Reference The RPF Policies, Programs, and Events Thread - Now Disc.: New User Welcomes

We didn't see much newbie integration - there are other factors, but that was the big one for us, or at least myself.

 

It certainly is a Big One. And I always thought the newbie integration needs something over here ...

 

Are you guys sure I never send in mine? I am pretty sure I did one . . .

 

You posted something, but you also said it was a guideline sort of deal, so I didn't want to err on the side of using it if you didn't think it was done.

 

Well, in general if you liked it you can use it. Could you repost it here as I am unable to find it. I was so sure I worked on that one and send it out, but maybe something went wrong and I forgot to do it later . . . hm . . .

 

Yeah, I can try to track it down when I get home.

 

I´ll give it another try later on, too. Must have looked in the wrong thread.

 

Hello good RPFers!

Just haunting about and I figured I would opine here. I do think it would be good to renew efforts with WNU. It is interesting (and even natural) to see the RPF morph into a more close-knit community, and I think that is fantastic. But getting new blood in here will definitely help liven the community and lay the groundwork for future generations of players and GMs here.

I read over the discussion, and it seems logical to have more a focus on bringing people here. The old logic was that if they learned how to RP there and liked it, they would naturally come over here. It seems the success of that line of reasoning was..... mixed at best. So I think it is just fine to move towards getting people here.

A lone thread will likely get lost and buried in the WNU. Might I suggest something of a weekly/monthly update thread? Advertising new games, putting teasers out to get people over here? With Skiara's blessing of course, it could serve as a boost to GMs who might be looking for players, or at the very least, new blood. Additionally, it could serve as a sounding board for future mod-sponsored events.

Keeping the WNU thread moderately active will maintain its visibility, which will allow for an increased chance at new users.

Anywhos, something for the powers that be to chew on.

-I_H

 

Well, if someone speaks up for the WNU, let me speak up against it.

Having newbie-recruitment in WNU means having no newbie-recruitment. Tough opinion is it? Actually, I believe ever little bit of data we got will show I am right. Or has anybody here found this page via WNU?

How do people get here? To TFN and to RPing in general? Do they go through sites and then enter the Welcome Area? Hands up anybody who did that, ever? Is anybody here who had his first post over there? It is nice it exists, but it is a nightmare of a recruiting place. Because that is not where players are gonna look for RPing. There are two ways we recruit 99 percent of our newbies. Mouth-to-mouth (offsite and onsite people spread the word we exist and invite people over) and google-RPing+Star Wars. And if people find the RPing page by any other means, they enter it directly, by going to board -> rping - ressources or games. And there we got nothing for them because we have our "Welcome Thread" over at WNU, which basically got nothing to do with us.

So I am not against any kind of posting over there. Hell, create Empires of threads over there if you want to, but I think it is overdue and possibly even much too late to do the logical thing and WELCOME NEWBIES WHERE THEY ARE LOOKING FOR A WELCOME, which is exactly here.

I like the idea of monthly updates though, a question thread for newbies might be nice, adveritising allowed, all questions answered no matter how stupid they seem. A damned "WELCOME NEW USERS" thread in the RPR. With links to helpful ressources and people who have a few nice words for them, before they go into games and play. My experience is anyway, that most newbies show up in games first and nowhere else. People trying to join the community first and foremost almost never become players and therefore do not last. People who play games eventually become community members and therefore . . . stay.

That has a simple reason. If you are not here to play in games, you probably will not find a lot to do here anyway. If you wanna play games you usually don´t even go to Hoopers, but you read OPs as a lurker so long, until you find one irresistable to join and jump in. We got three newbies (who I saw in the two games I have been playing in) around here nobody talked to (except their GMs hopefully) and nobody seems to know about, who are all active in games and hopefully will spread their activity one day.

 

I think it would not be too much of an effort to have the excat same thread in both forums, would it? At least the OP. And then open for discussion and a monthly advertisment update? I would work on something like that, if interest is there. I waited for anybody to dig up my post on temp, but I would not mind doing a new one. Fin showed me his draft and I would go from there and do it, if the need is there. Then we could discuss it with an example in mind.

 

I'll be honest, my first post was in WNU, but that's because I always consider posting in the welcome boards a necessary formality with a new, dedicated account.

I'm inclined to agree with Fins, here - I see so little cross-pollination between the two boards that it seems a bit fruitless to try and work with something that just... doesn't work. To be blunt, I don't typically see much cross-pollination between WNU and... any of the boards, us included. If we want to do something in the RPF itself, like Fins suggested, then yes, let's do that.

 

So I actually found my old posting. Forogt we had a discussion thread over there too.I always searched the Games group.

Anyway, my idea of an opening post would be:

Welcome to the RPF

No matter where you are from, no matter who you are, no matter what language you speak or what religious deity you pray to: If you share our passion for stories, you are most welcome.

You might know what post-by-post roleplaying is or you might just have stumbled over us by accident and we catched your attention, but be assured what we do here is not rocket-science, it is the most easy thing in the world. [A SHORT SUMMARY OF WHAT RPING IS THEN:]

A short introduction to players. Join games by sending CSes, PM anybody for questions, if there is any kinda problem always ask the Mods. We would be so glad to help you. TOS must be obeyed, please read HERE. Then SECOND LAST THING - Many games forbid Godmodding etc. ask the GM about it, if you wanna know what it is [LINK to ressource], LAST THING - Our players have compiled a number of useful ressources for you. Those you find HERE! And there everything goes to which is helpful, plus links to CDG, GDG etc.

A short introduction to GMs. Games needs a story, CS and rules. Example rules & CS to copy-paste. Wishing them good luck. Ressources with LINK. Maybe, maybe a little word of advice that you are more popular as a GM if you play in games, usually.


Something in that vein?

 

Imperial Hammer posted:

I did try that. I was going to continue doing that.

As for if anyone ever came to RPF from WNU, I would say clearly yes.

The mentoring program that as far as I know, was created by Ktala, paired people interested in rolepaying, with experienced players from the RPF, to play in games at the RPF. That, as far as I can tell, is a natural conduit for players to have gotten here from WNU.

I made several pairings during my short tenure, and I assume Ktala managed a fair few during her time.

 

And I don´t mind you doing it sith-I-5. I wanna say you certainly put a lot of effort and love into it over there. And I really felt a bit sorry for it, because I think we simply put you to the wrong part of hte board to do it! People looking for RPing do not go there so you got some interested people, but those hwo came here to look for post-by-post roleplaying never showed up over there. That being said, Draco´s draft above looks very good. Just so we do not all try to open the same door, I already found your thing and planned to work on something from it, Draco. If you prefer to do it yourself, go ahead but let me know. We don´t need to drafts, do we?

 

If we're going to do that, though, then what the hell is the point of the stickies and the effort many mods put into them?

EDIT: Referring, of course, to having our own welcome thread here.

 

well, I planned to link to them as "the long version" so to say. For those interested in reading a bit more about things. And what I suggested should serve as a quick start kid, but actually . . . those stickies seem to have been as crippled by the "10000 word problem" than all other long posts. But anyway, as I said over at XenTemp a lot of them are outdated and not serving their purpose as well as they originally did nowadays.

 

A lot of the information is old, but we still do things in much the same way. Plus, another sticky? We've too many as is

 

Yeah, but quite a bit of that is because we haven't combined redundant stickies due to the aforementioned truncation issues.

 

If the information in the stickies is outdated, it still would be better to refresh/revamp the information than to delete it and start over - no?

edit - Also, IMHO, at this point I'd suggest we lock the old stickies and recreate them rather than wait an indeterminite time for the truncation issue to be solved. Likewise for all informational-only stuff like the FAQ and so on.

 

I'm inclined to agree - I'd get on that if I wasn't so busy this week, but as it stands that will probably have to wait until my number project is squared away (As is I'm really only posting in between grading assignments).

 

These are options - actually...

...actually, what if we got new examples from our current crowd? Retain the same basic structure, but we make it a bit more up-to-date with insights from the current community?

...I have a project!

 

I actually still feel dracos critic from the temp is pretty valid. Some texts are pretty arrogant, unpolite and belittle new users. The english chapter basically is a permaban of foreign users. They are old. They really are. And long. Very, very long. We can hardly expect anybody to read that all. So maybe you have an eye on shortening a few things when you so that project, Peng.

 

It's really intended a rant against usrs who type lyke dis lolol i.hada.field.AD, but I do see your point.

 

The English chapter is a basic rundown of common grammatical practice, from my recollection. If someone finds something offensive in there, I'll take at least two more looks at it.

 

Well, it assumes pretty much English is the only language spoken here and factually bans all other languages. It also politely points to the door if you are not fluent in English grammar, which would . . . if enforced today, cut our games half around here. All in all it is pretty narrow in mind and thought, much like most of the other stuff. These posts really are written from above and assuming the person reading them has no idea what he is doing. The newbie-newbie. Actually a rare breed from my experience. Even if they never wrote a word in a RP before, those newbies truly entering games nowadays usually lurked long enough to know the rules.

But anyway, I feel they never worked and they never will work as a good way to welcome newbies. But truth to be told, if some people are seriously thinking we should keep them because they are doing their job so very, very fine . . . I´d say we´re not there yet.