What do you hate about other roleplay sites?

Diana

LOOK HOW CALM SHE IS
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ADMINISTRATOR
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Genres
Romance, Supernatural, Fantasy, Thriller, Space Exploration, Slice of Life
Lets pretend Iwaku is the bestest and most awesome site on the planet and nothing here is bad! XD

Think about other Roleplay sites you've been to, especially the ones you decided to leave.

What makes a site suck for you? What are some things that many rp communities get all wrong that you can't stand?

What are things that really ATTRACT you to particular roleplay communities?

(Also, don't mention any specific sites, that'll be mean! D:)

This may or may not be a cleverly disguised poll to see what we can improve on in Iwaku. XD
 
Cocky staff that is based upon friendships with admins instead of actually working on improving the site.
Sites that make you post 40+posts just to send PMs....
Sites that claim to be "proper grammar only, man."
Out of Character, or OOC, comments in IC threads.
Lack of clear organization of forum.
Sites that belittle the intelligence of the posters; members shouldn't be treated as idiots or babies, unless they are big time derps.
 
The only thing I can think of, is when people on forums are like "You have to post at least this much to roleplay with me, because I'm oh so literate and good at writing. If you write less than my minimum, you suck and should go die, lol~"

...well, it's not worded that way, but that's pretty much the message they send. >:[ There shouldn't be any minimum of maximum nonsense! Leave your ego at the door and just enjoy the company of other writers.
 
Pretty much all the stuff Rory said.

One thing that stands out to me was the elitist attitude of some of the members at the first site I joined. Very unwelcoming to new members, and the staff would only communicate with new members when handing out warnings and discipline. I check in there from time to time and recently they have been trying to get newer members involved more, but the overall 'feel' of the site is still the same.
 
Those sites where the derps get out like 1,000 one-liners a day. I mean, really?
Those sites that ban people for having different ideas than them.

That's mostly it.
 
Forgot to add one: Sites that require how long your IC posts have too be. While I do prefer that they make up more than 5 paragraphs, doesn't mean that they need to be 15 pages worth of text on Word.
 
That's called a 'short story' or 'Asmo-post.'
 
Pretty much!
 
NO, I LOVE ALL THE ITTY BITTY LITTLE RP SITES IN THE WORLD <333

TROLLOLOL
 
I was on an rp site once where you had to APPLY to get out of the newbie section. You could only post in the newbie section until then, and someone critiqued your rp posts to see if you were 'good enough' to graduate to the rest of the site. And then you had to keep up with not only certain lengths of your posts, but your grammar and stuff as well, or you could be DEMOTED back to newbie level!

I didn't stay there long.
 
  • Roleplay sites that require certain character amounts for a post.
  • Roleplay sites where all that's posted are a billion one-liners and the roleplaying is done **like this** for all the posts.
  • Roleplay sites where you have to have been referred by another member or you're in some weird "can't do anything" status for a month.
  • Roleplay sites where even the creator can't be bothered to log in on a regular basis and it takes a month to get a response to anything.
  • Roleplay sites that have their sections and whatnot named ridiculous things and I have no idea what's going on or where I am and if I should post in the "Luffenwuffles" section or say hi in the "Tomkrieg" one. =|
 
Scheduled Roleplays, where the Mother Fucker in Charge (Hereto referred to the MFIC) blatently disregards a minority of the players, then bitches when we decide to go do our own thing.

Blatant Character Ripoffs, then claiming that said character is unique, I'm not talking using said character as in inspiration, I'm talking about Ctrl-C character sheet and change the name/physical appearance. The fact that some sites permit this is simply disgusting.

Using a cannon character wrong. RP based on establsihed work? Cool beans. Playing Marneus Calgar as Brother Scout McFucktard? Grandmasta K's gonna shoot a bitch. (Seen this one in particular too many times.) The fact that this happens ever is heretical, should it be encountered, contact your friendly neighborhood Inquisitor immedeately.
 
Blatant Character Ripoffs, then claiming that said character is unique, I'm not talking using said character as in inspiration, I'm talking about Ctrl-C character sheet and change the name/physical appearance. The fact that some sites permit this is simply disgusting.
This isn't banned persay, we're just more intelligent than that.
 
I hate sites that enforce word counts, paragraph counts, etc, or say "literate roleplayers only". x____x That makes me feel insecure, judged, criticized, and not WORTHY of playing with such awesome amazing clearly better than me roleplayers. I totally understand wanting to encourage quality in roleplay posts, but there's better ways to do it than making people feel inferior. .__.;

I also hate roleplay sites that have tons of overly fancy graphics designs, titles, and stuff. Yes, I believe a good design is key to having an attractive roleplay forum. But a lot of the forums put all of their time in to making fancy graphics and none of their time in to running the actual -community-!

