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Bad RPers Suck! An open forum that lets us insanely complain about the things that annoy us the most about the hobby we enjoy the most is healthy for us. It's like free therapy at times. It's a way to work through our problems without having to pay some schmuck with a degree to tell us the things we already know about ourselves. I mean, seriously. We're obviously crazy. That's why we're role-players. With this understanding in mind, I created the Bitch Fest board on Mutual Endeavors. In the role-playing world, as in real life, I knew that the longer we got to know the people we interact with, the more likely it was that eventually at some point something was bound to piss us off to the extent of wanting to verbally tear someone else's throat out. Then after some cooling-off time, we'd come back, review what we'd written, laugh at ourselves for being such assholes, and further discuss our differences until reaching a compromising conclusion.
Some people may think having the Bitch Fest board on Mutual Endeavors gives our site and our community a bad image. I tend to disagree with this opinion, because I know that at least 8,000 role-players elsewhere on the Internet agree with me. This LiveJournal community is known as Bad RPers Suck!, and they have been active since September 2, 2002. For the March issue of Ubique's Monthly, I took the opportunity recently in February to interview the maintainer of this community; a feisty and spirited woman known by the handle of ragabashtule. Despite the community she represents and oversees, I've discovered ragabashtule to be a delightfully good-humored woman to talk to. She has precisely the sense of humor one needs in order to not hold silly grudges over petty arguments. This interview took place in e-mail format, and the responses I received were dated February 20, 2008. Some of the information contained in this interview may be out-dated by now, but much of it is still worthwhile to know. ehzoterik : Why did you create BRPS? ragabashtule : I created BRPS because I was inspired by customers_suck, co_workers_suck, walmart_sucks and the other ________sucks communities on LJ. I noticed that there wasn't one for RPers to go complain at, and since I was commiserating with a lot of my RPing friends about bad RPing experiences, I decided to create BRPS so all of us LJ-using RPers would have a place to go rant.
ehzoterik : On average, how many people join or request to join the community per day? ragabashtule : Though I haven't been keeping track, I think we probably get a few hundred [new members] a month. I try to check it once weekly. When I checked at the beginning of Feb., we had around 7900 members. Now, today, we have 8127. ehzoterik : How many posts would you estimate on average are added to the community per day? ragabashtule : I'd say we average about 13-15 or so [posts] a day -- depends on the day of the week. We averaged about 14 posts per day in Jan. (427/31). So far this month we have about 13 posts per day (268/21). ehzoterik : If you were to choose, which post listed in the honorary memories section of the community is your number one favorite and why? ragabashtule : My number one favourite would have to be this one: I laugh every time I read it and it never gets old.
ehzoterik : How often do you receive an e-mail from some moron who didn't take the time to read the general rules listed in the LJ community userinfo section? ragabashtule : I've actually never gotten an email from anyone about not having read the userinfo. I have, however, gotten email notifications from people who want to point out an inflammatory post, or a post with inappropriate content. I get maybe one of those every few months. ehzoterik : If you were to give out an award to the best BRPS member of all time, who would it be and why? ragabashtule : Hmm. Hard to say, but I think it would probably go to one of the people in the HP drama thread. Or one of the trolls who kept coming to the community to preach about how their character wasn't a Sue/Stu and getting roasted by everyone. I love gluttons for punishment! ehzoterik : Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about BRPS? ragabashtule : Just that I'm really surprised how much this community has taken off since it started. I really only intended for it to be a place where a handful of my online friends and I could bitch about bad roleplaying. I never expected that it would take on such a following of over 8000 members. I guess I severely underestimated the power of word of mouth. But I guess since it is the only community of its kind to exist, that a huge following should be expected. I'm also sort of surprised at the lack of "complaint" emails I get. With how much it's grown, I guess I expect more people to know someone who knows someone who tells them that they've been showcased as a bad RPer on BRPS, and to have said person come over and stir the pot. We have gotten a few, but I can only count them on one hand. Don't be too surprised, ragabashtule; I can completely sympathize. With as largely as Mutual Endeavors has grown over the past seven months since it's evolution into a web page, I'm amazed that I haven't received any hate mail either! In some cases I literally ask for it. Hate mail or no, the continued success of BRPS helps prove my Bitch-Festing philosophy is sound.
There's always that one in a thousand who disagrees, like my dear friend Randy. He says, "I generally hate BRPS and the Bitch Fest board is probably going to blind me with the stupidity that rolls off of it one day." All things considered, however, that's the beauty of it all. Sharing that notoriously blinding stupidity with the rest of the world somehow has a way of making us feel better about ourselves. Even if it's our own stupidity.
Sane human beings have a basic need to blow their top and throw unholy temper tantrums about the things that piss them off. So if you're a human being, a real living and breathing flesh and blood person sitting at home on your desk chair, stuck in your pajamas and fed up with the RP world at large for whatever reason -- if you have a LiveJournal too -- then check out Bad RPers Suck! Perhaps it's the gold at the end of the rainbow you've been searching for all your role-playing life and never managed to trip over ... until now. -- The Nefarious SM
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Ubique's Monthly
Mutual Endeavors Additional editing by: -- The Signal
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Ubique's Monthly
Mutual Endeavors
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