Alright well I joined my friend's site as Hermione Granger due to the fact that they had such a hard time getting a decent one. Anyways, I became quite active, but I dropped off for a week maybe due to school starting shortly after that.

Now for my problem, I came back after the activity check, and the person that plays Ron, who I had been roleplaying with for like three posts, then he died off the face of the earth, well not really but you get my point. He posted in the activity check as well, so I figured that he would start posting again, righttt.

They posted in that check on August 3rd, and the last post they made was towards the end of July, which really bugs the heck out of me.

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting and NO DANG POST!

I want a Ron to roleplay with, and my friend who owns the site, has NO CLUE what happened to this girl. I have no clue what to do now >.<

Hence the title: If you're going to be ACTIVE then POSTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!

Oh I hate when that happens! Especially when you just can't do anything until that person posts!

I had that happen. I think I got on AIM and completely bashed that person until she cried. That's stupid and annoying not to mention disrespectful.

IF YOU'RE GOING TO SAY YOU'RE ACTIVE! DO IT! DDDDDDDDD:<

I have had the unfortunate luck of having that happen to me ALL THE TIME. 'Ooh, let's thread!" someone asks me. So we thread. We reply for a while. Then the person up and disappears, or the site dies.

It's why I've never had a decent plot with any one of my charries...

Awww! I hate that that happens to you! If we ever joined the same rp I'd totally keep up a thread with you! ('specially since I tend to agree with you around here anyways most of the time)

i personally think it's even worse when it's your site they're doing it on.
on a site i'm an admin on we just had out first activity check(we desperately needed one) and a whole bunch of people signed it and i was excited because i didn't want to have to delete like 40 characters. except half of them still don't have a single post and im just like WTH?

if you sign it then you post.
you're not active if you're not posting.
year there's sometimes circumstances where you've stated that you'll be away when an right after an activity check but at least you've told people what's happening.
dont just disappear!
it's just plain rude

I always have that happen. These days, when I do activity checks, I tell people in bulk emails that if they're not going to be active and they know it, they shouldn't bother replying to the activity check. And I check who hasn't been online in a long time, and if they respond to the activity check and then don't make any posts within a week, I put them back into the default member group, take their face claim away and archive all of their threads. If they're not using the play-by, someone else can. And there are 12 member groups, and a specific 5 fill up more than the rest, so I especially look to see if they're in one of the more popular groups, because we close them off after a certain number, so that the other groups fill up.

My trick?

Make them POST in order to fulfil the activity check requirements.

As in, they must link me to a post made any date after the check was put up when they post in the activity check.

I have one member, who no kidding shows up on the "inactive list" every time I do an activity check, posts once, then doesn't come back until the next one. She's an OC, almost no one's ever threaded with her, so she's not affecting anyone's plotlines, but almost every time this has happened, I've looked and gone "Why are you still bothering?" She's been a member since January, and since then has only finished one thread that I know of. Yes, sometimes those she's threading with have dropped off the face of the planet, but every thread of hers I've checked, she's up. I seriously want to contact her and go "Either play or don't. . .geez!"

I totally agree. I never do boardwide activity checks, just chase up anyone who's been absent and I always tell them that if they want to stick around, I need to see in character activity by whatever deadline seems appropriate.

Same here. At AG we contact members who've been inactive for 3-6 weeks, and if they don't respond and/or return to the board within a week's time, they're deleted. Activity checks never seemed like they worked to me, because all they typically require is an "I'm here!" That's easy, it's the actual posting that requires an effort.

Plus I dunno, maybe it says more about the boards I've been part of, but it's been my experience that activity checks usually happen when things are petering out. So maybe even if you just have a routine activity check, it might lead folks to think that things are dying out.

Or possibly not. I may be the only one who thinks that way :sweat:

I do mine every two weeks, and everyone knows that they happen on or around the first and the fifteenth. For the most part, everyone who wants to stay active posts and actually contributes. I just have one who makes me go "Why do you bother to come back and pretend to post?"

I've got worse than that.

I have a player who stops by every 2 or 3 days. Not to post for his character. Oh no. To post/bump ads for his games!

I would delete those ads and ban them for spam >.<

I don't know why people even bother registering for my board if they don't do anything or do nothing past introduce themselves. I don't get it, I've tried to make it as comfortable as it can be and yet the only active people have been recruited by my co-admin and her friends. And I doubt an activity check would work because most of the others seem to ignore my E-mails, or perhaps log in for five minutes before not showing up ever again.

To be fair though, I did manage to snag one person, and even if she's only in one thread at the moment she still managed to be dedicated enough to have somebody else post for her saying she would be gone a few days, and she even managed to post telling us her computer was heavily infected with viruses. What happened to members like this?

Saying you're going to be active and then dropping off the face of the planet is a lot worse than not saying anything before doing it, though. I've had a few people do that too.

(And regarding ads, I had to get rid of guest posting in our ad board not only because of spambots posting terrible porn but because of lazy copy-pasters who wouldn't even bother to check if their ad worked code-wise before posting it and seemingly ignoring our affiliation board, which is still open to guests.)

I notice everyone wants a site to be active. But no one wants to help advertise it. A admin can only do so much advertising and moderating by himself. Members who complain all day and nit pick are only making the admin job harder and more frustrating.

Oh, I hate this! It's so annoying! I've had so many times where I'll post a thread with someone because they asked oh so nicely and they were really unbelievably active and posty up until then. Then I make the topic and I never see them on the site again until there's an activity check. Then they'll post in the activity check and I'll end up messaging them asking them if they're still interested in our topic. They'll post once, maybe twice, and then there goes the thread again. It's a vicious never ending cycle... ughhhhhh