CM30 the community would like to chat with you about the site.

Kokonoe

Wario Fan Supreme
@CM30

So in the Discord I was referring to the activity of the site and how the Discord connects to it. However, what I saw were plenty of issues people have with how you run this place. I hope you can take this as constructive feedback because you are the leader here and right now people have kinda given up on this place and it feels like to us you kinda did in some ways.

1. Right now the site is unmoderated essentially and even myself has been able to get away with posting things that are against the rules cause there is no care for what is posted anymore.

2. I realize there is a lack of Wario content to promote in recent times, but there is a lack of building the community we have now. You don't always need a influx of newcomers what you need is making sure the people you have stay. People don't stay and that's a problem.

3. The biggest problem people have with you right now is that they don't feel you listen to anything they are saying. This is from the community itself and this is how they feel.

I want this thread to be for people to mention their concerns and criticisms in hopes it leads to this forum being better.
 
Yes, been there, done it. I told you several times we need more presence, we need to enforce the rules and find ways to bring the community together. Sure some people who are more active may not care but this is a place that people use as a reference point, and upon interest may want to join. I personally stopped using the forums due to how weird it's become. No control, no care. I mean managing it is fine, at least you tried to keep the place up to date, but when you state that you don't want to get involved in rule enforcement, that's what happens. You lose people with an opinion and knowledge, and gain random kids with the thrive to meme, criticize with no basis and disrespect others and the integrity of the community. I don't recognize this place, so either get on with the times and put some order here, or ask someone to do it for you. I tried, but working under you is slow and unrewarding.
 
Even if CM30 was more engaging I can't really think of anything that he could do that hasn't already been tried before to increase activity.
 
Even if CM30 was more engaging I can't really think of anything that he could do that hasn't already been tried before to increase activity.
Few things. Having a more inclusive and friendly place to discuss things already keeps people staying.

We don't need to be a large community, but losing people due to the lack of moderation and staff is to the site's detriment.
 
As somebody who's been observing this place for several years now, I can say with confidence that the underlying issue is moderation. Almost every single long-term issue with the site stems from the a lack of any sort of proper moderation team, being too lax with troublesome users, and not enforcing a clear set of rules that prevent people like Kyon from getting off scott-free for immature behavior.

How many members have actually seen repercussions for bad behavior? How many have been outright banned? Judging by the fact that a thread like this even warranted creation, probably not enough. You can't expect a site like this to thrive if you don't filter out all of the bad crap first. Users like Kyon or Metal should have been whipped into shape years ago, but nothing was done about it, so they'll just continue to push and prod the boundaries until those boundaries might as well be nonexistent. Either they conform to your rules, or they go. That's how this has to work if this place is going to have any sort of future.

What needs to happen is a new, much stricter set of rules, and a decently-sized moderation team. No spam, no "ironic" shitposting memers, no harassment, and no needless drama. Yes, maybe that sounds a little drab to some of you rowdy kids out there, but you need to root out the bullshit for the community to grow and mature. Forums are a dying breed, and if they're going to exist, they need to provide a place for sincere discussion, something that's severely lacking in most online communities.

The only way this is going to work is if CM30 either hands over his duties to somebody who has the time to dedicate to the site, or he starts investing more time in it himself. I'm well aware that he's a busy guy and that the community probably grew out of his control over the years, but he needs to reevaluate his priorities a little. It's time to start making some hard decisions.
 
As someone who has been with the site for almost five years now I have to concur.

I understand the desire to make the site lax and inviting, trying to make it as unintimidating as possible and it worked early on, when the community was small, but also tight-knit, with everyone having a very similar etiquette and interests.

Thing is, you can't expect that to always work as the site grows. The first major sign of trouble was with this Wario Man user, who kept harassing Nintengasm just for being a Ashley fan. It got to the point where Nintengasm asked me in a PM if he did something wrong and I'm sorry, but letting the harassment get to that point and waiting so long to do anything against this horrible behavior was irresponsible and damaging for the community in general.

The Kyon era and how Magma was attacked over him speaking against the Shoutbox (despite his intentions being in the interest of the community) were even more examples of bad behavior and users getting harassed with the offending parties facing no punishment for their unacceptable behavior. The former got me close to leave the site myself, because it just became unpleasent.

Rules are necessary, we follow them every day in real life and they help to define what kind of community we are, because everyone is different.

We don't need a huge community, this site still has life left in it without a ton of users, which is more promising then most truly dying sites out there, however consequent rule enforcement would do a lot bring the site closer to it's better days, which is all it really needs.
 
