Someone brought up on another forum, that on their board the administrators don't roleplay with the members, but instead those admin accounts are used strictly for dealing out discipline and maintaining the law. This is done on some RPG forums and is a valid way of handling staffing. So what do I think?
On our forum all us staff roleplay right in there with the other members. I'd never want to give up roleplay, for one thing. Also I think it makes us seem like "one of the folks" which I feel is important because we are subject to the same rules that we enforce, I don't see us staff as above the members at all--just that we have an added job to enforce the global rules. I've had members come out with saying they were scared of me on the boards, even if I'd never had a conflict with them and they'd never had any infractions or difficulties. They'd say things like, "When I got a PM from Wynn the other day I was freaking out thinking I did something wrong. But she was just PMing me a link to a RP!" or something. I was like whoa, don't be afraid of little old me! I think it may be not that I'm a particularly scary person {I'm not, at all} but that members have an inherent fear of authority to some extent, especially if they've been treated badly on another site. And that fraternising with them helps a lot to ease that. I want to feel like I'm part of a big family, not just a police officer presiding over it, waiting for someone to screw up. Besides which, it's fun to just hang out with these awesome people. They have great taste in RPGs, after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment