ZD Forum Change Concerns

[A Link In Time]

I think it's a shame that some of the add-ons that Kitsu, Repentance, Djinn, and now Jimmy carried out over the course of over a year will be left behind. That's not to mention people who do a lot of work in trying to improve the forums from a non-administrative perspective like Satan, Mamono, and Patcat. People seem to have gotten used to Xenforo now, so I'm really not a fan of switching to IP Board so suddenly. There would be a sense of a lack of continuity in the forums if there would be another change in the forum software so soon. Sure, keeping the Shoutbox and possibly the Arcade are important to dedicated users, but they're only a fraction of the features that are currently available on the forum. Ironically, the implementation of a market comes right before a potential forum software switch, something that held back the vBulletin market that was first added on the ZD forums from going anywhere. Regardless, this isn't the same as with vBulletin where the newer versions were objectively worse than the older ones, so switching forum software made sense.

Of all the things that have been mentioned in this thread, keeping the ZD forum url is obviously the most important. As far as I understand, Mases, you have promised that would be the case, so members who haven't logged in for a while wouldn't potentially be left behind. Still, there isn't much sense in a merger of two Zelda forums that pander to two different audiences. It's like trying to combine IGN and vgChartz. Just because they both deal in general gaming doesn't mean they have the same perspective on the topic. With respect to the Zelda community, ZD and ZI have a distinct identity that you yourself noted, Mases, namely that ZD has traditionally been the walkthrough site and ZI the main site news place. ZD has a stronger forum presence than ZI, and as Matt said, the forums are an important link to the Wiki. Think how many patrollers have come from the forums. Atticus, odd, Heroine, and JC were all on the forums before deciding to help out at the wiki. Even though the ZD forums have never been at quite the level of activity of ZU's, they're a solid number 2 and a way to connect the various site venues.

Unfortunately, I do not take your word, Mases, because you have shown time and time again that your most important influence is your small group of core contributors. A few of these people are some of the most vocal opponents of forums, and they don't even use the forums themselves. This forum switch was extremely poorly communicated, and this discussion should have occurred in a more constructive manner before the announcement about buying ZI was made official on the main site. A few people in here are misconstruing posts as a "change is bad" argument. While there is no logical reason for a change from Xenforo to IP Board as there was from vBulletin to Xenforo, that's not the real problem at hand. The problem is that a non-issue was unnecessarily escalated because the proper discussion wasn't had before this forum switch was announced on the main site.

 

[Emma]

@Matt - I think there is selective memory and revisionist history here. There was a lot of pressure from a whole assortment of people that were very much against what you had done to this community. 4-5 months ago, I was getting a lot of difference advice from various people. On one hand, I was being heavily told about the culture that you, DarkMaster, and others were bringing to this forum, and how it was paramount that I put an end to that problem. There were calls of banning, red lines were drawn over what I must do, etc... It was not healthy, especially coming from the core of the forum staff.

On your end, there was pretty much the same thing. Repeated calls for me to fire half the forum staff. You were insisting time and time again that I make you an administrator of the forum and allow you to run things.

Am I glad that I declined some of former forum staff members requests of banning you, DM, and a few others? Yes - since I valued your input to the website, and your work at the Wiki. To me, that wasn't worth losing, and I also felt that the negativity you were spewing, was nothing unusual for the forum. It's part of the norm here at Zelda Dungeon. I think this thread is just that same continuation of it.

Am I glad that I declined your request to be made an administrator and forcibly remove staff members? Yes - I gave it some thought and had some conversations with Locke and some of the current staff. Making you an administrator would created an environment where not only is certain behavior tolerable, but it is actually rewarded.

The end result was that some people left.... There were a lot of doomsday scenarios and threats that were made about what would happened to the forum if I didn't act quickly and decisively. Low and behold, we are fine here today.

That's not what happened and you know it. Why are you lying to everyone here in public? You ignored everything that was going on. You simply hoped the situation would resolve itself if you ignored it long enough. Nearly everyone agrees the group that you refused to anything about was a problem. Simply because they made requests of you doesn't mean both sides were equal and that there was no "bad side" You ignored the problem until they left on their own. The forum has a better atmosphere now DESPITE you, not because of you. It's better because no one left likes what happened then and we want to get along. The current forum staff are managing things EXACTLY how I told you they should. So I appreciate you stop lying to people saying I'd doom everything by being insanely authoritarian when that's the furthest thing from the truth.

