Depends. Here in the Forum Roleplaying section roleplays are strictly text-based. Think of it as a story completely driven by the players' actions and told through the eyes of various characters they control. The GM (or Game Master) creates the world and its rules. Depending on the roleplay, the GM will establish a set of rules to follow, which may include a required level of experience in writing, however it is worth noting that the Minecraft Forum rules themselves do not require a certain level of literacy to participate in the Forum Roleplaying section. Some roleplays will be more casual and allow for more laid back, just-for-fun roleplaying, while others will be more advanced and demanding when it comes to skill, it is up to you to choose which to participate in, but either way you must abide by both the roleplay's rules and the forum rules.
The whole "Casuals are dirt" thing is a very real issue(I will admit to falling back to such mindset time and again) and there is a skill hierarchy present, divided loosely into three divisions, which are Casual, Intermediate, and Hardcore.
Some people(i.e, me) may have or had issues with playing together with lesser skilled people. Some common issues I can point out from experience that causes prejudice against casuals would be the lack of creativity in posts(what we call one-liners), lack of proper grammar(makes things hard to read[Had a very big issue concerning Ybj1 on this, he got better though]), and lack of coherence(those people who play the 'lol so randum xD' card).
During the Gold Ages of the Forum Roleplay Section, before it had it's own subforum, the transition in skill level from Casual to Intermediate was done pretty well due to good teaching and guidance, and due to most RP's being Intermediate and Hardcore class.
Time after their clique left however, only a few Hardcores(Neilsaur and crew) stuck around and a bunch of Intermediates(Thatanos, clant, Scream comes to mind) who continued to rope along casuals into transition RP's(these were RP's where Casuals were encouraged to ante up. This was the time I got better at RPing, too).
Will continue this later.
EDIT: Piemancer's post got nuked. This is a post addressing the Skill Hierarchy in Roleplaying.
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WELL OKAY THEN.
THAT WAS ALL QUITE INTERESTING.
Lets maybe not talk to the obvious attention seeker, eh?
Just, take a breath. Let's talk about that Golden Age some more. It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Do the wiki links on the THM OP count as ads? Cos they take you to the wikis for the Roleplay. Which has some links back to MCF. Cos I'd be kind of annoyed if they did, since they've been there for almost two years.
Look, I didn't HATE Neilsaur or anything, but I didn't really like him. He was very, strictly, hardcore. I made an app for one of his RP's once. I was denied because I didn't describe why my character had his hair the way he did, and why he was crazy, etc.
I remember my apps and posts being a lot better back then. Most people got better, I got worse. Bit disappointing, really. But I've never been one much for lots of detail or post lengthening actions.
But yeah, I've never liked harcores too much. I prefer me some intermediates. Although it is very, very bad to discriminate based on skill. I usually discriminate based on whether or not people say things like 'oh lol xD' and YOLO/SWAG a lot. Those are the people I avoid like the plague, not those who have shorter posts than me.
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"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury." - Marcus Aurelis
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Neilsaur was pretty meticulous like that, and that's what made roleplaying with him, or at least sending him an app, a learning experience. He will point out your flaws and ask you to fix them, nicely or not, you had something to gain.
He enforced the 'participate before you create' rule, which wasn't all that bad, since it inhibited the flow of less-than-quality RPs we have today, but ultimately, it pretty much scared away new people.
I'd like a looser version of it in effect, to be honest...Roleplay section might slow down however, as a result.
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Sometimes I wonder if it's all too easy.
Lying, cheating, stealing your way to victory.
Though just how far would you fall for a dream?
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Hi spaceman. Didn't know you were still kicking.
I don't think you really see the whole casual advanced thing as nonsense since you just literally divided people into three groups of 'lots of single paragraph posts', 'page long posts', and 'single line posts'.
Even if you don't give them a proper label, in your head there is still a solid division of who does what.
