Are Sites Getting Rid of OTMs?

[Jax 12]

So, lately in my advertising travels, I have noticed that a lot of sites seem to be steering away from including OTMs/notables on their pages. Either they are getting rid of them completely, or they are not posting them on the main page. Is this an actual trend that we are seeing? Or was this just a fluke?

[Icewolf 258]

I will be having a character spotlight feature, but it's not something that is voted on -  the idea behind it is to welcome new members and to let people know about new characters that people have made as a way of helping people to break the ice a little and to (hopefully) help them get plots. Everyone will get their character featured there.

 

In general, I don't like OTMs or anything where people vote so a member gets a chance to win an award since most of the time the winner is based on how popular they are, and popularity doesn't necessarily mean someone is good at writing (or what ever it is the vote is for, though it might help in some cases.)

 

There was one site I was on ages ago that had a yearly awards ceremony for fan fiction, etc. When it was at its most active period, most of the awards went to certain staff and moderators. Now, yeah, it might have been an indication that they were well-liked, or that they were good at what they did, and you could even argue that they deserved it because of the amount of time they put into the forum, but the question of manipulation was always there. Other sites I've been on don't allow staff or organizers to be nominated, which is fairer and I once volunteered for one. However, I did notice that the same names for nominees cropped up all the time - there was very little variation on it, so nominating a friend, or the readership of the stories still impacted your chances of winning it greatly. (As it was a fandom board, popular/well-known canon characters had a better chance of being nominated than less popular/known characters and OCs.) They can be fun, though, but can also crush a person's confidence if they don't get nominated or get a bad result from it.

 

As a member of a site, it wouldn't be a feature I'd be bothered about so much, and I'd much rather staff concentrate on important things on the site, like approving apps, keeping the site functioning, making ic posts for their own characters, dealing with problem members, etc, than doing something that is superficial and could impact on the confidence of members if they are over looked for nomination or never win all the time.

[Huskerdust 625]

I did it on ONE site, there was a flurry of hurt feelings (as mentioned already) and so I've not done it again. It just seems like it's rife with drama and I tend to avoid that at all costs. I like doing awards/badges or something instead. "Join X event, get X badge!" They can feel included without leaving people out.

 

EDIT: But yes, I've seen it a lot less lately. 

Edited June 26, 2018 by Zozma

[Rune 1,099]

I did it for a while but, unlike others, we didn't have any hurt feelings but it was hard to remember to do it, then had to harass people I to nominating and them voting... It wasn't worth the trouble.

[Mord Proxy 22]

I used to do OTMs, but do not any more, and I am glad that I've seen them around less and less. There was the drama aspect - people who did not get their characters nominated or voted for would be upset, and on the other hand, sometimes the people who did win would become victims of bullying by people who thought that they should have won. I also found that in the case of a few people, it made them question their confidence and ability if they never seemed to win. Which is... yeah, you could make the argument that it's their personal problem with self-confidence, but at the same time, the OTMs are supposed to be for fun, but when they're leading to people feeling badly on top of all the other drama they can cause I just found it stress relieving to scrap them altogether.

And on the selfish side... when I did have my own boards the OTMs were a pain in the ass to put together. Even on a very active community with lots of members, I felt that I was constantly badgering people to nominate and vote. On top of the all the other staff duties that I had to do, it was waaaay too much work for very little gain.

I do like the trend I've been seeing though on some boards of putting a new member's character out there or just showcasing wanted characters in spots where OTMs would have been showcased before.

[Maleficent 15]

I’ve made a new site and I like awards but I am brainstorming something...

 

For member of the month: Either picking a player at random to be spotlight or else making a challenge of it. Instead of polls and votes maybe doing something like a game/quiz on discord over v/c so it’s fairer and the winner gets to pick which of their characters they want to spotlight.

 

For character of the month: the person with the most amount of posts is in the last month or the character threading with the most amount of people. 

 

For thread/plot of the month: the topic with the most posts in or the first to be completed that month or maybe even picking a thread at random. 

