Suggestion Decrease the 23 hour wait period

[Seranda]

Hi, I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but as someone who is quite active here and constantly looking for something new, 23 hours is a bit like trekking through thick mud to update your request thread. I sometimes try not to post first thing in the morning, where I have my brightest ideas, because I know I'll think of something by noon, and at that point I won't be able to post it, just maybe edit my previous post, and at that point my request thread has likely been shuffled down.

A shorter window on this would be nice. I don't think it's going to change, but it's really hindering for someone like me who is constantly pumping out new content and changing interests. 12 hours sounds more reasonable to me, this would only really be used by the actually active base, but I have zero faith that it's ever going to change.

Sorry if this sounds like a complaint it can be removed.

 

[e v i e]

I am not bumping my thread that often, but 23 hours kinda makes it impossible to bump two days in a row on different times of the day, so I’d say 12-15 hours would be more than enough. As only those who are actively searching for partners will bump their thread anyways.

Example :
You bump your thread at 6 pm, Monday
On Tuesday you’d like to bump at 1 pm but you have to wait.
Maybe you aren’t available until later that day and you have to bump at 8 pm.
Next day you can’t bump earlier than 7pm…. And you’re stuck at bumping during the evenings.

In order to post earlier during the day, you have to skip bumping a day, which is really annoying for those who are actively trying to find new partners.

I don’t think anyone would take advantage of a lower limit, as those who aren’t actively searching aren’t bumping their thread anyways. But this is just my opinion.

 

[Saber]

The reasoning for the 23 hour limit is so no one can continuously bump more than once a day. Editing your RT to include more ideas or plots seems like a decent problem solver since, personally, when I search for RTs/potential partners, I go back at least 4-7 pages.

Not everyone bumps once a day, or even once a month. So those active members would be so far down the line they might never be found.

Members take advantage of the 23 hour bumping system almost daily, so I guarantee they'd take advantage of a shorter one.

 

[Seranda]

I didn’t expect anything much from this. Only a suggestion. It’s the active users bumping. People actually looking to write.

But I digress.

Have a nice day.

 

[EtherealElvenEmpress]

I try to bump at the same time daily. Sometimes I forget but honestly finding partners is like finding a needle in a stack of needles so I just bump exactly (if possible) on that 23 hour mark

Good luck!

 

[Revelations]

So at first when I signed up, we had a 24 hour wait time for bumps. A year or two after I was here, we went to a week long bump system which everyone hated and everyone abused. After that that hell period for a few months we went back to 24 hours and then our most recent change was 23 hours.

I'm against the idea of shortening the wait time, and lengthening it is not in the cards either personally, at least for me.

We allow two active request threads per request forum. Someone could have a general RP request thread they bump at 12 PM every day, and then a secondary RP request thread they bump at 6 PM every day or the likes for an example. The major rule for multiple RT's is that they can't be identical, but other than that the sky is generally the limits.

Some of the request forums are also a bit more active than others. Looking at the on site female request forum, there are threads from 11 AM yesterday on the front page at the very end. On the males side, the oldest front page threads are from around 6 PM. Simply put, people who don't always have the luxury of being able to bump every 12 hours may well just get drowned out on faster forums and for the slower forums such shouldn't be necessary. I know I space my own threads out when it comes to bumping and I suspect I'm not the only one dong so purposefully.

Those are my thoughts and while I am open to being challenged on them, I don't foresee my opinion changing easily.

 

[e v i e]

Maybe 12 hours were a bit too short, but what about 20 hours? That is enough to limit it to once a day (more or less), but it gives people the opportunity to post at an earlier time the following day (and not just minutes before) without having to skip a day in order to do so?

Although I do see the issue of threads getting "lost" when they aren't bumped, I will use myself as an example. My thread is probably on page 100 by now, but then again, I am not actively searching for partners, so it's not like I want people to find it.
If I want to find new partners, I will bump it.
If I—after a couple of days of no bumping—notice that my thread is "too far" down the line, I will bump it again. And if I want to, I will bump it every single day.
But the fact that it has to be around the same time as I bumped yesterday is slightly annoying, mostly due to how I work. So if I can't bump before my shift, I have to wait till after my shift. And it also has to align with those 23 hours.
Now, the 23 hours are cool and all, don't get me wrong. But it would have been nice to not have to pay too much about attention to when you posted yesterday.

