The State of the Community

[MistakesWereMade]

"how people unnecessarily take this place really seriously" is what I said, just so there's no misunderstanding.

We're stopping the 100-page discussion right now.

1-Misquoted, thanks for pointing that out

2:
a) we weren't even directly discussing the 100 page thing, we were talking about the shit you do in general
b) way to flat out say "DISCUSSION IS OVER BOYS" instead of actually giving any actual motives.

And because i am mr oracle, you're going to proceed to lock this thread and not allow further discussion of it, like always.

[Magician]

I have, more than once in the past, contradicted the notion that the community is immature and explained why it's a problematic attitude to have and use as a premise for action. Despite that at no point have I received any real counter-points to this, I get the feeling that I'm not ever getting through.
So here's the thing: When I finally take advice from this thread and stop caring, it isn't because I've decided to just trust that the staff are inherently people who "generally" knows what's best. It's because I increasingly feel that we likely will never see an actual rational discussion wherein everyone would be lead to the same (or more agreeable) conclusions on our points of contention, and thus I've stopped caring. I want to caution you on this, because I see that as an inevitable conclusion for many people and that might not be something you want.

But that's the last I'm going to say about it. I'm done for aforementioned reasons. I'm tired of focusing on this stuff and want to focus more on SMBX anyway. At any rate, I still wish all the best for this place; I'm just accepting that there's little I can do beyond just doing what this thread asks.

[qig]

I'm just glad that despite all the drama on the forum that the staff has blessed us, the common user, with the ability to have and vocalize our own opinions.

[FallingSnow]

I don't think an "immature user-base" is the source of any problems right now if the user-base could even be considered that in the first place.

[Shadow Yoshi]

I don't think an "immature user-base" is the source of any problems right now if the user-base could even be considered that in the first place.

It most certainly is immature, and that can be partly attributed to the general age level of the community. The immaturity is expressed through people caring about staff/banned users for no reason and people being really sensitive.

[aero]

why should community members have to do more work to improve the community than staff members?

imo we should do an equal amount of work to improve this place

Spoiler: show

A list is as long as its content, not its enumeration. Joey is not asking everyone to go above and beyond here, he just wants people to not do what they're already doing and be better users. The two points that make the list longer for users is to remember not to be sensitive on the internet, and be kind. How exactly is that "more work?" The question should actually be why do those points need to be stressed on the user side in the first place.

This. Just because the admins are making the members behave a certain way, it doesn't mean that they'll not make fun of or judge each other outside of the forums. They could still be talking about people behind their backs on Skype, Steam, etc. If we want to resolve this drama, I believe that it's best that we all put our heads together and try to find the heart of why the drama exists in the first place as a COMMUNITY. We may think that it's because of one thing, but if multiple people tell their sides of a story and what they think the problem is, it can help them think harder about a certain conflict, and their views on the community and its people can change based on what they hear.

We have no control over (nor do we really care about) what users do outside of this community.

The heart of why the drama exists is because we have an immature userbase. I could go into further detail and mention how there's a disconnect between the users and the staff, how the lack of enforcement of common posting habit rules (especially among the SMBX-related forums) has contributed to the immaturity, and how people take things here way too seriously, but it all comes back to the fact that we have an immature userbase. The way to fix this problem and propel the SMBX community toward a better future is to follow what I've outlined in the first post.

I think you've got it backwards. I believe the problem of needless argumentation does come from a few sources, some of which being what Drluigi described about alternate Skype groups (misinformation is going about already about 8bit's ban), Forums (Knux has already tried to cause controversy on XerX's forum about democracy in the community and tyrannical staff here), and god knows what's being talked about on Steam. This is a problem for us because being banned from here is worthless. Back on SMB.org, you got the message you did something wrong and will be allowed back if or when the ban ends. Now it means you can go to say NSMBX's "Other Business" forum, or a friend's SMBX clone forum, or Privana, or Skype, or Steam, or IRC, or Teatime, or or or. I've suggested to the Privana crowd already to get rid of their SMBX category to draw a line in the sand between their community and the SMBX one, and to implement a version of the SMBX.org forum's rules to tame the troubled users who abuse these forums for their personal gain here. We're growing as a community because people see these "troubled users" - as they've been called, for what they truly are: argumentative and perpetually unsatisfied. Nobody that I know gives these people a second thought and only allows them in because of some facade of professionalism, fairness, or diplomacy when they would bring in the opposite and thus achieve the opposite. The next step is for people to get over their nonsense and no longer engage, and stopping it before it happens. This all ties in together to one point: it's the current environment which effects the userbase which effects the immaturity of the community. By having a system where positive and constructive feedback is given and encourage, while the contrary is discouraged and stopped every step of the way we will then have a more perfect union community.

I don't think an "immature user-base" is the source of any problems right now if the user-base could even be considered that in the first place.

It most certainly is immature, and that can be partly attributed to the general age level of the community. The immaturity is expressed through people caring about staff/banned users for no reason and people being really sensitive.

Age is a poor indicator for this community. I'll leave it at that because I don't want to go through a list of troublesome users and their age because it would be a waste of time.

[Shadow Yoshi]

I think you've got it backwards. I believe the problem of needless argumentation does come from a few sources, some of which being what Drluigi described about alternate Skype groups (misinformation is going about already about 8bit's ban), Forums (Knux has already tried to cause controversy on XerX's forum about democracy in the community and tyrannical staff here), and god knows what's being talked about on Steam. This is a problem for us because being banned from here is worthless. Back on SMB.org, you got the message you did something wrong and will be allowed back if or when the ban ends. Now it means you can go to say NSMBX's "Other Business" forum, or a friend's SMBX clone forum, or Privana, or Skype, or Steam, or IRC, or Teatime, or or or. I've suggested to the Privana crowd already to get rid of their SMBX category to draw a line in the sand between their community and the SMBX one, and to implement a version of the SMBX.org forum's rules to tame the troubled users who abuse these forums for their personal gain here. We're growing as a community because people see these "troubled users" - as they've been called, for what they truly are: argumentative and perpetually unsatisfied. Nobody that I know gives these people a second thought and only allows them in because of some facade of professionalism, fairness, or diplomacy when they would bring in the opposite and thus achieve the opposite. The next step is for people to get over their nonsense and no longer engage, and stopping it before it happens. This all ties in together to one point: it's the current environment which effects the userbase which effects the immaturity of the community. By having a system where positive and constructive feedback is given and encourage, while the contrary is discouraged and stopped every step of the way we will then have a more perfect union community.

Except, regardless of who is talking about what, we can't control what goes on outside of our forum and trying to do so is a futile effort. It really doesn't matter if a user is banned and wants to go whine somewhere else on the internet; being banned from here isn't as worthless as you think because no other place can compare to this one.

Needless argumentation is a by-product of immaturity, and the staff is also at fault for letting it happen and sometimes contributing to it.

[sleepy]

It most certainly is immature, and that can be partly attributed to the general age level of the community.

Young age doesn't necessarily mean they're immature.

[Marina]

It most certainly is immature, and that can be partly attributed to the general age level of the community.

Young age doesn't necessarily mean they're immature.

Also it's noteworthy that most of the members who are actually acting immature are well over the age of 14.

[Shadow Yoshi]

It most certainly is immature, and that can be partly attributed to the general age level of the community.

Young age doesn't necessarily mean they're immature.

I realize that not everybody follows the same path of maturity/growth throughout adolescence, but, like I said, maturity can be partly attributed to age.

[Superiorstar]

How can anyone take this community seriously if there is a freaking announcement thread about pie?

[sleepy]

Can you take a joke?

[Zeldamaster12]

Can you take a joke?

^ This.

We're just kidding around and having some fun, lighten up lol

[underFlo]

"The staff is too strict"

*staff makes a joke*

"The staff isn't serious enough"

[MistakesWereMade]

How can anyone take this community seriously if there is a freaking announcement thread about pie?

Don't try to relate a fucking joke to the community's issues, it was a joke in good fun.

[Vinyl Scratch]

The pie thread is the best thing that's happened to the community since Redigit came back to Knux's forums just to make a troll post saying he was going to work on SMBX again

[Shadow Yoshi]

That wasn't a troll post, assuming you're talking about when we made a topic for Super X.

[Vinyl Scratch]

That wasn't a troll post, assuming you're talking about when we made a topic for Super X.

No, I'm talking about the posts he made at like 3 in the morning

[Mable]

Can you take a joke?

^
This is one of the other problems. When you do a joke and everyone screams at you *cough* irc *cough*.

[aero]

I think we should get off the Apple Pie joke, and get back to the point of the thread.

Now, I think the community is doing better with handling their objectives; yet I think we need a good way to stop the ban discussion. Nobody really appeals bans on the forums publicly anymore, which is a great thing because before it would cause more locked topics. I think that if we were to implement a rule for IRC to not allow public ban appeals, or discussion of bans at all whether it's about them or not we could get this problem resolved. The problem is that I don't want to stack another rule on the ones we already have for IRC, and if too many people disagree with the rule it will not make anything better. So is this a bad idea, can something better be done? How do we go about keeping private things private and not going overboard with moderating what's public? How do we reach the equivalent of no locked threads on the forums with no drama on the IRC?