Seconding what Aerie said, but also part of the move for me is that as time goes on I don't really find apps to be a clear indicator of a character or player's fit on a site and no amount of getting into the nitty gritty details is going to change that.

If you're worried about power levels, having an abilities section or power mechanics in play is all you need. If you're worried about "taking a dump on lore" they can do that even with the most lore compliant app humanly possible. Mostly because things can change pretty drastically after an app is submitted. Especially on sites with original characters. There have plenty of times where I've gone into an app with an idea of what the character's going to be, but found that they've been better suited for a different direction.

Apps for me serve two purposes: 1. prove the player knows something about their character and has a general idea of how they want to play them or what goal they want to work towards and 2. shows me how they write and if they're able to string a few sentences together.

I've also found that the people who are going to be a problem can make it pretty obvious from even the shortest of apps, because the sorts of people who want to min-max or whatever tend to not be very quiet about it.

that's the problem it IS a minimalist app. it's just a freeform section & abilities section, and i have everything except the freeform writen. i'm just... lazy. whycome the freeform section can't just write itself

finding a sick new manga only to realize half the available chapters are untranslated and there's no TL team actively working on it.... maybe one day i'll finish learning japanese. at least it's getting an eng release next year...

sitting on a completed panfan site but i can't open bc i don't wanna work on writing apps

Started T today. 🥳

holidays got me fucked up and unable to string words together

I like the concept of plot pages, but ultimately I find them to be incredibly tedious at best and pointless at worst. I definitely agree with the idea that I like wanted ads more than plot pages and that I don't really ever expect responses to them.

The application system I've come to prefer is a freeform, and then a "plot hooks" section. Just a few bullet points of what sort of relationships you want, or where your character might be found, or what interests they might have that could encourage interactions. I prefer this, because a lot of the times when I have a new muse I don't feel like I have enough "meat" for a plot page? I have a handful of ideas I think might be fun in broad strokes but until I've actually used them it feels like plot pages are kind of useless starting out.

started reading tower of god and i have never been more disappointed by a plot twist. it felt like i spent season 1 getting to know all these characters and falling in love with them and season 2 starts and they've all been replaced by a completely different cast and the genre's changed. made it #103 chapters in but i gotta tap out.

The site I'm currently working on is using threads instead of a webpage, just because I was lazy and it was easier to make mobile friendly.

Wish that were me. I've got Trauma™ from someone trying to write some taboo shit on a forum I was moderating because we didn't have it explicitly in our rules that it wasn't cool. I don't write rules for the people who know better/don't read them, I write them for the people who are going to read them specifically to pick through them to look for any "loopholes".

I've never encountered a site that takes donations or ever joined one, but I don't see any inherent problem with it. I personally can't afford to ever purchase jcink premium, but I could see the appeal of asking for members to help put money towards getting it. Or, if a forum is self-hosted then that makes a lot more sense to ask for donations for, too.

Like anything, donations don't seem inherently "unfair" to me. Roleplay is a hobby that comes with a high labor cost so asking members to help with any financial costs just makes sense for a shared hobby.

Donating for IC rewards is definitely unfair, though.