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How to retain new members? written Mar 24, 2021 0:19:31 GMT
phantom of the black parade
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speaking generally from my experience in the past decade or so of running sites (several for over a year at a time, the most long-lived of which lasted almost four years)....... the unfortunate truth of rping is that the vast majority of members just aren't going to stick around for very long.

a lot of that is just. tied up with the inherent nature of rp - after all, it's a lot easier to stay invested in a site when you've only been there a month and the hype over your potential plots is still sticking around compared to when you've been there three to six months and the plots you're most invested in are either stuck in limbo (whether from want ads or partners not posting or just generally not panning out) and/or have been ghosted out on. it's largely the luck of the draw whether plots end up bearing fruit long-term, and imo, it isn't really fair to expect a member to stick around on a site that's not actually filling any of their plotting desires.

that's probably why most sites that do really well tend to have a core memberbase that's made up of one or more friend groups / cliques. because that group tends to plot heavily with each other, meaning that they all tend to fulfill each other's plotting needs, which dramatically increases their likelihood of staying on the site in the long-term.

for me personally? excluding situations where i have an incident that pushes me to leave a site, probably the biggest factor i have for whether i stick around on a site is whether or not i end up picking up a plot with enough depth to it to keep my interest after that "new site hype" wears off. sometimes i'm lucky and i have a big want ad that gets taken by an established member or i hit the jackpot with something amazing organically..... but a lot of the time, i don't tend to have a whole lot more than "greeter" threads or pretty surface-level interactions (like "hey your character susie is a cop, my character brian is also a cop, we should thread!"), especially on established sites where most of the core members already have their major plots squared away (or attached to want ads that just aren't my cup of tea to rp), so i tend to pick up and move on to greener pastures to try again elsewhere.

to that end, i genuinely don't know what advice to try to help with that aspect of retention - mostly because it's entirely unfeasible to expect the established members to take a singular want ad from every newbie (especially if they're not too jazzed about the ad in the first place), nor is it always possible to come up with those kinds of in-depth plots for every single person (since imo it's not something you can force, either from your end if you aren't feeling the character or don't have anything available or from their end if they're making a character with an arc locked in place or that's difficult to plot).

i'll also add that you're not wrong in your first instinct that established sites with level-up / stat systems tend to plateau in regards to recruitment + retention because of the power difference - and that the solution isn't really just giving free goodies. this is another problem i've honestly not figured out how to solve (since for me, i tend to get turned off by it as a member once i reach a point that i feel like the power difference between me + the rest of the site is so significant that i'm not gonna catch up without a mountain of effort that i really don't want to embark on), not without throwing most of the systems out entirely so power levels remain largely static, thus making the entire issue a moot point. so. that's a problem that doesn't necessarily have a solution.

the only other real thing i would add to this is that i've found that stricter activity requirements tend to be a mixed bag in regards to retention - since imo, sure, it does weed out some of the slower + more sporadic posters from the get-go (or people like me who don't want to risk getting in trouble for situations beyond our control), but stricter activity requirements also tend to fall more heavily on characters with fewer threads + less investment, both categories that new members tend to fall into on a site, so if they're unlucky enough to end up in a situation where they're consistently struggling to meet activity expectations because they're not in a large number of threads and/or one or two fast-paced threads, they have a lower threshold before they walk away than an established member who has plots + friends they're invested in staying for. which isn't to say you need to loosen your requirements, per se (though that might help), as much as it is that if you're seeing a lot of people leave after periods of struggling with activity, well, this is probably a factor in why they left + you might need to re-evaluate parts of the system to lessen the strain on those members.

retaining members is hard, okay, and the only real secret i've managed to crack is "people tend to stay on a site longer if they have friends on the site + intricate in-depth plots they're hyped for" and that's it that's all i've got-
last edit on Mar 24, 2021 0:27:07 GMT by Kuroya

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Post a Random Thought written Mar 21, 2021 19:45:31 GMT
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my immense sadness that one of my favorite places to eat took down my order wrong and then the kitchen filled that order wrong

;;;;;;;; i just wanted delicious food but instead i got disappointment in a takeout box

