Pumping up the volume...?

[Bobby Drake]

So, I did a quick scan of recent IC activity.

I count 107 IC posts from 16 characters (8 handlers) in August.
4 characters (3 handlers) account for 74 of those posts; the remaining 12 characters have 5 or fewer posts each.
5 still-active characters didn't post at all in August.

Which is fine, but I like having more voices "in the room", so I'm curious if there's anything I can do to encourage more activity from the silent and relatively silent.

Are you being frozen by other people's low response rates? If so, would it help to adopt a "after a few days you get to g'mod the other character to keep the thread going" convention?

Are you not psyched by the threads? If so, what would you like to see? More action/violence threads? More quiet/reflective threads? More large-group threads? More small-group threads? More inter-PC conflict? More conflict with NPCs? More threads with no conflict at all? More "Mutant High" soap opera? More intricate plot? A "big bad villain" to fight?

Have you just been playing the same character too long and are bored with it?

Something else?

I'm not complaining about activity rates per se. If the reason for low activity is RL conflicts, vacations, etc. that's fine... but if it's that folks aren't having fun posting, I'd like to know so we can try to make it more fun.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

For me, at least, the month of August has been pretty busy. I'm expecting my posting to go up after September 8th, if everything goes well.

I've been feeling slightly out of it lately, and I think some of that has to do with trying to keep things alive around here. It's hard to keep excited about threads when things often get dropped quickly. For awhile, I felt like one of the only people who was still interested in the site.

I'm totally not pointing fingers, because I haven't been active much this month due to personal reasons. But... general interest by others onsite seems to have dropped.

Is everyone losing interest, or is it being busy during the summer and not having much time to post?

What can we do to revitalize interest?

[Manslaughter]

I have life issues myself--school, Spanish homework (it pwns my soul), personal life, college<--the big one, and recently I've been sick like crazy. It isn't as though I've lost interest. Everything has seemed to look a little bleak to me lately. I can't exactly explain why, but it's just hard for me to do anything--I can't believe I'm saying this--creative. It's probably something mental, something may have just gone insane over the summer.. Well.. anyway.. before I start rambling..

Plots usually get me excited. I know we've tried several site-wide plots before, but thats what gets me going I guess. It's like a kick-start in my book. It's almost like picking up a new book and reading it in a series. You know the characters but there are so many possibilities.

So that's my contribution, I guess..

EDIT: So, I was thinking--after I did some site surfing--maybe we should give the place a make-over. Not like totally, but, you know, do some spring er.. autumn? cleaning.

Or just advertise. Some new faces can totally help too. (:

EDIT EDIT: Hahah.. I have many thoughts..

Well, anyway.. with the whole new faces and new look possibilities, I'd love to help out with graphics and HTML and stuff. Just let me know and I'm on it.

[Rogue]

Mostly not "busy" here in the sort of way that keeps me away from the computer, but the ways I'm busy tend to melt my brain (family bickering and the like, lately) and that doesn't lend well to writing.

Plus I think I'm only in one thread that isn't nearly-dead (ball, CTF, both large-scale which I should avoid joining in the future since I fail miserably at keeping up with and responding to things in that big a setting; next time I sign up for something large-scale, people-wise, someone is permitted to kick me) at the moment, so that's another reason I've been quiet and lurkerlike lately.

I don't actually think we need to change anything - I love everything as-is. <3 I just sorta need to get my act together and make sure my brain stops melting and falling out the back of my skull, and all will be well in Rogueyland (figuratively speaking, anyhow; Rogueyland is a land of many issues). XD

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

I like the idea of doing some advertising, honestly... it would be interesting to get a few new people who might be interested in RPing characters of the new class of students.

Revamping the layout is a good idea, too. We talked about that earlier, but nothing came of it. Morgan, you had some really good design ideas. I think a a few of the regular OCs posted graphics for you to work with in one of the OOC forums. If you want to pick up the task of designing a new banner, that would be awesome.

[Bobby Drake]

OK, so summarizing comments and adding my $0.02, key points bolded:

• People have lives (several).
  Not much to be done about that, and I don't want anyone feeling guilty about it.
  Real life trumps, every time, and it should.
  
  
• General lack of creative juices
  Again, not much to be done about that, I guess.
  What I will say, personally, is that it helps me not to think I have to write some masterpiece.
  Sometimes I can just sit down and write something.
  
  
• The feeling of inactivity encourages inactivity (Josh)
  The site has been fairly active -- over 3 IC posts/day in August, which is pretty good by my standards.
  But some folks have this sense that "nobody is posting" that makes them less inclined to post.
  I can think of two things that might help with that:
  • Post!
    If you're feeling like nobody's posting, post!
    Even if it's only a one-shot, or a diary entry, or whatever.
    At the very least, someone will be posting.
    And at best, you make someone else feel like somebody is posting.
    
  • Unclutter the site
    Having lots of supposedly active accounts that haven't posted in weeks probably contributes to the sense that "nobody is posting". If we know there's only 5 of us active, and 5 people are posting, that's different from thinking there's 15 of us active but only 5 people are posting.
  
  I've been trying both, not sure if it helps.
  Other suggestions welcome.
  
  
• More site-wide plots (Roger)
  Okeydoke. Some thoughts on this.
  • We're wrapping up the Capture the Flag arc, which follows the trend of most site-wide plots of getting a lot of early activity and then trailing off into silence, but I think was fairly successful overall.
    
  • The Brotherhood prison-breakout thread was supposed to be a site-wide plot arc, but never got much interest. It's been limping along for a while with a few of us poking at it from time to time. Should I just pull the plug on it?
    
  • Primer kicking off an OOC brainstorming thread for things the BH could do worked fairly well -- at least, it resulted in two or three active threads. So to try something similar across the site and I'm going to post a plot-brainstorming thread.
    
  • There's a new plot a few of us have been bouncing around in our heads for a while now.
    Personally I've been worried that, given our record on complex plots, it will just die out before it actually reaches its climax.
    But who knows, maybe it will kick-start activity, as Roger suggested.
    So, OK... let's see how this goes. I'll hunt up and publish my notes on the Onslaught plot so people can see them. (Originally we'd considered keeping the Big Bad a mystery for a while, but I think we've demonstrated that mystery doesn't work so well.)
    
  
  
  
• Graphical/HTML revamping (Roger, Josh).
  • New banner
    This thread had some discussion on the subject, but then died. The general consensus seems to be that everybody thinks it'd be a great idea but nobody is actually doing it.
    Roger says "I'd love to help out with graphics and HTML and stuff. Just let me know and I'm on it."... I'm not entirely clear what that means, but if it helps, I hereby officially charge Roger with the task of making a new banner.
    
    
  • Other stuff?
    I'll post a separate thread for brainstorming ideas.
    
  
  
  
• Advertising (Roger, Josh)
  Personally I'm less interested in bringing in new people than I am in trying to help the people who are already here have more fun, but I don't object.
  So: Josh, Roger, anyone else: are you volunteering to do it, or just saying you want someone else to do it?
  

[Manslaughter]

Fun! I'm totally all over this banner thing.

As for advertising, I'd be glad to chip in. God knows I bounce all over the place when I'm scouring proboards and invisionfree, and I can pick out usually within five minutes if a place is worth looking at. So, I can put up an advertisement on other elite boards. As for that advertisement, will we need to add on to it or leave it as is? Maybe we could add a very brief recap of what has happened since the third movie and all that fun stuff just so people know where we are.

[Bobby Drake]

Roger: great!

Tell you what: why don't you post an advertisement on a new OOC thread?
Anyone who has any comments, proposed edits, etc. can make them and we can modify it accordingly.
Otherwise we use it as is.

Sound good?

[Manslaughter]

Sure! I can do that in a bit. I'll probably start trying to draw up some plans for the banner. (: