vilakins | Theatrical Muse rant

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rant

Theatrical Muse rant

The people at theatrical_muse must have to take lessons in being annoying, humourless, and sticklers for huge numbers of rules, or be selected from personnel departments of large corporations. I already withdrew Kerril and Dayna because of officious e-mails, but I left vila_restal in to keep his journal active.

I did a topic a couple of weeks ago, and for once didn't cross-post to Vila's LJ because I chose to use a story written from his mother's POV in third person. I just got the rude standard e-mail telling me that unless I wrote something ASAP I'd be removed from the community. They cited rules 5, 6, and 7 of 21 Yes, 21 rules. Oh, joy.

[rolls eyes] When we started, all you have to do was post to TM itself. I always cross-posted and a while ago started adding the TM topics to memories to keep track of them in case I was accused of slacking. Somewhere along the line this became a rule along with giving the topic number. I can't keep up.

To the anal mods at TM: this is supposed to be fun, not a duty. I owe you some loyalty for sparking off an RPG which gave me great enjoyment, but there's not a hell of a lot left.

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I gave up on TM ages ago, mainly because I wasn't finding their questions particularly inspiring any more, but in part because of all the niggling rules. In a big community like that, having some rules is helpful or even necessary, and it does make sense not to keep people who aren't really participating when there might be others who'd very much like to participate using those characters. But IMHO, they definitely do err a bit on the draconian side, and there is often something about their tone that rubs one the wrong way slightly. At least, there certainly used to be when I was doing it. And changing the rules without notice is simply bad form.

Of course, there's nothing to keep you from appropriating their questions, or inventing your own, and posting them on Vila's LJ as frequently or infrequently as you like. Who needs 'em!

(And, hmm, now I'm thinking it might be an interesting

b7friday topic to nab some of their questions, or make some up, and invite people to respond for whatever character they like in whatever way they like. I may give that some more thought.)

there is often something about their tone that rubs one the wrong way slightly

Slightly? They annoy the hell out of me.

changing the rules without notice is simply bad form

To be fair, they possibly do post on TM that they've added yet more rules, but I'm not watching a comm with that many posts a day. A while back they sent me a snitty e-mail to say that I had to number my TM posts with the topic number. I've been doing that on TM but not Vila's LJ; they'll probably get annoyed about that soon. Sigh.

Yeah, I know, but the reality is that I would pretty much abandon Vila's LJ if I did that, as I have with Kerril and Dayna. :-(

Yeah, they might be interesting topics to mine for

b7friday. Here's the list of topics (http://www.theatricalmuse.net/topics.html).

BTW I haven't had any trouble posting or commenting on LJ, but I know others have. Very strange.

Yeah, that's way too busy of a community to watch on your flist, especially when 99% of the characters aren't even from fandoms you know. I did used to have

theatrical_fen friended, but I forget whether they made announcements there or not. Even it was full of tons of character intros and stuff. (I just went and looked at that comm for the first time in ages... Lots of snarky mod posts about what people should and shouldn't post there. *rolls eyes again*)

Cool. I'll add that to my list of

b7friday ideas. It's starting to dwindle. :)

I haven't even tried posting in a while, but I do seem not to be able to make long comments again. And it won't let me upload userpics. Very, very frustrating. :(

I just uploaded this one (deciding that there are enough Molesworth fans to warrant it). Maybe it's something to do with the pathway you use to get there, I dunno.

I found a post that says:
"you receive two warnings for lack of updating but after this on the third offence the journal is removed. There is no third warning - on the third offence the journal is removed."

Offence? [rolls eyes right across the room] Maybe it's time to stop being treated like a crimmo / naughty year 9 girl.

I don't know either, but it bites. Apparently different people are having different levels of difficulty. I seem to be somewhere in the middle between "full functionality" and "totally screwed."

It's amazing how much difference word choice can make in how people perceive what you're saying, isn't it? I mean, that's not even an unreasonable rule, but, geez, it really does sound like they think you're a "crimmo / naughty year 9 girl." I wonder if they even realize it.

Maybe not. But it sure colours the way I respond to them when they e-mail me.

Just popping in to add my two cents worth, I hope you don't mind. I'm mun for Johnny Ringo.

I agree with you how TM mods are handling situations, and unfortunately it highly depends on who you get who is anal or who is not. Or dare I say who favours whom. I've seen quite a few players pick and choose prompts, lack in adding prompts and STILL remain in the community. Many do not add the topic number ( I know I've never and if this is a new rule, it's a new one on me) or indeed even character name/fandom. Or some randomly add new fandoms to their characters.