And you're doing it again and again. You keep insisting your decision stands and instead of actually addressing any concerns, you simply insist nothing was ever wrong and anyone who says otherwise must have been lying. These ad hominem attacks are not helping you. They're undermining your credibility.

 

[Djinn]

EDIT: Also, one question. Are we going to lose our awards during the switch?

ooh, glad you mentioned this since I do not think it has been brought up. That would be handled the same as the vb switch. They will be removed with a forum software change. But IP Board does have an awards addon that can be implemented.

This is actually really surprising to me. Can you tell exactly what the amount of traffic is for all of these things? It'd be easier for me to get a grasp if I had a visual comparison.

I have not seen the numbers in a while, but the forum is by far the lowest. I'm talking 10% or less of what we see on the main site daily.

Can we get our blogs back too!!!!!???

yea, that actually is doable with ip board. Might bring up having that again at some point.

 

[Mamono101]

Like most people, I'm pretty averse to change in general as I find it hard to deal with, but what's going to happen is going to happen so I'll just have to go with it. If I don't like it once it's been implemented, then that might be it for me.

I do have a concern regarding the handling of the threads that are currently in the Life Advice forum. All of those threads contain extremely personal information that users shared with the knowledge and understanding that no one except for registered members would be able to see the content of them. What will happen to the sensitive information contained within these threads during the merger?

Also, in regards to privacy options, how do ZI's options compare to what we currently have on ZD in terms of limiting who can see my profile, wall, user information, etc? I'd make an account to see for myself but due to certain goings on lately I can't do that right now.

 

[DARK MASTER]

Matt and Mases, let’s not have a back-and-forth about stupid irrelevant drama. We each believe certain things and will probably not convince the other, which makes this even more pointless. We aren’t like 12…Mases, if you want the forums merged, fine, but the conversation we must have is about substance, like Jimmy brought up; we’d like a shoutbox, blogs, customization, awards, etc…

Please everyone, let's have a productive conversation. No flaming and/or character assassination.

 

[Mases]

like Jimmy brought up; we’d like a shoutbox, blogs, customization, awards, etc…

I've heard over the years that the chatbox is the absolute essential aspect of the forum, so if I go through with consolidating the forum, that will be paramount first and foremost. I assure you of that.

By default, I know Blogs are already in place. Regarding other add-ons and customizations, the goal would be to try to replicate as much as we can. Furthermore, since IP Board has basically been around for 15+ years, there is a heck of a lot more people developing for it. I think we should be able to get everything we want.

 

[Emma]

I've heard over the years that the chatbox is the absolute essential aspect of the forum, so if I go through with consolidating the forum, that will be paramount first and foremost. I assure you of that.

So you'll listen about that one thing the community wants but won't listen about anything else they want? You've always been against the shoutbox. In the past when we were on vBulletin, you removed it several times. And whenever there as any kind of technical problem with any part of the site, you adamantly insisted every single time that it was all the shoutbox's fault even though after you removed it, the problem you were so adamant it had caused didn't go away. Yet without fail next time anything went wrong, first thing you always did was say "must be the shoutbox" and disabled it. Can't you please just listen to us for once instead of having us go through this ridiculous song and dance every single time something controversial happens?

That you admit now it's a critical part of the community shows that with enough time, you can come to admit that things they want can matter. In this case, you need to listen to us and acknowledge that you stand to destroy two communities with this decision. You just claimed a few posts ago you were going to listen to people. And right now in this post you casually implied that your decision is going to stand no matter what. Can't you see how that is a problem? How you lose a degree of credibility by being so hypocritical?

By default, I know Blogs are already in place. Regarding other add-ons and customizations, the goal would be to try to replicate as much as we can. Furthermore, since IP Board has basically been around for 15+ years, there is a heck of a lot more people developing for it. I think we should be able to get everything we want.

Older isn't necessarily better. If that were true, we never would have bothered making our own wiki. IP Boards are not a superior version of our current software. It's a completely different software that is meant for certain needs. If it was perfect, as you seem to assume, no one would have bothered making other forum softwares. It seems to work for the ZI community but I don't think it'll work for ZD's. Nor will it have its flexiblity. And please, can you stop beating around the bush? You already told us you want IP boards for one reason and one reason only. It has a free addon to directly link to DISQUS. But you refused to listen every single time we told you there was another way that was more flexible and more useful. Facebook. More people use Facebook than use DISQUS, and DISQUS itself actually uses Facebook for people to log into it. If you used a plugin for people to sign up using Facebook (which Xenforo does have), you'll get the link to DISQUS you want so badly and you'll open it up for people who already have Facebook to easily make an account.