The bother is, when you're the guy doing the occasional page long post + several paragraph posts and then the guy after you goes "Ok and then what? :))" and you're forced to reduce the quality of your posts because otherwise it's terribly difficult to respond.
Couple that with a bunch of guys doing one line posts and you're going to have to read through 10 pages just to catch up.
Frankly I prefer reading 2 pages full of page long posts than reading ten pages worth 2 page long posts. It's easier on the internet.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sometimes I wonder if it's all too easy.
Lying, cheating, stealing your way to victory.
Though just how far would you fall for a dream?
The bother is, when you're the guy doing the occasional page long post + several paragraph posts and then the guy after you goes "Ok and then what? " and you're forced to reduce the quality of your posts because otherwise it's terribly difficult to respond.
Couple that with a bunch of guys doing one line posts and you're going to have to read through 10 pages just to catch up.
Frankly I prefer reading 2 pages full of page long posts than reading ten pages worth 2 page long posts. It's easier on the internet.
In the event they give you a short post to work with, just do whatever you want to extend the length of your post, as long as you don't break your own RP rules. (Typically in this case; power-gaming and god-modding.) Describe the hell out of the environment and characters (even if you've done it previously), from a moved chair to the other guy gesturing birds at you. Get an event going (although this'll probably make posts shorter, depending on your position in RP hierarchy, whether that be a moderator that's allowed to make events or a GM). If all else fails, yell at the kid for being non-descriptive.
My way of dealing with this sort of issue, at least.
Couldn't agree more. I leave it up to the players if they'd rather just have one sentence or a thousand paragraphs of text with pictures and diagrams. You get more player diversity.
I also think personal interest and how much time players have is an important factor, you could make a small move in one RP because your spending most of your single hour writing up your epic quest RP. It doesn't mean your a casual-advanced player, it just means you have preference.
If that's the case, you've either joined an RP with too many people to be fun or they're not taking turns properly. Either way that's a management problem rather a problem with the players themselves.
"tl;dr." -Typical casual
Possible solutions:
1. Implement Neilsaur's Rule.
2. Implement a post length rule.
3. Give tips about making posts longer.
4. Add post restrictions.
I'd go with 2, because it doesn't alienate RPers (as much) like 1, although it'll probably scare off some RPers. 3 isn't really enforced, and 'beta-maxies' would shrug it off. (Seriously; we've got a RP workshop. Yet, the other day, I saw an image being used for the other half of an IC post.) 4 would just get everyone to complain, and it's much tougher than enforcing solution 3.
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...Still, if you compare my posts to one made by, say, Aaron, there would still be an obvious gap in skill and talent.
Preference is a factor, but not everyone has an equal capacity for making more detailed posts. Not to say people can't improve, but that doesn't happen overnight.[[Unless they stay up all night reading through the Workshop, studying every kink and flaw, referencing from various famous writers in past and present, perfecting the art of writing over the course of 12 hours...]]
On RP management...
That's a nightmare in it's own right, since the only tools a creator has is to report players breaking the 'Do not disrupt RP's' rule, and as such, they must wait for a point where a player is past simply being a general annoyance and being plain disruptive.
What do you mean by Neilsaur's rule? The only one I knew of that was quite controversial was the Participate before you Create rule.
EDIT: I immediately regret checking the Do not disrupt RP's thread.
That place is an ancient bloodstained battlefield.
I don't think you really see the whole casual advanced thing as nonsense since you just literally divided people into three groups of 'lots of single paragraph posts', 'page long posts', and 'single line posts'.
Even if you don't give them a proper label, in your head there is still a solid division of who does what.
The bother is, when you're the guy doing the occasional page long post + several paragraph posts and then the guy after you goes "Ok and then what? )" and you're forced to reduce the quality of your posts because otherwise it's terribly difficult to respond.
Couple that with a bunch of guys doing one line posts and you're going to have to read through 10 pages just to catch up.