 

For ship of the month: get everyone to make a graphic or short story of their favourite ship- ocs and canon ones, then have votes on the results or if multiple people make entries for the same couple that couple wins and the votes on the best story/graphic can be a bonus thing. I’d try keep it anonymous and hope people vote fairly. 

 

Then for all of these, previous winners are excluded from the main spotlight prize on the main page but can work toward medals for their profile or other goodies like graphics/something plot related so that way they still have a reason to enter. 

 

I’m not sure what I want to do really and these are just the things I’ve been thinking of recently but I think “of the months” are good when they’re fair (which is hard to achieve) but if i  can make it something fun and interesting to work for it might get us a community feel and make people look forward to it too. I just don’t want it to be a popularity contest and I want to work out the best way around it. 

[CovertSphinx 710]

I always stayed away from "OtM"s from the beginning of the trend because it seemed like Drama waiting to happen. 

 

What I /do/ set up, is a "Highlights" area where I pick one character, plotpoint, thread, member, etc (I like to keep people guessing what's going to be acknowledged) to randomly Spotlight with a little blurb of awesomesauce. Or, in the case of new members, I like to link to the newest profile created to garner them more views - and hopefully more plots/threads by extension. 

[Jacob 58]

I grew up with "Of the Month" categories in place.  They never seemed to bother anyone.  Even if somebody was nominated, it made them feel honored.  Still, I have always understood that such a system could be deemed unfair.  Over time, I've concluded "trend," though my position has stayed neutral.

[Kit the Human 758]

I think they're no longer seen as something that every site must have, like they were back in the day. It seemed like a significant portion of the community were having iffy experiences with them.

 

I have never used them for 3 reasons:

- They seem contentious

- They add to the clutter in the header or on the index page

- They're not the only way to recognize great members.

 

The last is the kicker. In my eyes, it's not worth spending time thinking about how to do them better and objectively (if possible?) when they're immediately contentious and add visual clutter.

 

I'd rather consider other ways to recognize great members.

[Morrigan 1,826]

I've personally had hurt feelings over this stuff. People are kiss asses. I've seen moderately inactive admins (I mean a post every few days) get preferential treatment over super active contributing members. This site didn't have "Of the month" they had "of the year" and the staff members won about 85% of the "votes" for each possibility. It wasn't because their stories were necessarily "better" or, hell, even good. They were the staff so they had inside jokes with everyone, they had been there since the beginning, they got special treatment.

 

Unfortunately with "of the" anythings there is a lot of "opinionated" and "preferential" treatment that happens. You cater to your long standing members. You cater to the popular members. You cater toward anything that you think will get you more members and keep your old members. However, as I said before, people are kiss asses. They choose to have the opinion of other people because they think it will gain them points.

 

Now, don't get me wrong, some of the things my "characters" were nominated for were stupid. Things I'm like "I think I was only added to this list to make the list longer". However, some of the things that were both "nominated" and won, I didn't even think needed to be there. I even think one of my own personal character nominations shouldn't have won.

 

The tl;dr version is, otM's are arbitrary. I've never agreed with them as I don't agree with popularity contests. I dealt with that in High School, I don't want to deal with it in my safe roleplay bubble of fun. I actually intentionally avoid sites with otM's of any sort because I immediately see them and think "clique". I additionally think that the space isn't a necessary to take up with something, for a new member, isn't relevant to them yet. Yeah, maybe they'll get to reading that character/plot/pairing whatever, but it's not a good thing to distract new members with. You should be providing them with reasons to join, not shoving reasons to not join, in their face.

[Lucky Cat 83]

I don't do either or at my site. I don't think it's really necessary. RPing shouldn't be "rewarded" with frivolous things like OTMs, which (imo) are no barely different than the "employee of the month" mugshots at a grocery store. The reason I don't think RP should be "rewarded" in such a manner is because it kind of gives it a workplace vibe, like one is obligated to RP in order to be acknowledged/praised, etc. At my site, we RP because it's fun and that in itself is rewarding. It's kind of like playing with a bunch of friends after work. Our members are pretty active, too, and generally prefer frequent/fast postings so a chill/fun/non-work environment =/= unproductive.

