That moment when you're trying not to be too lore heavy but at the same time you feel like it's important info that can add some spice to the site :crying:

Do it anyway. Ignore all those naysayers who keep clamoring "i hate sites with lore that don't serve a purpose" and live your best life.

In my experience, it's always better to have a bit more than too little because then your #questions channel on Discord will be very busy with a lot of folks interested in wanting to know more.

I do understand that in general, it's good to have a balance of enough lore to keep your audience engaged, and having your players feel confident they can plug in the small, minor gaps in the plot with their own interpretations that aren't too wildly off-tangent on the site's thematics. 

In addendum to that confession: having a channel or thread dedicated to site lore is cool for further elaboration and discussion that won't clog up the more general help or questions channel/thread.

Lore is the bane of my existence, because I have so freaking much. But I don't feel like writing out a literal novel right now so people just gotta deal with asking questions and getting answers.

this is why having more than one person to help with creating lore and maintaining lore records is important. no one person should be doing it by themself.

i will always say that you do a really good job in regards to that.

but i relate. my site had a pretty extensive lore background and it was a lot to get down, too much even.

i just want to do link backs easily.... why can't these ads include the advertisement board easier? ah well. *pulls pants up* back to work, even if it's slightly annoying. ; A ;

in good news, we're talking about an event for our members! so, that's much better news lol

Gonna comment on the beginning of the month discussion on creating sites/startup phase because I'm a month late and want to throw in my two cents anyway.

I legit think that people let all the BS and fluff get in the way of their core understanding on what an admin's job is. You don't need a lot of good plot ideas to be a long lasting, successful admin. You can crowdsource that, and there's no reason why that crowdsourcing needs to be with other staff who sit on their hands the rest of the time. You don't need to be a skilled coder/skinner because you can always commission. You don't even need to be a good writer, frankly, because that's not the admin's role. Your role is to be a project manager and get shit done. You need to be able to manage expectations, mediate conflict, set and achieve goals, as well as delegate and accomplish tasks. You are responsible for achieving the goals you set, and sitting on your hands when someone flakes on a task you assigned means you need to do it because the buck stops with you.

It's boring and thankless day to day work and a lot of people flake on parts or all of it. Everyone has parts of those day to day tasks they hate and flake on more than others, and for me it's advertising -- which, surprise surprise is one of the most important parts of the staffer's job.

It's like if you don't take out the trash for six months and go all surprised pikachu face that your house is filled with trash bags and your house smells so bad no words in the English language can describe it properly. There are routine tasks that need done consistently or they will pile up and eventually get so bad it causes site death.

Some shit is outside of your control, but controlling the parts you can control means good luck has a much better chance of hitting you because you're around longer to soak it up when it happens.

I've had one of my two sites open for 3 years now, and the other one open less than a month. We've got decent amounts of traffic to both. As a practically solo admin, I have to agree that I do pretty much all the things. My staff and 'fake staff' are around to answer questions and approve the occasional app, maybe do some advertising. But otherwise everything else is pretty much done by me.

HOWEVER!

I do often run with member ideas. Someone throws something out there and if it's a good enough idea it gets added to the site plot. You can't have a successful rp if you do not include your members?? I often do ask for their ideas and what they want to see around the place. Sometimes it gets added, sometimes it doesn't, but it ain't just about what the staff wants. Sometimes members have great ideas, and you gotta be willing to be flexible enough to add them in.

sometimes i allow myself a waiting period before linking back/adding affiliates because a) advertising is my least favourite admin task so i procrastinate and b) there are certain chronic site openers that get bored/close their sites within like 2 weeks and i don't wanna go through the hassle of adding an aff then immediately removing an aff or advertising somewhere that no one's gonna ever see it in like 3 days. i don't like wasting my time.

Waiting a few weeks to link back is a great strategy for advertising to new sites because that’s when the new site smell starts wearing off and people start churning.

Advertising is also the bane of my existence. The people that actually enjoy doing advertising, 9 times outta 10 will be added to my staff for literally no other reason.

considering my site has only grown from word-of-mouth, directories, and affiliates, I honestly just have not bothered advertising in a while and should have just deleted my advertising board already.