But it’s not just the closure of the lounges. For some, that was the last straw, but for others here, it’s the canary in the coalmine. It, combined with inconsistent and over-the-top moderation, along with other comments made have raised the possibility that TPTB may nuke the BBS altogether. People have decided to make a backup for if that happens.
The duplicate stuff here isn’t lounge threads and they never were. They are some of the fun user generated things that people enjoy doing. Content that may be disallowed on BBBBS in the future even if article comments are allowed to remain. I think many of the contributions by what were regulars are going to phase out over there. I am spending more time here atm, because there are interesting conversations going on right now.
shrugs Maybe nothing more will happen there, things will settle down and nobody will notice. Maybe after the initial burst of novelty, this will fizzle out and everybody will wander away. We don’t know either way. But we also won’t have a chance at what might be, if we don’t see where it goes…
The rough plan, as I understand it, is to create an alternative to the old site, owned and operated by the community at large, with a focus on building a friendly and tight-knit community. This includes creating a Lounge where long-time members can have conversations free of idiots, a blog system that Regulars can post to, and it will be funded by donation/recurring voluntary subscription. We do have patrons we can rely on in months of shortfall, but our goal is ultimately for the
I would argue inconsistent moderation is the problem more than authoritarian moderation. And it’s not just a bad owl in the bunch, it’s the thin blue line of moderation being drawn and no one even being willing to say “yeah it might have been a bit much” in public discourse despite double-speak of transparency.
I don’t think there is an unreasonable expectation to say bring back trust level discussions and setting precedents for moderators to follow along with posters solves the issue, and it’s pretty typical of successful forums.
Even manual promotion to TL3 with no lounge and no thread editing permissions would be goodness. The weighted flags were nice. We could make spam posts go hidden right away.
It is easier to be consistent and rule by consensus when a forum is new and there are only 100 members - most of whom sorta kinda know each other - than when there are thousands of registered users and the forum is several years old.
I mean like, drawing an example of a forum I was on for years, MTGSalvation had 10K visitors a day at its peak (>20K registered) but mostly transparent moderation and a system to place feedback against moderators - and then the moderators would actually take action. I was a moderator there for a while and got to see the inner politics a bit too, and there were established rules and how to handle bans and editing posts similar to a terms of condition for posters.
I’m not saying it prevents the people keeping the lights on from changing that system to whatever they want, it just means that a moderator would be breaking he agreed upon rules of the community to slap decade long bans on everyone.
88% of what OP @MalevolentPixy posted, plus I am sad to say I’ve had enough experience with capricious bullies to identify one. I can only go by stated community guidelines and standard interpersonal courtesy: I disengage and withdraw at any rages or tantrums brought on by hidden, unstated triggers, and the more people here disclose of their mysterious bans elsewhere, the less inclined I am to login to that other site.
After taking a 60-day time out of my own accord, for related but quite different reasons than many of you, but yes, because of the conflict and its not being resolved and me seeing it as not resolvable and looking elsewhere a while.
And you plurals did this! This is nice.
I was a regular over there. I use it different now. That name is gone, and my new usage pattern has a new name. But the thing is… at no point was that going to be a community operated thing. But you’re right, this community is a wonderful thing. You all have not been an audience for me to monologue at (a few key immoderate instances aside) but valued teachers.
Since y’all are voracious readers and can’t have missed it. I was pretty rude to a few regulars, and if you happen to be in touch with them cough cough @japh cough cough @othermichael at least one of the reasons I’m here is to look for them to offer said apologies. Anyone?? Bueller?
And, of course, I desperately miss Princess Pricklepants.
