It's the nature of the Arena sub-forum to go through ebbs and flows of activity, particularly when there are no tournaments currently being ran. However, there is a tournament starting early next month, so when you take your next screenshot, you'll see about eight sub-threads miraculously appear with constant replies, and wonder how you ever thought the place was dead. The Arena is unique in that way.

I honestly have no idea who Sherlock Holmes even is, and I was just informed that they are in fact head moderator of some sorts, where as I always thought that was you. And I still don't know who they really are.

Let me clarify this -- I am not the head of anything. All I can claim is that I simply have been a moderator for the longest out of the current bunch. I was appointed shortly before Guildfall occurred

As for not knowing me, that's nothing new. I tend to not say too much and mind my business behind the scenes. I keep my visibility off, but I'm actually around quite a bit. (I actually pop on the site several times a day to keep up on PMs and check threads.)

If you have any questions specifically for me, I'm always happy to answer them. Otherwise, I usually just lurk until I have something relevant to say, much as I have done in this thread.

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>

You could have all of that in the new sub forum. You really want a specific sub forum for the people that open an arena post once a month and then post 4 times and leave again? I don't.

I'm a bit late and haven't read through the previous 6 pages, so I apologize if this has already been said.

I do not understand the need to consolidate the forums. Each section serves its own purpose. Mixing things together doesn't help any of the sections, and ends up hurting. In particular, I'm noticing questions about the 1x1, Arena, NRP, and Tabletop RPs.

Let's pretend this is a bakery. The baker notices that people are buying cupcakes, brownies, and muffins at a lower rate than the other merchandise. So he decides to put all of them together in a closed bin and label it as "Miscellaneous Baked Goods." Well, I personally love all of those, but now I can't find my chocolate chip muffins because they are hidden. When I realize they are in that bin, I now have to rummage through a dozen items I don't want to get to something I do. So if I'm like most people, I won't bother, and the baker will notice that even fewer muffins, brownies, and cupcakes are being sold.

The best part of this site is that the place is split into tiers of dedication and time commitment, and it is easy to find the niche items. Searching by tags would be a great addition to the site, but you don't need to lump everything into a single pile to make that happen. That would be detrimental to the RPs placed into that grab bag.

Think of the muffins, man.

It's the nature of the Arena sub-forum to go through ebbs and flows of activity, particularly when there are no tournaments currently being ran. However, there is a tournament starting early next month, so when you take your next screenshot, you'll see about eight sub-threads miraculously appear with constant replies, and wonder how you ever thought the place was dead. The Arena is unique in that way.

We'll see. I'll anxiously wait. But to whoever said I selectively screenshotted that, I'd invite you all to take a look at arena at the moment. You'll understand (hopefully) why I think arena is near dead. I'd like to come back to this next month when the tournament is around. It'll be interesting :).

Let me clarify this -- I am not the head of anything. All I can claim is that I simply have been a moderator for the longest out of the current bunch. I was appointed shortly before Guildfall occurred

Then that was a failure on the part of whoever informed me though, to their credit, they didn't say you were explicitly the head moderator. Just that you were, quote, 'Team Mom to the other mods' and 'Sherlock Holmes was a Spam reg for many years (during Jorick's time as a regular user), and is essentially the head moderator.' Perhaps the fact that people see you as such is another indicator of the perceived failure to establish moderator presence/knowledge on this site.

As for not knowing me, that's nothing new. I tend to not say too much and mind my business behind the scenes. I keep my visibility off, but I'm actually around quite a bit. (I actually pop on the site several times a day to keep up on PMs and check threads.)

Do you think this is a good thing? I'm not sure how this is preferable for a moderator.

If you have any questions specifically for me, I'm always happy to answer them. Otherwise, I usually just lurk until I have something relevant to say, much as I have done in this thread.

Since I don't know you I can't comment on questions I have specifically for you but I can give you some questions that I've asked the other moderators in this thread/want to ask the moderators in general.

Do you feel like the issues touched upon in this thread are real, or are you under the impression that everything is fine?
How do you feel about the amount of moderators, and their activity?
How do you feel about the engagement of the community as a moderator? Do you think it's not required?
How do you feel about the quote that states;

"I think people, myself included, are afraid to take concrete steps toward solving this problem because the moment we do, Mahz and the mods will come back just long enough to put us in our place and remind us of who's boss. Then they'll fuck off again, having impeded our progress toward self-government but then refused to replace our system with their own. Some of us may be banned in the process, too, another large risk in taking any strong actions toward fixing this site."

