since we're bringing up recolor and why people don't recommend menewsha to their friends, i will give my input...

recolor is pretty much everything i'd want in an avatar site as far as form and function goes. it's pretty well designed, the avatar/item system actively involves the users and ensures that all items are accessible, and because of that involvement there's a huge variety of themes and styles. when i do go on there, i feel like the site actually wants me to participate. on menewsha it almost feels the opposite. lots of uptight rules on what you can or can't post, how you can or can't post, and this overall vibe that if you're not making multi-paragraph responses, you're wasting your time because you won't get anything for it anyway.
the only reason i'm not more active on recolor is that the user base kinda makes me feel old. but as far as i'm aware, a lot of the users there when i joined were from gaia and the "community" of gaia was exactly why i left it. i probably haven't given recolor a fair chance, since i wasn't very active on it and haven't been there in months. i may check it out again.
but if i had to choose to recommend one of the two to a friend, i'd probably go with recolor even so i haven't used it in a while, myself.
i actually find a lot more good, discuss-able topics there than i do here. it gets so fast-paced sometimes that it's harder to keep up with, but there's a lot of activity and the spammy topics are generally kept in their designated areas. meanwhile on mene, we've got threads like "what's your favorite deli meat" in the gd of all places (no offense salvete lol). you can't really string a lasting discussion out of a lot of the threads here, and a lot of the ones that did have more in-depth topics are too old to post in but still visible on the first page. it feels like people are grasping at straws to make activity happen, yet when people do make "bigger" topics, i get the sense that a lot of users resent it.
despite giving the feel of having a younger crowd, recolor also allows for more mature and adult-oriented topics. this is a big one. on menewsha, i feel like i have to walk on eggshells and handle everything with kid gloves. i mean, if the theme of the site is feminine and anime/fantasy inspired and one of the rules in the rp section is that you can't even imply a history of sexual assault in a character's background, yet the site is structured in a rigid way that puts emphasis on working hard to earn a little gold and not doing anything that might be too "spam-like" or dare i say childish, it makes me wonder who the audience of this site is supposed to be. most avatar sites attract a crowd of users ranging from late teens to early thirties. mene gives me a weird vibe, like it's intended for the older end of that spectrum but designed for the 13-15 crowd. this is another thing i liked about several other sites: they acknowledged that older users would want more mature topics and themes, and made arrangements for that, and the sites overall are more geared toward a slightly older base in general. sometimes menewsha feels like a bunch of adults hanging out in chuck e cheese's, for lack of a better comparison.


advertising helps, i'm sure, but like i said in my previous post, sometimes the biggest problem is the nature of the site itself. you can bring in hundreds of new users, but you have to give them a reason to stay.

So Uncledaddy, would you think that if we updated the rules of the site it may help make improvements? Many rules I have seen to be out of date.

Originally Posted by The Wandering Poet

So Uncledaddy, would you think that if we updated the rules of the site it may help make improvements? Many rules I have seen to be out of date.

Every little bit helps, definitely. I think overall the site just needs to be refreshed. Doesn't feel like anything has changed since i joined the first time. But rules are a good place to start, especially in terms of maintaining a broader audience and a wider variety of topics and means of expression. if there are going to be any bigger changes in the future, an updated rule book would probably be the first step toward setting the right tone for the direction of the site and what its intentions are for the community.

Maybe since the staff are all volunteers, perhaps menewsha as a whole could be given a chance to volunteer for mene.

Maybe even turning the "penpal" status into a volunteer title. Users who are willing to do tasks for the staff who don't have the time. Such as helping find issues with the site.
Of course penpals already has it's own email option, so it could be done outside the view of new users.

Also since penpals are already volunteers (we have no extra perks or powers) it's simply be an extra bit of manpower for the staff.
We have artists, pixel artist, writers, surely we can all work together.

What is a penpal exactly?

---------- Post added 04-19-2017 at 03:19 PM ----------

Originally Posted by onsenmark

DID SOMEONE SAY MENEWSHA GAIA GUILD?

You're welcome.

I'm not talking about a menewsha guild on gaia. I mean a hangout thread that would be open to everyone, and seen by everyone

---------- Post added 04-19-2017 at 03:21 PM ----------

Originally Posted by The Wandering Poet

If I may ask Salvete, what is it that makes you not want to invite friends to Menewsha?

Everyone I know has more important things to do with their lives

---------- Post added 04-19-2017 at 03:21 PM ----------

Originally Posted by The Wandering Poet

Salvete - The cliques are formed through subscribing to threads. I must admit I do it too, but I have my account set-up to subscribe to any thread I post in, I find it helps me spread out.

I guess I don't really understand what cliques are? I thought clique implied exclusivity or being closed off to others

Originally Posted by onsenmark

DID SOMEONE SAY MENEWSHA GAIA GUILD?

You're welcome.

;) thanks hun!! I am already a mber but hopefully more join :D

Salvete - Penpals were Jelly's email buddies. She used it for testing the email system and to increase mene's email traffic so that Menewsha wasn't being sent to the spam folder.

More important things sure... but being able to wind down somewhere can be nice even if it's once a week or month.

The "closed off threads" I think are more of an illusion than anything else. I've never seen a user that wasn't welcome outside of a user nobody liked.