Frankly I prefer reading 2 pages full of page long posts than reading ten pages worth 2 page long posts. It's easier on the internet.
I see it as non sense in the idea that it indicates the writing quality of a member. I don't see how since it isn't really that hard to make paragraph long posts or even page long posts. It just takes time. Wordiness is not a measurement of writing skill or of showing how advanced someone is at writing characters or describing settings.
For instance, a poem can have the impact on someone a book does when done right.
There are some really golden posts in that thread.
The former mods were too optimistic.
Oh well.
Cept for Animator, he kinda hammered that thread into a stone tablet and stuck it up on the mountaintop for all to see.
If by optimistic you mean in regards to the RP section back then, sure. But I think that, regardless of how you feel about me and the Precipice crew, we can all agree the moderators are anything but optimistic. We're talking about people who warn you (and suspend you, even), for typing out the vulgar version of 'urinate' (a four letter word). I never denied what I did as a moderator. Even when I was de-modded and confronted about it, I admitted it rather flatly: I protected people. And not just the Precipice guys.
I can honestly say that most of the people in this thread could have been warned, or even suspended at some point, had I enforced some of the ridiculous rules on this site. Instead I'd turn a blind eye regardless of who you were. Or even go beyond that.
I wish I could say this (and more) without having my message taken down under some bogus claim of thread derailment too. I do hope the moderators can take a bit of criticism, especially in regards to how it may be best to moderate the RP section (funny coming from me, I know, someone fired), but seeing how they've handled some of the criticism lately, probably not. Still, dumb rules aside, I think the RP section (and probably every section, for that matter) needs some breathing space.
You (administration) may not realize it. Hell, I know you don't. But you're squeezing the life out of this place. It's hard to have fun when you're over people's shoulders. It's hard to write when you can't even say 'urinate' the wrong way. Hell, you can't even go a bit off-topic here or in OOC threads. Do it and you risk the entire thread getting taken down. And if someone hates you enough to report your OOC thread, I can guarantee you the mods will find enough off-topic talk in it to lock it.
Same with cursing. You can make the most reasonable argument in defense of why you bypassed the filter to curse. A good one would be because, gee, I don't know, WE'RE WRITING. Any good writer knows the importance of laying out a world in a way that is believable. When exploring war, it's important to go into the details no matter how messed up. When writing about an addict, it's important to capture how he feels, what he does, no matter how troubling. And when you're writing about a dude who curses a lot (or has a good reason to), it's really nice when you can do it without turning your post into an asterisk rave, or worrying that some moderator will see that you bypassed the filter and delete all your hard work.
I'd have lost count if I counted all the times I could have removed or altered someone's post because they cursed in it. But I never did it because, as a writer, I know how much hard work goes into it sometimes. And I know that sometimes cursing is necessary in writing.
I could go on for a while on why this site has gone downhill. But it wouldn't matter, and that's what really sucks.
I was here from the start, back when we RP'd in Fan Art. Back before even Neilsaur. And it was great. Everyone had fun, the moderators were more laid back, and no one ever got into trouble. I wish things could go back to that, even if I never join an RP here again. I'd just like to see it happen, because I do remember RPing here, back then, was awesome. And it'd be nice to see it again.
Then it went downhill. I couldn't even pinpoint the exact moment, honestly. But it had something to do with us finally getting our own section (which, by the way, I helped bring about *insertbragginghere*), and someone complaining about certain people being too hard on them (which was half-BS). And after that, the mods got involved. And that lead to the 'Do Not Disrupt RPs' thread.
Were people too hard on some players back then? Yeah. I even say it in the Do Not Disrupt RPs thread, if you care to look far enough in it. Was it as bad as they claimed? Not really. Half the time it was someone taking constructive criticism the wrong way, and then getting the moderators involved.
Eventually, all the people that helped keep the section running nicely (Absolution(sp?), Neilsaur, Stingray, AYF, ect) left. Only me and a handful of others stayed. And then you more or less know the rest. The section just started to go down from there, and the stricter rules, in my opinion, are partly to blame.
