Forum Updates and Realignment

[Blueberry]

The ghost threads will go away after this weekend. They're only there so if people go looking for the threads they have the link to follow. Be patient, please.

[CSJ]

Frankly, given the low, low readership of and activity in Serious Business, if its lack would be so problematic then the forum at large would already have developed the problems you suspect it will have; only a tiny fraction of the userbase ever participated in SB, so its mitigatory effects couldn't possible have been felt by any.

Then why bother taking it away, if the impact of its existence was likewise miniscule?

If you're so desperate to engage in thoughtful discourse on the internet, there are a thousand venues out there for it; if it's imperative that it be with this community, I'm given to understand that Hidden Level has a whole subforum for serious chat.

Can ya link me? EDIT, nvm, got it

But the fact is, there is no reason for a community based on common enjoyment of a series of webcomics to host such discussions; it has proven time and again to be significantly more drain than boon, and it has no thematic reason to even exist.

I can see many thematic means of extrapolating on these kinds of issues from MSPA media. Had I the passion and time, I would write essays on such brilliant topics as 'The analogues between interspecies relations in Homestuck and race relations in reality' and 'Modern values & attitudes towards sex and love; as interpreted by troll romance'.

Academia and fans alike would almost certainly rejoice.

Every conversation will involve people with different opinions. Trying to paint us as quashing discussion and discourse is nonsense and intellectually dishonest. There is simply no reason for us to provide a platform for mostly-teens to discuss West African politics or the virtues of various religions.

There's a place where teens are supposed to do that every day. It's called 'school' or 'education'. It's understandable that some people don't want to discuss it but there are always a few that do and wanting to discuss it doesn't mean you can't be a fan of Homestuck, right?

You can exhort the moderation to simply "try harder" regarding enforcement, but a simple review of infractions given will reveal that many to most of those we gave were given to repeat offenders; we tried for a long time to mold the community into an acceptable and polite one, and time and again we were rebuffed and ignored. The community has proven time and again that it cannot amicably handle the kind of discussions that Serious Business housed; this is not some spur-of-the-moment decision made in an absence of community opinions or administrative review: it has been a calculated plan informed by months and months of trying to make things work and seeing our efforts dashed.

'Mold the community'? Why not 'shipping', being MSPA forums and all? Of course, like 'shipping', telling the community what to do rarely works and if it seems to, then you're probably missing something.
When a thread has two short rules and no common sense concepts like "what happens in X stays in X", then, hey; what do you expect? You could always have somewhere to dump/move conversations that start getting too iffy and just call it the 'Community trash dump' or something. I've been on sites catering to 14-year-olds that dig immature flash films and managed to have peaceful conversations about situational ethics. I guess I missed all the fun by arriving late. *shrug*

In short, we tried to give you what you wanted, but you couldn't handle it so we're taking it away. It's too late to promise to play nice or give advice on how things should have been run; it's been proven that the subforum will not work, so we're not wasting our efforts trying to make it work.

Does anybody on the forum (mods and forum-goers alike) truly know what they want? *shrug*

I don't feel too passionately about the forum itself, I simply see the manner of its removal as a tad disturbing and wish that logs had been taken, even if only to show people examples of how NOT to behave on the forums, where applicable.

Meh.

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100th post <.< Many more to come? Meh.

[Drillgorg]

No offense dude, but those kinds of posts are one of the reasons SB got the boot! I at least find it pretty rude when someone replies to someone else's post piece by piece to try and shoot down every one of their points.

[temporalPeregrine]

I agree with CSJ, even though I suspected they were going to remove serious business from weeks ago. The arguments of the administration are, basically: "Nobody reads it" (Maybe because discussing anything interesting got your posts deleted?) "It's too deep for the teens in this forum" (Did I seriously read that just now) "There's no place for it in a webcomic discussion forum" (Oh whoops, I guess you guys are removing General Chat and not adding Can Town---oh wait)

and, in my opinion, the winner is:

a simple review of infractions given will reveal that many to most of those we gave were given to repeat offenders

followed by

The community has proven time and again that it cannot amicably handle the kind of discussions blah blah

So yeah, apparently only the repeated offenders couldnt handle those discussions? But they still blame the entire community.

Easy solution: ban those who cant handle discussion from only that subforum. Or add voluntary moderators.
Hard solution: give up, delete all the threads forever.

Really, I agree with most of the decisions, but this one is really stupid (no offense for whoever thought this was a good idea).

I don't want to cause drama, seriously, I know this will completely fail to restore the Serious Business forum, but I still had to say it. I think there are probably some moderators who are okay with free uncensored discussion and others who are against it and that's what's causing this problem, because the arguments for deleting it are not very good.

