If you want to stay informed on forum rule changes, keep an eye on
this thread. Any time the main forum rules are changed, a post will be made in that thread describing the change. This includes notable changes that are nevertheless completely cosmetic (for example, when the Table of Contents was added to the rules) as well as changes that modify (whether to a minor or significant extent) the effect of rules. For the RP section specifically, the
RP subforum rules also apply, and changes in those rules are outlined in a new post in the containing thread.
If you click the "Notify" link at the top right or the top left of the linked pages and have have your profile set to do this (I believe this feature is enabled by default), you should get an email any time a post is made to those threads. You may also find the feature to be useful for RP threads. If you want to test the Notify feature to make sure it works for you, you can use
the test lab as a sandbox.
Also, I had a little bit of a brainstorm, and tested a hypothesis as I was drafting this post. It turns out my hypothesis was correct.
Those of you who frequent the RP section might find
this link to be of interest. In fact, you will almost certainly want to bookmark it. It links to a page that will show you a list of unread topics in the RP section that you have previously posted in. The link utilizes features of the forum software that are somewhat obscure and, as a consequence, not directly accessible through the board's default interface. Namely, the link combines the elements of
the unread replies list and
topic listings by board (my thanks to Alsek and Loc for making me aware of those features).
Hopefully, this will make it easier to not lose track of the RPs you're active in on account of activity in other RP threads, which in turn should reduce the warrant for bump posts. You can also PM fellow RPers if you're concerned that they may have started to neglect an RP, and as stated before, enabling notification on RP posts can help as well.
The thing about bump posts, though, is that when everyone uses them a lot, a
tragedy of the commons issue results. Bump posts dilute the
recent posts list (making that list less useful to both RPers and non-RPers) without providing a contribution to the RP. They also make it harder for participants in the RP to review the RP's history; doing so requires sorting through the irrelevant bump posts in order to read the relevant IC and OOC posts. Last but not least, they make it so that the threads that are most frequently at the top of the RP board are the ones that are bumped the most rather than the ones that are the most active. This in turn encourages those who wouldn't otherwise bump threads to do so; if they were to abstain, their thread would be more likely to be missed on account of being pushed down by bumped threads. These factors together mean that bumping threads can result in a detrimental
positive feedback loop if left unchecked, making things less convenient for everyone.