I admit a dedicated section may have been a mistake, looking back. And I could start blaming new players and whatnot too, and honestly, there'd be some truth in it (Dedicated section separate from Fan Art meant inexperienced people flooded in, quality went down, butthurt over constructive criticism went up, ect). But I won't even go there.
Point is, I sincerely believe heavy moderation won't help this section in the least. Best case scenario: moderators realize that and ease up. Worst case scenario: the section continues to spiral down like the fiery wreck it's become.
All the drama aside, I do hope it recovers. But I have my doubts.
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That would probs get nuked, so I'm saving a quote of that for the good bit of history pre-Neilsaur.
I'm pretty sure the sharp turn came about when people started taking constructive criticism the wrong way and dragging mods into the mess. When the 'Participate before you Create' was voided. Granted people were taking guidelines the wrong way and using it as a tool to bash people, but that was a select minority, and many improved under that rule by experience.
With the mod's optimism, it was in regard of their comments about the RPs. Such as, "Just because there are a few threads that aren't the same quality does not mean that this forum will go to . ", or even " Let the better threads survive, and let the bad ones die. Let the natural order do it's course."
I won't bother commenting on how having our own subforum may have contributed to making things worse, but this was the compromise that was agreed on.
Concerning recovery, I wonder what would happen if all RP's were nuked and the section was cleaned out, and we went back to the ol' Participate -> Create rule that worked well the last time.
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Sometimes I wonder if it's all too easy.
Lying, cheating, stealing your way to victory.
Though just how far would you fall for a dream?
That rule was never really in practice. Neilsaur liked to throw it around every now and then, but it'd just be met with butthurt that eventually caught the mods' attention.
That being said, I don't think it'd do well even then. The moderators didn't like it being a rule. If I remember correctly, they were mad that Neilsaur was making it seem like it was an official rule, when it wasn't. They were afraid it would scare people away (which is funny given they've done that on their own now).
Would the RP section have been better with the rule in place? Probably. Would it ever have a chance at being in place? No.
The RP section prospered the most during its Fan Art phase, when AYF (who I think then became a mod and stopped RPing, at least here, forever) was the guy everyone looked up to for his really long-lived RP (that also happened to be my first ever). Neilsaur showed up later, and was a part of that RP for a short while. Then I think AYF left and Neilsaur, Stingray and I became the main guys. Then I think Absolution (or whatever his name was, I forget) showed up. The RP section did fine during that time, and the moderators never bothered us.
It wasn't until people started getting butthurt over constructive criticism (and Neilsaur's "rule") that the moderators started to get involved. And then people slowly left. I was one of the few people to stay after that (Chatix being one of the others I remember, and I think Masked Krusader). But from there, with a new section and (eventually) stricter rules, everything went downhill.
I recall the fan art phase having some really serious elitism problems; like yelling at people for making minecraft based RPs in the fan art section of a forum for minecraft.
I'm growing old, and I've been sick for 5 weeks now. Someone's gotta do the job, 'cause Evanist ain't exactly paying attention to our RPs.
The whole "Casuals are dirt" thing is a very real issue(I will admit to falling back to such mindset time and again) and there is a skill hierarchy present, divided loosely into three divisions, which are Casual, Intermediate, and Hardcore.
Some people(i.e, me) may have or had issues with playing together with lesser skilled people. Some common issues I can point out from experience that causes prejudice against casuals would be the lack of creativity in posts(what we call one-liners), lack of proper grammar(makes things hard to read[Had a very big issue concerning Ybj1 on this, he got better though]), and lack of coherence(those people who play the 'lol so randum xD' card).
During the Gold Ages of the Forum Roleplay Section, before it had it's own subforum, the transition in skill level from Casual to Intermediate was done pretty well due to good teaching and guidance, and due to most RP's being Intermediate and Hardcore class.
