What're your red flags?

[Sanghelios 12]

A big one for me is anyone who picks fights with admins in the Discord or the Cbox, especially if it's over them being pended or something.  This is the easiest way for me to become wary about plotting with you, if you air all your grievances about the site in a place the entire member base can see you. 

 

In general anyone who treats having to fit their character into the universe as a burden they must bear, and yet again fight the admins on any compromise. 

 

 

Anyone who's first reaction is "Oh I see you already have *insert FC or canon here* I wanted to play them"  when they pop into the Cbox. 

[The Rebel 44]

When a guest asks if a site is active (all the time stamps are readily available) and those that ask what the plot of the board is. I am more than happy to help and answer questions and provide clarification, but if nothing is read and they don't care to read, that's never a good sign on a board that emphasizes reading and writing.   When people do not follow registration instructions (i.e. register with only the character's first name, etc).  This only relates to some people, though.  I understand some are uncertain yet and are going to change the names later, this applies more to people who didn't bother to read.   When people ask if they can be [insert random species here] when it says only humans are allowed without too much reading around.  Not that this is bad if that is what a person from looking for, it's just not what the board is about if they took a brief glance so I just know they won't stay.   Certain playbys - Emilia Clarke when she looks as she does in GoT, etc.  There are always exceptions of course and I try to keep an open mind, but these tend to make me a little immediately wary that things will not go well.  

[Paulpatine 17]

First Cbox comment is, "I can't remember, have I been banned here yet?"

[clipsed 231]

People who suggest changes (not additions, CHANGES) to board lore before they've even registered an account.

[Shades 676]

When people act like whatever choices you make on your site (word counts or not, human or art for faces, types of characters you allow or don't, trigger warnings or not) are specifically made to personally target them - and they're not even members of your site (yet or at all). You can find those in the wild in servers and cboxes ranting about how your site is horrible because you made choice A instead of choice B. 

[clipsed 231]

3 hours ago, Shades said:

When people act like whatever choices you make on your site (word counts or not, human or art for faces, types of characters you allow or don't, trigger warnings or not) are specifically made to personally target them - and they're not even members of your site (yet or at all). You can find those in the wild in servers and cboxes ranting about how your site is horrible because you made choice A instead of choice B.  

 

Merlin, yes! If you don't like my sandbox, don't come shit in it, go find one that better suits you! There are myriad roleplays to suit myriad roleplayers. I run a board for me, not for you.

[Rune 1,099]

When someone can't figure out why there character would be in a pretty basic location. You want to reply to that open and you can't figure out why your character would be outside? Maybe use that creativity we're all here to play with and come up with something.

 

I've found that when people complain about that they wind up never doing posts and vanishing. Probably because they couldn't figure out why they were here.

[Blue Ember 13]

I cannot stress enough how much I have enjoyed reading this thread. So, so, so much of it is addressing things which vex & raise flags with me too. And it's beyond reassuring to read & see that it is not just me who feels this way about these things. As honestly, at times I've found myself thinking that way as these things, these days, come around so often. I started to think I am just getting old & cranky, or cynical. So thank you for showing me I'm not alone in feeling this way.

 

To add, members who have to challenge or argue with literally everything people say on the on site chat box, or discord.  And who want to hog the conversation.  And/or bring everything in the chat to be about their characters.  Even to the point of constantly suggesting openly to the players that every canon love interest of any other characters, should be with them. You know the ones. They leap on every new person who pops up instantly, in order to recruit them to their  fan club.

I find it extremely off putting.  Along with my other big flag, when it is a fandom based site. Players who play a particular character, canon or oc, on every site in that fandom they can get them on. Always makes me very very wary. 

[Deep Sea 326]

There's two  more certain kinds of OOC tones that ring alarms for me, and ironically they are exact opposites.

 

The guy who's excessively interested in weapons and military history. Either he's going to completely forgo plot for a battle simulator and get pissy when no one else plays along, or he's an insufferable know-it-all who idolizes (in my experience) a conservative or far-right regime and has six anime waifus (four of which are rifles , tanks, or bombs) and also feminism is completely unnecessary because is a fancy word that exists and libertarianism is the One True Path. And it always turns out to be a guy??? I've not yet personally run into a female specimen of this kind of user.

 

The delicate uwu flower who never capitalizes a single word in an OOC post, uses a lot of ellipses and has a hipstery aesthetic that screams "I rolled right off of Tumblr".  Which, Tumblr is awesome, BUT - there is a non-zero chance of such a person ending up being Too Delicate for Human Interaction. They are exhausting, because I'm constantly getting roped into soothing them because god forbid someone uses capital letters and it comes across as Stern Serious Yelling and now they're having a panic attack on the other end of the world because someone didn't decorate their speech with enough flowers and emojis.