 

[Jamie]

Believe it or not, I've actually created a lot of add ons in my time here and as much as people would like to deny it, I've done a lot for the site and also personally decided to leave for many many reasons, only part of which were my issues with staff-related things. I can say I wholly do not care if my precious volunteer work goes down the tube for a better alternative. My ego, large as it may be, is not nearly large enough to want the forum to sacrifice quality for some sort of false integrity. Arguments aside, certainly everyone can agree that myself and all of the other staff wanted what's best for the site, and so do all of the current staff. If this new forum is what's best for the site, I can't and don't see an issue.

In terms of this silly issue from a billion years ago, nearly every issue listed was about one single staff member. There's also always two sides to an argument. Of course you don't think yours was the bad side. It was your side. I don't think my "side" was bad (especially since my biggest indictment was being an "enabler"), I think there were lots of issues on both sides. Whether one is worse than the other is irrelevant for two reasons. 1. Both still had problems and 2. Your side won. What is the big deal? It frustrates and amazes me that after all of this time, I come back, half a year after I resigned, and people are still ****ting on me. Incredible.

I will agree with Matt on one thing, however: DISQUS is absolute ass and no one likes it. DISQUS is not the future, the past, or the present. If it's true what matt says, that DISQUS is the primary reason for the switch, then I wholeheartedly disagree with it.

That being said, Mases, it's your money, your site, your company, and you can rightfully do what you please.

 

[Jamie]

Will it? Or will he shrug it off, close the site, and find something better to do?

Maybe, just JUST maybe, his thoughts on the matter don't depend on the posters on a forum. Maybe that's cynical of me to say, but none of us is entitled to be here. :/

No he won't close the site. The majority of Mases ad hits to my knowledge, he could correct me if I'm wrong, are from the main site. Most of us here found the site from the walkthroughs, which have not only separated ZD from every other Zelda site on the planet, but also are head and shoulders above the walkthroughs on every other site. Most of us here do not go on the main site anymore. I can guarantee you that the forum is a distant third in Mases mind behind the main site and the wiki (the wiki probably being distantly behind the main site), and for good reason: he doesn't really need it that much. I can't imagine he's THAT worried about a handful of forum users who aren't named Matt leaving the site.

 

[Mases]

No he won't close the site. The majority of Mases ad hits to my knowledge, he could correct me if I'm wrong, are from the main site. Most of us here found the site from the walkthroughs, which have not only separated ZD from every other Zelda site on the planet, but also are head and shoulders above the walkthroughs on every other site.

Roughly 5% of the traffic is the front page.
Just over 2% of the traffic are all front page articles/blogs combined
About 92% of site traffic are walkthrough pages and wiki pages

The current plan is to no longer provide news/blogs on the front page and I'm migrating that over to Zelda Informer. On the flipside, I'm closing the Wiki at Zelda Informer and somewhat in the process of migrating guides/walkthroughs over to Zelda Dungeon. The websites will be heavily linked up through navigation, but the plan is for Zelda Dungeon to return to its roots of being a guide focused website.

 

[Nathanial Rumphol-Janc]

Hey folks. Editor-in-Chief of Zelda Informer here. Hows it going? From what I am read here... it's not going well. I understand your pain. While I am "in-the-know", I have always done one thing at Zelda Informer, especially circa 2014 after I left Gamnesia for good - been open and honest with our fans. Included them in the conversation. I am no more important than any other staff member, and we as a staff are no more important the fans we write for, create videos for, and converse with. We're all just people who happen to love Zelda enough to all end up at a site that happens to be completely dedicated to that front.

I also know the importance of a strong community. I am aware that ZI's community also was a pretty toxic place before I finally left Gamnesia. Some of that toxicity was certainly inbuilt intentionally. ZI spurned out of distaste for ZU. We quickly passed ZU in two years and then had a distaste for ZD. The point is, we were certainly a toxic place. I was part of the reason such toxicity existed. At the same time, I was also one fighting against it. Old guard at ZI were all about open freedom of speech with zero censorship. That's an absolutely fantstic ideal. But without limits, it can lead to issues. There has to be a way you expect your fans to act in order for a community to not blow up with drama. ZI had a lot of drama in those days. We have been basically drama free as a website since the end of 2014 when I came back to my full time duties at ZI. Well, until the buyout - but honestly that was just staff concern and it's gone a lot smoother than I feared it would from ZI's side of things. As an example, we literally dedicated most of 2015 to guide content. Not sure you guys have seen it, but our Majora's Mask 3D Walkthrough, Zelda 2 Walkthrough, beginnings of the minish cap walkthrough, Link's Awakening Walkthrough... etc are all fantastic. Like, that was our 2015. We did that while maintaining everything else that we do.

