ik people seem to have really well thought-out opinions on this... but i'm kinda wondering how common is this issue actually...?

maybe this is just me! but animanga rp forums are a lot slower in the last few years. i almost never see anyone totally new to rp. (i actually don't know if i've ever seen someone 100% new to rp join a server.)

vs experienced roleplayers who are new to forum rp. i've written across so many different platforms & i feel like it is a liiiittle bit elitist (not to be controversial) to act like those people are inferior / not worth the effort. roleplayers i’ve met from neopets, discord, one-on-ones, etc. have been some of the chillest people and best writers i've seen. it’s def fair to ask people to try to figure stuff out before they come at you with a ton of qs (esp if you give out resources/links), and def fair to pend incorrectly done apps, but it strikes me as kinda sad to miss out on a potentially great new community member because they need a little extra help.

usually rpers new to forums try to get things set up themselves, they just might ask questions or need notes in pending. and like... isn't that the whole purpose of an application approval process.. to make sure members do it right??

just my take based in my own experiences but...

it doesn't take that much time to help someone. it's not very common either as far as i've noticed from running my own joints. the longest i've ever had to help someone on a forum come from the folks that are really developmentally challenged or very bad at english which is super rare to even encounter. so, not having enough time ever is a bit of a silly concept to me.

in the same vein, it's not wrong to just not want to help a newbie at all. but regardless if you want to do so or not, no shame in telling the person to wait until you have time and/or delegating the task to another willing individual. or... i guess plastering in your guidebook for those people to go away is better than nothing too. saves everyone a bit of time.

anyway, if anyone has me on their forum in the future and there comes along a newbie of any variety that needs help, just send 'em my way. :thumbsup:

pretty sure it's not just about how newbies need help with applications or getting around jcink/proboards. anytime a total newbie asks how to do x y z in the support channel, they're answered pretty quick even by members themselves. these kinds of help/task/resource is ez pz. there's no mental baggage after you answer them and they say thank you.

but i'm pretty sure the issue is because how no one wants to write with them when they show their obvious newbie-ness, as much as it's harsh to write that out on main. their prose isn't as 'beautiful', they're awkward in genchat, their vibes are off. i've seen a handful of people claiming they'd 'help', which sounds pretty, but to thread out a thread with them? nuh-uh. i've not seen them thread with new people unless they're friends of friends. or unless their aliases are commonly seen around the rpc, their mutual friends list bustling— honestly, if half of the people who said they're open to newbies are actually open to threading with them, we'd have a lot more site retaining members, but we don't, sooo...

source: was one of them, friend was one of them, and couldn't help much when their chosen alias sounded like it was burner-account-worthy(im sry, it was my favourite food, but... ;v;). am used to this fact that when i join a site, i don't expect my hand to be held because i never was; i'm better off finding other newbies to form a group with.

props to the admins/staffs who actually admit that they don't have enough spoons to handhold total newbies, though. contrary to five years ago, we're all adults with jobs now, not teens or college students with only 4 hours of classes per day. with so few hours per day left to yourself, who doesn't want to spend it on actually writing with friends? pp kinda had a survey on our age groups. lots of us are approaching our 30's. that's around the age where people start getting serious about jobs/families yeah? and on top of making a site(which isnt easy; everyone wants the skin, but no one thinks of the constant mental upkeep), people tend to blame staff for not reaching out when really, they made the site because they wanna write with friends. the moment everything turns into an obligation, yikes.

i've joined a site where the admins literally thread out with every new people though, regardless of their funny ooc names. they actually keep up with it too (not just open thread, stall 5eva), and whew, props. as a matter of fact, they're also kinda burned out now. 

disclaimer: ttly understand how we're not obliged to reach out when newbies don't + don't wanna thread with accounts who seem sus/new because we've all been burned b4. just saying it's not all that easy to 'help' newbies get started in jcink/pb rp when it's more than just... "hey, how do i access the control panel to make my app?" (pretty sure that's not that common)

Back on a staff team for the first time in a while and really fortunate to have an admin who appreciates my ideas for the site. umu

While helping complete newbies to rp can definitely be an… experience, if we don’t help out new role players and take the time to help newbies learn the hobby, forum roleplay will eventually die off. There are a lot of competing mediums now where players can go to rp, discord being one of our biggest competitors right now, and we need to encourage new roleplayers to try out our version. Forum rp can be intimidating enough already without putting up additional barriers to newbies.

One thing that's certainly not helping is that while Discord RPs have relatively low barriers for entry (which have only gotten even lower as the software gets more and more features with each update), while by contrast, forum RPs have become increasingly walled off over the last decade, having more and more entry barriers. With the main ones being technical skills (coding for skins and Photoshop for graphics), money (if you can't code your own skins or make graphics, you will need to commission them), and age (it seems that these days there are disproportionately more 🔞 sites than all-ages sites, when it used to be the reverse).

Time to hate myself and code a new site I don't need. Why? Cuz apparently I'm a masochist.

can we please stop having such high standards for new sites?

People have standards....?

is it weird that I find cleaning out ad boards relaxing?

Seeing a crispy clean board after it’s been clogged for ages is the nicest feeling 

Finally learning how to do individual board design on jcink and lemme tell you. Everyone that gave me advice on how to do it, I thank them lol. I was literally too dumb to figure it out before. BUT. Despite how much #effort goes into it, I really do think it's just an absolutely gorgeous way to skin things. Props to people that do this on the regular because I just spent two whole days on board mod and man.

This is why I tended to be the main advertiser on forums I staffed ffff--