looking like an algebra lesson, but this is what it felt like on a board I was a part of, once.)

 

So, make sure that you, as an admin, are posting, with at least one of your characters, and that your staff are. As other people have said, activity requirements should be made clear from the start. (Another problem with the board was that the activity check rule was put into play after I'd joined, so it felt like in part, that I was being penalized for something in part that wasn't my fault. Is it OK to have different activity requirements depending on the types of characters? I would say so, because some are more important to a plot than others so I think that is reasonable, as long as it's made clear at the start.

 

If a board gets into the situation like I described, then that could indicate that there's a problem somewhere which needs addressing.

Anonymous poster hash: 1d132...60c

[Suzi 20]

On ATO, we have a monthly Activity Check that requires only one post, per character, per month. We find a lot of people character hoard - which is fine - but only if they can keep up with them all! 

In the games, only in fights do we maintain a post order, by which if you do not reply within 24 hrs upon your turn, you will be skipped. This is a good deterrent for inactivity especially as many are attached to their characters. 

I think, since all RPs are different in their own right you need to sit down and have a think about what you, as admin, wants and expect from your players. Aim for something realistic, and outline everything clearly in your rules. Perhaps adding activity expectations to specific roles/canons might be an idea?

[featherstone 69]

All good points, however my attention wasn't so much on how active a character can be, but on players giving any kind of sign they exist.

To reiterate, posting every, say, two weeks may be ok (hopefully there will be more, but we're talking about minimum requirements), but poofing for two weeks right after joining? That'll make me think you changed your mind - especially as I've seen it fairly often. However "sign of life checks" aren't as common for what I can see.

 

What do you think about a rule such as what follows?

 

N. #) Activity

A -  A character who isn't involved in any plot can be inactive indefinitely - we'll just assume they were doing something else.

B - Once involved in a plot, please post at least once a month; a faster activity may be required for threads whose outcome affects the overarching plot, or by players depending on their preference (that is to say, if you'd rather RP with faster writers only, you can state it in your plotter / at the beginning of a scene).

C - Regardless to IC activity, you're supposed to log in with one of your accounts / be somehow in contact at least once a week, so that we know you're still one of us!

D - If you must go on a hiatus, please let us know. If you fail to meet the above described requirements without giving any notice, however, the staff is allowed to write you out of you scenes by any means necessary.

 

...this... this is roughly what I'm trying to say, but it sounds convoluted.