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Staffing Confessions

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I think my least favourite complaints as staff is when someone uses a certain function to the fullest, then all of a sudden when it hinders them from what they want will start preaching about how it needs to be removed… It has always bothered me, especially when they used it and other members are actively using it.
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I found some content on one of my old sites. Oh the temptation of revamping one of them, but moving the site onto jcink. The only thing stopping me now is the fact I'm happy on the sites I'm currently on and I need more practice with jcink coding. I mean sure it would be easier to revamp the proboards site but I view it in the past and that is where it will stay.
last edit on Oct 29, 2021 18:58:13 GMT by Deleted
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
The need to post all the autumn stuff grows by the day. Pumpkin spice iced lattes and pumpkin cider donuts and apple cider tea all have my brain here thinking it's October and I need to do the spooky season things. RELAX BRO ITS STILL AUGUST TIL WEDNESDAY YOU CAN WAIT. But at the same time I have everything DONE and cannot WAIT anymore AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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I've got a hurricane in my head, I can't feel a thing, but it's better than dead
How does one keep activity up without being a total dick about it? Even the smallest amount of pressure to get members to post seems like it's too much. But at the same time, there's lulls. Always so many lulls. So how do you go about getting higher activity, or bringing in new members? I feel like I haven't had a new person in awhile.

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to be honest I'm really glad the influx of new members is always slow on Ramora.

we get a new one every few months and it gives me time to integrate them and get used to them before another one comes in, so I have them memorized and recognized and I'm never like "who is this person" on my own site. considering for our genre we are massive that really helps. I feel if we were an 80 person site I would die.
last edit on Sept 9, 2021 23:39:28 GMT by illidan main

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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
^ I mean don't get me wrong. I like having smaller sites. We have like... 10 members maybe? I just would like to be closer to like 20 lol. I am a social introvert. I like new friends. I like new stories. And I post so much I wear my members out. So it'd be nice to have some new blood.

Edit: I 100% want new members for my own selfish gain, and I'm okay with that I suppose. NEW FRIENDS
last edit on Sept 10, 2021 0:22:55 GMT by AkiraTsunami

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what do you want to know? my height, hobbies, quirks, the color of my underwear?
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I feel if we were an 80 person site I would die.


honestly, i have no idea how "mega-sites" like that (30, 40, 50+ people) actually function. since like. after a certain point, it really feels like sites that big tend to operate more as a bunch of smaller friend groups occasionally interacting with each other than it does a single larger integrated community. and it's almost a given that you as a newbie are gonna end up slipping through the cracks unless someone actively takes you in under their wing to bring you into their little circle and keep you going (and if you slip through the cracks, no one really gives a crap one way or the other because of how many other people there are and how much other stuff is going on).

props to the sites that can manage to do it successfully, i suppose, but man, it just feels far more like the exception than the norm, from some of my experiences with larger sites, and it's just.... very much not my cup of tea tbeh.
last edit on Sept 10, 2021 1:56:29 GMT by Kuroya

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I feel if we were an 80 person site I would die.
honestly, i have no idea how "mega-sites" like that (30, 40, 50+ people) actually function. since like. after a certain point, it really feels like sites that big tend to operate more as a bunch of smaller friend groups occasionally interacting with each other than it does a single larger integrated community. and it's almost a given that you as a newbie are gonna end up slipping through the cracks unless someone actively takes you in under their wing to bring you into their little circle and keep you going (and if you slip through the cracks, no one really gives a crap one way or the other because of how many other people there are and how much other stuff is going on).

props to the sites that can manage to do it successfully, i suppose, but man, it just feels far more like the exception than the norm, from some of my experiences with larger sites, and it's just.... very much not my cup of tea tbeh.
Found this perspective pretty interesting, so I thought I'd share the opposite. Couldn't generalize about how 'they function' based on the criteria you're targeting (integrating everyone who comes around) since it varies if it's even a conscious thought at all. However, as someone who joins almost exclusively these, as termed by , "mega-sites", the numbers you're listing to me are numbers I want to see for these reasons:

a) Availability of choice, diversity. The more people on the site, the better chances I'll find what I'm looking for in terms of characters I'd like to throw mine at. 
b) That medium town-city feel, where you don't have to pay interactive attention to everyone while simultaneously getting surprised by new voices in the middle of what you're doing. Keeps things lively. 
c) If the site has fewer than those numbers, the risk of site death is naturally greater unless the whole small group is committed to being around even during the periods they're in their grave irl.
d) As the person who makes the first move more often than not, it's a luxury to me to have a large map of goings on and launch my interests into the fray of what works best for me. I don't need integration, it's more likely I'll require getting beaten away with a stick. 
e) Large-scale events can be spectacular. 

I speculate that most of the people on "mega-sites" vibe with at least some of these aspects, and the newcomers who need more orientation do fade out if someone doesn't immediately have an idea on how to slot them into their goings on based on the character read. It's, to some degree, an unspoken rule to pick and choose from the market (as a newcomer) and notify someone or multiple people of your existence so as to get involved with their existence(s). Not everyone will have the interest, time, or headspace to fit your thing, which is why it's always better to cast a wider net. If you don't get discouraged in the process of fishing, you will get a good catch eventually. Study your intended fishies. 

Bring appropriate bait. 

But not everyone likes fishing and that's okay. 
last edit on Sept 10, 2021 12:17:44 GMT by Deleted
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
I think the biggest site I ever ran had like 25 members. Maybe 30. But they came and went. We stuck around like 10-15 active long term people, with a bunch of shorter term people that came and went. Some came back, some didn't. It's just really interesting to me. I really like the long term members, the ones that stick for years, which I have. But some of the short term members, or even just prospective people, bring in really good questions and ideas.

As a staff member, I really appreciate someone coming in with fresh eyes and looking at my stuff, questioning everything, making me explain lore and whatever. It's a really nice feeling. But it hasn't happened in awhile. With bigger sites, I would imagine this happens a lot as well, but of course it would have all of its own problems too.

The thing with a lot of bigger sites too though, is that there's usually an admin team. It's not just one person in charge of the 80 or so people in the site. It's "okay I'll run this and this, you run that, that person is in charge of these things" a team. I can't imagine being a solo admin for more than like 10 people.

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I ended up with an unexpectedly large site almost overnight. I am super thankful for my co-admins, we are all experienced so that helps. I've modded on even larger sites and the best way to avoid "slipping through the cracks" so to speak is to get in the plotting channels and wrangle people. There are too may folks on larger sites for admins to get to involved with making sure everyone has thread partners so you have to be a bit more involved with searching for plots. Its usually the wall flowers I see getting lost.
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Some dude once threatened to sue me after I banned him lmao. His reasoning was that he owned the copyright of some art he was using for an OOC and it was being hosted on site via his application, thus giving him grounds to sue me for infringement or something. I told him to pound sand and basically told the rest of staff to let it sit. Petty, but it felt so good to be the target of impotent rage.
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
^ Proboards has things in their ToS where if someone threatens this, that no one can be held accountable, because the host is the person that posted it, not the owner of the site or proboards themselves lol. Idk about JCink but I made myself familiar with the proboards tos for whatever reason.

Also, some members are just petty af. I rejected a character once, so the person reported my site like 8 times over a 4 month period. We always had ToS infringements or reports against us over the smallest most petty of things. It was weird.