Threads or PMs

Since no one else did, I thought this was a good discussion to continue from this Questions thread. Personally (preface emphasis on personally), I prefer threads over PMs for several reasons;

1) Easier to keep track of: The only -possible- way to be able to keep track of multiple simultaneous PM RPs is to sort them all into Folders, but even then, keeping track can still be a challenge; you have to click on each and every folder that you -suspect- has had any activity recently to check and see if you need to reply there, and that gets a bit annoying. With the Subscribed Threads feature, this is a total nonissue with threads.

2) Easier to re-read later: With threads, everything is presented in nice, neat, linear, post-by-post, page-by-page fashion. Simple, easy. As you reply back and forth to a PM chain, nested quotes stack up more and more. Not only does this get uglier and more unreadable over time, but once a PM starts getting big enough, it lags browsers when you try to write into it. I learned this almost immediately after joining this site, and since then, I have made it an automatic habit to always truncate nest-quotes, and only allow PMs I send to have a single quote of the message I am replying to. When re-reading PM RPs, this means I have to click on every other PM in the folder, opening them all in their own tabs, and then read them one at a time. That too, gets annoying.


I also wanted to build off to two posts I saw in the linked Questions thread:

For me it's the fact i am usually behind in a RP with someone. Posting in a thread lets everyone know i just posted and some people have expressed great displeasure at my posting to a thread before responding to their RP first. Sometimes my muse simply isnt with a given RP, but ive been accused of so much based simply on slow responses to a RP...
If I keep them all to PM usually that doesn't happen.

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Ah, I do know what its like to be "thread stalked". It is very unpleasant[...]But for the most part I started letting those people know if they were going to bother me over posting order they can drop the RP with me because I refuse to be stressed about an activity thats supposed to be fun and enjoyable.

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I settled on a system to neatly avoid this problem, myself; I keep a -strict- queue of RP reply-order, in that I -always- reply to RPs in the order of whichever has been waiting the longest. To demonstrate:
I get replies to four different RPs in this order: A, B, C, and D.

1. I reply to A. I reply to B. I reply to C.
2. I get a reply to B.
3. I reply to D.
4. I get a reply to D. I get a reply to A.
5. I reply to B. I reply to D.
6. I get a reply to D.
7. I reply to A. I reply to D.

And so on and so forth, regardless of partner reply frequency. In so doing this, I enforce to myself that I show no favoritism to any particular RP. It also helps in that if I get writer's block on a particular RP, it forces me to overcome it before moving onto the next RP that I may not have writer's block for, rather than leaving one RP on the backburner. For me, this works pretty well (Incidentally, is has also had a side-effect of basically guaranteeing that I have never been the one to "ditch" an RP, ever*. Even if it takes me a while to respond, I always do, in the end). The only time I "break" this rule is when I am engaged in OOC PMs with a partner regarding my reply-in-progress for the RP before I post it, and I am waiting on an OOC answer from my partner; I will carry on and reply to other RPs in that case, but the moment I get an answer OOC, that RP jumps back to the top of my queue.


However, all that said, if I made it my strict policy that I do not RP in PMs, I would have missed out on some truly amazing RPs with amazing partners, who themselves had a strict rule of only-PMs. If I get a partner who has that strict rule, I will bend; otherwise, I will push for threads. Also, even though it is "hidden", PM RPs are treated no differently than thread-RPs in terms of my reply-queue.



So. How about the rest of you, BMR? Your opinions, preferences, and habits?


(*There are only two not-presently-active thread-RPs in all of my posting history where I am not the last poster, both are extenuating circumstances and not "ditched" as such. In one, after my partner replied, I sent an OOC PM asking if they might be able to edit a few things before I made a post, but said partner happened to vanish off the face of BlueMoon around that same time. The other, partner and I decided out-of-thread to just let that one go.)

RE: Threads vs PMs

Hey!

