What Is And What Should Never Be

[Cedur]

if the forums are about to die, just let them die in piece? That is, if they really do. There is still a solid amount of posts, even if it's not that many people. They are still enjoying themselves a lot. (basically what ZM said) Also who knows what's going to happen when SMBX2 develops further.

An SMBX2-only forum would also be a poor idea, it would definitely be even less active. The variety of SMBX engines / versions and the variety of communication mediums doesn't hurt at all. You can expect the active users to refuse going to Reddit if that's not what they like.

I hope this is already off the table given the tremendous disapproval (41:2 no votes)

[FireyPaperMario]

I'm not sure about this "Idea" of moving on from the forums to Reddit tbh

[Walder]

all part of a malicious conspiracy being set in motion by the admins to grind reddit gold

[TDK]

Aren't you 10 days early?

[ElectriKong]

Aren't you 10 days early?

Probably

[Akromaly]

In my opinion, forums are an outdated way to talk because with those new messaging platforms such as Discord the communication is instantaneous and much smoother than making single posts on threads and probably waiting time to get a reply.

But in the other side, forums keep being a powerful tool to share content, we're a community who makes graphics, levels and episodes, so this place is perfect to create a board where everyone can easily check the creations of the community.

[KateBulka]

No, thanks. Reddit would be degradation i think.

[Saltlord]

Imagine being a newcomer who has a question regarding one of the engines, but no one gives a shit because you are unpopular and get no upvotes, therefore your thread is unnoticed. Doesn't seem very enticing to me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/badideas/

[TheNightingale]

I used to agree with this but I have been thinking it a bit more and in my opinion, this isn't a good idea. In one hand, we have a Discord server to discuss anything. On the other hand, we have these forums which are useful to share our creations. What else we want?

As NegativeBread said, this is not changing anything. I know that using online forums is not as relevant as before, but at least we have an easy-to-use and safe place with lots of features to discuss about projects/showcases/community issues, which is the most important thing. This site became very popular since its first years and it's way easier to find rather than a Reddit community.

We're not going anywhere with this in my opinion.

[squp]

Can’t wait to post a really nice topic for my levels and project without spoilers and several screenshots! I also can’t wait for feedback based on ‘yes’ and ‘no’, a lack of stickies and no completely separate sub forums! :DDDD

[Knux]

Moving to reddit would straight up be the death of the SMBX community. I really hope that this isn't an idea been taken seriously.

Nowadays though, everything seems to have become more and more unified (and monopolized, sic!): You have YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Discord, and if you're really generous, FaceBook still.

The SMBX FB/Twitter/Reddit sections are all dead. They never did well to begin with.


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The biggest problem facing the SMBX community, which ultimately contributed to its current state of inactivity and dissonance, is the way SMBX politics work.

Moving the community to Reddit without addressing this problem first will be the reason SMBX might fall completely, in my opinion:


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SMBX politics:

Now, I'm not saying that our 'political system' is left-wing or right-wing, but the similarites from real-life politics compared to the way we run things are rather obvious at times. Generally speaking members of this community have never really agreed on the way things should be run. This, coupled by the fact that many forum-leader figures detest one another, has caused significant damage to the SMBX community.

During Kyasarin's tenure (2010; following Redigit's departure to Haiti) there was a dramatic increase in how severe punishments would be handed out.
For whatever reason, rules such as double-posting, calling out staff errors, were seen as unforgiveable offenses in the eyes of certain staff members.
This got to the point where users would be banned for the most insane reasons, and the negative atmosphere put an end to the original forums for good.

People migrated to my forum (2010-13) where they wouldn't fear bans. Users had FAR more freedom and say in matters involving benefiting the community, and for a while it worked really well. However, I can't ignore the fact that this system was flawed too. By giving users this freedom it allowed some to create discussion on who should be running the joint, and you'd get idiots such as SORA who would influence the community in the wrong ways. This may ultimately have contributed to both sides working in harmony, only for it to result in disaster and distrust amongst members.

The crux of it all was based on how strict things should be. What defined a minor wrong-doing or a reasonable ban offense would become a haze because we would never agree on anything. My personal belief was that strictness on a <i>Super Mario</i> forum, which is populated mostly by the younger gaming community, doesn't quite belong, or that it should be inforced but not to the degree that some believed it should be. Many staff members who followed Kyasarin's style of moderating did not seem to grasp that acting horrible to kids was never going to end well.

