Proposal; Select an RP Moderator

@Totemic Hero: I know one of the main reasons I stick around TV Tropes is the promise of a wider player base. Having a premium vs. free to play section might discourage newbies from joining at all. Those who do join, will stick around the free to play area and so most people looking for fresh blood would still be trawlling along there. While, if we want an exclusive game, we can call it invite only. The issue with this feature is that it really adds nothing to the boards that it doesn't already have so I don't think a lot of people would buy in. If they do, then we;re discouraging newbies and those not willing to buy in from participating to some degree and the diverse player base is one of the strengths here.

@Fast Eddie: Promoting someone in the board, primarily concerned with the RP board wouldn't cost money or necessarily make things more complicated. It would spare the mods having to come in every time a dispute happens there since they now have someone to delegate to.

edited 4th Jul '12 9:20:07 AM by Fauxlosophe

Wouldn't the best solution be to have more people moderate this board and take care of troublemakers as they happen?

What Loco said.

As someone who has no way to pay, I think that the premium RP idea would cause problems. While the idea has merit, it still would cause inconvenience and frustration from people who can't pay for badges and therefore can't join premium [1], no matter how much they prove themselves to be trustworthy. Maybe if people could get the necessary badges from being deemed trustworthy, but otherwise it seems like what it would primarily do is cause problems for good [2] who can't pay.

I'm aware it's an opt-in feature; my argument is that very few people are going to opt in.

Speedchesser, I think it's worth restating that it's very rarely "untrustworthy" R Pers in the first place. Trolls can be spotted and kicked out from signups usually or if not weeded out soon after. Clashes comes from tensions built up after months of an RP where visions diverge, sometimes it ends harmlessly, sometimes people just drop out, sometimes the conflict takes place off the boards [or over P Ms] and sometimes it explodes on the boards and that is when the Mods are called in.

All I think this would do is divide the board between "Those willing to sponsor TV Tropes" and those Too New/Too Broke/Unable/Unwilling to, which basically just whittles down our pool of players and discourages newbies.

edited 4th Jul '12 2:42:50 PM by Fauxlosophe

Hm...

I will say that this is a very interesting and innovative idea, but I don't know if it will fly on a technical standpoint, like as in how it will all work. Well, I might do have some idea, but I'm thinking of an entirely different site. (Epicmafia, if you're curious as to what I am talking about. Pretty much it has a sandbox and a competitive area, and said competitive area requires a ticket to go in)

I think the reason why this is hard for me to figure out how it will work is more to do with how the RPGs operate. It's less a party and more of an improvisational play. You see if the RPG in question interests you, then you apply for it. The GM will then either accept you or reject you, and there you go. You're in until one of four things happen: you get bored and quit (common), you have the GM kick you out (occasionally), the RPG dies (common) or the RPG ends (rarely). If you pay money to join a high-profile RPG and it ends in the former three ways, which might be more common occurring than the last result, would it be worth spending that money? Or how about if you pay money to join an RPG, make a character, then the GM just rejects you? That probably wouldn't be a good business model if you can't join the RPG you just paid for.

It's a very innovative idea, and I'm glad it's just optional, but I just don't see it happening. That or maybe I'm looking at it at a wrong angle.

edited 4th Jul '12 5:19:56 PM by Psyga315

Hmmm, that is a good point. How would we schedule a payment plan that would allow people to not waste their money without giving undue power to GMs? (This is especially pertinent given the recent bannings of three of the more high profile people in this subforum, and why they were banned.)

I took it as more a "Club House" for R Pers to pay into. Generally, the idea is that exclusivity should automatically prevent trolling attempts, when a lot of issues on the board arise from dedicated players who clash with other dedicated players.

I don't think anything could be done about G Ms except after a bad experience, stop joining their games. The reason RP boards need mods so rarely is that, in my eyes at least, it's a beautifully self-regulating system; Good experienced G Ms attract and keep players and boot the players who are bad. Bad G Ms soon earn a reputation and players avoid them entirely. You'll find a lot of games without more than a couple takers due to a general wariness regarding a GM. Every GM is their own mod and people are able to abandon controlling G Ms without any issues early on and recycle the character later. Other games with bad G Ms tend to die very quickly. There are still issues but in those cases it's usually between fairly decent players with different ideas [oftimes due to a GM passing the torch or a game's tone changing over time or in an unexpected way] and in those cases I think the best thing to be done would be to have a moderator who's somewhat familiar with both sides and willing to get to know and welcome newbies. Trying to stop G Ms from having power simply doesn't work, you'd then be expecting G Ms to pay to post a game in a place where they get less authority and control than they do in the free to play area.

edited 4th Jul '12 10:29:17 PM by Fauxlosophe

Fauxlosophe has said everything I could say but better. I think hiring another mod who is familiar with the forum would be a good idea, though. Making individual RP topics premium simply isn't a good idea. It can work for specific boards or specific websites, but not for an RP board.

I don't get it. Eddie wrote "We set up an RP area that people have to buy a badge/ticket to enter" which I interpret as just paying a one-time fee for the badge, kind of like a passport of some kind. But all these comments make it seem like you've gotta pay on a per-RP basis. So which is it?

Also, if it's the former, I have another thing to say: If I shell out whatever it costs to join, I'd feel like a real chump if I'm the only one. Could you maybe check out what interest this drums up first by doing a pre-order of sorts? That way if everyone decides to pinch their pennies, I'm not stuck with the badge of shame as my fellow tropers laugh at me. Though, if it's a cool looking one, I guess it would be okay.

If this is an opt-in feature what do we lose if it gets implemented? IF, say, 10% of people do opt in, they get the benefit of a small group of hardcore reliable posters, but could all still be in free R Ps if they wanted.

All of the time and effort spent on this is time and effort that could be spent on figuring out other ways to prevent drama/raise revenue for the site. So if as few people sign up for the premium RPs as I expect, then the effort spent on their creation will be wasted.

It solves nothing since the issues are often caused by reliable posters in the first place. There's only so many ways this can go; it pulls in a few random people without shared interest and/or a dedicated DM and it goes belly up, it pulls in a specific clique who ultimately just isolate new blood or it divides the board and removes games from the free players and players from the premium which could be done anyway by calling your game invite only, few people do but it can be done. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to use it since the RP forum here is desperate for new blood rather than fearing trolls and honestly, no one except Nman here has really expressed interest in it here.

edited 5th Jul '12 11:41:46 AM by Fauxlosophe

"Interest" is a bit too strong. I'd say it's more, "I'd do it if everyone else was doing it."

I'll quote Talis on this one.

Fauxlosophe has said everything I could say but better.

"The Aesop: The wiki is going where it is going. Hang on for the ride!"

So what about the forums?

edited 5th Jul '12 1:17:44 PM by RenaTheArchmage

All right. Let's restate the issue. RP blow ups waste moderator time and energy. This is the problem we want to solve. How do we prevent blowups?

My idea: by hiring mods who are tasked specifically for the RPG forums. It worked for P5, right?

edited 5th Jul '12 1:44:34 PM by Psyga315

Can I ask why RP disputes are any more of a waste of time and energy than arguments elsewhere?

I nominate appointing a mod who knows how rp's work to be in charge of them.

edited 5th Jul '12 1:48:12 PM by GreyStar

Aside from Deadbeat, Who else mods this forum?

I know Tangent128 is in an RP on here, but right now he's usually pretty busy with other things.

edited 5th Jul '12 1:52:48 PM by strawberryflavored

I for one promise to report dickish behavior when I see it, sir.

I've been skeptical about this idea in OTC, and I feel likewise here. Though it might not be harmful in principle (could have side effects, though), as others mentioned, it might not be actually used enough.

A premium feature should offer some specific feature that isn't essential but may be desirable. Right now, I don't see such features, other than the distinction that it's paid.

Because we still have the existing RP section with nonpaid threads, we're still going to have the same problems, and we're still going to need mod intervention. It's not actually targeting the problem.

Now,

I don't know if that's necessary. From here, we were told that there was enough staff available. Even if there are some RP does blow up, mods should be able to handle it (it's not unexpected that mod intervention is needed once in a while).

If there aren't enough human resources available, then perhaps we should consider additional mods, but that doesn't seem to be the case right now. We have at least one mod that is active in roleplaying, and therefore is effectively the mod of the RP section.

Echoing the OTC discussion above, perhaps we should have "self-moderation" policy here also? It is a distinguished subcommunity, after all. Giving the members the nudge to be able to tell each other to calm down and stay civil may be beneficial.

edited 5th Jul '12 2:14:37 PM by abstractematics