RolePlayGateway: WeBlog!

So I’ve been speaking recently with my Programming Structures professor at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Terveen, on the matter of community interaction and evolution, namely on those communities formed with very direct special interests in mind and the deviation from such interests as time progresses. Professor Terveen, a noted figurehead in the area of Human-Computer Interaction (Specializing in collaborative filtering), has spent most of his time monitoring specifically quantifiable components in communities - namely things that involve ratings, recommendations, and such. However there’s also a recognizable qualitative side, mostly related directly to community content itself, that is an interesting subject to look into.

I personally conjectured that pigeonholing online interest groups into those particular interests around which they are formed and making the assumption that such communities rely on the content inherent in those subjects to thrive was somewhat misleading. In my own personal studies on the matter, I’ve carefully monitored the progression and subject matter of two forum communities in particular, one an anime site (Anime-Forums.com, where I once moderated) and the other RoleplayGateway. Taken into account during the examination of each was the movement of interests and subject matter over time, despite the constant funneling inwards of new members constantly while older ones fall away.

A few interesting things came out of it - don’t worry, I won’t be boring anybody with the full details of most of this. But I took careful notice of the fact that both communities would drift towards and away their primary subject matter at relatively even intervals, this also being independent of the overall popularity of that given subject online as a whole at the time. Pretty natural patterns existed for RPGateway, such as the increased focus on subject matter (Namely roleplaying) during number surges. Particularly the RPGateway surges in April-May (I say ’surges’ based on Alexa rankings) were quite noteworthy, the former even more so. Activity was at a peak in the roleplaying section of the forums while the other sections saw decreases in activity, to the point that visiting them was rather misleading as far as gaining a grasp on the level of activity on the site goes. Meanwhile, the anime forum was the complete opposite. Number increases drove focus away from anime towards other unrelated things, although this can be somewhat attributed to the rather stale state of anime popularity during their bigger months, which could be explained through a few phenomena. Gateway also saw a September surge and then consistently higher numbers than normal since, which is expected with most websites that strike at our demographic.

So what exactly useful can be drawn from it? Well, there’s still a matter of cause-and-effect. Are increased numbers tending towards more focus on roleplaying? Or is increased focus on roleplaying producing more traffic? I’d personally like to be of the belief that the former is the more so important relationship here. Member retention and community involvement are absolute keys to success, and it’s pretty evident that interest groups can thrive even as they drift further from those core interests.

For the time being, suffice it to say that we’re heading in a good direction with the idea of expanding community involvement beyond the realm of writing clever posts and playing characters well.
Establish your base first, that’s the way. We all know that we enjoy roleplaying, otherwise we wouldn’t even be on the site in the first place. So let’s see what else brings us together.

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Yax was very generous, placing RolePlayGateway in the Top 50 RPG websites. Yax runs a great dungeon mastering blog, with a ton of great tips, resources, and links - we recommend that you check out his blog, and don’t hesitate to subscribe to his RSS feed. Thanks again to Yax, and special thanks to our community for making us so great.

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Like Martin Reed writes on CommunitySpark, it’s important to make your community stand out from the competition. We recently announced over $300 in prizes for the winners of our forum posting contest, which puts a unique spin on forum contests.

Rather than counting posts, we’ve decided to use an algorithm to give each post a score, and take a total of each users’ scores over the contest as it runs for the 30 day period, from November 30th to December 30th. This is going to be perfect if you want to get some last minute Christmas shopping done!

If you watch the current standings of the contest, you’ll see the scores go up in almost real-time, they’ll be adjusted and recalculated every 10 minutes or so. Share this with your friends, too - we have no objection to people working together and posting back and forth in forum games, then sharing the prize if one of you wins.

Also, we’d like to announce that account merges are now made available. If you have any duplicate accounts that are not for specific characters, send me a PM and I can get your accounts merged for you (and even keep the one that has the earlier registration date ;] ).

There’s only one day left in the short story writing contest! Be sure to submit your story before the deadline!

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We just shuffled our main page a little, moving our introduction closer to the top of the page, and adding a beautiful anime-lady. We adjusted our introduction (but it might need a bit of tweaking, so please, comment!), and added a large section about what role playing games are. We also shifted the “News” section down, but it’s still there.

Do you think people who are coming here already know what RPGs are? Was it a good idea to add the section? Do you like the anime girl? Please, give us your feedback!

Oh, yes. Suggestions are welcome too.

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Did you know that we have a feature that lets you share any topic with any of your friends?

We all know how addictive RPGateway is. Don’t be alone in your addiction - there is strength in numbers! Share things with your friends and get them addicted, too.

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I’ve always loved Eve Online. It’s a space MMO, with ridiculous levels of immersion. They tout that it’s the world’s largest game universe, and let me tell you - it’s absolutely huge.

One of our new members has posted her intentions to work on an Eve Online Roleplaying Journal. I think this is an incredibly awesome idea. It’s not new, I’ve seen character journals before, but it just seems to fit in with Eve’s extensive world and role playing experience.

Character journaling is a great way to extend the world of a game and add more depth to both the character and the plot. Be careful that you don’t fall victim to the inactivity that often plagues real journaling! Stick to it, and you’ll reap the benefits of fleshing out your character and having a solid history of the thought processes involved.

Be sure to check out Emywn’s Journal from Eve Online Roleplaying. It looks like it’s going to be something I’m going to have to follow using my trusty Google RSS Reader. Good luck, Kethro - and thanks for the idea!

P.S.: Google Reader is an amazing tool that lets you follow your favorite sites and their content without ever checking the page. You can check out my shared items list to see what sort of things I follow, but check out the official Google Reader page for more information.

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In many online communities, like our beloved role playing forum, member activity often slows to a drip, and can risk being shut altogether. There are tons of methods of addressing this, but we’re going to address one particular facet.

Make A Commitment.

Get your members to commit to something simple and attainable. In our case, I’d like to make the challenge to all of our members to commit to dedicate one hour per day to the forum.

Encourage your members to set their own goals, too - but be sure to give them solid standards and pushes for the direction you want them to go. Your goal is to drum up activity, so push them in that direction using a guideline, or a pilot commitment.

So what can you do in one hour?

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On our forums, we have a resource list of places to roleplay. It’s a great list, but as I’m sure you know - there are tons of places that we have no idea exist. Some are underground, and you can’t find them in search engines, others are private and are only for those who’ve been given the link.

Where are your favorite places to roleplay online? Forums, Chats, MUDs, MMOs - it doesn’t matter, give us the link!

Oh - and don’t forget to send this to your friends. The more people, the better. Please don’t forget to add the link!

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RolePlayGateway is a great place to roleplay, talk about roleplay, and simply hang out with other roleplayers. Of course, it’s not all roleplay all the time, but it sure is a lot of fun, whether you roleplay or not. However, not all is perfect — people still turn away from the community in favor of other ventures.

Why is this? Sometimes the claim is that the community is too new to roleplaying to be worth someone’s time. Other times, the claim is that the community is too advanced for new players to jump in and play. These are diametrically opposed views, so which is accurate about RolePlayGateway and the roleplaying community?

Both.

Wait, what? Yes, that’s right, the roleplaying atmosphere of RolePlayGateway is both too advanced and too close to a beginner’s level for many people. This is one of the problems that plagues us right now, and there are a few solutions.

It is imperative that first and foremost we focus on the community and the user experience. We need to be sure that everyone enjoys themselves and the activities they participate in while on RPGateway. The RolePlay Gateway Staff play a very important role in this, but perhaps the most crucial role is player by the average members of RPGateway. These members, collectively, are what define the community and ultimately, what make the experience a memorable one.

At RolePlay Gateway’s Welcome Desk, new members get the chance to introduce themselves and to be welcomed by existing members of the community. The members do an amazing job at welcoming these users, and while they could do a better job at capturing the interest and captivating them in discussion, we do tend to get an excellent turnover rate for people who post these welcome threads.

There’s always the ongoing issue of bad apples and trolls who seem to be dedicated to turning the community into a flame war, and some of our new features should help members report these items to moderators more quickly. For the most part, our moderators are dedicated and passionate about their task, so again, the members have the most power here, in reporting offensive posts and potential powderkegs to the moderators using the functionality provided. Knowledge is power, and if you inform the staff of problems, I promise, we’ll fix it.

Moderators additionally have the task of making things happen, such as organizing events that keep the whole community involved - such as the infamous word games (and other random non-roleplay fun) and more on-topic helpful threads that help people get involved in games. We’d love to see more of this, indeed. But we’d be happiest to see all members giving their most to the community.

The bottom line is that every member plays an integral role in the great machine. If you complain about something yet aren’t willing to help work toward a solution, you don’t belong here. Be passionate about what you do, and the entire roleplaying community will benefit.

This applies not only to our online community, but to all things that you do. Take it to heart, and you’ll be a better person.

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