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RP Turn-Offs, or Why People Won't Pay Attention to You
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Bad behavior. Whining. Passive-Aggressive posts. Attention Seeking. Flooding the feeds. Whatever you want to call it, we've all seen it. Perhaps we're even guilty of it ourselves, we're all human. The thing is, these things create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are posting things that people don't like/don't want to see, they will not write with you. That's just a fact in the roleplaying world. When you find yourself doing these things over and over again, people will be less inclined to work with you. So what are some of the common pitfalls people fall into that causes people to not want to give them a chance? Read on!
“It's so dead here. Why is it so quiet? I wish “Random” Fandom would be here like it is on FB. Where is everyone? I guess I'll just lurk. Find me on KIK/FB/Pluto/Asgard/Wherever”.
Roleplayers are not here to amuse you. We are here to write. If someone is constantly complaining that it's dead, they're bored, everyone else sucks, they're just going to watch, they're more active somewhere else, etc, the writers on this site will not work with you. They see these types of statuses as someone that is whining for attention, or someone who cannot amuse themselves in writing and would always be relying on the partner to come up with something and to make the roleplay “fun” for them. This isn't our job. You are here as a writer, so write. With less of these types of posts and more writing, I promise you, more writers here will become interested in your work. They have to see it first.
“I don't do drama! Stay away from my family or else!”- Includes passive-aggressive statuses that everyone knows are directed specifically at someone.
You aren't going to “do” anything to anybody, and everyone knows it. You're hiding behind a computer screen, pretending to be big, bad, and tough. The fact is, if you do retaliate, here on RPL, you can be the one in trouble. So just stop. When people feel the need to post things like this, newsflash, it means you're involved in drama. People that aren't touched by it, don't have to make huge statements that they don't deal with it, it's just implied. When you post little snide comments, it doesn't look bad on the people you're complaining about, it looks bad on you. When people see things like this, they literally roll their eyes, think “Here we go again...” and scroll past or unfriend. It's not necessary. If you want to be a writer, you can easily turn these things into actual writing posts for your character and make them fit better, without drawing the ire of people tired of seeing the same-old posts from the same people.
“Cleaning my friend list! If you're still here, you made the cut. I'm gonna start unfriending people if that don't talk to me, I'm not a friend collector!”
If you just want to tidy up your friends list, you're totally allowed to do that. You don't need to tell everybody so they wonder who you're pissy with this time. Just go in, unfriend a few people, and that's that. When you post these things, you're going to lose some good writers along with whoever you were deleting because they'll make it easy on you and delete you themselves. This isn't a contest, and we aren't all vying for the precious space on your friends list. It isn't a reward. As for "friend collectors", did it ever occur to you that some people just like to read what others post? Every author needs readers. Why would you punish them for that?
Constant photos with little to no visible writing on your profile.
RPL has asked people to curtail their photo use to allow all users appropriate space on the storage servers. Donators to the site are paying for everyone, not just for you to host your 500 photos of your face claim. We get it, your face claim is awesome and you love him/her. Host on a file sharing/photo sharing site. Host on Weebly. Link to photos you find funny or memes you just have to share. The writers here will unfriend you if they see you abusing the privilege that they are paying for you to have. When all they see is your face in the feeds, they get tired of it because they are here to read the writing and interact with their friends and your face claim photos are flooding their feeds and pushing the actual writing further down. If you absolutely must have a ton of photos- donate, delete the feeds from your profile when you're done uploading, and write writing posts for every photo post.
Constant OOC/Real Life Posts.
We get it. Your real life is interesting/sucky/overwhelming, whatever. Thing is, people roleplay to escape their real lives. They don't want to come on and see a litany of real life posts. That's what Facebook and Twitter are for, not RPL. When people come onto RPL, they want to see writing. They want to see character posts. They want to see roleplaying. If all you are doing is constantly posting about your real life, then you have to ask yourself if you want to be on a roleplaying website, or if you want to be on a social network. They are two vastly different things, with vastly different members. If you are confusing the two, you're going to have a hard time here on RPL getting anyone to take you seriously as a roleplayer, when you don't seem to grasp what the website is for.
Not using spellcheck or proper punctuation/grammar. Marking yourself as “literate” or “epic” when you aren't.
This one is tougher, but not insurmountable. If English isn't your first language, clearly anyone writing with you would expect some issues. As long as you are understandable, most will generally overlook a few errors. However, if your writing is illegible and requires effort to decode, your spelling is atrocious and you seem to ignore the spell check that the site itself offers, and you make no attempt to even try to use punctuation, most people aren't going to waste their time. The most egregious are spelling mistakes in your first message.
When someone thanks you for accepting a friend request, and you send back “your welcome write anytime”, you're showing that you don't understand the difference between “Your/You're”, you don't use punctuation/capitalization, and you don't have any ideas to bring to the table. A better response- “You're welcome! I see your character is -insert something you read in their bio, that you actually went to read.- Mine is -share something about your character that fits the other person's bio-. It'd be fun to plot a bit and see how these two could meet or roleplay if you're interested.”