EDIT: This post really really really looks stupid with Drillgorg's just above it. I saw it just after I typed all this so I'm going to keep it for historical purposes. I hope to not get banned just for giving my opinion.

[Drillgorg]

I hope to not get banned just for giving my opinion.

Oh shush you, people don't get banned for having opinions. They could get banned though for being obnoxious about their ideas, or actively trying to subvert mod/admin decisions. But even then that is more infraction territory, bans in that kind of situation are more generally handed out when someone is being a continual problem child.

Also I don't have much to say about SB other than I feel it was a pretty mean place.

[CSJ]

No offense dude, but those kinds of posts are one of the reasons SB got the boot! I at least find it pretty rude when someone replies to someone else's post piece by piece to try and shoot down every one of their points.

I did not mean to give of that impression and if I did, it was unintentional; I find that breaking own a post as above makes it easier to respond in a reasonable amount of time and prevents people on the forum reading through potential textwalls of people quoting each other in full, repeatedly. They might not seem obnoxious, but they turn people off all the same and can be a pretty big nuisance. People sometimes try to look knowledgeable by making long posts with repetition of arguments and the like. Of course, SleepingOrange's post didn't give me that impression; it seemed like the post of someone who is frustrated from dealing with preschoolers which is understandable, given the general applicability of GIFT on some fansites.

They could get banned though for being obnoxious about their ideas, or actively trying to subvert mod/admin decisions.

<_<
Modding is a tough job that is unpaid and yet, someone has to do. While I share my misgivings about the rationale behind the decision, I'm not going to 'Occupy Wall Street Forum Updates'; I'll see you on the other side instead.

Que, sera, sera.

[Drillgorg]

Don't worry we're all good here

[SleepingOrange]

I'm not going to respond to every bullet point because this is not a debate. The moderation, myself included, are simply giving reasons for our decisions. That we made. In the past. And will not be recanting. You can disagree all you like with them, but repeated lamenting of Serious Business's absence will not change it, and there is nothing anyone can say at this point to bring it back. It is gone for a number of good reasons, and judging from the outpouring of relief and gratitude we've received on IRC, PMs, and in this very thread, the people upset about its loss are in the strong minority.

The most important thing to understand is that this is the admins' forum, and ultimately what they want the site and the community to be is how the site will be and what the community will have to adapt to. To condense the decision down to its most core form, to a level that can't be deliberately misunderstood or twisted or ignored: the admins no longer want a breeding ground for the kind of negativity and bad behavior that Serious Business has proven time and time again that it will produce.

Even when individual problem users are dealt with, the same issues cropped up repeatedly with different names attached to them. This is why the solutions that have been proposed so often and as recently as in Makin's post aren't the ones we are using: because they have been attempted before. The community is the problem, because it produces individual users and more importantly a culture of people who have no respect for rules or punishment. One will note that I never said "a few repeat offenders"; rather, the missed implication there is that when a problem crops up, it is a serious one that continues to be a problem even after warnings, infractions, and bannings. There are no individual users whose removal would solve these problems, because the problems stem from a consistent attitude among the userbase.

There is no reason to host a forum the only consistent output of which is fighting, rudeness, and debates that always boil down to the same two arguments five pages in. So we're not going to.

[OrangeAipom]

I would like to read those essays. Those essays would be allowed on this forum.

I want to be able to change my name for the new beginning.

[CSJ]

I repeat, it is not the removal of the thread that bugs me, it is the underlying attitude and way it has been justified/handled. The more I read it, the more it worries me really with awkward potential faux pas comments like 'the community is the problem'. but that's it; it's the means, not the end.

Y'all should just say 'I AM THE LAW' and do an epic impersonation of Judge Dredd, because at the end of the day, at least I would be able to get a laugh and make a few jokes about how I respect the Moderators, indisputably the most important people on the forum: They who shelter us from the harshness of the atomic wasteland, and to whom we owe everything we have, including our lives.

[NotASenator]

I'll clarify on the "underlying attitude" here from my perspective a bit.

My job here is to provide a usable forum for fans of Andrew's work to discuss his work. That's my charter. Basically, if something doesn't directly relate to the enjoyment of MSPA and related properties, it should be considered a bonus. The "debates" we were seeing in other parts of the forum were annoying us, especially the additional load on the administration, so we came up with a 'Community trash dump' to toss that stuff so we didn't have to deal with it.