And I hate sites that have rude snooty staff members that don't even DO anything on the site. Staffing is a JOB not a status symbol. x___x


AS TO THINGS I REALLY LOVE AND AM ATTRACTED TO IN ROLEPLAY SITES:

A friendly and playful atmosphere with the members! I love seeing members that are always talking about their roleplays, plotting, laughing and posting! It makes me want to have fun with them to!

A clear and well structured forum setup with nice and neat categories. When I know exactly where to post and there's no confusion, it's easier for me to participate in the site without feeling like I am going to make a big mistake.

A variety in roleplays! Single genre/theme sites are nice and all, but I like to have a lot of options when it comes to settings!
 
Yes- I agree wholeheartedly with every single point mentioned above.
Another thing I find stupid is when a RP site forces you to use the same name for your character AND yourself, as a username.
Or those that won't allow you to create more than one character per account. Really? I wonder what kind of people stick there for long. I am going to take the liberty of being judgemental here, and say that only people with self esteem problems would.

And, yes, active staff that is actually looking after the community makes me immediately like the site, regardless of what sort of site we're talking about. I feel the common sense from the other side of the computer = I stay and recommend the site to others.
 
Ah; well I'm going to put my opinion down too. >.<
I absolutely hate when a site wants you to apply to be a 'roleplayer' and your character can only be a certain way. I once joined a site where you couldn't have certain words in your name/username because someone else already had it [The owner had it in their name]. Then, when you actually wanted to roleplay you couldn't unless you filled out an application and there was a bunch of different rules and stuff. x.x; Let's just say I gave up and went back to google.

I hate it when the owner of a site is biased and will actually delete people that are active because they don't like them. I find it a little rude and then I worry that perhaps they're going to delete me if I kill their friend.

I agree with the posting criteria. Sometimes I write 5 para's then others I'll write 2 para's or less. x.x; I don't want to FORCE my writing so that it meets some posting length or something.

I hate when if a new person comes to the site everyone wants to attack them for no apparant reason. :/ It makes people want to leave.

[I would just like to say that this is helpful to me since I do have my own site and I like seeing what other's think, I might just start a thread like this on my own site and I'll make sure I credit Iwaku for the idea. And, this site is one of my favorites that I've ever found. Everyone here is super friendly and it's easy to find stuff.]
 
- Sites where you post a welcoming thread and everyone pops in to tell you how CRAAAAAZY they are.

- Sites where the rules are hidden in one obscure link in the corner and when you click on them you don't actually get the rules but a load of other links to a bunch of manuals that don't have any kind of cohesion to them.

- Sites where they don't organise roleplays by genre and you've gotta search around in some half-baked arbitrary categorisation.

- Sites where there's a section for general topics that's clearly been populated by the staff scratching their heads and looking through gossip magazines to come up with the most vacuuous excuse for a conversation starter possible.

- Sites where there's a section for people to put up egotistical writing and poor quality pictures that no one else ever bothers to look at.

- Sites where they have a specific section where people are encouraged to be as retarded as possible under the excuse that they need to "let off steam" or some other psychobabble bullshit justification.

- Sites where the staff make a thread to trash talk other roleplay sites and 90% of the people who post in that thread are staff members and--
OH SHIT, THAT'S IWAKU!
 
Sites that refuse to ban the resident troll who pops in to any forum and trolls the hell out of it thus ruining the whole thing.
Sites that refuse to help anyone
Sites that ban people for no reason and refuse to reply to emails
Sites that suck
Sites that have nothing but illiterate ^*($tards
 
Sites that...

Have you go pretty much unnoticed unless you really have some sort of talent to show off.
Those that have talent are put down because most people love a certain somebody that is talentless that just happens to have been there since day 1.
Superiority Complex developed in Staff, Veteran Members, or people who have a Thesaurus on hand.
OOC's not being in the OOC.
Character Sheets going through a rigorous testing process like it is a freaking theater production in Hollywood.
Admin/Staff members that say they can't fix anything because they have a heart condition or other bullspit disease that allows them to escape the pressure of their "job"
Not putting caps on your Troll-ometer.
Post length Min/Max.
Forums where the whole bloody forum is one RP.
Fight scenes always have god mode if the person's name is a different color.
Fight scenes where every post is *Dork Mcgee dodges* *Failure to Spell fails to conjure*
Where it is acceptable to hate on one type of person.
Where Bleach gets it's own top spot category.
Have to post X amount of times to be allowed options.
Where the Admin has to approve the e-mail that gets sent out to register on the site.
Missing Admins/Staff.
Staff that does not rotate or members that have been there for years either have to wait for someone to die or leave to become staff.
Any RP that has you making detailed descriptions about your guns even though the only way to test it is to hold a shooting gallery game IRL.
1,000,000 OOC's being produced every day with a success rate of .00000001%
And finally last but not least, nearly every corner of Gaia. We fish some out only to save them from the horrid mess of Posts = money.