Current Forum Standings

I have not read all the replies, but I payed attention to the first posts and I'd like to give my opinion:

First, I have to recognise that I am actually very inactive, especially on the chatroom and thus I can't give a thoughtful and informed opinion on issues regarding #nifchat. I'm sorry about that. I can, however, tell you that I actually log on the forum almost every day and I always check the administration boards.

Now, I think that the statement about the administration not caring about the forum is unfair at least. We do read through all the reported posts and all the isues are taken care of, which the regular users may not always notice. Sometimes the reported posts aren't actually breaking the rules or deviating enough from them to require moderation. On those cases, we normally do nothing and the reporter may think he was ignored, but that's never the case. There are also occasions in which the problem is the general behaviour of a user, not a specific post. On those cases, we normally PM that user telling them what they did wrong, which also goes unnoticed by the reporter.

About our "code of conduct", well, we don't have an official set of rules, but we all try to be fair and sometimes it's harder than you may think. I often find myself in situations where one user could think the post requires moderation, while if I did it, another one might find me to be acting too strictly.

Another thing I'd like everyone to understand is that there are many things the staff doesn't see. We don't browse through every single page looking for situations that require moderation. Speaking for myself, at least, I generally visit the topics I'm more interested in and I act when find a situation that requires it. This shows how important it is for all the users to report situations they think to require handling by the staff.

About the complaints concerning googoogjoob, as I said, I am not aware of what's happening on #niffchat, but judging by his behaviour the forum, I must say I find him a nice user. Very active, that's for sure, but always helpful, respectful and rational. Of course you need to understand that when someone's very active, he's more likely to end up making a post that another user may not like or say something less appropriate here or there, but we are all humans and you can't expect the staff to be perfect. We all make mistakes once in a while and I think that goog's are totally outwheighed by the things he does FOR the community.

One thing that may be the real cause of the apparent degradation of the forum is the fact that there hasn't been anything really new for a while. Knytt stories came out 2 years ago and after that there have been just a few minigames once in a while and people start to run out of stuff to talk about, then there was the Night Game annoucement which got us even more demotivated... That's what happened to me, at least, so I think you can't blame all this on the staff.

Last thing I want everyone to remember is that we are all on the same team. Both the regulars and the staff want this place to be nice and friendly, blue skies, butterflies and all that jazz. Don't fight against each other and when things go wrong, let's not spend our time discussing who is the one to blame but rather how we are going to make it better.

Look, this has turned into an argument, which is against the rules. If Goog can try to keep this stuff in mind, great. If not, well, it could be worse. If we keep arguing, this forum won't be fun at all anymore, and some members may just leave. Goog has apologized. May he learn from this and not do so again. Let's not keep bringing the same thing to mind over and over and over and over... again.

(in my opinion, which according to KG, is always subjective)

An opinion is inherently subjective.

My opinion about this entire situation is that the Mods/Admins are doing a fine job on the forum, and that all of Mr.Monkey's points have been adequately addressed, some (the apparently "inappropriate behaviors" of Mods/Admins) more than others.
All of the accidents and incidents that have happened have all been recounted and apologies were given, so I don't really see any reason to keep debating them.
So far my own experience on the forum is really quite awesome, and what really keeps it together is the community feeling.  
With this argument it kinda lost some of it.    

I've taken the time to read all the replies to make a good comment. Unfortunatelly for me, it are 4 pages, so I might've missed a few things I wanted to comment on.

Therefor I'm going to reply in general.

The fact that I reply a full day after the topic has started can tell how busy I am. I just don't have the time to administrate this board, and a few times I've even questioned myself if it wouldn't be better to just drop the projects and get on. That would mean going back to a regular user and stop the development for the knytt levels site. I can give J the code I have so far which could give him something to continue from.

I've decided that it wouldn't be fair to anyone and it could even be seen as running away. The downside is, that things will go slow, and I have to prioritise. That means, that I cannot activelly manage the staff team like I used to do. Paula however is doing a great job, so I don't have a feeling things are falling apart because no one cares.

Ponto explained a few things quite nicelly. We indeed always adress the issues we get, but most of the time they simply aren't visible to outsiders. If we would do so, the reporter will be frown upon and that will stop people from reporting posts.

Also, the main reason why we are against back-seat moderating, is because some people are incapable of helping others see their mistake. I often have seen posts like this:

You noob, this must be posted in <forum name> I hope you realise how much you suck! <insert bad smily>

It was for this reason that we don't want back-seat moderating. People really felt bad for being told what not to do in the wrong way, and I got several PM's complaining that they didn't liked the forum.

well I think that people on the forum can be kind of mean somtimes, like:

Whoops! This thread is going to be locked for pointlessness.

and

Quote from: eyeofthetiger1 on August 03, 2009, 11:54:49
oh and this forum game was locked by a admin on SMWcentral.net

Yes, well this won't be any different.

Yeah, that kind of thing should, technically, be against the rules anyway - back seat moderating. Hopefully we can all learn from this.

I'd like to point something else out too. The back-seat moderating rule is a very good example here.

Many rules we've added are all because people are doing it, and they don't seem to understand that its not nice behavor. So a rule can look pretty stupid and pointless, but they were necessary.

Also another thing that I forgot to add but I really wanted to, is mention that the forum is like an organic thing. It changes contninously. You start small, and it grows. New members join and those members get to know eachother well sharing similar interests. The forum grows bigger and with more population the demand for different management is required. On top of that, old members will eventually leave for many reasons but those are not important for this story. As they leave, the younger members ideals get pushed forwards which will always result in a place that is changed. As staff we cannot have a forum and keep it as it was. We will only keep a handfull of users and not interest the rest. The handfull of users will eventually go anyway and then you have nothing. So growth is part of changing to the better, but it also causes for the fact that you cannot compare the current situation with the past.

