Our attitudes need a tune-up again!

[Pseudonym]

Over the last year it seems a few bad old habits have slowly crept back in here. And perhaps one or two bad new habits as well. It’s time for a bit of a tune-up.

The symptoms are:

- One group establishes a strong macho "matey" culture that takes over the site

- Mostly their contributions to topics are for their own amusement, rather than to help others or discuss ideas

- These posts usually consist of inside jokes, memes and animated gifs

- Not particularly welcoming towards newbies or females

- They are so comfortable within their group that they ridicule and hen-peck anyone with different opinions

- There’s often a strong suspicion of these “outsiders” and accusations that they’re trolls

A sociologist would find this behaviour fascinating. I just find it frustrating.

It’s this atmosphere that drives people away from the site. I know this, because a lot of them send me emails/PMs before they go. Here’s a recent one from a member who hasn’t left yet, but is clearly getting sick of things here:

For the love of God, block animated gifs, and memes. They add nothing to the threads, and there are few things that piss me off so much as jumping into a thread to read the newest posts, just to find that there's nothing but some goofy basketballer saying "IN" (or any of the myriad assorted bandwidth thieves in use). Maybe allow them in the playground to prevent the bitching.

On that note, am I alone in feeling that the tone of the site has taken a turn for the juvenile over the last year or so. Seems there's a lot more "trolling" and "miscing" of late, and that the boards are being dominated by a few of the "cool kids".

Anyway, just my thoughts, and PMd rather than posted to avoid the inevitable shit-storm of gifs, memes and name-calling that would ensue.

I can introduce all sorts of cool new forums and features to grow the community here, but that only attracts members – it’s you guys that determine whether they stay or not. And right now, many aren’t.

I’m hoping that this little rant will be enough for us to all clean up our act. The mods are very aware that stamping on this with edits and suspensions looks a bit heavy-handed. But if the choice is that, or a bad culture here, I know what I’d prefer. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

So enough of the rant – here’s the summary:

- Be nice

- Keep topics on topic.

- Keep “Miscing” and memes in the Playground, and maybe your journals if you must. (Better yet, keep them to the Misc forum on BB.com!)

- Be nice

Thanks guys. 8)

[Diab0lic]

Mostly good points there I must agree. I'm gonna bite my tongue about that PM you got and those kinds of people. I agree that there is possibly a bit too much crap talking/gif posting outside the playground but some people need to relax their sphincters somewhat (sorry that's as polite as i can go).

I also admit my troll radar has been poorly calibrated a couple of times lately.... Will keep troll accusations to a minimum and goofy gifs in the playground \:D/

[thatwaslight]

So your saying there is a demographic larger than the current base of members that get butthurt over a few memes and gifs? Lol wow. On the contrary I know of a large portion of members that primarily log on for the odd light hearted laugh. what your asking for is a sterile environment that I don't think is going to be anymore overly attractive.

So many people on here are too uptight And take things way to seriously. Of course people are going to form groups and stick together.. Did you attend high school? The moral of the story is unless you ban most of your longest serving members your not going to be able to just flip the dynamic.

[Android]

So your saying there is a demographic larger than the current base of members that get butthurt over a few memes and gifs? Lol wow. On the contrary I know of a large portion of members that primarily log on for the odd light hearted laugh. what your asking for is a sterile environment that I don't think is going to be anymore overly attractive.

So many people on here are too uptight And take things way to seriously. Of course people are going to form groups and stick together.. Did you attend high school? The moral of the story is unless you ban most of your longest serving members your not going to be able to just flip the dynamic.

I have to agree with TWL, they're fun, hip, even kewl. People have spent hours crafting these intricate gifs to deliver a message that words alone cannot.

But I think maybe, just maybe wasting them on noobs who won't c the funny side, and remember its a reply to their question usually, is the issue.

Can I suggest reply away with them to people who you know (real life, avatar world, fantasy role play groups, virtual gf) but not as a reply to unknowns?

I don't want to see them banned some of them make sense and a good laugh same time.

Semi-srs

[Diab0lic]

And who moans about gifs stealing bandwidth these days? Maybe he should get like the cool kids and move off dialup

[PeterDolan]

Why not create a noob forum where that is all banned, the flipside of the playground. So if they wanna hang in the realm of the normal members, they gotta cop the flack too. There are less personal attacks now than before but there are always gonna be the people that feel.the need to complain about something

[Gym rat]

That's a very good idea on having a noop fourm where there are lots of personal attacks etc.Since Tom has left I have notice there are less personal attacks and hopefuly that will bring back more female members back to this site.