Literate roleplayers are those that have few errors in their work, can comprehend and grasp the language they are roleplaying in fluently, and make an effort to proofread their posts. Epic roleplaying is a grand goal of many, but few succeed. Posting a paragraph or two and titling yourself as an “epic” roleplayer sets yourself up for failure, because if you do find someone who wants to write with an epic roleplayer, they're going to be disappointed and you're going to be frustrated. We've discussed post lengths here- https://new.roleplaylives.net/read.cfm?itemType=story&itemID=12632"text-align:center;">
“It's so dead here. Why is it so quiet? I wish “Random” Fandom would be here like it is on FB. Where is everyone? I guess I'll just lurk. Find me on KIK/FB/Pluto/Asgard/Wherever”.
Roleplayers are not here to amuse you. We are here to write. If someone is constantly complaining that it's dead, they're bored, everyone else sucks, they're just going to watch, they're more active somewhere else, etc, the writers on this site will not work with you. They see these types of statuses as someone that is whining for attention, or someone who cannot amuse themselves in writing and would always be relying on the partner to come up with something and to make the roleplay “fun” for them. This isn't our job. You are here as a writer, so write. With less of these types of posts and more writing, I promise you, more writers here will become interested in your work. They have to see it first.
“I don't do drama! Stay away from my family or else!”- Includes passive-aggressive statuses that everyone knows are directed specifically at someone.
You aren't going to “do” anything to anybody, and everyone knows it. You're hiding behind a computer screen, pretending to be big, bad, and tough. The fact is, if you do retaliate, here on RPL, you can be the one in trouble. So just stop. When people feel the need to post things like this, newsflash, it means you're involved in drama. People that aren't touched by it, don't have to make huge statements that they don't deal with it, it's just implied. When you post little snide comments, it doesn't look bad on the people you're complaining about, it looks bad on you. When people see things like this, they literally roll their eyes, think “Here we go again...” and scroll past or unfriend. It's not necessary. If you want to be a writer, you can easily turn these things into actual writing posts for your character and make them fit better, without drawing the ire of people tired of seeing the same-old posts from the same people.
“Cleaning my friend list! If you're still here, you made the cut. I'm gonna start unfriending people if that don't talk to me, I'm not a friend collector!”
If you just want to tidy up your friends list, you're totally allowed to do that. You don't need to tell everybody so they wonder who you're pissy with this time. Just go in, unfriend a few people, and that's that. When you post these things, you're going to lose some good writers along with whoever you were deleting because they'll make it easy on you and delete you themselves. This isn't a contest, and we aren't all vying for the precious space on your friends list. It isn't a reward. As for "friend collectors", did it ever occur to you that some people just like to read what others post? Every author needs readers. Why would you punish them for that?
Constant photos with little to no visible writing on your profile.
RPL has asked people to curtail their photo use to allow all users appropriate space on the storage servers. Donators to the site are paying for everyone, not just for you to host your 500 photos of your face claim. We get it, your face claim is awesome and you love him/her. Host on a file sharing/photo sharing site. Host on Weebly. Link to photos you find funny or memes you just have to share. The writers here will unfriend you if they see you abusing the privilege that they are paying for you to have. When all they see is your face in the feeds, they get tired of it because they are here to read the writing and interact with their friends and your face claim photos are flooding their feeds and pushing the actual writing further down. If you absolutely must have a ton of photos- donate, delete the feeds from your profile when you're done uploading, and write writing posts for every photo post.
Constant OOC/Real Life Posts.
We get it. Your real life is interesting/sucky/overwhelming, whatever. Thing is, people roleplay to escape their real lives. They don't want to come on and see a litany of real life posts. That's what Facebook and Twitter are for, not RPL. When people come onto RPL, they want to see writing. They want to see character posts. They want to see roleplaying. If all you are doing is constantly posting about your real life, then you have to ask yourself if you want to be on a roleplaying website, or if you want to be on a social network. They are two vastly different things, with vastly different members. If you are confusing the two, you're going to have a hard time here on RPL getting anyone to take you seriously as a roleplayer, when you don't seem to grasp what the website is for.
Not using spellcheck or proper punctuation/grammar. Marking yourself as “literate” or “epic” when you aren't.
This one is tougher, but not insurmountable. If English isn't your first language, clearly anyone writing with you would expect some issues. As long as you are understandable, most will generally overlook a few errors. However, if your writing is illegible and requires effort to decode, your spelling is atrocious and you seem to ignore the spell check that the site itself offers, and you make no attempt to even try to use punctuation, most people aren't going to waste their time. The most egregious are spelling mistakes in your first message.
When someone thanks you for accepting a friend request, and you send back “your welcome write anytime”, you're showing that you don't understand the difference between “Your/You're”, you don't use punctuation/capitalization, and you don't have any ideas to bring to the table. A better response- “You're welcome! I see your character is -insert something you read in their bio, that you actually went to read.- Mine is -share something about your character that fits the other person's bio-. It'd be fun to plot a bit and see how these two could meet or roleplay if you're interested.”
Literate roleplayers are those that have few errors in their work, can comprehend and grasp the language they are roleplaying in fluently, and make an effort to proofread their posts. Epic roleplaying is a grand goal of many, but few succeed. Posting a paragraph or two and titling yourself as an “epic” roleplayer sets yourself up for failure, because if you do find someone who wants to write with an epic roleplayer, they're going to be disappointed and you're going to be frustrated. We've discussed post lengths here- https://new.roleplaylives.net/read.cfm?itemType=story&itemID=12632"text-align:center;">