im having a hard time balancing between the desire for member driven plots, and having something that is all encompassing...

at the end of the day, this is an unpaid hobby. just have fun with it. if you're not, then why are you doin it?

The struggle of having to choose between the wants of the community and the wants of the self as a person running the site. 😔 I know what I ought to do, but that doesn't mean it doesn't feel bad - or that it even being an internal debate doesn't make me feel like a horrible person, dsfkjldhfkjdhfjkdsh.

as a very self-sacrificing admin, i learned this recently. it feels bad, but the site health can't thrive with an unhappy admin. there is almost always a direct correlation between site health/success and investment/muse of admin.

and also...

they'll get over it.

i played the admin who bends over backwards too many times. still prob will in any future project. the pains of being a people pleaser fr.

worth it in small doses but too much coddling and people start feeling too privileged in a bad way. ie. you owe them all your time and attention, they want to be involved in most staff decisions when they don't need to be. had to deal with so many fits over stupid, trivial things bc of it.

i think there is def a balance to it ( which i haven't figured out yet ). but yeah.

I think that a lot of admins do try and be that way. They start out with the intention of finding that balance. I'm also quite a giving admin, used to be entirely way too people pleasing in general, but lately I've learned that boundaries are good, and you can't make everyone happy. Usually, I wind up putting everything to a vote, because I don't want to make my members unhappy. Sometimes I just implement things without voting on them because I have to as an admin. It's important to take members wants and needs into consideration, but you don't always have to implement them. It's important to make people feel like they're involved, but it's also important to make sure that they don't have all the power. It's a tough line to learn how to walk on.

Tbh not even just staff members. The whole community in your site has contributed to make your concept come to life. They’re the reason why it has thrived and grown. I think owners are free to run their site however they wish; i do know it is different for every site and i respect that. But the gatekeeping is still bizarre. I find it sad, even.

Adding my two cents into this conversation about admining and people pleasing, I see the merits with everything be posted.

I highly agree with citrinitas that after a certain point, if you have more than one staff it is a group project and needs to be treated as such. I'm working on a site right now where, yes, I am probably considered the main admin and help spearhead and write ideas. However, there are several of us. If someone doesn't like something - we discuss, we compromise, we move on. All of us in staff are adults and we can work things out. If people are upset, they talk it out. They apologize.

As for members, you don't need to people please as much as you think. Sure, take ideas from members, try to see if it works in. People are mostly understanding. If it was a dealer breaker, members will come and go if they want. It's OK to say 'no'; however, the delivery of that 'no' is important and how often ideas are being shot down (latter can also be associated with others seeing favoritism if they see people getting yes all the time). Like AkiraTsunami said - this can be a fine line to walk sometimes.

here's a raw confession:

I'm low-key embarrassed by how much staffing affects me emotionally. Not to say that I'm in tears or rocking in the fetal position, but not satisfying every single person on the forum makes me feel like such a failure. And I know it's impossible. But those moments really sit with me. And at the end of the day, I know I'm a good guy. I know I try to do what's best for everyone. But it still actually affects my mood IRL and I guess it's just really an embarrassing moment when I'm like . . . a hobby of running communities for writing pretend characters in a pretend land that I don't get paid for is really making me feel not good enough as a person. That's wild to me, and I wish I had the nonchalance many others do.

Unrelated but still somehow related. I get saddled with "favoritism" a lot, but to be fair it isn't always, even if it seems like it. I am more willing to work with people that actively bring ideas to the table and if those ideas fit because the person knows what they're talking about and what they're doing. If you hang around discord chat all the time but don't ever post or know anything about current plots going on and bring me some random idea, there's a good chance I'm going to say no. But then you can't be mad when someone that does actively get involved in the site lore and threads and plots brings an idea with all the supporting reasons why and it gets approved, this is not favoritism. I'm not playing favorites because I "like them more" than whoever. I'm approving a well thought out idea that actually fits overall by someone that puts in the effort instead of haphazardly doing something they want to do that doesn't fit anyone but themselves.

The same thing with cliques and rp buddy favorites. I try my hardest not to have favorites. Effort is simply met with effort. Give me effort, and I'll return it. Show me you are as passionate about the project as I am, that you understand what is going on in the world and where the thing fits in. It will likely be approved. Bring me a plot that only makes yourself important and is meant to blow ego up your ass, it's not happening. Sorry. That's just how it works, at least for my sites. Each has their own.

hi. another admin here, and i wanted to say that… yeah, i empathize with that so much, especially with what you said about failure. there’s a long amount of context that lead to me ending up as the admin of the site i’m on, and have been running for three years, but it rlly made me want to just Do Things Right(TM), especially for its community and the site at large, and consistently worried that if i messed up somewhere; that if the site died due to the wrong thing (i.e. toxicity, drama, simply quietly fizzling out) — i was failing a lot of people, including myself. and that was something i refused to let happen. it unfortunately lead to me making a lot of wrong decisions out of the concern that if i let [xyz] explode, or said something about [zyx], or w/e else — it would cause some kind of colossal Thing(TM) that would completely fuck up the site and put many members of the community in the crossfire of something that isn’t theirs to deal with in the first place. (looking back at those choices, i know i could have made better ones, but i know my truth and reasons for making those choices, and i can accept that. the only thing to rlly do now is move forward.)

that consistent worry impacted my mental health a lot, more than i’m proud to admit, and hilariously more than the amount of straight up traumatizing rl bullshit i had to deal with at the same time. hell, it also nearly made me cry when i finished the 4.2 genshin impact archon quest because furina’s narrative just hit,,,, way too real to me LOL. regardless, all of this is just meant to say that you’re not alone in feeling that kind of way? i don’t think it’s embarrassing to have a hobby you poured a lot into (and i’ve been in your sites; i know you’ve poured a lot into them) impact how you feel emotionally. it’s being a person, and that’s hella real.

buuuut i also think that, at least based on personal experience, being Witness(TM) to a lot of shit when it comes to ppl and their worries getting the best of them, and especially made more clear after getting therapy bc of site bullshit LOL, sometimes the only thing that can be done is to look at yourself and your feelings, practice some kind tough love, and own up to the shit you deserve and don’t deserve. are you happy with the work you’re making? are you proud of it? if the answer is in any way, a no, then it’s worth a shot to figure out what will make things work — talk to the people around you, build a compromise, and just let people know that you also need some help, support, or w/e else. i think a lot of people have a tendency to forget, especially in an online space, that whoever is wearing the admin hat is a very real person just as well, who has their own personal feelings to trudge through, and ultimately are doing what they can while knowing what they do impacts a huge amount of people. lean on your support circles, own up to who you are, what you value, what you deserve, where you can do better — both to yourself and to the people around you, and i think that’ll go a long way.