Why are new members ignored?! I just can't even begin to wrap my mind around an explanation other than the members are jerks! Where did this occur, you may ask - well, at my own board. Whenever someone new registers, I always try to get them involved and be friendly because, honestly, new members have a hard time fitting in at a roleplay that has been opened for a while. I often pm them and as them if they want to plot and/or roleplay with one of my characters. That's nice enough, right? Well, I assumed since the board isn't really that big, that some members would think a lot like me about new members. After all, they WERE new members, once. After getting some complaints from new members who didn't know where to begin to join in (they would post a relationship plot, want ad, open topic - the whole shebang), and the other members basically ignored them, I thought I would do some investigating of my own. I took a few days and developed a new character, and applied using a new alias. I was talked to in the cbox ONCE (no more than three lines; all the other attempts I've made to strike up a conversation as this "new person" were ignored). After I applied, I posted a relationship page and then a want ad. People usually flock to those things - not on this board, though. A want ad can go unreplied for days, weeks, and months. I got one response on the ad, from the other admin. A few days later, when I was less busy, I made a new topic. It hasn't been replied to, despite the people logging in and just idly staring at the board index, or searching for ... god knows what. Now, I really know how those other new members felt and I couldn't blame them if they left/decided to leave soon. I guess I could always go back to plotting with them, but I am only human - I have real life issues, too, and as much as I would want to devote 99% of my time to that rpg, I can't. I thought SOMEONE would be around to pick up the slack, but I was terribly wrong. And I just have this odd feeling that, if I were to ever say that this new character is mine, a lot of people would come flocking to me wanting to roleplay/plot with him. =/

Another thing, I HATE giving 110% on something and getting crap back! Yes, this is about this same board. I put a lot of effort into that board, not just by being an admin, but by keeping it active. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the members. I understand there's school, I go to one, but one post a week, if you're able, can't kill you. Then, as the board spirals into inactivity, I can't help but to blame myself. Oh, yeah, there's other staff members. Two mods and another admin. But I'm the only one that's really active, actually trying to make the board work.

One more thing, why must people use YOUR in the place of YOU'RE, and vice versa?! Jeez!

I would say that you need to check your members. It's something that none of us like to have to do, but you really need to let your members know what you will and will not take.

The problem that I see is that some of your members are rather fickle. They're interested in what is going on with their character and their character alone. They're interested in being the Admin's pet, which is annoying as hell.

I understand and sympathize completely.

It sounds to me like some of your members have a serious attitude problem. There's a few ways you can try and deal with this, but it's sad to see it happening at all.

You could do it the sneaky way.
Announce that you have a new and interesting 'thing' coming into the board, take names, and include the names of newbies. What are you doing? Oh! It's an RP Partner Lottery! Match your established members with the newbies, and get them threading. Perhaps against their will, but it sounds like they need a serious dose of something new. You may even wish to hold competitions for the player who can be most welcoming. This method is perhaps not recommended, but if you're not wanting to kick up a fuss... it may be your only choice.

You could do it the angry way.
This involves you exposing yourself as the new player, watching as responses flood in - and can them for it. Give them the exact details of what you did, when you did it, and how long it took to get an answer. Follow it by contrasting your experience after you revealed yourself. Make them feel bad for ignoring you, and any other new member. Tell them that things had better be bloody different, or they're all getting banned and deleted. This method is definitely not recommended, but may satisfy your imagination while you cool off.

And you could do it the honest way.
This is the recommended method. Come clean about what you did, explain the purposes of the experiment - but be just disappointed, not angry. You may wish to write up a set of 'Board Beliefs' (I find them muchly handy) that outline how you expect existing members will behave towards new members - that they will be welcoming and willing to involve new people, even if it is as simple as replying in the Cbox. Put in an admin announcement, and brainstorm ideas with your members on what they might like to do, so that new members don't feel left out of the game.