This is what I wrote about not doing threads and chats:

The problem with threads…
- “Why did you post here but not there?” is the main reason why I gave up. I can’t stand the drama, the pming my other co-writers (yes it happened), the hounding and comparing and envying…
- Getting judged on the content. Too vanilla, too extreme, too historical, too modern, I’ve heard it all. The truth is I’m very versatile and people judge at first reading much too often.

More

RE: Threads vs PMs

I started being flexible but keeping things in forum, but not only were PMs a mess to backtrack for a detail, also difficult to keep track of in general. As my PM games started to die one by one, I made "threads only" part of my general policy and have come to love it.

Not only it's easier to keep track of and easier to backtrack, I have found that it also builds community. I mean, without the game threads it would be just an offtopic section and a million of requests. This way every thread contributes to make the site feel alive and any members can not only partake by writing, but also reading.

I never had any hounding/getting asked why I posted in one place and not other, nor has anyone outside from the game messaged me to judge negatively what I wrote, so I guess I'm fortunate.

RE: Threads vs PMs

I think the exhibitionist in me enjoys the public aspect of a thread. Plus easier to refer back to early details when you want to. I also don't bother with replying in order, or worry about showing favoritism. I used to go in strict order and learning to break it freed my muse so much. I warn potential partners about this on my RT.

RE: Threads vs PMs

I like showing off my awful writing. Sometimes I get requests from people who stumbled upon one of my stories, that happened frequently enough that I bump my rt almost annually. Plus, its more organized, easier re-read, and you can go back and fix/add things. I will write in PMs though, I just prefer threads a lot.

RE: Threads vs PMs

I have pretty shitty memory (like legit shitty) so I forget about PMs... A lot.

I only role-play over threads because it keeps everything neat and I can see if I replied or not. I still forget stuff, but it's easier to catch it this way.

Also, I kinda like watching my post count go up. I have no fuckin' life, so may as well have a couple thousand posts on a role-play site

RE: Threads vs PMs

I'm just utterly terrible at remembering to reply to pms. I like to check them when I get them, but if I can't focus on a reply at that moment I end up completely forgetting about them. I check my threads as new replies come too, but with them there's an easy subscription list I can check if I'm unsure I replied.

So yeah, threads because terrible memory and a nice straightforward list that tells me whether or not I was the last poster. Makes things simple and organized. Plus like LittleBear said I like to watch my post count go up like the loser I am.

RE: Threads vs PMs

Hmmm....I'm somewhat bemused/concerned that so far, all but one responder to this topic has been on the Thread side of preference. :huh:

C'mon, where are the people who prefer PMs? Share your opinions, let's learn more about each other!

I post wherever, because I'm not above telling someone to mind their own fucking business if they thread stalk me and get upset that I'm posting to one thread and not the RP we have together.

I have been summoned from the grave!..... OH yes this thing, allow me to represent the Pmer's out there.

For me, who has a very specific set of role plays I like to do the pm system works best. I don't like to get emails every day saying I have updates to 2-5 topics since I can't get online every day. But here on BM when you log on up in the right hand corner it states how many new messages you have. Usually when I sit down to get on the site I am ready to write. If not the browser is gonna stay open anyway and I'll eventually write during the day. So I tend to just go down the list of new messages. Nobody gets skipped, nobody sends me messages asking why I didn't respond to them but did someone else. It's nice and simple.

PsionicCuttlefish said:

Hmmm....I'm somewhat bemused/concerned that so far, all but one responder to this topic has been on the Thread side of preference. :huh:

C'mon, where are the people who prefer PMs? Share your opinions, let's learn more about each other!

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Maybe they're not on the board except for pms? lol. I dunno, I've had dozens of cowriters through pms...

People who prefer to write in PMs tend to be more private people, perhaps even more introverted. Valuing privacy, they are probably less likely to want to engage their opinions in public, much less one where there is a marked difference in opinion. And they may not even be looking at threads like this to begin with.

