In Regards to Wild West

[Majestic Manatee_v1legacy]

11 pages of people bitchin about their inherent right to memes as if it's all they got is a sad sight to see.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Hey, whoever removed the extra warnings on Lost Gryphon. Good on you anonymous moderator who I will continue to credit as being Tippy until told otherwise. Yes, even if Tippy isn't a mod he should still get credit, he's just a swell dude.

Tippy is the Jesus of the escapist; he died for your shitposts.

>jesus

 

[BreakfastMan]

Hey, whoever removed the extra warnings on Lost Gryphon. Good on you anonymous moderator who I will continue to credit as being Tippy until told otherwise. Yes, even if Tippy isn't a mod he should still get credit, he's just a swell dude.

Tippy is the Jesus of the escapist; he died for your shitposts.

>jesus

God damn it crimson, I told you to stop burning down churches already! We need those for potlucks! D:

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Hey, whoever removed the extra warnings on Lost Gryphon. Good on you anonymous moderator who I will continue to credit as being Tippy until told otherwise. Yes, even if Tippy isn't a mod he should still get credit, he's just a swell dude.

Tippy is the Jesus of the escapist; he died for your shitposts.

>jesus

God damn it crimson, I told you to stop burning down churches already! We need those for potlucks! D:

I'm a simple man, I see a church, I burn it

 

[Johnlives]

that traffic peaked in March 2012, with a slow decline ever since

Goddamn GamerGate time machine


But seriously, perhaps a partial solution to some issues could be a relaxation of the discussion value points of the CoC just in the off topic section. That could open the way for some of the fun posting that occurred in the WW. Although I reckon people will hate this idea. Just brainstorming.

 

[Valiance]

snip

For what it's worth, I think the right thing was done.

 

[JoJo]

that traffic peaked in March 2012, with a slow decline ever since

Goddamn GamerGate time machine


But seriously, perhaps a partial solution to some issues could be a relaxation of the discussion value points of the CoC just in the off topic section. That could open the way for some of the fun posting that occurred in the WW. Although I reckon people will hate this idea. Just brainstorming.

Yeah, it was mentioned near the beginning of the thread that we're planning to go a little lighter on the discussion value requirements in Off-Topic, so that people can still make fun threads and whatever. Forum Games might also be a good option for some.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Hey, whoever removed the extra warnings on Lost Gryphon. Good on you anonymous moderator who I will continue to credit as being Tippy until told otherwise. Yes, even if Tippy isn't a mod he should still get credit, he's just a swell dude.

Tippy is the Jesus of the escapist; he died for your shitposts.

>jesus

'suppose history has to repeat itself again.

:^)

Repeating history you say?

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Hey, whoever removed the extra warnings on Lost Gryphon. Good on you anonymous moderator who I will continue to credit as being Tippy until told otherwise. Yes, even if Tippy isn't a mod he should still get credit, he's just a swell dude.

Tippy is the Jesus of the escapist; he died for your shitposts.

>jesus

'suppose history has to repeat itself again.

:^)

Repeating history you say?

[b][i]Y e s[/i][/b]

BRING IT!

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Yeah, it was mentioned near the beginning of the thread that we're planning to go a little lighter on the discussion value requirements in Off-Topic, so that people can still make fun threads and whatever. Forum Games might also be a good option for some.

To be blunt, that's not really going to help the main issue here at all.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Removed innocent and humourous joke

I have found the perfect image to summarize my feelings surrounding this whole shebang and the apparent willingness to swing hammers at anything which moves.

Seriously, when a joke like Lost Gryphon's gets someone put on probation things are kinda fucked up, and, well, there's no WW to talk about weird things like this anymore, so I hope there's a replacement. Even though I probably hope in vain since the initial post on this thread shows that people would rather delete an entire forum than deal with long running problems in this forum's overall community.

Wait, what happened with Gryphon? Because that post doesn't have a warning anymore? Is that what they got a warning for: "You guys are dicks. <3"? Or was it something else before?

I just saw Ezekiel was banned

Aww man! I liked Ezekial. That sucks! He was one of the few people who regularly made new threads, and they got quite a bit of discussion too

 

[Drathnoxis]

And of course, we wish as much as anyone that site activity would increase again. The truth is, though, that there is little we can do to pull in new users without new professional content, which is something only Defy can provide. Having access to the backend of the site, I can see that traffic peaked in March 2012, with a slow decline ever since (well, there was a cliff-like drop in late 2014 when Jim and Bob left). To turn that around would be a lot to ask of a group of unpaid volunteers. Still, you never know. Maybe we'll be bought out by some rich sponsor who will pump money and content back into the site. And who will give free holidays to the mods as thanks for all their hard work... ;-)

This is fascinating news. It's about 8 months off from where I placed the peak, which was July 2011, but I didn't use as many data points as I should have.

