What's wrong or missing?

I have been to dozen other RP sites recently before settling for WTF and another one, what I noticed was among the countless RP sites, WTF tops them like a cherry with its awesome RP system. The character tabs, game log design, and overall features are just what all other RP sites need to adopt. So I was wondering why WTF feels less active than other RP sites? It got everything to be the perfect RP community.

I am not saying it is bad, I mean one of the other advantages here is the intimate experience with the few members you keep bumping into, hard to find in larger RP communities. We are like an awesome little friendly town :3:rolleyes:

This place used to be a hip, active site. We actually had people who would do voice chats and the whatnot. It was pretty neat. We tried to keep the community together with events, awards, and activities. There were more group roleplays, too, so you were always running into new faces and friends.

And then, some things changed and people left. I hate to raise my hand to this, but I was one of those people who brought a disturbance to the site. To put it lightly, there was a clash in opinions and how various members felt the site should be run/handled. People started to go off site to roleplay (including me) as they wanted to avoid the drama. And before we knew it, it was a ghost town. Some of us left on a 6-month plus hiatus. Others never returned and refuse to return as they have happened upon a new, lovely place they call home. Some only return to onexone with friends.

I know some people are turned off by the whole "not active" thing on here. Others don't like how the site has so many users but so few active people. Personally, I think there are a handful of threads that need deletion as they aren't welcoming/friendly. And, of course, the timing always plays a major roll. Summer vacation can yank people away. Winter break can yank people away. Midterms and finals ALWAYS impact activeness.

Right now, I think the best way to get the site "active," is to invite friends and tell people about WTF. And being active and always trying to get people involved. It's why the Halloween/Fall community roleplay was created -- to get people involved and to make new friends. More ideas like this are always welcome! It's just... hard to get people to join and it's even harder to keep them interested.

But that's just my two cents. I'm sure other people have other opinions on the lack of activity and how to bring more people on board.

WTF has always been a relatively smaller community than more choice names; I've always figured the site relied heavily on word-of-mouth and needed a more active means of recruiting (there was a time when a few individuals would go out of their way to advertise for the board, which did yield a very positive result).

But as Xav has already mentioned, there were incidents on the board that impacted the community fairly negatively. As a result, a lot of the then-active users either sequestered themselves to private role-plays or permanently left the site.

With regards to recruiting more people, I definitely agree with Xav that the more active members need to go out of their way to invite friends. Even if it's only one or two new people, one or two new active people can really change the way a forum feels (e.g. you don't constantly see the same usernames replying to threads all the time, etc.).

I know that, in the past, Schiz had also posted adverts to RP directories, which may have had mixed results. Regardless, I think doing that again is a good idea because it gets the site out there and makes it more accessible.

Of course, these are all recruitment methods, keeping members engaged is an entirely different issue (and a much harder task, I think). Still, the best course of action would be to greet all new players (not all players are willing to make an intro thread, which is why I've taken to welcoming new members via profile), creating seasonal/holiday events, and chatting in non-RP threads (this is something that I feel a lot of the current members don't do, which really hurts the site).

I also think that there should be a number of threads that need to be deleted because they're, like Xav said, rather unfriendly and give off a very wrong impression of the board. I might actually PM Knerd about this because it really needs to be done.


And, lastly, I'm really glad that there's discussion on this because I really do think that this is something we need to address sooner rather than later. I love the site's system, but my biggest problem with WTF has always been its limited number of role-players. I don't mind putting in the extra work to help something I love flourish, you know?

As much as I'd love to add a productive take to this discussion, the girls above me have already adequately summed up the rise and fall of this site.

Personally, in the past, I've put a lot of time and effort into bringing people into the community and creating new ways to engage them. I would roll with the sentiment that yes, we are a small community, but that's the best thing about us. I'd boast about the family "everyone knows your name" kind of feel. But you know when you take a group of people - say a group of students, and put them in a class at random. They see each other every day, and yeah, close friendships are made, but not everyone meshes neatly. And the fact that we were so small, it was hard to not bump elbows. As sad as the truth is - not everyone can get along. But that's true in ANY community, drama is everywhere, it's just easy to bog it down in busy forums.

What do I think we need? Simple. An active, interested ruler. It's always been one of our biggest issues, our only Admin early on was Maneki Neko, this site being a small side project that she appeared on occasionally even during it's most active times. These days this place is run by Knerd, who is doing a great job of keeping everything in line and as together as possible. But personally, I don't think this site - or any site for that matter can grow when staff simply maintains it.

