Creating a search thread is a very personalized experience. There is no one-size-fits-all approach that will achieve
success. The very notion is determined exactly by what your goals are. Some people are only looking for one or two role-plays, while others aren't satisfied unless they have two or three hits a day. You have to consider what kind of role-player you are looking to attract and at what rate you'd want to attract them. Only once you figure this out, can you really look to tailor your thread to your needs. There are, of course, road blocks that will get in your way if you are looking for highly specific role-plays, especially if they are not particularly popular or well-known ideas, genre or fandom.
Keep in mind that there are exceptions to everything here, as outliers are an inevitability.
These are generally the three factors I think attribute most to the success of a search thread:
How popular your listed topics of writing are
This is the most obvious factor on this list. If you list popular genre or fandom, then you are going to get more hits on your request thread. Anything Slice of Life is super popular, and you'll also get plenty of hits on whatever is the pop culture zeitgeist at the moment. You can't expect plenty of people to ask you for role-plays if you have a ton of esoteric genre or fandom listed in your thread. People can't play what they don't know, or rather few people are willing to go into something so blind.
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How casually your thread reads
Most writers consider themselves within some range of
skill. This range of skill generally corelates to how proficient they are at writing, and how much they like to actually write. Skill at role-playing is an entirely different conversation, but you can generally think that it's common for it to be broken down in that way.
Better role-players will write with more lush detail and explore their ideas with more words on the page.
Weaker role-players will seek to limit their descriptive detail and explore their ideas in fewer words.
What does this have to do with a search thread?
Consider, if you will, the same mentality applied to what people look for in a search thread.
Stronger role-players will seek out threads with more detail and specificity, with more words and features, and with a more beautiful appearance. This kind of thread tells them that the person behind the screen will be more willing to apply effort and is more capable of doing so.
Weaker role-players will want a thread that is more simple, to the point and without a lot nagging rules and exhausting chunks of paragraphs to read through. This kind of thread isn't as intimidating and will allow them to feel at ease, let them know that the thread is made by someone that isn't going to type two-thousand word replies at them. I'm sure, from there, you can extrapolate the inverse for why those two groups would pass over the opposite type of thread.
So, essentially, you have to figure the ratio of
stronger to
weaker role-players, and the gradient of "levels" within those vague classifications. Do you reckon there are more
stronger or
weaker ones? This will, of course, affect how many hits you get.
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How much of a slut you come across as
Unfortunately, many people on this website take the "adult" classification of the site to mean sex and porn. While this website very clearly permits that sort of writing, it is not the end-all of what the site is supposed to be. It's simply a space for adults to write with other adults, where sexual activity and other mature themes may take place. At a certain point, you can't really hang around websites intended for children anymore. Blue Moon Role-Playing is just one answer to the problem of: where do I write with people that aren't children?
However, there are many that flock to a website like this with one thing in mind, and in the immortal words of Filthy Frank, "let's get some pussy tonight!"
I'm only half joking, of course. A big factor in how attractive or unattractive your thread will be is how sexually aggressive you are with it's contents. This can range anywhere from simply using text to express how badly you need that cock or pussy, or outright using pornographic images and gifs to set the mood. A bouncing pair of tits at the top of your thread will attract a great deal of attention from the people that are looking to role-play with a pair of tits. You are very directly advertising for exactly what they are looking for, and those people are in no short supply on this website.
On the other hand, you can come across as more business oriented. You write and structure your thread in such a way where sex and kink are not the main priority. This will turn away people looking for smut, and attract people that are primarily looking for plot, character development and all the things that actually create a story.
Somewhere in-between is a balance, where you can use sexual imagery (written or otherwise) in a tasteful and alluring manner to get your point across. This will certainly attract erotic writers looking for a skilled partner. However, you should still keep in mind that appearances matter and the content of your thread will set some level of expectations.
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You want to keep these three things in mind. You then create your thread with the "type" of partner you have in mind, and do so by adjusting the "how" of those three things. If you are looking for a bunch of fuckboi role-players looking for "gud fuk bb big cawk i have" then you'll want to really lean heavily into the thread being written in a very sexually aggressive manner. Don't complicate it or list too many rules either. This will likely get you the most clicks from the hoard of horny, lonely men that frequent the site.
You'll find that if you want a more story oriented partner, those that aren't looking primarily for smut and quick fuck, then you'll want the "how much" of those things to slide in the direction of "not very". Generally more "advanced" role-players will seek out threads with more care put into them, and threads that don't advertise
strictly for smut. If you're looking for the real snobs that inhale their own farts like whip-its, then you want to go heavy with the BBcode, long-winded rules, paragraphs about who you are, and a whole lotta plots and highly-specific pairings. This route will get you far fewer requests, but generally a higher quality or role-play (arguably).
If you take my search thread for example, I get almost no requests. I've built it with that strictly in mind to sort out certain types of role-players. I don't want smutty role-players, so I specifically made my thread unsexy. I decided to make it very visually based to maybe make it somewhat intimidating. I decided to use very little text to keep it vague, to make a viewer pay attention and use their brain to figure out
the gist of what I'm looking for. Essentially, if someone cannot figure out
the bulk of what I'm looking for based on my thread, then I'm not interested in playing with them.
The type of role-player I'm looking for is the type that
likes to think. They ingest information and then take the time to process it. This is important for me, because I want creative and engaging writing, where I feel as though my partner fully understands the situation and stakes. Where they can conjure up a reply that responds appropriately in a dynamic way. Now, surely, I can't insure that my thread will provide me with such a partner, but I tried to design it in a way that would get me that. I don't get very many hits on it, very nearly none, but I still think of it as a success for that reason. I really don't have to deal with disappointing requests from people that aren't to a standard I would like to enjoy.
So, to make your thread a success, you have to first understand, "what is it you really want?" At the time of posting, the gif at the top of your thread, comicwolf, expresses that sentiment quite well.
Ultimately, though, you are at the whim of other people's desires. Even if your thread is designed perfectly, there's nothing you can do if someone doesn't want to play with you. There are numerous factors, far more than I've listed, that determine if someone wants to role-play. My advice is to just understand what you want, and design the thread in a way that gets you what you want and advertises it. That way, when you do get a hit, it'll most likely be the kind of hit you want.