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| SB is... |
| totally fucking awesome! |
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15% |
[ 11 ] |
| good on its good days. |
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48% |
[ 34 ] |
| eh. |
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15% |
[ 11 ] |
| a mere pale shadow of its former self. |
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4% |
[ 3 ] |
| "pretentious elitist weeaboo faggots", to quote 4chan. |
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15% |
[ 11 ] |
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| Total Votes : 70 |
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| Author |
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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 Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 10:48 pm Post subject: How are we doing? (introspection thread) |
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So SB has been afloat for close to half a year now. We've had our ups and downs but things have gone pretty smoothly, I think. At this point I'm considering where we should go next and I'd like to hear what people have to say about how things have gone so far, how I've performed as site master, and what the future should hold.
For my own part, I've been very satisfied with SB. I find here nearly all of the same things that kept me at the IC forums, along with some of the same warts, of course. My biggest complaints have to do with lack of good frontpage content, which I mostly blame myself for. Still we've had some good stuff and enough of it to keep a decent trickle of new posters coming in.
Some people have mentioned the tone of discussion still being unfriendly, which I haven't really noticed, but I'm not always as sensitive to stuff like that as others are. I've done my best to keep the discussion as civil as possible but I'm open to any suggestions people may have.
Anyway, please review your experience with SB in this thread and offer suggestions and comments. Feel free to speak your mind, but keep it polite and don't make anything personal. Quabbles with individual posters should be handled via PM; I'd prefer if everyone kept things more general in this thread.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 2:00 am |
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| Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh wrote: |
| Putting some of the more interesting discussions or ideas front and center, to draw in a new audience, might go some way to address the situation. |
Yeah, I've been a bit lazy about starting and/or frontpaging the good discussions that come up. Duly noted.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 3:27 am |
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| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| vision wrote: |
| If I'm also beating a dead horse by bringing this up, let it at least be a matter of record that the "nobody wants James here" sentiments aren't entirely valid. |
Agreed. |
Also for the record, I don't think I've ever said that nobody wants him here (as this clearly isn't the case). I'm well aware that there are people who still want him around, and in many ways I still want him around. But he's banned because he doesn't fit in. It may not even be any fault of his own, but the fact of the matter is that when he's around bad things start happening. I really feel as if I don't have much other choice in the matter.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 3:48 am |
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| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| Toups, I never thought you had that opinion, but BogateL and a few others voiced it today, and I think it should be said that it isn't true. |
I know. I'm sort of stuck between all this. ( ._.)
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 3:55 am |
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| Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh wrote: |
| If there's one thing that irritates me, it's how "gamery" the place is in comparison to IC at its best. |
Yeah, you know, that is the one thing that's been eluding me about this place that's been missing. As (I think) extralife put it, there's pretty much only threads devoted to single games in real bout forum fury. Which is fine, it's just we used to have many topics about more interesting, esoteric, and often abstract topics going as well. I don't want to see less "game" focused topics, as those often contain very interesting discussion, but I would like to see more of these general "idea" discussion threads showing up. And I think I'd like to use force feedback to focus on those discussions, as well, since threads there tend to be a bit more focused and dry, which works in the favor of that sort of thread. I just started one such thread over there; we'll see how it works out.
And of course, no one is stopping you, Mr. Waugh, from starting interesting discussion topics.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 4:10 am |
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It's just a question of how harmful someone is. It's not really my business to judge people's characters; joe may be an acerbic son of a bitch, but for some reason people know to ignore him and he never seems to rankle anyone's chains. James has consistently proven otherwise.
It's an entirely practical decision, and one that I know isn't perfect, but I really can't see anything better to do. The fact that James' only response to all this is "YOU SHOULD BAN EVERYONE I HATE TOO" while coming back with dummy accounts to accuse me of being an e-skirt-chasing, mad with power dictator only makes it harder on me. How am I supposed to respond to that sort of thing, anyway?
