I understand the need to prevent GMs from constantly spamming game ads, but in my few attempts at evergreen highly-multiplayer games (admittedly ambitious, I know), the weekly need to manually reply to an ad to bump it and hopefully attract more players is...taxing? Even writing a fresh post seems weak after a couple in a row.

I'm wondering if there's a way to have an ad automatically bump weekly for a particular period of time, or bump it without needing to post? Some kind of convenience for GMs that want to keep their games open to new recruits over time would help us crazy-ambitious GMs in our mad pursuits.

If such a feature exists, I'd love to know about it, and if not, it might be worth consideration. Again, I recognize the need to prevent misuse, and that such conveniences might be too easily abused to offer, but in discussing it, we might find a better way that offers we zany few the option to have games on a more permanent recruitment cycle.

for  my part.. I bump my ads every week... ( can never have too many active players).. I just Copy and past  my last  ad..  i'll edit  changes ect ect..  I also trim off older  posts so that my  ad posts stay around 20.. so folks can see the Post count grow, and know the games are active.

 I have also seen folks just  type " bump"  so that thier  ad  pops up.

 In the end?  It come s down to how much youw ant to put into the game ad?.. I have  been criticized , in the begging  for  'spamming"..I couldn't  care less?.. I post, ebcause I want players... havign an Auto Bump, might prove to be 'too easy'..and  would lead to a lot  of  dead and dying  games, take up ad space.

I can see wanting to curtail "zombie" ads for mostly-dead games being a nuisance. Maybe a periodic nudge to GMs, so they have to keep manually checking in? Maybe monthly, so at worst there's four "zombie" bumps before the unattended game ad stops getting the new-post treatment?

that would be an  idea.. the GM  would have to 'click' on a  4  week bump?.. after that  4  weeks, they would have to reclick, or  do it  like we do now?... I have found that a lot of   the   dead/dying games I was in, was   because of teh GM  gettign baored.  and letting the game lie there while they started something new... or..sadly..RL issues  prevented  them from tending to thier games..either  way?.. if they aren't active enough to tend thier games...the games shouldn't be bumped.

Nope, there is no auto-bump feature, and one won't be added.

To bump your ad, all it takes is a single word ("bump" is a popular one).  If you find that "taxing", then I have bad news for you - running a game takes a lot more effort.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 5):

Kinda puts it all in perspective, don't it, folks?

Gosh, imagine going to bed and waking up to a response direct from a mod! Cool! I get that running games takes a lot of effort, I'm asking because the task of drumming up more players for a game can be boring/tiresome for a GM that intends to keep adding more players, and the eventually endless thread of "bump" posts could end up driving players away, somewhat making the effort with the existing system self-defeating, i.e. "If this guy can't seem to drum up enough players in the first place, how can I expect the game to last very long? I mean he's been at this for weeks and weeks now, pretty consistently and STILL doesn't have enough players."

If you don't mind me asking, (persuant to horus' slight jibe) is there a particular reason such a convenience feature can't, shouldn't, or won't be possible? Like a technical limitation with the tech or code libraries underlying the site, so this is a mild discouragement from potentially site-breaking behavior; or a philosophical position about the direction of the site and perhaps RPGs in general among the mods, so large or long-running games are disliked among the moderators; or perhaps there's already been an "incident"?

I am (like horus) just curious for context, since it seems I've caught the ear of someone who knows.

Some reasons I'd vote against such a feature (even with a 4 week window):

• GMs who are overcome by RL or boredom/laziness and aren't around to turn the bump off
• GMs forgetting they've turned auto-bump on
• Abandoned games where poor potential players are putting a lot of/some/any effort into writing up RTJs that will never even be looked at

Aaaand many of the points raised in this related suggestion under RPoL Development link to a message in another game way back when.

:>

To respond to your concerns, and perhaps clarify the proposal as it's been developed (at least in my own head):

GMs have to re-activate the "weekly auto-bump" on a monthly (or whatever period) basis. So they only get four weeks of auto-bump before the bumps shut down for good. So GMs who abandon their games (regardless of the reason) will get four auto-bumps (or some other number thereof) before going silent. Even if they forgot they left it on, they would still only get so-many weeks' worth, and there could be a reminder set up, so "Hey, it's been a month since you last enabled auto-bump. Re-enable, or turn off?". There would still be a requirement for GMs to log in and take care of their duties, already somewhat required by the various GM ownership  and game management policies.

Potential players with unread RTJs are probably less of a site-facing issue, since (in my experience) RTJs don't require a whole lot, and they're hidden from everyone by the GM and the player. Even assuming they do and are, games are sometimes closed with a lot less communication, and missed RTJs probably sometimes happen anyhow.

Thanks for the thread link! Reading that discussion was very informative. Mods are human, too, it seems. If my dreams of a large/long-running game aren't part of their vision for RPoL, I can respect that. Perhaps that is reflected in some of my difficulties in building such games here, and what sorts of games RPoL encourages me (and other users) to make based on the tools available. I just never considered the philosophy and aesthetics of running a PbP site and its community before. I'll be sure to keep RPoL's stance in mind for the future.

Thanks all around for indulging my curiosity!!!

 I'd have to add my  2 creds  worth here... My space game  just went over 73K posts.. I have  8  very acti8ve players.. and   a few who..aren't, for RL  reasons... I bump ever week since I started the  game?..( I delete older   Bumps)

 as I stayed  before.. some  'players' would put a snide comment up about spam ect ...right on the ad thread ( which I ask all comments to be sent to the  game site)…


 so?..if the Mods   were 'against'  a big..long running game, I would have heard about it.


there is examples of  SKald's  reasons as well.. I talked a guy from another site to start a game here.. it went great huns  for a month.. then he  made a Vague  'RL   post' and  hasn't been back  for months.. one of my ex players started  a game.. I helped  him with some of   'my rules" ..and he added his own..seemed like a great  game..But RL issues ( very bad ones)   have him away..almost  a Year now.

 so?..in the end?... Typing  'bunmp'..or ( as I do  cut and past  my add and Edit new Info) takes  only a couple seconds..and  doesn't add  anything  esle that might bog  down the site?

So for those four weeks, potential players see the  ad being bumped every week and think the GM is still about.  They send in an RtJ, and wonder why the GM can't be bothered answering them (not even a rejection).  Cue complaints about inconsiderate GMs who can't be bothered to reply to an RtJ, even though they're still bumping their ad.


This is so far from the truth it isn't even funny.  Would a game that lasted 14 years count as "long-running".  Had one of those, and another that lasted for more than ten years - both ended after they reached the end of the stories I wanted to tell.  Both had large numbers of players.


Yep, we often have GMs asking us to remove complaints and insults from their ad threads - things that they noticed when they went to bump the ads.  A four week auto bump would potentially mean that such unwelcome comments might sit in a thread for the best part of a month before the GM noticed it.

This really depends on the GM. I've had some where all they wanted in the RTJ was a hazy concept and some where you might have to build a whole character in a complex system, or write-up several paragraphs worth of potential in-character text to show writing proficiency for the style of game. Or, sometimes both.

It's true that games do suddenly close and RTJs can be missed, which looks bad for a GM and is frustrating for players, but why add another way to complicate things toward the "leaving players hanging" end? Even a month in a popular system can generate heaps of RTJs that never get used.

I agree it's a pain to keep bumping threads, but it's kinder to bump when you notice the dearth of players you have than to forget that you've been asking for new players for an extended period of time. It also only takes a second to do. It's also an option for you to use to attract players, not a necessity. You can also just flag your game as accepting new players and wait for someone to pull a search for your genre, or system. Both methods require players to be at least a little proactive looking through lists of games.

I misspoke, I meant long-recruiting or open/continuous recruiting. Naturally long-running, stable games are the goal.

I suppose forcing GMs to handle all this manually helps cut down on the trolling/snideness gripes. That such things did not cross my mind as happening here is a testament to how well things operate, I suppose.

As an alternative, would it be worthwhile to have a more "curated" list of games that are continuously recruiting? Something that GMs would have to apply to get their game listed? Prove that the GMs can and intend to run for a large number of players for a long campaign or series of campaigns? Possibly require that the games are not "solely owned" by that GM, so the GM duties can be taken up by another volunteer, or promote a player?



And I am perhaps missing a more convenient method. Is the only way to bump a PW ad to reply to the thread? I mean, since it is a separate thread type with suitably different code, I guess there may be a checkbox or some other option I might have missed that obviates my problem with "grooming" and bumping the thread manually.

The code is actually pretty much identical to that for every forum on the site - bumping a thread requires a new post.  The only real difference is the time limit (which is also used in Wanted - GMs) and the information blocks (which don't require much in the way of special code).

Who would run this and ensure that the games listed followed the rules?  For example - if a GM says that he intends to run a long-term game with dozens of players, and he advertised his game in the list, how would he then be prevented from ditching it two weeks later due to boredom and abandoning any players he picked up?

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 14):

I got nothing, honestly.

