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the eldritch truth
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I've really got to figure out how to compartmentalize or whatnot: I have the best plots I've ever had, and yet staff shit/drama has killed my muse entirely
last edit on Apr 12, 2024 10:09:45 GMT by Phantasm
the eldritch truth
pronounsHe/Him
1,101written posts
Phantasmearned bits
offlinecurrently
Phantasm
Part of the Furniture
Phantasm Avatar
>try to put background-image underneath a 50% opacity linear gradient
>only goes on top and overwrites the gradient or doesn't show up at all




edit: (I'm stupid and forgot to put the 50% opacity :thumbsup:)
last edit on Apr 8, 2024 8:40:22 GMT by Phantasm
the eldritch truth
pronounsHe/Him
1,101written posts
Phantasmearned bits
offlinecurrently
Phantasm
Part of the Furniture
Phantasm Avatar
In regards to the prior discussion topic: I find any separation at all between 'player/writer' and 'staff' to be sort of counter-intuitive. Not that the idea is ill-conceived (holding yourself to higher standards,) but I have always found that the 'best' players often make for the 'best' staff, and vice versa.

Seeing an admin/mod who expressly does not write on the site does not fill me with much confidence, and I imagine it can't be anything more than ambivalent at best to anyone else. No one is bowing down and praising someone for denying themselves the pleasure of engaging with the site as though it were some Cincinnatus-esque virtue to do so. More often, it'd logically be seen as someone being 'done' with the site or hobby, though if they were still active in staff duties, it'd be hard to argue that. There are certainly cases that boggle the mind though, of staff members who do no work, haven't posted in years, and do not step foot outside the admin chat, but that's a case specific thing lol

Back to the original topic - perhaps ironically, I find the best sites I've ever been on had frequent accusations of cliques and whatnot. Expressly because those sites realized that the sort of player who is able to make big waves, lead plots, and forms a core part of the story, is exactly what they want in a staff member. As a consequence, all the staff members know each other well, work well as a team, have lots of experience on the site, are intimately familiar with the mechanics and story, and are active.

If we say staff ought to be 'separate' in a way (deny themselves the ability to pursue plots as they would have otherwise,) then what happens to the site when the people with the most experience and 'plot power' are plucked to be staff? Suddenly the site loses out on that drive, which is (when taken as a whole between all members) all that keeps a site alive.

The people with the most stake in a site are, unsurprisingly, generally the ones willing to do the most to ensure it's continued success.
last edit on Apr 7, 2024 7:47:17 GMT by Phantasm
the eldritch truth
pronounsHe/Him
1,101written posts
Phantasmearned bits
offlinecurrently
Phantasm
Part of the Furniture
Phantasm Avatar
Fairly rapidly becoming incredibly disillusioned with the 'no activity requirements' ideal - yes, you can't force people to be active, but I've found when sites have some form of activity requirements, it becomes something of a self-sustaining loop. It's something that is difficult to explain or to quantify, and I think it is often interpreted as a hot take, but the sites that do have activity requirement don't really seem to have people exploding into visceral reactions like you might get if you tried to institute that on a site without them

But generally speaking, if more people are posting, others will also feel more inclined to post as well - for one, people will see bigger/interesting plots moving and want to get in on them.

Though I suppose the confession is really that I've just gotten rather biased against 'casual' lax activity sites, probably because of bad eggs where people take canons/limited slots/plot important roles and then proceed to not post for six months, eight months, etc, and not get so much as slap on the wrist because there are no actual enforceable rules on activity and no one wants to be mean - but even if there were a hard 'one post in two months,' that situation would not exist. (Is one post in two months really that extreme?)