Membership Your preferred activity expectations

[Rivfader 76]

Everyone has different preferences when it comes to how strict the activity rules of a site they'd be interested in joining should have. Personally, I like the 'one IC post per week/two weeks' rules, but that's just me. I consider that my happy medium for not being too strict but it also doesn't leave me waiting a month plus for replies. I know some people do this and enjoy this, but I'd just lose interest/forget what was going on.

 

So what about you guys? I'm curious to read everyone else's preferences & see what might be the most common!

[Shades 676]

Personally, I prefer once a month being the minimum to keep my character active. That being said, I very rarely take more than a week to post. I often post on the weekends or any day I have a little more free time. So basically the once a month thing is to give me breathing room so I know I won't be considered inactive if for some reason I can't post within any given week.

 

Also looking forward to seeing what others have to say!

[Jones 177]

When it comes to site rules I tend to choose sites with no activity requirements. They're just super prevalent these days, especially in the niche genres I tend to gravitate towards. My comfort zone is about 2 weeks. I don't need a deadline, this is a hobby. But I will absolutely lose interest if a thread goes without a reply for too long. 

 

My actual activity is pretty much daily. It wasn't always like that, but now I have an rp partner and plots with actual progress. So I do my best to get in a reply or ten every day. 😆 I know that's not realistic or plausible for every other writer, so my personal expectations for other writers are not nearly that high. Post when you can, I'll live. and just refresh the page every hour or two until there are words for me

[Arceus 1,082]

I don't generally like activity expectations (I don't like expectations in general... funny how that works). I rarely take a whole month to respond, unless I get super busy, like I am now (lord, I owe people), and during life's highs, I can be active enough to blow minds (4-500 word posts in 10 minutes anyone? Sometimes, I can do that). I range from posting several times in rapid succession in all my threads and I actually managed to do over 50 posts in a day once, to not posting at all for over a week. Specific threads vary my activity a bit, too, I may not be feeling one or two, or one gets super important for a few and I hyperfocus on that one. So, I suppose a month would work for me, but chances are, you're getting a post a day, at least.

What I really don't like are actual activity checks. I can't even tell you why, I have no idea why. Odd social anxiety quirk? Autistic not-used-to-it? Anxious what-if-I-forget? Idk. I just don't like them, and if a board's got actual activity checks on it, I will not join it.

 

On my own boards, I let this figure itself out. If I don't see someone log in for a month, I'll archive, but if they're at least logging in, I'll generally leave them alone. Otherwise, if they're not posting fast enough for a board's member to tolerate, it'll filter it out on its own, and they won't play together.

[Rivfader 76]

Additional question: If you don't like any activity requirements, how do you handle ghosted/definitely inactive characters? How do you judge what constitutes as inactive when someone playing an important character or one of your want ads vanishes? 

 

& on the topic of activity checks - I don't like those either tbh. If you also don't like them, how do you feel about admins archiving inactive characters and clearing claims out in the background as needed/every few months? 

[StormWolfe 557]

I've done it all in the distant past, fretted about activity on my sites, gotten peeved when folks didn't respond to my tags on other sites, etc. I frustrated myself by getting sucked into behind the scenes OOC drama and worrying about activity to the point of quitting RPing for several years.

 

Now, if an important scene gets stalled by a member not responding or communicating, we write around the roadblock and move on, important character or not!

 

If someone does not have any characters in active scenes, we don't worry about them. They joined the site, it is on them to communicate and write.

 

Basically, I no longer play the role of Queen of the Daycare of the Damned.

 

I try my best to answer tags within 48 hours of receiving them and, at a minimum, once or twice per week depending on my real life craziness. I will, however, always notify the site and/or my writing partners if there are going to be more delays than usual with posting.

 

None of my sites have actual activity checks. For example, we are not going to put up a thread that everyone has to respond to in order to avoid archiving of characters and posts. We do not have a minimum post requirement, but we do have a tagging requirement of answer tags once per week per tag OR notify your writing partner if you cannot keep that schedule.

 

Really, all we ask is that everyone remember that other people are depending on them so, please, communicate. Drop a note in Discord, post an absence/slow posting notice, anything. Just let us know and we're happy. If your characters are not in any active scenes (threads), then we're chill with that if you are. We don't badger people to stay active. We're all allegedly adults - if your writing partner has gone to earth, not answering tags, not responding when you reach out and ask them about responses, then notify us to close the thread and just move on. Sorry, but life and the RPG will move on.

[Arceus 1,082]

"Important" on my sites tends to be pretty subjective. To get to that point, where others might consider your character "important," you have to work your rear off for it; chances are, those that can aren't going to suddenly drop off, if only because of the time they put into it. I'm not saying they never do, just that it's rare. 9 times out of 10, the important chars are an admin's or founding member's, anyway. But, some could call Kassandros the MC of Messiah: and yet can play perfectly fine on it and be happy never interacting with him even once. He wasn't supposed to be a plot ace. He made himself one.

