The worst thing you've ever done with your forum-site.

I guess there are a lot of things you can do with your site that is effectively detrimental to game play or member attendance. I think for me, it has been creating a Discord channel and I so regret doing that. My members now spend more time there than on the forum and its been extremely hard at times to motivate them back, short of shutting down the Discord channel. What has been your worst move for your site/forum?

 

To Discord or not to Discord.... this is such a complicated subject. I think Discord can be very helpful, and effective, if used in support of the site. For example, we use our for reply tagging, and announcements. But you do need to be careful about RP daydreaming... I tackle this by being somewhat direct, when I see people plotting endlessly etc in Discord, I step in. So far it has worked. I have experimented with no Discord, and to be honest, that did not work out well in the end. So, I like Discord, but you need to manage it as an admin.

For me, not a horrible thing, but IC comms. People ended up 'texting' in game all the time and neglecting their stories. In my latest site, we do not have IC comms, if people want to write about texting etc, then they can incorporate it into their story posts.

 

We got rid of our "site" Discord - it was just a breeding ground for drama and procrastination in equal measure. It was also a real drain on staff resources / time. We now have "city specific" Discords which are geared for different cities in our game. That allows us to (mostly) keep them focused. But honestly, we have a love-hate relationship with Discord. Some players find it really helpful. Others, not so much.

 

Discord is cancer to communities—provides a breeding ground for drama, divides communities and invites a constant barrage of people whose only interest is recruiting for their server. Above all it's a vessel for harassment by bad actors.

Honestly, our worst move was ignoring SEO. We kept too much content locked away (that didn't need to be) and the result has made us too reliant on voting sites and advertisiment.

 

Accepting writers when the forum first started than I normally wouldn't when the sites already rolling. The site was new and I wanted it to live - but I should've had more patience and waited for the writers I truly wanted to join.

 

I hear this, but disagree. I've found that Discord has been a very pleasant change of pace for many people in the community and has helped to create a very supportive, open space. One thing I've been struggling with related to Discord is increasing communication for members who don't want to be part of the Discord. I have some ideas in the works, but I think it's all a bit of a balancing act.

Back to topic, the worst thing I've done with my forums was have myself as the sole administrator. I've only done that once, and boy, never again. Nope. Waaay too much pressure, and I found that I became more controlling :/

 

We agree to disagree on Discord. I guess it comes down to the individuals and how much they invest in your site itself. As I said earlier, it has become far too much of a distraction away from the forum and I am going shut our discord down very soon.

On your second point. I couldn't agree more. I just wish I could get someone to run/admin my site so I could focus on the more important aspects of the role play.

 

Worst thing I ever did was trust a "friend" (or what I had thought a friend) with my trust and full admin privileges (yeah yeah I know) and they stole my info, and took all the people (oh they were better friends I guess) with them... after they had been booted from their last site for drama with "improper activities" and left me with only a couple of reliant and dedicated members. Won't ever do that again...

And so now comes to revamp and rebuild...

 

Opened a site right before my real life decided to explode. I feel like everybody thinks I'm a flake but I'm trying to pick up the pieces now.

 

I know where you're coming from. I'm trying to balance my everyday life with running the site. Frankly I think I'm done, I don't think I can do both for much longer.

 

I would have to say that Discord is definitely a double-edged sword when it comes to forum communities. It's just so much easier to sit in there and chat off and on, for hours/days/months... speculating... just shooting the breeze... procrastinating, etc. I found myself doing it a lot too, with the motivation to write RP gradually ebbing away. But it's a personal thing - so I realize that some people are immune to the 'Discord trap' and will not allow it to distract them from what they supposedly love to do so much - that is RP writing.

P.S.
Of course, it gets doubly worse if your forum becomes obsolete on the account of discord and members start RP-ing there, instead of on the site you took so much time and energy to lovingly put together. I've seen this happen with a forum once before, where the latter got shut down and all discussion was moved to Discord, permanently. *sadge*

 

Last year I moved my site from SMF to Jcink, hoping it would give us more advertising and other options, but that proved to be a horrible move. So, I just moved my site back to SMF lmao.

 

Open a modern royalty website where the starting event was the King passing away on the week the RL Queen Elizabeth II passed away.

Was quite awkward. Had to put everything on pause and rehash the whole beginning event to make sure it didn't seem tone deaf or just plain opportunistic.

 

IC groupchats are definitely the nadir for me. They’re like the fast food of RP: a way to easily binge in a format where you don’t need to put any time whatsoever into thinking about setting, character actions, or even the ongoing plot. They also have a nasty habit of formenting pointless, petty dramas way faster than the rest of the plot can catch up with, and they’re a fantastic source of messiness, cattiness and clout chasing both in and out of character.

I’ve seen IC groupchats included as non-canonical elements of a roleplay and I think that’s the only type of place I’d join with one anymore—at least if it isn’t canonical, any dumb dramas can’t effect the plot. IC texting can be fine provided it’s structured well, and I think it actually provides an interesting way for characters to interact 1-to-1. Defnitely not throwing everyone into a huge unmoderated chatroom blender, though.

 

We should start a thread regarding the best thing we've ever done. I have had the exact same experience. As well, I think Jcink sites are the most ridiculously complicated sites out there. SMF is so simple for anyone to use.

 

Honestly, the worst thing I've ever done with my sites is inviting toxicity by not actively policing tone and decorum. Seems like such common sense now...

 

it's so easy to be passive on things for fear of looking like a boring, strict overseer, IMO. Lesson learned though; I've definitely been in the same boat.

 

Not being picky enough about members fitting into culture~!

 

In character chats on the site. It took away from how much writing was done on the forum and became problematic. In idea it seemed a good way to help move plots along but it started creating ic drama which was fine but then member starting having issues with each other over what was happening in the ic chat. Ultimately it was what started the end of a very old site I ran with some friends.

 

For me, and it was a hard lesson many, many years ago, but making a friend a co-admin and then, not holding them to the same rules as members. Letting them get away with things, not wanting to hurt their feelings. I think, the biggest mistake I made was being in a position, as a people pleaser, admining. I am a recovered people pleaser now and certainly find it far easier managing groups.