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Staffing Confessions

Tidal Wave
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I've got a hurricane in my head, I can't feel a thing, but it's better than dead
Half the sites I want to see I just make myself. But lately, it has been influential. I recently decided to remake a site I had back in the day because I had like 15 people tell me they were interested. Is it on a whim? Absolutely. Will it be popular? I don't even care. Even if it's fun for a short time, even if it dies in a few months. At least I did it and it will be a good time. My other site has been running for 3 years, it's time for an addition. lol

Stardust in me
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We're motivated by the stars that we're made of
I'm annoyed that someone made last-minute posts for the activity sweep ... on 2/3 of their characters. If you can't keep up with three characters maybe don't have three characters. Up to the wire posts just annoy the staff.
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so it goes.
It feels both good and bad to clean up the site and Discord... it's sad to see numbers go down, and characters get archived, but also a breath of fresh air and I can focus on the new members who are coming in. ♥ I'm excited!
Tidal Wave
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I've got a hurricane in my head, I can't feel a thing, but it's better than dead
Started working on a new project and I've gotten a majority of the site done in a day. Probably ready to open by the end of the week. How? I have no idea. I feel like I haven't worked on it nearly as much as I have, and idk how it's completing itself tbh. Especially since I've had to start over like twice.

phantom of the black parade
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what do you want to know? my height, hobbies, quirks, the color of my underwear?
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I'm annoyed that someone made last-minute posts for the activity sweep ... on 2/3 of their characters. If you can't keep up with three characters maybe don't have three characters. Up to the wire posts just annoy the staff.


personally i find it more annoying as a member than a staffer.

as a staffer, it's just shrugging loudly and leaving a few more accounts alone than i might have otherwise. it's not cute when it's a big site canon ofc but that's a whole bundle of worms whose problems lie in more general activity problems than they do specifically posting at the last minute to save the role.

as a member though, it drives me nuts, whether i'm having to wait another month to open up xyz want ad or snag xyz claim or whether i'm otherwise twitching over the inactivity, like stressing out to reply for an activity check myself since i wouldn't have a reply otherwise or just generally not having plots move because threads are only being replied to once a month. (it's also annoying because like imo i as a new member want to plot with other members who are around and active, which is not exactly easy to figure out if the member directory and available shippers are full of people who aren't really around outside of activity check time.)

it will drive me insane one day and that's just that tbeh-
last edit on Feb 1, 2022 17:47:15 GMT by Kuroya

Stardust in me
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I'm annoyed that someone made last-minute posts for the activity sweep ... on 2/3 of their characters. If you can't keep up with three characters maybe don't have three characters. Up to the wire posts just annoy the staff.
personally i find it more annoying as a member than a staffer.

as a staffer, it's just shrugging loudly and leaving a few more accounts alone than i might have otherwise. it's not cute when it's a big site canon ofc but that's a whole bundle of worms whose problems lie in more general activity problems than they do specifically posting at the last minute to save the role.

as a member though, it drives me nuts, whether i'm having to wait another month to open up xyz want ad or snag xyz claim or whether i'm otherwise twitching over the inactivity, like stressing out to reply for an activity check myself since i wouldn't have a reply otherwise or just generally not having plots move because threads are only being replied to once a month. (it's also annoying because like imo i as a new member want to plot with other members who are around and active, which is not exactly easy to figure out if the member directory and available shippers are full of people who aren't really around outside of activity check time.)

it will drive me insane one day and that's just that tbeh-
OMG this is hair-pulling-out insane-driving horrible. I'm pretty sure this has driven me temporarily insane a few times.
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With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
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Props to all of you with individual board images. This is insanity. Visually appealing, but still insanity.
Completely painful, I never want to change the images ever again.
Tidal Wave
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I've got a hurricane in my head, I can't feel a thing, but it's better than dead
A valid staffing question? What's important? I might make some thread about this somewhere else, like a staffing advice board rather than confessions. But what is the most important things to be included in a site? I know the basics, I've been building sites for 14 years now, but like. What is something new but necessary? My new project needs something... Different from my other ones. I've been doing that same things for many a year now and need to know what's changed lately. What are the important things that people want to see on a site? I'm not talking basics like rules and applications, unless you wanna get into what's in them, but like, idk. What's new? What's important? What's missing? How much lore should be included, do people even use directories these days, do people need plotter/tracker space? Idk what's preferences, I wanna know. lol

