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Off site roleplay requests

Drunkle Qrow

Drunkle Qrow

Planetoid
Joined
Nov 2, 2017
Can you make a board where people who want to use email or discord or whatever post their stuff exclusively so that people who want to stay on the site don't have to bump into those threads when browsing? It's seriously irritating when you come on to a community like this to rp and people just want to advertise and leave once they have a pairing.

It's what's killing forums like this.
 
I second this. It's frustrating to see a thread with someone you'd like to start writing with, but then you see that they only want Discord.

It would be easier if all the off-site requests were regulated to one forum like on E to avoid the confusion.
 
This might be a possibility and something I can bring up with the others. I think the biggest thing that might hold this back or at least delay it for awhile is the work it would put on staff trying to sort through all that since members have a really bad habit of not paying attention to announcements so approximately 95% [or more] of the work would fall on us to separate everything out in all 3 of the current Request Sections. As well as editing the different areas on site like rules and other places to show the change, an announcement to explain it for the few who would pay attention etc. So if it does become a thing, its not going to happen very quickly.
 
I understand. If you wanted to separate all the different ways people request threads you would have a lot of divisions. Like, if you wanted to separate gay requests from straight requests (which is another good idea for both parties involved) it would require more work and more moderation. But it would make the user experience better. Gay people can find gay rps more easily, straight people who want tp rp on site only have to encounter straight requests from people who want to stay here. I guess maybe more mods would be needed.

How big of a percentage of our population do you think this category is though: "Straight people who want to rp in pms and threads"?
 
While we do try to make the members experience as easy/painless/enjoyable as possible we do also have to consider what we as staff can ACTUALLY manage. Staffs not much use if we can't keep up with site as WHOLE. Everyone on staff, its all volunteer work on our part and we still have our own lives/jobs/families/schooling to deal with, we can not spend all of our time on here just moderating.

The suggestion of "getting more mods" is a case of "sounds 100x easier than it actually is." Keeping staff filled out is probably one of the hardest things to do because the workload for staff tends to be too much for most people to handle for long periods of time especially as Real Life automatically comes before the site but the site comes before ANY RPing. So we have people leaving because its too much, leaving because lifes just gotten hellish, leaving because they can't do staff work AND keep up with their stories and then people leaving because of disagreements etc etc. So we are constantly looking and trying to fill the staff out. One time, just ONCE in all the years I have been on staff did we ever have a full staff team and it did not last. So the likelihood of us finding "More" mods for the project are slim to none. And currently we are already trying to fill other areas on staff with 0 success.

As for "percentages" I can't say, there seems to be a fair amount of the different pairings. I mean, I've heard complaints from all quarters about how there isn't many requests for what THEY want. From Guys talking about not finding any MxM or any good FxM, Women complaining theres not enough FxF or not the right TYPE OF F x M or no F x Non-binary to Non-binaries saying there isn't many requests there so...I can't really say with any certainty. The sites got a pretty even mix of all different kinds of pairings and the like so I'm not sure what the percentages are for each one.

But in terms of the request sections, we also get people who complain that we should separate out Original Ideas and Fandom Ideas as well as separating out Sexual threads from Non-sexual ones, which, would adding those help in the search for a RP, probably but again, not something we could keep up with in any way.

So just for what this thread has mentioned, this would be what the request areas looked like ::

Offsite requests ::

Female Requests for F x M
Female Requests for F x F
Female Requests for F x F / F x M
Female Requests for F x Non-Binary

Male Requests for M x F
Male Requests for M x M
Male Requests for M x M / M x F
Male Requests for M x Non-Binary

Non-Binary request for Non-Binary x F
Non-Binary request for Non-Binary x M
Non Binary request for Non-Binary x Non Binary
Non-Binary request for Non-Binary x F / Non-Binary x M / Non-Binary x Non-Binary

On-site Requests ::

Female Requests for F x M
Female Requests for F x F
Female Requests for F x F / F x M
Female Requests for F x Non-Binary

Male Requests for M x F
Male Requests for M x M
Male Requests for M x M / M x F
Male Requests for M x Non-Binary

Non-Binary request for Non-Binary x F
Non-Binary request for Non-Binary x M
Non Binary request for Non-Binary x Non Binary
Non-Binary request for Non-Binary x F / Non-Binary x M / Non-Binary x Non-Binary

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So with just the suggestions in this thread this is what the request sections would look like just on their own. We could do sub-forums for each but that would only help the main page from ending up hella long. It wouldn't help with the requests.

Awhile back we did switch up the Request section, created ones for Short Term RPs and Long Term ones in each Male / Female / Non-Binary with the Long term/short term being sub-forums in each of the Male / Female / Non-binaries and we had to stop because no one was paying attention and kept posting it in the main area instead of the side areas where they were supposed to. So outside of all the work we'd need to put in JUST to create and separate the threads we'd ALSO have to deal with EVERY single member who isn't paying attention and posts in the wrong area. When that last change to the Request areas was going on, we had work/reports every single day, getting up to 30 reports in a couple hours time and we'd get it down and come back to find just as many or more. So with this system it would 1000x worse on us.
 