 

(Bonus points to, his particular base role, doesn't technically need to be played, it just happens that it is. He did this to himself, guys. I swear I had nothing to do with it. Rofl.)

 

Rambly story short, basically, if you've made your char(s) important and drop off, they're treated the same as any other character. Don't log in for a month, I archive. Don't log in for another month and ask me to un-archive, well, there's always re-registering, and that's not the worst thing in the world. My board software even lets me reattribute guest posts to a member account, so I can even give people's post counts back. ICly, it's like, who knows, they were here, they're not, moving on. Other characters will fill the gaps, and often they do. (Hey, small-town murder mysteries would have quite a bit of story fodder with vanishers. Months later, so and so that disappeared turns up dead, huh. Exciting. I can't tell if I'm being ornery or serious.)

 

I think there's a slight kink in the RP world, where sites are making things hinge on certain characters too hard. Then we have panicquestions like, My site's plot aces disappeared what do I do??? Well, what'd you do before those chars existed? If you can at all avoid it, also avoid angling your site's setting or plot in such a way as to cripple your site if an important char goes away. It'll happen, I promise. And hinging too hard kills boards, man, it does, and it's a rough, difficult lesson we all have to learn at some point when X character's player drops off the planet and the entire board sinks immediately. (I speak from experience, here. That's what tanked one of my old boards, and I didn't have the drive to save it. Several times, actually. Sometimes I learn quick. Other times I'm too stubborn to.)

 

As far as want ads go, I leave those to the particular person that posted them. If they wanna reopen the want after a week, that's their prerogative. Me, frankly, I probably forgot you took one of mine if you dropped off, ngl. Rofl. But I also don't put out want ads that... again with the hinging too hard, are too important to my character(s) to have just hanging out in limbo for months on end. But their unhappiness over something they have control over really isn't my problem, so if they wanna make themselves miserable hinging their chars too heavy on want ads, well, more power to them.

 

Also, I figure it's obvious lol but given I do it, I don't mind background clean-up. Long as it's not like, people disappear every week even though they just posted the week before.

[Huskerdust 625]

No checks. No “post x times a week”. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t promise my week to week schedule anymore. It kills me too because I want to do ALL THE THINGS. But I have to stop myself from joining new (or old favorite places) because I have a few good days. I know responsibly that it won’t be the case the next week and then I’ll feel like shit for starting things up again and then failing. 

 

So so I hate activity checks. I don’t have them. We have members from when we first opened still on the board who haven’t logged in for months. I figure if they can make it back, cool. If not, I understand. Oh man. Do I understand. 

[Rivfader 76]

41 minutes ago, Stormwolfe said:

I've done it all in the distant past, fretted about activity on my sites, gotten peeved when folks didn't respond to my tags on other sites, etc. I frustrated myself by getting sucked into behind the scenes OOC drama and worrying about activity to the point of quitting RPing for several years.

 

Now, if an important scene gets stalled by a member not responding or communicating, we write around the roadblock and move on, important character or not!

 

If someone does not have any characters in active scenes, we don't worry about them. They joined the site, it is on them to communicate and write.

 

Basically, I no longer play the role of Queen of the Daycare of the Damned.

 

I try my best to answer tags within 48 hours of receiving them and, at a minimum, once or twice per week depending on my real life craziness. I will, however, always notify the site and/or my writing partners if there are going to be more delays than usual with posting.

 

None of my sites have actual activity checks. For example, we are not going to put up a thread that everyone has to respond to in order to avoid archiving of characters and posts. We do not have a minimum post requirement, but we do have a tagging requirement of answer tags once per week per tag OR notify your writing partner if you cannot keep that schedule.

 

Really, all we ask is that everyone remember that other people are depending on them so, please, communicate. Drop a note in Discord, post an absence/slow posting notice, anything. Just let us know and we're happy. If your characters are not in any active scenes (threads), then we're chill with that if you are. We don't badger people to stay active. We're all allegedly adults - if your writing partner has gone to earth, not answering tags, not responding when you reach out and ask them about responses, then notify us to close the thread and just move on. Sorry, but life and the RPG will move on.

 

I really like the idea of rather than having activity rules, asking that members communicate! I can usually get around 'canons' or my want ads ghosting without too much trouble, but nothing peeves me more than when the player doesn't bother giving even a teeny headsup that they don't have time anymore or RL got the better of them, or, anything. Imo that's just common decency. 

 

I definitely agree that some plots and settings rely too heavily on certain characters, and tbh I think I do that a bit with my own sites unintentionally. I'll have to see how I can fix that in the future!!

[Jones 177]

By nature of my site genres there aren't really canon characters. I play in a lot of sandbox settings, or historical which tend to avoid any RL people. 

 

On Witchlight we handle inactivity by ignoring it. lol. You get 3 months. If you haven't let us know what's up, we archive all your stuff and open up your face claims. If you want to come back after those 3 months, then we let you. We have no activity requirements, none at all, so the 3 months is just because we the IC season every RL 4 months. If you've missed basically a whole season you're going to need to do a time jump when you come back. We don't even make you re-register or re-app. 

