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Punishment for ghosting

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Slow Poison

Slow Poison

Planetoid
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Jun 17, 2021
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Somewhere on Earth!
Ghosting is a regular occurrence and I think we all have gone through it at some point of time. Do you people think ghosters should be punished? If yes, what should be the punishment?
 
Unless someone is being actively deceptive or manipulative with it in some manner, we're not going to do that. Life happens.
 
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and agree with Veks.

I don't think that, a lot of the time, ghosting is an intentional and willful act, unless they're somehow put off by either the partner or the story. In which case, they're well within their rights to rescind communication. Yes, it's hurtful, and it can be a real bummer if you really liked a story, but life happens sometimes and they get dragged offline to deal with it in the case of them simply becoming overburdened and dipping. We're all (hopefully) adults here; a lot of us have families to tend to, jobs, and other things that can overwhelm us, and I think it's a good trait to offer grace.

After all, this is a fun hobby, nothing more, nothing less. If it truly bothers you when you've been ghosted, it might be in your best interests to simply not RP with them anymore.
 
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The punishment is you deciding to block them and move on, period. That is the solution to most issues that someone can encounter in life, is just shutting it down and moving on. We cannot force someone to continue or finish writing with someone that they do not wish to write with for any reason.

If something doesn't work out, then you have the right to decide not waste your time with them any longer. There will be no punishment from site staff for ghosting, unless that someone is clearly alting up and purposely misleading someone just to leave them hanging - and it'd have to be proven, not speculated.
 
As the other admins have said, unless there is some sort of deliberate abuse going in in regards to someone using alts and maliciously ghosting people or some such similar incident, tehre shall be no 'punisment' for ghosting. Someone might ghost because they don't like the RP. Someone might ghost because their family member died and they aren't in the right headspace. Ghosting sucks, I know it well, but ultimately it's something that happens and it's something an RP'er needs to come to terms with.
 
I really hope that posts like the opening give pause to any potential writing partners they could have. Such an entitled perspective that they would want to punish someone over something done for fun.
 
You know there's literally no obligation whatsoever to respond to you, right? Here, there, now, then. One message in. Two years into an RP. 10 years of talking and someone decides not to talk to you ever again and you are not entitled to a response from that person, but the fact that you made this post speaks for itself.

TLDR: You can't punish someone who isn't here anymore
 
The idea of being punished for having a life take you away from a hobby is baffling to me.
 
Is ghosting annoying? Yes.

Is ghosting frustrating? Yes.

Should ghosters be punished? No. Just no.

This is a hobby, not a job. If you get so annoyed by ghosters that you think punishment is in order, you're in the wrong hobby.
 
Exciting to see so many responses. Also some rudeness. In no way the post was meant to imply that ghosters SHOULD be punished. It was a question, it was for a discussion.

To specify the matter a bit, what do people do when you are continuously given assurances of replies but at the same time being ignored the very next day without any specific reason?
 
Yes, it can be extremely annoying to be ghosted but people do it for many different reason, some beyond their control, so adding them to your blocked list and finding somebody else is really all you can do. As far as punishment, I dont feel they should be punished. Its their choice if they want to continue or not but it doesn't make it any less annoying.
 
Slow Poison said:
Exciting to see so many responses. Also some rudeness. In no way the post was meant to imply that ghosters SHOULD be punished. It was a question, it was for a discussion.
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I don't know that there was any "rudeness". Some very blunt and pointed opinions, yes, but nothing that could be considered rude. In all fairness, it was always going to be highly unlikely that there was ever going to be a positive reply that indicated those who routinely ghost others SHOULD get some measure of punishment.

Slow Poison said:
To specify the matter a bit, what do people do when you are continuously given assurances of replies but at the same time being ignored the very next day without any specific reason?
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You suck it up and move on. A writing partner may have vanished, but you're still breathing - Life still continues. As was pointed out above - just because you post a comment does NOT mean that someone is obligated to respond to you. We all enter into writing partnerships freely and without condition...so we can leave them just as freely and without condition.

Real Life ALWAYS comes first here...regardless of what form that takes for each of us.

Have a good day. :)
 
Slow Poison said:
Exciting to see so many responses. Also some rudeness. In no way the post was meant to imply that ghosters SHOULD be punished. It was a question, it was for a discussion.

