While I commend the effort to bring discourse to the realism of Pacifica RP, I do have some practical thoughts as well as ‘ideological’ ones.
RP Mods
First of all I’d like to ask the current RP mods whether or not it’s wishful to have such a hands-on approach to RP’s and also if they have the time for it? I think not everyone is 24/7 disposable to read every little tidbit of all RP’s. Though as I understand it, these reforms would expand the number of RP moderators. Which raises the question, does our current community have sufficient candidates to fill those role? I don’t think it’s entirely my place to decide for that and more so for the current RP mods to decide as they have first-hand experience.
I’m open to the proposal and maybe a candidate for it myself, but I think I can bring some valuable insights. For example, I may have pointed out in my last ‘official’ days in the A1-0 canon of some irregularities to the canon’s general ruleset. This didn’t quite have the same effect I wished for and was told to let things evolve as the community has changed. Or maybe I didn’t have the rank to pull in those conversation. I think in essence, enforcing ‘harsh’ rules – or perhaps interpreted as harsh – does need to be a careful process with the right tactfulness, something to be considered when expanding the number of RP mods to not change an open culture to a nitpicky one. Which brings me to my next point of our RP culture.
RP Culture
I think our RP culture is fairly open for different RP styles and something we should keep. I fear that if we were to enforce the suggested rules, we might push people into a certain RP style. Granted it may bring more realism to Pacifica, but I believe a change in rules to be the short-term solution. However, we may achieve the same result by taking another path with a long-term implementation: the cultivation of an onboarding RP culture.
As stated, unrealistic RP’ers are easily ignored and then retconned once they fail the activity check which creates a retcon cycle. While somewhat unavoidable to an extent, I do believe that by implementing an open onboarding RP culture we can successfully ‘integrate’ newcomers to our open RP culture. By helping newcomers settle in with our RP standards, we can more easily integrate them and form more durable RP’s with them.
That being said, I do believe the suggested reforms do have some merit to form guidelines. I think if we frame it like that, it doesn’t feel as forceful, but it still accomplishes our wish for more realism & lasting RP members. I’ve made an example of the A1-0 canon a while back. Maybe something similar needs to be redone on the new forums for Pacifica as there were previous iterations on past forums. Furthermore, I do believe that the war section of my A1-0 guide still holds guiding principles which also apply in the Pacifica canon. Perhaps an interim solution could be to advertise that aspect more for now until a general Pacifica guide is made. Something which I might have an interest to help with, I might add.
Website & Discord Onboarding
The thing is that these guides should become more visible to our RP community. Be it through posts in Discord announcements, pinned on the forums or showcased in the wizard when new members register to the forum. It could help a long way in my opinion to help newcomers realise what the standards of our communities are.
In addition, we maybe should be a bit more proactive in a sense concerning unrealistic elements of Pacifica RP. For example, ask newcomers why their GDP is so high? Or why they believe themselves to be the new top dollar nation. It invokes dialogue which is necessary to further cement the realisation that such big claims require time to make them believe. What good is a 17 trillionaire nation with 2 billion citizens if it doesn’t RP like one? Dialogue is what makes people stick to our community, not a strict enforcement. Though admittedly, this will take efforts from the community at large maybe to truly make it feasible. Though again there might be a solution to that which I’ll address in the next point.
Senior RP’ers
We have recently installed the role of Senior RP’ers in our community. Perhaps they could be leading members to help onboard newcomers as well. Or primary members of the community to which newcomers can come with their question by say ping them through Discord. Though again, this should also be advertised similarly to the above stated onboarding methods for the guides. I think it gives the role of Senior RP’er a bit more meaning and direction for newcomers to start a conversation with the community at large or one-on-one. I guess one could describe them as ‘RP Mods lite’.
Anyways, this pretty much summarises my insights & ideas to resolve the core problem to my understanding.