Can you like, post the traffic reports, or PM them to me or something?

 

[runic knight]

Oh goodie, the release valve for the hostility that plagues these forums between users has been removed. I am sure this will make things better on the forums rather than worse as those who previously used the "safe" place to be jerks to one another without repercussion, will now revert back to the previous method of rules-lawyering to allow abusing the rules themselves and thinly veiled hostility that antagonizes their opposition in the community into getting in trouble. Nothing helps save a sinking community quite like going back to fostering the worst attitude and behavior that drove so many away in the first place, right?

I was never invited to the WW myself. I never seen inside of it. I have only an outside perspective of how things in the forums changed before and after. And honestly, the community forums seemed less hostile after the introduction of WW. Still had arguments, till saw people butt heads, sure, but there seemed to be far less of outright toxic passive-aggressive sniping and legitimate trolling of people to bait responses after it. Hell, the banjumper seemed to disappear around the same time too. It was an improvement overall to the tone of things, compared to the way it was beforehand.

Honestly, I think you should have opened the forum up to everyone rather than get rid of it. Make it a feature to pull new community members in for the funposting, it would prevent the stagnation of discourse that came from only have a dozen regular posters in the forum, and it would mark a clearer distinction away from the previous outside view of the site as strictly and often irrationally moderated.

Lets face it, the site has no content and no hope that defy will get more for it. If the forums want to survive, they have to promote themselves rather than rely on the content of others to the site in the hope that will draw interest to it. As it is, the forums offers absolutely nothing of value to anyone compared to other places, save those that stick due to their existing ties with the community.

It isn't strict enough to appeal to the neogaf crowd, even if they wanted to venture away from resetera and the site wanted that sort of community.

It isn't free enough to appeal to chan-board using types.

It isn't managed or moderated with the degree of community respect or input to rival things like reddit. And problems with the rules, moderation, and moderators is a well-known history about this site from outside perspective, compounding that issue.

It is just a hole in the wall "bar" outside of a now-destroyed stadium trying to keep going by doing the same things they have done for years despite it not working in years.

Who is these forum for? Who is the target audience? And what is being done by the forum to target them and keep them around?

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Removed innocent and humourous joke

I have found the perfect image to summarize my feelings surrounding this whole shebang and the apparent willingness to swing hammers at anything which moves.

Seriously, when a joke like Lost Gryphon's gets someone put on probation things are kinda fucked up, and, well, there's no WW to talk about weird things like this anymore, so I hope there's a replacement. Even though I probably hope in vain since the initial post on this thread shows that people would rather delete an entire forum than deal with long running problems in this forum's overall community.

Wait, what happened with Gryphon? Because that post doesn't have a warning anymore? Is that what they got a warning for: "You guys are dicks. <3"? Or was it something else before?

Nah, that was the post. Just sharing my honest feelings with the current crop of blue-tags, ie. The horses meant to watch the few dogs that remain kenneled here.

Honest feelings that, until their recent "decision," would have had a place to be aired without fear of reprisal.

Curiously enough, I still have the warning, but it was unwarned in here.

Got 3 warnings for it at once for some odd and unexplainable reason. We'll just go with a system error/overzealous clicker, I guess. Benefit of the doubt.

Speaking of warnings though.

/oneofthegoodones

Possible to account for that two year gap between warnings with my total, sir?

 

[Johnlives]

Oh goodie, the release valve for the hostility that plagues these forums between users has been removed. I am sure this will make things better on the forums rather than worse as those who previously used the "safe" place to be jerks to one another without repercussion, will now revert back to the previous method of rules-lawyering to allow abusing the rules themselves and thinly veiled hostility that antagonizes their opposition in the community into getting in trouble. Nothing helps save a sinking community quite like going back to fostering the worst attitude and behavior that drove so many away in the first place, right?

I was never invited to the WW myself. I never seen inside of it. I have only an outside perspective of how things in the forums changed before and after. And honestly, the community forums seemed less hostile after the introduction of WW. Still had arguments, till saw people butt heads, sure, but there seemed to be far less of outright toxic passive-aggressive sniping and legitimate trolling of people to bait responses after it. Hell, the banjumper seemed to disappear around the same time too. It was an improvement overall to the tone of things, compared to the way it was beforehand.