On the subject of mods? That's tough, because I've seen it's benefits and I've seen it's risks. But with staff being busy it seems, it could possibly be helpful. Ideally, we need to find someone who can not just manage a group of people, but someone who has a genuine desire to bring this site back to it's former glory or even better. Someone who has the time, can put in the effort and the love this place needs.

All I know is I couldn't take a role like that on again, simply because I'm not cut out to manage. I on the other hand, make a very good cheerleader. But I've worked so hard in the past, i'm a little weary to take up the pom poms once again.

Maybe if I see some change, I'll take part. But I feel like an old cop past her prime. I need a rookie to come in and get my blood boiling again.

I want to be clear that what I'm about to say isn't a critique on anyone, but a simple observation.

In the past, when the site still had moderators, my feelings were fairly mixed. I liked the idea of having another person to turn to when there were problems on the site; I also liked the idea that a more active moderating team had the potential to instigate growth within the community. Both of those things are ideal and desirable. Unfortunately, a lot of things happened, which led to a very chaotic situation that, unchecked, continued to devolve. I'm not going to go into that because none of it is very relevant.

If the site reinstates a moderating team, there definitely has to be changes to how the team worked. I think, one of the main reasons the site witnessed the things it did was because there lacked sufficient oversight. It didn't feel as if anyone was holding anyone else accountable. I mean, moderators were essentially writing the rule book as they went along. Granted, this isn't necessarily the fault of the moderators or the admins, but, rather, the result of inexperience. I still believe that people had acted on good intentions, but, as everyone knows, the way to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Right now, though, I think the discussion we need to have is how to grow the site. The thing is, I'm not asking the site to be 10,000 strong by the end of the year; I'm not even asking for a 1,000 members. The only thing I'd like to see by the end of this calendar year is that the site has enough members to run 5 to 8 public role-plays with more than the same 3 or 4 people in each of them. It's great when the community is intimate; it means closer friendships. But a smaller role-play community is also a smaller talent pool. Essentially, the whole situation leads to reduced variety of role-plays, characters, and general options.

I know this whole post is something of a downer, but I just want to be honest with my thoughts and, hopefully, we can all work out possible solutions for either getting people to post publicly again or getting fresh blood into the mix.

The others certainly covered the bulk of the issues. I feel like giving sentiment toward the idea of cleaning this place up. I can certainly agree there are some threads and forums that need to simply be removed. Many of said threads have bad-vibes and a few select forums are generally useless. A good spring cleaning really is a good place to start with this site and some general advertisements. As much as mentioning it on Menewsha brings in some users, it certainly hasn't been enough to really keep this place alive.

Jing if you do happen to find out if Knerd is willing to do that let the rest of us know.
I certainly know there are some threads I really need gone.

Yeah, some of the sub-forums are definitely unnecessary or excessive and, for such a small board, it'd be better to remove them altogether or stack them inside a different forum.

I've already messaged her about it, I'll definitely let you guys know!

I submitted the site to a roleplay/forum directory.

If everyone up-votes the site we appear higher on the listing: http://www.toprpsites.com/details/Egolegume/

I've voted! But I also accidentally voted twice... whatever, lolol.

But yeah, I think doing this sort of thing will help and even if all it does is bring in one or two or three people, it's still something versus doing nothing at all and hoping people google-stumble onto the site, lol.

Glad to have received enough background to know about this place. Honestly among the things that really attracted me two years ago when I decided to join was the awesome RPing system and features. Also the more than warm welcome I received when I dropped my introduction thread was another thing that convinced me to settle here. Even Strude and Xav personally welcomed me on my profile, it was exciting, it was what kept me here for a while and what brought me back after a two year hiatus. Now about the drama between the members or staff, I have never seen that in person, so I don't know what it was like, but I am also glad I wasn't there to witness.

I think this place does need some more advertising and sorting like you gals said, there are countless lame communities there with bigger memberbase. WTF deserves some life injected into it. There is always visitors lurking about, we need to find a way to convince them to register and join. The online rate is always 2mems/40guests.

I will be more than glad to recruit one by one from other places, and call in my RP lovin' friends. Hopefully it will be a great addition! So far since my return I had nothing but good experience with the great members here and the interesting RP. Also let me cast my vote on that.