The mod-ing is at best inconsistant and (to me) reeks highly of favouritism. I've had my problems there and not shy about being vocal about it, for the most part the problem has never been the mods (the mod for rpf is fab) but the players leave something to be desired. I will state I was 'silently' removed from tm because of my vocal displeasure at a current irritable ongoing roleplay. I was not happy about it, because I was up to date with said prompts and the only reason I could see I was removed was because of the rp drama. Something the mods say they dont mediate in.

I am pretty much disechanted with theatrical muse and have been for sometime. There questions are dry, there bed-side manners need improving, and the way they handle rules need consistancy (not that I would know about that much).

There are a few, very few, players/mods left there who I admire,and respect. The only reason I'm continuing to write there is out of sheer defiance.

You're right, it's now a duty...it's not something that's fun or even inspires creativity any more. And it's sad to see another mun/pup go because of this.

I hope that make sense. And once again sorry for butting in.

The rule that really bugged me was 11: Hiatus requests will not be granted for reasons such as, "my muse isn't speaking to me right now

This sounds like an invite to write uninspired rubbish or be axed. Personally I would far rather those who currently didn't feel inspired keep quiet until they do! I know

b7friday goes quiet sometimes, but at least when someone posts you know it's because they felt inspired by the topic, not because they had no choice....

I've found the questions uninspiring too. I don't know anything about the RP on TM or how it's handled though; we did our RP on another community.

I'm hanging in there for now, but I intend to jump before I'm pushed.

Exactly. If they let people post when they felt like it, members would drop out as they do in

b7friday, but new people would come along. They make a lot of extra work for themselves too.

Yeah, it seems stupid to me. IMHO, there's a world of difference between getting annoyed at people for dropping out of a ficathon (which is a limited, finite commitment which has a definite end, and could therefore reasonably expect people to give an extra push in order to fulfill their commitment) versus an ongoing community with ongoing "challenges" which keep coming and coming and coming. You can't expect people to be dedicated on that level, darn it, it's supposed to be a hobby, not a job.

Whereas

b7friday operates on the principle of "if you build it, they will come".

(Then again, I don't understand the attitude of folks who have a friends policy that says "If you don't post often enough, I'll defriend you". Sorry, I'm not here for your entertainment, I'm here for my own expressivity.)

friends policy that says "If you don't post often enough, I'll defriend you"

Are there really people like that? How can anyone know why someone posts rarely? You can comment to others if they vanish that you hope there's nothing bad happening to them, but to "defriend" that seems extreme.

We were *ordered* to take our roleplaying elsewhere- after about 2 threads, right at the beginning. I'm surprised that it's now allowed.

I walked away from it when I was told that posts must be a certain minimum length. That in combination with my character naturally preferring to be reticent and the topics becoming increasingly repetitious made it a joyless task.

It wasn't as if I even liked reading the comm since almost none of them were fandoms I knew.

I think I prefer B7 friday at least you are not compelled to write.
I mean my muse is sitting there at the moment twiddling its claws as I try to think of something under "science fiction".
I'm afraid my mind keeps riffing on "science fiction double feature picture show!"
It's not helping at all!

I have a friend (none of you know her) who regularly has an flist purge and removes anyone who doesn't comment on her journal. She obviously wants relationships; I prefer to see it as a reading list which also contains good friends.

They could go and see one and comment on it!

Yeah. I recycled an old story for my last entry. The only real reason I try to stay in is to keep Vila's LJ going.

I figure anyone who wants to read mine is welcome to it & they'll comment if they feel like it. I don't friend too many people because I'm too lazy to go around actively looking for folks. I do wish LJ would rename the 'friend' bit something neutral, like 'subscription' or 'reader'.

Yep. If it wasn't for AU, Avon would be in hibernation.

Me too. You can watch a community; you should be able to read a journal.

The friend I mentioned writes mostly about herself and what she does and thinks, and she likes conversations. She's an extrovert; that could also be a big factor. :-)

Its from "Rocky Horror" ! My mind refuses to go further than the image of Avon in Fishnets!

Damn. That's a pity.

Bwahaha!

Ah, fishnets! (http://community.livejournal.com/b7friday/111478.html)

LOL, yes! I wouldn't drink anything he served though.

Love the story!

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Theatrical Muse rant

Sigh. LJ won't let me comment. Maybe if I break it up into shorter comments...

That worked! Here's the rest of what I had to say.

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