Thing is, you can't expect that to always work as the site grows. The first major sign of trouble was with this Wario Man user, who kept harassing Nintengasm just for being a Ashley fan. It got to the point where Nintengasm asked me in a PM if he did something wrong and I'm sorry, but letting the harassment get to that point and waiting so long to do anything against this horrible behavior was irresponsible and damaging for the community in general.

Yeah, that particular incident really rubbed me the wrong way. Again I'll point out to #1 of the Five Geek Social Fallacies

Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers Are Evil
GSF1 is one of the most common fallacies, and one of the most deeply held. Many geeks have had horrible, humiliating, and formative experiences with ostracism, and the notion of being on the other side of the transaction is repugnant to them.

In its non-pathological form, GSF1 is benign, and even commendable: it is long past time we all grew up and stopped with the junior high popularity games. However, in its pathological form, GSF1 prevents its carrier from participating in -- or tolerating -- the exclusion of anyone from anything, be it a party, a comic book store, or a web forum, and no matter how obnoxious, offensive, or aromatic the prospective excludee may be.

As a result, nearly every geek social group of significant size has at least one member that 80% of the members hate, and the remaining 20% merely tolerate. If GSF1 exists in sufficient concentration -- and it usually does -- it is impossible to expel a person who actively detracts from every social event. GSF1 protocol permits you not to invite someone you don't like to a given event, but if someone spills the beans and our hypothetical Cat Piss Man invites himself, there is no recourse. You must put up with him, or you will be an Evil Ostracizer and might as well go out for the football team.

This phenomenon has a number of unpleasant consequences. For one thing, it actively hinders the wider acceptance of geek-related activities: I don't know that RPGs and comics would be more popular if there were fewer trolls who smell of cheese hassling the new blood, but I'm sure it couldn't hurt. For another, when nothing smacking of social selectiveness can be discussed in public, people inevitably begin to organize activities in secret. These conspiracies often lead to more problems down the line, and the end result is as juvenile as anything a seventh-grader ever dreamed of.

I'll also point to the complete failure to ban obvious Roman sockpuppet accounts even when I filled report of them
 
I'll be honest, I may well give someone else the admin role here. I'm fine with running the site hosting and coding/designing stuff, promoting the site, writing content, etc, but moderation is something I'm not really suited to. * **

So if someone wants to take over as admin and hire a staff team, then I'm interested. Obviously, I'll stay around as the tech support, founder and developer of the site, but my staff role will be closer to what Porplemontage does at Mario Wiki (as @Glowsquid likely knows).

Only question is who's trustworthy enough...

* This is one reason Gaming Reinvented is being designed as a platform rather than a community. It's meant to be a neutral space for gaming news and opinion articles, like YouTube or Medium or whatever in the old days before they tried having their cake and eating it.

** It's also why the Gaming Reinvented forums were merged with Gaming Latest. Because I wanted to run a website and Demon Skeith wanted to run a community, so I thought we may as well focus on what we enjoy most.
 
I attempted to have this conversation a few years back though I think the Shoutbox people didn't really see what I said and I don't blame them since I made that whole thing more personal than it should've been.

I don't know; I kind of feel like it's almost too late to have this conversation now. Anyone who would've cared enough to take over the place is either just long gone at this point or just jaded and doesn't care anymore.
 
I'll be honest, I may well give someone else the admin role here. .

MAKE ME* HIS EXCELLENCY, PRESIDENT FOR LIFE, FIELD MARSHAL DOCTOR GLOWSQUID, VC, DSO, MC, LORD OF ALL THE BEASTS OF THE EARTH AND FISHES OF THE SEAS AND CONQUEROR OF THE SUPER MARIO WIKI IN GENERAL AND WARIO FORUMS DOT COM IN PARTICULAR.

I WAS YOUR #1 CHOICE

*as long as it's the arrangement described in your post. I can't code or administrate a server worth shit
 
Well, for the time being, I've removed ShyGuyXXL as staff, since he wasn't really doing much staff stuff in a while, and assigned reports went ignored.

I'm now thinking of new candidates for staff to replace him.
 
I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. If you need someone to focus on keeping keeping the rules enforced in a friendly manner I can volunteer as well.
 
Target list? I admit I've been pretty testy concerning the forum lately, it's just that I found it a bit funny you wanted to help keep the site in check when you were part of all the detailed lewd shenanigans.
 
Target list? I admit I've been pretty testy concerning the forum lately, it's just that I found it a bit funny you wanted to help keep the site in check when you were part of all the detailed lewd shenanigans.
I've admitted that in the OP btw.

People can change their mindsets. My volunteering to improve this place is an act of kindness because I love Wario. I already operate and own a very large Discord community (800+ members) so I know how to keep things in line.

You can also see in my postings that I stopped with the lewd meme stuff.
 
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