I recently read a thread saying the rpg is dieing and I though this deserved a more indepth discusion site wide. this was origanally written in response to this replay to the threads. Unforently I have to agree. I am new here and even I have noticed the lack on interest on this site. It seems to me the only active mod is cogito ( if there is anyone other than him ) I have not seen or heard from the admin since my joining. I realy like this site and I would hate to see such a beautiful place such as this fall into the deep abess of cyberspace. I think the best thing this site could do is adversitse. The only reason I found this site is because I wanted to find exactly such a site. But, I think potentail writers would not have the same urge to find a site where they can post/learn the art of writing. I also belive the rules are a bit to strict in some places. I think a great idea would be to let new members post one peice into the review room on there first joining. A more user freindly tuturail for critiquing, perhaps a step by step video of does and donts. I am not one hundred precent sure on this but, I think the invitation system may be brocken as the contacts I sent the link to said they never recieved it. perhaps a reward for getting a certain amount of members to join. some new sections ( With advertisement and hype of their arival would also get members interested ). More contests would also get the site going ( I have not entered them yet so I cant realy say for sure ) but I have only seen a short story writing contest and a poetry contest. These are all very easy to do sugestion that I think would make the site more exceresable to new users and possible more appealing to new users . Does anyone else have other idea they think would increase the active member population or perhaps a reason that things shouldn't change ? Not trying to start a revoluation or anything just realy dont want this site to die.
I think we definitely need contests happening regularly which are not restricted to Short Story and Poetry. The more contests there are, the more is the chance of participation. And one more thing, winners of contests should get something like a tag of "Winner of <this> competition somewhere" It makes people go for it. We could have two Short Story Contests with different titles per fortnight. But we are running out of active moderators. That would be a problem. We need more people to manage. And more varied sections in Reviewing like: Expert, Professional, Easy etc. People could post in either of these categories depending on the advice they need. Till then I would make the list, copy them down Brandon and I will remove them from this post. I repeat the words of Brandon_Trotter. We are not here to start a revolution. We just love this site and we don't want it to die. But of course this isn't going to die. Every forum has its ups and downs! Hope that this site will be on top of everything.
Thank you for your feedback. I agree with you this site needs more active mods. I belive that some top posters would be a great place to start looking for them. I think the best way to start more writing contests would be to start user genrated writing contests. I am not sugesting myself for hosting one of these as I feel I am inaducate to judge someones work, as I am now anyways. "The winner of contest" would be a great addation to such threads. A user could hold a weekly contests , monthly, wimly whatever and than the winners of such contests would be put on a list of winners by the user. I think I would enjoy hosting my own contest... but, I am not sure if I could do so fairly and correctly or even if I am allowed to. I think adventisment would be realy easy to, get some users together to put it on their facebook, email signature, messager display message or even signature to other forums/websites. The varied sections for reviewing would be a little hard to implement but, I think it would bring more reviewers in. I think alot of people would float around in the easy area though, but that would be fine becuase it help people work up thier confidence in thier writing and critiqing. I would be curious to see what the requirments to post in each catagory would be or would it be up to the user ? If it was up to the user their would need to be a straight forward guide to do so.
Strange that you mention this given that the majority view tends to the contrary. I am not saying that some of these ideas do not bear consideration, but I would be in frank opposition to anything that moves the site away from the 2 review policy it currently has. Our site is not intended to be a typical refrigerator door forum where post and run is the norm. I can assure you that the average site is just that for lack of any kind of review policy. Our focus is the review process as tool toward improving one's own writing, not a display case for members who post and only ever come back to see what kind of praise they have received. If we did away with the policy, that is precisely what we would have.
I agree broadly with Wreybies. The best forum of this sort that I've previously belonged to only had one moderator, and she actually moderated every post before it could even be posted. The forums I've joined with multiple moderators have been largely anarchic and farcical. I like the balance here.
I can not agree more with the both of you. There is a nice balance here. But, since I am new I am not aware of just how balanced it is. This is the first time I had joined a site like this and so far I am greatly enjoying my stay. I do not know if more mods would cause trouble, as I already said i am very new to these kinds of sites. I love this site for what it is and that is a place for showing of your work and learning what you did wrong and how to improve it. Not just a place to show of. I cant express how much I enjoy the help I recieve from this site. I love this forum, there is no doubt in that, but I do belive it has room for improvement. I am thankful there are those who disagree with me as now I can have a useful debate. Does this site need to be improved? If you could what would you improve? How would that improvement help the site or would that improvment harm the site? I cant wait to hear from everyone.
We have three very active mods: Banzai, Wreybies, and me. Contests: We do have two contests on a regular basis, and they do require significant time on the part of the members who run them. As for decorations and awards, that has been discussed before. Cluttering the avatar frame with more doodads would require software support, and for what? As it is, we have problems with cheating and vote-whoring for the minimal bragging rights the winner receives, even without adding actual prizes and decorations. I see no value whatsoever in further partirtioning the Review Room. Now, the base "problem." We have more members than ever joining on a daily basis, and by no means is there a shortage of active members. That number continues to grow, even with the inevitable attrition as people leave for various reasons. As Wrey mentioned in tje other thread, we did have a drop in activity when we cracked down on noise posting. This was not an undesirable drop. We had members spending time here for the sole purpose of socializing, and this is not intended to be a general social networking site. The volume of activity did not add to the site's value. It was a distraction, and even some of the participants were compalining that they couldn;t keep up with the conversations due to the noise. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Nicely said. I was unaware of the other two mods. I was also unware that attendance had been increasing so much. I agree addons are not nessacary but, I think that there could be more contests, are users allowed to host their own? I agree with you I do not come to the thread to socialize, I come to improve my skill such a drop in member that use this site as a "social networking" site should best leave. perhaps I should have reserched this more beforing geting worked up over something that turned out to be false. I still stand by one thing though a more user freindly tuturail. I think a video would help alot of new people better understand the process, I for one had trouble when I first started.
Member-posted contests are not allowed. If you have a suggestion for either a short story contest or poetry contest, send it to Gannon or Banzai, respectively. If you have a contest idea that doesn't fall into those categories, send it to the moderators for consideration. As I already said, running a contest requires work on the part of whoever is running it, and on the staff in general. Also, we don't want to cause confusion with regards to the actual site-run contests.
as one of the 'oldest' members here both in age and longevity of membership, i have to state unequivocally that this site ain't broke and don't need no fixin'! it's by far the best site for serious writers the web has ever seen... and i can attest to that, having been offering help on writing sites for many years before this one came to life... what it is not, is a place for the unserious to 'hang out' and play games, chitter-chatter about things unrelated to the art of writing... and that's as it should be... those who want to do all that other stuff can find plenty of places to do it, where they won't get in the way of those who take writing seriously and want a place where they can get the help they need to be successful at it... contests are kept to a minimum, since first of all, as was noted above, they're not always treated with honesty, in re voting... and those of us who are serious about writing know that competing is not a good way to improve one's work, can discourage losers and falsely encourage winners... bottom line is my starting one: don't waste time and energy tryin' to fix what ain't broke... love and hugs, maia
There's a common statistic that many forums show at all times: Most users ever online was 521, 1 Day Ago at 04:19 PM. It's useful to know whether a forum is growing or dying. "1 Day ago" is about as much growing as you can get.
O_O You quoted me! OP, Cog, Wrey and Banzai spend alot of time and effort moderating this site, and I know they do the very best they can. I think the three of them do a great job, and even if you don't see it directly, rest assured that they've always been busy behind the scenes. I might also add that Banzai sets his status to invisible, so although you can't see him until he posts, he is always online taking care of things. I think they do a fine job and having more moderators would complicate matters, and I personally would lose the sense of security that I get from them now. Too many cooks spoil the broth, y'know. Edit: I'd also like to add that I trust the mods to know when the site needs a reboot. I did express the opinion that I was worried about user interest in the site, but I'm sure these guys know what they're doing; if they think changes need to be made, they'll get it done. I think people should put a little more faith into these guys...we're in good hands!
