I need some advice.

I have a panfandom board. You can apply as an original character or characters from existing works (within certain criteria). My original plan was to have the community totally laid back -- no activity checks, just some mild IC consequences if you didn't play a character for a while.

I am being advised by friends who have been in more panfandom games than I have this is a very, very bad idea.

They've got anecdotal evidence that it's guaranteed drama -- someone takes a character from a popular work and disappears from the game, or drops that character, or posts only once in a blue moon and other people who are playing with that character or wish they could have that character are going to be annoyed. They'll want some policy that allows a (non-original) character someone has already played to be taken from them and be open for others to apply for, preferably to come back into the game as if they were never there before (at least, as far as that character remembers). They don't want people "hoarding" good characters if they're not going to use them.

Does anyone have any advice for me? How long do you think a person should be able to go without posting before they risk losing their character? Should characters who die be allowed to be brought back ever? I know a lot of you have boards with some sort of canon characters on them -- what do you do when they disappear?

We have a three week policy regarding canons. If you disappear for three weeks or more with no prior warning, your character becomes available for play. At that point, you can continue playing until someone else applies, but usually by the time that people have been gone for 3 weeks, they're about over the character anyway, except in some rare circumstances.

Then if someone logs on a lot but hasn't posted in character in a considerable period of time (usually the same 3 week span) we send them a PM, let them know they have about 2 weeks to get back into things, or we make the character available.

We've been doing this for several years now and it hasn't caused any drama - people who apply for canons are told straight up how active they have to be so they know going in. :)

Firstly, if you're going to make a change to your board - ask your existing members. However few they are, and especially in the beginning stages of a board - these will be your core members who help set the tone of the forum. Maybe they want what you want, or maybe they're feeling a little shaky by the possibility of major canons dropping out.

But the other issue is this: why should canon accounts be held to stricter rules than others? Does this mean original characters aren't as important plot-wise?

And this will come back to just how laid back your board is. Are you going to have a board-wide plot that requires certain characters? If yes, then activity checks/assessments should be part of the board as a whole, not just for a select few accounts. If no, and you're allowing members to create their own plots - how necessary is it for canons to be always present?

Personally I would take it case-by-case and keep the laidback theme. If someone isn't posting as regularly with a canon, and it feels they're hogging that character for no apparent reason, seek out their permission to put the character back up for play by someone else. If a player hasn't been around for months, and someone requests the character... attempt to contact the original player, and if no contact is made - pass it on to someone who can/will play more often.

But it all depends on what you think will work best for your community.

Well best thing you can do is to hold an activity check once at the end of every month and once it's done you go through the member list and find the members who failed to post and send them all a polite message asking them if they're going to be still active and if they fail to respond in 3 days, you delete the account. And shoul they want to re-apply let them, if you believe they'll be active this time around.

And as for the note? I suggest a standard one, one you can copy and paste over and over. Naturally keep it polite short and to the point. Saying basically, "Yeah we understand that things come up in life, but we honestly don't think it's too much to post once a week...or at least a short explaination for your dissappearence in the absence thread. So tell us what you plan to do by <insert day> and if you don't reply the character will be "re-opened". Also it never hurts to insert something about canons being important.

Trust me it's the best way to go. I mean activity is one of the reasons so many sites fail and admins should keep a close cap on canons, because let's face it, it's just plain rude to snag an important/popular character and not use it.

Because if an OC character disappears, there's nothing I can do about that and there's no reason another person would have the right (or want) to take them since the original player isn't using them. With a canon character unfortunately there is that complication -- that the player doesn't own them, and other people might want them, and if the person who originally claimed them aren't using them people are going to want something done about it, especially if there are other people in the game playing characters from that same canon. I wish there wasn't a double-standard, but the canon character dropping issue sort of requires I come up with a policy, and there's no way I can also apply that policy to OCs.

I do think you're right, though, that I'd definitely take everything on a case-by-case basis, though I think I definitely need some sort of guideline in place.

Thanks for all the advice so far, folks :) I really do appreciate the extra opinions a ton.

I can't speak for all forums, of course, but on our forum, both canons and originals are equally important to the plot (and we stress that in various places on the forum). The problem, however, is that canons are the characters that most guests want, since those are the characters the fans of the show are familiar with. So when a guest views our characters list and sees their favorite canon is already taken, they could very well go find some other smaller board where that particular character is still available. This is why it is doubly important for canons to stay active compared to originals.

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As for the OPs question, our forum is set so that only roleplaying posts add to your post count. Not only do we use this in our plot, but it also helps to monitor activity of the characters, since it's easy to see whose post count is climbing and whose is stuck on X number of posts. And since OOC posts don't add to the post count, it also keeps people from posting over and over in game threads to look "active" without actually roleplaying.

If I notice that someone hasn't signed into the site in a couple of weeks and/or posted, then I will send them a nice message telling them that we've been missing them around the forums and hope to see them back soon. If I don't get a reply to that one, then I send them a message politely reminding them of the activity rule (which is one post per week - not difficult by any means and most members do more than that). If I don't get a reply to that message and don't see them post within a week, then I'll put their character back on the available list (or if they're an original, put them in the inactive group).

I haven't really considered doing anything in character to the inactive characters, in the hopes that they will come back.

Hope that helps. :)

As a quick heads up - this isn't necessarily the "best thing" to do for different boards. Speaking from experience, different sized boards need to assess the inactivity situation differently, and a monthly activity check sometimes just does not work for many boards in the long term.


Aside from that, the best suggestion I can also give you, no matter what you decide, is to set some sort of "guideline" for how long you're going to wait to check in on folks. While it's fine to take it on a case by case basis, if you have something to tell your players then they have a much more firm understanding that they NEED to be active, and there's none of that "I was gone for a week and my character got deleted, but Joe was gone for a year and gets to keep his!" conflict. It's okay to bend the rules in some situations, but if you don't have some kind of guideline for canons, you're eventually setting yourself up for drama - which seems like what you're trying to avoid. :)

Neither does ignoring the problem. I mean I met others who have had the same phillosiphy, went without the checks and ultimately lost 4 boards because of it, because people with important characters faded out, then the medium characters and then everything just devolved to where there was only one post every few weeks and eventually everyone became discouraged and the sites had to close. I mean sure if it's a small board it's not the wisest thing to do, but for a medium-large site with a lot of popular canons it's a good way to go.

I mean think about it, if you let people keep popular canons, you lose waves of potential members who wanted those characters. You let someone involved in a plot keep a character after going inactive, it mucks up the works as it were and people have nothing to post to. With canons you have to keep close tabs on them, after all they have major effects on relationships and events that take place in your rp. Besides it's not exactly fair to the active members and those wanting to claim the characters.

Ahh there we go, for some reason I read this as being activity checks for the whole board vs just the canons - it's one thing for just canons, but the whole board is....well, I wrote part of a guide on my opinion of that. XD Didn't mean to say that the problem should be ignored - cause it certainly shouldn't on a board that relies heavily on them. :)

Ok then. Because with originals and minor canons, I usually am more leniant. And though I don't want to be tougher on the canons, I have to be because of their importance. And don't get us wrong we arent gustapo, we give them a month to post, then another 3 days (sometimes more) and if we get no answer we have to delete them.

Anyway do what you want to with my advice. But if it's one thing I learned in my site's 2-3 year run it's that the secret to activity lies in 2 things, activity matainence and advertising.