Originally Posted by uncledaddy

Every little bit helps, definitely. I think overall the site just needs to be refreshed. Doesn't feel like anything has changed since i joined the first time. But rules are a good place to start, especially in terms of maintaining a broader audience and a wider variety of topics and means of expression. if there are going to be any bigger changes in the future, an updated rule book would probably be the first step toward setting the right tone for the direction of the site and what its intentions are for the community.

this is what i was trying to get at with my other post. haha

I remember coming here after the close down of mobion. and when I got here it was a huge disappointment. I literally just discussed with my sister how dead this place is and how users choose certain other users to chat with amongst themselves. not only is this place dead, but I think (and this is imo so don't have a cow people) the atmosphere isn't as friendly as other sites I have been on. I feel like I cant build a actual friendship and so I just don't post or come on. I think menewsha could start with a chat room of some sort. maybe that will attract more users and people can actually interact with each other without checking in these forums. That's what its lacking. there's not enough forms of communication.

Menewsha actually did have a chatroom for a while. There wasn't any explanation ad to why they removed it, but it never worked for me. If love to see it make a comeback.

As to being less friendly. To be quite honest, the people you meet here are less friendly because they are more real. We aren't putting on fake personalities or acting like anyone else. What you see is who we are. Of course we have users who stick to their places but if it were true that we didn't want users in our threads why would we place links in our signatures? Why would we be encouraging new users to visit our threads?

But of all the places I have been there is nowhere I have found more people I could be friends with than a small community. There are quite a lot of people on here that I feel if I knew them irl we would most definitely be friends.

I think our biggest issue is that new users don't see that.

Originally Posted by The Wandering Poet

Salvete - Penpals were Jelly's email buddies. She used it for testing the email system and to increase mene's email traffic so that Menewsha wasn't being sent to the spam folder.

More important things sure... but being able to wind down somewhere can be nice even if it's once a week or month.

The "closed off threads" I think are more of an illusion than anything else. I've never seen a user that wasn't welcome outside of a user nobody liked.

thank you for letting me know

I agree with Uncledaddy. A lot of the rules are....a bit much, I am frequently scared to post. I totally understand mene doesn't want to get sued. But considering most of our users are older. If there was a subforum for adults or something with some slightly relaxed rules, that would be epic.

I actually would like a subforum for adults. I mean no pictures of course.

But given what a child at 13 can google, an adult oriented forum area would be very low on that list.
Though I have made an adult thread before 18+ only allowed, and not many wanted to post there. (Of course it had yo follow mene rules still)

Another suggestion about rule change. I agree with this. I feel there's a lot of people who are scared to post because many new users are reminded to follow these rules if they make a mistake posting. (which is understandable and fellow mene users are usually nice about confronting them) But still, it's restrictive and uncomfortable.
If someone just joins and makes a mistake in posting, usually the first poster to their thread is addressing their mistake right off the bat. Makes you not want to make threads afterwards at least in my experience. I didn't make many threads because i was kind of scared to mess up and look like a goof

To be honest a lot of menes rules aren't all that reinforced now. But the rules doesn't reflect that.
Back in 2007 it was a lot more reinforced. It's gradually gotten more lenient.

I remember once adding in a few extras 'o's for embellishment to a word, and got a freakin' warning for spamming. I showed them posts from other sites where I did the exact same thing, and they dropped it. But damn, back then it was super hardcore.

I remember the first time I considered joining, I think I did join (that was in 2011) and I was a frequent visitor of (the now long gone) Ernya, and I would often post in the Welcome thread and I kept getting Ernya mixed up with Menewsha and they gave me a warning for "copypasta". :/

Mene Chat was actually taken down because LITERALLY NO ONE USED IT. Lol...sorry for the caps. But...seriously...no one used the chat. You didn't get any gold from it so people posted in the forums instead.

Originally Posted by The Wandering Poet

The "closed off threads" I think are more of an illusion than anything else. I've never seen a user that wasn't welcome outside of a user nobody liked.

The thing is, a new user wouldn't know that. New users may see "closed", "private", or "invite only" and not even bother.

There's no getting older users to be more active. I think old users are as active as they can be given their real life commitments (lots of Mene members have aged now and spending time on forums just isn't the priority). So the focus should become getting new users here and then making them feel welcome enough to stay.

I don't think I've ever had a warning for rules here and, even though they are old, they seem pretty standard here. Some of the spam related rules might be a little lax now and probably should apply to more than they do.

I don't even remember a chat feature at all.

I agree with Empress Mene needs to appeal to a new crowd, new members, more people.
I think in order to do that it needs a drastic change. If the site doesn't change then no one would come because it would just feel like "same old same old"
which is nice. But inorder to bring in a wave of people, lots of things need to change.
I don't know if it would be possible tho

Maria - I tried to use it. I don't really care about gold so I liked the idea. But ultimately it was broken for me because it would never open properly... unless I was the only one trying to use it?

Empress - Are there really that many threads that say closed/private/etc that aren't roleplay threads? Those have slowly gone away over time haven't they?

Ignis - Also to note, many people leave again because nothing has changed in years.

People come back for the new events right? Because it's something slightly new and different that happens.

If there were more or new exciting events i think people would come back/ more people would join.

The events have gradually been going downhill to me though. Granted I was spoiled with coded events...

On the subject of inviting friends,
I have invited a couple of friends over the time I've been here, but none of them have joined. :s I don't know why they haven't joined, most of them said they would but they were busy.

I think events are good to get people more active, but the second the event ends everyone disappears again....

That is true Ava. The events bring us back, but many people go straight back on hiatus.
I've been guilty of doing that.