Hello!
This post was originally going to go into my journal, as it contains some of my thoughts and opinions on the activity (or, really, the lack of it) that we have on Evelon. Yet, in the end, I felt that if I just posted it there, then I would still be doing the same thing I thought was one of the issues with how our community currently is. Which is that we hardly interact with each other any more. We just don't post to post and give our opinions or hear the opinions of others.
So, these are my thoughts.
Any comments about it or suggestions on how to revive our activity are MORE THAN WELCOME. So please do post? I would love to hear what everyone else thinks or what they have to say on the matter! <3
Despite not being able to be too active on Evelon, I have still been actively thinking about what can be done about the activity on it. It is more than obvious that users are less active on the site than they used to be, for a number of real life reasons, in most cases. However, even with busy real lives, we each have a little bit of time in our day where we tend to wander to Evelon or other websites we like, don't we?
I've come to the conclusion that, part of it, is just that simple: users AREN'T active. They log in, they check things, even wander around for hours, but they don't post anything. And I don't mean roleplays, but ANYTHING at all. We have the fabulous Gossip and Chatter section that hardly ever gets used, even though there are no sentence limitations to the replies there. We are a forum, once a very lively community, but we don't act like it, outside of those that wander into the IRC.
On the forums, themselves, we don't chatter about how our day was, ask questions, look for advice, discuss much of ANYTHING. We are fully capable of making a thread simply to say, "Oh my goodness, you guys, I just got a really great test score! I'm so happy!" where others can then just be nice and give us congratulations. We can do that, but we've come to a point in Evelon where people just don't, and I'm not even sure why.
When someone DOES post a thread, we can all see that it gets views and, most likely, users end up reading it for something to do while on Evelon, but they never post. Yet, how hard is it to post one or two sentences back? Like, "That's a an awesome idea," or what have you. Getting a reply back to a thread feels amazing when you want to share something or have a discussion with someone. Isn't that what the point of an online community really is? To interact with others that have some common interest? (Our main common interest is that we are here to roleplay or collect pretty pets, since that is what Evelon is about, but a community is used to relate to others, period, not just over whatever we all came here originally for.)
I have been considering making all sorts of different topics in the Chatter section, things like, a, "What made your day?" thread, where we can all go to rave about whatever big or little thing made us happy that day, and it can go on and on, for every day something happens that we feel like sharing. Sometimes, it is great to look at the positive things, even small, so why not share them with our lovely community?
My main concern with that, however, is even if I try to make an effort, will others? I WANT to post and interact with others on Evelon as a community. I hope others feel the same way. But are we so set in our ways of not doing so that things wont change and return to more of how they used to be?
Additionally, I would like to address the other aspect, the MAIN aspect of Evelon. We are a roleplay forum, yet, hardly any of that gets done anymore.
Roleplaying on the site, in and of itself, has changed a lot since the beginning or near beginning, since I don't go ALL the way back. I was a member when Lucain were just released, though, and own one of the first. I think that works as a reasonable to age me? Either way, I've been on Evelon longer than this particular forum host has existed, so longer than my join date on this account.
Instead of doing simple roleplays, many users post, well, text walls, unless they are familiar with their partner and know that shorter posts are fine and dandy. In my case, I could not care less if someone posted the basic five sentences, as long as I had a enough content to reply at least five sentences to in return.
I think extremely long posts can potentially harm the roleplay, in how often one feels they have the time to actually reply to said posts. I mean, let's face it, it can be quite difficult to write your own return text wall if you are pressed with time because of real life or other activities. Yet, still, even when making posts of reasonable length or content, if they seem short, many users feel the need to write, "Sorry it's so short!" or something similar. While, in my opinion, honestly, we are all here to have fun. So have fun, don't stress about length, and roleplay onward! You shouldn't have to feel the need to apologize for what you write.
Some of my very favorite roleplays in life have consisted of very short posts. However, because we wrote short posts, we wrote for pages and pages, and the story progressed a TON. That has to be way better than waiting weeks on end for a reply, right?
Of course, I also have nothing against users and roleplays that DO have lots and lots of content in their replies. I'm not trying to say that I do have an issue with it, but one way or another, we should stop worrying about how long or short our roleplay posts are and just go with it. If we're not doing a thing we enjoy doing because of worrying about the length of our posts (be it short or long) or what others will think about it or our characters, then something is very wrong. When roleplaying here should be something we have fun with to relax, get our mind off of real life, or what have you, but it's not working that way, well, it needs fixing.
