If i made a RP forum..

[•?//L•]

Hi,

All my forums so far, have turned out.. Terrible.. In months, after loads of advertising.. No members.. So..

I have done some research, and it turns out that people LOVE RolePlay forums..

Have any of you ever seen MazeRunner?

If not :

SPOILER: Click to show

Thomas (Dylan O'Brien), a teenager, arrives in a glade at the center of a giant labyrinth. Like the other youths dumped there before him, he has no memory of his previous life. Thomas quickly becomes part of the group and soon after demonstrates a unique perspective that scores him a promotion to Runner status -- those who patrol the always-changing maze to find an escape route. Together with Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), the only female, Thomas tries to convince his cohorts that he knows a way out.

Im thinking of making a RolePlay forum for maze runner, is it worth it? Would anyone even join?

[Boy_Wonder]

If you're making a roleplay forum it shouldn't just be because you want members, it should be something you are honestly interested in yourself, and something you wnat to do

[•?//L•]

Jul 9, 2016 6:19:14 GMT -8 Boy_Wonder said:

If you're making a roleplay forum it shouldn't just be because you want members, it should be something you are honestly interested in yourself, and something you wnat to do

It is, ive just started joining RP forums, and they seem pretty cool, and i have some cool ideas for them.. Just wondering if its actually worth makin one, or if ill be RolePlaying by myself

[Boy_Wonder]

I've had Memories of the Creed coming up for two months. Either way you're up for a long hard slog of advertising and no members. There is no quick fix for getting members, you're either lucky or unlucky. That's all there is to it

[Kami]

Roleplay forums are HARD WORK. Incredibly hard work.

I was an admin on a very popular RP forum for nearly a decade. My daily jobs were as follows:

- greet new members
- remove inactive members
- review character applications (a process that could take hours, if not days, sometimes weeks depending on the situation for even ONE)
- update staff records about application statuses
- basic daily moderation
- answering guests & member questions
- daily advertising
- review any member disputes and reports of misbehaviour
- reviewing member suggestions / complaints
- review the RP training for those who wanted to practice their skills
- dealing with belligerent members and ex members (yes this was a DAILY thing, it's part of the price of popularity)

This, even in our slowest times, took at least three hours on average. In our busier times with literally hundreds of members and dozens of new applicants a day, and literally thousands of guests per day, could take me all day.

My other tasks that weren't daily, but still had to be done:

- forum design & technical troubleshooting (I was the designer and coder for my forum)
- adjusting the roleplay timeline after conferring with other staff to see what the players needed and what the site needed to move forward and adjusting for the best solution between the two
- adding new content (special events, new boards, implementing member suggestions)
- addressing topics our moderators couldn't handle / didn't have the clearance to address
- keep all our moderators up to date on policies and events

Depending on the situation these added at least another hour to my admin tasks, but usually another 2-3 hours.

In our busiest time (between 2006 - 2009) the head admin and I literally had to set up conference calls on a weekly basis with our other core staff members so we had a real time way to discuss what needed to be done with the site and how to accommodate our growing member base. At one point we had about twenty staff members, five of them admins and gmods (core staff, an odd number to break any tied votes about decisions), the rest board mods (branch staff), just to be able to handle all of our responsibilities.

I haven't even thrown accommodations for work and school into the mix.

If you've made it this far, have you noticed that role playing is not on the list of tasks I did daily? That's because I was literally unable to roleplay on the average day because I was too busy admining. I wrote replies on average maybe once a week, usually less when I was working because site upkeep took precedence over the RP otherwise the site would cease functioning smoothly.

Add RP into the mix and that's another 2-3 hours at least depending on how many plots I had active at the time.

This lasted for nearly ten years. We closed our doors about two month short of our eighth anniversary because the staff collectively could no longer keep up with the demands on their time. To illustrate just how long of a time to keep this up was: one of our staff members started when he was a sophomore in high school; by the time we closed, he had graduated college. I had finished what I could of college, gotten married, divorced, and had two children. Another staff member got married, finished nursing school and became an RN. One of our longest staying members graduated college and they joined in middle school.