 

From my experience as both staff and a member, OTMs became a chore for both sides after a while. Less and less people voted every site that had them that I was at, so the nominated pool shrank. One site handled them very well, but they were pretty taxing/draining on the staff members to do cuz they would make graphics for the winners every month. Even then, people became aloof toward OTMs because they were so "normal." OTYs might be a better alternative to keep it fresh, but... If they are a dying trend, I say good riddance...

Edited June 27, 2018 by Lucky Cat

[Elena 546]

I liked them, as a way to reward characters who had distinguished themselves during the month for a certain thing (and the reason that character was chosen was listed in the mention "of the month". We never had several (couple of the month, male/ female of the month, etc.), just character of the month and quote of the month (which was by a different character than the one highlighted as character of the month). After a while, when our site got smaller, there was no more relevance for a character of the month, but we kept the quote of the month, and it had been on for almost eight years without break. This is something still worth highlighting, when the characters weren't significant anymore, because they were chosen before too, and there were few new ones to highlight.

 

It was NEVER a popularity thing, because they could be nominated by the members or by the staff, but they were chosen only by the staff based on concrete achievements that month (and listed the reason). We didn't have hurt feelings either.

 

[Hypester 28]

I think they needed to evolve, generally speaking. Like... what if you have two great male characters and no great couples threads that month? The way we do it now, where the staff just decides on *something* to recognize, whether a member, a character or a thread, all that's really solid for me. Not too much of a headache, but still does the OTM sort of 'strive for excellence' culture bit.

 

Another thing that helps is being particular about what the Monthly recognition is for. Like... is it to get new people engaged? Is it to reward the best? If so, what do you do if the best is the same people over and over and they've already been rewarded? Monthly recognitions aren't a terrible idea AT ALL, they just have to be thought through, and I think a lot of the problems with the OTMs are from 'gotta do OTMs THIS EXACT WAY' when that's just not true.

 

MHO, ofc

[memoria 37]

On my previous site, we didn't have an "of the month" per say, be we did have an "MVP" which was essentially a featured character every month. However, the character was not chosen by a voting system, but rather was nominated and chosen by admins / moderators. We tried to look at what everyone was doing and who was creating interesting stories and ideas for the month. We didn't really have any backlash or anyone upset by this. The only time it really ever became a problem was when the site became inactive and there was two or three people left roleplaying. We just stopped doing them because it wasn't worth it.

 

I do like the idea of doing some features besides characters, like showcasing particular threads, events, etc. I feel that if the staff is choosing these (and not playing favorites) and that it's not done through voting, it could be implemented correctly. Though, it's not necessary for the survival of a site.

[Jones 177]

I think they're pointless, and being constantly reminded to participate in them is super annoying. I will ignore you, or leave the site.  I have never liked 'em tbh but the older I get the less willing I am to put up with that sort of thing. I think age plays a huge part in longterm trends like this going away too; there is a huge core group of rpers that are in the 25 - 40 age group. We are not teenagers anymore, we don't need the flash and 1000 gifs (I'll keep the glitter tho).

 

As mentioned, Member Spotlights are often unfair, arbitrary and cause hurt feelings that could be avoided. Plus, I am lazy and rp for fun. I don't want to read every post on the board. Which I would need to do if I were trying to figure out who to nominate for what. There are *so* many other ways to reward members in absolutely fair ways. I also think the trend is dying off because people are gravitating towards more simplistic layouts. Less clutter is A+

 

On Witchlight we have player levels that you are rewarded for progressing through. They are done through overall post count. You get rewards towards character creation, OOC profile customization, and one of the great perks early on is a spotlighted Wanted Ad on the sidebar. Its been a great motivator. 

 

And my friends know when they've written something I think is awesome because I straight up tell them so. Don't need a Mot-whatever for that. Write me good stuff,  10/10 will praise.