pronounsD A R K
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Death is just a new beginning.
i used the term "baby's first rp site" as a quick shorthand to cover a lot more ground than simply "someone new to rping" since, for example, people who come from other platforms (like discord or tumblr) or are returning to the forum rp community after a very long time often require a similar amount of hand-holding + gentle correcting for "basic" things that is super time-consuming and exhausting to handle, even if they may have a general idea of rp etiquette or navigating forum software; they're also tons more likely to show up on a site than someone who is brand new to rping, in my experience, so not including them is doing a huge disservice to the spirit of the original scream into the void sentiment i expressed in the op. (and, plot twist, i very obviously don't use that phrasing on my site since it's not something i would use out of context + only used it here on pixel in a staff confessions thread for the purpose i just explained + with enough context to be understood.)
but also the situation is actually a whole lot more messy than "just say you're not a good site for beginning rpers but there's lots of other sites that are accommodating". while that's a good way to handle it privately on an individual basis after the member has started the application process, it's definitely not something that's going to work to put in a site's rules section or description area for fairly obvious reasons.
however, using labels like "literate / semi-literate" or "intermediate / advanced" to try to convey that message instead also gets messy between esl rpers often feeling like it targets them (which it often isn't meant to), regular rpers taking it as a red flag that a site staff are elitist jerks (which it may not necessarily be), the labels not really getting at what they need to (since most people don't realize returning rpers or platform-hoppers are often in a similar boat to beginning rpers), and people just generally not realizing that they would fall into that beginner category (since imo most people don't tend to think of themselves as beginners, even if they recognize they're new to this or might need a little more help than someone more familiar with the format + culture).
tl;dr, it's really hard to communicate that a site isn't really a good place to integrate someone who isn't generally familiar with current forum rp culture + norms when the labels we try to use to communicate this often get interpreted as a red flag by people it's not meant to be catching and interpreted as not applying to them by people it is, and boy howdy does that make me want to stare into a void every time i then have to have the staff discussion of "do we need to be talking to this person privately or are we just gonna deal with it?" out of curiousity: what does it mean to be "beginner friendly"? what does a site need to be accommodating to new rp'ers? what are the "basics"? like i know a lot of people that started out on Neopets, because that was the ONLY option. we've moved a long way from that. but like... you gotta start somewhere. and we're all using jcink or proboards, so personally, navigating forum software/interfaces doesn't factor in for me as whether or not something is for beginners. i do agree that literate/intermediate/advanced does rub me the wrong way, for the some of the reasons you've mentioned. and i'm not necessarily looking for a better alternative. i'm just curious as to what it means to be beginner friendly, and if you (used generally) aren't willing to be someone's first, then what should people look for? I really love the line "You gotta start SOMEWHERE". I think for some long-time writers, they tend to have a short fuse with new people/writers/etc. But honestly we've all made every mistake in the rp 'rule' book and once upon a time there were a lot more places to learn. I remember when I had my site years ago, I lost count of how many people personally messaged me thanking me and telling me of the horror stories they experienced just because they were new to the hobby. We talk about lack of sites, and a smaller member base, but I feel like that's just because we're not as welcoming as we once were when rping was shiny and new. And I have a lot of experience with this because I've brought a lot of new members in, from real life, or from other platforms. And a lot of them fall off of it because of negativity they encounter. I don't know, it just bothers me because I mean I read a ton of novels and mangas, shows etc that I can completely relate to someone writing for the very first time, so I don't fully get the issue. It might be hard or annoying, but no one here would still be writing if you joined the community only to be told sorry your to much of a toddler to write on our site, find somewhere else.
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