I'm currently in the process of starting a new roleplay. The setup work on it alone has taken me literally six years -- I started setting it up in 2010 and have not made it live because I'm constantly readjusting the way the site runs to accomodate for new information released by the franchise my game is based off of. I anticipate many more months of coding (waiting for v6), and at least a year of advertising daily to even drum up a fraction of the activity the other site had.

Starting a roleplay forum is not something you should do unless you are willing to put in the time and commitment, especially if your goal is to get ~popular~ (which, to point out, is a terrible reason to start an RP forum). RP forums should be a labour of love, and if you aren't willing to commit to long and arduous hours of work then don't start one. It's not enough to have a cool idea or think it's neat, if you're not prepared for the work then it's pointless. That's why you see sites closing for "inactivity" or admins changing their minds after a few weeks or months.

You're in it for the long haul, or you'll fail. Wondering if you'll RP by yourself or if it's "worth it" before you even start tells me your heart isn't really in it. Lukewarm sentiment will get you absolutely nowhere -- it shouldn't matter if people would even join, you should make the site because you love the topic and want passionately to RP it.

RP forums only succeed if you decide before you start that you want it even if it doesn't explode into popularity but are fully prepared for the hours upon hours upon hours of work if it does.

Edit to add: just to note, people are more likely to join an RP if they feel the admin and staff are passionate and just as into the story as they are. Find something you adore and build an RP off of that if you really want to do this, rather than asking if people will join x topic. I've been a member of fandom long enough to know that if you build it they will come.

[Boy_Wonder]

My site Memories of the Creed is a lot less active then Kami's is. But let me give you a run down of my tasks

I spend about 2 hours a day just coding in the getting started guide (admittedly this is just the information)
I guarantee at least an hour where I'm exclusively monitoring the helpdesk for new cbox questions
I spend 2 hours advertising
I spend pretty much ALL my time in the cbox ready to field questions

I'm not a natural 'posterbater' (the common term used to indicate posting with yourself) So I tend to posterbate once a week when I'm feeling really inspired, I then knock out some more posts to myself.

Remember on top of this as I'm the only person actively roleplaying on Memories of the Creed I HAVE to make it look like its fun (even if I'm mentally groaning and feeling like I'm pulling teeth)

[Kami]

I think Boy_Wonder brings up a great point I didn't address in my wall o' text -- a lot of times it's not going to be "fun" to run your site.

I mean, if you don't love it at all then it's time to stop, but there are periods of time and certain activities that will make you want to pull your hair out even if you still love what you do.

I remember a time where I had to deal with a member that would throw a tantrum every other week if they didn't get their way, usually by being passive aggressive and making sure to find some loophole in our reprimand even though they knew it went against the spirit of what we had said. At one point after a particularly difficult confrontation, they rage quit the site and left a bunch of spam and posts in another language (this was back in the days when ProBoards had to be English only) to try and get the forum deleted just to spite us (they later returned after a few years and was placed on probation, but the time apart improved their maturity).

That's not even one of our more extreme cases, haha.

An RP forum is without a doubt work. It's work you love, it's hopefully fun, but it's incredibly challenging and a huge time sink and there will be times when you want to punch a wall.

Edit: tbh re reading the OP it's coming across like this thread isn't really about whether or not to start an RP, but trying to hunt for prospective members which I'd like to gently remind is not the purpose of this board :x

[•?//L•]

thank you all so much for replying!

A RP forum is actually kinda new to me.. I only just re-read my OP which sounds like im desperate for a popular forum: isnt everyone? Popularity, would be a great thing, but i respect the fact that i most probably won't get it. i dont know if people will ever join. i dont even know if people know about the movie that i mentiod. 'The Maze Runner.' i cant predict the future, but if i get to a stage where i have to put hours, and whole days in, then i will. To be honest it sounded like you were listing bad things, such as filing posts etc… I think the opposite. I think, actually that sounds kinda cool! I want to file posts, and deal with bad members. I want to do this, because i know, its gonna be a journey, an adventure! But the best thing about it, is that this adventure, all links in with The Maze Runner! I dont know if im gonna make this yet but if i do.. It will be amazing!!

[Kami]

i don't think they're bad things.