We also changed the culture. Pre July 2014, ZI was a great site, but I'd argue there was a lot I was ashamed of. I was ashamed of how I myself acted at the site for the better part of 6 years. How I treated fellow staff so poorly and acted as if I was better than they are. How I basically used ZI's fan base as a means to my own gain for awhile. It was abhorent. I was a terrible person and my terribleness culminated in 2012. Long story short, ZI made money in 2012 and I kept all of it. It was in very poor taste. I ended up paying it all back and then some over the next two years, but that's irrelevant. I was a ****ty person making ****ty decisions for my own benefit.

Why am I telling you all about my past demons here? Because I want to be up front and honest with you. I don't want to start a relationship with this community by pretending as if I didn't come from a terrible place making terrible decisions. If the Matt in this thread is the same Matt I remember from Zelda Wiki and the Stone Watchers group - he can likely attest pretty well to my bad attitude (oh so many years ago now those memories rest, when I was merely 20/21, and I am now turning 30 this year).I feel it is the same Matt because much of the reasons I didn't really like him are coming right out in this thread. At the same time, much of the reasons I absolutely respected him are as well. The thing is, none of that matters right now. Matt can be a great guy and he's super talented. Who cares what happened a 8+ years ago?

So, what now? Well, circa July 2014 I went on a quest with ZI and myself. How could I be a better leader? How could I get rid of my selfish ways? How could I make ZI's community ultimately friendly and inviting? Well, it first started with me reforming the staff. I rebuilt our team through hiring sprees from the ground up. Int hat process, I include the staff in all decision making. No longer was it just "upper management deciding" - no, it was the entire team. Do we have 50 staff? All 50 get a say. All viewpoints are viewed as equal to another. A step further than that - if we did make a huge change we would include our community in the conversation. If it was wholly negative, we'd revisit the topic as a staff and see if we can either re-purpose the idea to address the concerns, or if it's not worth doing at all.

We also decided bullying needed to stop. We would never censor users ideas, but we can control a little bit how they put it out there. We can eliminate the diea that it's okay to attack someone. Rather, we want people to discuss, even argue against, ideas. Not people. In the same way, I'd never argue against Matt doing what he does here. I take his thoughts and concerns to heart. I don't know the truth in the past - I wasn't part of that. I only know what tomorrow brings.

See, ZI is a very different place. Collectively as a staff we all approved on a new code of conduct policy. This policy governs all aspects of our site - from commentary to social media... all the way down to our forums. You can read it here: http://www.zeldainformer.com/about/code-of-conduct

I've created videos addressing bullying and bad Zelda fan behavior: http://www.zeldainformer.com/news/the-boss-man-zelda-fan-requirements-and-internet-bullying

That above boss man post was in March 2015. You know what I see when I look back at the 92 comment conversation there? Belief. Growth. Proof to me that back then, ZI was moving in the right direction. Sure, you had a handful that were disgruntled, but they weren't mean about it. They just disagreed with the idea of what a fan is. That's fine - disagreement is healthy for a conversation. You also see people thanking me, you see some real discussion. This was my great hope for the future of ZI.

Fast forward to a few days ago. An editorial I wrote (editorials generally get more fan interaction discussion wise. News is more "reactions", editorials and debates are more "discussion" oriented. To compare to a forum, it's like someone posting a new thread with an idea they want to talk about): http://www.zeldainformer.com/articl...es-cause-delays-in-new-zelda-game-development

What do I see here? Amazing discussion against, for, or otherwise. Even when people disagree, the hostility isn't there. Even when it looks like it's building up, it quickly fizzles and things get back to a great place again. Folks, this is Zelda Informer in the here and now. If that's toxic to you, than I guess I have failed in my year and half surge to build a more inviting community.

