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Official Suggestions Thread

Locke

Hegemon
Site Staff
Joined
Nov 24, 2009
Location
Redmond, Washington
I like that this discussion is happening. I don't think anything's going to change if all we do is keep saying "just drop the drama". People have specific problems with other people that are difficult to articulate in this particular environment. Would it help to hold a skype chat with all those involved? The discussion should be directed to defining action items for individuals rather than debating the existence and impact of "groups". It doesn't matter with whom one associates. Each person decides his or her own actions and is responsible for them.
 

Beauts

Rock and roll will never die
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Location
London, United Kingdom
Who judges what a quality post is? that i think is the issue, i also think it should be either a small group of people or just one person not a forum vote due to some people being more popular here and thus easier to win such a vote.

This was attempted before by vote and hardly anyone bothered nominating.
 

Mases

Lord of the Flies
Administrator
Site Staff
Joined
Oct 14, 2007
Location
West Dundee, IL
Frankly, your 'group' and our 'group' have had a many differences this past year. I suggest we first reconcile this and move on. However, it will require actual sacrifice from both sides. From everyone. This is compromise. Let's just actually do it. I do not think we're really all that different?

I don't think it helps by labeling people as entire groups. Let's put an end to that. I cannot speak for the people you are placing within these groups, but from a staff perspective, a lot of stuff was never really black and white like it was labeled as.

A few months back there was constantly discussion about the forum staff being this pack of wolves that were united all together. In reality that was almost never the case and in particular, there was a lot of disagreement with Kitsu and Repentance. I think it did a lot of harm to constantly make an effort to clump everybody together in groups. Should probably drop that and address people specifically, rather than your own association.
 

Jamie

Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out...
Joined
Feb 23, 2014
Gender
trans-pan-demi-ethno-christian-math-autis-genderfluid-cheesecake
From what I understand there have been multiple versions. Though you could call this "Rep's group" or the old "Event Staff" chat. It makes little difference. I'm sure you do not deny belonging to an actual "real chat" Skype group mostly consisting of your friends?
I don't have a group except one that doesnt include kitsu, seth, loz or actually any active members aside from myself, and I tried to leave the old event staff group but skype borked on me. Not even sure what you're talking about.

DM I just pointed out how mods are not told what to do by admins. Can you address this since you think tech staff should take orders?
Legit tho this is the second time I brought this up and you haven't responded to it yet @DARK MASTER
 
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DARK MASTER

The Emperor
Joined
Apr 29, 2010
I don't think it helps by labeling people as entire groups. Let's put an end to that. I cannot speak for the people you are placing within these groups, but from a staff perspective, a lot of stuff was never really black and white like it was labeled as.

A few months back there was constantly discussion about the forum staff being this pack of wolves that were united all together. In reality that was almost never the case and in particular, there was a lot of disagreement with Kitsu and Repentance. I think it did a lot of harm to constantly make an effort to clump everybody together in groups. Should probably drop that and address people specifically, rather than your own association.

I agree. I do not believe it is black an white. I want to make it clear this has lots of nuance, but despite that there are at least two perceived "groups" at the moment, which as a result we must all come together and have a conversation. This is why I support Locke's idea.

Legit tho this is the second time I brought this up and you haven't responded to it yet @DARK MASTER
Sorry, I missed this in all of the confusion. I believe if we really want to distinguish them, mods and tech admins should be equal in everything and focus on doing their own jobs.
 
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Joined
Feb 23, 2011
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
 

Beauts

Rock and roll will never die
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Location
London, United Kingdom
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.

THANK YOU. I mean I'm partially as guilty of this as anyone else but this isn't school anymore, let it go.

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.

True, they can't do right for doing wrong, nobody can.

If you have a legitimate problem or concern with someone, go directly to them, not everyone and their uncle.

This.

Speaking of which, shouldn't you guys be content with the fact that the current staff ISN'T Axle?

Also true.

Good points well made tbh.
 

Jimmu

Administrator
Staff member
Administrator
I would find Locke's idea to be very beneficial and I think that if every individual who has concerns or involvement at all relating to the drama that has ensued over the past few days they should be allowed to come to the chat and voice their opinion.

I will say that I believe that it is important that this chat does not become filled with taking swipes at each other and should really be focused on where we want to go in the future from this point. Individuals that have issues with others should put them down concisely and reasonably and the member whom the feedback is aimed toward should accept that in the future certain behaviours will not be considered acceptable and endeavour to improve themselves based on the feedback rather than focusing so much on whether they are guilty or not of said action in the past (because this is leading to too much grudges and hate). No one is perfect and many people with a large range of differing opinions will obviously be present so we will have to respect each other fully and not resort to mocking or belittling others.

For example, I think a member saying something like "It really annoys/upsets me when you/people say/do X so could you please avoid this in the future?" is usually a fairly reasonable request. If something really annoys other people then it is fairly easy to avoid doing it in the future if it has been brought to your attention in a calm and collected manner.

The remaining staff really do care about the forum obviously, otherwise we wouldn't be spending our time here. This clearly should also apply to everyone taking their time in this thread. So I think it will be in everyone's best interests if we all sort out our schoolyard drama and get along with just having fun and talking about video games.
 

Jirohnagi

Braava Braava
Joined
Feb 18, 2010
Location
Soul Sanctum
Gender
Geosexual
For example, I think a member saying something like "It really annoys/upsets me when you/people say/do X so could you please avoid this in the future?" is usually a fairly reasonable request. If something really annoys other people then it is fairly easy to avoid doing it in the future if it has been brought to your attention in a calm and collected manner.

The remaining staff really do care about the forum obviously, otherwise we wouldn't be spending our time here. This clearly should also apply to everyone taking their time in this thread. So I think it will be in everyone's best interests if we all sort out our schoolyard drama and get along with just having fun and talking about video games.


Unfortunately that "It really annoys/upsets me when you/people say/do X so could you please avoid this in the future?" doesn't work as well as we'd like because we'll still have people who insist on doing something dense. The biggest grievance i currently have is that damned "no one cares" emote" it's damnright rude for a start, and seeing as at least one person uses it regularly to cut people off when they discuss something other than memes or something else silly in the SB.
 

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