comment/feedback before I go

[Bubbles]

I thought some feedback would be helpful, since you all kindly ask to say when you have problems and what not. I shall put it in a sandwich of positivity. which is positive comments>negative>positive

So firstly I'd like to say you are all really nice, funny people. Very welcoming which made me ignore a lot of the negative stuff. I think there's a lot of clever forums and the arcade is cool even though it wiggs out a bit on me. 

First negative: the ads I put up with them but I think if you could somehow change there content it would be fantasmagorical ^^

Secondly I dunno if its just me but my pages take a really long time to load. Which I ignored cause I'd just open up another tab and do something else while I was waiting. 

But the thing that got me was the community posting and having to have the need to new locations past administrators. I understand its your site so if you want things a certain way then fine but I'd suggest maybe adding just a freeform rp thread so one can be creative without having to worry about it or having to take it to ecchitexts.

Lastly..is it just me or is there no delete button for topics you make?

Okay more positive stuff: I love how you can make your own species, beasts and creatures. I actually like how in depth the character skeleton is even if it takes you a long time.. i suppose it makes you more,,,dedicated to your character. And lastly I like the reward based system, its interesting. 

Anyway thats all I got to say ^_^

[Arsha]

I actually agree with quite a few the points, but not all of them.

 

I'm personally fine with the advertisements, but I can understand how many would be annoyed by them.

Like all ads though, they're a necessary evil if things are to be kept free... plus, I think some of them are hot. xD

 

I'm not really sure what the issue was with loading times since my pages are loading fine.

 

What I did strongly agree with is the roleplaying component of the site.

I've been a bit busy and restricted over the past week, so I haven't really tried it myself.

But reading the guidelines I have to admit that the site is quite demanding when it comes to roleplay standards.

Control insures quality, but I feel as if quality is being prioritized so much that it becomes intimidating for casual roleplayers who aren't as strict, realistic and professional as the site requires.

 

I've already suggested how a general roleplay section for 1x1's would be beneficial to site activity.

As I believe it would solve many problems the site has for people like you and myself.

Unfortunately I also acknowledge how a general roleplay section would possibly divert the limited attention the establish roleplays are getting. However, as things stand at the moment, the site isn't retaining the members they gain.

 

I don't know if this was a positive setup/formula in the past, but a trend I've been noticing over my years of RP'ing is the unfortunate decline of members. And I really feel it's necessary to take a step out of accustomed traditions and take a step towards a more open approach that caters to a wider audience.

 

I can't promise activity either, but I'll continue visiting the site sporadically in hopes of something that catches my eye.

The Admins hinted at how they had a pleasant surprised for its memberbase, so I'm going to hold out until then at the very least.

[Novaer]

Thank you for your feedback, I'd like to respond to your negative bits concerns before I get to the good stuff. ^_^

The adverts pay for our advertising, this month I have:

• Scaled it back (Removed the one from the sidebar, removed the one that loads with the gallery and the one that opens on Mobile Browsers). Leaving three squares at the bottom of every page, the one banner under a first post and that's it.
• Disabled Animated Adverts (Quicker page loading times as usually GIFs are larger than JPGs. That and the feedback I got was it was too distracting).
• Am considering consolidating those three adverts at the bottom to one easy to repay loan banner advert. (Less images -> Less Loading Time -> Less Advertising) It means less money for us, but at this point the positives out weigh the negatives. Especially with the Non-Hentai Adverts showing up all the darn time.

I am also unhappy with the adverts and have complained numerous times about this site being a hentai site that displays non-hentai adverts. Unfortunately our Advertising Hosts can't seem to reconise the problem, and to be honest feels like a conspiracy to get less clicks from us (Thus less money we can use for our own advertising), either that or they genuinely don't believe that a hentai site, you're likely to get more clicks with relevant advertising. I am constantly on them for this, and to be honest it's something I'm very quickly becoming sick and tired of also. It's something between me and the advertiser. Infact writing this post, I see three adverts that have nothing to do with Hentai. (I see them too)

Advertising could be disabled all together; however this would mean that our advertising budget would be non-existent at all. We're using the money we generate from Adverts to Advertise ourselves.

Secondly; again you're absolutely right. This is a problem I'm still working very hard on solving. Infact... I've been talking about it in the staff forums for quite some time, and whilst there's been major improvements since EDC6.5 (Beta), I still agree there's room for more improvement, and I'm working on it, or as much as I can without my computer. I won't tell you to get a better internet connection as there are a number of factors that dictate how quick/slow a page loads, it's not just your particular connection speed (although that's a portion of the factor, not all of it). The site usually loads a lot of graphical content as well as the framework and everything else, not only that but it has to read from a database and translate it into readable text (Rendered). I promise you I am working on it (already), I'm not currently ready to make an announcement on it (As I said I'm still solving it) but here's a sneak peak so far.

