In Regards to the Chatbox

[Trixie Lulamoon]

Going to go ahead and make it clear right now that I'm not making rule changes or anything else, but I just really felt like it was about time I at least wrote out some of the things I've been feeling in regards to the Cbox instead of just the occasional spurt of discussion about it in the past.

I'm sure by now you're familiar with me talking about how we need an OOC Cbox and all that that's separate from the IC stuff. Because really, I am glad you all enjoy the IC RPing stuff and want to keep doing it. Hence why we had gotten that second Cbox...that basically just turned into an extension of the RPing.

But here's the thing; the other day we had this discussion about how some of us felt like the Cbox RPing had started becoming "cliquey" and that it was hard for some of us to get involved. I was one of the people on the side that felt way, and a lot of it is because since I honestly haven't been that big of a part on a lot of stuff that now I feel kind of lost and behind it all and just don't know where to get myself involved.

Sad thing is, the only other times I tend to feel that way is if I've taken a risk and joined a big, active site with a lot of people. I normally leave those sites or stop coming pretty soon afterwards because often times I feel out of the group. And I'm getting that sort of feeling from the Cbox. That's just not really a good feeling to be getting from what is supposed to be one of the first ways for people to interact with the site.

Second incident I want to use as a starting point was the brief thing where I decided for a laugh to just throw Might Guy into Iron Will's session with Reed about confidence. I'll admit, probably shouldn't have stepped on Silver's toe there, but here's the thing; in almost every site I've been on for a long period of time in the past, being able to do random shit like that in the Cbox was one of my favorite things. The Cbox was just a fun place to hang out and be goofy; in-jokes, bursting out into randomness, spazzing out with my million icons. And to this day some of the fondest memories of those past sites were those random bits.

But now I can't do any of that stuff because I got to worry about rules and plotlines and making sure I'm not messing up the mechanics of the mall or a million other things that I should only really have to worry about if I'm doing it in the actual RP forum. I mean, I couldn't even just go around using that Trixie-bat icon without having to come up with some dang reason for it. I thought it was a cool image and just wanted to use it, but the seriousness of the Cbox RP meant that I had to make up a backstory. And now because I did that it set a precedent and what was supposed to just be a simple, fun thing because I thought it looked cool can become a source of debate.

Again, I'm not saying we need to stop the IC stuff; I'm perfectly fine having a box open for that kind of deal if you want it. But as it is, I feel like I'm just in the way if I try and do anything in the Cbox, and I'm the freaking admin of the site! None of my characters really fit in any of the groups, my usual tactics of just being spazzy and random can't work because that feels like a "no-no" (seriously, there is a reason I snatched up Discord because he's about the only way I get to mess around in that way), and there are so many plots and dramas and crises and storylines and stuff that really should be in the forum itself that I honestly don't even want to join in from sheer learning curve =P.

TL;DR: Even as admin I feel offput joining in and interacting with you all sometimes because getting involved in the Cbox feels like more work than actually posting in the RP forums =P.

[Silver Tongue]

In regards to the Cbox, I was told that the OOC box was the Chatango.  I know you don't like chatango, but that's what I was told by either Whammy or Coffee...  So that's what I've been believing.

The IC box that's linked under the other box, as you state, 'feels like an extension' because that's what it's purpose was.  It was used for an In Character arc that was large enough it was pushing everyone else out of the way, so the main box could still be used for normal RPing.



As for the 'stepping on my toes to have a good time.'  It wasn't that you decided to be random and bring Might Guy in.  I'm fine with random.  What made me mad was the way you went about it...

---

23 Feb 14, 11:46 PM
Trixie: [[ *is now tempted to bring Might Guy in here though to have a confidence face-of with Iron Will ]]

---

23 Feb 14, 11:52 PM
Might Guy: Yep, seriousness has just been destroyed as Iron Will, Might Guy, and Kamina go to teach Reed confidence

23 Feb 14, 11:52 PM
☽ Iron Will: (Hey, Iron Will makes sense, you two are just trying to but into MY confidence boosting >.>)

23 Feb 14, 11:52 PM
Might Guy: [[ Screw you and your X Step Plan ]]

---

I felt you were doing it with the express purpose of making me angry.




