Hobart Bliggity Posted:

I’m going to actually seriouspost in GD here, so brace yourselves.

I’m sure it’s no secret that I, along with a few other posters, purposely get banned by doing grey-area things and then try to cause a ****storm because of said ban. In other limited cases, as the one stated by was, we latch on to someone elses ban and raise hell on their behalf. I’m aware that a good number of mods know this game, and play along accordingly. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about the motive behind it though.

First and foremost, causing drama and arguements in CD is about the only ****ing entertaining thing left on these boards. CZs decision to advertise on a few select sites, make the RP boards basically unmoderated, and even create an anon forum has attracted the most boring of all personalities to this community. Sure, its a revolving door of ****ty posters, but the constant volume of crap keeps a lot of the people that actually contribute comedy here away. I realize that this is a business, and I can’t argue their decisions from a bottom-line perspective, but I don’t think anyone can say that the community is better off now than when it was a smaller.

But Im getting off topic. The consistently unfunny barrage in the RP forums, combined with the black-or-white enforcing of rules in CD leaves a lot of the intelligent-but-kind-of-an-bumhole type posters with literally nowhere to post. I know it’s personal preference, but I think all of the best posters in the history here have fallen into that category, and it was those types that really made this place take off in the beginning.

I used to post in full sentences and try to make sense in RP forums. I also used to avoid non-RP because it bored me. Now, I can’t be bothered to put any thought into anything in RP because it’ll just get buried under a steady stream of ****, and CD is so strictly enforced I could never get away with saying what I wanted to. So I’ve devolved into ****posting in RP and way over the top careposting in CD, because it’s really the only way left to get people to react.

I guess I don’t know how I would go about rectifying this, and I can’t imagine it changing anytime soon. Ep 3 is just going to bring in 10,000 new people, 3 of which I’ll probably like and want around. I know I’m an bumhole, and I know “good poster” is subjective, but I can’t help but to try to steer the forums away from the direction they’re headed.

in short Log in to see images!

Couldn’t have said that better myself.

I only lurk on Flamebate nowadays, and post links on Meme Factory every once in a while. I bother with 1 or 2 threads on RP forums but that’s it.

Think we all called this would happen when they basically killed all the moderation on RP? I was trying to deny that, but I think I (and a lot others) always knew that the fun of being in a completely unmoderated area was going to be shorthanded.

scully Posted:

I beg to differ. Many of the rules have been put in place at the instigation of the mods, or for the convenience of the mods. Speak the hell up.

It is ridiculous that the rules need to be clarified to the point of coming off like a legal dogreat timesent. People doing the rules changes are freaking clueless and seem to think they need to be clarified for the posters, and that has never been the case. The rules have become a pile of stupid clarifications because the mods act like freaking babies half the time and it is the only way to police them. In order to gain any semblance of fairness things have needed to become more and more black and white. Why? Because “poster A” will not get banned for what “poster B” would get banned for posting.

I don’t know, I’m tired and I’ve ranted about all this way too many times in the past already. I’ll tl;dr at you when I wake up if I’m not banned.

If ET and JB are guilty of anything, it’s of trying to be fair to everyone, but on this site it doesn’t work. Having the rules is fine, but this isn’t a democracy or a legal entity, being intelligent is more important than following the letter of the law.

Sneaky27 Posted:

Who’s definition of fun? I find the RP forums to be more entertaining then they were eight months ago when I joined. I laugh when I see DKR’s blank posts and the inevitable cavalcade of whining that will follow. I think it’s great that RP threads are buried in spam before they have a chance to get stale. This makes for more threads, more chances to get under someone’s skin, and more Kaiser/Nailbomb spam.

It’s an interesting point, obviously the “new” Flamebate does appeal to certain people. I guess the question is if the long term health of Forumwarz is better served by appealing to the “old guard” or the people who are happy now. I don’t know the answer.

I’m not sure where I fall on this issue.

One thing I do know is there’s no way to please everyone. We allowed embedded shock in RP because many people didn’t see why that was bannable, but some of those same people are complaining about spam. Both are forms of trolling, and someone finds each kind funny, but what’s funny to one is CLEARLY not funny to another. So how to satisfy everyone? No way.