 

We never do activity checks. I would just rather be writing tbh.

[Dragon 673]

3 hours ago, Rivfader said:

Additional question: If you don't like any activity requirements, how do you handle ghosted/definitely inactive characters? How do you judge what constitutes as inactive when someone playing an important character or one of your want ads vanishes? 

 

If a member stays in contact with me via some OOC format - PM, Discord, whatever - then I'll reserve their claims indefinitely. If a player doesn't answer and hasn't turned up for 3 months, and someone else expresses interest in their claim, then I'll give them a notice. If they've been in the wind for more than 6 months I clear their claims. 

 

3-6 months, they're probably not coming back. If they do then I just have them fill out their claims again, no big deal. 

 

As far as "important characters" or site canons, I've found that enforcing the activity requirement from the start is the best way to roll. One warning and then if they don't adhere, strip the character and open it back up - once you present yourself as a doormat you'll never be taken seriously again. But you have to hold yourself and the rest of your staff to that as well. 

[CovertSphinx 710]

In the words of my High School Band Teacher: "You're Replaceable". That's how I handle "important" or "canon" characters vanishing. 

[Kazetatsu 263]

My only expectation is for others to be consistent in their posting. If someone posts once a week, then I'll expect a post once a week. if someone post once a month then I'll expect that. It bothers me most, when an rper operates in creative bursts with a bunch of fast posting for a week or two and then falls into silence for months without communicating that they might be slower for a time. I don't have specific activity requirements I prefer, but I do hope for, and hope that I provide accountability so that me and my rp partners aren't in the dark, waiting for posts we were really excited about, and which we thought would come far sooner than they do.

[jenneral_jennson 154]

I... Actually have no expectations for a partner's speed in replying to me. I've written with both ends of the spectrum and neither have bothered me. There's also a reason that none of the sites that I'm on or will entertain joining have an activity requirement. I have a busy life. I work full time and go to school full time, RPing is not my job and as such will never require a schedule. 

[Elena 546]

8 hours ago, Rivfader said:

Additional question: If you don't like any activity requirements, how do you handle ghosted/definitely inactive characters? How do you judge what constitutes as inactive when someone playing an important character or one of your want ads vanishes? 

 

& on the topic of activity checks - I don't like those either tbh. If you also don't like them, how do you feel about admins archiving inactive characters and clearing claims out in the background as needed/every few months? 

 

I used to have the requirement to post weekly (if your turn) in every thread you are involved into. Don't leave your partners hanging for a reply. I was the first to abide to this rule. Then I noticed that no matter how much I wanted it to happen, and how much I gave the example of the desired activity and writing discipline, people wouldn't do it, and we were getting slower and slower. So it was useless to have a rule nobody else but me wanted to keep, and that people didn't abide to, therefore we took it out. We have no activity rule anymore. I had to get used to the fact that we are slow, and way slower than we used to be a few years ago.

 

But we are not dead! These comments make me angry. We have ongoing stories and stories planned for later. Our story is going on, albeit slower than before. For some people, slowering the rhythm of replies and not replying at least weekly means site death. Sorry, NO POSTS AT ALL means death. As long as we are plotting and the story keeps being written, we are slow, but not dead. We are eight years old and counting 🙂 .

 

I still want a steady progression of the plot, and weekly posts; but I can't give them anymore, lately, either. So, this is my preferred activity expectation... but it doesn't mean I can keep up with it. 😞  I still try my best to be writing almost every day; but sometimes at posts for the 2 RPGs I am on, sometimes at my novels and short stories.

 

I don't do activity checks (or, well, sort of 1-2 a year, but those are more role calls for eliciting new ideas than confirming the people are still with us). If you haven't showed up for a while, not even for a discussion or send an e-mail, then I am sending you an e-mail to ask you if you are OK and if you are still with us. If you reply that you are busy for the moment, but you intend to return, it is OK. If the period for return is longer, you are marked in hiatus.  If you don't reply to  2 e-mails, silence is an answer too and I clear up your claims, taking the character out of the story how it's the best for the story.

 

How do you judge what constitutes as inactive when someone playing an important character or one of your want ads vanishes? 

 

If a person stops communicating, then she is clearly inactive/ ghosting. I can write around a character if I agree with the writer. If there is no writer to agree anything with... then it's clearly inactive. If it is an important character, he will be NPC-ed out of the ongoing stories as suited for the story and as respectfully as possible, because the ongoing story always comes first. It is the one which remains, in a world where the writers come and go.  If it is a wanted ad, then the writer who took it knows from the start that in case of leaving, the character will be adopted out, with the due credits to the creator and first writer(s).

 

How do you handle ghosted/definitely inactive characters?

 

NPC-ed out of the ongoing stories as suited for the story and as respectfully as possible. If agreed beforehand and important for the plot connections, the character will be put for adoption.