My thoughts on the whole IC/OOC box thing are pretty much the same as what I've heard others saying.  An IC Box and an OOC box on the sidebar... keep things nice and neat.

[Deleted]

I'm really wary about chiming in on this, in case it steps on some toes... last thing I want is people getting alienated or upset... but I think this is worth talking about, so I guess, here goes.

I don't see any real trouble with separating IC and OOC. It might not be a big deal for most current members, since the system as-is does work fine, but I understand it's a bigger deal for those who it isn't working in favor of. Especially people like Bluegem or Silver Star or !, who seem to prefer to stay boardside entirely and don't have anywhere else they can really OOC talk.

I think it might do the cbox culture some good, too, to be separated—that way, the IC might not be as insular and intimidating to newer or less frequently online members, and the OOC would be clearly delineated for the guests, questions, chatter, and other stuff.

However, I wanna talk about the pop-out IC, or the extension, as Silver calls it. I know some (me included) are kind of attached to that box's ability to move stories further and quicker than the board RPs can.

I'm talking about things like the Neighpon plot, or Lyra's rescue mission, or even when the Changelings are having a scene at the hive. Those are all things that would flood the "mall" cbox if we forced them to take place under one IC "roof," and I don't think it's really right to ban, discourage, or intentionally make inconvenient those types of plots.

To be honest, I don't have a good solution for it. Maybe something like how we have the OOC spoiler-box, linked but unpaid? I dunno.

[Deleted]

Honestly I think that what's being presented in the original post kind of combats itself. I can't remember which character it was, but when I first grabbed one of mine, something super random was going on and it made for a horrible environment to try them out. I wasn't ready to react to crazy when I hadn't been able to taste [relative] sanity. I think it'd be about the same for guests. If there's no structure to stand on, it's harder to get involved.

At the same time, I'm not a fan of that type of thing in general, I'd rather keep IC boxes to only have characters that could be realistically approved on the board. So for me, the way it is seems to be the compromise between the two ideals. I've always had an easy time just staying away from anything more crazy than I'm comfortable with.

In terms of cliques, I'm one of the ones who has difficulty navigating them. But, my personal grief with them isn't as big as it may have sounded at the time. Once again, to be fair, I have difficulty navigating cboxes of all climates [even OOC boxes]. Usually I only try to jump in if I have a line of conversation in mind [while generally hoping the other person has a better one or a more creative way to pursue mine]. At the same time, there's some characters that I realize I won't likely RP with because they're part of different worlds.

I think the only real way around it is to just ask if "character X" is available or the more general "is anyone available?" It places the burden of topic on the one asking the question, but that just makes sense.

So I don't take back what I said, I don't think cliques are a necessary part of a cbox RP (I've been part of equally large groups that were much less cliquey), but it is what it is and I think it can be navigated if you have some topics of IC conversation prepared and/or are willing to buy into someone else's story. At the time, I was just chiming in with what sounded like a relevant statement and then answering the questions that were asked.

Since one of my characters is a mall-runner, I feel as if I should also add that if there comes a time that it's better for the group to ditch the mall, I'm fine with that.

-ℳ

[Deleted]

I think the visible Chatbox should be regulated to Out-Of-Character chatter, and the secondary pop-out Chatbox be In-Character.

From a new player's perspective seeing all the in character stuff going on can be confusing and possibly off-putting. From my point of view, there have been times where I've been around wanting to talk, but not rp. It'd be nice to have a place to talk about whatever and not think about other stuff that might be going on.

