I want to first state that my responses here are in full respect and have no intention of getting personal.

I made sure each site I sampled was a RL site. RPG-D as a whole slants real life in discussion forums and especially site searches. Excluding it, one of the biggest communities out there, seems like the goalpost is being moved to be frank. To exclude such a massive group of people and deem them irrelevant is almost exactly my point.
The model only concerns itself with people already in the fishbowl, ignoring the oceans around it.

I am not arguing that something could be done, I am arguing that on site is still better. I see resource boards as supplementary.

Ps. Several boards in your examples still practice on site.

So just because a few Tumblr sites that you feel are restrictive, means it doesn't count as part of the RL community's collective "achievements"? I do dislike how you call them a vocal minority, because it seems like that term is being used to discount whatever ideas or functions that they've come up with to solve their own problems.

The RL community has always been deeply steeped in the Jcink forum side. This is true. And I'm not saying we should copy their model exactly, all I'm trying to state my point, is that having one hub for advertisements would be loads more easier for both staff and prospective members alike due to the functionality of being able to easily search sites on... well, a single platform that is aimed solely for that.

I referenced your site, Animangads, as one example that does an excellent job of this. I feel like this is a good first step in the right direction. I think if the community is willing to, we can most definitely up that ante and create an even better system for people who want that ease of access.

I still don't think spamming your ads on other forums is better. That's just my personal opinion, and I respect that you think otherwise. What the point I'm trying to make is, having one hub that's catered for our animanga community would be shaving off tremendous time on staff's part, so that there's more time left over to worry about the actual good stuff: y'know, like roleplaying. If I can just spam my ad once a day on a high-traffic site, that's tons better than trying to track down every individual forum that's gone through my plugboard and doing a whole new set of wayfinding pathing to find my destination of just to put up my ad that might at best, garner one or two looks with no guarantee of actual clickt-hrough from generating interest.

Edit: You seemed to miss my earlier comment:

If a site wants to have a plugboard, I don't see that as an issue. But if I don't want to have a plugboard on my site, and just have the option of affiliates, I feel like that should be also acceptable?

Double Edit: Von makes a great point about this system being archaic, and has even made a mock-up/prototype of what this new platform example could look like.

Apologies for the double post, but something I caught about your comment about these platforms being "fishbowls ignoring the oceans around it."

The animanga community is absolutely the size of a fishbowl. We're not that big, nor that deep.

Frankly, those advertising on rpg-d have way different cultures than those advertising on tumblrs. It's a different community altogether. And did anyone say that this method is just being introduced? Not like everyone is gonna JUMP SHIP to it instantly.

And tbh, it's unfair to say that this "new form" of advertising is "inside the fishbowl", it's literally new and the one we haven't explored yet. LMFAO.

as someone who's still in the rlrpc (sort of) and ran a few sites in it, forum advertising is/has been pretty dead (at least for the real-life genre of rlrpc)? on my past sites we still had boards for it, but i know that i've never dropped a first link ad for any of them, one of which ran for almost 2 yrs

link backs were a thing that we may occasionally do, but even that was rare. there were and ARE a few really big rl sites that i can think of off the top of my head that i see advertise through forums, but it's honestly a rare form of advertisement for rl imo. like to be frank, even advertising on resource sites has gotten pretty iffy, caution (cttw) is probably one of the oldest and biggest community sites we have and even then, there are a good amount of sites choosing not to drop an ad and advertise on there but i can see them plenty on tumblr ads (like a part of this might just simply be because of how site buzzes are honestly the biggest form of advertisement these days, especially for rl sites but that's another topic entirely).

allthingsroleplay is probably THE biggest tumblr ad blog we have and i know a ton of people within the community who just go on there, maybe filter out to a genre tag, and just scroll for a bit to find a site. because frankly, it's easier, all you have to do is scroll to see a selection of sites all at once and i know animanga ads offers a similar aspect.

and like other people have stated, as someone who was staff, it was easier too. i rarely dropped linkbacks because it was just hard to keep up with and i had other modding duties i would rather do like accept apps or update claims or w/e. it was a lot easier to just submit an ad real quick through tumblr once a day or every other day and knowing it'll be queued up and be posted sometime and i didn't need to struggle with captchas and etc and i know people will/are looking at that ad when it's up versus tossing it into the void.

