It still amazes me that there are people find this to be a conundrum, but sometimes they do. As in, your site is getting too much exposure, from search engines. And you don't like the 'quality' of roleplayer strolling into your site from there.
Roleplayers coming in from Google tend to be inexperienced moreso than roleplayers coming in from other roleplay sites or the RPG community in general. Wow, big surprise there :)
The trouble is when you aren't prepared to help them and/or don't want them on your site. Well, as long as you rank at or near the top for your RPG's most common search terms, you're going to get them coming, probably more as time goes by. Build a bridge and they will come....or something like that.
Option One: Put up with it and just ban them or otherwise dispose of them as they come in and rape their way through your character application process. {Or as they just bypass it altogether and start spamming the boards with first-person asterisk-filled roleplay posts in chatspeak.}
Option Two: Contact Google and request that they de-index your website. You can do this and they will comply. You won't get any traffic from Google anymore or at least you shouldn't. Watch your activity wither over time as you find yourself on a suddenly disquietingly quiet board. Be prepared to work harder marketing wise in other avenues to keep your RPG alive. And to think on whether you might have also lost out on some good roleplayers, because it isn't just beginners who use Google to find a new RPG. {Is it obvious yet that I don't recommend doing this?}
Option Three: If you can't beat'em, join'em. Set up a board to help teach and tutour beginners. Show them the rules and explain to them how your RPG works. You'll get some who don't want to learn. You'll get many who do. Promote extra staff to handle character application reviews. Do a little hand holding. We were all beginners once.
Enjoy your nice, busy board while it lasts. You don't know what you have till it's gone.
Amen for option number three!
ReplyDeleteThe problem with sites who try to be elitist is that there's not an enormous pool of super-experienced RPers who write pages of text for every post.
I'm a pretty experienced RPer/writer (heck, you've seen me in action), and I've left more than one site because I got annoyed with a "minimum wordcount" per post. I don't always have time to write a 300-word novel for every post.
It's not just time. It's that sometimes a 300 word post isn't the best way to add onto the story. I have noticed that sometimes, inserting a very short, quick action post of only a sentence or two as a reply to a longer, slower post is a very powerful move.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I found your blog via my RPG's twitter feed. :) Another admin maintains it, so I hadn't noticed it before.
ReplyDeleteAnyway - I agree! Of course it's best when admins enforce a standard for the quality of writing at their rpg, but that doesn't mean closing off aspiring writers. Guide beginners through your application process with patience, but don't let them move on unless they've met your standards. Cultivate a culture of support and patience among your membership so that people remember their own times just starting out.
It's always a gratifying surprise to find that even though a player's writing skill needs work, their ideas and cooperation are excellent.
Can't meet new friends if you're shutting your doors. Of course, this requires a strong admin team (or solo admin) with lots of time and energy to do the right thing by these beginners.