An In-Character Chatbox is nice because it lets some people work out their character ideas beforehand, and be a good fun time. On the other side of things I know it can be a big distraction to some, and a drama fest at times. With some stuff that's gone on it's like "I, or someone else, could have used this time to post and be more productive on the site" With all the creativity and time spent in some of these plots, throw those as the board and make it site canon, earn bits for it. The pop-out box has been a nice luxury, but not a necessity. There's enough chat programs and ways of communications out there that a small handful of people can make a chatroom. Chatango, skype, msn, yahoo messenger, aim, and even steam can be used to get together on.

The spoiler box is much appreciated

[Deleted]

As one who honestly often feels outside the loop I have to agree with the social aspects of how hard it is to fit in. Heck i have a Royal Guard that is quite friendly, and most I have done with him is develop a plot about his widening plot. That and a small bit of "overtime" Work with Fleur and her stalker, moving boxes for reed and helping break into the clinic. There was a bit with Roseluck and I am seriously working that into future plot in my mind for when he does find out, or if he never finds out and it sort of has a negative effect when he meets Twilight.

Pinkie never really disappoints though because well she's Pinkie. Pinkie Discord are the two that could really get away with suddenly Tigger pouncing a pony and being off the 4th wall random.

The RP in the box is kind of the deciding factor for me about joining. I was coming from a site where I got a post every three weeks and it was about ten words long. But I can understand when IC and OOc chats clash in the box. Perhaps instead of having a popup option. We include a shoutbox or a chatango group box on the page that is for OOC. Chatango does have the limiting of one name and picture, but for OOC that is perfect as you won't be altering who you are when you talk about something.

[Deleted]

Here’s my two bits: It's long, but I have tried to consider where we've come from (from my point of view since I joined) Where we are, and where we might go.

I loved the original, random, lighthearted Cbox where nothing was taken very seriously. It was, just as Whammy stated, an easygoing, relaxed place to talk in and out of character. It was a welcoming place for new people, and while I don’t think it’s become unwelcoming, I can believe that it’s no longer quite as newbie-friendly as it used to be. In addition, the moment we established that Cbox had a canon and that its canon was separate from the board canon (it had to be, random things still happened quite frequently!) things began to take a more dramatic turn.

And this too, I’ve felt, is good. Considering the long, long wait for replies from some posters and the high rate of thread abandonment by others (or sometimes, they just forget) character development crawls along at a snail’s pace. Adding in too, the 1/1/1 RPG-D rating, and you can see that opportunities for development on the board were already limited. But Cbox was kind of a loophole. It allows me, and I think, other players, to explore deeper and more intense possibilities. Serious things. Sad things. Scary things. Things that don’t fall within the happy smiling bunny-rabbit junction of a 1/1/1 rating. The lowered posting requirements and near-instant reply speed is another bonus in its favor. You get a sense of things happening instantly, and “arcs” resolve themselves in days or weeks, not over the course of a year. You keep people interested, and those that have drop out are cheerfully left behind with no feelings of malice, and perhaps written back in when they’re available again.

And as I spend time developing a character in the Cbox, I grow more and more attached to them. I feel proud of their achievements and grieve over their setbacks. This is, I think, the true heart and soul of roleplay. And that is why I, at least, get so disgusted with short-cutters. People who just give their characters whatever they want and don’t really ever make them struggle for it. My achievements get cheapened by comparison if you just jump in and do the same thing without the struggle. For me, at least, this has made me wary of “random lightheartedness” as I see it used by people without discretion as a vehicle to get what they want without working for it. Batwings Trixie and Unicorn Lazuli are a great comparison for both. Neither is wrong, but it’s hard to reconcile both into the same universe.

In short, the way the Cbox is currently used fills a need I have that the board itself, for a variety of reasons, does not.

When we made the ICBox, it was with the understanding that, at times, people would want to roleplay things that not everyone would want to take part in. It was never intended to make the original Cbox into an OOC box, and in fact, I recall spending a good amount of time convincing people of this fact. The impression that I got at this time was that they did not want to feel they had ‘lost’ something. The ICbox was named IC simply because it is IC ONLY. It is not a place for ooc chatter, and everyone I’ve given mod rights to is told two rules. “pg-13” and “keep the OOC to a minimum.” Only once has anyone ever crossed the line there that I've seen.