Time after their clique left however, only a few Hardcores(Neilsaur and crew) stuck around and a bunch of Intermediates(Thatanos, clant, Scream comes to mind) who continued to rope along casuals into transition RP's(these were RP's where Casuals were encouraged to ante up. This was the time I got better at RPing, too).
Will continue this later.
EDIT: Piemancer's post got nuked. This is a post addressing the Skill Hierarchy in Roleplaying.
Sometimes I wonder if it's all too easy.
Lying, cheating, stealing your way to victory.
Though just how far would you fall for a dream?
THAT WAS ALL QUITE INTERESTING.
Lets maybe not talk to the obvious attention seeker, eh?
Just, take a breath. Let's talk about that Golden Age some more. It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Do the wiki links on the THM OP count as ads? Cos they take you to the wikis for the Roleplay. Which has some links back to MCF. Cos I'd be kind of annoyed if they did, since they've been there for almost two years.
Look, I didn't HATE Neilsaur or anything, but I didn't really like him. He was very, strictly, hardcore. I made an app for one of his RP's once. I was denied because I didn't describe why my character had his hair the way he did, and why he was crazy, etc.
I remember my apps and posts being a lot better back then. Most people got better, I got worse. Bit disappointing, really. But I've never been one much for lots of detail or post lengthening actions.
But yeah, I've never liked harcores too much. I prefer me some intermediates. Although it is very, very bad to discriminate based on skill. I usually discriminate based on whether or not people say things like 'oh lol xD' and YOLO/SWAG a lot. Those are the people I avoid like the plague, not those who have shorter posts than me.
"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury." - Marcus Aurelis
He enforced the 'participate before you create' rule, which wasn't all that bad, since it inhibited the flow of less-than-quality RPs we have today, but ultimately, it pretty much scared away new people.
I'd like a looser version of it in effect, to be honest...Roleplay section might slow down however, as a result.
Sometimes I wonder if it's all too easy.
Lying, cheating, stealing your way to victory.
Though just how far would you fall for a dream?
"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury." - Marcus Aurelis
I read about 90% of that damn thing, and that was my whole morning.
"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury." - Marcus Aurelis
Sometimes I wonder if it's all too easy.
Lying, cheating, stealing your way to victory.
Though just how far would you fall for a dream?
This. Although, I am not the one to do that, cuz my LA grade is like a C- and I don't want to spread influence.
I don't think you really see the whole casual advanced thing as nonsense since you just literally divided people into three groups of 'lots of single paragraph posts', 'page long posts', and 'single line posts'.
Even if you don't give them a proper label, in your head there is still a solid division of who does what.
The bother is, when you're the guy doing the occasional page long post + several paragraph posts and then the guy after you goes "Ok and then what? :))" and you're forced to reduce the quality of your posts because otherwise it's terribly difficult to respond.
Couple that with a bunch of guys doing one line posts and you're going to have to read through 10 pages just to catch up.
Frankly I prefer reading 2 pages full of page long posts than reading ten pages worth 2 page long posts. It's easier on the internet.
Sometimes I wonder if it's all too easy.
Lying, cheating, stealing your way to victory.
Though just how far would you fall for a dream?
In the event they give you a short post to work with, just do whatever you want to extend the length of your post, as long as you don't break your own RP rules. (Typically in this case; power-gaming and god-modding.) Describe the hell out of the environment and characters (even if you've done it previously), from a moved chair to the other guy gesturing birds at you. Get an event going (although this'll probably make posts shorter, depending on your position in RP hierarchy, whether that be a moderator that's allowed to make events or a GM). If all else fails, yell at the kid for being non-descriptive.
My way of dealing with this sort of issue, at least.
