At this point, the focus is on how we represent our community to new players (minors and adults) and if we want any changes to our Community Guidelines regarding our permissible content. If you have suggestions about either of these issues (aka, the initial issue), please feel free to contribute your ideas. Feel free to give this thread some room to breathe, take a couple of days, and circle back.
Quoting this so I have it as a sort of header towards my very late rambling thoughts, again written entirely based on opinion and personal bias/thought's. So I apologize preemptively if it is less constructive than I mean it to be.
First off. I wish to speak on a few thoughts on the "...how we represent our community to new players (minors and adults)..." in a breakdown. Nothing again Michelle of course, just using the reorientating statement as a foil for my thoughts. Firstly:
"...how we represent our community to new players..."
I know, in some way, how best to approach this topic. We want new players here. Period. Growth in population is, for the most part, good for the Server by having more Unique players about to engage in the server, the duels, events, live play, and the forums. For any RP community, whether it be on Discord, Forums, Site-based chats, Video games, LARP, TTRPG's: The more people involved is always going to trend for the better even if bad-apples and trolls sometimes slip through the cracks.
However, this being said: and I approach this in the idea of generalization. Thread's that end up like this, where staff are having to urge civility and re-orientate the message to keep things constructive and avoid the thinly-veiled clashing going on between parts of the community, ideal's and thoughts on what the RP should be; can be extremely detrimental to the above goal. I would clarify that having people speak freely, openly about what they feel (Which is subjective and valid to all persons involved in the community, as individuals) is not a bad thing. However, when they devolve into perceptions of what the subject is about going both ways, as I believe multiple people have said: it feels like high-school. Between the lines being drawn in the sand, and incivility between members (I will state. I am no better in this in many cases and have made my past mistakes), if I were an outsider relatively new to Roleplay, or even a veteran in Roleplaying in the text-medium: I would be hesitant to truly engage in the community.
Furthermore, on this statement, many times before on the old site when arguments like this arose for one reason or another: it often pushed away existing members. I will be the first one to admit that, as of recently, the thin-veil of OOC dislike towards myself has pushed me away from playing on RoD, and has even pushed me back towards Conan and Dayz: Both
VERY toxic communities. Now whether or not this exact instance of this happening with the events/discussions of this thread has caused a push-away of veteran members of the community I can not say, I don't have a way to prove this with facts: so again I can only go off observations.
As for more, suggestions and solution-based thoughts.
As for the overall representation of our community, the only solution I can come up with in my mind is one that has to be founded in the community, policed by the community, and at the end of the day achieved by the community. By the players. There is no magic bullet staff can use to fix outside perceptions of the community. From the few cases I know of: of people, I tried to bring into the community from my Roleplay circles. The biggest and consistent issue was being ignored, feeling left out, and to quote:
"If you aren't in a clique, don't expect to find much RP." Cliques are to be expected, they are rather normal things in society beyond Roleplay and even more so inside of Roleplay communities. My suggestion to the members of the community that will even read this is, just to try. Try and bridge those gaps between cliques or even people you are uncomfortable with. It won't happen overnight, over years even: but if you don't try... then nothing will change.
On the idea of Representing our community towards Minors and Adults, and this is more so towards staff: I wouldn't change in either direction. Obviously, this thread is about the PG-13 rating or the idea of keeping it to be inclusive towards underage minors. To swing in any one way would, in my view, upset the balance that is currently struck (tenuously) between the two. Swing towards an audience that is under-aged, and we fall in with the over
83905 other roleplay servers that are publicly listed upon sites like Disboard. If we swing too much towards Adult themes, then there is a chance that this conversation happens again, only the next time the previously suggested themes are less suggested and more literal and would be, what I would categorize, as hyper-sexual. What RoD has is, in its own way, unique when it comes to themes and prospective audiences. It caters to PG-13 and even some 16+ themes that are real, true to life and provoke thought while being read: while also being a place of variance where anyone can come at any level of Roleplay experience and enjoy our shared hobby. Not only this, but they can also partake in the community in ways that they would most enjoy.
Lastly, before I conclude and TLDR this post, on the matter of changing community guidelines. I have an unpopular suggestion that I know the staff and the community members reading this post will not be enough.
Guidelines need to evolve into rules. My reasoning follows this line of thought, and is based on experience in my own time as administration on a large 2000+ person Conan Exiles server where I almost day in and day out, dealt with admin tickets and matters that were much the same as this thread. Guidelines can be pushed, repeatedly, and in some perspectives broken, without there being consequences that fall upon the person doing this to the guidelines. It furthermore, undermines the ability of staff to protect the community from (as said above) those who slip through the cracks and can in general be deemed as nuisances to the community. Of course, RoD staff have proven themselves extremely capable in their ability to handle matters inside of the community.
However, as part of this thread's discussion, as part of discussions on Discord and so on: it is also the communities responsibility to police itself, and when there is nothing set in stone rules-wise what one part of the community sees as a fault, the other will not. If there are enforceable, spelled out, and comprehensive rules that leave little room to question: it reinforces the ability of the capable staff to maintain the server, and gives both newcomers and existing members an understanding of the boundaries in which they
must operate.
In conclusion: I apologize for the essay. I hadn't intended on an essay, nor had I intended on writing another post to this thread. In truth, I had basically given up on truly motivating myself to engage in the community because of the current climate that I... simply don't enjoy. I don't enjoy writing on RoD right now and struggle to put my fingers in motion on the keyboard in involvement beyond what is required of me to stay slightly involved in the dueling venues. There is no one simple solution, no one finger I can point, no button I can press that explains why: it is simply a culmination of things both on my end and the communities end, some that go back as far as 2013 when I first joined this community and some of the very hateful things said to me back then. I pray this can be received well, and that the readers of this post understand that while this is almost entirely my bias in this post, that its intent is to provide thoughts on suggestions I have or rather, things that I perceive as detrimental. Thank you and if anyone wishes to speak to me, my DM's are open, and if you are one of few people I have blocked: a quick @ in the green room and my DM's will be open to chat.
TLDR: MC has opinions, they are many. Constructive talks are good, back-and-forth discussions that turn uncivil are not. Don't change too much from the way things are in the balance of Adult/Minor content to keep the unique feel of RoD and to prevent becoming one of many other servers out there. Implement more comprehensive rules over guidelines to better prevent things like this in the future.