Tripp, on 16 Feb 2014 - 06:09, said:
Not only that but our server response time is drastically cut down too, obviously the more improvements I can make the better.
 

Unfortunately to make further cutbacks EDC6.6 may see the transparent PNG image at the top of the forums disappear for a lower-sized jpg image and the actual background (The clouds and stuff) being either turned down to a lower resolution or taken out completely. (Or maybe even a new default that isn't as heavy on graphics). Currently the order of skins (in terms of weight) from lowest to highest is:

• Mobile EcchiTheme
• Lite EcchiTeme
• Light EcchiTheme <--- Default
• Dark EcchiTheme

The next issue is with the RPs; I believe there maybe some confusion. A location thread must pass the Roleplay Administrator or Roleplay Moderators approval; this is purely to ensure a flow, or some kind of format that as well as identifying who needs help with what and where. NeppyNepNep intended this only to "Keep the peace" as it were. As for freeform RP, there has been a lot of people (Just recently) who started suggesting this...

In the past... We've had a load of people suddenly register to EcchiDreams over a period of a few weeks/months all suggesting the same thing, something that had never been suggested before, and always something extremely radical that would fundamentally change the way in which we work. As soon as these changes are implemented, the people that spearheaded the change disappear (and leave). One has to appreciate our point of view in that it looks extremely suspicious. Especially when it's a 100% of the time. To name a few examples:

• Saint Arc used to be a standalone RP. Before we had Thorndown Uni (Flagship) and Mercury (Yaoi) and people wanted a Yuri one. We "caved" to demand... Almost immediately everyone who said they would RP in it, didn't and everyone who spearheaded it left, abruptly (All that the same time)
• Same thing happened for the "Porn/No Porn" Banner. Which was recently over turned. Again; 100% of everyone who spearheaded it originally has long gone.
• Again; with one on one/personal roleplaying which is brand new. Was privately spearheaded by a number of members; who have (since the creation of) have gone.

Time and time again, when we make radical changes the people who ask for those changes leave. From our position this looks pretty bad. It's one of the reasons why we have a zero tolerance policy on Multiple Accounts.

On top of that; our RP suite is what makes us unique in our eyes. It's our specially designed format that wasn't supposed to be "More Work" it was supposed to make things easier (not necessarily when filling out, but when reading, and actually roleplaying). To be honest I personally don't want this free-form RP thread, because I don't want EcchiDreams to become "Another unoriginal RP site." [No offence to other unoriginal RP sites.] We pride ourselves in the fact we have a system, and we have a format. That said; the idea is not completely out of the question; I promised another member (Who I won't name unless s/he wants to name themselves), that we'd at least research the idea and we are.

I know this might not be what you want to hear; but I don't believe in lying to our members. If this goes ahead there will be problems because of our format...

• One on One RPing will likely close down, instead we'll just say you'll have to put it in your profile that you do one on one RPing via EcchiText.
• The Scenario Suites will likely stay just like that, and will continue to be the "Flagship" of our RP section.
• There will likely be limits in place for the Free-Form RP, that members will most definitely not like and would argue makes the whole thing pointless in the first place.

That said I do see where you're all coming from and the idea isn't completely off the table; we need to research it; make notes and once we have a full informed decision we will make a thread and run it by all members to give everyone a chance to put their thoughts and opinions in before we make a final decision. So I'm not saying no; I promise another member we'd at least do this (Think -&gt; Research -&gt; Public Debate) before we actually commit one way or the other. That said NeppyNepNep is already reforming the RP and the suggestions will be taken and put on the new "Plot/graph/thing" in our "Office". [i can't talk about what's she's doing though. It's a surprise.]

Lastly; There is no delete button, you're right. If you want to delete something please report the first post in your thread and when asked to put in a comment just put something along the lines of "Please can you delete this for me". It'll be done ASAP assuming that it won't take down a lot of content from EcchiDreams. The edit button also disappears after around 10 days (I think) because of abuse that's happened in the past. (In 2009; we had a member who had made over 1,000 posts who then, after getting into a tiff with the Site Administrator at the time went and changed all his posts to XXXXXXXXXX. Childish and immature in my opinion.) It was one of the things Illogically Logical introduced that I actually did approve of (but probably not so much today, as I feel the community is mentally a lot older than it was back then).