The reason I listed these tasks were because a vast majority of people who want a "popular" forum have zero idea what the reality of having one is. If they wind up popular somehow then it turns into a mess. I speak as someone with nearly two decades of forum RP under my belt, 11 of which were with ProBoards, that a vast majority of forum owners are completely unprepared for popularity. I can't count the number of forums that have crumbled after reaching a hundred unique members -- not accounts, bc some sites allow for multiple per person -- if they even make it there, because they can't cope with how hard it is to run a successful and popular (bc the two do not necessarily go hand in hand) forum. It's not always going to be a walk in the park, play with everyone, kind of deal.

I believe I can speak for Tinselled Loki as well as myself when I say our point was that you need to be passionate about whatever it is you're creating because RP forums -- even those that stay at a dozen or less players -- are a tonne of hard work and not being passionate about it will make you burn out quickly. It shouldn't be about whether or not you can find members who know the franchise. It's your job as admin to make it appealing even if they don't.

If you have passion for the topic and are eager to RP it, then it's always worth it to put in the time and effort.

[•?//L•]

i understand your point, 
yes. I think ill make it, and see how it turns out… Can i PM you? Kami

[Kami]

Jul 9, 2016 23:05:31 GMT -8 •?//L• said:

i understand your point, 
yes. I think ill make it, and see how it turns out… Can i PM you? Kami

Good luck.

And I'm sure you can PM that Kami if you want but my username is kamiyakaoru :P

If you want to PM me, however, you're welcome to do so as long as you don't ask me to help you with your forum :)

[Pebbles]

Jul 9, 2016 22:55:15 GMT -8 •?//L• said:

thank you all so much for replying!

A RP forum is actually kinda new to me.. I only just re-read my OP which sounds like im desperate for a popular forum: isnt everyone? Popularity, would be a great thing, but i respect the fact that i most probably won't get it. i dont know if people will ever join. i dont even know if people know about the movie that i mentiod. 'The Maze Runner.' i cant predict the future, but if i get to a stage where i have to put hours, and whole days in, then i will. To be honest it sounded like you were listing bad things, such as filing posts etc… I think the opposite. I think, actually that sounds kinda cool! I want to file posts, and deal with bad members. I want to do this, because i know, its gonna be a journey, an adventure! But the best thing about it, is that this adventure, all links in with The Maze Runner! I dont know if im gonna make this yet but if i do.. It will be amazing!!

to be honest
that sounds weird to me
that you want THAT
you should not want that at all as a forum owner?
you should want the fun and good stuff.... happy and fun and friendly members
why would you want to deal with people who misbehave and make your forum look bad?... but maybe thats just me.
anyway...i am guessing you just want a forum that is active and sounds like you have never been staff on one that is and where you have to deal with a lot.

like said above basically, you need to make a forum about something you are passionate about, something you love and you really want to find people to share that particular interest with...
if you only care about attention and popularity.... it is never going to work. I have seen it many times where people just keep creating forums but only for the sake of it.... to be able to call themselves an admin and so they can ''brag'' about it(not saying you are one of them people) but you need to see the bigger picture here.
being a member of a forum , a community... it's like real life and hanging out with friends and making new friends.
Creating a friend group and be popular all together in real life is basically the same but that ain't going to fall out of the sky now is it. Unless your rich but that is probably going to be fake friends then anyways lol


there is so much to think about when you want to create your own forum. you mentioning that advertising did not work....
it is not just about advertising you know. i don't know what you do or how you do it and what you make your forums look like, layout wise.... but believe me, talking with like years and years of forum experience, advertising is definitely not the only thing that needs to be done.

[wildmaven]

Great conversation, everyone, and definitely a prime example of what kind of thread is perfect for the Managing Your Forum board!

[Former Member]

Jul 9, 2016 10:39:33 GMT -8 Kami said:

In our busiest time (between 2006 - 2009)

According to google trends, this would seem to be accurate.


www.google.com/trends/explore#q=rp%20forums

[Kami]

Jul 10, 2016 13:47:54 GMT -8 @synthtec said:

Jul 9, 2016 10:39:33 GMT -8 Kami said:

In our busiest time (between 2006 - 2009)

According to google trends, this would seem to be accurate.


www.google.com/trends/explore#q=rp%20forums

Haha, neat! Also it was, for my specific forum, the height of our fandom's popularity before the series went on hiatus (: