important Announcement: Introduction Threads

[Voidus]

Hi everyone,

I've posted this in the PM as well but just so that I can make sure everyone's seen this and ideally get confirmation from people when they have (Just a quick reply is fine) thought I should post this here as well.

There's been an increase of activity in the introduction threads recently, likely due to a number of new recruits to the Alleyverse and returning active members in recent months. This has caused a bit of an issue where people's introduction threads can be taken over by us, which can be a jarring first experience to the Shard.

So in the interests of making sure everyone has a positive experience with the Shards I'd like to lay down some guidelines.

• Don't recruit for guilds in intro threads unless someone has asked about them.
• If you want to invite someone to the RP, try to do it in a general way like you would if you were suggesting they visit any part of the site.
  eg. 'We have a really cool roleplay section if you enjoy that kind of thing link' rather than 'TUBA is awful, they can't even bake cookies properly, you should join the DA so you can help us rule the Alleyverse!' (Not that I think anyone actually talks like that but hopefully you get my point)
• If someone has already recommended the RP don't post just to echo the invitation or provide support for the RP unless the original poster expresses interest or asks any questions about it. If they weren't interested the first time someone recommended it then spamming their topic is unlikely to change their mind.
• We have introductory and new player threads in our subforum, wait for people to post interest here before getting into any kind of in-depth discussions.
• Try to avoid back-and-forth debates between other members of the RP that aren't the poster of the intro thread, nothing worse than having your own thread taken over by something you might not want to hear about.

In short: Try to keep Alleyverse discussions and recruitment to the Alleyverse, let people know it exists if they might be interested but don't derail the thread and if someone seems like they might be interested, let them know where the subforum is rather than discussing it at length in an unrelated forums.

I'll keep an eye on intro threads for now and just remind people if they seem to be stepping too far or may not have read this, but hopefully that won't be necessary

[Voidus]

12 hours ago, Vargo Seldon said:

Why hello Beth.  Welcome to the shard!  And while I don't post much in the forum common or listen to Shardcast all that much (sorry Argent), I do have an some interesting places here to suggest.  

A great place to start is in General Brandon Discussion, or if you're into the Cosmere, General Cosmere Discussion.  If you haven't read Oathbringer, I'd avoid the Stormlight Archives subforum, as it is rife with spoilers.  If you like role-playing, I can suggest the Alleyverse (link in my sig).  A great place to hang out is The Last Post Wins (link also in my sig), and whatever you do, avoid The Longest Thread at all costs.  

Again, welcome, and I hope you enjoy your time here!

P.S. Love your title.  So clever .

Just wanted to say that this post is a perfect example of how responses to intro threads could be done and still potentially invite people in to the Alleyverse. It's not only about the AV, not too aggressive in approach, mentions plenty of other sections of the site in case they might also interest the OP and is non-generic which is always good as well.

So yeah, posts like that ^ are what we're aiming for.

[Voidus]

It seems like there's been a number of cases of this happening again, so just to reiterate:
Please do not use intro threads as a platform purely to recruit people to the RP. If the entire goal of your post is simply to try to get someone into the RP then you shouldn't be posting it there. If you make a post genuinely welcoming someone and happen to mention the existence of RPs that's fine, but if your post comprises of 90% an attempt to recruit someone into the RP and just the word 'welcome' at the top of it then I'd say the motives there are pretty clearly not in line with what the intro threads are actually about.

[Chaos]

To back up Voidus here, continued infractions of blatant RP recruitment will be hidden and can lead to mod queuing of future posts, post restrictions, and other punishments. 

Generic giving out of cookies will likely also be discouraged. You should engage with the new member and not focus on memes first.

[MacThorstenson]

Just putting this here so that more people see it, the thread was lost somewhere in the backlog of the forum. 

Just to reiterate: This still applies. Please avoid giving out cookies.