I am not against changing the function of the IC box, but I feel that it needs to be embedded into the site as the would-be OOC box is. The pop-out is nowhere near as convenient as the embedded box is. I feel that this is why the IC box has been underutilized up to now, though it does have some ardent admirers. I love you guys.

But as for a forced change of tone into only lighthearted play in order to bring about the desegregation of the cbox, I have to object. I think that dramatic, serious plots have as much right to be there as silly, lighthearted ones. They must be popular, or else people wouldn’t keep making them. It seems just as bad to me to force people to take part in whatever one silly thing happens to be going on as it would be if I had forced everyone to take part in the Neighpon plot. In addition, its worth considering that when you consider “Old Cbox” it had had a regular population of about 2-5 players at a time, usually using just one character. This kept things fairly simple. At this point in time, our Cbox can easily be triple that, and the number could be even higher if some players are using more than one character at a time. I believe this is why people tend to break off into ‘cliques’ as you call them. Smaller numbers are easier to manage and keep track of. Characters who have a good time together tend to try to keep having good times together.

So what to do? I have some bold, scary ideas that affect both the board and Cboxes. They're very extreme, but if this is a big problem, then extreme measures may be needed.

1) Increase the RPG-D rating.
Many people like conflict and drama. If they can’t have a serious, intense drama on the board, they will look for it in the Cbox. Up the rating to a PG-13. You can still choose to write and take part in only [G] rated threads if you want to.

2) Lower the posting length requirements and expectations.
Sometimes I get really sick of waiting 2+ weeks for a post. I’d rather have 5 sentences every three days than 8 paragraphs after three or more months. Threads are like bread. Exciting when fresh, difficult to look at once they go cold and mouldy.Who can’t write five sentences? You can always write more if you want to.

3)Make the IC Box BOARD CANON
No, seriously. If people are putting their character development into only one of the two canons, it ought to be the board canon, don’t you think? Yes, this is a scary idea. Yes, this does mean that people will have to reconcile events into their own character’s timeline. It also means that they are going to have to find reasons to move their characters out of their hometowns to take part in stuff. This is a creative exercise that we should be doing anyway. Nobody wants to watch even Best Pony Applejack working all day at home and not doing anything interesting. It’s hard, I know. But I think the trade off would be worth it.

4) Allow the OOC Box to revert to lighthearted no-canon.
Where everything goes back to the status quo at midnight. This will prevent people from trying to have plots or meaningful development in it.

There you go. Now, if you aren't terrified of THOSE changes, than you're a braver one than I! XD

[Whammy]

I'm just going to respond in particular to Coffee's suggestions here:

1) I don't mind raising the rating a bit if you really feel like it's constraining you, but all it does relate to is just how graphic the descriptions of language, violence, and sex are (minimal language, avoid graphic violence, fade to black, etc.). If I stepped a bit too much out of it in terms of enforcement than I apologize. But really, you don't have to make your threads a "happy smiling bunny" thing. The rating is just there for "Hey, we're kind of trying to keep it around show tone" instead of aiming for like Cupcakes or Conversion Bureau or Fallout:Equestria or Discord Whooves or the other million of other "dark takes on MLP" things out there =P.

2) This admittedly a culture thing that probably got put into place because the earliest posting stuff was of longer length. I believe our rules don't have any kind of formal length requirement, or at best it mentions a paragraph or so. But yeah, I at least can probably work on scaling back posts sizes if we're trying to speed things up.

3) If we were to do this suggestion, then we'd probably have to nuke the IC board's current situation and start it fresh in order to get it to conform a little more to the board canon. We'd also have to restrict any characters that appear in it to only those approved in profiles, and people would need to keep some kind of record of what happened in Cbox so there's no confusion. Which does get rid of some of the things that you specifically stated were what you liked; chance to explore and make new characters out before profiling them, speed things up without much hassle, etc.