Unfortunately, it was interpreted as some kind of endorsement of that sort of discussion, and our payback was a constant stream of reported posts coming from Serious Business. So what we had was something that didn't fit in with the established goals of the forum, that the admins didn't particularly want or care about, and that was causing us additional work and stress.

So it gets nuked.

But hey, here's what you should do - considering that allowing SB to exist in the first place was a kindness and it quickly became a thorn in our sides, I think the best method to get us to reconsider would be to make illusions of totalitarianism, insult us and question our judgement. I'm sure that will do the trick.

[CSJ]

But hey, here's what you should do - considering that allowing SB to exist in the first place was a kindness and it quickly became a thorn in our sides, I think the best method to get us to reconsider would be to make illusions of totalitarianism, insult us and question our judgement. I'm sure that will do the trick.

That's more like it! I'll get right onto it, boss!
/thread

[Varkarrus]

So he's not a senator. He's a dictator!

:3

[meticulousDraftsman]

That never really seemed in question.

[kyriaki]

No offense dude, but those kinds of posts are one of the reasons SB got the boot! I at least find it pretty rude when someone replies to someone else's post piece by piece to try and shoot down every one of their points.

that's pretty much a personal opinion, which is fine. shooting down every point piece by is pretty much how debate works, and it's not for everyone. a lot of people can't help but take that personally. i happen to enjoy it very much. that said, as something of a connoisseur i can tell you the quality of debate in SB was not very high, and i respect your decision to simply wash your hands of it rather than try to browbeat it into some semblance of civility and order.

I repeat, it is not the removal of the thread that bugs me, it is the underlying attitude and way it has been justified/handled. The more I read it, the more it worries me really with awkward potential faux pas comments like 'the community is the problem'. but that's it; it's the means, not the end.

Y'all should just say 'I AM THE LAW' and do an epic impersonation of Judge Dredd, because at the end of the day, at least I would be able to get a laugh and make a few jokes about how I respect the Moderators, indisputably the most important people on the forum: They who shelter us from the harshness of the atomic wasteland, and to whom we owe everything we have, including our lives.

we've been down that road. it leads to a lot more hurt feelings and a lot more unecessary animus which is the same reason why SB is going away in the first place. this way is working a hell of a lot better, that's for sure.

[-Benedict]

Internet forums don't really work well as democracies, guys! If internet forums were democracies, we would still have ODIN, and then where would we be? We would have to listen to terrible viking nonsense all day, wouldn't we? Long live the absence of an elected senate!

[Triangle Man]

LONG LIVE THE OLIGARCHY! LONG LIVE SPARTA MSPA FORUMS

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[-Benedict]

why the hell do i do these things

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[NotASenator]

why the hell do i do these things

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Probably because it is wonderful.

[Esrever]

which one is supposed to be me?

[-Benedict]

Whoops, sorry, forgot to put you in there.

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[Epamynondas]

i thought he was the dead dog at nas' feet

[Wheeeeeeatthins]

Serious Business's fate was such because many who frequented it did not participate in debate properly. Repeatedly (and I could cite specific instances if I'm called on to do so), threads disintegrated to personal attacks instead of refutations of stances (attack the opinion, not the person!) or posters would debate in bad faith, acting only as if to save face and not willing to compromise ("I Will PM You With How You Are Misunderstanding Me Out Of Thread, Now Let's Move On"). Posters like these made the environment incredibly frustrating for people versed in proper debate, in such a way that it chased them off. This left the subforum in a state where agitators were significant enough of a proportion of the users that threads with polarizing views had no hope of any compromise coming together for fear of someone giving up ground; and moderate, undecided debaters found little reason to try to enter a discussion for the unwelcoming environment there.

I've received multiple PMs from bystanders in regards to threads I've debated in saying I have far too much patience and that they are too scared to enter a thread for fear of saying something that'd get them banned after reacting to an instigator. Serious Business became an environment that wasn't healthy to debate--more of just a hotspot waiting to catch on fire at any moment. And sometimes, it did catch fire. There was so little to gain from it and it was just such a headache to mods and many levelheaded users alike that it was not worth keeping.

[Paul]

I never posted in it because I know how the internet works and, dispite the best intentions of most people, I knew that as I posted in there more often, my chances of being called names for something I thought and believed in would approach 1, and I didn't want any part of it. And based on what I'm seeing here in this thread, I guess I was right!

[Wheeeeeeatthins]

And meanwhile, while people in this thread and on another forum are comparing their e-protest efforts here to Occupy Wall Street, I'm currently applying to the Mod Elite for Secret Police status

I am going to ship so many users. Ship them off to the gulag