This post was originally going to go into my journal, as it contains some of my thoughts and opinions on the activity (or, really, the lack of it) that we have on Evelon. Yet, in the end, I felt that if I just posted it there, then I would still be doing the same thing I thought was one of the issues with how our community currently is. Which is that we hardly interact with each other any more. We just don't post to post and give our opinions or hear the opinions of others.
So, these are my thoughts.
Any comments about it or suggestions on how to revive our activity are MORE THAN WELCOME. So please do post? I would love to hear what everyone else thinks or what they have to say on the matter! <3
Despite not being able to be too active on Evelon, I have still been actively thinking about what can be done about the activity on it. It is more than obvious that users are less active on the site than they used to be, for a number of real life reasons, in most cases. However, even with busy real lives, we each have a little bit of time in our day where we tend to wander to Evelon or other websites we like, don't we?
I've come to the conclusion that, part of it, is just that simple: users AREN'T active. They log in, they check things, even wander around for hours, but they don't post anything. And I don't mean roleplays, but ANYTHING at all. We have the fabulous Gossip and Chatter section that hardly ever gets used, even though there are no sentence limitations to the replies there. We are a forum, once a very lively community, but we don't act like it, outside of those that wander into the IRC.
On the forums, themselves, we don't chatter about how our day was, ask questions, look for advice, discuss much of ANYTHING. We are fully capable of making a thread simply to say, "Oh my goodness, you guys, I just got a really great test score! I'm so happy!" where others can then just be nice and give us congratulations. We can do that, but we've come to a point in Evelon where people just don't, and I'm not even sure why.
When someone DOES post a thread, we can all see that it gets views and, most likely, users end up reading it for something to do while on Evelon, but they never post. Yet, how hard is it to post one or two sentences back? Like, "That's a an awesome idea," or what have you. Getting a reply back to a thread feels amazing when you want to share something or have a discussion with someone. Isn't that what the point of an online community really is? To interact with others that have some common interest? (Our main common interest is that we are here to roleplay or collect pretty pets, since that is what Evelon is about, but a community is used to relate to others, period, not just over whatever we all came here originally for.)
I have been considering making all sorts of different topics in the Chatter section, things like, a, "What made your day?" thread, where we can all go to rave about whatever big or little thing made us happy that day, and it can go on and on, for every day something happens that we feel like sharing. Sometimes, it is great to look at the positive things, even small, so why not share them with our lovely community?
My main concern with that, however, is even if I try to make an effort, will others? I WANT to post and interact with others on Evelon as a community. I hope others feel the same way. But are we so set in our ways of not doing so that things wont change and return to more of how they used to be?
Additionally, I would like to address the other aspect, the MAIN aspect of Evelon. We are a roleplay forum, yet, hardly any of that gets done anymore.
Roleplaying on the site, in and of itself, has changed a lot since the beginning or near beginning, since I don't go ALL the way back. I was a member when Lucain were just released, though, and own one of the first. I think that works as a reasonable to age me? Either way, I've been on Evelon longer than this particular forum host has existed, so longer than my join date on this account.
Instead of doing simple roleplays, many users post, well, text walls, unless they are familiar with their partner and know that shorter posts are fine and dandy. In my case, I could not care less if someone posted the basic five sentences, as long as I had a enough content to reply at least five sentences to in return.
I think extremely long posts can potentially harm the roleplay, in how often one feels they have the time to actually reply to said posts. I mean, let's face it, it can be quite difficult to write your own return text wall if you are pressed with time because of real life or other activities. Yet, still, even when making posts of reasonable length or content, if they seem short, many users feel the need to write, "Sorry it's so short!" or something similar. While, in my opinion, honestly, we are all here to have fun. So have fun, don't stress about length, and roleplay onward! You shouldn't have to feel the need to apologize for what you write.
Some of my very favorite roleplays in life have consisted of very short posts. However, because we wrote short posts, we wrote for pages and pages, and the story progressed a TON. That has to be way better than waiting weeks on end for a reply, right?
Of course, I also have nothing against users and roleplays that DO have lots and lots of content in their replies. I'm not trying to say that I do have an issue with it, but one way or another, we should stop worrying about how long or short our roleplay posts are and just go with it. If we're not doing a thing we enjoy doing because of worrying about the length of our posts (be it short or long) or what others will think about it or our characters, then something is very wrong. When roleplaying here should be something we have fun with to relax, get our mind off of real life, or what have you, but it's not working that way, well, it needs fixing.