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Post a Random Thought written Mar 15, 2021 21:43:57 GMT
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Mar 15, 2021 21:04:15 GMT said:
ras and vildred sharing a braincell is literally the whole plot of the first section of story


this is exactly where i'm at - ras + vildred taking turns having a singular brain cell while kayron sips wine and has custody of the other two shared brain cells

(aka i'm just reaching chapter 10 of the first story episode / season and i'm here for it)

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[IC] vixero - an upcoming fantasy animated panfandom written Mar 15, 2021 19:38:00 GMT
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ahhhhh that's so nice thank you!

honestly i have...... most of what i plan on allowing or excluding figured out and i'm pretty satisfied with it so far since honestly there's a lot of wiggle room built into most of it. (like. our big four no-nos are don't take from outright pornographic sources, don't take from sources that are super rude + offensive simply to be super rude + offensive, don't take from sources that are so obscure as to be basically stealing someone else's oc, and we don't accept original characters of any kind. most of any other "iffy territory" situations are gonna be up to a case-by-case assessment based on the nuance of the situation + will get a check-in before people start the app process just so we can greenlight general concepts before anyone's putting time + effort into a full app.)

the two categories i'm mostly on the fence for - cross-medium sources like books + live actions and player characters who are given extremely little characterization in their source material like the warrior of light from final fantasy xiv - are more things i'm personally pretty eh about on a panfandom but don't necessarily have a strong enough opinion against to hard ban them without a second thought. if i had a co-admin who wanted to make the case for them + was willing to put in the effort of making sure they'd be welcome (cuz imo it's kind of crappy to go "oh yeah sure you can app in castiel from supernatural if you use fanart for him" and then no one wants to thread with him because of that cross-medium source), i'd be down to allow them. i just. don't have a co-admin so i can't really hard make that decision one way or the other, so to speak.





yeah i've been looking for a good fantasy panfandom to settle down in for a while so i'm honestly kind of hyped that my brain finally managed to offer me the gift of a site concept that gives me what i want out of that without being super difficult for me to be able to run. i'm super hyped for the final product, just. gotta get there l-lmfao.

but yeah we're gonna be back in business babeyyyy c;

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Post a Random Thought written Mar 15, 2021 14:53:49 GMT
phantom of the black parade
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lovelorn Avatar
Mar 15, 2021 13:47:08 GMT said:
so true. same for cerise pavel and violet but cerise has custody of all three


listen, kayron would have all three, but ras and vildred need one to take turns with and also kayron has the -1 intelligence penalty of tenebria (and, to a lesser extent, nilgal)

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[IC] vixero - an upcoming fantasy animated panfandom written Mar 15, 2021 1:57:08 GMT
phantom of the black parade
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delightful uh i mean-

yessss! i've actually been trying to figure out for a lil while now exactly where i want to be drawing some of the lines for what we're actually not going to allow - some of it is stuff i know is gonna be a hard no from me (like sources like huniepop where it's basically impossible to separate the character from explicit sexual content) but some of it is more "i personally don't really like this on an animated panfandom but i'd be up for being persuaded to reverse course if i had a co-admin who was more enthusiastic for it" (like cross-medium sources like books or live action series). but. i don't think any of the characters i've seen you making eyes at over the years are gonna be on the chopping block, so you definitely have that going in your favor!

either way, definitely keep an eye out for us since. it is gonna be a slower build at the moment just because i'm solo building when i get a bit of motivation + time, but. it's definitely a project i'm enthusiastic for so :eyes:
last edit on Mar 15, 2021 1:58:42 GMT by Kuroya

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[IC] vixero - an upcoming fantasy animated panfandom written Mar 14, 2021 22:34:51 GMT
phantom of the black parade
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prelude

Asteria was never meant to fall.

And yet, for all the efforts of her greatest champions, when the archdemon Acheron rose against her in the Seventh Heavenly War, the creation goddess was finally laid low - but with her dying breath, she used the last of her strength to make one final wish: for her beloved land of Praeradetis to be blessed with new champions willing and able to defend her creation.

