I've actually only had one major roleplay site that I actually roleplayed on. The others were passing fancies. So excuse me while I tell a story of this hellhole.
Chicken Smoothie or: How I Learned to Stop Loving and Hate the Tyrants (bonus points for catching the reference)
So my roleplaying started in 2008, when my best friend introduced me to it. I read over some of her posts, she told me what it was all about, and I was hooked. I already loved writing, but I thought it was something you could only do by yourself. I fell in love instantly. It became my newest obsession. At this point in my life, my house did not have internet. I instead walked to my big brother's house daily, because he had internet. It was spotty because of all the trees around his house, but it was high speed and I could get online 80% of the time. His house was roughly 10 minutes away. He and my parents made fun of me for being so into this thing, but I couldn't stop. Eventually, I convinced my parents, in the olden year of 2009, that we needed internet for my schooling (I was homeschooled).
I spent hours a day on CS. I became decently popular in the roleplay community there. People knew me, and they knew I was a decent writer (read: could write more than one liners and "he laughed"). I started basking in the glory and popularity, because that was something I wasn't used to. I was never liked, I was always alone. This felt amazing.
Fast forward to about 2012-2013, I was still going strong on this site. I was maturing, but I couldn't find people of my level. They were either elitist snobs or barely had a grasp of grammar. I started to feel a little isolated, but I had friends, so I stayed. It was getting huge. I mean like 2000 people online at once huge. Then came the announcement. "Site update! Rules change! HUGE DEAL!!" Everyone was so excited. The site had stayed pretty much the same, this new update would be great for us.
It was the worst day of my life when it happened. I started to cry as I read over their new rules. They were extremely constricting. No mentions of death or suicide anywhere. Characters weren't allowed to get into violent situations and die. No mentions of child abuse in character backstories. No sexual abuse in backstories. If your character was not over 21, no mentions of alcohol. No tobacco mentions if they were under 18. No drug mentions at all because drugs are bad. Your character couldn't self harm or have a past of self-harm, depression, or any kind of debilitating mental illnesses. Characters could be gay or whatever, but sex couldn't even be mentioned. You couldn't even imply your character wanted sex. Characters over the consenting age had to be pure white virgins. If you took anything to PMs, you were liable to be banned. They finally even admitted that they would look at all your PMs if they wanted, even if there were no reports on you. All characters had to be under this tiny umbrella of ok for protecting the kids under 13, because they allowed that age of kids to be online. It had turned into a PBS-fascist nightmare. My friends were getting banned because they used images without citing properly (cites had to be in a specific size of font and very visible at the top of your post). Some were getting banned for stealing "intellectual property" from 13 year olds who just would cry wolf if they saw a plot they liked and wanted to do themselves. One even got banned because she liked to use post dividers, and those weren't allowed anymore. The mods were tyrants who would ban people at any time. It was their favorite pastime. There were 2 admins of this site, a sister and brother duo. They hired their previous internet friends to do their dirty work. I liked the brother, he was cool and actually kind of flaked once the new rules came into place. The sister was awful though. I never got along with her, she wasn't friendly towards anybody except her minions.
So, needless to say, I left. I'm still bitter about this place. Sometimes, if I'm looking for cringey material, I go back to look upon the ruins. I have noticed site participation is down to roughly 700-800 people at once, so that makes me a little smug.
Gaia Online
Right after that, I went and complained to real friends. A distant friend of mine said she really liked Gaia. So I tried it for a day. Oh god never again.
Roliana
A nice little site that was like a little baby Gaia. No members, all roleplays were shitty, could make avatars and dress them up, but it was fun. I joined this RP that was really interesting. There were 5 different threads all in the same universe, all in different kingdoms of the world. The owner was awful at roleplaying, took control of my characters on more than one occasion, but eventually a really good one joined. We had a blast, and it became an inspiration for a story of mine. However, it was just too slow, and I was too busy. I left roleplaying.
Iwaku
Recently, I started browsing reddit. Fun times were had by all. I hadn't roleplayed since I left CS and Roliana. I found a sub called r/rpg that was dedicated to roleplay. I jumped on, and saw people were talking mostly about being better at writing. So, I did a scary thing. I started a thread. "Hey, where do you guys RP?" Mostly, all responses were "I just PM with my friends over reddit." I was disappointed to say the least. One person, bless their heart, sent me here. And while I'm disappointed with how quickly the RPs die here, I can at least say I enjoy it more than others.
So sorry for the long story, I'm still frustrated with that top site, I had the need to vent. If you were a CS refugee, feel free to PM me and we can complain together.