To specify the matter a bit, what do people do when you are continuously given assurances of replies but at the same time being ignored the very next day without any specific reason?
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ill-just-live-my-life-ill-just-do-me.gif
 
Ghosting really isn't enjoyable to go through, we all know that, but it happens. The simple fact is you can never be sure why somebody ghosted you if it does happen, and I'd argue that in most cases there is nothing malicious about it. With that being the case, punishment wouldn't be warranted at all. Things come up in life, emergencies, sometimes people simply forget and by the time they remember it's been too long since they posted, a sudden post can feel very awkward. It would be nice if they messaged to open a dialogue again but it can be a moment riddled with anxiety for them, so they don't. They may have had terrible responses to ending a roleplay in the past, I know more than one person who has messaged a partner to end an RP they were not enjoying only to be hit with immediate backlash. Why is it ending? What did I do? Slurs, name calling, I've even once seen a public post calling them out for their choice of ending a roleplay. I don't find fault with anybody that wants to avoid that happening to them in the future. Can you imagine how it would feel to ghost to save yourself a moment full of anxiety, or because you had an emergency, or there were too many red flags only to get punished by the site from it? Just thinking about that upsets me.

Ultimately it might not even be about you, why they ghosted, but either way it's certainly nobody else's business. Just don't write with them again, you'll find partners you can rely on and trust and hold on to those instead. I think that's much more positive.
 
I've accidentally ghosted people in the past despite wanting to reply to them and at times even saying I'd have a reply coming soon simply because I have a very high intensity job in the real world that can sometimes take up a lot of my time, focus and mental energy. There've been times where all my thoughts are focused on that because they have to be in order to do my work well and not cost lives IRL, and that comes at the detriment of remembering other things that just aren't as important. Add in on top of that the other day to day stresses and strains of just existing and sometimes things slip. I can't recall ever ghosting someone to be malicious, and I've never gotten the sense that anyone ghosting me did it maliciously either - and it's happened a lot in over 15 years of roleplaying. So no, personally I don't think people should be punished for ghosting.

My advice to anyone struggling with being ghosted would be to take a step back and consider what could be going on for the person ghosting you. It's natural to worry that we did something wrong or aren't good enough, but there are lots of other possibilities that people have mentioned here. Maybe they're stressed, anxious, busy, dealing with grief, feeling unwell, in a creative funk, needing a break from their day to day life, out with friends, dealing with a crisis, having mental health issues, the list goes on. If the ghosting keeps happening and keeps annoying you, ask yourself why it bothers you so much, then weigh up the pros and cons of letting the situation continue as it is. If the pros of waiting for the person and potentially continuing the RP outweigh the cons, be patient and wait for them, and in the meantime find a new RP to start with someone else. If the cons outweigh the positives, move on gracefully and leave the RP behind.
 
I echo the sentiment of everyone here as well. Punishing from ghosting would be absurd. Most of the time ghosting hurts and feels bad, but it comes with this hobby, and the feeling of potentially great RP being dumbed feels bad even after all the years I've done this hobby, but it's something that always comes with this hobby and that's how most likely 90% of your roleplays will end at one point or another.

Slow Poison said:
To specify the matter a bit, what do people do when you are continuously given assurances of replies but at the same time being ignored the very next day without any specific reason?
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Partner assuring me that they will give reply/replies means nothing to me personally if I haven't played with them long enough. If they reply then they reply. If they don't they don't. I have stopped poking people and asking for replies since if they want to reply they will do it when they have the time and if they wish to do so. Of course there's a chance that one can simply forget to reply, but usually in those cases the partner whom I've been playing with will reply after they notice that they haven't send a reply, and once again if they don't then that's that.

I would personally just wait for the reply, and if it doesn't come then just move on. There's a lot of potential partners on this site alone so after some time has passed I would just try and find a new partner(s) to play with.
 
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Slow Poison said:
what do people do when you are continuously given assurances of replies but at the same time being ignored the very next day without any specific reason?
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move on, like the adult that I am and like the adult that we're all supposed to be

no but for real, this is something that is always going to happen. we're all adults and life happens, happy pretend fun times on the internet is not and should not be anyone's first priority in life lmao
 
I will always be friendly to ghosters! Isn't real life punishment enough for all of us?

So yeah, I agree with the general sentiment, but also! Writing is work. Like, actual work. And RP's that go on for months can sometimes spiral into being more of a chore than a pleasure to deal with. Time is the one thing in life you can never get back, so I am always grateful for the time people offer by writing a post just for me! It really does suck when you find someone whose writing you adore and you can't wait to respond to them, but they ultimately disappear. I always wish those folks well, because... I mean... I'll always be happy when I get the chance to see them again, even if it's just to know they're doing okay.
 
10 lashes for all those that ghost! Yar! Off the plank with them! Yar!
 
It would be interesting to have some kind of bond system for ghosting. You risk a small amount in site points, say 100, I risk the same. We agree on a timeframe within which we promise to respond, if I don't respond, I forefit the 100 points to you. If you're a serial ghoster, you eventually run out of points. If you never ghost, then that becomes very apparent to everyone else from your point total. It wouldn't fundamentally solve it, but would discourage it. Could even replace points with a small dollar amount.

I personally wouldn't use it though. Ghosting has always been part of the experience.
 
i-watch-the-abyss said:
It would be interesting to have some kind of bond system for ghosting. You risk a small amount in site points, say 100, I risk the same. We agree on a timeframe within which we promise to respond, if I don't respond, I forefit the 100 points to you. If you're a serial ghoster, you eventually run out of points. If you never ghost, then that becomes very apparent to everyone else from your point total. It wouldn't fundamentally solve it, but would discourage it. Could even replace points with a small dollar amount.

I personally wouldn't use it though. Ghosting has always been part of the experience.
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Aside from taking the joy of something that is supposed to be an enjoyable hobby and turning it into a contractual obligation of sorts, something like this would require staff members to monitor one extra interaction between members as an added responsibility. All of them already do a lot of things to keep the forum functional: keep the threads neat, make sure public pictures are SFW, keep track of people that excessively bump their rts, solve issues between members, create engagement, etc. Imagine that on top of that you'd get 10 messages in your PM box about X complaining that Y ghosted them and having to go over screenshots to establish blame and deduct points.

On top of that, you'd have to think up a fair system and how you'd implement it. Do you have a grace period where you get your points back (if you ghosted) or do you have a permanent stain on your record because you got bored of a rp and didn't communicate with your partner? Say you ghost and get 100 points deducted. You want them back. Do you just go searching around for someone to ghost you and get back 100 points? Regarding an agreed timeframe, if I reply outside of it, do we get to the point where I'd have to provide a doctor's note as excuse for the lateness?

My point is that a system like that would make writing feel like a job rather than a hobby and if I spend my free time doing work, I should expect to be paid for replies. 😂
 
I will admit I've ghosted alot of people over the past couple years because 1. I lost interest in roleplaying 2. Being extremely busy

I'm not an avid roleplayer as I use to be
 
Ghosting sucks, gone through it and been the one who's done it. Some times it's just hard to communicate not having the interest or time to continue writing. It only ever really irks me when the roleplay is really good and we're writing together well, then they just disappear lol
 
I personally despise ghosting and view it as a very insulting thing to do if done for a sick joke, but I don't think Ghosting should be punished. 9.5/10 It comes not from a place of deceptive and malicious intent but from one of embarrassment, lack of confidence, or getting sidetracked by real-life issues. These are natural things we experience.

Rping is a bit of a scary thing to get into as a new person. You're bearing your thoughts, ideas, and interests to a person you do not even know. Naturally, some people crack and flee out of some form of guilt, self-shame, or fear of being judged. Other times you jump into something with a burning passion for a new idea/plot/scenario/etc, only for that burning flame to burn itself out, as something new takes root. Or the most common one, they like the writing partner, but the story is not how they thought it would be or envisioned. No one wants to be the executioner of a story and lose a possible writing partner over something like that. So they just wait for the other person to initiate the beheading or think that vanishing away silently will do more good than harm.

This is why I always tell my partners that if they no longer have an interest in the story for whatever reason, just tell me. Worst case, we just do another story if you want to keep me as a writing partner but want to do a different story. If it is just that our writing styles or interest aren't meshing well, then going out on a friendly note is much preferable than being left on read.
 
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