Make RoleplayGateway Better

serenitykmoon · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **serenitykmoon** on Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:29 pm

Recently, there's been a lot of talk here in the chats about ways to make the site a better place. A lot of us are really passionate about RPG, and we want it to stand out and be better than it is.

So if you have suggestions, post them here, post your VALID arguments so we can show the mods that we're serious about this!

**Note: I've been here off and on for seven years so I'm not just some random chick who just joined and is trying a takeover lol**

Cienpher · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Cienpher** on Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:32 pm

Well, I have been here for a while - took a year and a half hiatus and returned a week ago. One thing that concerns me is the lack of welcome and support for new members. I looked at the Welcome Forum today and there are topics that have gone weeks without a reply!

Part of the reason I fell in love with this site way back when was the warm and helpful community. I plan to do my share to bring that aspect back, and I would love it if some members decided to help me out ^^

Also, when I was on the site, there was a new roleplay practically every refresh! It's disappointing to see, instead of roleplays, a large number of 'storage RPs'? What are these? I'm not quite sure, but I think it would be helpful if we could come up with a way to keep them out of the "New Roleplays" feed at the top of the forums.

LawOfTheLand · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **LawOfTheLand** on Mon Jul 06, 2015 10:45 pm

roleplaygateway-volunteers-needed-t94873.html

I'll just leave this here.

serenitykmoon · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **serenitykmoon** on Tue Jul 07, 2015 6:32 am

QB, I already messaged Dash, and he said that the team didn't need anyone at this time. :/

Some suggestions I'd have are:

-Clearing out old profiles of people who do NOT come on.
-Threads that have long since been closed should be deleted
-Storage RP's (places you basically just throw your stuff into) should be handled
-Ability to just make characters whenever you want, without having to add them to a roleplay.
-Going with ^ The ability to click "add to roleplay" which will create a list of plays that your character is involved in!
-A better functioning chat system
-Welcome greeting messages AUTO sent to PM boxes
-An updated directory
-An intro to the site that's easy to read and follow
-Updated BBC Code List
-More moderation in the chats
-Essentially cleaning house
-Get rid of that black bar at the top of the page, it's ugly and freaks out the page dimensions.

Daiagnosis · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Daiagnosis** on Tue Jul 07, 2015 2:36 pm

Cienpher wrote:Also, when I was on the site, there was a new roleplay practically every refresh! It's disappointing to see, instead of roleplays, a large number of 'storage RPs'? What are these? I'm not quite sure, but I think it would be helpful if we could come up with a way to keep them out of the "New Roleplays" feed at the top of the forums.

There is a way to keep them out of New Roleplays. Most of them tag their storage as storage, so you can easily just put that on the list of tags you want to ignore at the top.

serenitykmoon wrote:QB, I already messaged Dash, and he said that the team didn't need anyone at this time. :/

Some suggestions I'd have are:

-Clearing out old profiles of people who do NOT come on.

Now these profiles shouldn't be deleted, because many people go on hiatus. They should be hidden from the public eye, but be able to be reactivated IF they log on again..

serenitykmoon wrote:-Storage RP's (places you basically just throw your stuff into) should be handled

They really shouldn't because currently we have no way to store our characters somewhere. What should happen instead is a separate area specifically made for storage. All storage roleplays could be moved there instead, and there should be an option to make a storage RP private to either only you or specific people you can list down somewhere.

serenitykmoon wrote:-Ability to just make characters whenever you want, without having to add them to a roleplay.

This raises the question of "Where would these characters be stored?", which just further promotes the addition of a storage section specifically for storage roleplays on this site.

serenitykmoon wrote:-Get rid of that black bar at the top of the page, it's ugly and freaks out the page dimensions.

They should make the text at the top more spread out across the WHOLE bar. Because for people with long names like me it ends up doing something that the bar ends up being thicker and my username ends up being below the rest of the text (which blocks out the top of the page so on characters I can't click edit, and so I have to go al the way to my profile to the characters in order to edit them). They should also change the color of it imo.

Cienpher · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Cienpher** on Tue Jul 07, 2015 2:54 pm

—(••÷ ιяяєgυℓαяιту ÷••)— wrote:
Cienpher wrote:Also, when I was on the site, there was a new roleplay practically every refresh! It's disappointing to see, instead of roleplays, a large number of 'storage RPs'? What are these? I'm not quite sure, but I think it would be helpful if we could come up with a way to keep them out of the "New Roleplays" feed at the top of the forums.

There is a way to keep them out of New Roleplays. Most of them tag their storage as storage, so you can easily just put that on the list of tags you want to ignore at the top.

Hello! The problem with that is that this recommendation is not due to a personal issue with storage RPs, but the fact that new members seem to be disappointed and disheartened when they click the top five and find that most of them are not actually roleplays - I believe that this is not a good representation of the community and purpose of the site to the newbies.

