survey update + choice award announcement

[truce.]

[align=center][div style="width: 375px; text-align: justify; font-family: verdana; font-size: 7pt; line-height: 1.5;"]AJ has literally taken the words right out my mouth, if I'm being honest. I don't think I should ramble on the same points because what I wanted to say has already been said, but I agree with AJ and, honestly, feel the exact same way. I know that the cliquishness isn't malicious in any way, shape or form and I'm not resentful towards anyone in particular for how I feel, but I do think it's something that does need addressing so that people in the future don't have to feel this way.

Personally, I was the person who said OOC things are better (with that, I mean getting to chat with you guys and getting to know everyone - I'm really fond of everyone here!!) but IC things still have improving to do, I feel. When you mention replying to posts, Bryne, I'm really grateful for the effort you put in with everyone! I really do appreciate it and I definitely don't believe that's where any problem lays. If anything, I feel like it's actually made me feel a little more included which is definitely a big help with how I'm feeling. I do think discussion about characters and plotting is a problem, however, namely on Discord.

I love Discord a lot and I am very much pro-Discord, but I cannot help but feel incredibly left out when I want to discuss my characters, especially Lucerne. I know he's really weird as a character and isn't quite supposed to fit into the Badlands, but I often feel that he is completely overlooked and it begins to make me feel like people dislike him and wouldn't even care if he was there or not. I'm trying my best to include him in plots and whatnot, but it often feels like nobody wants to plot with him and he's often ignored on Discord compared to other characters. I admit I haven't really spoken about Ellis a lot either, but I fear it's going to be the exact same thing story.

What I find incredibly bizarre is how most of the people who have characters in BL are also in FL, yet it feels like BL tends to be a lot more cliquey, which I want to understand why. I don't believe it's anything to do with OOC chatting because everybody is so lovely and inclusive in that sense, I just think that we all need to show a little more interest in each other's characters, like AJ said. I mean, you won't know how to plot with a character if you don't take interest in learning about them more, right? And learning about them more means interacting with their RPer when talking about their character, I'd assume.

Whilst some channels blow up almost on the daily when discussing said character, others get little to no recognition whatsoever. There's been times where I've like posted on my channels like on five separate occasions until somebody has been nice enough to acknowledge whatever I've said. Perhaps that will help put things into perspective to as how I feel personally, I don't know. But all I know is that I'm not the only person who feels this way, so I do think it's more than just a personal problem.

That's just my thoughts on the matter. Sorry for being so frank, I just felt that I have to be entirely honest when addressing how I feel else people won't know how to work together to improve the issue. I'm not trying to attack anyone here, and I am incredibly fond of you all - I just want everyone to know that is a fact. Anyone can feel free to disagree on my previous points, but that is personally just my take on things. I have to stress, I am so glad I'm back on BB because I'm really fond of everyone here and I love roleplaying with everyone. I just hope that I can feel a little more included because it makes me feel really sad to see my characters get ignored by so many people.

[Alexander Crane]

Agreeing with the two posts above ^ I often feel left out and overlooked and it makes me feel like nobody likes my character tbh. I also feel ignored in the discord, not all the time, but a good amount of the time, especially when plotting is involved. Truce and Aj took the words right outta my mouth.

[ikigai.]

[size=8pt]i've been trying to word this literally all day but because of anxiety i honestly couldn't bring myself to post most of what i've said the last couple tries. but to keep it short i'm dittoing both truce and aj because i've seen everything they have both talked about. personally there are a lot of days where i just don't feel welcome and have contemplated moving my character somewhere else.

like. for example, i felt ignored once so i made a few open threads, and it was discouraging because bryne was the only one to reply to the threads. and truce mainly because i kinda forced them to (HA). it just goes to show that while some people don't see a problem, a lot of people are experiencing and/or seeing the problems everyone's talking about. and it's hard to fix the problem if some people don't acknowledge or see something's up in the first place.

i don't know how to fix it, though. an activity contest sounds like a fun, so i'm looking forward to that and the choice awards.
my clubs at college do "speed friending" which is like. getting to know everybody one on one, like speed dating. idk how we could incorporate something like that, though. just a thought.

this is short and kind of says nothing but asdfjklas i tried.

[dame]

[div style="width: 450px; margin: auto; text-align: justify"]ok so I put up a survey a couple days ago asking three (really just two tbh) questions with an optional comment field. I know I didn't leave it up for very long, but I got ten responses really quickly and I haven't gotten any new additions since the wee hours of yesterday, so I figure I'm good to go. I included the screenshot of the charts in the spoiler, but I'll still break it down in text.