So I don't really mind having a separate IC canon, and that within the IC box, there are serious or dramatic plots. All I've been asking for is to have a spot where I don't have to be dealing with that and just goof off a bit. Because sometimes I'd like to be able to chat and hang out with you all without having to worry about getting in the way of this weeks latest crisis or doing something that sets bad precedents or whatever =P.

4) This is honestly about the only thing I've been wanting. Probably would also help if we make it clear that in the OOC box no using of character names, just account names? So instead of my account there being "Trixie" I'd use "Whammy" (or maybe Great and Powerful Whammy? XD). You could still use your character icons if you want to though, and sometimes slipping a little "IC" is fine (again, it'd be something like me jokingly calling myself the "Great and Powerful Whammy" or if I have Blueblood up referring to someone as a commoner or whatever).

[Deleted]

I have a suggestion for this, mainly because I ran into such a problem in an older site.

Going based on habits, people would rather have the convenience of the c-box right infront of them rather than clicking on a link and, more often than not, having to click between windows for IC and OOC.

I am fine with the idea of rebooting the ic chat to be more in line with the board's canon, but I suggest we have both the IC and OOC c-boxes clearly labeled and visible on the page [I suck at describing it, but for example; we go to the home page, IC c-box is on the left border, OOC on the right border.

[Deleted]

I've done some thinking, and I changed my mind some of the opinions I posted earlier. But it looks like those issues are all getting addressed in ways I generally approve of/agree with (specifically, having a "relaxed" OOC box and posting speed; I'm in agreement with Clutch and Coffee on both these things, respectively). So I don't really feel the need to chime in there.

I want to talk about Coffee's third suggestion, though. Making the IC-box board canon. I like the idea of this, I think it'll solve a lot of problems people have had—posting motivation being a big one—but good golly miss molly it also scares the dickens out of me in some regards. I'm sorry in advance for the long post... I tend to ramble, but I'll try to cut it down as much as possible. ><

My biggest concern: I am REALLY reluctant to just "nuke" the 'box canon, as Whammy said. A lot of folks have already put a good deal of blood, sweat and tears into character development in there. It would really suck to just throw all that growth and change away.

You might say we could just "work it back in," but that's a lot like working your butt off to get 80% through a really tough game, and then losing the save data so you start over again. Sure, you know *how* to get there, but it's not really as fun to be doing that all over. And some you might not even be able to get back at all, in places where board canon and "box canon" wildly differ.

Another concern I have is the loss of the "secondary" IC chat (where people can go to avoid flooding), but making the 'box board canon solves this in a really neat way. You want to ride Luna's airship to the mountains and go rescue a musician? Well, start a thread. You'll earn bits for it, and with the other changes going on it'll probably move much quicker.

And, as Whammy said, another concern is keeping track of things. This can be done just by copy-pasting or screencapping the logs, but realistically, people aren't always going to do that. And someone who can't be online almost every day, or doesn't like partaking in the IC-box? Is going to end up lost on the posting canon as well.

Even someone who's online frequently, if they have to be gone or in limited supply for a while, there's going to be a buttload to catch up on. It's unfair to force everyone to drop what they're doing and tell Player X a month's worth of story, you know?

HOWEVER, I still think this idea could be good for us. And here's a couple reasons why:

One, it'll keep people from throwing in just any old thing willy-nilly. Actions would have consequences, and you wouldn't be able to pull out a character who wouldn't fit in the board canon, like a robot pony or that friggin' creepyface moon. I know I've thrown in dumb plot devices a couple of times, because I thought the chatbox was a more 'canon-relaxed' place to try it out—and it wound up being really annoying and disruptive to others. This would help keep folks from getting confused and making mistakes like that in the future.

Two, it's a darn fine way of moderating the large-scale plots. Like I said, actions would have consequences. You're going to put a LOT more thought into whether or not you really want to have that evil cult around. "Drama of the day" would be heavily reduced, and that'd make the bigger-scale stories when they do come around a lot more impactful and fun!