i'm ofc not saying we should adopt the form completely, but it would be neat to see it explored as an option a bit more? especially with sites like atr allowing things outside of site ads – interest checks, want ad submissions, and staff searches. want ad submissions are especially big, because they work i guess? rather than having the process being: see site -> click on ad -> look around -> look at want ad to be enticed to stay it shortcuts it to see a preview of want ad that seems interesting -> click link -> read ad or w/e. people take the ads, i've joined and taken ads this way, because i found an 'in' or an initial plot that i would be interested in.

but yeah it would just be a form of advertising that would be interesting to see for animanga? esp because animanga doesn't really have the problem in rl where you get like 5 site buzzes and 10 new sites all at once.

i'm also just 100% not excited about advertising when i finally open my site, i guess that can count as a confession lmao

I don't know what real life sites you're on. The real life sites I'm on still do a lot of site to site advertisement. Still do members do advertisements for us and we give them perks. Even in CTTW's directory, most of those sites will have an advertising section that has both first links and link backs. There are some that don't, some that swear by tumblr advertisements, but unless you were a tumblr user/tumblr rper, it's not going to be the prime site you go to when looking for a new game to join.

In my opinion, and only my opinion, I don't think site to site advertisements will or should go away. There's been a many of times I got caught up with posts and felt bored and didn't want to harass others for more threads/a reply. Sometimes, going though the ads area on the site is a great way to see if I find something because not everyone knows about directories and such. I didn't when I first came aboard to post to play rps.

And I can't reply on affiliates because most people will affiliate with anyone and have very little rules about it. If I'm on an specific anime forum and the canons are taken, it's up to me to find a place they aren't because the people the site will affiliate won't necessarily be the same type of site but just anyone willing to take their button.

I think it would be great if there was one true resource site all people could go to, but like rp sites, someone always thinks they could improve on an idea and makes their own site. So I agree that it really depends on how hard someone wants to work to get their site "out there" that will net the most people.

Mini confession here: I don't like the idea of giving perks to members to help your site advertise. This is my personal take on things, of course, but it just comes off as granting bonuses to people who have more free time to go through the onerous process of CAPTCHAs and forum layout wayfinding. I'd rather have them spend that time and energy contributing to my forum in the form of roleplaying and other thread engagements. My site's advertising is mine and my staff team's business; if a member wants to contribute out of the goodness of their heart, then kudos to them, but I'd never dangle perks as an incentive for them. No matter how small these perks may be.

I think people are operating on the assumption of exploring new avenues as an already tried and true method. We've only tickled the surface. We haven't tried to the same extent of change as other communities yet. Not sure why this is so difficult to understand. I may reference RL sites and how some communities in that sphere operate and manage their advertisements, and I'm merely using them as examples that we could possibly explore, learn from, and transmute it for our own needs and wants.

At the end of the day, sure. If you really want to push for the most amount of views, doing forum advertisements will get you there. But I don't have that time anymore, and this community is slowly ageing. We all have other commitments in life that we must give priority to, and I sure as heck won't be spending whatever free time I have left by dedicating half of it to forum advertisements.

There are other things I've discussed at further length with friends, about this topic, in regards to the benefits of having a singular platform where you can simply just have a dedicated affiliate button for the resource site and no requirement for the said resource site to need a plugboard to put their advertisement back in. This transcends the need for learning new forum hosts' BBcoding because the <a href> and <img> tags are pretty universal in our headers/footers, lbr.

Somebody (probably me) left the app forum guest-accessible. That was fun.

There is so much to reply to, I apologize I won't reply to everything here because I am running out of time.

I consider RPG-D a mostly real life community, large enough to pull a sample of real life sites from. Caution to the Wind has a section for anime sites too but we don't call it an an mixed face claim site. Advertising not being the norm on real life sites is simply not true. The new goal post was to check Caution to the Wind and sites that have had an active ad board in the past 6 months that have recieved link back activity, I included boards with accepted ad boards as well (which is the most common format). Even though 6 months is the criteria nearly all the sites in the sample had active advertising boards in the past week. I sampled 50 sites in the Real Life/City Town of Caution to the Wind (for those keeping track i've sampled around 100-110 sites so far). Here are the 47 sites of the sample still using site to site.