Do you feel like the community is deteriorating, whether through shrinking member counts, increasing toxicity or any other reasons?
What are your ideas on how we can fix the community?
What are your ideas on how we can make the community better (in case you are under the impression there are no problems)? We can always make the community even better, so 'the community is already good' won't really suffice here.
What are priority issues for the moderators at the moment?
What are your concerns in terms of moderator recruitment processes?
What are your concerns in terms of how moderators currently discuss and act together?

<Snipped quote by MelonHead>

We'll see. I'll anxiously wait. But to whoever said I selectively screenshotted that, I'd invite you all to take a look at arena at the moment. You'll understand (hopefully) why I think arena is near dead. I'd like to come back to this next month when the tournament is around. It'll be interesting :).

You don't need to wait, you're showing your ignorance as to how tournament organisation works, which is understandable as you have no knowledge of the arena subsection. Just click the TZDL thread and look at how many characters (and subsequently active players, one player per character) have been entered.

<Snipped quote by Buddha>

You don't need to wait, you're showing your ignorance as to how tournament organisation works, which is understandable as you have no knowledge of the arena subsection. Just click the TZDL thread and look at how many characters (and subsequently active players, one player per character) have been entered.

No, I'm more curious as to whether or not it'll have the effect you say it'll have.

My bet is on no. Characters or not, I'm sure people will drop, or never finish their matches.

<Snipped quote by MelonHead>

No, I'm more curious as to whether or not it'll have the effect you say it'll have.

My bet is on no. Characters or not, I'm sure people will drop, or never finish their matches.

Initially it will. Though I'm sure a few people will drop or never finish their matches, that sort of lack of commitment is pretty much prevalent across all RP.

Initially it will. Though I'm sure a few people will drop or never finish their matches, that sort of lack of commitment is pretty much prevalent across all RP.

Like I said, we will see. I'm not an expert on arena RP, and I'm curious to how it'll play out. And yes it is, which is actually an issue we've touched on within this thread, if you'd cared to read the entirety of it, rather than jump on here to be defensive.

Dynamo already offered thoughts on how to re-energize that forum, which was a good start. I've yet to see yours. I'll just presume my ignorance has carried over on you and prevents you from posting meaningful solutions, which is the same reason why I'll not reply to the arena chat thread. I just think you severely misrepresent my opinion. For instance I never once said we should remove all arena aspects on the forum. That'd be stupid.

<Snipped quote by MelonHead>

Like I said, we will see. I'm not an expert on arena RP, and I'm curious to how it'll play out. And yes it is, which is actually an issue we've touched on within this thread, if you'd cared to read the entirety of it, rather than jump on here to be defensive.

Dynamo already offered thoughts on how to re-energize that forum, which was a good start. I've yet to see yours. I'll just presume my ignorance has carried over on you and prevents you from posting meaningful solutions, which is the same reason why I'll not reply to the arena chat thread. I just think you severely misrepresent my opinion. For instance I never once said we should remove all arena aspects on the forum. That'd be stupid.

Inherent in my initial criticism was that you're trying to fix a problem which does not exist. Arena is not dead, it lies dormant and picks up again with tournaments and events, and always has. The best way to energise the forum is to host tournaments and events, which is already happening, and has been happening for the last five years.

Making people suddenly not drop out of things is basically impossible in this format of RP, as an issue that is not specific to Arena but human beings as a species, I'm not overly concerned with it.

Moreover, your cynical attempts to prove your point by posting misleading screenshots that only prove something when looked at outside of the context of how arena organisation works is deliberately damaging to the reputation of the arena sub-forum, and is deserving of criticism.

@MelonHead The last tournament previous to this one was a year ago. I'm not sure if a year of inactivity is what you see as dormant, I see that as dead. Perhaps a better solution is to add more arena moderators or change the current one(s) to ensure that tournaments are hosted semi-reliably?

I think the reputation was there before I showed people that screenshot, and I think the purpose of my post was and will continue to be to ask the question why it is inactive, and how we can fix it. If the last tournament was anything to go by the current tournament will follow a similar path where people post a fight but never finish it. My question is more related to how we can fix it.

I'd like an explanation on how the last tournament was a year ago and wasn't as active as you made it seem like it was. Perhaps that'll help us reach some form of understanding as to why you are so sure this tournament will be the saving grace of arena. It seems dead. Surely you can acknowledge that, to an outsider, arena RP seems dead. Surely you can also acknowledge, being intelligent like you seem, that that can be seen as a problem and therefore is worth addressing.

Which returns me to my previous point. If tournaments are what arena RP needs to function - why are none being hosted. Why does it take a year for one to be hosted. Why are no people hosting their own tournaments and is this a sign of a failure for moderator activity if they are the ones that are supposed to do it?