I would assume there'd be a high bar for consideration up-front. Having multiple (possibly long-running) games under their belt, a considered plan for adding or handing off to other GMs over time, with notes on how the game is structured to allow lots of players as well as potentially lots of threads. Running a system that offers easy resources for GM improvisation on-the-fly, or extensive (possibly homebrew) GM aids, so there's less effort required of any incoming GM to quickly pick up and carry on in as similar a vein as possible. It'd be a hefty burden of documentation for a game to be prepared for such a list, hours of work and careful crafting of informational threads and resources, possibly even GM-specific reference threads where nobody else posts.

I realize a lot of the standards would be based on reckoning instead of cut-and-dry requirements and a lot to ask for from whoever's curating the thread. Dealing with requests from a slew of GMs who may or may not meet the standards and reviewing their games is no small task in itself. I can't say I have good metrics as a user, but perhaps a poweruser might have better tools for evaluating a potential applicant.

My goal is (was? at this point) to make continuous/longer recruiting more convenient and "cleaner" than a weekly "bump" post, which, as others have said, looks bad if the posts are not necessarily bumped every week with a freshly updated game pitch, and worse if they are just that one word. Since there's only so much that can be done to encourage behavior in terms of classical reward-and-punishment conditioning on users on a largely free platform, I figure convenience might be enough of an enticement that some GMs would make (responsible) use of it. We'd have more games pop up that don't require players to wait on another player or the GM and can more or less keep going despite the attrition endemic to the PbP medium because all the procedures for keeping it running are present, up-front.

Thing is, I don't really know what options might be possible. I'm simply not that well acquainted with the tech and other dynamics powering RPoL to know. I saw the above problem with attrition and wanted to present my half-formed solution, work with other users to maybe come up with something a bit more robust/polished. I don't care about my idea(s), but I think there's value for all of us in minimizing games dying by attrition. It could very well be an intractable problem based on previous history, or the tech, or the philosophy governing the site, or any number of other things I very well do not know to ask about.

It won't look bad if the game ad itself clearly states it's a continuously recruiting game. Then you can just do a Bump every week and people will be like "oh, look at this game that's still adding players, and apparently will be forever." There are several of them already, and at least one I can think of off the top of my head has been adding new players for years, clearly saying that's the idea right in the game ad. That should cover you, honestly.

This sounds like it would be worth considering as a subscriber feature, if subscriptions ever happened. Maybe make the auto-bumps cost extra to ensure that the GM is (at least more likely to be) actually committed before doing them.

Delete the old bumps.  You'll still see them, but nobody else (other than moderators) will.

If it were automatic, then I'd want to ask for a feature that lets me, as a player, not see those automatic bumps.

Already, nothing interests me less than a *bump* post to anything that adds no new content, that doesn't tell me WHY I should be interested in looking at the game -- the game, as it stands now, not as it stood 4, 6, 10 weeks ago or more.

And, in fact, I'd already ask for a feature that doesn't bring any ad up to the top in my view with a post that just says 'bump', except I already have them on the same auto-filter that I use for commercials and ads on Pinterest.

That might be harsh, but sometimes I think it's a perspective that also deserves to be heard.

I appreciate the work that GMs put in, but a *bump* post from a GM to me is the equivalent of "I stand around waiting for someone to do something" as a post from a player.  An auto bump would be the equivalent of an "I'm still here" post in the OOC, followed up by crickets IC, or less.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:16, Wed 10 Oct 2018.

This isn't what is happening. Everyone see that a post has been deleted (just not its content). Even before logging in. For an example of what I see both logged and not logged. https://ibb.co/c8GeB9

And to me, it is worse than seeing bump posts, because now, the number of time the ad had been bumped is a surprise.

I agree.  If I see a long list of just "Bump" posts it tells me the GM just doesn't want to put the minimal effort in there, so what sort of effort is going to put into the game?

 I will say this..against my own bumping... I cut and past the ads.. I tweak the new Info in... when we pass a milestone, I will edit it in..and?.. I will delete  'back bumps' to about  20 left, from time to time. This will allow   any   folks who wish to check those milestone, if they are interested in activity... and the description of the game play is there  to 'sooth' anyone , intimidated  by the  stack of posts.

 I do wish.. they  woudl all Just vanish, leaving only the non-deleted ad..

  But..from a guy who , most likely, older  then some of your parents?... This site  is the best site  I ever played on... I have tried to  pul players  and GMs  from sites I used to play on..here… It clean.. everything is  right tehre.. and its not slow (one site I play, only because I had played in the game on another site) is terrible... I don't like the dice set up... it takes   a few second  for pages to laod..and forget about  finding a game, if the  GM didn't  flat out  tell you were to look.

 so?.. this Bumping thing?..in the end? who cares? it soesn't effect game play, and  as long as we get a fresh player  now and then?  I'm happy.