The Active Player's Union (A.P.U.)

[Bloodrose]

I made a post in the Magus Cup Blender thread that basically called out Althanas' current lack of active players as the main cause for tournament failure. In doing so I made myself kind of sad, because as a player who's been around the site for a long time it's kind of distressing to see the depth of our player roster as shallow as it is currently.

So towards the end of generating more activity on the site, I've decided that we as players cannot just sit idly by and wait for things to turn around. We also can't simply expect the staff to come up with all the solutions and bring more players to the site through events, promotion, or what have you.

We need ideas on how to bring more people to the site and on how to get them to stay. I've created this thread so that you, my fellow players, can brainstorm up some of those ideas.

I have a couple ideas to start, but I haven't fully fleshed them out:

1) Maybe we need an affiliated site - someone to funnel us players. Maybe the site wasn't as good as it is now when Althanas was just a branch of AllRPG, but that was how I first found Althanas (and how a lot of others back in the day did as well). To be honest I never even knew "Play by Post" roleplaying existed until I stumbled across Althanas while reading up on Final Fantasy 7 on AllRPG. A lot of people who enjoy roleplaying still don't know about mediums like PbP, so maybe we need to inject ourselves into a place where the roleplayers are, and not wait for the roleplayers to come to us.

2) Actively recruiting RPers in MMO games. I've heard that sometimes the RP servers to games like WoW and Everquest can be dark and scary places to venture, and that advertising through world chat is an easy way to get yourself banned, but if anyone plays on these servers, maybe you can get your friends to come to Althanas?

That's really all I've got right now. Anyone else have some ideas?

[oblueknighto]

Sorry, no ideas. There aren't many active players on Althanas right now. I'm also pretty new so I'm not much of a dude to talk. I found PbP from another forum that had PbP in it. Scary really, I originally joined the forum to talk about Fire Emblem.....

At the very least I know that Althanas still have the regulars like the staff and high-level characters. Too bad I'm the odd one out being neither staff or of a high level.

About those ideas, I don't think we should actually inject ourselves in, maybe we could simply raise awareness by putting some link in your sigs out of site. Something simple but doesn't raise any issues with 'advertising' matters. That's one thing I really hate about some sites, maybe we could put Althanas on some listing or something. There are websites that are made to advertise stuff like this. I've found one before but lost it now.

[Requiem of Insanity]

We need to protect those that are active. I feel Oblueknights pain when you get dumped from a tourny only to watch the jerk who beat you drop off the face of the earth. i made a recommendation in the blender thread, but I am to lazy to post it here.

[Godhand]

Yeah, I've actually been talking about this with Serilliant. This lack of activity is just fucking murder; althanas desperately needs to stop pissing about with tournaments and focus on getting more members. And yeah, I got here through Allrpg too but that was years ago.

Still, I wouldn't even know where to begin. Get us linked by Allrpg again, obviously, but where do we go from there?

[The International]

A good affiliation would do all the work for us. Fictionpress.net and Fanfiction.com are great examples of places to put adds on. In fact we could even put some of our best quests up there and that would attract attention alone. The reason I say these sites and not other rp sites is because there's no conflict of interest. Why would a popular rp site let us leach off them, and why should we try to get the attention of players who will end up dividing their time between us and their first commitment? There's also the issue of writing quality. I've looked, and there's no better quality pbp writing than Althanas. My honest observation is that many players from other sites jump into this, register their characters, take a shot, see that they actually have to write, and leave. I'm not saying we should lower the judging standards or anything like that. What I'm really saying is we need to stop looking for players from other sites. No affiliations with other rp sites. We need to start looking for fellow writers. Members of the sites I mentioned above have a passion for fiction, and for the most part have an open mind. Literary sites would also be awesome.

[Bloodrose]

Another good idea might also to be looking into how to get our Google PageRank to grow. To satisfy my own curiosity, I played around with searching for "play by post rpg", "play by post communities", etc, and found that Althanas does not rank anywhere in the first 10 pages of results.

So I think it's safe to say we don't see much traffic from search engines.

[Letho]

I think it has something to do with optimizing the site for the search engines (I think I saw something like that mentioned on TV once), but I don't know shit about it really.

Anyways, these slumps in activity seem to be a recurring thing from what I've seen over the years. Pretty much every year when this period comes and the school starting or whatever, the activity takes a swan dive and you can see the tumbleweeds rolling. And then after a while it starts to go up again, so I don't think the situation is critical yet. Hell, this still isn't the worst activity slump I've witnessed over the years. I remember this one time, there was like four of us in total actively posting on the site or something. And Althanas bounced back from that.

This isn't to say that I'm against recruitment or any other type of activity boosting. I myself don't know where to start with this either as I don't wander farther than Althanas as far as writing communities go (or any other kind of Internet socialization for that matter), but whoever has ideas of how to bring new members should definitely try to do so.

