Other idea for a "finder"

[James]

Like the title says, I'm looking for 2 or 3 people to game with weekly, or every-other-week.

I live nowhere near Madison (unfortunately), but I'm glad to see the posting, anyway.  It lets me know that such a "players wanted" advert will not bring down the wrath of the Ones Who Watch.

Good luck finding folks.  I know how hard it can be.  I'm going to go draft my own announcement now.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi folks,

Ummm ... starting now, let's not do the "bulletin board, players wanted" thing at the Forge.

Or if we do, it should be on a separate Forge page dedicated to that purpose alone. (Hmm!)

Best,
Ron

P.S. This post does not apply to specific-game forums; each of those forums is entirely controlled by its Moderator. For instance, Jake welcomes player-finder posts on the Riddle of Steel forum.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I split this from a thread in Actual Play because I want to discuss this idea out loud.

Ron - how would you feel about another forum dedicated only - and I mean only to a "finder"? People could put up requests for:

 - players
 - artists
 - graphic designers
 - editors
 - playtesters

That's it - the forum would be used for nothing else, and to be honest, I'd probably crack down on it harder than any other forum (to prevent it becoming some sort of "off-topic" forum.)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Clinton,

I'm thinkin' that a forum really isn't the right medium for this purpose. I think it would go two ways: basically moribund and under-used, or basically an off-topic chat place. I'd much prefer a whole Forge page that was dedicated to finding things: (a) RPG design and publishing services, (b) people to play with.

All's open to debate and comments at this point, of course.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Yeah, I don't think a forum page would really work.  I think it would get so annoying sifting through the posts to find ones that I may be interested that I'd just stop doing it.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I have no problem with it being little-used, personally.

I'll be honest. A "page" (whatever you mean by that - I'm assuming the ideas already talked about this morning) means me sitting down and writing software. It also means that people coming to the Forge have to click on something else and figure out how to work it. (Over 90% of the traffic to the Forge is the forums. In the eyes of most people, the forums are the Forge.)

While the forum isn't the optimal solution for a "finder," in this case, it might be the best: it'll get more used in the forum than anywhere else, and it saves me a lot of time.

- Clinton

(I do want to mention that I have no problem with the idea of not doing this at all. There's lots of resources for this sort of thing out there, and the lack of use of the resource library leads me to believe that whatever we do on this will be a waste of time as well. The above suggestion's only if we decide to create some sort of person finder.)

[xiombarg]

I think the base way to go would be some sort of database that people can post info to. However, this means more work for Clinton. :-)

[Valamir]

How is the resource library "little used".

I posted a link and it garnered 14 hits in 2 days.  Somebodies using it.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

How is the resource library "little used".

I posted a link and it garnered 14 hits in 2 days.  Somebodies using it.

This is getting off topic, but I'll answer. It's actually well-used by people going to find something. These aren't the same people that frequent the forums, according to statistics (IP addresses.)

It's poorly used by people actually submitting new links to anything besides games - and usually their own games. I rarely see a new artist link, for example.

[Matt Gwinn]

I think a good idea would be to have options in your profile indicating where you live and how far you are willing to drive to game.  I know matchmaker services have software to find people within x number of miles from you.  Is that kind of software available for the forum?

,Matt