Now I've handled the negative stuff; I can enjoy the positives like a fine dessert. Thank you for your feedback on the forum structure, it's something that everyone works on keeping organised and well structured. The Arcade is a weird feature to have on a hentai site, that's for sure; but we've always had one. I'm not sure what you mean by wigs out on you though; and if there are problems with it let me know and hopefully I can tell you what's causing it or better yet, fix it. As for the RP stuff; yeah that's our format... We're kinda encouraging everyone to think about stuff; make their creations to be something that they're proud of (just like Neppy and I are about the UFFians/EPSI Federation Members)... I mean we're so proud of it; that whilst rebuilding the site we stuck an Easter Egg in the Country Selection area hence why we have weird purple crescents in our country flag. I like the reward based system; it's just a shame the Module Dev went AWOL, because it's completely broken. (Looking to have it fixed by EDC 6.6)

Thanks for your insight Bubbles. I hope this satisfies you as a response. ^_^

[Arsha]

Hmm, I can understand the need for caution when implementing new content. Since revoking them later makes the site look poorly managed. But I'm a bit curious as to how long it took between people suggesting, and people disappearing. New members aren't exactly known for their loyalty and commitment, and I can easily imagine people leaving within a few days if they feel their ideas have been ignored, or if they simply feel it's taking too long.

There are plenty of alternatives for those wanting to roleplay mature content, and people are likely to jump ship if they're introduced to a site that already offers what they're looking for.
I completely agree that the RP suite should remain unchanged, it's a unique feature that could be used to set the site apart from other 'unoriginal forums.'
I'm a complete novice when it comes to forum bandwidth limitations, and how long it takes to load stuff. But ideally if EcchiDreams can provide both the "Unoriginal-content" as well as the specially tailored RP Suite. I think it could attract a lot more members.

As I said before though, I feel the focus should be put on member retention, not member attraction. Even if you got a hundred members daily, there's no point if they're all leaving within a week.

Ecchitext works... sort of. The only problem with Ecchitext I have is that it's private.
I often start/accept RP's with people based on how compatible I feel with their style. I've had a lot of people message me over the years asking to roleplay, and rejected most of them simply because a quick look at their previous roleplays foretells how I wouldn't be satisfied with their grammar, length or writing style. I suppose I could persistently probe them in Ecchitext...
But Ecchitext privacy also subtracts from how active the forum looks. A hundred posts between another player and myself would keep us engaged, but to everyone else in the forum, it would seem as inactive and dead as if there were no posts made at all.

I'm pretty passionate about this idea, so I apologize if I seem demanding, rude or anything else unpleasant. It's a basic feature on many forums, and I can understand how a site may want to be 'different' but I'm not sure that's a luxury the site can afford at this stage.

I've only been here for a week now, so I probably seem obnoxious too xD

[Novaer]

Firstly I want to publicly recongise your passion and your logically-well thought out arguments and I fully encourage this kind of dialogue. Thank you for reading and responding to my thoughts on the matter. I really, really appreciate it. You're not afraid to tell someone who's in charge how it looks from your perspective and I really admire that. 

 

To answer your curious question; the thread is usually open for a month. Each example had different timings... But in this order (from my memory) it went something like this:

• There a debate thread, however after 29 votes for, and 0 votes against after a week the thread was closed. It was a record at the time actually. Out of the 29 votes about 14 people said they'd make a character as soon as it opened. NeppyNepNep created a character in there ready to RP with anyone who wanted to RP in there; however when the time came... No one else did. Six months later the section was considered a failure. Only 1 character in there, one post. Nothing else. Every single person who spearheaded it left by then. The Forum Administrator at the time (To make it clear here and now; not the current Forum Admin) blamed the failure on NeppyNepNep for not endorsing the section like she did with the others, and that caused a bit of an internal shitstorm between the staff (Off and On the site). In the end as Neppy kept the drama off ED, and the Forum Administrator at the time didn't, the Forum Administrator received a formal warning from NekoLust (Site Administrator at the time) to pack it in. I pointed out that if the Forum Admin was so worried at the time about endorsement, why didn't she make a character. To this day I never got a response. 
• The Porn/No Porn debate wasn't closed early but in the end it received a 60-80% majority in-favour vote. Where as this time it received 100% against. I'm not sure what sparked that one off either. I know the same Forum Administrator was in place back then and she was in-favour of it becoming less in your face. There's also something else that we believe may have happened that was being investigated by the previous Site Administrator, which I wasn't actually told about until this year. Something that I don't even know is worth repeating.
• There was no debate for the One on One RPing thread. A few members pointed out a flaw in our advertising that we didn't seem to allow for One on One RPing. We felt we were shunting a whole group of RPers who didn't want to do Public RPing (That was the language used at the time) "I'm not comfortable with public roleplaying... Is there anywhere I can advertise private roleplaying?" at the time we'd respond "Yes, post a status, put it in your siggy or about me in your profile" people felt that we were hiding and brushing a segment of roleplayers away "Just because we don't conform to your idea of roleplaying." o_O you read that right. So to put that to rest we created the one on one roleplaying forum; which has been... Disappointing to say the least. The amount of people who wanted it to the amount of people who actually used it ... Yeah. 

All in all the time scales were put down, we were transparent about what we were doing (as we believe in transparency in that regard) I wish I could say that it was because people thought we were doing nothing but this is looking less likely. I dunno... It's easy to jump to paranoid conclusions but I don't think (or rather I hope it's not) malicious. I concede to your point that RP via EcchiText subtracts the activity of the site. So another solution must be looked at. It's possible if the section does go; that it'll return when activity picks back up.

 

As for your points I appreciate your feedback and I've passed it onto Neppy who will look into it. Currently we're waiting for my computer, as she's very generously loaned me her laptop which we're hap-hazardly sharing (also the Tablet) until my computer is returned to me by my insurers. I will say that when EDC6.6 is released the ToS, Site Guidelines, RP, Forums, Gallery and EcchiSocial Guidlines will be completely re-written. (As most of it is based off the original 2007 documents which is 7 years old and clearly not working, too heavy handed and serious.) We also cannot ignore the fact that over 40% of our active users now use mobile/tablet devices either. So there are big changes coming all round.

 

We're calling it; The Great EcchiReform. 

[Whoreo]

There a debate thread, however after 29 votes for, and 0 votes against after a week the thread was closed. It was a record at the time actually. Out of the 29 votes about 14 people said they'd make a character as soon as it opened. NeppyNepNep created a character in there ready to RP with anyone who wanted to RP in there; however when the time came... No one else did. Six months later the section was considered a failure. Only 1 character in there, one post. Nothing else. Every single person who spearheaded it left by then. The Forum Administrator at the time (To make it clear here and now; not the current Forum Admin) blamed the failure on NeppyNepNep for not endorsing the section like she did with the others, and that caused a bit of an internal shitstorm between the staff (Off and On the site). In the end as Neppy kept the drama off ED, and the Forum Administrator at the time didn't, the Forum Administrator received a formal warning from NekoLust (Site Administrator at the time) to pack it in. I pointed out that if the Forum Admin was so worried at the time about endorsement, why didn't she make a character. To this day I never got a response. 

 

I remember this and I have to say all the abuse aimed at NeppyNepNep is disgustingly underseved. she doesn't usually have bad things to say about people and she is a fair and honest person who's done nothing to nobody. she gives everything her all and I think its bloody outragious that she's been treated like this. I said it then, I said it now.

 

I also think it's a little strange how the topic starter started this topic and didn't even hang around long enough to read your response or anything. wouldn't someone who's pointing out problems like that, someone who went through the time to actually do that want to read the responses? even if she is leaving (which is her right to, nothing says she has to stay right?). ah well -- thanks for the response Tripp - for the record I have no clue what she means about the loading speed of the site works fine for me and I'm on a 3G connection, in a crappy area, through TOR so yeah.......

[Novaer]

You are correct. Although I am surprised you're able to use TOR on here, as we don't (yet) officially support it. Up until last year I wouldn't recommend its use at all; but now I totally recommend its use. If you don't want us to have your IP address not necessarily because of us, right? I can understand. But we ask you to remain within the ToS. We won't otherwise stop you anymore just because you're using TOR, I can't do that on moral and ethical reasons.

 

You are also correct in that Neppy doesn't deserve the crap she gets. Arguably she's probably put more into this site than I have, and that's why we both now lead the community. I like to think we care about each other. (Not just staff on staff but everyone on everyone)

 

You're also right that it's Bubbles right not to even read my post. My reply is a public acknowledgement of our failings and what's being done to rectify these issues. I see myself as accountable to the community and I'm under very real pressure to get it right, not wrong. I'm bound to make mistakes... We all do. Keep EcchiDreaming~

[Novaer]

A lot of these issues have already been fixed; it is of course still an ongoing process. As for more freedom in the Roleplay Section; well... We researched the possibility and have included an Independant Roleplay Section that allows you to create your own roleplay of which others can join in and play. We're still waiting for public feedback, but at the moment - exactly as I predicted would happen is currently happening. We'll see if there is actually any feedback on this.

 

As Announced: https://www.ecchidreams.com/topic/813-the-big-announcement/ 

 

The thread is closed for now, because I feel we've fulfilled all the points raised.