Musing openly to myself: The game itself is about trolling. Not about camwhoring, not about emo-ing, about trolling. That’s why every single character is represented in sTalks as a male troll. So reflecting that in the RP forums would be right in line, wouldn’t it? Honestly, the vast majority of posters there, no matter WHAT clbum their characters are, talk like trolls. So that’s clearly what the majority of the player base wants, right?

More musing openly to myself: Many of the gone players were funny. I miss the true role-players: Janie, Gunther, Escher, lightning-bolt kid, Balcony Critics, gs49 (who’s not REALLY been posting since embedded shock was permitted), more. But what a lot of the community finds funny is not people who roll-play, but people who troll CD. “Rah-rah, it’ll be funny to get some newbie banned for posting goatse in GD!” That’s what’s considered fun by that handful of people. Do we cater to them and say screw everything? Or do we draw a line? I guess we have to draw a line. Which takes us back to my earlier muse. Nowhere can we draw a line which everybody likes.

Further open musing to myself: Whatever changes we make are going to make someone unhappy. I suppose from a business perspective, CZ needs to change things to support the majority of players, not the handful. If this kills Flamebate then Log in to see images! But it’s a business, and I’m not privy to the knowledge. Hell, for all I know, if the place were completely free from trolls maybe the 98% of people who never post on it would start!

Also if we had a middle ground, like if we put the current RP forums there where it’s at mod discretion to ban someone for being disruptive, while we leave like the anon forum with the same rules as RP’s current ruleset.

That would work just as well

dunno why spam is encouraged in rp. nailbomb thinks it’s a personal challenge to do like the RP logo says. (which is the kind of mindset that only comes from 4chan and is detrimental to this society)

then i’m under the impression that i shouldn’t ban anyone in rp unless it’s an actual rulebreak.

i’d personally rather not see more rules for specific things like prolific spamming. we dont need specific bannable things. i always prefered blanket statements that give me free reign to punish people who are being downright dumb and distruptive.

this could be accomplished with communityposting bans.

it might also affect illegal alt production as there’s still something to do while you’re banned from flamebate

MC Banhammer Posted:

...temp and perma…

Right, but both are full game bans, not just MB bans. Someone who spams CD shouldn’t be banned from the entire game. Let them run their forum visits. Let them TM people (without spamming ofc). Mayeb even let them submit to the buildrs, I dunno. The problem here is that the punishment in this community rarely fits the “crime” and this is probably a big part of why Flamebate and the community as a whole has gotten as ****ty as it is.

TUBSWEETIE and MC Banhammer Posted:

Baww we can’t win please feel sorry for us

Master_Troll Posted:

Have a checks and balances system wherein a number of mods (say 1/3) come to a consensus on what is being disruptive

Just FYI. Maybe if only an outright ban were left up to discussion and like mods could delete posts at their own discretion but srsly, checks and balances cancel out “selective” modding and remove the need for rules that look like the constitution when it comes to how restricted they are

PS also consider my option where we have 3 groups: CD, RP, and Anon with varying levels of lawlessness

Master_Troll Posted:

Just FYI. Maybe if only an outright ban were left up to discussion and like mods could delete posts at their own discretion but srsly, checks and balances cancel out “selective” modding and remove the need for rules that look like the constitution when it comes to how restricted they are

PS also consider my option where we have 3 groups: CD, RP, and Anon with varying levels of lawlessness

you have no idea how hard intermod discussion is.

if you have ever seen a bull**** ban since the new mods got promoted it’s because they don’t check for second/third opinions on borderline stuff.

no offense new mods. mod forum is mostly deserted, emails infrequent, gtalk only comes open when i’m poking people myself. you know who you are if you don’t apply to that statement.

TUBSWEETIE Posted:

pretty sure people would complain less about moderation and subjectivity if they weren’t booted out of the ENTIRE GAME for being a moron in a forum

Again, I’ve never seen an online game which wove the game itself so tightly into its forum. The forum should be separate from the game, and acting up in the forum should not result in being barred from playing the game itself. Unless ofc you’re doing something really bad like maybe posting IRL info on the forum or something Log in to see images!