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when you affiliate and advertise a lot, thinking your site is gonna get hella traffic and random interest, but after three days, you start to wonder if you're advertising/affiliating in the right places, or if people just aren't as into the site as you are.

i don't know about you, but I just get hella excited and impatient when anticipating the joining of new people~
last edit on Feb 3, 2022 14:49:25 GMT by Deleted
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when you affiliate and advertise a lot, thinking your site is gonna get hella traffic and random interest, but after three days, you start to wonder if you're advertising/affiliating in the right places, or if people just aren't as into the site as you are.

i don't know about you, but I just get hella excited and impatient when anticipating the joining of new people~


An easy tweak is to reduce the number of boards appearing on the front page until you grow. 12 boards with only 3 that have posts in them looks dead compared to 4 boards with 3 that have posts in them.
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the masses: we want to see a [newest media trend] site!

real talk, making a site is no joke especially if you want it to succeed for more than a month or two. by the time you've laid down the groundwork and trying to cobble together the rest of the checklist of things you need to do to make it palatable for people, the community's moved on to the next big trend.

tl;dr: don't let what others want from [sites you want to see] influence your decision, staffers.


aGREEGE

there are so many layers behind this that never get addressed.

idr when exactly but i DEAD ASS remember like a year or two ago someone posted an interest check for something niche. there was a good amount of turnout at first but when the site went up it was dead on arrival. the person posted on PP like ‘i put in all this work and no one showed up. where is everyone that said they wanted to join?’ and it broke my goddamn fucking heart. honestly, most shit i ever saw.

GOOOOOOOOOOOODAMn.




that being said, i think rp needs to evolve but either people are unaware or don't’ want to take on that change.

when u want to rp something niche u need to be realistic and look at the longevity of it. are u planning on it lasting for a while? then lay out the groundwork and shoot out a site.

are u just itching w/ muse and want to do it until ur interest wanes or u pick up something new? then u need to make something scalable and quick. discord? barebone site? w/e. make it and scratch that itch w/o making a time sink.

there’s a lot more that goes into this but it’s highly personal, nuanced, and subjective.
last edit on Feb 3, 2022 18:24:11 GMT by SPIRELE
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the masses: we want to see a [newest media trend] site!

real talk, making a site is no joke especially if you want it to succeed for more than a month or two. by the time you've laid down the groundwork and trying to cobble together the rest of the checklist of things you need to do to make it palatable for people, the community's moved on to the next big trend.

tl;dr: don't let what others want from [sites you want to see] influence your decision, staffers.
aGREEGE



there are so many layers behind this that never get addressed.



idr when exactly but i DEAD ASS remember like a year or two ago someone posted an interest check for something niche. there was a good amount of turnout at first but when the site went up it was dead on arrival. the person posted on PP like ‘i put in all this work and no one showed up. where is everyone that said they wanted to join?’ and it broke my goddamn fucking heart. honestly, most shit i ever saw.


that being said, i think rp needs to evolve but either people are unaware or don't’ want to take on that change.



when u want to rp something niche u need to be realistic and look at the longevity of it. are u planning on it lasting for a while? then lay out the groundwork and shoot out a site.



there’s a lot more that goes into this but it’s highly personal, nuanced, and subjective.


honestly. I remember this too!! It was so freaking sad, ngl. And I actually remember being really mad at the people that had been hyping and raving about this particular site, only to just.. vanish, man.

I learned by doing this very same thing that you cannot make a site to please everyone, and that making a site that seemingly everyone
wants is not always what you want.

contrarily, sometimes making something that you want can actually garner a lot more interest than you originally anticipated too!

the bottom line is make what you have muse for and catapult off that. Ideally, you should shoot for your forum/site/rp to be long-term, because if not, what is the point? It blows my mind when people put so much effort into a site, even bought a skin for it and everything to only shut it down after like two months because they get bored of it. Like, bro, that's something you actually invested so much time and real money into, only to just throw it away.

Like things happen. Activity plummets. Drama ensues. I get it. Those things can be really disheartening and are all valid reasons for closure/going offline.

But, I'm just saying... be considerate of how much effort and time someone and their community are actually putting into this hobby. We're all here to soar, you know?