It's been an amazing five year journey, but...

[Wes]

...I think it's high time we address a certain elephant in the room. That elephant being: Where do we go from here? As it's become evident, interest and activity is on a rapid decline. We've had our slumps before and what makes this one in particular different from the last few times, is that my own morale is on a crash and burn downward spiral. Perhaps it's a little ironic that I had conceived this roleplay up during the heat of one of my depressive bouts some five years ago, and now those similar feelings are returning.

From the day one, I had been GM of this channel, and even tucked away in an extremely dark, isolated corner of the internet where no one could even find the channel except via word of mouth. There was even a time about a month after starting it up, I was ready to give up running anything, and was even ready to give up this whole AB/DL interest in general. Something lit a fire under my ass, for sure, and with a stroke of good luck, the channel came back some months later, and even got a chance to establish itself right here on DiaperedAnime.

The exiled and depressed and recently-aged 20-year-old Wes would have never guessed that this channel, with all its ups and downs, would have ever lasted this long. I've made friends, and with this role I've undertaken, I've made a good share of enemies, too. I had even found, for a brief moment in time, true love. Despite anything that happened between anyone I've befriended and grown an absolute disdain for, I don't regret any of this. I can say with a true face that running #Shillito has been a part of at least 1/5 of my life.

The ultimate question now, is what now? Does this place have a future beyond this year, and will we exit our slump? The thoughts of just shutting the place down has crossed my mind more than ever as of late, but at the same time, it would be such a waste to simply abandon it, and not even go out with a bang, or even a whimper -- just silence. I firmly believe in the saying, "Never say never." Even if I decide to just shut down the main channel, or just end the setting in some sort of way, I doubt my days of being a GM of something like this are even close to being over. It would be certain that I'd eventually come back with something bigger and better.

The thoughts of building a new setting have crossed my mind lately, and I've even been hit up for suggestions on how to overhaul the channel some few months ago. Someone who I will not name had offered to "run it behind the scenes/pull the strings," but if there's anything I have a hard time doing, and I think some of the mods around here can agree to, it's answering to authority figures.

All in all, #Shillito has never meant to be anything more than the world we all can escape to when the real world kicks our ass and shows us no mercy with no chance to fight back. I am open to suggestions, and I may even put up a poll before too long containing the following options:

Status Quo: Meaning we continue as we were
Reform the Setting: Start up a whole new setting, wipe everything clean
Shut it Down: My least favorite, but an unfortunate possibility

Anyway, it's a bit of a long read, but if there's one thing I can tell you all: It's that I'm proud of every single one of you that have stuck through the good times and bad times, and some of you since Day 1. Words alone will never be able to express how grateful I am that you all were a part of this unforgettable experience.

[RaVeN]

Hrm... sounds like you are really waiting for some change here and I can understand why. It is extremely draining to be responsible to keep a RP place running. Anything from managing players to setting up and enforcing rules really is work. So I have some suggestions, ideas, and comments about this.

Starting with a comment on your options. Even if there are many stories running based on the current setting I would say a total new start might be a good idea. So I like the idea of the second option.

From my experience of role play around here during the last years there are some points what keep people from being active in the main at times. Often people want to work on the relationship between one or two characters what are part of the bigger role play and don't want to be disturbed. Some option for adding cannon one on ones in the rules might be interesting there. Maybe even some RP lobby room like the living room and other chat rooms where people can move if they want to do 1 on 1. I know this sounds a bit like a MUD but might be interesting.

I might make myself unpopular by saying this, but we have a big number of characters in the bio section what are rarely played. Why not set a character Limit for each player? There is also the option to include some limits on top/switch/bottom characters here, but this would be too detailed.

One suggestion about keeping the channel running without you having to bear all the workload and responsibility would be to do a some GM group what is taking care of these chores together.

Last but not least, if you are going to do a new setting, I would really be interested to discuss some ideas with you.

[Rye]

It might not be my place to say ; seeing as I've kinda walked away from it a bit, but I'd go for option 2 , reset everything. I found what little activity I could get very good but damm is it hard to get there. It might just be my observation but a lot of players are very private. As in it's hard to break into the whole thing, for a lot of the time I was left alone because nothing was happening. Seems like a lot of the actual fun was happening between everyone else and in private , made if feel like there was some kind of inner circle that as a outsider was very hard to get into.

Now don't shoot me or anything but I can assume that the same situation would happen to many newcomers, everything goes fine until you have to find someone , you have to wait in the main room which things rarely happen if at all.

A reset would be really good to jump start everything, at least as far as attracting new users is. I mean with the quick access by hitting the button on the top I'd expect at least some new members to take an interest. You could go with the current route but I wouldn't expect many new members to join as it currently stands. Option 3 in my opinion is the worst. People do still play and they enjoy it , not to mention that it's one of the most popular chat things for the site.

As I said at the star this is just my observation , nothing more. But if you are doing a restart I'll be watching and looking to see what comes out of it.

[Wes]

Yeah, I can't force people to play with each other, and a part of me actually kinda thinks that the new incantation of the channel, whatever it should be, should probably be a little more regulated and perhaps involve upping the quality a bit. I do blame myself for that since I'm the one who enabled it and sort of reinforced it.

The way I see it, people being private with each other means no filters for anyone who's uncomfortable with the things others do, and I can understand that, as well. I think it's really a matter of: Because #shillito was very casual and lenient, there wasn't exactly a standard anyone knew about, and thus, new people joining could be on a whole 'nother level of good or bad, and I think that could be a little intimidating for either party.

[Zinnia Hime]

If I may state my opinion with issues I have been noticing lately...

I do find that it can be hard for newcomers to truly get into the rp, like Rye said people tend to be extremely private and that isn't bad...well up until it makes newbies feel left out.

Even I, on occasion found it fairly hard to fit in...this is bad since I've been here a while. I think this desperately needs to be addressed and discussed since it's actually putting people off the main, especially people who are new and feel like we're so stuck in our inner circle they can't find their way in to have fun too.

And quality is something we do need more of...I personally think a reply that is literally three words is a bit of a disgrace when it comes to replying to someone's post, not even acknowledging what the other character is doing beyond the last sentence is a big issue I have been seeing lately, I know some people like their posts short...and I know some people NEED to make short posts but that is fine but a roleplay will die VERY fast if someone doesn't reply with something to give the other person more to write about or at least gives them something to do in the rp. This is a huge problem I have been finding on occasion that I think needs to be addressed, since it's another reason why I avoid in the main most of the time.

Maybe I am asking for too much, but whether we change the setting or not I think we need to acknowledge the main problems of the current situation first and work on them as a group, after all I know this rp means a lot to everyone and we should try and give it a bit of love and iron out our current problems.