[Duffy]

Deleting or sorting out the pretentiously long and inactive member list is a start. Find out who our actual active members are, and then work from the bottom up. Clear up the database, finish off the current FQ's and Tournaments, clear the board up, then start recruiting. As it is, the cluttered format and the sporadic and small posting group is likely to put people off.

I made a post when I first arrived with a few recomendations due to the inactivity at the time, it's still relevant now. For the record, I'm active as active can be, even around term-time, so count on me to keep stuff going if you're up for RP'ing. I can't guarantee quality, but quantity I has.

EDIT:

Also, the judgement turnaround could be alot blinkin' quicker.

[oblueknighto]

I think judgement speed is okay as it is. It's usually no more than 48 hours these days and I hope that when the site becomes more active it should stay that way. It'll let people down if it's more than that and I think everybody would agree that 48 hours isn't that much of a wait with liquid time cooling you down in the process.

I think I'm actually very lucky to be able to work with such good writers like those on Althanas. Writing with people who do this for fun is great and I enjoy it. As many of those have said, it is actually better if we find people who don't just join because they want to be powerful in the game or they want to RP but don't want to write. There are many people from other sites that want to write but don't know a median of writing like PbP so we could gather a group of those people from sites and start from there. I must honestly say I like this site because there are people who actually CARE. People personally mark all the threads even when they are so busy. They also RP with us and area always part of the community just like us, we can affect the world just like Humans can affect the Earth by getting stronger, better and more like Mary/Marty Sue. There is a great system that encourages writing more instead of just participating when you feel like it still reaping all the benefits. Quality and quantity are combined to get processed for a score so that people who love to write in their own styles can have that luxury of getting score.

[Duffy]

It's not 48 hours, not at all.

Part of the drive here on Althanas for me anyway, is having your work critiqued/prodded in the right direction and given rewards for writing, of whatever quality. If you've got to wait 7 days for that feedback, and sometimes considerably longer, there's not much to keep you going. Yes, people should write for the love of writing, I do and will continue to do so, but having the system in place without it being used as it could be is a little counter productive.

Yes, I know I'm a judge, and I've not judged things in a while, but if I dive in and do two or three full threads in a day, when no-one else has done one in a week or more, I feel like A) I'm doing too much, B) treading on people's toes and C) being a control freak.

I dunno, maybe this is the wrong place for this discussion.

[The International]

People, we need to advertise/affiliate where other rp sites aren't advertising. I don't know how much I can stress that. As players and staff members we can only recruit individuals one at a time, and that will only marginally increase our activity.

I've been told both have been done before, but my guess is they haven't been done well, so we need to do it again. If I need to get on staff to make this happen I'll send in my resume right now!

[Taskmienster]

It's not 48 hours, not at all.

Part of the drive here on Althanas for me anyway, is having your work critiqued/prodded in the right direction and given rewards for writing, of whatever quality. If you've got to wait 7 days for that feedback, and sometimes considerably longer, there's not much to keep you going. Yes, people should write for the love of writing, I do and will continue to do so, but having the system in place without it being used as it could be is a little counter productive.

Yes, I know I'm a judge, and I've not judged things in a while, but if I dive in and do two or three full threads in a day, when no-one else has done one in a week or more, I feel like A) I'm doing too much, B) treading on people's toes and C) being a control freak.

I dunno, maybe this is the wrong place for this discussion.

Yeah, umm... try judging 5 threads a day for 6 days straight like I did when we had 30 threads waiting and I was the only active judge. It's not something that we can help. Personally, being an Admin means that I have to do a lot of things and make sure that everything under my wings keeps moving correctly. When I was added as an admin, I was told that I would be watching everyone and everything else and making sure it moved smoothly, instead of taking direct control.

If you haven't noticed, that direct control and my activity as a mod is more prevalent now than it was before I was given my admin-ship.

Complaining about the judging turnaround has nothing to add to the overall activity.




As for activity ideas, a lot of these are great, we just have to figure out what's the best way to get it all up and moving. I thought about making an add on Facebook, since you can advertise things for free by making a group, and people can become fans or like it and it'll show more and more. I think that would be a good way to get people to see it, both those that are your friends, and those random people that might be on your friends list. Plus, if you like it, and another person does, then it'll spread to their friends too from what I've seen.

[The International]

Facebook is a great idea. We could take that a step further by putting some of our better quests and battles on the page via the Notes application. That's going to show people what we have to offer. If Althanas makes a Facebook page, and if every new player is asked to become a fan, we'll have a large number and it'll end up working itself out. But then there's the flip side. I, for one, make myself a fan of several organizations, celebrities, and causes on Facebook and never even check out the page. It could be possible that it could happen like that for Althanas too, but Facebook is definitely worth a shot.

Even with that idea on the table though, we need to advertise and affiliate! I'm going to keep repeating this until someone actually reacts to this.

[Taskmienster]

Well, we can get the Facebook thing up easily. I'll start it up, and we can start getting that out to everyone. If you have facebook, add me and I'll send out invites and stuff when it starts. You can look me up by name, Kyle Blomquist (Gainesville, Fl), or by e-mail, hola_fools@hotmail.com.