All ten people are currently in the Badlands.

Five people felt that the cliques improved a little bit, two people thought there was a great deal of improvement, one person thought that it got worse and two people thought it was about the same.
(My takeaway is that for most things are at least better, but there are still people feeling left out which means there's still work to be done)

Five people thought that there was enough improvement for a CA, two people did not and three people thought that there wasn't enough improvement, but would still like to have one.
(My takeaway is... looks like we're having a choice awards, lads)

Not everyone wrote down any extra thoughts, but most that took it did. To boil down and paraphrase:
— One person didn't really see cliques, though they did note that some people are just doing their own thing
— One person hadn't noticed the issue whatsoever
— One person went into detail about how things had improved and that yeah there are friend groups, but no one that engages with us is excluded. They also noted that someone will always be complaining about cliques, but said they didn't see any here
— One person feels there's people getting ignored and passive aggression, and that some characters are more popular than others
— One person stated that they just don't feel welcome
— One person thought that oocly things are better but icly things are still really bad.

Ok so. First of all, I'd like to invite the last three individuals to talk to me directly so we can talk about where the problems are in more detail and work on solutions. If they don't want to do that, that's totally fine, I just wanted to leave that little note here.
Secondly, I'll put it out there again that I really need more people to respond to this thread. I'm struggling, and I really need feedback on this stuff. When I'm half getting told things are good and things are shit, it's hard to know what to do.
Third, I post in literally every thread. Every. Single. Thread. (both in BL and ND) I've got a bunch of private threads, and I do my best to make repeated posts in as many threads as possible, while also keeping up with my characters in FL (with questionable success). I'm doing my absolute best to be inclusive, but if I single-handedly could make everyone feel as if there were no cliques, we wouldn't be having complaints. Again, I'm doing the best I can here, but I can't do this alone. I can't make people post in threads, I can't make anyone do anything. I want to get those incentives going, I'm gonna work on getting an activity contest up and running, but I still have no idea what will work for prizes and incentives. Ik that people are busy and muse can be rough, but the time I have to devote to BL is about to start going down, and I can't be 60% of the activity anymore.
Fourth, I don't know where I'm going with this because I just ran into a stress wall and I'm lowkey panicking but uhhh yes please tell me how to improve we're gonna have a choice awards and an activity contest and hopefully we'll get that incentives thing figured out and !! a buddy system ??

[ikigai.]

track for now

[finny.]

track for now

[truce.]

[quote author=elysian. link=topic=21001.msg479511#msg479511 date=1554007937]
track for now

[/quote]

[ajdawny]

[align=center][div style="width: 400px; text-align: justify;"]
I'll preface this by saying I forgot to write anything in the comments box;

However, I see where all of these feelings are coming from, for me, I find it difficult to not see cliques wherever I go, but that is due to my own personal experience. Other people probably haven't dealt with exclusion on the level that other people have. So it's going to be a different view from every side of the spectrum.

I want to say that you are definitely not part of the problem, or any problem really Bryne. You are very oocly welcoming, and you do your best to help everyone feel included icly (even if Cat isn't the best person for that, you still make a huge effort, and I can totally see it, and respect you for it.)

Personally, I often feel overlooked and sometimes excluded, though that is in part due to my spotty activity and sporadic muse. Sometimes people will offer their characters for plots, and I'll jump in there and try and plot, but not get an answer, or just be completely ignored. Sometimes that is because the chat moves very fast, and sometimes it's because people don't know exactly what they would plot with my character, and maybe, sometimes it's because they don't want to plot with me or my character (this last one is pure speculation).


There is a difference between friendships and cliques, you can be friends with someone while still including other people and engaging them in rp. I think there is a bit both not just in this group, but all the groups, sometimes people can feel intimidated by how close other people are (I know I have been in the past).

Making people feel more included could be as simple as interacting on their character channels, actually reading the character's bios (something I slack off on sometimes I must admit), and taking the time to get to know their character. But it works both ways, instead of just throwing out "want to plot?" and the other person doing all the work trying to find a plot that is acceptable to the rper, perhaps lay out a couple of plots you already have in mind?

Anyways, I don't want to ramble anymore. <3 y'all are amazing rpers and writers and I love you guys.