Not sure if there's some group of "Kitsu cultists" or whatever this week's trendy term is, and I've only ever seen that whole mocking bit from a few individuals, most of whom either weren't even mentioned or erroneously held culpable. However, I'm still trying to figure out the explanation behind my being attacked for virtually no reason at all a few months ago. I hardly know the person who attacked me, I barely ever talk to this person ever--only a few one-off comments in the chatbox, I've only ever been in one Skype group with this person--back in like 2012 (K4King's chat; a chat in which I barely said anything), I wasn't in any Skype group for a year and some change--Rare Seldas in particular--so there's nothing at all I could've said about this person to tick them off, I've never once debated with this person on any medium or opposed anything they said, I laughed at all their jokes, I've commended their staff position on here numerous times, and overall I was just an ensemble darkhorse amid the drama surrounding him and the parties involved--which means I never wronged either of this person alleged "followers." Run-on sentence aside, I'm honestly perplexed as to the desultory nature of it all. This wasn't exactly a small attack, either, it was the sort of attack you use against a most hated person: a person that has stolen cherished property from you or personally attacked you or a loved one physically or emotionally. It has no place on a video game forum on which the worse thing anyone could possibly do is disagree with you, or at worse, hack into your account. It's the kind of attack that would frankly get you effed up in real life if you so much as joked about it to the wrong person. And to put icing on the cake, my account was deleted, as well. Why? What could I have seriously done to this person, I'll never freakin' know.
My suggestion? Ditch the personal Skype ****. If you have a personal problem with someone, leave that **** on Skype where it belongs. It amazes me how much **** comes from something someone said or did on Skype. A lot of the attacks and drama that I've been seeing on here aren't legitimate critiques on the staff's jobs but the staff's personalities or some other obscure bullcrap. A lot of it's jealousy, spite, or something childish. And here I was looking at all this crap and wondering when the hell did all this go down or what the hell it all means. Now I know what perplexed me--it's the simple fact that most of this stuff didn't even happen here or had nothing to do with the forums; most of it is baggage that was brought over from Skype. I personally look at Skype as a dimension that exists outside of ZD--similar to the real world--, and bringing personal vendettas from that dimension to here is like a husband and wife sitting right next to each other on the couch and arguing with each other on Facebook via their cellphones. Going to steal your catchphrase, Rep, but literally what?
Next up, the chatbox. If someone wants to say something, please let them do so. If it isn't off-putting, rude, overtly sexual and discomforting, don't shut them down with a "NO ONE CARES" emote or whatever's trendy. Don't deter civil, friendly discourse just because someone doesn't want to talk about memes all day. Don't go overlord with large emotes just because you can (though this one's kind of pointless, thanks to the ability to block emotes; good job, bros.). Everyone deserves a chance to speak. Real life conversations among peers and friends are oftentimes random and can go many directions; it helps to be mindful and open-minded as to this fact. Some people are going to wander off into things you prefer not to talk about. What do you expect from a chatbox that doesn't offer channels or private chats? Also, make chats less about negative **** someone did or said over 9000 years ago. I can't even count the number of times that I've logged on and saw "Remember that time when Giccy ate a rock" or some other obscure, negative **** she did. I mean, come on, yes, we've already discussed that a million times already, the recent of which was one hour ago. And again, please don't get angry at someone for politely going "Can we not talk **** about someone for the millionth time, please?", and then go on a tirede about someone taking the moral high ground--whatever the hell that is--just because they don't want every discussion to involve insults, mocking, opening old wounds, or general negativity.
Next, the staff team. Let's get this out of the way right now. All of us no good and damn well that nothing that the staff does is ever going to be good enough. Not everyone is going to be satisfied. Hell, not even 70% of the forumbase is going to be satisfied with anything they do. If the administration steps in and becomes more active, then chances are they're going to get *****ed at for being too invasive or whatever. Same with the mod team. Honestly, I've been on dozens of forums, modded on two, witnessed the ebbs and flows along the way, and this is one of the more laid-back, active staff I've seen. Admins and webmasters who've been in this for a really long time are seldom active as **** after like ten years and tend to assume a sort of hands-off role--overseer at best. They do their part by hosting the forum on servers or whatever that mumbo-jumbo entails. Hell, I heard Mases wanted to let this forum go for a while now--in favor of more popular outlets such as Facebook and Disqus. He's one of many admins I've seen take this stance, and I'm neither for nor against it, but I get it. I'm just happy he lets the forum stick around at all and hands over the responsibilities to others while he maintains the main site.
This isn't a full-time, paid job. Locke is a busy adult man, what with school, work. etc. As a result, others were promoted to help assist him and, in turn, each other. Same with Djinn and the others (whose lives I'm not entirely privy to, but I think Rep goes to university). With this in mind, two Community Coordinators were assigned to deal directly with forum interrelations, events, and basic functions. Rep and Kitsu were tech admins. There was a lot of controversy surrounding Djinn's role, and I'm not going to pretend for a second I know what that entails and essentially become the same type of person I'm advocating against. But one thing's for damn certain, and that's the fact that he churns out some of the best ideas. What else could the forum want? It seems like a bunch of overreactions to me. Each set of staff brought something to the table over the years, and the claim that the current one's the best if laughable. This forum has seen several revisions, mergers, the introduction of blogs, groups, customizable profiles, and who knows what else (I wasn't here to see it all, having joined in early 2011). SOMEONE had to have done all that, and I doubt it was some crackpot team of losers or some corrupt regime. It is wise not to forget history. You have to remember that this forum has been around for a long ass time.
And with the drama. Oh man, the drama, the drama, the freakin' drama. Most drama--real life and cyberspace--comes from someone having a problem with someone else and going to EVERYONE else BUT the person they have a problem with. If you have a legitimate problem or concern with someone, go directly to them, not everyone and their uncle. That's how things get spun out of control to the point that even if you've straightened things out with that someone, everyone else still has this dirtied look towards said someone. Cleaning up all the drama that has spread is nigh impossible once ten or more people are in on it, since by the time you've reconciled with the aforementioned someone, the drama has already spread to other sites, etc. It's not worth the headache. The someone can't even so much as even post due to how sullied their reputation becomes. People just start to assume that everyone of their threads or posts is bait or has some dirty ulterior motive. I've literally seen threads with titles like "Favorite Flavor of Ice Cream" be called a 'bait thread'. How? The OP can say so much as "I like vanilla. What about you?" And then the mocking starts and other forms of hell breaks loose. All because of the ****storm someone stirred up. What's worse is people can't seem to let go of negative **** from like a gazillionty eleven years ago. Pointless grudges people hold from like 2009 while everyone has turned old and grey. Axle the 'Problem' is gone, JuicieJ is gone, Ven, gone, and yet they're still talked about as though they're still here causing problems. Really?
All this **** is overdramatized because we all--myself included--are bored and need something to ***** and moan about. Anyone on here that has family members or roommates know that at some point everyone is going to get tired of being couped up with one another all the time and is going to need a break from each other. This is especially true for adults. Whether it's going for a night out with friends or whatever. We're human beings and this is what happen when we get bored and we're all up in each other's grills all day. And with Axle, JJ, and Ven out of the picture, there's all this misplaced aggression and lingering crud that needs to go somewhere, I guess. Speaking of which, shouldn't you guys be content with the fact that the current staff ISN'T Axle? lol