So, let's get into concerns:

I agree with your concerns. All of them. I read all the posts in this thread (unaware this thread even existed for days because I never rejoined after you switched to Xenforo) and I get it. I do. Your reactions are very similar to Zelda Informer's staff reactions when there was an idea on the table of a merging of ZI and ZD into one site. While that's an entirely different conversation, reality is there were misconceptions in that and there are misconceptions here. I don't think ZI is this toxic place you folks remember from years back anymore. Even our facebook page, which is 7,000 times harder to police than these forums (mostly based upon the sheer amount of activity level), has gotten much friendlier. Is it perfect? No. Nothing ever is. We have our issues still and I work hard to make sure they slowly go away. There is no "overnight fix". Your folks attitudes against ZI, maybe even against me (the face of ZI as some call me), isn't fixed because of this post. It's not fixed because of whatever we talk about here.

All I can do to "fix" this and change anyone's opinions is to give them time. I don't think ZI is as toxic as people claim. In fact, reading this thread was probably the most negative and toxic thing I have read since responses to my negative blog post about ZD before ZD bought ZI. You know what that negativity about my blog post was? That I posted it in the first place. Zelda Informer's fan base was mad at me. Why was that? Why would they be mad at me? Because I was pushing forward some drama onto the fan base after I spent 1.5 years entirely changing what that fanbase represents. They weren't mad at me for being upset at the time - they were mad that I went out of ZI's current character. What I posted is not the ZI they know. I had to do a lot of apologizing and explaining to thousands of people on an individual level over the course of a week. It reminded me of something though. This is exactly the ZI I wanted all along - no room for bull**** like me being upset a staff member is leaving. They can understand and even sympathize with why I am upset, but they don'[t need to be part of that. Every fan I talked to seem to not only understand that I was upset, but they helped me see how I didn't need to make a public bruha about it.

And see, that's what I want you folks to understand here. I know you don't feel Mases is listening to you. He claims that he is, but actions DO speak louder than words. I do know he doesn't prioritize forums or view them as super important parts of a website, let alone Zelda Dungeon. That doesn't mean he doesn't care. I wouldn't know as I have been focused too much on ZI to talk much about the ZD community. But I am here now because hey, if this merge is happening as I was told it is very soon... well... I want to start my introduction to you by being as open and honest as possible.

I do care about fostering a healthy community. I may disagree with some ideology, but I hope that's something myself, the forum staff here, and really all of us as a community can come to an understanding on. I read a few times in this thread about drama months ago. I've read about issues with power mongerers and all that. Hey, I've been there. But like, if nothing else I am seeing a lot of my ideals for a community already firmly entrenched in what you folks believe. Open honestly from the top level down. Willingness to consider the entire communities desires. Not letting some people really think they are more important than others in terms of discussing things, etc. Like, that's what I strive for.

I think the biggest reason that has probably gone unsaid for why Mases wants to bring the forums from ZD over to ZI isn't about an act of good faith because our wiki is being nuked and all our amazing guide content is being taken away. Giving me a comic book when you take away my food doesn't solve my hunger. This doesn't "make up" for that, and I doubt Mases sincerely thinks our staff thinks that way either. I think the biggest unsaid reasons is well, the fact I DO care about the forums. I do care about festering an amazingly open community to all Zelda fans from all walks of life. Why does he want to bring ZD's boards into ZI?

Because with me and the current administrators and moderators (and other ZI mods and admins), you have a team of people that ultimately care a great deal about you. Mases may still be the top dog above all else, but I'm not just some guy that spews out some news. I have 18 years of experience running Zelda sites, forums, social media outlets, and staff teams. I have experience running wikis. Did you folks know I founded MetroidWiki,org? The biggest benefit is the guy that is basically at the top isn't just some forum only guy. He's a guy that cares about the wellbeing of Zelda Informer on the whole. All parts working together in sync toward sthe same end goal - bringing as many Zelda fans together as we can in a positive manner. Does the entire community want x feature on the forums? Great, I can do that for you. I don't need Mases to do it - I can do it. Do we need a final decision on key matters? I'll be right there.

Why? Because that's how much I care. As for ZI's Forums - rest assured the current layout is **** and I am aware of it. The boards were supposed to be 100% customed skinned before I promoted them. The reason our community is tiny there is basically because of that alone. I have not promoted our forums much because they are still in what I would call a "beta state". Their development is not complete.

But, rest assured that IPB is a very capable program. Do we want to do something but that addon costs money and Mases won't pay for it? I will pay for it if we really want it. Everything you have here on Xenoforo is virtually doable and then some in IPB. You just need people around capable of doing it. I know some people, but besides that, I think we can do something special together.