[severe]

Need a sub forum called "hugs and love", CT can be the mod.

Almost everyone drops a meme or gif, but between all that there are decent postings going on. Perhaps the whistle blower needs to view more threads, or actually stalk the offenders, and see that it is a small percentage of an offenders posts that cntain the contraband.

[FellowshipOfTheRon]

When used correctly (and in the right place), they (memes/gifs) can be funny as hell. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, IMO a correctly used gif is worth a million.

Sometimes we jump the gun on accusing OP of trollin' and we try to one-up them with our own little response but you gotta admit, there is also a problem recently with actual troll OPs who pretend to seek genuine advice then just take the piss.....

I like the suggestion about only using them when you know the person somehow (through forums or in person) or know that they will get the joke, newby OPs may not get it and just think we are being a bunch of pricks.

[dmcb]

should start a poll: who wants the fun of this site to go away and who wants it to stay. My rough estimate is that 75% enjoy the fun, and 25% or less find it all a bit frightening

[Rxx]

Too soon?

In all seriousness, I'm reasonably new here. The majority of the .gif responses etc that I've seen seem to all be in good nature/humor. I enjoy seeing them, they make the threads lively and exciting!

[vracula]

should start a poll: who wants the fun of this site to go away and who wants it to stay. My rough estimate is that 75% enjoy the fun, and 25% or less find it all a bit frightening

I agree , although memebers

Who re register to ask troll questions make it very difficult to give out advice to noobs.

[severe]

Too soon?

In all seriousness, I'm reasonably new here. The majority of the .gif responses etc that I've seen seem to all be in good nature/humor. I enjoy seeing them, they make the threads lively and exciting!

Repped! haha. I resisted, just to be a saint.

[musclenz]

I like ATTITUDE :pfft:

At my age, this is one of the few places I can get into a scrap & still win 8)

[crazyfacials]

I am going to agree with the shemale that is TWL here, to be honest I dunno why CT is even butt hurt, all his posts are trolls or stupid questions you'd think when his mummy was preggo with him someone with a BBC had intercourse with her and his bbc kept on hitting him on the head over and over thus giving him brain damage.

The trolling can't be that bad though? I mean it did attract the axe smashing guy didn't it? (heck he also posts memes too)

ps. give the person above me a prune juice protein shake please...

pps. please don't hurt me

[drizzt]

I dunno why CT is even butt hurt

It wasn't CT that sparked this (I'm not sure if he even ended up contacting the Mod team?). And it was more than just a couple of messages that have come through on the topic...

I like the suggestion about only using them when you know the person somehow (through forums or in person) or know that they will get the joke, newby OPs may not get it and just think we are being a bunch of pricks.

^ :nod:

From a personal viewpoint, I'm not a big fan of the memes and gifs. Misc speak hurts my brain :banging: In saying that, there are times where a bit of banter goes down well and everyone has a laugh... just pick your moments!

I come here for info and to catch up on training logs, others come here for a laugh, and some come to troll. If the site is too info-focused, it's boring and people won't hang around long. If it's just a bunch of regulars talking crap in all of the threads, you lose the members that aren't part of the clique, and new members don't want to join... so you need a balance between the two.

What Pseudonym (and the Mods) are saying is that the balance looks to be skewing a bit too far away from info, and seems like it is (slowly but surely) heading towards a group of old heads just having a laugh. While we don't want (or intend) to stamp on every bit of fun people are having, we're mindful of not letting it get out of hand. Hence Pseudonym's post.

Summary: just use commonsense, guys. We aren't going to edit every single meme/gif out of people's posts, but we expect you to know when it is inappropriate to use :nod:

[Big john]

gotta watch out for dem Memefiends :shifty:

[Pseudonym]

we don't want (or intend) to stamp on every bit of fun people are having

But that's exactly what I intended. No fun here, I said! Down with fun! :evil:

Seriously though Drizzt - great post. Thank you!

And like Drizzt said, this has nothing to do with CT (I still don't know what he wanted - I think SUAS is the only one who does!) It's an ongoing problem that seems to crop up every few years, and we just need to nudge things back into balance.

I'd post up another PM I got sent last week from a member who was leaving, but her PM is harder to anonymise. So here's one I received last night:

Finally!

i've been here for quite some time now. i hardly participate on forums because of people trolling all the time. if i read a forum all i see are the same guys trolling.

It's particularly in the "serious" forums that people seem to get frustrated. All I'm asking is that we keep memes and misc more in the General forum, the Playground, and the Journals. Leave the serious topics for serious posters, and everyone wins. :nod: