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Staffing Confessions

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I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong when making a site.

There's a very specific kind of setting I want to run (and I won't get into specifics here because this isn't a stealth interest check), but whenever I try to launch it, it never seems to gain any traction. I tried a lot of stuff - I got rid of systems, simplified the lore, got a fancy skin - but for some reason, getting even a handful of members with my site's premise seems to elude me. Am I just bad at marketing? And if so, how do you get better at that?

I just don't know how people seem to get these thriving communities so easily. Is there some sort of clique I'm not a part of or strategy I haven't considered? 

From a marketing standpoint, you want to make sure your site goals are SMART. And no, I’m not saying you’re not smart, it’s actually an acronym!

It stands for:
S: Specific: You want to make sure you’re advertising the big thing (whatever it is) about the site that you want to highlight.
M: Measurable: And make sure that the big thing has some sort of measure to it so you can see the success of it. I think someone else already suggesting getting hype through an interest check. Make sure there’s measurable hype before you even start.
A: Attainable: Sometimes site premises just won’t work, so you have to be realistic in what other people will be interested in and capitalize on their interest.
R: Relevant: Make sure your ads are relevant to your content, but ALSO make sure that your content is relevant. What’s popular right now? How can you use that to interest people?
T: Time-bound: Set an opening date based on the above criteria, make it something people have to wait for. Not only does it build interest, but gives people time to wind down from other things they may be doing in anticipation of your site opening.

I hope this helps a bit! My learnin’ finally might have come in handy, wooooo.

— Your friendly neighborhood bachelor of marketing gal
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Thank you all. FWIW, if I have a reputation, that's news to me - I consider myself something of a nobody in this community.


ngl animanga rp is such a small niche community that it's hard to be completely unrecognized if you use an alias for more than one site - which can be a good or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. nevertheless, best of luck with your site!
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what do you want to know? my height, hobbies, quirks, the color of my underwear?
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Thank you all. FWIW, if I have a reputation, that's news to me - I consider myself something of a nobody in this community.
ngl animanga rp is such a small niche community that it's hard to be completely unrecognized if you use an alias for more than one site - which can be a good or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. nevertheless, best of luck with your site!


while this is very certainly true, i think it's also very important to remember that "rp reputation" is less about your individual fame (or infamy) among the wider rpc as much as it is about what assumptions people make about you based on what they know of your past behavior.

after all, if i see that someone's advertising their fourth site in a year span, i'm probably going to pass on their site if i feel like i'm seeing a pattern of someone that can't reliably keep a site open for whatever reason. same thing for if i've been on three or four sites with a person in the past and they would always leave me in the lurch plotting wise; it'd be understandable of me to be much more reserved about offering big + heavy plots to them (or be concerned if they planned on picking up an "important" want ad for me).

and this goes for more than just bad activity rackets too - if i know someone's often found in the middle of rp drama, i'm probably gonna be wary of them, or if i know someone's come off of running a site for a year plus, i'm probably gonna trust them a bit more with keeping the lights on for their new site now too. (activity is just. the easy one since that's pretty easy to observe as an outsider.)

there is definitely something to be said for the downsides of this kind of thing - the core concept of it relies largely on people not changing their behaviors, it's infinitely harder to obtain + keep a positive reputation over a negative one, and it relies entirely on people's perceptions of a given situation rather than the actual reality of what might have prompted all of those past decisions.

but humans are also wired to spot patterns, and honestly, like sleepy said, because the community is so small, it's really hard to avoid a bad rap just because you have to be very intentional to avoid leaving behind footprints (using different aliases, never reusing character names + fcs, not really utilizing your account on resource sites, recreating your discord every time you leave a site). people know, and people tend to have long memories for this kind of thing. (it's also something that's hard to recognize about yourself just because imo it takes a lot of self-awareness to look at yourself and admit that what you're doing is probably a bad look or at least isn't exactly a good look.)

idk i have a lot of thoughts about a lot of things and rp reputations is definitely one of them and whoops i guess i'll pull a kuroya and write a mini-dissertation on it after telling myself not to-



tl;dr rp rep is less about brand recognition so to speak as much as it is about brand association. so. it's less about whether you think people know you in the wider rpc, it's more about what people remember about you + what assumptions they make based on what they remember.
last edit on Jul 17, 2021 12:02:17 GMT by Kuroya

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My personal staff philosophy that I've smattered all over these forums is that 1) rules don't always cover everything and 2) they really don't need to.

As staff members, it's our job to curate an experience for our members. If someone is routinely disrupting the community, it is our job to handle that. Even if they're not "breaking any rules," it's important to look at what they're doing and why, and make decisions: do we want to continue allowing the strife, or do we want to take action?

When I finally restructure my rules, I will make this philosophy clear on Ramora: we will not outline everything that we disdain, but provide examples of what we have banned for and will continue to ban for. We don't have a rule, for instance, on Ramora that soliciting ERP and harassing members for it is banned. But when a person known for soliciting ERP unwanted and harassing people for a grooming plot joined our site, we did not care. We knew he would harass our members and only RP if it's the exact kink plot he wanted, and we knew our members would not like it. So we banned him.

