Disbanding Cliques

Hello Yang,

while your opinion is understandable, to entirely disband the concept of cliques is simply impossible. Staff can't really dictate who you MUST roleplay with. Cliques are a natural part of human socializing, some people will want to roleplay with people they know and have ongoing stories with compared to a total stranger they have never threaded with before.

However, and this is an important point to keep in mind: There are plenty of people who are willing to dip into topics with new people and try to interact with others. For example, a few days ago I myself joined an open topic of Desmoshi alongside 2 other members.

so short answer: Cliques are a natural something you will find anywhere, it is up to the new members to take initiative to try to form bonds with others, and there are often, and plenty of opportunities given for that, both in the form of events and of people seeking others to roleplay with.

also the donating to Patron is merely a gesture for those who want to support the forum, for example, so we can get rid of pesky ads showing on the site and such, it is not a requirement at all to donate in order to have fun on this forum.

A lot of my recent and honestly ongoing problems with the site has been the Clique feeling about things one site? Yang, you have earned a great level of esteem and admiration from me for not only having the same problem I do, but also having the courage to point it out.

I believe the staff I have mentioned it to will know how much this aspect upsets me, and while you can say "Oh well it's a natural part of forum life..." and yeah, that's true to an extent, however...

I would have to say that the feeling of Clique-ishness is the worst on here of all the dozens of sites I've ever been on. That's not intrinsically the fault of anyone, I think it's largely a symptom that has come about from the creation of the site (It basically being a response to a bad site a lot of the 'OG' used to belong to), and how a lot of the older members have established running plots with people that have been here nearly two years. When you want to keep your plots that you've built over months and years going, you often don't consider people wanting to jump onboard? It's understandable, yet creates an inherent flaw in the system, one that the people 'on high' usually can't see.

For a long time I've been saying there's a problem here, and I feel like people have refused to look at it. My idea of the problem was that this site naturally seems to suit the 'OG' group, and those who have managed to ingratiate with them, and for them it's wonderful. For others, not so much.

What I've been trying to tell the staff for months is the fact that your site is basically made up of about a dozen, maybe a few more, people who control multiple accounts which give the illusion of a great number of people. And those accounts fuel other peoples accounts and keep things turning over. People like Rosey, Maya and Yumi are involved in a lot due to their activity, and GOOD FOR THEM, however, the problem as I see it is that the site now only serves the old members, and discourages new members.

I have said, on multiple occasions that the site is off-putting when you're new or in my position of having been away for a long time and come back because it's like being at a dinner table with all the seats full; there's no room for new people to get under there.
I have said this to several people, but it perpetually feels as if you're the kid who gets picked last for every single sport.

Up until now, I have thought that only I feel this way, only I see that the site is discouraging of new members. But no longer.

Here we have a new member professing the exact same concerns I have mentioned, so I can't help but feel like that reinforces what I've been saying for a while now. I know the site can seem wonderful and amazing and 'a really great community' to the people who are sat at that table, eating their fill, but to those who aren't it is not.

If you want proof, I want you to list the number of people who have stuck around for more than six months on the site, to the present day, who joined in the last year?

So many are represented by people who joined up in 2018, or the early part of 2019. Those who joined after that... How many members can you count from that number, who are still around? I can't help but think of the great number of people who have given up on the site, old and particularly the new ones, and think there's a problem here? And I think if you don't see the problem, you're part of it.

So I really, REALLY hope people listen to this message. Not just staff but members as well, because honestly this is ruining what could have been a great site, but it isn't. This site isn't good if you're people like me, or Yang. It honestly is a place where you get fobbed off with comments that feel like they're saying "Pipe down, I'm having a good time, so I don't care that you're not."

Anyway, that's my rant over, some of you probably expected it of me, since I'm one of the biggest complainers ever on site. But if you're willing to read what I've said, which honestly by this stage I kind of doubt, try to think about it from the perspective of people like me and Yang rather than your own.

And finally I'll say, if you need an RP buddy Yang, I'm sure I can try to sort something out for you?

Honestly, I love the feedback and I am free to open discussion. For me on a very personal level I hate cliques and I want nothing to do with them. It is true that I came from a weird back ground with role play sites and to be fair this is my real first thread site in a very long time. However, I am putting threads out there to develop my character as a whole rather than doing it for experience or anything else. I do attempt to be in the general chat, the ictags, etc. Whatever it takes to get people to realize I am here on this site. At this point, I am not going to leave unless there is something that crosses me in a very bad way. And I can promise that this doesn't cross me, I just feel like its petty high school stuff. 

The point of this thread isn't to point out any individual or make anyone feel bad because they thread with certain people but to bring out in the open that there are issues. As a new person for me, it was rough to get anyone to thread with me that isn't my husband. I also know for me in general threading to this degree in where it is almost a literary role play that I used to do back in the day is a challenge. I have my own issues and it takes me time to get stuff done. But I am trying to push myself which is one of the reasons why I am a part of this thread. The other which is probably the dorkiest one is for my husband. After some time, I do genuinely like being on this site and it is challenging for some many other reasons. But obviously I have developed point of view of the site and I just feel like this. 

I can't come up with any rules or regulations that will force people to post with the newbies or the returning people or anyone else that's not apart of the clique. I would just rather have people know about it and they can make the decision. 

I'll just pop in and add a staff update: We're trying not to "mob" this thread too hard, to give everyone breathing room to discuss the topic, so I'm going to be coming at this representing both myself, and staff:

We've been discussing this post pretty heavily on the staff side--none of us have been new players for a while, so it's always hard to get a clear view of what the experience of someone new to TP is like. Currently, the main "staff-imposed" way to get players to thread outside of their friend group are events.

However, events are hard to run constantly. We suffer, and have always suffered from a serious lack of storytellers. I can't tell you how many people burn out or quit after running events. Storytelling is very demanding, and this is a site people go on for fun--to escape IRL stress. Storytelling is a "job." Events are stressful, time consuming, tend to make personal plots grind to a halt, and thus, we're limited to how often we can run them. (We still love the event system, and don't plan to get rid of it, but I wanted to make it clear that we can't run them as often as we like. I think events are very good at helping people find new RP partners and plots despite this, however.)

We're also trying to push "player run" events like internships and apprenticeships, and would like to make those sort of "self-managed" events open to vigilantes, civilian, and villains in a different flavor. I don't have any "downsides" to do those, other than people losing their muse and dropping threads. But you can't punish people for not rpering "Correctly." That's dumb, and will drive people away faster than anything else. I think internships do a decent job at getting people threads.

Current projects:

As a result of this thread, and other internal staff directions, we're looking at ways to do more "mixer" style events that have a strong enough plot to keep people interested, but could potentially be cross-faction, or have lighter Storyteller involvement.

We also are looking at adding a "First RP bonus," where you get a small, flat XP bonus for your first thread with a player.

General, Uncollected thoughts:

On a rules, or staff-planning side, we're open to "positive" ways to reward RPing with new people. Punishing or shaming people for RPing with friends is never going to be on the table.

I liked Rin's post, and agree that there are two non-obvious factors to new players: First, that students are the largest RP group, and have the widest options of plots, and that you have to both "chase" people (Group Finder -> DM) to get threads rolling. I don't see an easy to fix either of these, and frankly, I kinda feel like the student experience is "most core" on TP--it's not a bad thing to build the site around it.

I also think that proposing "focused" plots (take down a villain, rescue someone) with a "problem" to be solved are more likely to get responses than "unfocused" plots (meet a new student). However, that's been my experience on every RP site. Unfocused threads tend to meander, then fizzle out.

Despite agreeing that finding RP partners has been intimidating, I see many members that I consider having "cliques" also be some of the most active members threading with new people, especially recently. I'd rather not name names, however.

As always, we're open to concrete feedback ("what can we do better") and questions. However, we can't control who people thread with, nor do we want to. At the end of the day, this is a hobby. Sometimes, people only have energy threading with someone they know and trust, and there's nothing wrong with that.