Having arena on the frontpage will have more positive impact than tucking it away in order to clean said frontpage up. Cross-community interaction is vital to arena roleplaying, moreso than to other roleplaying categories and moreso now than ever before, i belive. Having the section frontpages willl make it just that much easier for a first time visitor to ffind out that we have a dedicated community.

The above also applies to garnering interest from new people: they'll be more likely to see and know about it, and having it in its own section will also help denote its stand-alone, unique nature, helping those unfamiliar recognize it not as a sub-category of something familiar, but as a genuinely novel experience.

In fact, that's exactly how i discovered arena roleplaying as a whole: i was just scrolling down RPG's frontpage and it caught my eye. If not that, it might've happened a whole lot later, or even never - and i'm certain such is the case not just for me.

Again, still going through everything so I apologize if this has been mentioned.

At the beginning of this thread, there was discussion about moderation. Personally, I have nothing against any of the mods (haven't been here long enough to know any personally). However, there is one major issue I can see...

There's no report button on the individual posts.

What if someone was being harassed on the forum and didn't know who the mods were to report it? Or wasn't on Discord? What if this was happening in PMs or even on an obscure RP that very few people were involved with, so this individual is the only person who CAN report it? No one is going to publicly report the culprit on a thread. There's no report button either on individual posts or on their profile. The only way to do so is to learn who the Mods are and send them a message.

So if you're a newbie like me, you send a PM to Mahz, who is the most obvious Mod. That doesn't fix the problem if Mahz is afk for a while. Instead, we should have a report button on each individual post (nothing massive or annoying, just at the bottom left and the same size as the Quote button), and a report button on the profile pages. This report button would send a message to a Mod's-eyes-only thread containing a link to the reported section, a comment from the reporter, and the reporter's name (or an option to remain anonymous if that is easy to code).

Of course, the above requires coding knowledge. I know there's a pinned message (pretty much on every subforum) that has a list of the mods and a link to their profile. But unless someone goes out of their way to read the pinned messages (I mean who does that? ... well, I did, but that's cause I'm weird), they won't see that info. Also, it's tucked away near the bottom of a much longer post, and a lot of people will get into tl;dr mode by that point. I feel like having an obvious list of the mods that's posted on the front page would help, but again, requires coding and the report button would be a better option anyways.

Personally, I'd like to give the DMs and co-DMs of a thread a little more power and responsibility in their own threads. Edit abilities, deletion abilities, etc would be extremely useful.

@Vordak the problem with this for me is that at the moment there seems to be no pull towards arena RP. It's just sort of there, and the lack of inactivity would make me personally very uninterested in even trying it. Having it on the front page only works if something is actually happening there. Which in the case between two tournaments (as was said by other members of arena roleplay) is mostly just a whole lot of nothing/abandoned threads.

So, again, I'll ask: what do you think could pull people towards arena roleplay then?

Tournaments are hosted in different venues, the arena community is a transient one and tends to move around a lot to clash with other communities.

The last tournament prior to this one hosted on RPG was poorly managed and designed, it was about seven months ago I believe. Before that there was the Black Mountain tournament that went relatively well, that was about 11 months ago. Before that there was the ranked system, which brought a lot of extra activity in. The official RPG tournament before that was also poorly designed and managed. Unfortunately, not everyone is cut out for running a tournament, but the only way to find out is to try.

I don't believe this tournament will be the saving grace of the arena, I know that it will bring about a surge of activity because they always do. The Arena doesn't really need a saving grace, the players are all still around, they communicate and for the most part are friends and frenemies. Arena isn't for everyone, it's an intense and competitive atmosphere that turns a lot of more casual roleplayers off, and so it will always be a small but necessary place on this forum and many others. However, as Vordak mentions, taking it off the front page will simply reduce that inflow of like-minded individuals even further. Hell, even the current tournament is being hosted by someone offsite and brought in about ten new players, who may never have even seen it if it was melded with 1x1 as you suggest.

@JBRam2002 all of these have been mentioned before but that doesn't mean you can't raise these issues again because they are all valid and in fact most people here share your opinions.

It's kind of strange that we don't have a report button given that the always updated rules literally state you should use the report button. ;) You're right though and a report button would at least fix the problem of people not reporting anything.

@MelonHead Do you think a solution would be the creation of an additional 'tournament moderator' or 'tournament host' role would benefit arena RP where arena RP can, with help of moderators, pick a person or two, three that are experienced and capable of hosting tournaments, and whose only power _is_ the hosting of tournaments, that that would help?