It's not frivolous bans, I will admit, but I feel like if you're constantly vaguing about your members in a negative light on forums or in the staff chat, you should probably start communicating and using that power to influence people. If your members are coming to you saying that someone makes them uncomfortable, you're allowed to take action even if they're technically not breaking rules. I know there's a fear of being cliquey, but there are bad faith actors in RP and people who just do not get the social aspect of the hobby, and those people should be expelled.

On the other side, you have members that WILL act accordingly, who WILL be good, who WILL be joys to have around, and you should make sure the experience is suitable for them. It's okay to loosen restrictions with the caveat that everyone should act in good faith. I stopped being as strict with applications when I took over, and while some long-time members questioned if people would take advantage of that, I pointed out that those who would take advantage are not the sort of people I would allow to remain on the site for long. Thus far we've had no issues, and the freedom has been enjoyed by my members.

Ultimately we have to remember that as admins, we have the power to stop issues, and we have the power to protect those that play on the site. We shouldn't live in constant paranoia of the one bad faith member that shows up. RP is a hobby, and membership on a site is privilege. You can revoke it as necessary.

(tl;dr this is why i don't restrict powers or character ages or disabilities or backstory stuff. i'll put my foot down if i think there's something Bad going on, but most of my members don't require the babysitting.)

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I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong when making a site.

There's a very specific kind of setting I want to run (and I won't get into specifics here because this isn't a stealth interest check), but whenever I try to launch it, it never seems to gain any traction. I tried a lot of stuff - I got rid of systems, simplified the lore, got a fancy skin - but for some reason, getting even a handful of members with my site's premise seems to elude me. Am I just bad at marketing? And if so, how do you get better at that?

I just don't know how people seem to get these thriving communities so easily. Is there some sort of clique I'm not a part of or strategy I haven't considered? 

I agree with certain aspects of other posters but I don't think all of them apply.

There's also a chance that there just isn't any interest in that 'specific setting' you want to RP. Rather than tunnel on forum roleplay if you really want to pursue that topic, you may want to branch out to tumblr, discord rp, and other communities that may share that interest!

As for site creation, a personal guideline I follow is that I will never make a site without having a few dedicated members beforehand. Every site I've made or had a hand in getting off the ground started with me being bundled up with several friends beforehand.
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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 am in the mood to revamp and restructure my whole site to make it more enjoyable for all the members, but I have no idea how to go about doing this. Things are at a bit of a standstill right now, as much as it's my own fault too, it's also not. People aren't being active anywhere but discord for the most part, so I offered making the site run both on site posts and through discord, but they're not about that either x.x It's frustrating but I'll figure something out.

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I am in the mood to revamp and restructure my whole site to make it more enjoyable for all the members, but I have no idea how to go about doing this. Things are at a bit of a standstill right now, as much as it's my own fault too, it's also not. People aren't being active anywhere but discord for the most part, so I offered making the site run both on site posts and through discord, but they're not about that either x.x It's frustrating but I'll figure something out.

You got this! I will warn if you do, even as a non-member I will probably jump in to take a peek. ^.^
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I remember hearing a comment one time about how Discord having too many channels could take away from the host being used for writing. I believe there is sone truth too that but at the same time it depends on what channels are being added. But then again I’m also a true believer that many of us still writing are adults so we can’t put as much time in the site as we used too. I wish you luck if you end up revamping/restructuring your site, . I took a break from learning how too code on jcink but I plan on giving it another try soon.
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
We're still mostly at an even split about it. Some of the members haven't voted, other's must not care, and it'd be a lot of effort to make it happen if it did. I don't mind the way things are right now but it's definitely a theory I'm willing to try out in the future if it comes to it.

Also, you're always welcome to check us out anyways, even if just to hang. Anyone can. That's why I have lurker roles XD

Full Discord = Full Heart? <3?

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We're still mostly at an even split about it. Some of the members haven't voted, other's must not care, and it'd be a lot of effort to make it happen if it did. I don't mind the way things are right now but it's definitely a theory I'm willing to try out in the future if it comes to it.

Also, you're always welcome to check us out anyways, even if just to hang. Anyone can. That's why I have lurker roles XD

Full Discord = Full Heart? <3?

Awwwwww! Thanks for the offer Kazure! I really appreciate it. I would say same to you, but I already intended on letting you lurk, so you’re still there. XD
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I attempted coding on jcink once more but can't for the love of me figure out how too change the main profile and the member list headers. All I wanted for the main profile was too remove mostly everything from it, save a few fields and the member list headers, I really badly don't want joined, posts, email, and photo listed on there. *sigh*
last edit on Jul 19, 2021 19:26:50 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
Can't make everyone happy, but you can at least try to make everyone feel included. It really bothers me when staff members are just... Super intimidating and not remotely friendly. Or when they shoot down all the ideas. Really, just work with your members, talk to them like they're your best friends. That's how you make a good community, yeah?