And three, I think with the above, it'll make the IC chatter a lot more approachable. Like Mori said, it can be hard to find a place for your characters sometimes, especially those who aren't as bold-voiced and boisterous. With less crazy around, I think the tone will be a lot easier and less stressful to navigate.

Sorry, again, for talking so much. ^^; I just want to voice support where I can and concerns where I have 'em.

[Deleted]

I feel like I'm under an unpopular opinion when I say I'm perfectly happy with the way things are and that if anything does have to change it should not be anything major. I'm not going to try to go into a huge lecture about it, but I simply like how the cbox works, how posting is fast, people can use icons to help express emotions, it's easy, etc. The clique problem has never been too much of an issue for me; possibly because I have lots of characters. For the most part, it seems to me the it's a personal issue when people feel like they can't include themselves in what's going on (but not always, pretty easy to see why an Earth Pony would have trouble joining a conversation between Pegasi up in the clouds). Of course, that's just my opinion, but I think if changes have to be made, they shouldn't be huge game changers. That is why I'm especially against mixing cbox and board canon. It's easy for someone without much investment to like this idea, but I guarantee it will alienate just as many people as it was please, myself included. A few reasons I'm against it:

1) Disallows unaccepted characters from participating. If cbox and boardside canon are one and the same, it kind of requires the characters in the cbox to be boardside characters as well. Plenty of people have characters that are only in the cbox, either as tests or even to specifically be cbox only.

2) Discourages posting as much as it encourages it. I don't know about you, but if I could choose between having a conversation in a board or in the cbox, I'd choose the cbox. The boardside is meant for it's own things, and bits aren't exactly the best motivation to choose it over cbox (you've said yourself Whammy there aren't many uses for it).

3) Completely changes or eliminates altogether already established character development. This is the big one, and the most obvious. A lot of characters are going to have to change a lot of things about themselves in order for this to work. Let me name a few examples:

Boardside Fangy: No home, still small, lives alone, has no friends
Cbox Fangy: Has a hive, nearly queen sized, has a family and several friends

Boardside Blaze Racer: Single, still blind in one eye, trains by himself
Cbox Blaze Racer: In a committed relationship, blind eye is fixed, personal student of Soarin'

Boardside Rainbow Dash: Pretty close to the status quo for Post Season 2 Dash.
Cbox Rainbow Dash: Personal student of Fire Streak, married to one of her best friends

So many people would have to change so much about their characters to fit this change.

...Yeah, so that's my two cents on the issue. I think I pretty accurately voiced my personal concerns. I would be fine with change, I would be fine without change; but, if we DO change, I don't think said changes should be too drastic.

[Deleted]

As far as change goes. Would we have to do something drastic? I do feel like there are cliques forming, but that happens when any number of individuals start to form. Heck our planet was formed that way. All planets were. So it is only natural. If I might suggest...this is a mall. Ponies can break out from their groups every once in a while. the drama and big stuff happen when the groups start getting smaller. Collisions like might be seen as a forceful way of applying gravity to small asteroids. If just that one stray rock drifts out and makes contact with an isolated drifter, they can be brought in and more connections of gravity could be made.

Confusing huh? I probably should not have made it a planetary formation analogy...but it is what formed in my mind.

[Time Turner]

Alright, if I'm getting the sense of things right, I'm getting a feeling of these options being presented:

1) Keep things as is
2) IC and OOC box on the sidebar; IC box basically stays same (non-canon)
3) IC and OOC box on the sidebar; IC box becomes a part of the board canon

Am I missing anything or read anything wrong?

[Deleted]

I think those are a fair range of actionable options. Are we shelving the tangential discussions, like site rating, post length, and the "chatbox culture" thing?

[Time Turner]

I think just so this doesn't get too big, yeah, stuff like that should probably be part of a separate discussion. Otherwise we'll spend all our time arguing those things and not get something accomplished ^_^""".

So I'm going to turn this into a poll with those three options and give people the chance to vote on it. Standard voting rules apply (one vote, only vote on one account, etc.).