@MelonHead Do you think a solution would be the creation of an additional 'tournament moderator' or 'tournament host' role would benefit arena RP where arena RP can, with help of moderators, pick a person or two, three that are experienced and capable of hosting tournaments, and whose only power _is_ the hosting of tournaments, that that would help?

I think we could use another moderator with the same powers as Rilla, because he can't be as active as he used to be because of his small creature he calls a son. I don't think it's really possible to appoint people as tournament hosts, the skills required to run a tournament vary wildly from that of a moderator, beyond a similar level headed mentality. People just have to try and run tournaments more often, which is a big ask, because running a tournament is a lot more work than simply GMing a RP.

@Buddha

That is why i consider cross-community interaction the key solution. From what i have observed, the number of arena roleplayers as a whole has waned compared to the last decade, and the community is still in the process of condensing itself; before, there were enough people on a single website to support the arena section - now, those cliques need to establish stronger connections between eachother, as that no longer stands true for most places.

As that occurs, the aformentioned lack of activity will be redeemed - and currently, there are already steps being taken towards this. Give it some time, and i am sure that soon enough it will be attracting new blood on its own.

Throwing in my two cents as a mostly lurking member since pre-Guildfall.

First thank you @Buddha for making this thread as well as others who contributed. I've sort of skimmed over everything so here's my thoughts:

1. As someone who roleplays 18+ content, yes please lets add either a tag or a 18+ subforum of some kind. In a pure organization level this would be great.

2. Allowing more tags in general would be nice as well. I have a very open and vast interest in a variety of genres and 5 is way too limiting. I literally do everything but Horror, Arena, Nation RP, and Historical. That leaves a lot of genres with not enough tags to cover it

3. I don't agree with merging Nation, Arena, and Tabletop with anyone, including each other. While they might not be as active, they don't clutter enough to be an issue (I can easily browse using my phone if that's enough of a indication) and they need visibility since they're not as popular as other purely play by post roleplays.

4. I'm down with more mod visibility and more mod action. I have personally just ignored and quietly bitched about certain behaviors that I felt broke the rules but didn't report because I didnt feel like any action would have been taken. It's nothing personal against the mods, as I like most of them as people in general, but it is what it is.

I don't personally have answers for exactly how to make this work but I figured another voice chiming in might help convince some these are issues that need work.

EDIT:

I'm so desperate for a better PM system. I have loads of PMs just cluttering my inbox, some I want to save, some I want to delete but there's so many doing them one at a time is tedious and not worth it.

Pleaaase

<Snipped quote by Buddha>

You don't need to wait, you're showing your ignorance as to how tournament organisation works, which is understandable as you have no knowledge of the arena subsection. Just click the TZDL thread and look at how many characters (and subsequently active players, one player per character) have been entered.

that's an ugly ad hominem if i ever saw one.

Again, still going through everything so I apologize if this has been mentioned.

At the beginning of this thread, there was discussion about moderation. Personally, I have nothing against any of the mods (haven't been here long enough to know any personally). However, there is one major issue I can see...

There's no report button on the individual posts.

What if someone was being harassed on the forum and didn't know who the mods were to report it? Or wasn't on Discord? What if this was happening in PMs or even on an obscure RP that very few people were involved with, so this individual is the only person who CAN report it? No one is going to publicly report the culprit on a thread. There's no report button either on individual posts or on their profile. The only way to do so is to learn who the Mods are and send them a message.

So if you're a newbie like me, you send a PM to Mahz, who is the most obvious Mod. That doesn't fix the problem if Mahz is afk for a while. Instead, we should have a report button on each individual post (nothing massive or annoying, just at the bottom left and the same size as the Quote button), and a report button on the profile pages. This report button would send a message to a Mod's-eyes-only thread containing a link to the reported section, a comment from the reporter, and the reporter's name (or an option to remain anonymous if that is easy to code).

Of course, the above requires coding knowledge. I know there's a pinned message (pretty much on every subforum) that has a list of the mods and a link to their profile. But unless someone goes out of their way to read the pinned messages (I mean who does that? ... well, I did, but that's cause I'm weird), they won't see that info. Also, it's tucked away near the bottom of a much longer post, and a lot of people will get into tl;dr mode by that point. I feel like having an obvious list of the mods that's posted on the front page would help, but again, requires coding and the report button would be a better option anyways.

Personally, I'd like to give the DMs and co-DMs of a thread a little more power and responsibility in their own threads. Edit abilities, deletion abilities, etc would be extremely useful.

yeah, this is a really good idea i've seen thrown around a lot. i'm surprised mahz didn't implement this over, say, the visitor messages or the image function, because it's literally the norm on all other rp sites.