But again, it's fine the way it is. At least now you can post around the same time every day.

Perhaps another option would be to add tags/categories/etc to request threads? I know you can already add tags, in a sense, but maybe we could create another system so it’s easier to navigate through the thousands of request threads? Kinda like the prefix we have now, just more. I know we can search for words and all of that, but I think this would have been helpful. We don’t have to use all kinds of different tags, but perhaps a list of things. Just an idea! This was badly written, but I hope someone understood what I meant. Kinda like how you search for books or products.

 

[Lord DreamCrusher]

Yeah I wouldn't go any less than this but I've always felt that anything that needed to be limited to once per day was best served by a 20 hour timer rather than anything higher. Specifically because not everyone can log in consistently at the same time and having that 4hrs leeway is very helpful.

I've advocated for a 20hr bump timer in the past but people don't seem to want that on the site for some reason.

 

[Solo]

Staff is discussing this as we do with all suggestions, but I'd like to give my two cents.

Like Saber and Rev said, you can have two active threads at once. You can bump one at 12 PM and one at 12 AM if you want one active every 12 hours. I tend to have two search threads active when I'm actually searching, and I bump at different times to increase visibility; this isn't against the rules at all as long as the threads are unique.

I'm going to be real with y'all and let you know that bump offenses are handled manually; we don't have the forum software to auto-merge anymore, so staff has to manually look at each overbump and determine if it's within the 23 hours or not. It's easy to calculate 23 hours (is it this time today but one hour less? bam) but calculating 20 hours for each bump would be a lot more calculating which would put a lot more work on staff's shoulders. We're volunteers who do what we do to ensure the site is fair and safe for everyone to use, on an equal scale, and to be honest, it's a lot of work, especially with as small of a staff as we currently have.

 

[Lord DreamCrusher]

Yeah that is a fair point Solo. The human element has to be considered amidst everything and I do appreciate you openly speaking about it to help provide context.

 

[small package]

I realise it would be difficult to implement, and probably not worth the effort, but it'd nice if there was a way to split out thread bumps and new content. So instead of adding a new post reply to the RT there would be a "bump this thread" button, the button would auto-check the time since the last bump to see if it's allowed. The forum listing could then show if a RT has new content or is being bumped. Sure there'll be people trying to game the system but hopefully it would be easier to spot, and would mean that half the database of posts isn't just single word bump posts.

 

[Kassia]

I agree with the bumping button option.

I am on another site that recently added a bump button with a timer, so there is no over-bumping, and it can be set for whatever time the staff agree on. If staff is limited right now, would that be an option that could be implemented?

It seems that it would really slim down on the reports. In theory, with that type of system, you could shorten it to 20 hrs; a member could click the button and go about their day with no reports of over bumping, allowing staff to focus on different issues that need more attention.

 

[Revelations]

If staff is limited right now, would that be an option that could be implemented?

This would depend on how complicated it would be to add/create such a thing for BMR. No one on the staff is skilled at coding in that sense, so if it's something that would be more complex to add/create for the site, it's likely not something we can easily throw in deck as it were.

 

[Seranda]

Staff is discussing this as we do with all suggestions, but I'd like to give my two cents.

Like Saber and Rev said, you can have two active threads at once. You can bump one at 12 PM and one at 12 AM if you want one active every 12 hours. I tend to have two search threads active when I'm actually searching, and I bump at different times to increase visibility; this isn't against the rules at all as long as the threads are unique.

I'm going to be real with y'all and let you know that bump offenses are handled manually; we don't have the forum software to auto-merge anymore, so staff has to manually look at each overbump and determine if it's within the 23 hours or not. It's easy to calculate 23 hours (is it this time today but one hour less? bam) but calculating 20 hours for each bump would be a lot more calculating which would put a lot more work on staff's shoulders. We're volunteers who do what we do to ensure the site is fair and safe for everyone to use, on an equal scale, and to be honest, it's a lot of work, especially with as small of a staff as we currently have.

Are both of your request threads the same exact requests? What’s the point of that?

 

[Saber]

Are both of your request threads the same exact requests? What’s the point of that?

Like Saber and Rev said, you can have two active threads at once. You can bump one at 12 PM and one at 12 AM if you want one active every 12 hours. I tend to have two search threads active when I'm actually searching, and I bump at different times to increase visibility; this isn't against the rules at all as long as the threads are unique.

Like Solo said, as long as both threads are unique, not exact copies, this isn't against the rules.

 

[Seranda]

Like Solo said, as long as both threads are unique, not exact copies, this isn't against the rules.

What qualifies as unique? Scrambling up four plots from A B C D to C B D A?

Very vague

 

[Saber]

What qualifies as unique? Scrambling up four plots from A B C D to C B D A?

Very vague

Unique as in different. As I stated, as long as they aren't exact copies you can literally put whatever you want in an RT. It's vague because I can't tell you what to put in your request thread. That is up to your imagination and cravings. If you're going to have a request thread where you ask for A B C D, then your other one can be E F G H.

 

[Seranda]

Okay, that cleared it up.

 

[Sync]

Well...the 23-hour bumping rule means you CAN bump your threads at the same time each day.

Just sayin'.

 

[Seranda]

I have nothing more to add. Dumb suggestion.

 

[Cat]

i just wanna say this was NOT a dumb suggestion at all. i see what you're saying and you're valid for saying it.
i'm going to be so brutally honest with you, but this will never happen. solo said it herself, as a staff member, there aren't enough staff members currently on the team to moderate this sort of thing. the staff team has not grown for a very long time, therefore, it won't happen. in addition, veks is not putting his full time or effort into this site. it's all gone to elliquiy. the various roleplaying sites i've been on only allow you to bump every 3 days (as stated before), so i would say the 24-hour period is more than enough. if you feel like you're not getting enough bites, look for different sites ^-^

 

[Solo]

solo said it herself, as a staff member, there aren't enough staff members currently on the team to moderate this sort of thing.

Wanted to clarify that is not what I meant by what I said. What I stated was that changing the bump rule to an odd amount like 20 hours would add a lot of work to our shoulders. We do have a relatively small staff team, but I definitely think there are 'enough' for us to be able to moderate the site efficiently and fairly.

Elliquiy was in dire need of updates to bring it to the modern age, so yes, a lot of focus has gone there, but I wouldn't go so far as to say Veks isn't putting a lot of time or effort into BMR. Any issues that arise are fixed quickly, and the site operates smoothly as a whole.

Just wanted to explain further so no one thought that I was saying this re: staff.

 

[tsukasa]

2 other RP sites I've been active on have had a bump button which is a simple XenForo plugin. I've tried to code my own auto-bump feature into my browser because the new-post method of bumping we are forced to do currently is very tedious, and trying to get on here to bump at all with the 23-hour limit is difficult when my schedule changes almost daily due to different shifts day and night. Coding my own feature isn't viable since XenForo is massively non-standard for the most part and full of JavaScript, so manually is the only option. Even a keyboard macro I could code would still mean I have to manually click the post button. There really needs to be more automation. To be honest, a set-it-and-forget-it auto-bump feature would be incredible since it would enforce the rules by default and by design, as well as making it so members can't miss days when something inevitably comes up.

 

[Revelations]

We've gotten a few messages about the bump button. While I don't handle the site coding or infrastructure, maybe it's something Vekseid could look into and we'll bring it up with him to see if it's possible. I can't make any specific promises that it would happen - but I feel there's no harm in bringing it up in our internal discussions.

 

[Revelations]

Hi folks. So listen,

We're going to look into the bump button addon as soon as it is something we can really do – for now changing the request thread bump rules is going to be a no-go just due to the fact that we feel between 2 request threads and 3 alts per user, users are able to get a fair few request threads on the forums (6 per request subforum if they do so.). While not everyone uses alts, it's still an option and overall one that we've allowed our userbase to do so if they choose.

The bump button addon however would be a very handle tool to have on the forums and we will be seriously looking into it. If we can get it, and get it working, then I feel that we can discuss changing rule 10 to allow for slightly lenient bumps. But this is not a guarantee or a promise that such would happen if we do this. However I do want the users to know that we are discussing this and that we aren't simply ignoring your suggestions. BMR is a site that we all want to thrive and stay healthy, and part of thriving is making sure our users have a voice and while I know that it may not always feel like it, we do discuss things internally when we get user feedback.

The suggestion has been answered for now, and rather than potentially spin around I feel it's best the thread is locked. Hopefully in the near future we'll have extremely good tidings on this front.

BMR wouldn't be what it is without an amazing userbase and I personally want to see it continue to flourish.