Yeah, I've always thought it was kind of weird how many "guests" there were. I also feel like a significant portion of that number might be bots though because, well, yeah. I'm not going to get into that either other than to say: I really hate some people and they definitely deserve to be shipped off into the sun.

That'd actually be pretty awesome! I'm trying to up my recruitment, but it's seriously tough. Like, the only other site I use (used) is Gaia and, well, the people I RP with over there aren't exactly super gung-ho about joining another site. I don't know, I guess they grew up on Gaia (I did too) and just don't feel like leaving, which is understandable, lol. I just wish people would give WTF a chance because it really is such a better RP'ing community than most other major forums.

Any past issues aside (as I wasn't here for them), I can tell you why my friend (who I tried showing this site) didn't like it, why I stayed, and why I left.

When I showed my friend this site they had wanted to move their roleplay somewhere that would be able to meet their needs and where a good number of people would bite so I thought "why not show them 'WTFRPG'?" Well it didn't really work. They thought the full-feature RPs had unnecessary features, wasn't aesthetically pleasing, and didn't really like the layout. I suppose that's all personal preference, but I admit that I generally prefer the thread format versus having each area as a singular thread. I'd be fine with it if the roleplay was styled more toward a huge, forum-thing where there would be multiple storylines going on at once, but it's usually not the case.

Anyway, moving on to what made me come and what made me go. I originally came here on Xavi's recommendation since it was where "Witch Hunters" was being hosted (shame it died but shit happens) and stayed because there were some active threads at the time that I was interested in. This sort of faded as the year rolled on. Since the community was slowly dying it felt like any group roleplays would die in a matter of weeks versus the 1x1s that would go on much longer. I didn't have any interest in those though (I think I did maybe two that again, ended up dying either because of me or because of the other person, no shade) so by then I figured that I might as well migrate back to my home site since they had a more active user base. I came back here one day out of curiosity as to whether or not the site got any better and it had. The userbase is still pretty small but at least there's a good number of threads going.

That's the thing though, if a site can't maintain activity then people are going to flock to other places. As far as WTF goes, there isn't anything else to do but roleplay so it lives and dies by that. Of the few friends I have that RP, I'll try to get them to come, but it is what it is I guess *shrugs*

I have been Gaia and I tried it, the way I see it is you either grow extremely fond of it and won't let go of it, you just get addicted to it. Or you totally just join in for like a week, enjoy its awesome features then like any phase you move on and never go back to it (my story). Gaia was awesome, but there is no way I'm going back there.

So yeah I understand the reluctance of those Gaia peeps to leave it for WTF. Though they could try.


@Cows I know it is a fact, but I try to ignore it, I can't afford to think the current RPs we are in will just soon die off without ever getting to a notable climax or chapter. I see that most of us got back and are somehow settling here, it looks like a start of WTF's relaunching. WTF 2.0

ok brb, gone recruiting.

I think WTF, as it is right now, holds a RP much better than a site like Gaia, where RPs tend to die every other week. Because WTF runs smaller, the actual members tend to be more dedicated about activity. So there's no real worry about a role-play suddenly dying off. People might lose interest (natural occurrence), but they're more than likely to let you know than to simply run off and vanish into the sunset.


The things that Cow mentions about the site are also some of the reasons my friends don't want to join WTF. Some of them like the idea of the full-feature system, but they also dislike how it looks. It also took a while for me to take to the site as well and I only stayed because Strude was only wiling to run her RP on this site. Another thing they're not really fond of is that they have a fairly established social group on Gaia. If they leave that site, their friends will also have to leave and, unfortunately, not everyone wants to move house. And since most people aren't willing to transfer to a brand new site (fun features or not), the few that might be interested don't find a lot of reasons to follow through. Especially if they can scratch their RP itch on Gaia just fine.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out who I know on Gaia isn't completely dug in. Hopefully I get at least one name! Because, you know, I think they'd love this place since it does post faster and it does have a more fun environment (or at least that's what I think).

I agree the site could use the option of a different theme. Just add one or two more so people have a choice.

I would join you all in the pulling people over, but I did that originally 3 odd years ago, back in the day, and those were the only people I knew. QQ

I will admit it does help to pull a good group over. I pulled in 17 and that really did the site welll back in the day. I remember this place bustled.

I finally got around to replying to Joon (sorry for the wait!) so I figured that I'd make my way over here too:

One of the issues that WTF has is that there's no incentive for posting. On Gaia, for example, posting earns you gold. You can then save up and work your way towards a dream avatar, or the newest items, or the most expensive thing in the marketplace, etc. There are clear goals and things that encourage you to keep on posting every day. WTF doesn't have anything like that.

In some ways, that makes our system a bit better - We're 110% focused on creating RPs and making that experience as fulfilling as possible for you folks. But on the down side, it means that our interested userbase is a bit limited and it's easy for users to suffer from a short attention span. If you don't have the little side projects to work towards, and if you don't have a lot of "money" invested in your account here, it's all too easy to walk away.

So if any of you folks are interested in revving up the userbase here and trying to spur forward activity, the best way to really do that is to 1. keep making new threads and posts in the forums, so that there's always a conversation to check up on, and 2. making new open, group RPs that any ol' user can join in. Yes, private storylines are often easier to maintain and they run less risk of abandonment, but new users need something to jump into so that they can get addicted quickly. Teach them the ropes! Work them through the process of using a full feature! Make friends!!! It's all easier said than done, of course, but that's the heart of a great site.

We're always going to tiny, but that's not really a problem. Just keep in mind that the best thing you can really do for the site is have fun and enjoy yourselves - Newbies can always sense that. If you like what you're doing, others are going to get curious and want to join in on the fun. <3

Like most everyone else, I too invited friends and posted on directories. Even up-rated WTF on some forums. Granted, that's all years ago. Sadly, most of the people I recruited did join and left or never joined because they didn't like the style/colors. And those that did join... well, they don't really want to come back because they've found their "home." Sucks, but that's life.

Not that I want to get into this topic, but sometimes I think it would be nice if we had "lesser" mods. Mods that have no power over deleting people or bots. Mods that can only clean up threads, offer advice, and maybe create events/cool layouts. For the holidays, wouldn't it be neat to see the denim flipped to orange and the pale blue flipped to light gold? Might get people in the spirit. (I picked two random colors, please don't visual these colors)

Strude/Joon, do you think we can maybe make a google doc to toss threads we want deleted? Might be easier to give Knerd a master list rather than having each of us PM her every time we see something we don't like. Could even give her rights to see it and cross off deleted threads. (Sorry, we rely heavily on google docs at work so I'm always trying to force them upon people)

Nice, Strude! I think voting will definitely help. Even if it only brings one or two our way, it's better than nothing. At least it's getting our name out there!

About those group roleplays... I'm hesitant to make them. I always hate putting buttloads of time into something for one person to join. I'm sure others are in the same boat. And when you poll people (i.e. what type of story would you join), you get limited responses. Makes it hard to really get people involved.

I also think Strude needs to GM a story. Your stories have always been different and intriguing. Maybe they will attract people? I mean, the graphics alone usually get me all hot and heavy ;)

But yeah, I think we're moving in the right direction. Recruiting friends will help. Keeping our name out there will help. Maybe coming up with graphics, banners, art, etc. will attract some wandering writers/eyes.

I don't mind working on a google doc. I actually do most things through drive anyways.


I'm in the same boat as Xav when it comes to making role-plays. I know that the only way to draw in people is to have open, available games for people to join, but it's really frustrating when the response is so listless. I don't want to spend weeks drafting a storyboard and then additional hours pulling graphics/layouts together, so that one person wants to join. And even though I understand that this is a necessary part of the site, I don't want to, essentially, waste my time.

I mean, even this year's Halloween Event was incredibly difficult to get people interested and I felt that, as a role-play, it was fairly open-ended and welcoming. Players were encouraged to join in as anything and create all sorts of opportunities. Personally, it seemed like a great, no-strings-attached way for other active members to write with each other (people they normally wouldn't write with) or for newcomers to just jump into the fray!

I'm also wary about just flooding the site with a bunch of new role-plays that, uh, don't have any takers. I think having "seasonal" events might be a nice way to always keep the door open for newcomers without, you know, overwhelming the board with attempts to get new players interested!

Also, is there a way to actually chance the "Role-Play of the Week?" Whenever I'm on the home tab, it always features the multiverse, which I don't really understand. I feel like it's better to feature a different game. For example, this month, it could have been the Halloween Event.

We do have two Featured Roleplays that are updated twice per month. Those are the ones that show on the main forum page and get their own post within the Announcement thread.