You could format the categories like this:

Main board:
Heterosexual Requests
Sub Boards:
- Male Requests
- Female requests
- Off-Site requests - this is the only one stright people can do in if they want to rp off site

Main board:
Other Requests:
Sub Boards:
- Lesbian Pairing Requests
- Gay Pairing Requests
- Transgender Pairing Requests
- Non-Binary requests
- One of these for every letter of LGBTQ++ if people need that.
- Off Site Requests - this one is the only one people who are gay, trans, whatever can post in if they want to rp off site

How confusing would that really be? Mods can literally move the posts to the appropriate board without bothering to warn people. It's a pretty minor offence anyway.


Make it a strict rule not to post anywhere but the off site sub boards if you want to rp off site.
 
Drunkle Qrow said:
Make it a strict rule not to post anywhere but the off site sub boards if you want to rp off site.
Click to expand...

As in, a user cannot post in any other forum or be active anywhere else if they have an off site RP request?
 
No I mean, they can only post requests in the off site request if they exclusively rp off site. They can still post in general boards or whatever if they want to, but chances are they won't want to since they have something against forums.
 
People who offer discord and email but will rp on site as well would be excluded. This is only for people who refuse to rp in pms or threads.
 
I don't know if that needs to be a 'rule' beyond 'Place your ad threads where appropriate'. A user looking for email RP shouldn't be posting in forum focused RP and would have their threads moved accordingly, while someone making a forum based ad thread in the off-site RP section should have their thread moved to the appropriate subforum so as to keep things clean.

Overall I have no issues with a forum focused for off site RP, but my main issue lies with what Karameida said. Back when we tried to change/switch up the forums for looking for RP, there were way, way too many people breaking the rules whether it was intentional, unintentional, or due to lack or care of reading the rules. My biggest concern is this would be a slight headache for the mods due to people just putting an ad everywhere.
 
It might well be a headache. I guess that's up for you guys to decide. There certainly doesn't need to be a huge amount of RT boards though. It can be widdled down to a much smaller number with the right organization.

Have an LGBT Main board (with sub boards for each group) and a Hetero main board (With sub boards for male requests and female requests). Those two main boards are all you need. Non-Binary can be a sub board in LGBT. Even if you included all the LGBT groups under one main board the hetero board is still going to have more posts.
 
Instead of separating the boards, I’d suggest making use of the prefixes. There are already some prefixes set in place but it’s not used by some. I’d suggest making it mandatory for a user to choose a prefix before they post their request thread. In addition to the prefixes already set (the Mx F, etc), adding which medium they use for roleplaying would help.

Maybe prefixes such as this:
PMs - PM exclusive
Thread - Thread exclusive
PMs/Threads (or Onsite) - onsite exclusive
IMs - instant messages exclusive (Discord, YIM, Skype, etc)
Offsite - Emails, gdocs, etc
Any - Whichever’s good.

or any combo the staff think is good and necessary. Just throwing some samples.

Separating the boards would be a bit of a confusion and a major pain in the ass for staff. Some folks like all sorts of pairings so that would compel them to post an RT on every board. That would be a bit tiring; for me, at least. I can’t speak for everybody but I personally want all my crap in 1 or 2 RTs that I can maintain and update. There’s also the matter of exposure. If prefixes were made mandatory (i.e. users can’t post their RT without adding these prefixes), any RPers can simply just click on specific prefixes to filter them out. This would likely ease the burden off the staff’s back and tailor the RTs to a user’s preference. And for users who needs site updates and rules to be shoved down their throats, they would have no choice but to comply to the proper labeling of their threads. Xenforo has buncha cool features, y’all!
 
It's a never ending rabbit hole. Every subsection calls for more subsections. Before long there is a labyrinthian abomination of subsections where the only hope to navigate is through tags and prefixes, and my honest opinion, I feel a lot more is missed that way.

I would say all of the preferences I had were definitely in the thin minority on this site, but I was still able to find partners. Between making a thorough and interesting request thread and having an open mind regarding other request threads, I never felt the site was at fault if my needs weren't being met. I went through a phase where I only RP'd off site and I've gone through a phase where I only RP'd on site in threads. Between that, being FxF exclusive and other specific preferences that narrowed my search further, a good request thread is key.

This is a writing site, a request thread should be a reflection of what you can offer to potential partners. Even if we split BMR into dozens of subsections, enforce prefixes to where you narrow down the effort it takes to find exactly what you're looking for, it feels like you're stripping yourself of other unseen opportunities.

I'm all for encouraging of prefixes to help make the search a little less of a slog, but as soon as we start putting every single user into a smaller subsection box people start to get cut off from eachother and we diminish the need for thorough request threads which I feel are the best insight into finding a partner that meshes well with your style. Ive met many roleplay partners here over the years that I would have never RP'd with originally due to a conflict of basic preferences, but because I liked what they had written in their request thread or they liked what I had in mine, we compromised and created something memorable together.

