Suggestion Ghosting Punishment

[Fable]

As much as I can completely understand all the rebuttals to the OP, I would at the same time like it if a system like this were in place, having put endless hours into RPs only for people to throw down smoke pellets and disappear a few posts in.

Perhaps instead of a negative red-flag "this person has been known to ghost" type of system, a more positive green flag "this person has been known to stick with it" type of system would work. Like you can give rep to other consistent/enjoyable players.

There are problems with 'positive' ratings as well (for a kudos for someone being a good rp player). It's why twitter was considering removing the likes and such. There's some research out there I believe (could be foggy morning brain memory) which argues the psychological harm of 'likes' in that it can become problematic in many ways; addiction to likes, unhealthy obsession, unhealthy seeking of approval, etc.

Anything to do with a negative or positive system like this could go wrong. People could make alts to bump up their ratings (which means Staff would then have to create new rule and punishment for doing so).

Personally I wish we didn't display the 'top' posts/reactions on the members section because it promotes that unhealthy "I need likes!" "I need to have the top position on X!" I'd rather is just randomly feature members there. Not my decision though, lol. ;3

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I have read the button idea posted as well, but unfortunately I doubt it would be used for a simple reason; it can still lead to confrontation. One of the biggest reasons anyone may ghost is to avoid someone reacting negatively to their message. Whether it's "Sorry I'm not interested." "Hey, I've gone in over my head and have to trim down on my RPs and decided to stop this one." There are those who do react in a very harsh and confrontational manner to downright attacking the other person for this with things like "You've wasted my time you know!" "See if anyone RPs with you when you do something like this!"

People do know if someone leaves a PM because it marks them as such. It doesn't send an alert, but you can see if someone has left (their name will be crossed out).

As much as people will continue to try and find some solution, there really isn't one to this problem. People ghost for a variety of reasons. Some on purpose others by accident. Heck, someone could have gotten grounded from the internet and can't even login to inform their partners.

I do agree that the best thing is to ultimately just engage with the community. Find some dependable players and develop some good friendships. It still doesn't mean it'll always work out. I know I've dropped from a few friend RPs, but because we have a good relationship with each other they are understanding and I don't have to worry about them feeling slighted because I opt out of a project they are running.

 

[Emotional Enigma]

Fuyuri a negative reaction can happen regardless of the button or not, you can't control someone's reaction. And people are going to have worse reactions when being ghosted. I mean, you can't control every aspect of how people are going to respond ever in anything but the least you could do is try to make things a bit better.
Also I've seen the research studies on the like addiction and it's more or less tied in with social appearances, so it wouldn't apply to setting like RpN since RpN's main purpose isn't socialization or sharing pictures of our appearances. These studies suggest this addiction happens on a daily basis while RpN isn't a daily routine, "I just post an update on my vacation, I just upload my concert trip," etc etc.

 

[Emotional Enigma]

Also since we're bringing up studies and only quoting the possible bads, I'd like to point out that many studies, one of which done by my favorite psychologist Halley Pontes, it was concluded that a huge positive side effect of social media or using social services was perceived social support, low levels of stress, less physical illness, greater job satisfaction, and increased psychological wellbeing. The study also points to the conclusion that the negative impacts of this affect a minority of people and it's due to "uncontrolled or deregulated use" (people who are on all the time, 24-7).

 

[Kaerri]

Forgive me for saying so, but for many (including myself), RpN is part of our daily routine. I've seen many people who think they've been ghosted because their partner didn't post within the past hour, which, while I think it's silly, does point out not just how often people use the site, but how varying their definitions of ghosting are. In order to make a meaningful rating, we'd have to make a unified definition, and I can guarantee you that no matter what we come up with, the majority of the site will disagree with it just because the time each person is willing to be patient for can vary by so much.

Based on what I see in the status updates and from what has been said to me privately as a staff member, we already have that perceived social support, lower levels of stress, and increased psychological wellbeing. I can't speak to the physical illness or job satisfaction because that hasn't been shared with me personally, but if it's a part of social media, then it's very likely happening here too. We have a lot of members who may not even roleplay here anymore, but stick around to stay connected with their friends.

It's been my experience, and from the way I see other sites handle reactions, I'm pretty sure it's theirs too, that positive ratings are generally a fun thing, while negative ratings are way more prone to abuse and will probably cause decreased psychological wellbeing. Anyone who's seen people in profile posts talking about getting their "like" score up knows how much it means to many people on the site even though they get absolutely nothing from it other than a number on their profile. How much worse will it get if we add a rating that will actually affect whether someone chooses to interact with you?

Let's pause a moment to remember that we have a lot of teen users.

I mean a lot. That's a pretty vulnerable time emotionally and they don't need strangers on the internet labeling them as undesirable, particularly when a lot of them are here because they're already getting that kind of treatment offline. And adults aren't necessarily that much more thick-skinned, nor more accepted offline. We want people to be happy here, not stressing over whether their being grounded (or in a car accident, or going through a particularly bad depressive episode, or just going on vacation) is going to cause them to never roleplay again because all their partners got offended and labeled them as ghosts.

 

[Emotional Enigma]

My argument wasn't the rating system, my argument was the button system and by saying that you see what I've already said should be happening on the site, you're just confirming the study information.

All I'm saying is that the studies that were alluded to, she conveniently left out the positives and didn't talk about the error margins or the mean scores of those in the study which would tell you that those affected negatively by this like addiction is a minority and only affects those who are on the site all the time publicly- this would be not privately messaging people but making tons and tons of threads over a short span of time or something of the sort for the sole purpose of being in the public eye.


(Again I'd like to point out that the button system doesn't have a negative. It's a button to notify the other person of the dismissal of their partner - doesn't have to be clicked but the design of it and easy access to it could increase the chance of it being used. No repercussions.)

(Edit: I'm sorry if this sounded condescending, someone told me it sounded mean. I didn't mean for the connotation, I have a somewhat hard time communicating and being empathetic . You all have really good points.)

 

[adrian_]

im basically necrobumping this but ive been reading this a bit and i had a point to make so

a long while ago i used roblox to rp, on the rpf subforum, and basically when i joined it was very apparent that there was a tier system or caste system of roleplayers, the best of the best were well known and popular in the subforum, and newer, lesser know roleplayers were a little bot discriminated upon by their post count. i feel like having this system would ultimately bring something like that back, especially if we brought a system where it was more about positive people to roleplay with as somebody in the first page of this thread said, dont remember who. i honestly think this would be one of the worst things to happen to rpn, and i wont lie i ghost basically every rp i join so im a bit biased lol

 

[Lorsh]

im basically necrobumping this but ive been reading this a bit and i had a point to make so

a long while ago i used roblox to rp, on the rpf subforum, and basically when i joined it was very apparent that there was a tier system or caste system of roleplayers, the best of the best were well known and popular in the subforum, and newer, lesser know roleplayers were a little bot discriminated upon by their post count. i feel like having this system would ultimately bring something like that back, especially if we brought a system where it was more about positive people to roleplay with as somebody in the first page of this thread said, dont remember who. i honestly think this would be one of the worst things to happen to rpn, and i wont lie i ghost basically every rp i join so im a bit biased lol

what was your roblox username

 

[adrian_]

what was your roblox username

dont remember, i was like 14 lmao

 

[PhoenixMire]

everyone's already pointed out why this is a really bad idea... so yeah I agree with all of the points made about why this shouldn't be implemented