perhaps it's more like:
"we only have 10 men left in our battalion general."
"put them into a coma"

not entirely dead, but unable to do anything for an indefinite period.

but in light that it has been 31 months since we have gotten any official Avatar storyline [give or take a few weeks. I'm counting this from the finale. we do not have enough Korra information right now to do much with it], this is the kind of activity that is basically on most other avatar sites as well, having seen it myself from either visiting, being a member, or any combination of the above.

I've actually seen more people pop in here than I have in most other places , and so really, expectation of more activity than this when it's an internet-ional circumstance, is somewhat ridiculous and/or unrealistic.

I didn't expect to change anyone's verdicts; just felt like this needed to be said as my defense of this place.

~Tenoko~

only reason it would matter to me was so I could change certain parts of my post as necessary.
in other words, I didn't want to be throwing out any false 'accusations' [that's not really the right word], or opinions based on false [or missing] information. that's all.

but of course logins and activity are going to after that kind of an announcement. it defeats the purpose of signing up, inviting friends to sign up, starting new story arcs, and that sort of thing. no point starting business in a district that's about to close down.
so I wasn't trying to use the rest of the world as an example so much as I was indicating that perhaps your standards for activity were a bit too unrealistic. I have indirectly implied this several tiems in the past though, so coming from me this isn't new.

and with this post, I was just clarifying what I had said previous. This still is no attack.
~Tenoko~

Tenoko, I think the fact that most people are not surprised shows me that I made the right decision, and believe me, I also felt like a part of me died. I have tried to run too many sites that I've started when it was clear it was over, and I didn't want this to be another. I'm sorry that you're sad - we all are.

Hanabi, if you do not finish by the first, you are free to go to PM's, as Toph said.

(Off topic, I'm glad my hard drive is now replaced so I can actually post here. -_-)

no, various factors lead me to not be surprised. nevertheless, I felt, as I usually [not always in a rational way] do, that voicing my opinion was a good idea.

so I did.
~Tenoko~

I'm am surprised and at the same time I am very displeased by this. I mean I can understand 'no new signups' but...

Tenoko is right, I think a better metaphor would be "We're quitting on you before you quit on us." or, "We're small so we might as well stop existing."

I mean I understand not wanting to bog down with staff and stuff. But why not just shut down sign ups and let the current members be? Why do you have to make it so we can't post together? Can we honestly really be expected to carry out RP in PMs? There's no way to read it or post it. And no one could RP with more then one person.

I can speak for pretty much everyone when I express disappointment and loss. You don't want to do this but you think you have too.

I honestly think the real people who lost here are your new sign ups, not us old veterans of the site who've been posting since way back when.

But I'll be frankly honest. Once you shut this site down, Korra will not save it. Reopening won't just bring in new bodies. What's going to happen is when you shut down a few people will 'maybe' post to each other in PMs, but then they will leave. The site will die, be marked as a dead site on affiliate sites. Then when Korra comes out, even if it is reopened your chances of recovery are at best slim.

Here are several reasons that relaunching will be hard.

1: Relaunched sites rarely get people taking in because they can't claim characters they want, even open ones without learning what happened earlier with that character. Very few people are gonna want to read 200+ Posts to see 'what's up' with <Insert Canon Here>.

2: You've taken and been active so long that the entire plot will be different from what Korra would be naturally. The whole thing with the Karena and Zuko thing. The Toph and the Hunt and never joining the Gaang and so on and so on.

3: With that much difference the only thing that will make activity rise is activity present. We may be a small group but we're as active as anywhere else in the Avatar RPG community. When Avatar rises with Korra you will need that activity to bring in more. Because I doubt new people will want to leap into a plot where all the old players are gone and no activity has happened yet a whole history they know nothing about to keep in mind.

Put Plainly. Too much has happened and without the current players to keep things rolling, no ones gonna leap on.

Okay, I may get a warning for this post, but honestly, I'm doing this because of what I've read in this thread so far.

Guys (those who are all "OMG THE BOARD IS CLOSING I'M SO MAD), QUIT YOUR BITCHING.1) It's not going to change what's already been put into motion, and 2) it makes you look petulant and bitter, especially because of #1.

That being said, it makes me sad that TARP is "closing down," so to speak, especially after the fact that I've been here for almost three years and that I was on staff at one point. This is a wonderful forum, but being a former staff member, I also know that Kami and Karena wouldn't do this without a very good reason; also, knowing what I know about staff, they have to do what's best for the forum, regardless of what the members think.

In any case, it's been a good run and I've had fun RPing here.

[WARNING ANOTHER TL;DR POST BELOW]

so any expression of opinion and result becomes bitching now? sad world we live in.
Hanabi is exactly right. most prominently with relaunched sites never doing nearly as well as they did before closing [and when I say that, I'm comparing day of relaunch vs. day before closing.]

There were two different sites that suffered similar symptoms. one, the admin closed down for 3 weeks for no reason. it got about 200 visitors a day. once it reopened, that number was down to 50. now it's down to about 2.

the other was up and down for about a month because of server issues. This one had upwards of 550 visitors a day, but because of the "closure" [inability to access anything but the chat room] due to the faulty servers, once that problem was resolved about a month later (also keep in mind that there were sporadic days where things worked normally in between the downtimes), the visitor rate dropped to just below 100, and 6 months crash-free days later, that rate is still pits.

so why do I bring these things up? it's already been abundantly clear that yes, those suites are not TARP, and that no one here runs any of them there. That is not my reason. again, it can go back to the Fifth Law of Internet Traffic*.

also, I'd like to add to Hanabi's point on the story, which I honestly had not kept too much track of since my characters have been off doing stuff that did not affect the canon characters. Having RP'd for enough time in my life, (as well as different styles. yes, I am a first-rate RPG/D&D nerd in so many ways), there just comes times when things need to be powerplayed by the DM/GM just to get things rolling again. in the campaigns I was in, the players and DM chipped in ideas (so ultimately, no one really got powerplayed, now that I think about it >.>) and then moved the story ahead a little to get things running again. That's the beauty of role-playing. There is no Almighty God [well, there is a God IRL, but not getting into that] that will strike you down if you choose not to play out every second of every minute of your character's life.

