Animation Source Forums

The tutorial as gotten off to a fairly slow start, and I think it is because the members involved want to make sure the posts they write are as good as they can get. If we really rushed it and posted crappy writing on the a topic that is suppose to be like a role model, people would pay even less attention to it that they do now. I realize that this project is going to take a long, long time before it's complete, but I do hope that we can, eventually, finish it. Meanwhile, as it is in progress, I think it can still help new members in it's current unfinished form.

I think that the best type of roleplays are ones that have a direction but have some wiggle room, and sometimes those come from roleplays that have no direction. I am really glad that you even have one successful roleplay, which is a feat for any roleplayer. I know that, personally, I don't have many roleplays that made it passed five pages or reached their full potential.

I completely agree with you about how the "bad" roleplays are drowning out the "good" rolepalys. There really isn't any way to stop this, but we can still try, I guess.

And the teen pregnancies really make me laugh. I haven't seen many lately, but I am sure they are still out there. I really don't know how they get away with those types of characters, but I don't feel right reporting them, either, because they aren't technically breaking the rules... Still, it does bother me a bit.

I told you I was going to post more everytime something ticks me off!

There have been a lot of things bothering me in the last month or so since I previously posted, but before I get into another long rant, I just wanted to say a few things about the Roleplay Tutorial. Although it is definately not going as fast as I wanted it to, I still hold hope for it! In the meantime, I really want to write my own Roleplaying Guide that focusing on the issues we are having right now. I love the other Roleplaying Guides and they were really helpful to me. The problem is that the people who need to read them aren't reading them. Maybe if I create a new one that does specifically mention problems that are going on, maybe these members will read it. Even if they only do this to post a rude comment or even try to argue that I am wrong (like they have in the past), at least they will have read it! Also, if anyone still reading this topic has ideas for this Guide, please let me know! I have a basic idea, but I also cannot not think of every issue happening today. I will, of course, reread this topic to gain ideas, but I would love to recieve even more suggestions on what YOU think should be in this guide.

Anyways, on to my ranting to make my feel better...

First, to add on to the teen pregnancies, I've also noticed roleplays encouraging relationships that lead into marriages and children. Is this really appropriate for a kids site? I mean, maybe its okay in a roleplay that has lasted for over twenty or so pages and it is in order to progress the story, but being married and having kids after five or ten pages? Do I need to say anything more about this?

Second, starting a roleplay when only one other person has joined. I probably mentioned this before, but I am saying it again because it is my biggest roleplaying pet peeve. If you only want to roleplay with one person, make a private roleplay! How hard is that?! It just makes no sense to me. It stops other people from joining when they might have really wanted to, and it also hinders the story when there are only two characters involved. This leads to one-liners, which aren't technically allowed in the open roleplay section. And, to me, I just find it annoying when the same two or three people (and you all know who I'm talking about) make useless roleplays, wait for one of their friends to join, and then write in this roleplay with bad characters in a bad plot with bad writing.

And that brings me to my third, and most important, point. There seems to be a group of people (the same ones mentioned above) who do this kind of thing and think it is alright. I am out of ideas how to stop them or make them "see the light." I know I annoy at least one of these members to death because they have told me that themself. I just wish I could get through to them that although their style of roleplay is accepted on other sites, it is not acceptable here. I feel like they just ignore me now because I always point out when they do something against the rules, so I guess they just think I'm picking on them or something. I wonder if they realize that if they'd just take my advice, I would leave them alone and maybe even roleplay with them...hmm...

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I'm going to comment on the issue of teen pregnancies, defending me and my co-author's own story in the process, because I feel slightly uneasy about reading your rant and drawing parallels to it.

If the story/characters are completely new, and the characters have never met before, and the posts are the slowly all encompassing one-liners... I completely agree that it's rushed, and likely inappropriate. I'd be amazed if two characters would finish a conversation in five to ten pages at that rate, let alone decide to have children.

However, in our story, which stars the characters from the Balto films, the two characters contemplating parenthood have been established to know each other quite well and for a serviceable amount of time. Not only is it plausible (depending on which side you take on that ridiculously long lasting thread about "Dusty and Kodi's pupps"), but it serves at least two hugely important plot points. It isn't there to add unnecessary drama or make it edgy (I'd argue that our roleplay is already tipping the envelope in both departments), it's there to progress the story in a logical and believable fashion.

Of course, we might be selling these recent "teen pregnancy" trendsetters short - maybe they have detailed outlines about the narrative arc.

Teen pregnancies aside, I'd like to add to more about your rant.

I can't speak about starting roleplays early, because I've only ever worked on the one. For the record, that's also why I've held off on posting in your spectacular Roleplay Discussion thread. I'm a one-trick pony, and I'm sure it's tiresome to see me tirade my answer to every question "...Well, in Balto: Truth and Consequence...".

I am, however, familiar with the specific archetype of roleplayer you speak of. A while ago, the Balto Private Section had several unfinished roleplays from the same people, all of which involved random and numerous characters who's only connection to Balto that I could discern was that "they were wolves once, then turned human". The plots themselves were... I couldn't really follow, but I didn't see a mention of Balto in any of them. I messaged the user and politely asked if they could utilize the general private roleplay section, which they did.

They probably are not the same thick-headed sounding users you are describing, however. It sounds to me like they are being plain ignorant. I don't really delve into the open roleplay sections too often though, but it sounds like it is prone to a lot more issues than private roleplays. I'm not entirely sure which rules they aren't following (maybe you could PM me some links of the RPs for reference?), but if they are breaking them enough, can't they be reported?

I know we have the whole sticky with the set of rules, but I'm not sure how hard and fast those are at being enforced. I was actually naive enough to send a message to the sticky creator to acknowledge that I have read the rules when I first started, because that's what the instructions said!

That's about enough from me, but I must say, I love reading your rants. It always reminds me of what not to do, and what to improve upon.

So, it seems that I just can't let this topic die.

Anyways, I've been trying really hard to come up with new ideas to help turn the roleplay board around. The tutorial? Awesome, for people who read it. The new guide? Helpful, for people who read it. And for new members, they are still just seeing the crappy roleplays that are clogging up the front page.

We have discussed before that bad roleplay will always be the majority because it takes less time to make a bad story and more time to create a good one. But we do need to fight for a roleplay section a bit harder than we are. My suggestion is that, from now on, when one of us makes a roleplay, we have a three strike warning system. If a member joins and doesn't post two lines or is posting in the wrong style or goes off topic, we give them a warning and suggestions as to how to improve. If they get three warning, they are out of the roleplay and any posts they make in that topic will be ignored.

So, to get this kinda started, I am gonna post a couple roleplays. One or two from dead roleplays of mine that I would like to try again and one or two new ideas. Everyone here is welcomed to join! Hopefully, if these members get kicked out of enough good roleplays, they will realize that they need to change. Maybe. It's a hopeful thought, at least.

Hmm...interesting thought. The only problem with that is, the people who get kicked out, if it comes to that, will most likely argue and spam up the roleplay.

That thought came to my mind, but I figured most of them would just be too ticked off to post there again. And if they do, we can always ask a Mod to delete all their spam posts and hopefully getting a Mod involved will be enough to scare them off. If thet continue to spam, I'm sure the Mod will see fit to ban them even for just a week or two.

It's a change, but I am willing to take it. I mean, something NEEDS to happen. I think we've all agreed on that.

True. I agree; something needs to happen. If doing this is what is needed, so be it...I honestly can't think of anything else we can do to get people to listen.

The biggest problem is that these people don't read; in other words, they don't care to listen. Although I have no doubt that these individuals WILL spam, but at least when they do, there's the now FOUR guides plus he Tutorial to point at when the mods (hopefully) get involved.

Yeah, I'm running out of ideas! I mean, people who don't want to listen won't. It's that simple. So maybe instead of telling, we try to show them.... I dunno, it makes sense in mind. Haha. And, honestly, how long does it take to read ANY of the guides? Ten minutes? Twenty? Even if it takes someones and hour, it would be worth it if they actually followed the suggestions posted there.

Yes, I am brining back this topic. I have somethings to get off my chest...again.

So has anyone visited the Lady and the Tramp Roleplaying board lately? No? Doesn't surprise me, since I didn't even know it existed until today. It's strangely the only new Source that has a RP section. And I am thankful for that!

It seems that there is where all the newbies (and not so new nOObs) go to roleplay if bland, boring, and confusing plots, mary-sue and gary-stu characters, and consistent one liners and text speech. I can't even begin to tell you how terrifying it was!

Anyways, I am going to try to reel in these members by posting a shortened version of my guide over there. It seemed to work fairly well over in the General Open Roleplay section, so I'll see how well they take it over there...

Yeah, bad roleplays have been posted there for too long now. I even remember posting up some sort of rant about it ages ago, but nothing was done. It's really a shame...

I was seriously shocked when I saw of those rps; it has scarred be for life! haha. Anyways, since I've posted the guide, I have gotten a comment from someone who has a lot of rps in that section, but that member at least posts good sized paragraphs. I hope I reach some of the people who actually need improvement soon, though I did get one vote on the poll that they don't agree with me and don't like the guide. I have a feeling who it was though because I did get into a little spat with her recently as you've probably seen on the general open rp forum. I'm rather disappointed because this member showed so many signs of wanting to improve before, but now she's totally against me "making people change the roleplays they worked so hard on." I'm going to keep trying, but she might be a lost cause now...

What has been seen cannot be unseen...

Batman - My thoughts exactly...

Holy grammar, I think I'm scarred for life. That was a dark, terrifying pit of complete disregard to...well, the English language in general. Poor plot-lines, lack of punctuation and capitalization, under-devloped characters, and posts with absolutely no effort in them whatsoever. I'm just wondering how old some of those people actually are, because I know five-year-olds who can write better than that, just in terms of grammar.

I really want to be able to show them how to properly roleplay so they can grow as writers and improve their skills, but I honestly don't know how. Sometimes joining and providing decent posts is good enough, but others are just so stubborn. I don't even bother trying to make suggestions; I'm not willing to put myself in a position to be flamed, thank you.

I have seem some improvement in the roleplays in the General section for sure, but there are still those few people that continue to block out whatever advice is thrown there way. I don't know what to do about them; I wasn't so stubborn, I'd be tempted to give up. Why can't people see we're not trying to "change the roleplays they worked so hard on"? We're trying to help them improve those roleplays, so they'll be better. If they really worked on the roleplay, wouldn't they want to make it better? I don't know what's running through their heads, honestly. Any tips on reaching out to those people though?