So I would take these numbers with a grain of salt, in fact I would venture to guess that more RP happens in PMs here than in threads , but they are just under the radar.

For me, private messages are what I got used to. RP publicly at Yahoo wasn't really a thing , and at some of my previous forums, ERP wasn't even allowed so that was all PM. Not to mention that I was always afraid , back when I was younger, that my parents or aunt would find any public posts I made.

But I do also find i hate the thread stalking behavior, and having to tell people off is just work i would prefer not to do, i come here to enjoy. Telling people off or disappointing them is not really in my base nature, and i find when it happens too much i find myself no longer showing up, which is why i have taken long breaks from RP in the past.

I would love to see a discussion, on-site vs off-site. dont get me started though..

Threads for me as well, for similar reasons to Xana and Fruit.

I just find PM's a mess, and threads more organised, much easier to follow, plus have the capacity to edit after you've posted. I also like to have my writing out there for others to like/hate and to provide prospective partners a gauge on if we'd mesh or not with our styles and way we portray our characters, etc, and to be able to see that from them. I agree with Sigr as well, it adds to the sense of community.

I (and this is a personal opinion relating purely to me) don't want to be a member of a communal writing site only to keep my writing, good bad or indifferent, hidden away in fear of criticism, or taken offsite. Who really cares what anonymous commentators might have to say, or think? The only people who matter in that regard are the partners I'm collaborating with, although knowing it's out there in public for others to see does further motivate me to provide the best post I can, and it helps me to improve. That wasn't always the case; when I first joined, having never really written before, I was hesitant about putting myself out there. After eventually making that jump to threads, I could now never revert to PM's.

Apart from what I've mentioned above the other major reason I stick to threads only is that, as best I can, I like to keep everything in one place or in one format. Due to me lacking the ability to conure images in my mind, meaning I don't have a visual 'memory bank' to call upon, it takes me an age to become instinctively accustomed to how one 'looks.'

Attempting to then jump between what I'm used to (the only way I can really describe it, is more a 'mind muscle-memory recognition' thing than directly visual) to another, or switching between various visual layouts causes a "No, no, that's not right, that's not how it's supposed to look, it's all jumbled and out of place" clash in my brain which it finds extremely off-putting and doesn't want to attempt to have to cope with unless it's unavoidable, as do embedded pictures, coloured text, other-than-standard font or formatting, etc in posts. Although now having also been active on E for a while I still compose my responses to threads there by transferring my partners reply to a draft BMR thread and only post mine back to there when fully complete, because of it.

As for thread-stalking, I've never really encountered it. Then again, all my partners know I prefer/need slower replies over a daily or rapid-fire pace and I've on occasion actively encouraged those with other active threads awaiting a reply to post to them first! On the flip-side they're all aware that I don't necessarily reply in strict order either. I think communication helps a lot with resolving some of those potential issues, and if someone was to thread-stalk me that writing partnership wouldn't last long, nor would I expect it to if I did the same to them.

I know there hasn't been any posts here in a while, but I have something related to this thread's topic to add.

As some have said above, PMs can sometimes be hard to remember to reply to, even if you use folders to organize them. I can't believe it's taken me...almost six years, holy hell, to figure this out, but I have just realized the perfect tool for keeping track. Especially with my very strict "reply to RPs in the order they are replied to" schedule.


That little "Personal Notepad" in your User CP. Up 'till now, when I get around to replying to RPs, I have to not only look at my thread subscriptions, but also open up every PM folder I -suspect- might have a reply pending, then pick out the ones that actually do and sort them according to last post date.

Now, when I get an RP reply, whether thread or PM, I jot down that RP on the Personal Notepad and hit Update. I get more replies, I add them to the bottom of the list. When I finally am free to reply myself, I start at the top of the list and begin working my way down.

Can't believe I ignored this thing for almost six friggin years, cuz man I am suddenly finding all sorts of helpful uses for it, and it has instantly made knowing what RPs have replies pending so much easier XD