"tl;dr." -Typical casual
Possible solutions:
1. Implement Neilsaur's Rule.
2. Implement a post length rule.
3. Give tips about making posts longer.
4. Add post restrictions.
I'd go with 2, because it doesn't alienate RPers (as much) like 1, although it'll probably scare off some RPers. 3 isn't really enforced, and 'beta-maxies' would shrug it off. (Seriously; we've got a RP workshop. Yet, the other day, I saw an image being used for the other half of an IC post.) 4 would just get everyone to complain, and it's much tougher than enforcing solution 3.
...would anyone care to add to this?
Preference is a factor, but not everyone has an equal capacity for making more detailed posts. Not to say people can't improve, but that doesn't happen overnight.[[Unless they stay up all night reading through the Workshop, studying every kink and flaw, referencing from various famous writers in past and present, perfecting the art of writing over the course of 12 hours...]]
On RP management...
That's a nightmare in it's own right, since the only tools a creator has is to report players breaking the 'Do not disrupt RP's' rule, and as such, they must wait for a point where a player is past simply being a general annoyance and being plain disruptive.
What do you mean by Neilsaur's rule? The only one I knew of that was quite controversial was the Participate before you Create rule.
EDIT: I immediately regret checking the Do not disrupt RP's thread.
That place is an ancient bloodstained battlefield.
Sometimes I wonder if it's all too easy.
Lying, cheating, stealing your way to victory.
Though just how far would you fall for a dream?
And hey, unbanned.
The former mods were too optimistic.
Oh well.
Cept for Animator, he kinda hammered that thread into a stone tablet and stuck it up on the mountaintop for all to see.
Sometimes I wonder if it's all too easy.
Lying, cheating, stealing your way to victory.
Though just how far would you fall for a dream?
I see it as non sense in the idea that it indicates the writing quality of a member. I don't see how since it isn't really that hard to make paragraph long posts or even page long posts. It just takes time. Wordiness is not a measurement of writing skill or of showing how advanced someone is at writing characters or describing settings.
For instance, a poem can have the impact on someone a book does when done right.
If by optimistic you mean in regards to the RP section back then, sure. But I think that, regardless of how you feel about me and the Precipice crew, we can all agree the moderators are anything but optimistic. We're talking about people who warn you (and suspend you, even), for typing out the vulgar version of 'urinate' (a four letter word). I never denied what I did as a moderator. Even when I was de-modded and confronted about it, I admitted it rather flatly: I protected people. And not just the Precipice guys.
I can honestly say that most of the people in this thread could have been warned, or even suspended at some point, had I enforced some of the ridiculous rules on this site. Instead I'd turn a blind eye regardless of who you were. Or even go beyond that.
I wish I could say this (and more) without having my message taken down under some bogus claim of thread derailment too. I do hope the moderators can take a bit of criticism, especially in regards to how it may be best to moderate the RP section (funny coming from me, I know, someone fired), but seeing how they've handled some of the criticism lately, probably not. Still, dumb rules aside, I think the RP section (and probably every section, for that matter) needs some breathing space.
You (administration) may not realize it. Hell, I know you don't. But you're squeezing the life out of this place. It's hard to have fun when you're over people's shoulders. It's hard to write when you can't even say 'urinate' the wrong way. Hell, you can't even go a bit off-topic here or in OOC threads. Do it and you risk the entire thread getting taken down. And if someone hates you enough to report your OOC thread, I can guarantee you the mods will find enough off-topic talk in it to lock it.
Same with cursing. You can make the most reasonable argument in defense of why you bypassed the filter to curse. A good one would be because, gee, I don't know, WE'RE WRITING. Any good writer knows the importance of laying out a world in a way that is believable. When exploring war, it's important to go into the details no matter how messed up. When writing about an addict, it's important to capture how he feels, what he does, no matter how troubling. And when you're writing about a dude who curses a lot (or has a good reason to), it's really nice when you can do it without turning your post into an asterisk rave, or worrying that some moderator will see that you bypassed the filter and delete all your hard work.