 

I lied there's a third.

 

The user who comes in, explicitly announces that they don't know if they'll stay or leave, and announce their departure, thereby creating A Scene.

 

Just. Fucking. Go.

 

No one here likes you enough to fucking chase you.

[Rune 1,099]

40 minutes ago, Deep Sea said:

 

I lied there's a third.

 

The user who comes in, explicitly announces that they don't know if they'll stay or leave, and announce their departure, thereby creating A Scene.

 

Just. Fucking. Go.

 

No one here likes you enough to fucking chase you.

 

If we have to talk you out of leaving, you aren't going to stay regardless. You're in it for the attention and, frankly, I don't have that kind of time.

[Bro 89]

Oh, let me give this a shot. 

 

People who waltz into the chat box and ask what we're talking about, or insert themselves into the conversation like a dentist's drill to the eyeball. Unpleasant, doesn't belong there, and will probably stop all friendly chatter of how the day has been dead in its tracks. 

 

Assuming how my character is going to react to an action/bit of conversation, or not giving me time to respond to an action/sentence before going into the next one. Post splicing isn't always bad, and it is natural in longer posts, but good god. Especially if you go too far and start godmodding what my character does (or even SAYS, which happened to me recently). At that point I wonder why I'm even here. Clearly you don't need me. 

 

Anyone who tries to force their character onto people. Romantically, or as rivals, or however. Especially ones who focus on a specific character they want to be with and hound the writer OOC for weeks about it. 

 

From a user side, my biggest peeve was always sites with super strict activity checks that the admins didn't meet themselves. I was on a site (long gone now) that had monthly activity checks, requested that you post with every one of your characters once a week unless you had an absence up, and required every character to have an active thread (i.e. one you had posted in that week and you hadn't marked as 'completed'). Any thread that you finished, you had to mark as completed, and the mods usually came around and moved them to a separate forum. A friend of mine finished their one active thread with their one character the day the staff closed the activity check, and she hadn't had time to put up another one. They marked her as failing the AC because she didn't have an active thread, and she lost her canon character. The kicker was that 3 out of the 4 admins (all BFFs), hadn't posted that month, didn't have absences up, and when they were called out on it the only excuse was that "real life comes first" (unless you're just a plebeian member, I guess).

 

And of course pretty much everything else everyone else has mentioned. Especially the 'tone' thing. Ergh. What even is that?

Edited August 10, 2018 by Bro

[Rhindeer 217]

13 hours ago, Rune said:

 

If we have to talk you out of leaving, you aren't going to stay regardless. You're in it for the attention and, frankly, I don't have that kind of time.

I love calling people's bluff on this stuff. xD "Okay, bye! 8D"

 

...>_> Funny thing is, a lot of those people don't actually leave. But  I can see right through 'em. They don't actually plan on leaving, they just want people to beg them to stay so they can feel special. Naw, son, I don't play that passive aggressive game.

[Uaithne 543]

As a member: staff members who don't engage with me more than the polite greetings and well-wishes.  When they don't seem to care about me as an individual or my additions to the conversation. Not that they don't like me; just that I don't matter to them.

 

As a member: staff members who say "Oh, I can't tell that member to stop doing [thing] because it's not in the rules."

 

As an admin: members who complain about things or who give me their "two cents" about how things on the site should be (even if it's an open invitation I've laid out for everyone to reply) but they don't otherwise contribute to the board.  Not even by RPing.  Like they want to point something out that would make the site better, but they aren't willing to actually roleplay on the site.  You know what makes the site better?  Actually roleplaying.

 

In general: people who say that they'll post later and then never do.  And it happens over and over again.  If you can't post for a month, that's not the end of the world; but don't tell me every night that you're going to post the next day and never do.

 

In general: people who are gushing with happiness and enthusiasm all the time.  Smilie facies at the end of all the chat replies, agreeing with all the new plot ideas, etc.  Experience has told me that these people will one day flip out and it will not be pretty.

[clipsed 231]

On 8/10/2018 at 12:35 AM, Rune said:

If we have to talk you out of leaving, you aren't going to stay regardless. You're in it for the attention and, frankly, I don't have that kind of time.

 

I have the time, I just don't want you.

[Bishop 172]

"Here is a note for you, unwanted and not asked for, but here it is anyway. I've been doing this for half as many years as you and clearly feel entitled even though no one else ever complained in our 10 years of being a board. Clearly it must be a problem for you."

 

 

Don't critique a site in the cbox or discord before you even join. Just sit down, Son, or move along. Aint no body got time for that.