Are Sites Getting Rid of OTMs?

[mystical 8]

They used to be big back when I was more into certain rp genres, and I agree with the sentiment that they're just popularity contests. The last site I was on, it was really obvious - certain people were always getting cycled in and out with every nomination cycle, and it was just an excuse for people to get attention they thought they deserved. 

 

On the site I'm opening soon, we're going to be simply doing spotlights to focus on interesting characters and plotlines. There's an extensive award system in place anyway which I feel is a better way to reward people for doing certain things you want to see.

[Verridith 66]

I have OTMs and love them; but they are most definitely not popularity contests on my site xD All are either randomly chosen or staff nominated, no member nominations at all. We have:

 

Member of the Month; staff nominated. Usually focus on activity and contribution, geared towards active newbies, and the same member can't win it two times in a row.

 

Post of the Month; staff nominated. A neat intro, role-play post, suggestion, ooc post, etc staff wants to feature. Can be anything!

 

Character of the Month; randomly chosen. Links to a pretty char! ;D

 

Species of the Month; randomly chosen. Links to a species of ours!

 

None have ever generated drama, and we've been doing this for many years. Whoo!

[KARA BELLA 18]

I did it once on an old site but no no one would vote after the first time.  I do think they are fasing out though.  I haven't seen that many sites that still doing it.

[featherstone 69]

Once I left a site just because they had mandatory votes. It was a fairly big site, I had no time to read everyone's posts all the time in order to vote fairly! 

 

And even if I had the time, it would have felt like a chore at that point.

 

As an admin, I never had them and I just can imagine they must be a lot of additional work. I'd rather spend more time on anything else, including promoting plot hooks and helping people getting involved, as opposite to stalking everyone to vote on a poll they don't really care for.

[Hysteria 56]

I never understood the discourse with OTM's. I always thought OTM's were something fun, where you could feature characters and members and recognize them for what they were doing. Now, because people can't handle someone else being in the spotlight, they've started being removed. I understand that perhaps there are some bad apples that would feature the same characters over and over and repeatedly feature a member over someone else and that's obviously not okay - but removing them altogether and forgetting the positive intent they had doesn't get rid of those bad apples. It just stops recognizing writers and their efforts. It's a pretty lame solution, in my opinion.

 

On 7/3/2018 at 4:29 PM, SithLordOfSnark said:

 

Mandatory votes? Are you f'ing kidding me?

 

I'd have left so fast, even if I had the time to do that.

 

Yeah, I was apart of a site like that, too. Honestly? After a while, I voted randomly and just called it a day. If staff can't keep up with their site and do their jobs why the hell should I bother trying for them?

 

A  solution would be to create a light moderation role with the sole purpose of scouting characters and members for each month's OTM. Don't make the entire member base provide votes that would be half-baked, assign a small team to keep an eye out for things they notice. They could even earn the site's form of currency or something. Anything. Just don't make the votes mandatory for crying out loud!

[daedric prince 19]

I hope they get rid of them completely. I've never been a fan of OTM things and I will be replacing the built-in ones soon with staff information.

 

They've always felt like popularity contests to me, which can lead to hurt feelings and a lot of drama.

[Nixie 13]

I did it on one site, many moons ago but honestly it never added anything to the game or the forum so I got rid and haven't done since.  I have nothing against them but personally I dont see the value.

[Monroe 26]

We avoid OTMs to avoid popularity contests. ❤️

[Mobydoll 4]

I'm thinking about adding in a member spotlight to my current site, but as I've done them in the past, they're just randomly selected members--everyone is in the rotation and who shows up is determined by a code. People have seemed to like this when I've used it before. It's a no-selection, no-voting, no-nomination way to do it that highlights everyone equally.

 

I am considering doing something more "vote-y" soon and I'm a little worried about it, because I've seen these go wrong. The first site I joined, we had an end-of-year voting... but one of the admins and her friends made joke awards that no one asked for and basically were complimentary to the people they liked and snarky to the people they didn't. It led to a lot of hurt feelings. I don't want to do that. However, my current board includes a high school and a majority of characters are students. I'm considering doing a yearbook sort of thing. "Most likely" types seem like they could be funny, but they also could go seriously the wrong way. So I'm considering that right now but not sure how it'll ultimately play out.

[Sadrienne 242]

I stopped doing them largely because... well, I forgot to change them over. Every time.

 

What I have now is a block that picks two random characters every page load, so that different characters get showcased in the header. Any character listed in the database can appear there, and it's less to acknowledge "best people and characters", more to give an overview of different characters on the site (and generate possible plot ideas).

[saltwaterwitch 18]

I thought about doing otms when starting my new game but ultimately decided against them. My experiences were fun for the most part and I've been lucky not to have to deal with any hurt feelings about them in the past but boy, are they a lot of work. After a while people tended to lose interest too so I feel the payoff isn't worth the effort ultimately.  I do like the idea of random spotlights/showcasing that gives every player a chance shine.

[valucre 19]

We used to do "of the year" instead of month but echo a lot of the sentiments expressed here as to why they're no longer a thing. Basically there was some good that came out of it but also a range of responses from hurt feelings, to disagreeing with the metrics used to arrive at conclusions, to trying to game the system. It just ended up being more work than it was worth 

 

I still see plenty of sites that have them though 

Edited July 21, 2018 by valucre

[Tamir 9]

They do seem to be on the way out; at least, the public voting-type ones do (I think this thread is already ample indication that new member spotlights are taking their place and are generally less problematic). I do remember the sites I was on around 8-10 years ago would do them sometimes, but it was a little pointless considering the number of consistently-active members usually hovered around 8-10 people at most.

 

I do think the kind of people who would get upset over an otM are the kind of people who'd cause trouble regardless, though; that's pretty petty.

[Rhindeer 217]

My games have never had them. I couldn't care less about them, and I never paid attention to them on the games I played on. xD It just always felt to me like one extra thing to keep up with.

 

Though if my members ever brought it up as something they wanted, I'd talk it over with my staff and see if it was something we wanted to try. But in the almost 18 years we've been around, no one's mentioned it. *shrug*

[Pinkykins 13]

I'm probably well in the minority here but I actually like OTMs, provided they're run fairly. Maybe it's because my site has a more casual/lax attitude to activity rules/checks (whilst I get the practicality of them from a staff viewpoint, I find they create a pressured atmosphere from a member's side). So we do Character & Member OTMs with the intention of praising and celebrating the active member's we have. Each winner gets a tiny lil badge on their main profile and the option of choosing between three prizes, two of which are basically free art commissions. I can understand fears of these things turning into a popularity contest but we keep limits on how frequently any member can win each, so from my own experience that really hasn't been an issue. 

I can also understand members who decide not to get involved with them, whether they don't have time to nominate, forget to vote or simply don't care about the outcome. That's fine, I'm not going to punish anyone who doesn't take part as that goes completely against the reason I enjoy holding them. Yes, it's flattering to hear directly from your writing partner how much they loved your new post or the characterisation of the muses you play but communicating ooc comes more naturally to some people than it does others. Being able to nominate someone anonymously helps those types of introverts feel able to become more involved in a place free of judgement. Ideally, no one would worry about how a comment might be received but there are people who struggle with social situations and might like to give their writing partner compliments but just haven't got the confidence to go about it.

I hope on the member-end that nobody feels left out when they haven't won/been nominated because for me at least, the contest is less about winning and more about appreciation. It's not that Member is the best writer and everyone else is somehow less than, or that Character is so swoon-worthy that yours doesn't stand a chance at being loved by our community. It's really just a way of giving back in our case.