No one is going to be 100% happy. The system BMR has used has worked pretty well all these years. I like the idea of encouraging prefixes and discussing that further but I don't think segregating the BMR boards into smaller subsections of styles and preferences is the way to go.
 
Instead of making a separate board, we could just suggest that writers put anything special like "Discord Only", E-mail Only", or "PM only" in their title if they are that concerned about it. Please note, my list of examples is by no means exclusive; I could fill a page with every possible permutation that could be used. The whole thing is going to be at the poster's discretion, no matter how many options we give them to choose from.

I don't think we need a better mousetrap. I haven't seen anything that limits a person from making an RT as specific as they would like to in the system that we have.
 
I had noted that we could put them in sub-forums or sub-sections as you call them but then went on to explain why that wouldn't work in the next part when I explained what happened the LAST time the request section was altered as well as in my very first post here. But that aside; breaking off the sub-sections/ Forcing them to use pre-fixes/ Forcing them to add it in their titles, none of its going to help as much as you might think because very few people would be using any of them properly.

"How confusing would that really be? Mods can literally move the posts to the appropriate board without bothering to warn people. It's a pretty minor offence anyway."

Did you read what I typed out? As I said, we added just TWO sub-sections to Male, Female and Non-Binary for Short Term Role-plays and Long Term Role-plays and just that little alteration threw things into chaos. As I noted and Saber confirmed, the reports/work never stopped because only a small percentage of members actually paid attention to announcements/rules. The "minor offence" that it brings is not my concern, my concern is the amount of work that it would drop on STAFF. Like I said before, we are only human and there is only so much we can keep up with while also dealing with real life. I love this site but I don't intend to be here 24/7.

As for pre-fixes, they are an option people can use but I don't want to force them to. I mean, I don't even use them. I have too many things I'll RP to be able to fit them all into pre-fixes and some things I like aren't pre-fixes. Same with adding it to my title, I will RP as any gender, any gender pairing, any setting, fandom and non-fandom, canon characters, original characters, I RP mostly on BMR but a couple have been offsite etc, etc. It would be a migraine for me as a member to try and deal with fitting all of it into a title, pre-fixes or sub-sections.
 
The prefixes already set in BMR is already a good feature for the users who know what they want already. I’m not suggesting to add a prefix for every genre, setting, preference or fandom. Besides, you can already section yourself to an Fx Any, Mx Any, or NBx Any depending on where you post your RT if you’re into any role. Just the medium of roleplay which seems to be the issue here. Users who are good roleplaying in any medium/have no preference will have that option to label their thread as “Any” (or some variation of it ) as well. Users who are, say, roleplay only on PMs or IMs can choose to label their RT as “PMs” and “IMs”. Like I said, the labels of these prefixes aren’t set in stone (y’all could hold a public poll to get ideas for the titles and such but I also faintly remember the former admin had a thread about this if I’m not mistaken). Enforcing this would help users like OP to find what they want efficiently by filtering the prefixes they want to see and not bother users like me who want to take a gander at every RT there is in that specific board regardless of their prefixes. I don’t see how difficult it would be to navigate through when you have the option already presented for you to keep it uniform and it’s literally just one click. We’re giving suggestions to staff since Xenforo has the feature that solves this but it seems like it’s not even worth a shot, lol.
 
@Karameida

"As I said, we added just TWO sub-sections to Male, Female and Non-Binary for Short Term Role-plays and Long Term Role-plays and just that little alteration threw things into chaos."

But you don't need to add that many freaking request sections. Things can be organized to be much smaller if you do it properly. The problem is that you want a section for m x f, m x m, AND another one for both mxm and mxf. Jesus Christ. Why not go a bit minimalist here and assume that people who exclusively want gay requests will post in the mxm, and people who want gay and straight requests will post in the straight one? If I am looking at people's requests, I don't care about all the options they are looking for, I only care if they have an option that lines up with what I want. If they like gay pairings (which I am not interested in) but they're also willing to do straight pairings then I would like to see them in straight requests.
 
The concern here is that 30 percent to 50 percent of the request threads clicked end up being for off site email/discord bullshit and they take up space on the front page. So you see a thread you like, you read it, you really like the idea, and at the bottom it says discord only. At least most people who only want gay or futa or whatever put that in their title. I would much rather bump into a gay request I am not interested in than a discord only request I am interested in. Because the latter wastes more of my time.
 
Or we could just make a prefix that just say's (Off-Site Only) so you know right then and there that's what they want and not pay the hassle of creating a new form.
The only problem is that members DO NOT PAY ATTENTION...
You can make the advertisement displaying the new changes as big as you want and still get millions of questions about it w/o reading it and those who break the new rules.


So, you may get your wish, but who says the users will comply?
Ah, bet you'll say "Mods can go through all threads and change them if necessary" True, but doesn't mean we can catch every single one of them.
Also, users can report those who notice that they aren't in the right prefix and we can fix it.
 
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