I allowed backlash and criticism on my forum because in my mind it seemed like it would benefit the community, and was fair. Eventually, this gave Joey way to take control of the community, which resulted in a tremendous backlash which would go on until sometime in 2015. A lot of the criticism during this time was focused on how we had effectivly 'gone back to the old oppressive days' of SMBX. Almost none of these issues were addressed, and I was very much disheartened to see us go back to a system that was already proven not to work - but more so because it was done for nostalgic reasons.

It's hard to label what we would call the two sides of SMBX. I still think it's really bizzare that we even have a political system like this. I can't think of any other forum that works this way. Both sides have their positives and negatives, and I don't mind admitting that I made several mistakes following what I believed was the right thing to do at the time. However, this is an issue that has never gone away, and because of how this community has evolved, it may never.

I don't believe that moving to Reddit is the answer. Trying to increase activity isn't the answer either. The biggest issue right now is dealing with the fact that users under Kyasarin Rule (which is effectively what this forum IS under) have been frequently silenced and/or banned since the 2013 merge, and because of this we're limited to what the staff think are best - and while I get on with many of the staff members, there are issues that are present, again, under Kyasarin Rule. Many of the staff are still in their teenage years, some in their early 20s. We do not process the best judgement, as evident by everything that's ever happened.

(to clarify; kyasarin rule is a term i've just made up, essentially describing one of the two sides of SMBX politics. I'll gladly list what both sides stand for, their pros and cons, if asked. although I'm not sure if this is the relevant place)

This effects us because the way that this community is now is a direct result of years and years of agenda-pushing , manipulation and a lack of fairness on all sides. We're a SUPER MARIO BROTHERS community stuck in a political shitshow. An embarrasment. Something that greatly puts people off.

The staff most likely will not be inclined to agree with me on this, but the forum rules system is full of contradiction and hypocrisy. It doesn't work at all. Many of the older rules are out-dated and don't work with the modern age of the internet. A lot of people here are strangely stuck in the year 2009 mentality, because it's the 'glorified year of SMBX when everything was good' - it wasn't by the way, even then it was far from perfect.


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Secondly, moving to Reddit is also going to alienate a lot of the userbase, no matter how many times you post threads or announcments - here's a shock for you: nobody cares. Most people using this forum do not want to get involved with the politics of SMBX. Even reading this post will be daunting for some. Many people will be out the loop and find that it's just not worth it. This will not go down the same way as the 2013 merge because back then it was the ONLY option for the mainstream community, and it wasn't that much of a giant leap.


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If you check the facts, Knux is actually not completely wrong, it certainly gives the impression when you look around here. We may have some odd 8000 registered users (which is nothing if you compare it to the 24k subscribers bossedit8 has amassed since 2014), but only like ~50 people who actively use this place regularely. Most of the action happens on the Discord, which has actively gained 2000 members in the last two years, to the point where we now advertise it on the smbxgame.com front page over the forums!

We had 4000(?) I believe. Most of them were bots, dupe accounts or one-time members. In truth it was virtually impossible to gather accurate statistics, but even now 50 seems way too low.


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Also, this frankly odd mentality that Discord is the way forward. I won't deny that Discord has significant advantages over forums but if it was really taking over internet forums then explain why so many boards are still striving, many in which don't even have chatrooms? Surely the problem here is Discord, because if that's taking away all the activity then it might be best to get rid of it. Or, alternatively, choose between one of the two.

Discord doesn't have a great archiving system from what I gather. I haven't used it in a while so that may have changed, but the efforts you would need to go to in order to migrate over to it would be such an over-complicated process that, again, would alienate the userbase.

and this point, provided by Enji:

Can't wait to be literally unable to find any levels, graphics, episodes or what used to be sticky threads anymore.

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This includes the rest of our staff team, who at the time of me writing this have no idea what's going on lol (sorry guys <3)

This is not how a staff team should operate.

so let me get this straight, you want to scrap the forums after having a quite thoughrough discussion about the problems of this website instead of y'know, fixing the mostly administrative problems of the website? Im sorry this just sounds like the admins fucking ditching when actually being told that they have to interact with us. This website is more organized and better than any subreddit, and Im so fucking disappointed in the mods' decision if they really fucking go through with this. Im actually fucking disgusted.

this is one of the reasons why.