However, I cannot stand too closely to my statement here, as I am not entirely sure how the canon cast/storyline has been going. I've read the rundown before, but that's about it. Nevertheless, I'm sure that if anyone's got decent writing skills here, that it could be done. Furthermore, I have little reason to doubt that most people here are at least semi-decent enough if they can survive The Joining**.

and to touch on Hanabi's 3rd point... I think that was what I had been trying to say in my last four posts. [maybe it was only 3. too lazy to check] we're small. we're the few and the proud. we are what keeps the Avatar RP as THE Avatar RP. Just because I'm Little Miss Snarker doesn't mean I'm not fond of this place. In simple terms, if I didn't like it, I wouldn't come here. simple, really.

though I too could come to somewhat of an understanding of disabling signups. that would then reduce the character profile checking to a minimum, as well as rule rundowns, The Joining, and trying to integrate people--all timely processes (that albeit are still worth the trouble).

really, apart from that, there's very little other work that needs to be done on a forum where you can trust all your members not to make stupid posts. (and again, if they've passed The Joining, then that seals 99% of the deal anyways.) Most other forum work is ensuring the coding and images remain, advertising (optional, in all respects, but nevertheless very useful), and the layout of the forum itself, which changes every 8-12 months or so. (which is a good touch that admittedly takes time as well, but no one's giving anyone a deadline on that one)

So ye. really that's what it comes down to. I'm not here to become "favoritest member in the whole wide wurld!", or to brown-nose or take favorites. I came here to RP, make a few friends, and tell it like it is. Incidentally, despite my "it's-all-about-me" nature, the whole RPG-via-PM thing did get me raising a few questions. I am one of the few that could easily do PMRPs, since both the ones I was in were with just one other person. However, with active players (and it should be abundantly clear by now who are the active people and who are not), 3+ player Rps tend to be a great deal of fun, and unfortunately would be very difficult to play through PMs.

so really... the "quitting on us before we quit on you" thing is saddening (among a few other things). While it is fully understandable if someone needs a break, don't force us all to take a break just because you want one.

sincerely,
~Tenoko~

---

Also, before I forget...
*+Fifth Law of Internet Traffic+
No matter what is done afterwards, if a site is closed or down for a period of more than a week and a day, visitors and activity will be permanently reduced by at least 35%.

**+The Joining+ stolen shamelessly from DragonAge, The Joining is my way of saying the steps of approval needed to be able to RP properly. This simply entails getting your character profile passed, as well as the RPG school training passed in old times. Also, it is what sorts out the long-lasters from those who don't make it.

~Tenoko~

No, expressing one's opinion isn't bitching. Bitching, in this case, is complaining vehemently about something one can't change. Did your or Hanabi think that the staff didn't take what would happen after they closed the site down into account before they made the decision to? Yes, I understand that people are upset that a forum like this is temporarily closing down, but honestly, beating a dead horse (in this case, spouting statistics and reiterating that the forum will basically fail once opened back up) isn't going to change anything. While a forum is a great place for people to get together and interact, there are other ways to RP with the people you meet here. I say suck it up, because it's happening whether you want it to or not (and getting all uppity and mad about it isn't going to do anyone any good), quit your bitching, and deal. I hardly think the staff is closing the forum for the time being because they "want a break."

ultimately, it's certainly not going to be the end of the world for me by any means if this place shuts down. I'm mostly just trying to find the logic behind it, which so far, there is none.

really, as you probably saw, the only thing we saw from it was "we're quitting on you before you quit on us. and "we're small so we might as well stop existing."

which was kind of why we said what we did.
~Tenoko~

No logic behind it? I believe Kami explained why they were shutting the site down; however, it seems like you want something more than that. The latter part of your post in reply to mine also seems to be based on assumptions, not anything the staff said. I do believe that these opinions are formed out of bias, since you seem to think there's no logic behind the site's closing when Kami has posted in this thread and defended the decision the staff has made, which was immediately dismissed as illogical by both yourself and Hanabi.

Hey, I gave my input, don't bring me up non stop. I gave my two cents. I'm not gonna argue it.

Now, if I kept ranting on and on and on and on about it, they yeah. I'd be a problem. But I've only mentioned what I saw once during the last day or two left of posting.

So Haru, don't come on and get nasty about everyone. In fact the staff should be happy to see their members upset about the decision. If I ran a tight knit RP and had to shut it down for any reason and my members weren't upset about losing it, I'd think I'd done a bad job.

If I wasn't upset about losing this then I probably wouldn't have cared to keep active after the show stopped.

but no logic =/= no reason. you can have a reason without it being a good one.

the information we picked out was more from the announcement and not the thread, since the announcement came first.
thus from what we read and saw, the reason for closure was the lack of activity.

UPDATE: also, don't bitch about my bitching, or that's sort of the pot calling the kettle black. Furthermore, although a rose by any other name is still a rose, my posts after the first one [or maybe two] were done in response to posts directed at me.

and I never step down from an argument. call it a vice if you will.

EDIT2: also unrelated, but who is the chick next to the announcements? looks kinda like Azula.
~Tenoko~