JvS What's next for us?

You aren't alone. There's an informal group of us that have been talking about this very issue via PM's - and our concern is that this issue isn't receiving the attention it deserves. HUGE names have left the site recently, Adrien and Sinistra specifically, and quite frankly, I don't see new names coming to fill the ranks. Additionally, looking at our active membership and comparing it to other SW RPing sites, we are undeniably a DYING website. This is just further compounded by the fact that many of us have multiple profiles...the TRUE active member base here is probably (I say probably, as only a moderator can verify this for sure) much lower than what the "last active per 24 hours" ratio would indicate. There are sites out there with THOUSANDS of members. Active members. We're down to...what, fifty? Probably even less.

I'm not alone in this thinking. I know several names, Xeonon Solomon the High Councilor, and Vastoral a member of the "Old Guard" like myself, all share these concerns and have been discussing this very notion. This goes through more than just getting new writers here though...we need to overhaul this site in how it gets writers here. We need things in place that gets the writers here, and then KEEPS them here.


It's reassuring that someone outside of our informal group also echoes our thoughts.

Valstrol speaking here, one of the "Old Guards" Dante mentioned.

I remember the hayday of JvS 1.0 and 1.5. It was like a wildfire in 1.0 with 1.5 being a tamed bonfire. Wherever you looked, wherever your character was, there was something going on. There was a range of stuff going on; a group of vets scheming to form a nation or start a great war, a couple newbies learning the ropes, maybe even a mixed group of vets and newbies. Bottom line, there was always something going on. I remember, in JvS 1.0, I had surfaced of Korriban and found a Sith comrade instantly. I moved to Dxun where an early Mandalorian-Sith War almost happened. I moved to Alzoc III where I met my comrade Chowda and conquered the world in the name of the Sith. Within the next day, an assassination attempted upon my life that made a whole storyline and, by the end of my first month, I was almost elected to be the first Mand'alor of the JvS Universe (but good old Cassus got it instead). Slowly faces started vanishing, people I had been associated since 1.0 (Mendacious, Cygnus, Malum, Raven, and others). Its sad to see this place slowly die as good and longstanding names go off.

I know what it is like to have a low playerbase. I am a moderator for another small RPG area on the Total War Center Forums. When I first joined it back in...2010, there were rps and people everywhere. Now, its barely surviving. A lot of the old faces are gone with very few new ones to replace those who have left. We have just gotten our first roleplay setting completed and started in almost half a year.

I am up for discussion and idea sharing in terms of how to regain our losses.

The APP on facebook needs to become a viable source of APP like stuff again. Perhaps adding the quizzes and maybe some cool mini games would be cool. App development has come a long way since 07.

When this site lost the facebook portion of it, it lost it's ability to easily recruit new members. Re-boot it, pay a small price for some adds and make it cool, as cool as nerds can be that is.

Just my two cents.

Please bear with me while I try to articulate my thoughts. Simply that the issue has the attention of the Whills doesn't necessarily put all our minds at ease. Now, PLEASE do not misunderstand - you guys do GREAT work running a site that gets you no pay and is basically a volunteer job. Hell, I've been a Whill equivalent on a different site and I KNOW how tough it gets. That said though, it is that slowness to act that has more than a few of us worried...we feel that too little will be done before we reach a point of not being able to turn our membership around. This has, after all, been a persistent issue through the various incarnations of our dear site for a number of years - membership wise I mean. And, the slowness of the Whills has also been a persistent factor when dealing with this particular problem.

That all said, I'm not a dullard who just sits around and points fingers at problems without asking how to fix them. The best I can do is make what worries I have known, and then offer any help I can. My worries being made known now, a few questions:

1) As I understand it, you Whill CHill are the go to guy for the membership problem? I guess what I'm asking is, is there a particular face among the Whills who is spear heading this effort?
2) You say marketing and advertising...to clarify, that is FREE advertising/marketing? Clarifying that we're trying not to spend money here.
3) It SEEMS to me (seems = been here a LONG time, could be mistaken) that we had on an old incarnation of the site some kind of advertising dealing with other sites and such...any possibility of reviving that?
4) For general knowledge, do we have FB and Twitter accounts for the site? Do we have a hashtag we can use? Do we have any kind of social media presence?



Eh, you misunderstand. Our informal group hasn't really been a group but for barely a week. We were in the process of discussing how to go about things when Revlan made this thread and we decided to just jump on the band wagon as it were. From the very start, the idea was to do exactly that - get the public creative juices flowing and get others opinions out there.

That's a fair response. I just wanted to clarify that it DOES have our attention, even if we haven't found a lot of time or ways to improve the situation yet. Obviously, it doesn't do any good for us to pay attention, unless we are able to act.
Unofficially, yes. We haven't tasked anyone in specific to deal with the issue, but I am gathering ideas to discuss with my brothers and sisters.
There are a number of free options that we can take. If those don't work, spending a few dollars isn't out of the question. We've had a number of people offer to donate. But we would not spend money on advertizing without very careful consideration.
Yes. That is one possibility under consideration.
Yes. We have been conducting a revamp of our social media presences. You can follow us on Twitter @jedivsith, and a more complete announcement about social media is coming in a few days.
I think this thread is a great start. You've already given me several new ideas - and they weren't even ones that anyone directly stated. 

Facebook apps aren't actually free. You have to pay for the server to run them on, and that cost was one of the reasons the plug was pulled on the old app.

My personal impression is that the era of Facebook apps has somewhat passed, but maybe I'm wrong/getting old. Do people still use them?

What about twitter? Ya know there is a new movie coming out in a year, start retweeting posts from the new movie, get people from the site who have that social outlet to re-tweet it. Follow JJ Abrams, Mark Hamil, H Ford if they got one and start tweeting to or on their page. SW fans will see it and wonde what it is, provide a link in the profile and you might get some new recruits.

Twitter might be a good idea. There's a million Star Wars fans out there, probably with the itch to write as well. We just have to find them!

Social media is covered on both Facebook and twitter. Chill gave out the link for twitter. I have an unofficial page for Jedi Vs Sith that I moderate. Put on things about the site, random star wars posts. In addition the official one although rather underutilized (in one mans opinion) has seem use more this year.

Although apps do sound out of the running, children and parents (in my experience women from my requests so mothers) send out so many requests and try new silly games all the time.