An RP Moderator

SJ_the_Bartender

SJ_the_Bartender

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I think we should hire a new person, Mith.

I think we need a general RP moderator. Someone who regularly browses the RP forums, and uses a cattle-prod on stalled or delayed RPs.

This person could also be used as a mediator when IC conflict comes up.

Hopefully, this person would be an active RPer, with a broad range of experience, and general knowledge. It should also be someone who can make a good suggestion for an RP that needs help.

This person could regularly solicite the community for new RP ideas, and start new plots. This person would have the ability to act as Game Master in free-form plots, where no other GM is present, but the ability to excersise power in such games should be very limited.

Perhaps this could be an elected position, decided by popular vote, and rotated after a set period of time.

What do you think?
 
Although I see some merit in having such a position the issue I see with it is simply that we do not decide what happens in what Rps, to hire someone to do such although perhaps a bit productive could in essence take away the players freedoms to do as they wish in their plots. It has been a standing rule(assumption) that the creator of the Rp sets the precedent of the rp, and from there it is decided what is acceptable and what is not. This includes everyone working together to further the Rp becomming the master of thier creations in said plot. For us to have someong move about and kick plots would seem to cross certain Boundries that we Role players attempt to keep from being crossed at any point. Those Being the IC and OOC Boundries.

Now I will say I like the idea of someone jumping in and getting into the rps that are going or have started to stall out, but to charge someone with that duty would be unfair to the player in the first place. Many of our members have lives away from the computer that demand them to not be here as often as such a task would require. Beyond that there are plots going around here that may be slow, but have a lot of history that having someone randomly jump into could cause problems. Now if perhaps you mean they would act more in the stance of a barker, calling to people to check this or that plot out and join in, it could be nice but we have the Recruiting office forum for that kind of thing. Perhaps if you could clarify what you mean by cattle proding plots , I could give a more defined arguement for or against such a concept. As for mediation of IC fights and such I would seriously give my support for something along those lines but only if it was requested by the fighters and the threads creator.
 
Obviously, the role of cattle-proder and GM would only apply where the originator wasn't already present. Such as Anna's Horror RP... Anna is gone, but someone needs to direct her plot. She didn't specify who, so this RP moderator could take over, until someone else could be found, or volenteered, or whatever was needed.

I imagine it being a very flexible position, and the person would need to be able to adapt to many different situations.

And I thought it was obvious that this person would only step in to a GM'd game if requested, but since you brought it up, yes, that is how I envision it.

The same goes for fights. It could be that this person is the default mediator in disputes, but of course, if all participants want someone else, then that is what will happen.

Basically, this person isn't really going to have a lot of power, except for what the players decide to give him/her.

Also, part of the reason i mentioned it being an elected position was so that the people maintained all control over the position. If someone wanted to be elected again, they would have to make sure that the players were happy with their performance. That keeps you and me and the other regular moderators from crossing the line of directing the players in how to game.
 
Its definately an interesting suggestion, and having someone in that role would allow Mith, Rhysis (when he returns) and myself to concentrate on other aspects of the community, as well as RPing ourselves.

If the community wants it I don't see why they shouldn't have it.
 
Okay so you are saying the Rp Moderator postion would be more of a sheperd postion for the plots that have lost what guidance the creator of the plot gave. That does not seem like a bad Idea in that context. I would say however that such a postion should only be given to a player for about two weeks to a month long at any given time otherwise we run the chance of burning the poor person out. As for the obvious, yes we can hope the obvious is obvious to everyone but often it is not, so we must endevour to point every detail out that we can. We need to flesh the idea out fully before we can say this is something the community should get behind or completely be against. Inform the masses. Now hopefully some of our members will also voice their opinion on the idea.
 
I like that shepard analogy. That fits perfectly.

And i agree that burnout is something we should consider. Short terms are good for avoiding that, but it has its drawbacks. We may not have enough people to rotate the role as often as 2 weeks. I would also thing that this job isn't very demanding as far as time goes, so a person who holds the job for a month or two would only really need to act 2 or 3 times maybe. Its not like this person needs to be monitoring the RP forums each and every day.

That would make it hard to get a good grasp of how well the person does the job over a long period.

6 months is over long. 2 weeks is too short. i like 3 months, myself.
 
I think it would be asking too much of someone to jump in when another persons rp fizzles out to try and bring it back to life. The creator may take offence to that, if the creator abandoned it then it should just be locked down. If the creator were to return to it then of course a "appointed" mod of the RP boards could always unlock it for them.
I do feel though appointing a Mod to mediate when trouble arises is a good idea, I hate it when a good story line dies due to conflicts between the rp'ers. Granted the individuals may be able to work things out among themselves, but we all know there may be times when it will escalate and all will suffer due to it.
Also, the appointed Mod should be able to throw up Ideas, and create something when needed like when there is a low in rp activity.
 
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why appointed, charm?

And anytime a creator wants their RP locked, whether because it died, or they are leaving, they can always ask it to be locked. This person wouldn't be able to undo that. They would not be able to override anything that the original creator wanted.

I doubt this person will be given the ability to lock and unlock threads.

To go back to the shepherd analogy, its like there are 50 different shepherds. This one is the only one who goes looking for lost sheep though. He doesn't mess with any of the sheep that already have shepherds. Only the ones that got lost somehow.
 
If this person is only going to be assigned for the sole purpose of leading Rp's, creating ideas, and taking up the slack of others without moderator abilities, then it would be best to not call the position Moderator of RP.
And if this is the case, then I feel they shouldn't be the person to mediate if conflict arises within someones Rp.
 
In all honesty, it seems like this person is going to be given a potentially important responsibility without all the 'pizzazz' of an entirely official title. *shrugs* In reference to Anna's RP or Bakarne, if posting can become more frequent and less focused in one area, perhaps an actual plot can be created. Otherwise, I will continue with my own character's quest to escape the place with the players involved. I haven't posted much around here only because I just basically read the RPs now and post in Bakarne only due to work and social life. Only real time I even have to post on here is usually while I am at work. Ehem but yes, getting back to the point of this thread, to have a 'face' so to speak that can be considered a mediator when certain conflicts arise would be a great idea. The question would be would people respect this person? (as long as they do their job as it is intended of course)
 
Has there been a discission made on this topic or is it still being debated?
 
what you see on this thread is what has been stated about the topic.

If you don't think this person should be mediator, who do you think should be?

Colvin, I realized that this person, as a mediator, has to be someone respected by the community. That is why I suggested it be an elected position.
 
This sounds like a good idea - minus the whole resolving IC conflicts (freeform wouldn't be free form then), but I don't agree with it being a rotated poistion or an elected position.

One turns into a popularity contest and the other is switching people out before they have a chance to catch up. It shuold be an official title with mod like abilities, appointed by the the head Admin.

As long as the person stays motivated, this would work out great - but the administration would need to make sure that they stayed motivated and active. It would be a good way to reward someone who posts frequently and is a good role player.
 
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