Ideas for easier RP mingling

It's been mentioned with reason that our RP community tends to form closed circles with insufficient mingling, which has a nefarious effect on newbie integration, variety in roleplay and general atmosphere.
Here some ideas I had that may help promote more interaction between players and inclusion of new ones, some feedback on them or other ideas would be welcome.

Let's all go back to #ICCDN!
When I first arrived ICCDN, the in character chat room, had a bad rap because apparently some players roleplayed stupid stuff on it without mod supervision. But the way I've seen people use it is as CDN's irc in universe. Basically just a chat, where characters who usually had no reason to interact with each other would. Lack of mod presence is much less an issue since the impact of chat discussion should be minimal on canon, and it's a great cauldron for ideas. It's a good way to develop your character, and sometimes it's RP fodder. For example once time there Capice offered Michelle to come and upgrade the Leaving The Duct computer mainframe, which caused her to stomp on two gangsters who mistook her for a duct rat and attacked her, which lead to nasty retaliation, and so on...
I had stopped for a while to come on ICCDN because since not a lot of people came the subjects were running dry, but I'm definitely go back, and I'm suggesting others do too.

Subtitles for threads
I suggested that one a while back and it got some positive feedback, so I'm shamelessly bumping it.
The idea is to have an optional line of description when we create a thread that will appear below the title, to provide some information about what's happening in it. Most of the time the titles are less than clear (especially in RPs). One or two lines description might be enough to encourage other people to read it and get involved later with the story, or to show the newbies what we actually do, or at least give other members a basic idea of what's going on for your character.
For instance "[Citadel/Nimbus] A Party On The Rocks" would have a subtitle like "A routine asari mission in the nimbus system takes a turn for the worse when an unknown assailant shoots down the ship, trapping them on a frozen planet...(closed)"
Other examples :

[Citadel, Relaxation Area 566] Auld Lang Syne / "Just like last year, VigilantVanguard throws a new year's eve party for the CDN crowd, and everyone's welcome"
(It may not look like much of an improvement, but I only recently discovered that this thread was the new year's eve party! A subtitles would have helped doofus me.)

[Citadel Exploration Fleet] All Systems Nominal... / "The CEF is launching their shiny new ship, with a new crew. Captain Telos is waiting for you on the bridge, to explore unknown regions!"

Citadel - Wards] Fresh Blood, Old Friends "Wandering Warrior finds himself at odds with a heavily armed gang, and must join forces with a shady ex member and the LTD team to survive..."

We could even imagine that the OP could edit to reflect what how the thread is evolving.

Jobs posting thread
This one would be a sticky thread in the IC boards where we the various organizations present on CDN would offer freelancer jobs to members. It would be an obvious plot device to allow members (especially new members) to apply for roleplay threads, since approaching members directly can be extremely intimidating. And it provides a clear motivation for members to meet (which allow us to limit the influence of the CDN probability vortex).
The organizations would be those of CDN (like LTD, Titan, SOS...) or more general (C-Sec, the Alliance). Behind each offer would be one or more member who has to deliver the RPs.
The organizations' offers would be added in the OP so they wouldn't get drowned in the applications.
Example of a posting :

Leaving The Ducts recruits!
With a year's experience in helping the disenfranchised kids of the Citadel, based on Lower Tayseri, Leaving The Duct is always welcoming help, mostly volunteer, sometimes paying. You can help obtain donations, spread awareness, provide social assistance to the kids, teach them valuable skills. Due to the hostility to our endeavor from the local criminal element, we are also always welcoming security experts.

(in ooc : For more information contact 4Eyes4TheWin on the old boards or on the IRC, european hours)

I suppose this is the best venue of any to clarify something on my end.

I've missed a lot of ongoing issues and gather that there's a concern about cliquishness, hostility between cliques, and new players feeling they can't break in to existing cliques.

I'm not around as much as I used to be, now that my professional writing has taken off. I still enjoy RPing, but I have a lot less free time to devote to it.

I wanted to clarify to everyone that I'm happy to RP with anyone and everyone in the extranet forum, but my ability to hold ongoing RPs in the Adventures forum is limited, and that's why I tend to RP with the same people - because there are ongoing stories that have been years in the planning, that I'm doing my best to see through. I'd rather have 2 good threads I can post in a few times a week, than 8 threads in which I post once a month.

So: I welcome new players, I hope to interact with you in the extranet forum. My habits in the Adventure Forum aren't due to disliking anyone or being a snob so much as they are due to severely limited time.

I'm in favour of this thread whatever suggestions might come, so allow me to address the first ones!


Short answer: no.

Long joke answer: noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Long answer: already exists, and this will not change, full stop.


I've been assured that this shouldn't take much work, so over the next week or so Dippy will look into what it might take to implement it.


Not a bad idea. I'll see what the rest of the mod team things, and then we'll make a call.