I don't have it in me to be a good staff member today. I don't have anything super productive to add for conversation either. My brain chose nope. But I'ma try.

Ya ever just look at your site and just go. "Man. The anniversary for this is in a month and I've got nothing planned" XD

let me join the conversation its been on my mind all throughout work today...

in regards to systems and progression the best are the ones that... best represent the site you're making. an mmorpg setting would ideally require hard stats and seasonal "patches" (nerfs/upgrades) to work, a shounen setting demands for XP based progression, etc etc.

as always, something's gotta give at the detriment of others.

- hard stats turns off those who don't want to crunch numbers with the friendly neighborhood accountant.
- XP based progression rewards high-volume posters but discourages those who are slower by comparison.
- gatekeeping progression via time puts pressure on thread partners and unless they be your bros and you trust they'd prioritize your threads in good faith, i wouldn't put the onus of my character's progression entirely on their ability to reply in a timely manner.

events/event cycles put more pressure on staff, but its the surest method to maintain "fairness" between fast posters vs slow posters (that much i do agree w/ SPIRELE ). +1 if you're okay with some characters/canons (if you have them) starting at a higher tier (especially if the site features faction warfare. e.g. on a bleach site, the captain commander would obviously start at a higher caliber than the other captains of the Gotei 13). you can always handicap these canons if their OPness seems unfair, by implementing some kind of debt system.

in regards to the latter (read: debt), i'm personally not a huge fan. those who choose to write a canon are already expected to complete threads and push forward faction plotline/contribute to a greater story.

I agree and disagree with fitting the setting, it depends. I'm not going to bother fetching the exact quote, but I remember something like Naruto cutting months off of learning how to do something basic with his ability to copy himself. I actually see story-telling value in representing these weaker stages, but trying to reflect even a fraction of that authentiticy is not a popular choice that I have made. The best comparisson I have is to another place where I could easily go from knowing nothing about fire to using fireballs in a matter of days if I wanted to. The latter is going to be far more popular (but IMO popular isn't equal to good). You can look at how D&D has evolved over the years to take out most of the actual challenge to get an idea of what sells among adjacent roleplayers.

I like events as a primary catalyst for growth as well though. Whatever is incentivized tends to get done. When it comes to time discounting but not removing needed effort is what I like.

Debt is something I use with stronger abilities to try to make other choices more appealing, but people seem drawn to take the debt and then complain about the debt instead OTL.

i can kinda see why people don't do original dragon riders. after trying to build a site based around it, the amount of work that goes into it is just so exhausting. it's so much easier to just use Pern as a base because there's already so many resources for it and already a fandom to pull from.

i've switched to just focusing on the site being an original fantasy adventure site and while that's still hard, i felt the pressure came off immediately. i suddenly didn't have to make a bunch of dragon designs and inspirations and think about rules around dragons.

There's definitely a prevailing idea that when administrating, staff should be impartial and professional, in a sense. But at what point does one ditch the airs and decide something for their site based on personal interest? I'd been a firm believer in doing things with fairness, but after seeing too many skirted rules and exploited loopholes?

I just try to be myself as much as possible. I have a firm standing with my rules, but will bend them within reason if a member needs to. As long as they ask me about it before doing the thing, I'm usually okay with some level of it. I don't sit around asking for respect though, I feel like I earn it. I get to know each and every member on a personal kind of level, which I mean I guess is okay for having a smaller site. I try to do everything fairly as well, and don't really stand for discrimination or intolerance of any such kind.

also, sorry for the tag reisen but holy crap that profile pic is cute who is it? The mini hover lol.

it's kal'tsit from arknights.

Yeah, I was thinking that generally, being fair is good. But if you observe someone doing something "bad", consistently, do you want to be the kind of person who thinks they'll break the habit, do you do nothing, or do you make it clear that you won't stand for it?

Fairness is not strictly about adhering to the letter of the law.

When it comes to me making a site and trying to get members to join. I’m guilty of refusing some people from my past if we got off on bad terms from another site. Just why are you joining my site when you know we don’t get along? So it isn’t always my current rules getting broken but another site in general. Also I find myself tempted to try coding on jcink again but my motivation is lacking right at the moment.

We've been getting a slow steady stream of new people lately and I kinda like it. I love new members.