That "Roleplay of the Week" is unfortunately coded into the front page, so there's no simple way of keeping it updated or changing it consistently. That's why it stays on the Multiverse: That's probably our most diverse RP that can cater to users who enjoy different genres and literacy levels, so there's something in there for everyone. Not to mention that it's a decent place to start if you're just learning how to handle the full feature system. So at least for now, I'm afraid that's going to be stuck on the homepage.

Oh, I see. Okay, that makes sense. And I've checked out the Multiverse just now and it does seem like a really great way to kind of ease newbies into the site. Although, it's kind of like a ghost town right now, haha. Maybe future events should redirect to the Multiverse after they've expired or something? Hrm.


Also, I had a thought, I've been looking at some of the other role-play boards (just whatever I could find off google) and a lot of them have this really nifty live chat system built into their site. I know, currently, our board is fairly small and largely reclusive (there's 70 active members, but I only ever seem to bump into the same ten or so people), but during my google adventure I've run into some fairly small communities that have something like this in place and it seems to give the board a sense of activity.

I'm not sure how possible this is, but it'd be pretty awesome if we could throw in a live-chat (we can even name it something awesome). But yeah, I'm just browsing around for ideas and just trying to see how other sites are running themselves.

Oh god, not the chat boards, lol! They break my computer and force me off sites. Er, at least the ones with the fully integrated systems that are always visible on the side (like chatango -- I think that's how it's spelled). Those that perform like Facebook (with the chat at the bottom that doesn't toggltoggle on unless you click it) are fantastic.

For me, I hate watching/seeing the chat. It's way too easy to jump in and attack someone. That and the drama in them is unreal. @_@ so much harder to enforce rules roo. On a previous site I called home, we were constantly having issues with the chat. Some people were plainly blunt. some people took things too serious. It's hard to really know who's at fault. And since we had no rules back then, I had to play the devil's advocate and remind everyone that technically they weren't breaking site rules. Eventually, that lead to me getting banned and forced off site but whatevs!

Anyway, I do like how RPG sets up their in-roleplay chat. That's pretty neat!

We could have an IRC channel instead of a chat window integrated with the forum, IRC works well, lots of cool websites provide good IRC services.

I wouldn't mind a chat. I find with a small community like this it provides an environment where you can have a solid, full conversation that isn't stilted and broken up over an extended period of time.

I wouldn't use chatango either, but a built in IRC or some other addon based (built into the site) system would be nice.

I understand there are so logistics, but everywhere I've been it works just fine and rule enforcement isn't an issue.

Is there any update on the possibility of certain threads / forums being removed from public viewing?

I think a IRC is a pretty neat idea; I've never really used one, but it does seem popular. The thing is, if it's not integrated, I don't know how many people will actually use it.

Also, I think if there is decent oversight, the live chat is entirely manageable. From my limited experience, it didn't seem to be a problem. Of course, those sites may have been an exception and the times I dropped in may have been a conveniently "good" time. But I really think that as long as the rules are clear and enforcement of them are consistent than it shouldn't be a problem. Of course, I think the biggest thing is whether or not this can be added in.

I remember when Gaia was partnered with meebo a while back. The chat system they had there was really neat, of course, it was a friends-only chat system, so you could only live chat with people who were on your f-list. I haven't seen a system that you toggled in and out of that was a community chat though, but I'm sure it can be done. Probably. Again, I don't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing. I just thought it might be a cool feature.



@ Strude :

If you have thread or posts you'd like removed/reviewed, you should definitely PM Knerd about it because she'll delete/close threads that need to be deleted or closed. I'm not sure about the status of the g.doc, but if you could make it and link it here, that'd be great. Or Xav can do it. Or I can do it. Anyone can do it... lolol.

I see a couple new RPs popping out... *Dark Lord voice* 'Good.. Good'

integrated IRC could also work, and yeah moderation can be managed, it is not really a challenge enough to not have an integrated chat, only hope it won't affect people browsing through mobile most of the time (read: me).

I'll start a doc tomorrow Jong.

*whispers back* come join the new rp's. I need more gangster!

another suggestion is a moble friendly version of the site for a lot of our users who get on via their phone or smaller tablets.

^ Or at the least, make the character building part of the site bbc/html friendly. Makes it easier to edit chars when your keyboard is also your mouse and screen