When I say loud minority, I do not mean to discredit the ideas of individual people. I am talking about how influential members of the community can say something based off a vary limited experience without doing any research and often times it is taken and becomes consensus even if it isn't true. The experience you have on 2-3 forums doesn't always equate to the truth across a much broader spectrum.

I think it is pretty clear that while other methods of advertising are emerging, the real life community is still largely participating in site to site advertising. I think nurturing resources are important, and it'd be pretty cool to not have to advertise to succeed. I still assert the forums that do this would see more members if they did do site to site, it is really more a mathmatical equation than an argument. The only time I could see it being a bad thing to do is if you were advertising so much that you were pissing people off.

Yes the anime community is a fishbowl, I am not disagreeing there. It is aging. That is why I don't really get the idea of reclusing even more. People can like multiple things. People can like things without joining and monitoring a resource community for it.

Do you think Joe the Horse Farm RPer is ever going to leave his horse site to check out Animangads? Probably not. But maybe, just maybe, if he sees an ad for Space Dandy pop up while he is cleaning the imaginary stables he might think for the first time. Hmm? I used to love that show. What if there was more to RPing than owning a horse farm?

These communities aren't even that easy to find. I won't name names but I've helped a few people get here from elsewhere.

This'll be my last post on the matter, because it seems you're very firmly rooted in your argument. I just want to dispel some assumptions here.


Nor do the ones you've sampled mean it's the true reflection of the community at large. The fact stands that these platforms exist, because the RL is large enough to allow multiple microcosms to exist within it. The animanga community itself is a microcosm. To try to say that we shouldn't bring change because we aren't exactly like these other communities is a very broad generalization of our own community itself.

I don't consider myself, nor most anyone here an "influential member" of the community. To say that is a grossly large overstatement, and you give far too much emphasis on this particular detail. There is no misinformation here. As most members aside from myself have experienced, there is a significant amount of sites, regardless of what percentage these sites are to the whole of the RL community pie, that are moving away from site-to-site advertising. This is a fact. Just because there is still a large number of sites that employ the old method, as Kuroya has stated, it's much more grey than the black and white of "well they have a plugboard, so that must mean that they do site-to-site." It's a yes and no situation.

Being a pie slice of the whole does not invalidate the fact that the slice is, still by our animanga numbers in comparison, still part of the pie, and a hefty slice at that.


How is this making the community reclusive? How would you know? Have you tested this method out yet? You cannot tell the future. If anything, this is giving the community more tools at their disposal and to give them a choice to participate in the advertising rat race without having to feel pressured to append old traditions. If you still want to do site-to-site, that's a personal choice.

Your analogy doesn't discredit the ideas and concepts of a platform or hub. If Joe the Farmer doesn't want to step outside of his home turf, that means Joe is very comfortable with his membership already, and/or  he likes how things are and will happily continue doing what he's been doing. And that's fine. If Joe is curious about the world, he will still have the opportunity to discover these community(ies). And if Joe wants a piece of that pie, Joe will contribute. 

The fact that you've mentioned about spreading this resource site by word of mouth is already another way to advertise without resorting to site-to-site advertising. I could tell Joe and that would be great! Or Joe might stumble across a site's affiliates section and see resource links. It's up to Joe to take advantage of these resources. And if he doesn't, I don't know what to say to you. That's Joe's business, and not mine.

This isn't making the community exclusive, hidden, some sort of VIP social club for the "influential" members of the community. This is meant to be a tool aimed to help everyone learn, if they are willing. It is appending to the community, not putting it under lock and key.

I grew up where we did advertisements and became excited when affiliates became a thing but now advertisements is such a drag, especially when I find one in the link backs that belongs in the first posts... I'm keeping track of this people! Post in the correct board, we are going to sooner or later stop advertising with you in general if you keep it up. Also I don't care if a site wants to affiliate and doesn't have an advertisement board UNLESS, they had the nerve to post their advertisement on my site. If you post an advertisement on my site, I expect you to have a spot for me to return the favor, but I don't have a problem with sites that chose to only affiliate. Speaking of advertisements, I forgot to do those today....

Nice chatting with you, have a good rest of your day.