In fact, do not even try to compare. Just look for what we currently have and work with that. I can agree that the forum might not be in its best shape, but as pointed out earlier, the fact that no new and interesting game has been released really helps in that. I know R-Type was recently released, but I do not count it as an interesting game because like Avoid the Evil Space Eel, it doesn't have levels and a longer playtime. Older games have a longer playtime and more things to be amased about/asking questions for etc... A new game (NightGame or Q) will certainly bring back that what is currently missing. The only downside in the case of NightGame, is that its for WiiWare only, and thus has a substantial less big audience, meaning not so much feedback at all.

I suck at debating and, being an rather inactive user, I don't really have anything to say to most of the points. However, I have 2 points related to the comments posted on this topic, about being polite / avoiding provoking.

First to the comment of Paula from the first page:
I think it's by no means good to start to mock/tell off people, even if they've perhaps done stuff that has insulted you. Even though I can understand Paula's anger and I agree mostly with her points about the mods and admins doing their best (can't really say anything to that for I don't visit the forum that often), in my opinion the way she wrote her post was very provoking and it's a very bad habit to protect your opinions through mocking others. For example she saying things like "as if you are strongly of the opinion that you can do and know so much better" and "with all the oh so horrible abusive, senseless people, and think of yourself as so much better at generally dealing with things" is rather unnecessary. I'm sure she could've handled Mr_monkey's opinions in a more polite manner. You should always settle your rage a bit before posting. Also I think that "Try to do the same by yourself!" is a rather vague argument, especially from an administrator.

The second comments are the ones posted by KG, and are related to the same thing:
I think people should be free to argue/debate (there's even a subforum for it!), and show their opinions. It's really unhelpful for the situation to try to protect someone by making meaningless points on someones opinions ("Your opinion isn't valid because it's subjective"). I'm sure KG could've pointed out why he thinks that the mods are correct, and point out things that aren't valid in Mr_Monkey's and chipset's arguments (which he partially did do), not try to mock nor bash them with such vague argument as something being subjective. I think things should be discussed no matter how subjective they are, and for me it seems like there were a few points that weren't that subjective overall, but were still somehow invalid in KG's opinion. This sort of acting may easily provoke other people, or make them angry seemingly for their points not being taken seriously, and may lead to more provoking posts.

Overall, I think that everyone posting here should think a bit before posting, especially if something has really upset them; it's never good to post a comment when you're angry. Mostly this has really happened; it's good to see that people want to find a way to solve these problems, instead of trying to bash the 'other side'. As I said, I really don't know how bad things really are on the forum, I mostly check only the parts of the forum that I'm somehow related into, so I of course can't know if there's something I've missed.

Hey!
I didn't intend to provoke anybody, I stated my position. In exactly the way I simply talk practically all the time. If you think that's too pissy/bitchy, "especially as an admin", then I suppose that I'm just a bad person in your eyes and unsuited for the job. Oh well, I never asked to get it, I never said I was good at it.

Either way, I think it's really provocative to suggest that I (and others) don't think about what is posted.

Hey!
I didn't intend to provoke anybody, I stated my position. In exactly the way I simply talk practically all the time. If you think that's too pissy/bitchy, "especially as an admin", then I suppose that I'm just a bad person in your eyes and unsuited for the job. Oh well, I never asked to get it, I never said I was good at it.

Either way, I think it's really provocative to suggest that I (and others) don't think about what is posted.

I didn't mean/say that you're a bad person (in my eyes or in someone other's eyes), nor did I mean that someone would've missed the point. I just wanted to say that in my eyes it's not good to spice up your point with such ways I mentioned in my earlier post. My intention wasn't to provoke anyone, but instead make the debaters state their points/explanations and such cleanly and without anger/bashing.

The complaints and requests are loaded with assumptions and implications which makes debating them like neutral points impossible.

The problem here is with how the complaints are framed. The original post is deliberately provocative and confrontational- it's not just, "we think these things are wrong," it's, "we think these things are wrong and we think we know better than the forum staff how to fix them."

So, this:

This post, and its contents, is a collaboration of a number of people (whose names are listed at the top).  These people, some of whom were there during the higher points of the older forums, have the general goal of making this forum better, and have several wishes in order for this to happen.

carries the implications that "the forum isn't as good as it was", that length of membership adds weight to the complaints, that simply being here longer by default makes one know better how the forum can best be served, and that the requests are in the interests of making the forum better. (I'm not challenging the validity of any of these implications, just pointing them out.)

And this:

In case these requests are not met within a reasonable time, this topic is locked, or otherwise avoided, these people will not regret leaving with or without hassle on part of the forum.

carries the implications that those whose names are attached are valued users, and that their departure will be ultimately bad for the forum and its users. (Again, not challenging the validity.)

So, since these implications and assumptions are there, I don't think it's possible to argue against the complaints and requests without implicitly arguing against the people behind them, and this may come across as anger where none is intended.

Well posted, goog, great points there. Uh oh, looks like I didn't read the first post carefully enough.

@OP, this forum is already quite strongly moderated in many ways IMO. We don't have an off topic forum and spam posts are quickly locked.

I certainly don't think we need more enforcement.

(..and the chat thing (from what I read) seems to be taken far too seriously. Lighten up, a bit of offtopic/span in a chatroom is not that bad (and is probably to be expected)).

I would like to say that while I agree somewhat with the points made in OP, I will probably not go so far as to leave the forum if the requests are not met.