It's been fifty years since Asteria's prophecy, and Praeradetis had all but given up its faith in the fallen goddess, plagued as they were with Acheron's lingering influence, the corruption left in the land and the hearts of those who called it home - until the day that strange heroes began to appear in the ancient sanctums, each one bearing a mark of the gods, naming them Asteria's champions.

But in a world that has turned its back on prophecy and fate, that has learned to live without its champions, just how will you choose to write your story?


interlude

"Oh great," y'all say, shaking your heads, "Kuro's back with another thrice accursed animated panfandom". To which I say.... you're gosh darned right I am, because my heart and soul craves the sweet release of death playing so many canons and I've been having such a bad time trying to find an animated panfandom to call home over the past year that it's probably about time I bit the bullet and just committed to making my own.

In all honesty, Vix is right now in the really early stages of development, but well... there are a few things I can guarantee:

1) It'll be hosted on Jcink - I don't know whether or not it'll be premium at the moment, but that's a problem for future me to figure out.

2) The site premise is, well, gonna be what I teased above - your generic "creation deity fights chaos deity in an endless war" plotline with the typical "deity figure summons characters from other worlds" hook with the minor twist that "chaos won and killed the creation deity long ago" and "listen we know you came here to save the world but we don't want or need your saving so you do you in your new world we guess."

3) Building off that, the site is gonna have a variety of subsettings for characters to be able to plop down in and vibe; I have all of them in the "concept art" stage of development (which I'll tease later on if there's some interest) but I will disclaim that while most of them are more typical fantasy settings, there will also be a modern era / light sci-fi city setting for our non-fantasy characters to center in.

4) Honestly, I wanna be a bit more chill about trusting members to handle their characters responsibly - I got better things to do than smack someone's hands for, idk, wanting to play Mokuba Kaiba as a 16 year old during the main series instead of a 12 year old or getting screwed over because the next Arknights patch revealed Silverash has a long-standing arranged marriage to Siege or wanting to play Sebastian Michaelis from Black Butler despite the baggage of his canon with Ciel. Do what you gotta do to make things work for you without hard nuking things for everyone else around you and, y'know, be chill with the fact that there may be consequences to your actions (aka don't pull a surprised pikachu if you make Sebastian and then he struggles to get threads or you can't get your platonic ad for Ciel taken).

5) I'm 90% sure I'm gonna let members be able to pick whether they wanna go with a typical freeform app format or if they'd rather do a more in-depth "aesthetic app" (essentially letting you pick your poison for the personality sliders + zodiacs + mbtis + etc with a simple synposis "summary" or the longer + unstructured freeform layout).

6) Activity is probs gonna be set up so that it's one post per month per character (maybe with the option of claiming a one-month "get out of jail free" for every x amount of characters to try to cover a sitch where you just get screwed over on a character) but reserves are gonna be handled more as giving members reserve slots (you get a few extra when you join that whittle down) and reserves get listed with the date they're filed, you get two weeks guaranteed from the time listed, and then after that either someone can ask staff to clear the reserve (if you've basically ghosted us for a while) or get your blessing to take it (if you're still actively around).

7) There's gonna be a light questing system, but right now, it's probably gonna be set up more as a way to get two characters interacting where they might not otherwise stick around over anything more involved. (I just don't have the time or energy to try to mod out even a couple of lighter story/lore development type quests.)


final thoughts

Honestly, I'm kind of excited for this project, and like... it's probably gonna happen even if I get no feedback just because I'm craving a good fantasy panfandom and I don't think I'm gonna get it unless I make it. But. Feedback + interest is definitely a strong motivator for me to try to build the site out a bit faster and I'm more likely to drop a few more teasers + such if the idea's got some solid traction behind it (and yes, likes are nice, but replies are much valued seratonin).

But also, that being said, I'm definitely gonna be hyped to try to pick up some fellow staffers - I'm already nervously sweating at the thought of building out all of the lore + systems more or less on my own, and while I do have a friend who's said she'll help me out with the site, she also can't really step on as a full admin, so uh. Yeah. If this sounds like it's something you'd be interested in helping run, I'd love to reach out with you and chat!

Oh goodness, it's been a while since I've done one of these, time to yeet myself into the abyss from the sheer nerves-
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last edit on Mar 15, 2021 1:57:59 GMT by Kuroya