Plans for the Future

[Nailah Weaver]

Alright, we had a long talk yesterday that continued offline between Will and me and here's the general idea we came up with.

We end Issue 1 and get that wrapped up while prepping Issue 2. While that downtime is going on I will see about putting up a recruitment post on FO as well as here: http://rpg-directory.com/forum-52.html

Hopefully that will bring in at least a small amount of people,which should help with making things more active so we don't go into lockdown the moment one or two people get busy/distracted/etc.

If/when we get some new people we'll kick things off relatively fast with Issue 2 so people will have something to do right away. Going forward we're going to try and have Issues planned out better and more in advance so we'll have them ready to go faster and to avoid having them stall out by having all the mods aware of the general outline more.

If anyone has any additional thoughts on this, please put them here. Thank you!

[Theresa McMasters]

So long as people are fine with the rules of the RPG Directory, that may work. We'll have to post their button on this site, somewhere easily visible, but that's just mostly going to be an irritation.

I guess right now I'm struggling with the thought that if we couldn't keep the people who had investment in the place, I'm not sure how we'll keep anyone who's new. On the flip side, if we don't get new or returning people, we're all going to burn out and then this place will cease to exist. Maybe it's just fear of change.

I guess I don't have much helpful to offer. I'm mostly just out of ideas at the moment.

[Nailah Weaver]

We can put their button at the bottom of the Index page where all the stats are and I don't think that'll be very intrusive.

The amount of activity dictates how much people will want to check the boards. The less of that the less people will check and post, which leads to less activity and less frequent posting, etc. New people -will- help that and we're making sure that there'll be stuff to do if we get people on board. It does need some work but it's also something that partially maintains itself. Just not with as few people as we have left. My main argument against "Oh god, new people, things might change" is that if it wasn't for "new people" Will and me wouldn't be here and never even would have met in the first place. Being complacent about the situation is only going to make it worse.

[Theresa McMasters]

Okay. Just disregard my post. I figured my thoughts weren't going to be helpful and I should have just kept them to myself. Apologies.

Edit: I need some time to cool off. I've managed to make myself mad.

[Nailah Weaver]

Sorry. I didn't mean to be dismissive or anything. :/

Any discussion about this is helpful, even without any concrete suggestions. I asked for peoples' thoughts and that doesn't just mean "please agree with everything I said".
You're not the only one concerned about bringing new people in and it's a legitimate point that we (meaning the Mod Team here) need to be conscious of, especially when it comes to providing stuff to do.

[Will Stanton]

No, WP, I'm not going to disregard your post, because it's all good points that I agree with. I'm not sure why you think we were being dismissive of it right away--that's far from our intention.

I'm terrified that we'll bring new people in and they'll fundamentally change this place. That's frightening to me. This place means a lot and I don't want to just open the floodgates and let all the riff-raff in, of course. We don't want 27 Merles or anything like that.

We're not going to do anything that any of us are uncomfortable with, simple as that.

[Theresa McMasters]

A couple of clarifications and then I'm done:

1. When I said "fear of change", my intention was to own that my brain could be rationalizing things just to cover up an underlying fear of change. I should have explained that more fully, but it's a difficult set of thoughts I've been wrestling in regards to the forum's ability to retain people at this point in its life cycle. I wasn't positive enough to say it wasn't just a fear of change, hence why I even mentioned that. I didn't analyze my post quite long enough before hitting the post button.

2. I'm *not* advocating complacency. I've been wrestling with the lack of activity (both my own and the forum in general) for a while now. If it wasn't for starting X-World, I probably would have wandered away myself by now. I *know* something has to be done. We either need new people to join or we need people to return or both. Obviously, I would prefer it if people would return because it's more comfortable (I don't handle unknown quantities particularly well), but I'm also not going to hold my breath for that to happen.

That's all I have to say.

[Haley Crusek]

I'm going to try my damnedest to be more active again. New job has left me wiped most days but I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel that I don't think is an oncoming freight train. I'm open to anything that will breathe a bit more life into the place. I love RPing with ya'll, and want to continue.

[Ryan Gabriel]

Yes yes yes yes come baaaaaack, Trev...