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the community's lack of activity has been a long-running concern ever since Redigit left SMBX to die. Knux's forum, NSMBX, Cloud's forum and this one, iterations, desperate attempts to keep it alive

This isn't actually true. The activity levels from 2009-15 were always on a constant uprise. It used to bug me when people brought this up because it was total nonsense. Since 2017 though, the forum activity has undeniably declined. I cannot speak for Discord, which may be the reason WHY this has happened, but the forums have most defintely declined now.

Giving SMBX exposure through reddit can also get undesired attention, say Nintendo. I don't know if the whole Nintendo shutting down SMBX is true or not, but it is a fear of mine nonetheless.

SMBX has been in the limelight for so many years now that I no longer see this as an actual concern. Super Mario Maker could have potentially been a problem but nothing ever came of it.


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There's also the fact that the majority of the community do not want this. If this turns into a staff-over-user situation I will lose all respect for the current staff team, and I hope this is enough to convince you guys that these type of private decisions Do. Not. Work.





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tl;dr: SMBX will probably never regain what it had because of the way things have been run since its inception. Reddit will likely make this worse. Discord is contributing to a lot of this, and I have great doubts that it's a suitable takeover. Internet forums are still very much a thing, it's just this one isn't striving - and moving isn't going to help that.

This is a coping mechanism to mask the real problems.

[aero]

I agree with most of your post but disagree about your take on Discord. There's some sort of "politics" in every community but at times it's emphasized within SMBX. It's a dichotomy of the staff controlling the community vs the users controlling the community that can create this emphasis. One thing I've observed is that the staff of SMBX communities takes on more of a role than just moderating and begins to direct where the community goes, and people feel that it is necessary to become staff to influence this rather than moderate. In a community focused on member creations this can create all kinds of dysfunction. I'll leave it at that though as to not stray off topic.

Also there won't be a staff-over-user situation. This announcement has basically caused an outcry, and the staff will be discussing a solution that the community would find acceptable.

[Thehelmetguy1]

Not a lot to say except that I completely agree with what Knux and others said. Just don't do this. It is a terrible idea.

[Valentine]

Then PixelPest, Kley and I would bid our farewells and resign from our position as "heads" of the community.

Can we have this part though, this is good. (Kley can stay)

[DryBoneJr]

The Last Global Announcement on this Forum?
No?
As someone who has never been active, back in the old forums before the Nintendo ads were put in the launcer, I didn't even know how to make an account, I don't really have a rational take on this, I'm an idiot and a very nostalgic one, I just think I'll miss a part of my childhood, like a whole lot. But if you think this will keep Smbx relevant for another decade so be it.

[Emral]

Then PixelPest, Kley and I would bid our farewells and resign from our position as "heads" of the community.

Can we have this part though, this is good. (Kley can stay)

Let's appoint Waddle the position of SMBX God for he has done all the moderator work in recent history anyway, and wave the rest goodbye. (Kley can stay)

[Taycamgame]

Then PixelPest, Kley and I would bid our farewells and resign from our position as "heads" of the community.

Can we have this part though, this is good. (Kley can stay)

Possibly a little harsh, but reasonable; perhaps a new list of staff will be able to come up with a different, maybe better, way to approach issues like this - it'd also be a new "fresh coat of paint" on the community. However we need to respect that the current staff are probably doing as best as they can; this thread clearly stems from a thought that was floating around in the staff's discussion. May not be the best idea in the world, but let's not blame the staff personally.

[Valentine]

However we need to respect that the current staff are probably doing as best as they can

Maybe like 2 of them.

I'm not going to respect cutting the staff slack when they haven't rightfully deserved it.

[PopYoshi]

I wouldn't have any problem if the community moves to reddit, as long as it keeps having the air of the forums (which will take a lot to get used to because I haven't used reddit too much and I don't know that much how it works) and the community agrees with the decision

[Eri7]

Then PixelPest, Kley and I would bid our farewells and resign from our position as "heads" of the community.

Can we have this part though, this is good. (Kley can stay)

Let's appoint Waddle the position of SMBX God for he has done all the moderator work in recent history anyway, and wave the rest goodbye. (Kley can stay)

I agree with this statement but Waddle wouldn't really like to be idolized...