Other than that, I've never been to those other two sites that you mentioned though, the fictionpress or whatnot. I'll have to check that out as well.

[The International]

I know this is going to sound extremely fucking cliche, and I can't believe I'm saying this...

We need a Twitter page, and even though I'm laughing my ass of as I type this I think it would be useful for appealing to a broader demographic. I know I don't use Twitter, and I don't think many people on this site use it either, but it wouldn't be for us. We could put everything we put in the news updates forum on our Twitter page.

[oblueknighto]

@Task, I've finally caught you online, I was never sure if you received my PM. I thought you were just busy. Hope we could discuss the matter at hand soon.

Facebook and Twitter are great free ways to spread Althanas but it seems a little too... widespread as people use facebook and twitter for heaps of stuff. I mean LOADS of things advertise on it and they even have their own advertisements on the sites.

[The International]

Yes, but they're free, so it's worth an honest try. Both Facebook and Twitter have background applications running to see what a member likes and may be attracted to. For example, Facebook may have a Tolkien or LOTR fan page. If Althanas has a fan page and the word 'fantasy' or 'writing' is in it enough, Facebook is going to suggest it to the fans of the LOTR page.

[oblueknighto]

Yep, we could try that as it might bring results. The end DOES justify the means.

[Slavegirl]

We already have a Facebook group.

[oblueknighto]

Oblueknighto reels back in the shocking truth piercing his ear drums as someone reaveals to him something he could not accept.

I mean really, I never knew. I never use facebook or anything similar so it's not like I would have ever found out on my own.

[Slavegirl]

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If you have Facebook, get your butts over there and become a fan - make sure you suggest it to friends as well. We're still in the process of updating the page, so be patient. If you have suggestions or something to add, you can let me know or Taskmienster know.

[Taskmienster]

Yeah! Facebook! Rock on!

Oh, and we're going to be adding in the exp gains per level, the registration process, a general FAQ about the regions, and stuff like that. People not from Althanas that go there can see what we're all about without having to join immediately, and we can answer any questions they may have before they get on.

[Duffy]

I r joined, Cydney Oliver :D

[oblueknighto]

Wait for it, I'm making a facebook for this. There, joined. Nothing else.

Name's Oliver.

[Atzar]

I'd like to echo Godhand's point that tournaments should take a backseat until we have a larger active member base (if you'll allow me to use the term 'we'... I know I've been away for awhile).

The interforum tourney that you held awhile ago was good in theory, but it attracts the wrong sort of people. First of all, everybody you bring in will be representing other forums, rooms, etc. They won't be looking for a new place to write, they'll be trying to win - to prove that they're the best and to bring that honor back to their place of origin. Second, it's too competitive. Of the crowd you attract, 80-90&#37; are very good - and know that they're good. When every player believes he/she is the best thing to happen to mankind since the discovery of sex, it doesn't leave all that much material for civil conversation. Upon losing, most contenders take the "You all don't recognize true greatness, fuck you all" route instead of "Wow, you guys really are good, I want to write here to get better!"

I agree that advertisement is the most important thing, and I like the things you guys have come up with to jumpstart that. I'll join the Althanas group as soon as I hit Facebook again - that may or may not be within the next few days, I'm not active on Facebook. In the meantime, finish what you start. FQ's need to meet deadlines. Tourneys need to proceed in reasonable time frames. There needs to be some sort of authority overseeing each event - if a judge is lagging or whatever, it's up to that authority to replace him/her with another that will get it done, but this won't happen if there's nobody who is explicitly in charge. The administrator of an event can't be fired in the middle of the fucking event - wait until the tournament is over and then can him. I trust that this is taken as advice and a genuine desire to help, rather than undue criticism. I say this here because the smoother things are run on Althanas, the more attractive the place is to visitors and the more new players stay past one or two threads.

[Taskmienster]

Certain things like keeping deadlines depends on dedication of all staff members, not just us admins. I can "can" people for not judging, but then I'd be back to being the only active person. If you haven't noticed, we ask for new mods to apply like once every couple months because judging isn't the easiest thing to do and you can get worn down quickly. Or, if something comes up in life, you can be taken away for a little bit and in turn you'll be leaving the site without it's mode of behind the scenes operations. And on top of that, the people that WANT to be on staff is very few.

So, if you want to say activity is dwindling because of things like people not judging, that's nothing we can control without putting very few of us on the staff permanently and making everyone else just throw away people that can be dropped for not doing their job and hope that we can find other people to try and take their place before that point. That seems to devalue further the position of mod, and that's not cool to me.

[Baldur]

As has been said, we're a community of writers more so than roleplayers. The only suggestions I could make have already been offered or are currently in the works, such as the region FAQs. Althanas can be somewhat difficult to drop right into because it is so... relative? It's very non-linear, and relies primarily on imagination. That's good, great even, but it can be tough to understand what happens where, or what sort of environments pertain to which region.