I don't think it's reasonable to ask every new member or tentatively interested party to jump through hoops to find actual roleplays in the quickest and ost accessible way possible, so I think a better system may be necessary.

Sorry for being unclear about my intentions in the first post, ahaha. I do agree that a separate space dedicated to character storage would resolve the issue, although I still remain unclear on what the purpose of this 'storage' is.

Daiagnosis · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Daiagnosis** on Tue Jul 07, 2015 5:26 pm

Cienpher wrote:
—(••÷ ιяяєgυℓαяιту ÷••)— wrote:
Cienpher wrote:Also, when I was on the site, there was a new roleplay practically every refresh! It's disappointing to see, instead of roleplays, a large number of 'storage RPs'? What are these? I'm not quite sure, but I think it would be helpful if we could come up with a way to keep them out of the "New Roleplays" feed at the top of the forums.

There is a way to keep them out of New Roleplays. Most of them tag their storage as storage, so you can easily just put that on the list of tags you want to ignore at the top.

Hello! The problem with that is that this recommendation is not due to a personal issue with storage RPs, but the fact that new members seem to be disappointed and disheartened when they click the top five and find that most of them are not actually roleplays - I believe that this is not a good representation of the community and purpose of the site to the newbies.

I don't think it's reasonable to ask every new member or tentatively interested party to jump through hoops to find actual roleplays in the quickest and ost accessible way possible, so I think a better system may be necessary.

Sorry for being unclear about my intentions in the first post, ahaha. I do agree that a separate space dedicated to character storage would resolve the issue, although I still remain unclear on what the purpose of this 'storage' is.

A storage is exactly that, a storage. It's a place to store coding, old characters, and even store WIP roleplays. Some people also use it as a reference, storing images they may use in the future, fonts, and face claims they could use. They create this because there currently doesn't exist a place where they can store everything in one place for later use.

By top five I think you mean the roleplays list when you click on the site's logo at the top. And I agree, storages shouldn't be listed on the front page.

Wudgeous · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Wudgeous** on Tue Jul 07, 2015 5:43 pm

I notice that storages are commonly also tagged with "not rp," too, which makes it a bit odd when three of them somehow make the front page (http://www.roleplaygateway.com/) due to a quirky coding schematic. If the front page could instead link to the welcome desk, roleplayers wanted, and interest check forums--and maybe a FAQ forum as well--I think we might find more success in retaining new members.

Honestly, having long running, successful roleplays on the front page is great, and I love that it's there. I especially love the little top ten bar on the side! ...But these roleplays are rarely looking for new blood (being already long running successful, with who knows how many members), so additional, newbie-friendly content on the main webpage would be very helpful.

I doubt I'm the first to have this idea though.

FyreT1ger · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **FyreT1ger** on Wed Jul 08, 2015 6:22 pm

I may be mistaken because I am only human, but I seem to remember that when I started here, it was actually possible to create a character without making said character specifically for a roleplay. The character just got auto-sorted to the Multiverse, which I've never actually played. The first two characters I ever made, Rowan and Tate, I think were characters I just made to test the framework. I don't believe I actually added them to the Multiverse world.

If it was possible to make characters without requiring them to be part of a specific roleplay, what happened to change it?

I may have answered my own question. When I first started using Roleplay Gateway, the tab-sorted role play system didn't exist. Yes, I am that old that I played here before the tabs. There was also a Friend and Foe list on the user profiles. Why would anyone want to declare another player a Foe, I'll never know. I'm glad that list is gone.

Also in that long ago time you could select a character sheet already made and add said character to multiple role plays. Nowadays, as far as I can tell, a new character sheet must be created for each roleplay whether or not the player is using a character they already have.

So far this sounds like a nostalgic ramble, which means I need to get back on topic: What could make Roleplay Gateway better?

For the most part, I pretty much agree with other posters about having a separate storage section on the site. I'd like to take that suggestion further by tying the storage to the user profile. If it's part of the profile, I think the user should be able to toggle who is allowed to view the storage. With that in mind, the warnings not to copy the ideas may no longer be necessary. Of course I'm no programmer and don't know how this will work, but I think it's worth considering.

Another thing that could make this site better would be cleaning up dead roleplays, but if we're using the storage to hold characters or ideas that may belong to dead role plays, it may be a bit tricky. Dead roleplay means one that has no new posts for a year or more and is not completed.

Completed roleplays, I don't think should ever be deleted. It's an accomplishment to complete a long-running multi-authored story and the GMs and players who contributed to that story should see that accomplishment, and those who have yet to participate in a completed story can be encouraged that yes it is possible. As a player, I've never been part of a completed roleplay, and I get discouraged when I see roleplays that died before really getting off the ground. Because these are multi-authored stories, it does take a team effort to get off the ground and finish, but it's still disappointing.

