Communication!

[BlackWingAngel]

Hello, fellow roleplayers.

I just wanted to make a quick thread about a simple thing that a lot of you do every day: communication. I recently had an encounter with a roleplayer (who I am not naming, as per BMR rules) who barely said a word to me after I initiated contact about their request thread. In fact, while I actually said "hello" to them this morning, I got removed as a friend on Discord and blocked without any reason or discussion. (You could say I greeted my rejection, lol)

Jokes aside, I honestly think that doing something like that is entirely uncool, especially when a person has not done anything wrong to begin with. You might be wondering, "wait, BWA, I have my right to not talk to anyone I do not want to", and you would be correct. However, there is still the matter of common sense to consider: if a person on the forum tries to communicate with you and ISN'T trying to immediately initiate sexy time with you without any prior communication, you should give them a chance to have that discussion with you. Who knows, maybe you will find that the person you gave a chance to is ACTUALLY a solid roleplayer who can attend to your needs.

With that all said, when it comes to denying any requests from people? Don't be an asshole about it. If someone approaches you with a request that doesn't suit your tastes, or if you initiate roleplay that doesn't fit to your liking after a few posts, just TELL them. Explain the situation to them and, if you or they are open to it, offer advice on how to improve the current RP or how to improve future RPs. The only time you should consider blocking/reporting an individual is when they harass, belittle or demand rule-breaking things from you. It would suck if you were blocked just for saying "hello", so don't do it.

Please remember that there is a human being behind every message and you should respect them according to what that message entails.

 

[Dixon Steele]

I understand what you are saying and in theory I agree with it.

To try and provide you with an understanding to why some people take a passive aggressive approach though let me explain.

A lot of these sites are very cliquey and poorly run. I have had and seen others have run ins with mods and admins over nothing and seen people get persecuted unfairly.

Due to this a lot of us start developing a way to just avoid as many problems as possible. Perhaps you have notice how few people use the chat boards of sites like this and just stick to Rp itself?

My point is it's often easier to ignore someone rather than be more direct and risk that person being butt sore and either having a sook to their buddy who happens to be the admin or mod or that person escalating things and you find yourself in the shit somehow.

Logic doesn't really apply I'm afraid.

Just trying to offer you a reason as to why these things happen as I have seen similar threads on other sites.

Also important to factor in that Internet communication/friendships whatever term you want to use are fickle at best and it's important not to get too sensitive about anything that happens online.

 

[Dirty Fingers]

I definitely relate to what Dixon above said. I just left a forum because the Admin was thin skinned and couldn't deal with me asking why his staff always seemed to win the monthly contest he ran.

So it makes sense that people just try and avoid any sort of confrontation at all. Ironically of course this sometimes pisses people off anyway.

Although I think you need to be pretty thick skinned for this hobby. People will ghost you, dump RP's, not even respond once etc. I even had someone I played with for a year end up just dumping the RP although they at least told me. So you need to just be prepared for it.

 

[skyfetcher]

I try to respond to anything addressed to me. If I don't, it's 90% likely I simply missed it, 10% that I looked and didn't feel there was anything to reply to. In both cases a reminder will get a comment from me. It's the best I can do in an online community littered with ghosts, and I'm not talking about here in particular.