Honestly, I think you should have opened the forum up to everyone rather than get rid of it. Make it a feature to pull new community members in for the funposting, it would prevent the stagnation of discourse that came from only have a dozen regular posters in the forum, and it would mark a clearer distinction away from the previous outside view of the site as strictly and often irrationally moderated.

Lets face it, the site has no content and no hope that defy will get more for it. If the forums want to survive, they have to promote themselves rather than rely on the content of others to the site in the hope that will draw interest to it. As it is, the forums offers absolutely nothing of value to anyone compared to other places, save those that stick due to their existing ties with the community.

It isn't strict enough to appeal to the neogaf crowd, even if they wanted to venture away from resetera and the site wanted that sort of community.

It isn't free enough to appeal to chan-board using types.

It isn't managed or moderated with the degree of community respect or input to rival things like reddit. And problems with the rules, moderation, and moderators is a well-known history about this site from outside perspective, compounding that issue.

It is just a hole in the wall "bar" outside of a now-destroyed stadium trying to keep going by doing the same things they have done for years despite it not working in years.

Who is these forum for? Who is the target audience? And what is being done by the forum to target them and keep them around?

He's right you know.jpg

Also how would you mods feel if there was a user group for the criticism and analysis of your hammer decisions? Maybe one has been suggested before? Would any of you participate if it was an attempt at understanding rather than just attacks?

 

[Basement Cat]

Possible to account for that two year gap between warnings with my total, sir?

I saw your post. Your health bar is corrected and is now down to 1 bar (the latest Warning).

Edit: Eff it! You went two years without getting a Warning so I'm removing the recent whack. Take this as a verbal warning that even though you intended it to be in jest some Mods' tempers are on short leashes due to posters' rampant passive aggressiveness. Always best to err on the side of caution when dealing directly with Mods--especially in threads concerning moderation.

Congrats on clearing your Health Bar. You earned it. ^_^

 

[runic knight]

He's right you know.jpg

Also how would you mods feel if there was a user group for the criticism and analysis of your hammer decisions? Maybe one has been suggested before? Would any of you participate if it was an attempt at understanding rather than just attacks?

I remember suggesting that same thing years ago, before there even was a WW because there was no were to discuss user problems and criticism of moderation without getting moderated for it, especially after the already established mod group banned the use of that group as a place to discuss such things. In the end, no one in charge wanted to put the effort into such a group to make it relevant to the site (namely, actually participating and listening to the community), and the idea was abandoned.

Years later, the same problems persist and are complained about, and the site is far worse for wear.

The same problem exists with the idea now though, unless it is treated as having worth by the moderation team, it is pointless. If the moderation team is willing decide things without hearing community wishes, and ignore community complaints protesting it, then why make a new place to voice concerns that will still be ignored?

The community has no ability to improve the site. The moderation is the only ones at the moment able to enforce changes and this thread suggests it will be their way or the highway on any such matters.

 

[Trunkage]

that traffic peaked in March 2012, with a slow decline ever since

Goddamn GamerGate time machine


But seriously, perhaps a partial solution to some issues could be a relaxation of the discussion value points of the CoC just in the off topic section. That could open the way for some of the fun posting that occurred in the WW. Although I reckon people will hate this idea. Just brainstorming.

March 2012? *check dates*. ME3 happened then. Star child broke the site. #GGdidnothingwrong

 

[vallorn]

that traffic peaked in March 2012, with a slow decline ever since

Goddamn GamerGate time machine


But seriously, perhaps a partial solution to some issues could be a relaxation of the discussion value points of the CoC just in the off topic section. That could open the way for some of the fun posting that occurred in the WW. Although I reckon people will hate this idea. Just brainstorming.

March 2012? *check dates*. ME3 happened then. Star child broke the site. #GGdidnothingwrong

The Escapist picked the red ending.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

To be fair, the forums were never (initially) supposed to be the main draw of The Escapist. It was the content, and the forums were just supposed to be a very nice bonus. But now there's no content, so now the forums are the only thing that's left of The Escapist. Oh, and Yahtzee, but he ain't bringing in the numbers like he used to. Or at least, one content creator isn't enough to get others to join and post here again.

I don't actually think that WW has to come back per se, but I think almost everyone can agree that the rules need to be toned down at least. I mean, honestly now. Why are we even keeping them?