- What are the things you love about the current system that you want to KEEP and don't wanna give up?
The rating system and roleplay resume under a button, all I can really think that I can say is really cool.
- What are the things you are having a hard time with or find confusing to deal with?
Finding new roleplays, everything appears cluttered, crowded, and filled with fluff. To this day I still don't know where my RP is placed, I just go through my email because it's more convenient.
- What are the things you don't like OR don't feel is useful for you as a roleplayer/GM?
Larger thumbnails that hardly anyone actually uses when selecting a thread because it's unnecessary (and those that do, it's just difficult to convey what a story is about with an image, words are powerful and as roleplayers we use that power, images are just fancy cherries on top in this type of hobby), a rating system that on all of page 1, 2, & 3 of fantasy roleplays has 0 rates all combine. Nobody is using those, chop those out and suddenly the thread list takes up only 25% of the space and is easier to read. This falls under the fluff problem, if people aren't using it you don't need it.
[tl;dr for below, the overview and thread tabs are the classic example of "just because you can doesn't mean you should." Why are we not combining them?]
The tabs for overview and thread are also just a fancy feature that is honestly just there to say we have fancy things. When it happened I deleted everything under overview and put it straight back on page one. I believe the information used to discuss the roleplay should be in the thread to discuss the roleplay, it just makes sense to me. It also serves no real function in my eyes since the page 1 marker is always in display, even if you are on page 7,000. As a GM I like to pop straight back to page one to refresh my mind on what has been implemented and page 1 is where some extremely important questions are, something I, as a GM, failed to mention or even consider, that lets me remember how much I've put into this world. As it is, I pop open a new tab and bam, there's everything as it was when I made it, I already know how it was. Now as it is I would have to tab over to page one, open in a second tab the overview, and that's adding 1 more tab to my browser that is already probably full of tabs. 1 for the IC most recent post, one to the OOC most recent, page 1 of the OOC, overview of the OOC, probably my photobucket since my particular roleplay is filled with monsters, and knowing me there will be more, that varies by the day. It would be much nicer to put the overview and the OOC page 1 together because then I can simply scroll down. Now, this is indeed what I have done with my own roleplay, but every time I go to someone elses that uses this or didn't change theirs, I walked away because I quickly thought everything was too spread apart. I know this is coming off as me complaining people aren't catering to my desires, but that's really not it, it's just really easy to lose interest in something when you don't get very much information at one time and not every GM can neatly put everything straight into the overview. I can because I have GM'd enough to know the kind of information that should be added, but people who don't know these things won't throw them in, and that's fine...if all the information is still in the same place. When I first saw these tabs I thought to myself "KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!" Then I remembered it's data and I can't burn the servers down. There is no reason to spread everything so far apart, keep it close and well formatted.
- What is MISSING that you really wish was a feature?
My problems aren't that something is missing really, just that there's way too much going on that people don't need, and therefor don't use.
- If you are (or had to) work as a moderator for the roleplay sections, what are things that would be confusing or a problem for you?
Thread navigation is difficult. As I said, to this day I don't know where my Rothendust roleplay was moved. I just go into my bookmarks and find it there, or hopefully I have a fresh alert about it in my notices, but then those sometimes don't work (I know the problem, it's on me so I won't complain about that bit.) I can find each section super smoothly, but then comes finding a roleplay...
Simple is good, I didn't read very many other peoples comments but I saw one saying they were confused at first but got used to it, however a new member has no attachment to this site and if they try navigating it and get confused, they will just leave. If it's all simple and laid out nicely people will want to stay and/or come back, hopefully many more times. It's been confusing enough that I've closed my roleplay because once that dies or finishes, I'm moving on and going somewhere that appeals more to the people rather than the system. For now though, I love the people I have participating in my story and I won't give up on them.