Cienpher · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Cienpher** on Tue Jul 14, 2015 9:52 pm

I do agree that completed roleplays should never be deleted. Dead roleplays, however, definitely should be deleted.

I for one save all of my RP related coding on separate word documents, so the cleanup wouldn't matter to me too much, but it might be a good idea to encourage others to do the same beforehand so no one loses any work they want to keep.

Brat Prince · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Brat Prince** on Thu Jul 16, 2015 10:27 am

serenitykmoon wrote:-Storage RP's (places you basically just throw your stuff into) should be handled

They really shouldn't because currently we have no way to store our characters somewhere. What should happen instead is a separate area specifically made for storage. All storage roleplays could be moved there instead, and there should be an option to make a storage RP private to either only you or specific people you can list down somewhere.

That could be good but until it is made those storage roleplays get in the way of people who want to roleplay. Until then there are other places you can go to store your ideas, things such as word, notepad, or even google docs and possibly others. I myself use google docs and even have a folder that is specifically for roleplays that I can add things to for new ideas, characters, I'm sure you could even add BBcode in the dock (I'm not sure if you would see what it looks like or not). I feel like those would also be a safer and easier way to store ideas than on here, it is a lot harder for someone to steel the idea, you have a document for each idea or character instead of having to scroll through a whole bunch of text that you wrote to find one idea

Cienpher · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Cienpher** on Thu Jul 16, 2015 10:44 am

I completely agree with Brat Prince - until now, I had always written my codes onto word documents and saved them all separately. If I wanted to see how a code looked, I would use the forum to 'preview', or in the case of a character profile, once I was set on the name, I would submit a WIP and view my changes as I update. I never personally thought of a 'Storage RP' as a necessity, and currently they are just confusing and disappointing people looking for actual roleplays.

Until a separate storage can be implemented, I think that figuring out a way to keep storage RPs out of sight will be necessary.

Wake · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Wake** on Fri Jul 17, 2015 5:24 am

Well good to see I'm not the only one who's had minor gripes about the 'storage trend'. But for the sake of ensuring the talks here don't solely revolve around it and furthering debate I hope you won't mind if I try to switch subjects to another topic I'd like to argue for.

serenitykmoon wrote:-More moderation in the chats

Yeah I'll admit I've had a love/hate relationship with the way the current chat system is set up. On the one had I've come to enjoy the new private message system that comes with it as it's made talking with friends and fellow roleplayers significantly easier and quicker, which in turn has also helped with a bit organization and planning when it comes to collaborative writing.

On the other hand though I feel that introducing a second chat has sort of 'split' the community. I never really agreed with the change when it was first implemented and I remember the original chat slowly loosing activity over time until it's lately become like a ghost town. Which is a bit of a shame as that tends to be the place where new members first pop their heads in to say 'hi'. It's been a few years since I first joined but I remember back then when if first waded into the chat to ask how things worked and how quickly I was able to get some welcoming responses from the site veterans at the time, and afterwards I'd observe others being helped situated in a similar manner. The number of people I saw chatting away in there also gave off this impression to me that the site was alive and was a big reason as to why I kept coming back here even after long periods of dormancy.

With the new system it kinda felt like that just stopped happening, and believe it or not it's very easy to ignore.not notice that little speech bubble button at the bottom right of the screen.

So in short: I think we should go back to a singular chat system as I feel it would make for a better 'gathering ground' for new members and it'd help make the community feel more active and inviting.

Brat Prince · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Brat Prince** on Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:19 pm

I have only been a member since February so the current chat is the only one that I've known and I agree it's very easy to ignore, you shut the sound off and it's as if it's not even there. The issue is even if they changed the chat I don't know if it would really help with being more active. Any time I look at the chat there only seems to be a few people, always the same, chating. As for the private messaging I do like the idea, I just wish that they made it easier to unlock. I understand needing to do something so that you don't get spam bots but sometime it puts people at a disadvantage if they cannot PM somebody.

Cienpher · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Cienpher** on Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:25 pm

I feel that getting 10 in-forum posts to PM isn't a bad thing - it's fairly easy to unlock given a few minutes in the forum games or greeting people. However, I do feel like it would be nice for people to have a counter or something so that they know when they can send them though. Some newbies don't even know you need to get 10 forum posts to PM;;

More importantly though, there needs to be clarification on what the requirement is to post a url using the [url=] code. No one really seems to know the answer, and they do, it needs to be found in a more visible place.

Brat Prince · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Brat Prince** on Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:58 pm

True the 10 posts is an easy one I just wish they made it better known and like you said keep a counter so you know how many you need. But there are some issues with it where it isn't unlocking for everybody because I went through one night trying to get the 10 posts in because I needed the PM to talk to someone in a roleplay that is never on to IM and about 3 months later I still cannot PM users and have even submitted a support request. I have been trying to be patient but at times it feels like it prevents me from being able to do things.

