Reality Wrestling - Opinions please!

[realitywrestling]

Recruitment is going pretty slow and I wonder if anyone can provide opinions on what I can change?

realitywrestling.proboards.com/

Please let me know.

Appreciated,

Ry

[:~:Sarapha:~:]

Hello realitywrestling, I am Sarapha, a friendly reviewer of forums. The way that I review a board is that I look it over as a guest, and write down what I see, in the order I see it. Then, I take another look, and see what details can be tweaked. I have 8+ years of experience with Proboards and its glory. Let us start

First Glance
The main banner really doesn't do anything to tell me what the site is about. The white block text is also a tad difficult to read. From this, I can't tell if it's an RPG, a discussion, or whether it stays true to only one franchise. Also, the "No Gimmicks, just wrestling" part of the banner is a bit... Well... It's misleading, especially since the characters depicted within the banner are of WWE origin, which is 80% storyline gimmick, 10% wrestling, and 10% commercials.

Scrolling down...
I'm still not entirely sure what the premise of this site is. It looks like it might be an RPG, but I don't really see any boards where RPing necessarily happens. I see a bunch of places to cut promos (further confusing the 'No Gimmicks, just Wrestling" part of the banner)

If it is an RPG
I don't really see any locations where two superstars may pit against each other, or build any sort of plot together. I don't really see much interactivity between members; not for the sake of the members themselves, but just that I don't see anywhere that it would be technically possible.

Empty Space, Empty slots
According to your info center, no one has been online in the past 24 hours. Not even staff. That itself is a huge turn off to most potential members, because the Online in the past 24 Hours is really how people know whether or not the site is active or abandoned. The chatbox hasn't been posted in for 10 days. As an administrator, you want to make sure that at least you are on every 24 hours, and to set the example. Just pop in once a day, even if time is pressed, maybe post a "Hello everyone!" in the chatbox every once in a while. Something to show people that the site is still active, is still there, and they won't be wasting their time in joining the site.


The Rules
I must admit, I had quite the difficulty in looking for the rules. You have two threads that look to be informative threads, but not either of them that really depict that one contains the rules for the site. Even so, after reading the one that seemed to be the rules, it appears that it is only In Character rules, not much on what I'm expected to do and not to do on your site before I even create a character. Out of Character rules are intensely important, if you want stability within the site. One of the rules definitely does come as a confusion. It states; "CAW only. This means create a wrestler. Your character can have the appearance of another superstar but they must be unique. For example, you could have Randy Orton's picture base but you're not Randy Orton, right?" Firstly, CAW isn't a term that I'm familiar with, which is very unusual, given the amount of experience with RP sites of every genre. I more universal term for that would be OC (Original Character). Secondly, you state that no one can create a known character, but the main banner boasts three WWE superstars. The banner itself is misleading to the rule, since, from it, I can only gather that the three that are listed there are the ones that are in the spotlight.

That rule itself may also be what is negatively affecting your population. Without offering people the reason why they shouldn't be able to make their favorite Superstars in the aspect of a compelling plot, you're going to be turning away a huge amount of people that actually like to post on Wrestling RPGS (the numbers on those, admittedly, are small to begin with). A site so clearly within the premise of WWE (having images of WWE superstars, the PPV that WWE promotes), but then telling people that their superstars from the WWE are not allowed, that makes it all the difficult. People like Canons (the recognizable elements to their favorite fandom). Whether it is because the character is very easy to create, with their recognizable story and look, or whether there is another reason at play, I'll never know, but fandom sites that entirely omit the fandom in question are the ones that see the hardest ability to draw in a crowd. Those that are able to do this are ones with extremely compelling plots, and things already in place to set the guidelines for whatever is going on with the site. When I look through your forum, it looks like a lot of "Create a wrestling character, and go with it." with little to no help from administration in making feuds seem important, making factions seem important, or, heck, even something as simple as a display to say who has the Championships. What happens if you get three characters that say they have the world Heavy Weight Championship? There are just a lot of questions up in the air, and it seems like the member in question would need to go through too many hoops and hurtles to really accomplish anything on this forum.