Perhaps some of them don't realise they're doing it? Maybe you've ended up with a vicious cycle - a few members left because they felt ignored, now your existing members feel they can't attach themselves to new members because they'll only leave? It's up to you and your current members to break the cycle, so take a few ideas and work together to create the open community you're looking for.

Explaining things from a personal view may also help. Let them know that you're run down and tired from trying to hold the board up alone. Make sure it's clear that you feel the board will become inactive if you're not there 24/7 - and that help would be appreciated. Keep it calm, and relax. Talk to your mods and admins privately, and let them know you believe it to be part of their duties to meet and greet new members and to keep the board running smoothly, and as before - work out ways you can split the load without upsetting too many people.

That's how I'd deal with it, anyway. But it's sad to hear it happened, best of luck fixing the problem!

Well, I think the problem is thus:

Many people like to stick with what they know.

Why do you think so many people repeat the same character on millions of Roleplays (apart from those who don't have time to write new characters). It's because they like knowing what their character is. I, personally, have only ever recycled three characters, whom happened to be my favorite and most fun characters I've ever written. Otherwise, I always write a new character for a new site. Always.

I make a rule to myself to only post at plot pages with 0 posts. Silly, I know, and I often get accused of spamming the plot board because there are always so many with 0, but that's what I do. I like my characters getting into new situations. I happen to know any female character I thread my famous musician with is either in love with him or in love with his music. I'd love an invasive paparazzi, I'd love for him to be punched in a bar, I'd love for him to find a girl with a personality big enough to fit with his (if I was going to get him romantically involved with someone) that doesn't fall at his feet the second he says a word.

I found one, who was a new member. Thus, I always play with them. I play with old members too, of course, but I like something new whenever I can.

Integrating into a new community is hard. It's harder if your threads get ignored. Personally, I love the first and last of Mousie's ideas, and I'd definately advise them. It's worth a shot.

I totally agree.
Another bad thing for newbies is not getting accepted from their apps.
When i first started rping this happened alot, but i was new to role play and younger then.
If you can see someone has put a certain amount of effort into their application for their character then be nice.
I'm not expecting people to accept bad characters or applications but i think sometimes admins are really rude and even nasty when denying applications.
I can't think of anything worse in the role play world than having a application you have worked on for hours being denied AND then having a admin leave a huge list of problems after it and being rude about it.
I think, and this is my opinion that if a application is really bad, the admin should pm the person so not to publically humiliate them [in a way].
If i see a sight where members aren't chatty and welcoming and rping alot with eachother. I also see alot of the time, just two people rping with eachother all the time.
Or admins and first members setting up complicated plots and just rping within that little group all the time.
A classic of this and just a random example is if someone used vanessa hudgens as a play by and then gets someone to join at a Zac efron character and then just rp's with that person.

Okay, sorry.
That sort of went off subject XD

Asha x

That's the problem with joining complicated sites though, it's so easy to get lost. I'll rarely (if ever) reject on the basis of appearance or personality (unless it's too short or has a lot of contradictions like being shy and outgoing), but I'll reject someone if their history doesn't make sense with the site. I try to be polite about it, and once the application is fixed I will edit the rejected post so no-one will ever know hehheh.

I'm pretty sensitive about my characters being rejected because of what they look like or act like, since some of my characters come off as a bit of a whore at times, and I always get rejected because of that; but that's the character I want to play. Anyway, I try to let the players make their characters how they want on my RPGs, but I can be strict (read: completely uptight) about histories that don't fit.

I have this problem sometimes- part of it is me, since I have a hard time easing into a new RPG, but there have been RPGs where I fit in fairly easily, and had no problems getting people to plot and roleplay with me. But I'm having trouble with one that I've been in for a few months and never really quite fit in. Sometimes I wonder if it's because I didn't put enough of an effort to be active previously, but then, the times I did make an effort, they were sometimes ignored. I wonder if it's because they don't like my characters, or me, or what. I'm trying to figure out how to address this without sounding like a whiny drama queen.