There are a multitude of reasons and that's the ebb and flow of site activity. School starting back up is a big oof and even big sites have slumping periods. Having a solid base of members that stick it out through slumps will help you survive until something else sparks a resurgence, kind of like harvesting food for the winter. Even if no one roleplays there, having a community that hangs out together can really help sustain the site until activity picks up. 

When it comes to advertising, I feel like it's diminishing returns after a certain point so I tend to slack.

once you've already hit the major places for your fc-type, is posting anymore after that really gonna help? the way I see it, those that would be interested in animanga rp on a rl/animal rp site is likely already lurking the animanga places you hit anyway. same goes for the reverse.

I stalk my google analytics like a hawk

I finally got around to handling the advertisements. Only took me a week. x.x

big fear when skinning is that it won't be as good as the previous one.

cyan over here calling me out for why i've been low-key putting off doing a new skin for iw, because the skin there went from good to eh to great and i know i can't really top what's already there tbeh.

Whenever admins/staff share their experiences on how staffing make them a better person/more communicative/kinder etc. to me, I blink, because the only thing staffing did for me was to push me from "hey you're kind of problematic but I'm going to give you the benefit of doubt, a few chances, and then give you a couple of warnings" to "I will cut your fingers off if you harass someone."

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This might sound kind of stupid, but I find that trying out extremely different themes instead of having similar looking skins help, because it becomes really hard to draw a comparative between two very different types of skins.

Also, your members probably always appreciate a new skin, regardless of whether you think it's worse/better than your previous one, because it's not about always being better, but more about being willing to venture out of your comfort zone, even if it's for a bit, so you always know what works and what doesn't. We'll always be our own harshest critics, but just know that your members will always love what you make and give them- since you literally just gave them a world they can live in, even just briefly.

honestly, as much as i love that i can code and a lot of what i produce is fairly decent, i don't think there's an aspect of staffing more stressful for me than skinning. it's rare for me to end up producing a design layout i end up satisfied with later on, and almost without exception the process of making a new skin ends up being anxiety-inducing and stressful between "i have no idea what i want to do" and "i have ideas for where i want to go but bringing them to life has only made me realize i hate them and i don't know why" and it's super annoying to remember that all that stress is really only going to produce optimal results for about two to four months at most, which none of that even touches on the absolute sheer frustration for when something breaks and you don't know why and it's either just you forgot a semicolon somewhere or ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ code is weird and breaks for no reason sometimes, and just.

hi hello my name is kuro and skinning is by far and away my least favorite part of staffing.

I skip some advertisements because I'm not familiar with how to place my advertise code on them.... After breaking two codes, I'm not interested in doing it again, trying to reach the admins to plea for another try or assistance editing it was a nightmare. I'd rather not chance round three.

Pssss, sorry Chibi...... Somebody has to do them. x.x

i think it's very important to know that you will never please everyone no matter how hard you try. just gotta do the things you know you have to and hope people don't bitch and groan about it TOO much.

One of the most gratifying things for me recently is seeing that the site doesn't need my posting activity at all to stay alive anymore.

It's finals month, so I'm too stressed/time crunched/sick to post anywhere close to regularly and have dropped from daily to like once a week or so in posting, but the site is chugging along just fine after a few weeks of this. It's nice to know it's reached the point to where I can just kind of focus on school for a bit and just do maintenance staff duties and still have a site when I come back in which basically nobody is effected by my absence (except those who I owe posts for, but yknow I planned for this and pared down threads A LOT so I'm only really in like 2 of them right now anyway).

I'm excited to be working on this site again, even if it's my third attempt at it. I'm trying to change a lot of my bad habits and one of the big ones involves seeing things to completion. I want this and that means I have to actually work for it.