Running Your Own RPG

A lot of people seem to be coming to me with questions and wanting me to help them with their own sites. Instead of repeating myself twenty times, I've decided to just put up this page. I've developed these ten tips that seem to be the most commonly asked subjects. Within them I tried to add as much detail and helpful side tips as well. Please remember that all of this is my personal opinion based on observation and experience. You are free to disagree. If you still have questions after that, feel free to email me on site or through the contact page. =]

Please excuse some of my language; I don't believe in censorship.

NOTE: Due to my own time constraints, please do not ask me to be an admin/mod/helper on your site. I will not be able to do it.

Top Ten Tips for Running a Site

It's a lot of work and not for everyone.

The first thing I usually tell people when they ask me how to go about doing this is that running a site like this is a LOT OF WORK. I think any admin who has built a site from the ground up will tell you that. There is a lot to consider when creating your site, your world, your pages, what will be there and what will not. There are two parts to all sites: front end and technical (behind the scenes, the coding and whatnot). Each come with their own set of chores, and if you happen to be on your own, with your own domain, having never done this before, it can be overwhelming.

Depending on your personality you may be good at dealing with people. This is crucial. I've noticed that most admins who run a large site and have been doing it for a while are very charismatic people. This comes from practise, really, simply because of the amount of people they interact with. You will literally talk to thousands of people if your site manages to flourish. So get used to meeting new people and talking to strangers. If you have absolutely no skills in it and are thoroughly dedicated to a success, I would go as far as suggest that you pick up books. Diplomacy and negotiation books are very good. (I did this and it actually helped a lot.) If you want to take it a step further, pick up books on reading people and learn how to read between the lines. In the technical side of a site, I would suggest learning at least HTML, CSS and basic Javascript as that is what seems to still be used. Depending on what sort of site you are running, you may need other languages such as PHP, ASP, Java, C++, etc...

Enforce the rules.

Well, you've set your site up now and people are joining. All these new people! You're bound to get a belligerent soul every once in a while... someone that just doesn't want to follow the rules. Tsk, tsk, tsk...

You must not let people walk all over you. There will be instances where you must put down your foot and say, "This is how it is, because I am in charge." If they don't like that, they can leave. Letting people walk all over you, have their way and do whatever they want while disregarding the rules you have set up will be probably what is the death of your site (outside of inactivity, of course). People are sometimes like animals; it can be rather amusing. It can also be your worst nightmare. When people realise that you let them get away with things, most of the time they'll stop respecting you and start stretching it. When you finally do put your foot down, you'll likely end up with a rebellion/mutiny. Worst case scenario (and I have seen this happen), one of your co-admins sides with them and demotes you. (Fortunately, on most forums there is a protection against demoting ROOT admin for just that reason.)

It sucks to put down your foot every once in a while, but quite frankly it can be necessary and perfectly appropriate. Never worry about becoming unpopular for doing so, or be concerned about being viewed as a bitch or whatnot. As long as you fairly enforce your own rules, and abide by them, people will be more likely to respect you, rather than hate you. (There will always be people who hate you.) As for that other thing, yes, do abide by your own rules. It helps a lot with the enforcing thing. If you slip up and break a rule yourself, warn yourself. It's not the end of the world if the admin receives a warning. =P

Remember: Forums are a dictatorship, not a democracy. You are in charge, not everyone else.

Make friends, not foes.

There are a number of topics that fall under this tip. Most of them are common sense: be courteous to your members. Be courteous to the admins of other sites. Offer to help where you can, stay out of things that are none of your business (although, on your site, very little is none of your business). When you are out and advertising, talk to the admins of the sites you're posting on and make sure it's OK that you're doing that. Let them know where your links back are if they want one, and let them know you're more than happy to let them post an advertisement on your site as well. Don't go out on a conquest to rape, pillage and plunder other sites of their members.

There's a pretty well-known instance of this happening. Admin went out and spammed sites, sending out hundreds of PMs. The consequences? Her site was amazingly active, she was hated, her site had a horrible reputation and it took years to scrub that away. (Thankfully, she's not there anymore and that particular site has become one of the more well-liked sites out there.)

You have to be friendly, too.

There is a difference between being firm and being a bitch. (And there are such things as man-bitches. They're called jerkfaces or assholes, depending on where you're from. ^^) Firm means that you are fair, courteous, just and impartial to one side or another if a disagreement breaks out on your site. It also means that you are kind, but you will enforce the rules as necessary. (If you don't like the rules, you can change them. You're in charge, remember?) Being a bitch means being the exact opposite of all of that, and no one likes bitches. Besides, most sites ruled by a person like that don't last long. I have one specific example-->

I joined this site a little while back. One of the requirements was that, as I was posting my character profile, I had to RP with a specific person who would "approve" of my skills. (Yes, I thought this was pretty strange.) So I posted, not really knowing what to expect. About ten minutes later, I received a PM from the head admin stating, "Your RP post did not meet our expectations. Your application has been denied." Well, personally, I thought I had met the expectations, having scrutinised the instructions to the letter. I kindly inquired as to what the expectations were, and she sent me to the instructions again, this time adding in the PM, "Please do not use your character in the RP. Star one of us." I had no idea who "us" were. When I asked this of her, she responded, "It's the three of us." I still had no idea what she was talking about. When I asked her to please clarify, I received the response, "Come back tomorrow. I don't have time for this shit. " She then proceeded to get into the chatroom (while I was present) and start badmouthing me and telling the other members how she was "feeling good" and "not about to be taken down by some fuck" who "couldn't follow the instructions."

Needless to say, I did not remain there much longer. The site itself went down a month later after it fell inactive. The last 3 announcements posted were the head admin whining about how everyone was worthless, good-for-nothing assholes who didn't have the guts to stick around. Little wonder why.

That above is an extreme case, but I hope it illustrates my point. Don't be like that poor young woman.

Advertise.

I hope this is self explanatory. If you don't advertise, no one will know you are there, and no one will come to see your site.

It's a good idea to sit down and draw up a very nice little advertisement post that you can just copy and paste into each thread you make. After all, this is what is going to bring people to your site ... or scare them away. XD

A beautiful skin does not equal a good site. However, an ugly skin will scare people away.

An admin once said to me after I commented on her skin and how it made my eyes hurt: "Beauty is not only skin deep." She thought it was a clever play on words. I thought she was an idiot. And I still do. Blue, yellow, purple and green should NEVER be placed together. Apparently she disagreed. Actually, I can't remember what the colours were, but they were garish.

As a general rule, you should not have an appearance that receives any of the following remarks from multiple people:

• "Aah! My eyes hurt/burn/string/bleed!"
• "It's too bright/dark."
• "I can't read the words on the posts/forums/pages!"
• "Where's the navigation...?"
• "The page is too large/small. Everything is huge/tiny."
• "It's taking like 20 minutes to load a single page >.< !"

With the exception of that last one (most people who give that complaint are on Dial-up. Remember those on Dial-up.), most of these are things that you can fix. A lot of it is due to cross-browser non-compatibility, users' resolutions and just flat out faulty coding. Now, you don't have to spend hours upon hours of your Sunday afternoon spinning out a forum skin and website layout so beautiful it makes people's mouth drop. You may want to, and that's perfectly fine. But, just like you want to stay away from a hideous appearance, don't put all of your time and effort into the appearance and neglect the content. Just because the skin is pretty doesn't mean that the site is any good, and people will realise this very quickly if you attempt to dazzle them with your coding skills. If you lack skills or can't find a decent skin that suits your tastes, it is perfectly OK to leave the default skin the forums come with, or to have a simple and clean webpage until you are able to develop it further.

I suggest focusing on the content first; making it pretty can be saved for later.

Listen to your members.

Remember my words up there about how forums are a dictatorship and not a democracy? Alright, I am now going to contradict myself and tell you that you should also listen to your members.

Also remember: every dictator has advisers. Whether or not he listens to them, however, is a matter of personal preference. Well here I am going to tell you that it's usually wise to listen to your members. A forum to post suggestions is a Good Thing. Most people pick up on this and almost all starting out sites have them. But having one isn't good enough. You should read the suggestions posted within and respond to them, even if it's to say no to an idea.

Of course, there will always be times where you make decisions and completely ignore what the general populace is saying. I have done this a few times myself; it's really not that bad. Particularly when there are changes that just need changing and no one can agree. Make up your own mind on an issue and do something. Listening to people, though can inform you of the mood of your members and site, and give you hints on what to change and adjust. Do not, however, wait for members to all agree on one specific course of action. Remember? Not a democracy. Listen to what they have to say and then make up your own mind. There's a reason why they say that democracies never work out.

Delegation is a Good Thing.

Face it: if you do everything yourself, you will burn out. It can be hard to let others' hands all over your precious piece of art that is your forum. And once you do, it can be tempting to leave them with exact instructions and tell them not to deviate an inch.

Staff are life-savers. Once your site grows, it can be very difficult to keep track of everything yourself. If you're not comfortable with having a co-admin, get a base of moderators to watch things for you. I suggest hand-picking moderators and admin rather than posting an application thread. (Posting an application for admin will cause [most] everyone to post.) Once you have other staff, dealing with members and such will be far easier. Another rule of thumb is to adjust the amount of moderators and admin to the amount of active members on your site. If you have 30 active members, depending on your site then 2 - 5 moderators may be necessary, plus an extra admin. Ultimately, however, you will need to gauge your site and determine the number yourself.

Currently, Terrawin has two admins and no moderators at all. This works for us, as we generally don't need to watch people as closely due to it being an advanced site and there is something called "maturity" in our members. Most sites, however, with the same size member base could not do this. I got off lucky. XD

Be specific and succinct.

I can't even start to say how many times I have come across a set of rules or instructions on a site that make absolutely no sense. (And I consider myself good at figuring out puzzles!) Yeah, that's a major turn off to all potential members.

When you post up your site's rules and any other information necessary for a new person to read ... MAKE SURE IT IS CLEAR. Eliminate anything that is not needed. Word sentences to be concise and with as few words as possible. (Hint: use the active voice and avoid passivity.) Spell check, proof read, give it to someone to edit if necessary. Most people are not so patient that they will wade through confusing instructions and requirements to roleplay; they'll just go to another site where it is easier to get started. If you want your new members to post in a specific forum with specific information, say so. Don't give them vague and misleading riddles or talk around them in circles. Make sure what you have down is clear, to the point and can be understood by people considerably younger than yourself. (Remember, there are roleplayers out there under thirteen. Depending on the type of site you have, there may be a lot of them or close to none. [On Terrawin, there are none, I don't believe.])

People sometimes suck.

Yes, a shocker, isn't it? To successfully run an online community, you'll need at least a decently toughened skin. Get used to be insulted, flamed, harassed, threatened and bullied, because at one point or another, it will happen to you. All too often I have seen sites shut down because the admin simply got so pissed off at the members. (I went through this once.) To avoid this, you'll need to learn how to deal with people. And people can sometimes suck. Badly. Here are some general rules to keeping the sucky people off of your site:

• Don't keep trouble makers around.
1. Get rid of them as soon as possible. You can outright ban them, or wait until you find justification. But don't wait too long or they will create problems.
    
• Have rules regarding drama and bringing it onto the site.
1. An admin of a site I am on did a very wise thing and added a rule stating, "Do not bring personal qualms and quarrels onto the site." I ended up doing the same for my site. It is a very good thing as it automatically cuts out the majority of the behind-the-scenes drama that will no doubt be going on no matter what you do. And anyone who does so can justifiably be booted.
    
• Don't be afraid to make an example out of someone every once in a while.
1. This sounds harsh. And it is. Quite. Now granted, one of the rules of diplomacy is that people have faces to save and you will end up much better off if you allow them to save face. In the four years running, I have only ever made an example out of two people on my site, and hope not to have a third. Doing this can be a very powerful way of saying, "I am in charge." and will generally make the message very clear. However, it can also piss off a lot of people. Both times I did this, angered people and lost members due to it. However, it successfully eliminated all future problems and Terrawin is not dead. I personally feel the pay-off was worth it.
    
• Don't be afraid to lose members over a decision you make.
1. If you make an unpopular decision, so be it. If you lose members, so be it. There will always be others and more people will join. In fact, I think you will be hard-pressed to find a site that has been running for several years that still has the members it had at day one. (Terrawin I know for a fact does not.)
    
• Keep your cool. Be genuine.
1. You know the song "You Gotta Be" by Desiree? It's a good song, and I think very true as well. Just because you are online doesn't mean that you can completely abandon your personality and act like someone else. Be yourself, because if you aren't, people will see through it very quickly. Stay calm -- when dealing with problematic people, keep your temper. If you must tell them off, do it calmly in a poised fashion, and word it well. They'll be less likely to talk back and some of them might even run away. If you're genuinely upset by what they said, let them know in a diplomatic manner rather than screaming, "FUCK YOU ASSHOLE YOU'RE A..." you finish the sentence. Approaching things with a slightly business-like attitude will make you appear serious about your commitment and responsibilities as an admin.

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