Esentially, create a sort of database of knowledge. Ideally it would be its own section of the forum with a history of Althanas, past major events, and maybe even a map if we have some interested artists.

[Taskmienster]

We have an Althanas FAQ, which has a map... and all the relevant information for each region is stickied to the top of every region. What more could be added?

[Duffy]

There is so so so so so so so so much more you could add and build on to breathe life into Althanas. Of course, doing so will restrict player creativity more, but that's the point of having RoG staff, they can vet new races and gods as they come in, so that they fit into the world or are plausible.

Language, culture, art, legends that arn't the Thayne, really combine player bios with history. If I write, say, of the Hummel, in Cydnar's bio, players should get a chance to add their creation to Althanas permanently, perhaps in some sort of spoil based syste,.

I bring it to life in a plausible way, it gets added to the official FaQ. *Throws more ideas onto the table.*

[Aiko]

On the twitter Idea, I use twitter, somewhat. If you'd like, I could create us a Twitter account. Links to Twitter feeds are more widely accepted than advertisements. Someone checking out our twitter feed might decide, hey, they want in on the action, and come here because of our Twitter feed.

[Taskmienster]

No offense, Duffy, but a lot of stuff that comes to Althanas is either going to make the site even MORE broad and make it more confusing and harder to get into... as well as end up making the entire site turn into "do what you want and go with it, other players might join if they don't have their own idea's to add and go with instead." That makes Althanas unique and diverse, yes, but it also makes it so that everyone's storylines are potentially going to be different. And if we go with that, why would we have regional writers or a story admin to put up site info?

As for twitter, not sure who uses it and stuff like that... but honestly, I always thought it was a bit of a joke and a waste of time. The stats for people that use it are ridiculously low. Stats for people that actually stay on and use it regularly after they originally join was something like only 20&#37; of the people... 80% get on, see what it is, and then leave and never return. Not much use in my opinion.

[The International]

The discussion we're getting into right now is a somewhat different issue than what we were talking about before. Advertisements and Affiliations get us new members. What we're talking about now will help us keep them active.
I'd like to echo Godhand's point that tournaments should take a backseat until we have a larger active member baseNice to meet you by the way. I agree with that statement, maybe we should cut down the number of large events so that the current active body can get back to their core quests and battles. You could even take that a step further and learn from the site's history. If we all know when most people are going to be active, when most new members are going to join, and when most people are going to be inactive, then we can schedule our events accordingly. Instead of starting a new tournament when people are on their way to school or something, coordinate such events with "active seasons".
We have an Althanas FAQ, which has a map... and all the relevant information for each region is stickied to the top of every region. What more could be added?I don't think anything needs to be added, but it would be great if we could get it all coordinated.

*Before I started my quests in Alerar I thought that Queen Valsheress was alive, and that was because of the FAQ most new people are going to look at when they first step in the door. Now everybody here knows she's dead and that her relative is on the throne now, but if I had gone by that my stories would have been irrelevant. I know there's an info thread put up by Wraith, but given the state of affairs I don't know whether or not to go by what's up there either.

*The official Timeline for Althanas has a disclaimer at the top in bold red letters saying it's under revision and that if we were to write anything based on it we're doing it at our own risk.

*Corone's in the middle of a Civil War, but the FAQ says nothing about that. The FAQ also makes Salvar out to be a frozen wasteland, but after a few conversations with Saxon and his new info thread I see it's a little warmer than I thought.

*The Featured Quest has its own forum, so if a new player just so happened to read Sighter Tnailog's info about Raiaera, they'd be conjuring up a new quest with outdated information.

If nothing else, Althanas has an extremely rich environment that inspires people to write. It's beautiful and multidimensional, but it shouldn't be confusing. New people will feel less overwhelmed if they knew what they were looking at. As opposed to Duffy's suggestion, I don't think we should add a thing. I think we should take away by streamlining.

[oblueknighto]

Umm, for the problems without updating you can just check the forum that is involved. I mean if you check the Featured Quest it has the information on there that hasn't already been said in the History.

If you look at Corone they already have all the information that isn't on the History about the events past 1800.

[The International]

Umm, for the problems without updating you can just check the forum that is involved. I mean if you check the Featured Quest it has the information on there that hasn't already been said in the History.

If you look at Corone they already have all the information that isn't on the History about the events past 1800.Of course I can, but if I were a new player (which I was... and still am relatively) I'd look for FAQ and click on it (which I did). That FAQ is dead wrong in certain aspects, and it either needs to be updated to match what we find in the forums or deleted. That's what I mean by us taking away. There are other details that you can only find out by bothering the region's writer. For example, did you know that Alerar is not just sorely lacking in cavalry, but in horses period? If you were to put your character on a horse or make a scene near a stable in an Alerar quest you very well could loose points. I'm just saying that it would be extremely helpful for retaining new members if they only had one place to look.

[Atzar]

Certain things like keeping deadlines depends on dedication of all staff members, not just us admins. I can "can" people for not judging, but then I'd be back to being the only active person. If you haven't noticed, we ask for new mods to apply like once every couple months because judging isn't the easiest thing to do and you can get worn down quickly. Or, if something comes up in life, you can be taken away for a little bit and in turn you'll be leaving the site without it's mode of behind the scenes operations. And on top of that, the people that WANT to be on staff is very few.

So, if you want to say activity is dwindling because of things like people not judging, that's nothing we can control without putting very few of us on the staff permanently and making everyone else just throw away people that can be dropped for not doing their job and hope that we can find other people to try and take their place before that point. That seems to devalue further the position of mod, and that's not cool to me.

Maybe I should rephrase my statement a bit, because if it came across as a shot at the admins then I obviously didn't phrase it well the first time.

I think everybody knows what I was referring to, so I'm not going to dance around it anymore. The Tournament of Legends did poorly in my opinion, in part, because of the inexplicable decision to fire the tournament's creator in the middle of the thing. No matter how many people you have working on the tournament, I think you need one person explicitly in charge of the whole thing, and he/she needs a quick trigger finger. If somebody is a day late with some judgments, that's one thing, but any more than that and the task needs to be given to a backup. I didn't mean to suggest that the administrators should take the burden - instead, I just meant that someone should, and that the chosen someone should remain in charge for the entire event.

I'm also not advocating a permanent removal of staff for somebody who's more than a day late with a tourney judgment. Keep them on the staff, just hand the tourney duties off to somebody else. An extra week on the judgment of a quest because something came up is one thing. An extra week on an entire round of an important tournament is a different matter entirely.

Nice to meet you, International.

[Duffy]

No offense, Duffy, but a lot of stuff that comes to Althanas is either going to make the site even MORE broad and make it more confusing and harder to get into... as well as end up making the entire site turn into "do what you want and go with it, other players might join if they don't have their own idea's to add and go with instead." That makes Althanas unique and diverse, yes, but it also makes it so that everyone's storylines are potentially going to be different. And if we go with that, why would we have regional writers or a story admin to put up site info?

I didn't mean people just do what they like with the place, I meant, if they introduce a good idea and thread it well, get good scores/good writing and the like, then they should be able to submit it to a story admin for consideration, to see if it a good idea to introduce and the like.

Of course, there's the FQ'S for this, but these are preconceived stories and ideas, and I've no particular desire for Salvar, leaving Raeria, and non of my characters care for the affiliations there, with the exception of Cydnar whose background would put him there to help heal any damage. So that puts me at a disadvantage I feel, just as an example. I can't do much to help shape Althanas's feel because the only way to do it is to FQ.

I'd love for the Tantalum and the history of the god Tantalus to be introduced as a fable and part of Scara Brae, and I'd love for Lorenor to written into the history annuals as a man to be feared. I'm sure alot of people who've put work in or are going to in the future would like to see their characters be acknowledge more in Althanas. Not in XP, or petty little trinkets, but in their actions engraving their names in history, like real heroes and villains.

It doesn't even have to be a slow trickle of updates, all approved spoil/faq changes could be added once every 3 months or longer, if need be. I dunno, just rambling.

(I'd also like to point out the judging comments earlier where in no way to be construed as digs at anyone in particular. It was just an observation, and I am guilty of it myself...well, that's 'caus Lorenor's thread is 7 pages long but still.)

[Abomination]

Consolidate some of the forums. Nothing says "this site is dead" than a forum whose last post dates go deeper and deeper into ancient history. Why does Alerar need 10 sub-forums? Why does Fallien need 9? It's the least active Region forum by far. The less you make it seem like it's been a long time since someone posted somewhere, the less people will glance over the site and decide not to stay due to its apparent inactivity. Also hide forums that get few new posts under the header.

Also, yeah, the currently active people need to be -more- active. Duffy's got the right idea, Lorenor's got the right idea. Get your hands into many soups. You don't have to finish them immediately, you don't have to go out of your way to accommodate everyone, but if each player is only involved in 1 thread, or they don't even try to adapt their stories to the many ideas presented in various recruitment threads, they're contributing to the stagnation. The site is killed by active people being discouraged from participating. Rather than presenting some sort of fixed idea that only certain characters would be interested in, why not say "Hey, I got some time, does anyone else? Let's work something out."

Oh, I just thought of something else. Nothing says "why should I bother anymore?" when active players get constant dropouts. People should get together and get those things done! Recreate them if need be, since half the story's already pretty much there. Nice concepts are being thrown out the window by inactives. Not being able to finish what you start is THE biggest detriment to activity in all of Althanas history. Hands down.

[oblueknighto]

Yea, since everybody is saying this stuff, anybody up for a thread. I'll work with anybody and for once I was to write with people who I can actually keep up with unlike Duffy and Lorenor.

[Visla Eraclaire]

I'm sure I'll have comments on a lot of these others ideas in a while, but I have to immediately echo the consolidation comment.

When region writers get to make subforums they seem to go nuts and make a subforum for every location in their region. Why? Make a topic that tells people those places exist and be done with it. You'll know it's in one of those locations by the description in the thread if it's any good.

[Duffy]

This forum type should in theory have an option for thread subtitles. Why not have a drag down menu that has a list of subforum locations, so people know where a thread is set in the more inactive forums?

[oblueknighto]

I think it's because they want it more organised but making it more organised makes it complex and making it complex makes people want to be simple and wanting to make it simple makes the threads simply in the main forum and not in any of the sub-forums.

My reasoning any good?

[The International]

I feel like we've lost perspective. Let's make a list of what could be done to raise our active population.

1. We can advertise/affiliate with other sites. Something's already been started on Facebook, but we need to keep looking for other sites that appeal to writers, and people that would enjoy Althanas.

2. Faster judgment turnaround will help keep people active.

3. Cutting down on special events, and coordinating them with yearly fluctuations in activity. This way the active population isn't preoccupied at the wrong time.

4. Consolidating and updating the In Character info so that all players only have one place to look. All the different sources of information that are contradictory towards each other discourage people from taking advantage of what makes this site attractive.

5. Consolidating the sub forums so that none are dead. Visitors see those dead subforums and get discouraged.

6. Those of us that are active need to be -more- active.

[Mikeavelli]

Actively make friends with new people on the forums.

Personal story, I was active a lot in the first tournament because I'd get messages from Petoux all the time screaming "OMGWTFYOUNEEDTOGETBACKHERE" - and I'm the type of person that always has a good reason to be doing something that isn't being on the internet writing fantasy stories.

Recently I'm even more overwhelmed than normal (to the point of not posting here for about a month now! Oops.) - but find the community memorable enough to keep me coming back.

[Visla Eraclaire]

I feel like we've lost perspective. Let's make a list of what could be done to raise our active population.

1. We can advertise/affiliate with other sites. Something's already been started on Facebook, but we need to keep looking for other sites that appeal to writers, and people that would enjoy Althanas.

2. Faster judgment turnaround will help keep people active.

3. Cutting down on special events, and coordinating them with yearly fluctuations in activity. This way the active population isn't preoccupied at the wrong time.

4. Consolidating and updating the In Character info so that all players only have one place to look. All the different sources of information that are contradictory towards each other discourage people from taking advantage of what makes this site attractive.

5. Consolidating the sub forums so that none are dead. Visitors see those dead subforums and get discouraged.

6. Those of us that are active need to be -more- active.

I agree with this entirely, except that #1 needs to be at the end.

We need to clean the house before we have guests over. I realize it's essentially an open house and we have people wandering in all the time, but I want Althanas to be at its best before we start trying to show off. We essentially had a house party (the Invitational) a few months ago and the place is still a mess from that.

This means we need the consolidated new player info, uncluttered sub-forums, a coherent event strategy rather than overlapping half-assed things that fall flat near the end, and most importantly a group of mods we can be certain are actively judging so that new arrivals are approved quickly and have their first feedback and rewards as soon as they like.

I'm starting to see activity pick up a bit in the past few days. Let's keep the wave rolling. I think if people expended half the effort they do in the lengthy OOC threads that've sprung up lately on actual RP, we'd be in good shape.

[The International]

That's a good point Visla. I didn't list that by way of priority, just in the order that they were presented. The advertising should be last of all though. Think of our site like a fishnet, and advertising is that manmade wave that brings all the fish in. All the things that we listed, like consolidating the information, and coordinating the events, will help make that net stronger thus allowing us to catch more fish.

[Visla Eraclaire]

NO! I refuse to accept your net metaphor. I've already made a house party analogy, and that's what I'm sticking with!

In seriousness, we're in total agreement. I think, honestly, this could all be done in a week or if someone had the time over a long weekend. It's really just a matter of jostling ourselves out of complacency and putting Althanas into the sort of respectable shape it deserves.

[NightCast]

Deleting or sorting out the pretentiously long and inactive member list is a start. Find out who our actual active members are, and then work from the bottom up. Clear up the database, finish off the current FQ's and Tournaments, clear the board up, then start recruiting. As it is, the cluttered format and the sporadic and small posting group is likely to put people off.

I made a post when I first arrived with a few recomendations due to the inactivity at the time, it's still relevant now. For the record, I'm active as active can be, even around term-time, so count on me to keep stuff going if you're up for RP'ing. I can't guarantee quality, but quantity I has.

EDIT:

Also, the judgement turnaround could be alot blinkin' quicker.

I disagree with the first paragraph. Mainly because I've seen a variety of ways to classify inactivity on RP sites. If we're going by the, this person hasn't logged on in six months, yeah I agree; however, if we're going with the this person hasn't posted in three months, but has been lurking fairly actively, I disagree. If you delete lurkers, they lose any work they may or may not have posted, and I think we agree, that wouldn't be fun and would destroy your easiest source for activity. What really needs to happen, and I don't know if this has been mentioned by anyone besides Godhand, but, stop focusing on tournaments, which are basically meaningless, designate specific judges to specific areas (so someone like Task isn't trying to judge things from every damned forum), and work on getting more site-wide quest prompts going.

[Saxon]

3. Cutting down on special events, and coordinating them with yearly fluctuations in activity. This way the active population isn't preoccupied at the wrong time.

Agree on this one. If enough time is spent on Althanas, regulars can see that activity on the site is cyclical. From what I've observed, the highest activity tends to start around mid-spring and carries on until around mid to late August. Once school starts, activity drops entirely. Once winter hits, activity takes another dip. The only spikes in activity that I've seen between these dips and rises is on common holidays.

If I might make the suggestion, there are a couple ways to resolve this issue with events;

1) Hold large tournaments such as the Cell, Gisela, or tournaments that require weeks to months activity in the spring and summer only. This seems to technically be the case from what I've seen in the last couple of years, but it's something to make note of. Features mods could use the time between events during the dips to plan major events like these, coordinate them and make sure everything runs smoothly months ahead before we even get to the event. It should make tournaments run a whole lot smoother if we know there's going to;

a) be a solid activity base for it.
b) Have mods running it that have had it planned out to a T for months so as to avoid any unnecessary delays (Shit hitting the fan for people being taken into account.
c) be moved on a tight schedule. Those who make the cut by responding to all the deadlines and staying active can advance, those who can't get left on the wayside. That's probably one of the more efficient ways to thin the herd.

2) Holding small events during our low points to maintain activity. They could essentially be used to tide players over until spring and shouldn't be anything more complicated then the Vignette Contests we already have unless the rules and guidelines are announced well ahead of time.

They don't have to be anything major, but they should be able to be completed within a couple days to a month's time. The best way to coordinate and hold these events is to post registration about two weeks in advance before the actual event and hold that event during the holiday. These mini-events should never have anything as complicated as completing an entire thread or holding an entire battle, but instead focusing on activities that center around brevity and simplicity.

There are ways to do this, and if given ample notification everyone here can decide whether or not to participate well in advance of the date it's being held. Those who attend can participate and win prizes, while those who don't have to look forward to it next time. However, these events need to be given proper planning like those seasonal 'big' tournaments, probably even more coordination given the short window the mini-events have to stay open.

3) Develop an annual schedule. Yes, it'll be hard to do this since staff members change from time to time, but it's really helpful to coordinate and plan ahead of time when you know what's coming up instead of doing it on the fly.

I'm especially cognizant of the effectiveness given from the experience I've had with a military program I'm in at school they schedule classes/labs each semester before hand and then allow the seniors to coordinate and plan them. After planning is completed, the orders are trickled downward until everyone is made aware of the state of affairs. The seniors/juniors/sophomores teach us freshmen the classes in these events as planned while our actual instructors help participate, evaluate the seniors, and observe. It's a very interesting concept.

While I know this is an example of a more formal, rigid setting that doesn't really apply to Althanas, there's something to be learned from it. Proper planning, coordination and teamwork can yield expected results so long as everyone involved works to the desired end. Now, since none of us here as members are being evaluated for a future military exam or branch placement, there isn't really anything to keep people maintaining that sort of professional atmosphere.

However, even if this is a casual environment, I know the people we have on the staff now already take strides in making and holding these events, so professionalism isn't an issue. There just needs to be a bit of tweaking. An annual schedule developed and maintained by them that lists the events for the coming seasons will get people in Features a leg to stand on as they work with other staff members to coordinate responsibilities and establish accountability for everyone involved.

If some or all of these suggestions were taken to heart, there'd probably be an improvement in activity and tournament success. The idea behind it is essentially to keep events popping up at the right times for players and they know where to be for it. This would generate the right flow for activity in the site instead of trying to hurdle these jumps for activities every year through trial and error and at the expense of the players.

It gives staff members responsibility for a specific event months to plan and work with making these events a reality. While I'm sure the feature mods/admin we have now work hard on bringing the stuff we have already, it's been clear in the past two tournaments that we've had a serious problem in keeping control of these events, their deadlines, and the activity within them.

The only way to fix that is to plan and execute these events better and give players the timing for it. While players are entirely in control of their participation in these events and should be made accountable of it, it's also up to those running the events to make sure these events run smoothly and stay with the events until their completion.

But, most of these are housekeeping issues that part of the staff needs to work on. I just figured I'd throw my two cents in to give an idea of yours some more attention.

Use what you want.

[Josef ben Loewe]

I agree with most ideas, especially the one about making the the forum less complicated.

I am a big advocate of the KIS principle: "Keep it simple. (Yes I know, it's actually 'KISS: Keep it simple, stupid', but I believe in the simpler version :P)

A few suggestions:

1) Remove most if not all the subforums in the RP regions. They are unnecessary, clutter up the forums and most of them are inactive anyway. As a replacement you could, for example:
- Have topic titles mention their location (ie: '[Velicë Arta] Topic Name', instead of subforum Raiaera -> subforum Eluriand -> subforum Velicë Arta. Both Eluriand and Velicë Arta have never been posted in anyway...)
- Have a drop down-box with locations as an option (or forced) when you create a thread, which will automatically put a proper location tag in the topic title and/or have a drop down-box at the forum view to filter for locations.

2) There are 12 subforums Althanas Events forum. Half of those are 'archived', so why not move those to the actual archive? Make a special 'Events' subforum in the Archive if you want, I don't care, but get those ancient forums far, far away from the (supposedly) active ones.

3) Do we actually need The Peaceful Promenade AND Scara Brae? As far as I see they both serve the some purpose: a location for new players. Then I suggest making it more friendly for new players and merge them.

4) About the forum categories: at the moment there are 7 categories... this suggestion will reduce that number to 5, which I believe to be a good thing.
- The 'Althanas Events' forum category only has one subforum: the current events. Move that link to the 'Althanas Features' category.
- Move the merged Scara Brea/Promenade link to the top of the 'Althanas Regions' category, cleary stating that it's a beginners area.
- Move the 'Character Registration' forum to bottom of the 'Althanas News and Announcement' category (which could be renamed to 'News, Announcements and Registration' or something similar).

5) I believe this has been mentioned before, but I'll just repeat it then: create a single source of all information. Not multiple sources scattered all over the site with bits and pieces of contradicting information.

[Taskmienster]

I agree with most ideas, especially the one about making the the forum less complicated.

I am a big advocate of the KIS principle: "Keep it simple. (Yes I know, it's actually 'KISS: Keep it simple, stupid', but I believe in the simpler version :P)

A few suggestions:

1) Remove most if not all the subforums in the RP regions. They are unnecessary, clutter up the forums and most of them are inactive anyway. As a replacement you could, for example:
- Have topic titles mention their location (ie: '[Velicë Arta] Topic Name', instead of subforum Raiaera -> subforum Eluriand -> subforum Velicë Arta. Both Eluriand and Velicë Arta have never been posted in anyway...)
- Have a drop down-box with locations as an option (or forced) when you create a thread, which will automatically put a proper location tag in the topic title and/or have a drop down-box at the forum view to filter for locations.

2) There are 12 subforums Althanas Events forum. Half of those are 'archived', so why not move those to the actual archive? Make a special 'Events' subforum in the Archive if you want, I don't care, but get those ancient forums far, far away from the (supposedly) active ones.

3) Do we actually need The Peaceful Promenade AND Scara Brae? As far as I see they both serve the some purpose: a location for new players. Then I suggest making it more friendly for new players and merge them.

4) About the forum categories: at the moment there are 7 categories... this suggestion will reduce that number to 5, which I believe to be a good thing.
- The 'Althanas Events' forum category only has one subforum: the current events. Move that link to the 'Althanas Features' category.
- Move the merged Scara Brea/Promenade link to the top of the 'Althanas Regions' category, cleary stating that it's a beginners area.
- Move the 'Character Registration' forum to bottom of the 'Althanas News and Announcement' category (which could be renamed to 'News, Announcements and Registration' or something similar).

5) I believe this has been mentioned before, but I'll just repeat it then: create a single source of all information. Not multiple sources scattered all over the site with bits and pieces of contradicting information.


1 :: The change with the FQ is creating the divide between active and inactive. After it is done, all the rest of the forum will be worked on. It's hard to do anything with, for example, Raiaera when the forums that are in the main forum are actually being destroyed and remade by the FQ. Same with Corone, and in the future Alerar and maybe Fallien.

2 :: An illusion of activity is what draws new people, and to remove the post count from the forums they correspond to would drop that number drastically. If we had real activity, it would be best to move those archives... but we don't.

3 :: Yes. They are two completely different places. One is an island, for only 0-1. One is a major melding pot style inn located within the Concordian forest in a completely different continent. We can't meld them, because one is meant for IC interaction without PC fighting each other... the other is meant for IC interaction for new players. Two different forums, no reason to make them one forum and confuse the use of either one.

4 :: As I said above, the moving or merging of forums that don't have the same purpose means that the reason they exist is unexplained. We can't have news in the same forum as RoG... because they're two different things, completely. It's easy to get lost on the site when you're brand new. And it's harder when you have to try and sift through forums to find sub-forums that you need. That's why they're still split.

5 :: That is being worked on, and is slow in coming because we want to make something firm and easy to find all in the same place, but a lot of the current info is still being "basically" overhauled and re-written. We can't really make a concise guide for players when that info is going to be changing in a month, or even a week. It's best to finish the FQ first, and after that's done it'll be open to what we used to be like... and as such much easier to clean up and organize.