I'd have lost count if I counted all the times I could have removed or altered someone's post because they cursed in it. But I never did it because, as a writer, I know how much hard work goes into it sometimes. And I know that sometimes cursing is necessary in writing.
I could go on for a while on why this site has gone downhill. But it wouldn't matter, and that's what really sucks.
I was here from the start, back when we RP'd in Fan Art. Back before even Neilsaur. And it was great. Everyone had fun, the moderators were more laid back, and no one ever got into trouble. I wish things could go back to that, even if I never join an RP here again. I'd just like to see it happen, because I do remember RPing here, back then, was awesome. And it'd be nice to see it again.
Then it went downhill. I couldn't even pinpoint the exact moment, honestly. But it had something to do with us finally getting our own section (which, by the way, I helped bring about *insertbragginghere*), and someone complaining about certain people being too hard on them (which was half-BS). And after that, the mods got involved. And that lead to the 'Do Not Disrupt RPs' thread.
Were people too hard on some players back then? Yeah. I even say it in the Do Not Disrupt RPs thread, if you care to look far enough in it. Was it as bad as they claimed? Not really. Half the time it was someone taking constructive criticism the wrong way, and then getting the moderators involved.
Eventually, all the people that helped keep the section running nicely (Absolution(sp?), Neilsaur, Stingray, AYF, ect) left. Only me and a handful of others stayed. And then you more or less know the rest. The section just started to go down from there, and the stricter rules, in my opinion, are partly to blame.
I admit a dedicated section may have been a mistake, looking back. And I could start blaming new players and whatnot too, and honestly, there'd be some truth in it (Dedicated section separate from Fan Art meant inexperienced people flooded in, quality went down, butthurt over constructive criticism went up, ect). But I won't even go there.
Point is, I sincerely believe heavy moderation won't help this section in the least. Best case scenario: moderators realize that and ease up. Worst case scenario: the section continues to spiral down like the fiery wreck it's become.
All the drama aside, I do hope it recovers. But I have my doubts.
I'm pretty sure the sharp turn came about when people started taking constructive criticism the wrong way and dragging mods into the mess. When the 'Participate before you Create' was voided. Granted people were taking guidelines the wrong way and using it as a tool to bash people, but that was a select minority, and many improved under that rule by experience.
With the mod's optimism, it was in regard of their comments about the RPs. Such as, "Just because there are a few threads that aren't the same quality does not mean that this forum will go to . ", or even " Let the better threads survive, and let the bad ones die. Let the natural order do it's course."
I won't bother commenting on how having our own subforum may have contributed to making things worse, but this was the compromise that was agreed on.
Concerning recovery, I wonder what would happen if all RP's were nuked and the section was cleaned out, and we went back to the ol' Participate -> Create rule that worked well the last time.
Sometimes I wonder if it's all too easy.
Lying, cheating, stealing your way to victory.
Though just how far would you fall for a dream?
That being said, I don't think it'd do well even then. The moderators didn't like it being a rule. If I remember correctly, they were mad that Neilsaur was making it seem like it was an official rule, when it wasn't. They were afraid it would scare people away (which is funny given they've done that on their own now).
Would the RP section have been better with the rule in place? Probably. Would it ever have a chance at being in place? No.
The RP section prospered the most during its Fan Art phase, when AYF (who I think then became a mod and stopped RPing, at least here, forever) was the guy everyone looked up to for his really long-lived RP (that also happened to be my first ever). Neilsaur showed up later, and was a part of that RP for a short while. Then I think AYF left and Neilsaur, Stingray and I became the main guys. Then I think Absolution (or whatever his name was, I forget) showed up. The RP section did fine during that time, and the moderators never bothered us.
It wasn't until people started getting butthurt over constructive criticism (and Neilsaur's "rule") that the moderators started to get involved. And then people slowly left. I was one of the few people to stay after that (Chatix being one of the others I remember, and I think Masked Krusader). But from there, with a new section and (eventually) stricter rules, everything went downhill.