Posting Conventions Suggestions

As per an earlier suggestion by @Stundorn I'd like to suggest (or re-suggest) the use of [tags] for certain types of posts until such time as we may need additional forums. The purpose being to easily sort through posts and find content of interest.

Specifically I'd like to adopt [Bio] for biographies.. Example..

[Bio] Bowen Bloodgood

 

Question Bowen:

Don't we have a bio section on http://www.rpota.com/#characters/ ?

And if that isn't working for the community, maybe we can make suggestions as to how better to utilize it?

 

Sure.. but not everyone is going to use RPotA right away and I don't think we should discourage posting character info here. New RPers are likely to come here first before they even know there's somewhere else to go. If all we're going to do is say "Go to RPotA.com" then there's not a lot of point in even having a forum.

 

@Lara of Grimmwold thanks for the info on rpota.com! Looks pretty cool.

 

I disagree.

And can respond with ... "If we are going to put bio's here whats the point of RPotA?"

The answer is: This is our public face to be found quickly, and should act as a portal to the community both in game and via fan sites.

Lara

 

I'm with @Bowen Bloodgood on this one.

 

I'm erring on the side of more exposure is a good thing and RPotA has much more than just character bios. Yes we want to drive traffic to RPotA and other resources but this is where we are gathering, and we will be promoting here as well as RPotA. Plus there is no harm in posting here and shows right away that we're supporting RP here before we send them off elsewhere.

 

Yes there is more to Rpota, and I would have liked to think that there will be more to these forums as well.

I am simply concerned that duplicating an existing location to post up what might be a larger and overwhelming selections of bios and stories will bury discussions and planning for actual IN GAME rp. We have locations for bios and stories.

I do not believe that more stuff is the same as more exposure. Advertising is about providing clear and concise information in an obviously available and digestible manner. I think that asking new players to shift thru stories and bios to find out what is actually happening in game, is going to represent a challenge.

But then, maybe our goals differ ...

 

By the time it came to that we would need additional sub-forums.. and if our conversations are active it would be posts like bios that would get buried.

This is why the information we want to be easy to find should be stickied..

That was the whole point of adopting tags or using sub-forums.

Rather I think we're just coming at things from two different perspectives. I am obviously not concerned with stuff getting buried as I assume we will create a few key threads such as links to resources like RPotA that we'll ask to be stickied so they never get buried. That's where most of the key information would be yes? And I'm sure you know RPers tend to like posting Bios.. I don't want new players to feel like they have to jump through a bunch of hoops to place their Bio somewhere much of the community will never go to see it. If you go into an RP section of the forum you'd expect to see stuff like Bios.

We can only ask and encourage people to go to RPotA.. but we shouldn't discourage them from posting here.

 

Can we please not get ahead of ourselves? Bios already have other homes including rpota and the library sub-forum. If those places are not working for the community, lets address that, rather then bringing everything here when we don't have sub-forum at this time.

 

As the title says.. it's just a suggestion.. and Bios was just an example.

 

The way I see it, this RPer's Corner, why Lara requested it to begin with, is to *facilitate* RP, not to collect anything and everything that could conceivably be "related" to RP. That is where most MMORPGs fail with the RP community. As the point I made elsewhere, "In-Character stuff" is not the same as "facilitating (and attracting) the RP community"

 

Having "IC Stuff" doesn't take anything away from that.. but discouraging "IC stuff" isn't going to attract RPers or encourage people to participate either.. quite the opposite. The suggestion wasn't "Let's encourage everyone to put all the "IC stuff" here".. but here's an optional mechanism to make it easier to sort through if you want to put it here.

 

But by having "this is how you put this here" instead of encouraging to post them in the two highly appropriate existing locations for that info, all you're doing is muddying the waters and making it MORE confusing instead of less.

 

I think that non-hardcore folks like me who occassionally like to dip our toes into RP are much more likely to do so in a place we are already at and comfortable. Going to another website just creates a barrier that might discourage us rp lite folks. I've made probably 10ish in character posts here and zero there.

Just another perspective /shrug

 

Who said anything about NOT encouraging them to post anywhere? In fact, I acknowledged earlier did I not.. that we want to encourage them to post at RPotA. Besides, what exactly is there to be confused about? Is there a hard and fast rule somewhere that says "you should only post this there"?

What we don't want to do.. is leave an impression that it's "our way or the high way".. if you don't do it the way we want then you're not welcome.

Is not part of the whole reason for wanting to direct people to RPotA to keep things clean and simple? Yet is it not 'muddying the waters' to say.. ok everyone you can only post your bios on RPotA and here we're going to talk about A B & C and we're going to do this in-game.. and...

I want to help RPers.. not wrangle them.