What do you have in your OOC section? What is important for you to have? What is especially popular? What sorts of forums should every site have in their OOC section?

Well in mine we have many areas...

Other Chat: Which has all the topics that have no home. Such as games which is VERY HOT!! :)

Graphics: Which everyone needs these...People want to know who has the best graphics and who to ask for help for sigs

Admin Notes: This area is not a must,but it helps for the polls and topics for the admin to discuss things...and helps people on the board to see what the admin think

LOA: For the people that are leaving the board, or going to be away. VERY HELPFUL!!!

Plot Central: Where people can read the plot, and do there very own twist in the plot...

Fan-fics and Alter-endings: This is new to my OOC, but I hope it will be fun.

Rules and Plots- Of course I have section that explain the rules and lets everyone know where we are in the storyline.

Introductions and Absences- A place for new members to introduce themselves and meet other members, and a board documenting any absences our members may have coming up.

Contests and Games-Posting games and contests go here, including Character of the Month, which our members vote on.

Show and Tell- A section for the members to post anything they would like to show off..poetry, short stories, drawings, graphics.

Graphics-A section to request and recieve graphics, avatars and signature.

Requests- Sometimes a member will have a character and will not be sure where too place them or where to get started..or they may have an idea or personal plot they want their character to experience. Members post here to request and answer roleplay threads.

Roleplays Just for Fun- I think this one is pretty unique to my site. It's not really "OOC" but it is something that doesn't have anything to do with the main plot, and doesn't affect it in any way, I haven't seen it on any others but my members seem to enjoy it. It involves taking the characters and placing them in zany and unique situations and roleplaying them through that.

Ex: What if super heroes and super villains lived together in a Brady Bunch-esque home. Wackyness ensues..

General- Members talk about anything they want to here.

Our OOC includes: Announcements, basic information, a chat section, an idea/suggestions section, introductory area, creative section with a request area and a showcasing of one's talents, archived Rps, and an absence section. Do believe that all of these are important areas, otherwise we wouldn't have them all. The most important, though, would probably be the announcements, the chat area, the introductions, and the forum information.

I have a board for rules, plots, policies, etc.

Then I have character applications, cannon applications, etc. all in one board for easy access to new members.

Then I have an archives board where all the accepted profiles are stored.

Then I have an announcement board for all the latest news.

Then I have a plot discussion board: here you find the chronology thread, the who's who, the relationship threads

Then I have a general discussion board: for random chat, graphics making, introductions, and absences

Then I have a board for ads and requesting affiliation

And I have a "help desk" board where people can make suggestions and ask questions of staff and veteran members.

Then, INVISIBLE to members, I have a staff section for our personal notes, updates, etc.

Now that I typed that all out it seems like a lot... but it's really not so mammoth an amount. Click the BB button in my sig to see it in action on my board.

My main OOC section has ...

RESOURCES ... helpful links (to html coding, colour codes, image hosting sites, graphics requests.)

HOW DO I ... for people new to IF

OOC GAMES AND CHATTER ... because community is so important. Some of the games are in character, some not.

ABSENCES ... so we know who's going away when

TIMEZONES .. so we know whose on when

It grows steadily. :) It's a very important part of the site.



A separate part of the site, further up, has rules, applications, faq, etc.

I do not like having too many OOC boards (it is a role playing site after all) and I just hate having too many boards in general. One way I avoid too many boards is by posting all of my guides and resources on a Wordpress blog associated with the forum. But in terms of actual OOC boards...

- I have a place to post character profiles... no subforums. Every profile goes in that single forum.
- A guild center, where members can apply to create member guilds.
- A role play requests forum to find people to role play with.
- An announcements and news forum.
- A general discussion forum... with no subforums. All chit chat takes place here.
- A password protected admin board.
- A help and support forum.
- A comments and suggestions forum.
- And finally my advertisement directory with no subforums.

I'm actually pretty happy with the structure I have created.