Party members: Is there a such thing as too many members?

Is there a such thing as too many members?

While working on a little affiliating I stumbled upon admins who weren't advertising. They liked the number of members they had, and didn't feel they needed anymore. As a advertising crazed admin, that concept feels insane. I'd love to hear more about people's reasons behind this.

What are the benefits of a smaller site?

 

I don;t think there can anytime be too many members. And given that some get busy, enter hiatus, vanish without a word or post only once in a blue moon, the others, the active ones, are always needed.

 

Tbh, to me, the benefit of having a small site is less work to do for the admin. The benefit of a bigger site is a lot of creativity and a bunch of people to play with!

 

On sites that seem big but aren't recruiting often the staff will just get lazy with recruiting I think. They get in a comfort zone and they don't see the need to continue copy/pasting adds all over the place. I've seen big sites go stagnate because recruiting efforts stop and then the staff gets upset when activity drops and gives up because they don't understand why active members are plummeting. People come and go, and at least a few adds here and there will help keep more coming.

 

For a play by post game, depending on the frequency of posting by the players, 3 or so members is ideal and over 5 tends to make it such a long wait between posts (unless a very quick posting rate is agreed to before hand) that people become less engaged and they drop off until you're left with a small number of regular posters or the RP eventually fades away

 

It's easy to get overwhelmed if you are used to smaller groups. I'm one of those people; the majority of the groups I've written in over my ten or so years have generally been less than 15 players, but they were all very active and dedicated. Even with even fewer, so long as everyone is active, it doesn't really bother me. I do prefer to have 5+, but most of the people I write with have multiple characters and write them clearly enough that they don't blur in such a way that you know the same player is writing them.

 

It depends a bit on the kind of site you're trying to run. I think at least.
The upside of a smaller site, with fewer but engaged members is that you can have a real community. Cliques and niches are less likely to happen. On a bigger site, you'll easier find people to play with, but chances are also bigger cliques and niches become a thing. I'm currently a mod on a smaller site, and personally prefer this over the bigger sites where I've been staff. Right now, I can oversee everything. I can get to know all my members more personally. I like that. I've written member of the month pieces before where other staffers had to feed me the information cause I'd never even heard about the member I was writing about...

 

For players, the more the merrier - for the DM it's simply too much.

 

hmm I don't think so, but same sites would think so... so who knows.

 

I think it really depends on the play-style of the community and the game itself. For something more involved where there is more of a central plot, or perhaps where people are posting really long interactions, I could see benefits in it being small. For my own style of spree-posts and a relatively free world with player-driven plot, I think the more members the better.

 

Love this!! I definitely agree, I think having less members sometimes help people bond and like Shriker said, you can build something that includes everyone. Sometimes at a busy site, things can get a little overwhelming and there's more chance that members will fight/cause drama. Also having roleplay buddies is awesome and I find the chemistry between characters works even better if you're mates as well!

 

From first hand experience, the problem with lots of members (on a very active site) is that there are so many storylines going on at once and sometimes they are conflicting (whether because of timing, which is only realized when lanes cross, or content) and then it's left to me to clean things up. With a bustling personal life, I'm unable to read everything that people are writing (especially when there are 50-100 or more replies a day). It can sometimes make for a lopsided story, or even require backtracking and fixing places were there are lore discrepancies or "which character did which thing first" conflicts to sort. Now, that being said, it's always SO FUN to meet new roleplayers and new characters and have new flavors put into the soup that it would be SUCH a pity to limit members. For instance, my site has been open for 3 years but one of my favorite members only joined a few months ago.

So, short answer--I vote YES. But it all depends on what kind of site the admin(s) set out to make.

 

I don't think it necessarily means they don't want more members, they are just content and invest their time into the members they have instead of all the could be members.

I am an admin that spends zero time going site the site advertising, we do not even have an advertising forum. If I do feel like putting our link out there, I take the time to make a more meaningful impact with resource sites like this. :)

I have also run a private site where we closed things and the members we had continued to post and write among each other. This really wasn't for any other reason than the staff and members not being in a place or time of their life where they had the time to take in new plots or members. The alternative was to close the site and we just didn't feel the need.

 

I tend to find that most sites have a "core" member base of very active members, who are posting and online every day more or less without fail. You then have satellite members who dip in and out, may be active on other sites, but this site might be their second or third priority. You've got the new joiners, the lurkers, the ones who have joined and immediately dipped. I'm not sure what the perfect number is; it probably varies from site to site. I have been on big, small, and medium sites. They've all got their pros and cons.