Daiagnosis · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Daiagnosis** on Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:16 pm

Cienpher wrote:I feel that getting 10 in-forum posts to PM isn't a bad thing - it's fairly easy to unlock given a few minutes in the forum games or greeting people. However, I do feel like it would be nice for people to have a counter or something so that they know when they can send them though. Some newbies don't even know you need to get 10 forum posts to PM;;

More importantly though, there needs to be clarification on what the requirement is to post a url using the [url=] code. No one really seems to know the answer, and they do, it needs to be found in a more visible place.

Ylanne · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Ylanne** on Mon Jul 27, 2015 6:23 pm

I've been here for a long time and I would love to see these changes take place in particular, with respect to forums:

- Allow the ability to edit your posts regardless of when you originally wrote them. This is a matter of returning autonomy to users. If someone wants to delete their own old posts, or to revise them, they should be allowed to do so.

- Don't delete dead or incomplete roleplays, but do archive them. For example, if a thread has not had a new post in the last 30 days (that's just an idea, but the timeframe could be modified), it goes to an archives section of the play-by-post roleplay forums. That way people who want to revisit their writing and stories (some of which can continue for quite awhile but then die, and some of which can provide material to build upon for later as someone improves their writing) are able to do so without dead threads cluttering active roleplaying space.

- Allow users to send PM's to multiple recipients. I am keenly aware of concerns about spamming, but I'd suggest the following anti-spam measures to counter the likelihood (and hopefully diminish it): 1) require a higher post minimum to unlock this feature, potentially 25 or 50 posts, and 2) allow users to add people to a whitelist (for receiving multi-recipient PM's) or a blacklist (to prevent the user from including them on multi-recipient PM's), OR 3) alternatively to my number 2, allow users to tick a setting in their profile to enable or disable receiving multi-recipient PM's, so that if someone tries to their username on a multi-recipient PM, they'll only receive a message saying "This user has elected not to receive multi-recipient PM's," but it will not delete the content of the PM that has been written. (If number 3 were adopted, site staff would still be able to send PM's to that person.)

Ylanne · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Ylanne** on Mon Jul 27, 2015 6:28 pm

FyreT1ger wrote:I may be mistaken because I am only human, but I seem to remember that when I started here, it was actually possible to create a character without making said character specifically for a roleplay. The character just got auto-sorted to the Multiverse, which I've never actually played. The first two characters I ever made, Rowan and Tate, I think were characters I just made to test the framework. I don't believe I actually added them to the Multiverse world.

If it was possible to make characters without requiring them to be part of a specific roleplay, what happened to change it?

I may have answered my own question. When I first started using Roleplay Gateway, the tab-sorted role play system didn't exist. Yes, I am that old that I played here before the tabs. There was also a Friend and Foe list on the user profiles. Why would anyone want to declare another player a Foe, I'll never know. I'm glad that list is gone.

Also in that long ago time you could select a character sheet already made and add said character to multiple role plays. Nowadays, as far as I can tell, a new character sheet must be created for each roleplay whether or not the player is using a character they already have.

You remember correctly. When we shifted to a multi-roleplay system where roleplays have a unique system apart from the play-by-post forums, all characters previously created were defaulted to the Multiverse.

Wake wrote:On the other hand though I feel that introducing a second chat has sort of 'split' the community. I never really agreed with the change when it was first implemented and I remember the original chat slowly loosing activity over time until it's lately become like a ghost town. Which is a bit of a shame as that tends to be the place where new members first pop their heads in to say 'hi'. It's been a few years since I first joined but I remember back then when if first waded into the chat to ask how things worked and how quickly I was able to get some welcoming responses from the site veterans at the time, and afterwards I'd observe others being helped situated in a similar manner. The number of people I saw chatting away in there also gave off this impression to me that the site was alive and was a big reason as to why I kept coming back here even after long periods of dormancy.

With the new system it kinda felt like that just stopped happening, and believe it or not it's very easy to ignore.not notice that little speech bubble button at the bottom right of the screen.

So in short: I think we should go back to a singular chat system as I feel it would make for a better 'gathering ground' for new members and it'd help make the community feel more active and inviting.

I completely agree with this part of Wake's post, and want a single chat system again. By all means keep the PM/chat feature at the bottom of the screen, but return the general OOC/public chat to a single place. Over the past two years, whenever I pop into the general chat at the bottom of the screen, I almost never see someone I know (or only see one person), but when I go into what used to be the general OOC/public chat (and is now OOC chat for the roleplay tab), it's almost empty. I know a lot of folks have moved on, and that I've not been the site's most active member of late, but it's still a sad sight.

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