As for DISQUS IS THE FUTURE! Disqus is nothing but a means in which people converse with eachother. Just like the comment section on a post on facebook, just like a text message between friends, like a post on forums, and anything else. It's just a tool. The tool is irrelevant. Zelda Informer's biggesty advantage over ZD's current setup is that everything is interconnected. It's one site account for everything. You only register once to edit our wiki, comment on news, and post in our boards. Everything content wise is interconnected, and the forums were going to be part of that once we got out of beta.

Our infrastructure to promote intersite relations is way up there. But that doesn't matter really. What does matter is that you know I'm here for you. I can't say anything about branding. What I can say is that we care greatly about a united community that all follows the same set of rules and goals, even as people choose to express themselves in different areas (people comment on posts may not comment in foruyms and vice versa, and those people may not comment on facebook). But it doesn't matter. All I care about is no matter where you comment and talk about things - if it's under the ZI banner it should feel like home. I hate segmenting.

As for matt's concerns for the wiki - I have a great promotion plan that will really get the ball rolling there. I know you feel it needs more active users - you can still use the forums to get that if you want, but I can help directly or indirectly. We have some good wiki people too that may be willing to come over and help. Community is important. Community is simply the foundation ZI is built on now. Even if that community isn't in a full forum format just yet.

 

[Jamie]

Roughly 5% of the traffic is the front page.
Just over 2% of the traffic are all front page articles/blogs combined
About 92% of site traffic are walkthrough pages and wiki pages

Yeah, I assumed something like that (by the main site, I meant everything but the wiki and the forums, so including the walkthroughs. I'd like to see comparisons in traffic between walkthroughs and the wiki though). Honestly, I think the only real purpose to the forums from a company standpoint is that it can possibly bring more employees over. But from what I know about the current "employees", 95% of them got into the site from the front page and walkthroughs, so even that is a stretch.

 

[Mases]

Yeah, I assumed something like that (by the main site, I meant everything but the wiki and the forums, so including the walkthroughs. I'd like to see comparisons in traffic between walkthroughs and the wiki though). Honestly, I think the only real purpose to the forums from a company standpoint is that it can possibly bring more employees over. But from what I know about the current "employees", 95% of them got into the site from the front page and walkthroughs, so even that is a stretch.

More specifically - the Wiki makes up just over 12% of the traffic and Walkthroughs make up about 79% of the traffic.

For the Wiki - that translates to about 19,000 - 20,000 page views per day.

 

[Jamie]

More specifically - the Wiki makes up just over 12% of the traffic and Walkthroughs make up about 79% of the traffic.

For the Wiki - that translates to about 19,000 - 20,000 page views per day.

Alright, so similar to what I originally thought then. Main site = priority #1, wiki = priority #2, and a distant one at that, and forums are an even further distant "priority" #3.

To me, it seems laughable at best to suggest the average forum goer keeps the site running. And where are we all going to go for walkthroughs if the forums go down? As I've already mentioned, the walkthroughs are head and shoulders better than any other site, and tbh, it's not even close. It's one of the things I absolutely applaud mases for, and it's the entire reason why ZD is, and has been for a while, the biggest zelda "fansite". Because it's not really a "fansite", which rarely do well by themselves, but it is and has always been a site to get information.

Mases wants to keep the forums and remains, at least somewhat, involved because he knows people care about it. Not because he personally cares about it (nor should he, for that matter, considering he doesn't post here or make any money from it). We (including myself) give him a lot of **** for not really caring sometimes, but when you look at these statistics, and honestly, I didn't even think they were that stark (assumed forums were at least bringing 5-10% of traffic), would you care that much? This is Mases full time job. It's clear he thinks more guides is the way to go, and honestly it's hard to argue with that. So he wants to separate ZD and ZI with their purposes. To be totally honest, it makes a lot of sense to me, and anyone who knows me would agree I rarely say that about mases' decisions regarding the forums.

 

[Zonda]

Having a quick look at ZI, the Community really doesn't look at all toxic, but I didn't dig very deep.

Honestly, I think this change is a bad idea. No matter what the change is, URL and major layout overhauls severely impact the population of a website. Look at Bungie.net's forums prior to and after January 8, 2013. There was a gargantuan population drop, and a similar thing happened with another overhaul on July 16, 2014. It sets entire communities back to square 1.

But whatever, this isn't my website.