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 7:28 am |
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| Quote: |
| OK, now here's something I'm going to refering to as a model later: See those videos I posted, about the fat kid? In the second one the mother buys the kid - a goddamn seven year old too fat to breathe right or move around - a family sized pizza. The kid likes food! If I were to swish in, dressed as Batman, and take that pizza away, the mother would be pissed. The child would be pissed. Would I be wrong, to remove that pizza, to cause that upset? |
I don't even know how to reply to this. SB is not a 400 lb. 7 year old girl. If anything I'm an adoptive parent or legal guardian after the biologicals passed away. Judging by the responses in this thread so far, this forum is pretty healthy, and I'm at least slightly responsible.
Also, I'm disappointed. I assumed you'd steal the pizza while wearing blackface. Another missed opportunity, I guess.
As far as me losing my job, the basic story is the week or so it took to set this site up was very hectic, as I was in a hurry to get it up and running, while at the same time trying to make sure everything worked just right, while under pressure from everyone in the community to not fuck up, and as a result of this (and a few other outside factors) I wound up really slipping at my day job. So far as I can tell, my boss basically lost faith in me. I took about a month off, but when I went back to work I only lasted a week before she arbitrarily fired me. And now I seem to have more or less been blacklisted from getting another job in this field, and there are no jobs I can find locally that pay anything close to what I was making before.
The day to day upkeep of the site is for the most part painless, and would never interfere with my other daily activities no matter how complex they became. That being said there are more subtle aspects to being an admin, mostly along the lines of being diplomatic and trying to keep everyone happy, that can occasionally be pretty stressful and draining. Day to day it's mostly just moving threads and deleting spambots, but it also means making a great deal of responsibility with regards to the direction of the site and how to control (or not control) the general tone of discussion around here, which is at times quite stressful. On top of this I generally only hear negative criticism instead of praise for how things are going. Which is fine, of course. It's only human nature, and I don't mind, but it's less than encouraging in those moments when I'm not sure of myself. Having the expectations of hundreds of people on my shoulders at all times doesn't gratify my ego; it makes me nervous.
The point is that being a forum admin isn't hard, but it's isn't fun, either, and it sure as heck isn't helping me sleep better at night. But I only bring it up because you seem to think I'm doing this for some sort of ego-gratifying power trip, which couldn't be further from the truth. I'm doing this because I love this community and I don't want it to die. I've never complained about the costs (and I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining about them now) because I think it's absolutely worth whatever sacrifices I've made and continue to have to make along the way -- including the thousands of dollars of back pay that I would have made if I had kept my job.
So, no. It's no great loss of energy or resources on my part to actively maintain the site, and the degree to which it is is not your or anyone else's business. I would have rather kept it that way, but whatever. Even if I were to drop SB right now, it wouldn't give me my old job back, so I'm happy to keep truckin' along. So forget about it.
Anyway, you seem to have these weird ideas about how SB is dying and I'm driving it into the ground, which make no sense to me because I don't hear that from anyone else. I started this thread just to be sure, and, alas, most people seem to be at the very least content (if not sometimes enthusiastic) about the state of the forums. And again, only you seem to see things in such a bleak light, and I can't help but think that this is just bitterness speaking because you believe you've been unfairly banned. I'm sorry you took it so personally, but I'm not going back on my decision anytime soon. I think I've already clearly established why, too. So... there's not much else to say.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 7:34 am |
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| slipstream wrote: |
Just so things are clear, how much does this site cost to run, exactly. People toss around the "TOUPS IS FOOTING THE BILL, SO SHUT UP" stuff, but let's cut the bullshit. Astound me with the operating cost of this site.
I doubt it's so much that everyone couldn't chip in a few bucks and end the tinpot dictator justification for everything. |
Hosting's actually really cheap. I can't remember how much I paid for the first year... maybe $30? $50 at most? I dunno. I don't even pay monthly fees, though. The cost hasn't ever been an issue to me. I guess it may, at some point.
Have I ever said that I should run the site because of hosting costs? I might have in the axe, I guess, but I figured no one would take that seriously there. I'd think that I should run the site because I spearheaded its creation, because I put in the time and effort to make it happen, and I've probably done a better job than any other individual would've done.
I don't appreciate the tinpot dictatorship remark. Is that really how you see this? Because I ban one person who had a history of bad behavior and starting trouble?
Have you posted on other forums before? I'm pretty hands off as far this sort of thing goes.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 7:42 am |
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| slipstream wrote: |
| To clarify, it's not you that I'm upset with, it's the people that say "it's Toup's site/forum/money/whatever so go someplace else if you don't like it" |
Yeah, that's asinine when people say that.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 8:39 am |
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| Quick Shot II Turbo wrote: |
A good way to improve the standards of discourse would be to stop ignoring random inflammatory BS like this:
| slipstream wrote: |
| Ethoscapade wrote: |
| Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh wrote: |
| If there's one thing that irritates me, it's how "gamery" the place is in comparison to IC at its best. |
yes
aderack post furry porn more |
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I mean, it's not even funny. |
yeah that joke's getting pretty old, man.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 9:02 am |
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| slipstream wrote: |
| sorry but saying this place isn't "serious" enough and is too "gamery" coming from someone that did post furry porn doesn't jive. |
did you see where I said I'd like this to not devolve into personal battles?
and come on, we've all posted furry porn before. either you yiff us or you're against us.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 9:14 am |
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| slipstream wrote: |
| Quote: |
Why do you even post here if you're so cynical about the way some things end up being discussed here? Because, pretentious as they may be, these type of ideas eventually will lead to more interesting thoughts being expressed than in any other threads. Leave shit be if you don't have anything of value to say.
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I don't have a problem with people discussing pretentious videogame reflections, but saying that the smug rambling that IC became notorious for is better than the more "gamer" oriented discussion is bullshit. |
I don't think anyone's said that.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 5:20 pm |
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| Intentionally Wrong wrote: |
| Yeah, I'm gonna have to go on record saying that it was the smug, pretentious rambling that got me interested in IC in the first place. I would absolutely prefer that to yet more "gamer" oriented discussion. I think there's probably room for both, though! |
I just want to emphasize this. For my own part I enjoy shooting the shit about 'new release x' as much as I like the more esoteric stuff. There's no need for less of the former, only more of the latter.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 11:00 pm |
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| joe wrote: |
aderack, those kinds of discussions would come if people actually started them and fostered their development. i mean, guardian tried this, but all of his threads were pointlessly self-indulgent "game ideas" that didn't make sense to anyone but him.
there's a difference between pretension and intelligent discussion. guardian threads fall under the first, and a bulk of the old IC stuff falls under the second. i think some people are afraid to post left-of-center, oddball threads and opinions, as well as discussing games as ideas and concepts instead of things because we're so fast to shout down things as pretentious. unfortunately, there's no way you can really change this with administration, as it greatly lowers the freedom of discussion and will probably turn a lot of people off. it's just something the community is going to have to stop doing on it's own. it might, maybe! probably not, though. |
I'm fine with this, I just would rather people be a little more open minded before writing something off as pretentious. The way Guardian's threads got shot down so quickly really wasn't cool. I wish people who didn't like it could just ignore them (which is what I did). If someone starts what they think is an interesting thread and it just dies without any responses to it, that sends a more clear message than actively trying to derail/sabotage the thread. And who knows, maybe there are other people who want to discuss that sort of thing, and if they do, more power to them.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 2:06 am |
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| negativedge wrote: |
| To be fair, you did the opposite of ignoring guardian for a while there. Like, you almost banned him and stuff. |
Did I really?
I might have yelled at him for something. I'm fairly sure banning never came up though.
I recall some thread where winker posted "more like guardian leaving idiocy in his wake" or something, and guardian PMed me saying "HOW CAN YOU LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THIS" to which my response was "well I kind of agree..."
It escalated until I posted some rant against him in the thread in question.
Not my finest moment. Live and learn, I guess.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 3:54 am |
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| slipstream wrote: |
| was it here or another place his custom title was 'not breast fed' |
that was here.
I thought that was pretty funny, but I like "dorkus malorkus" better.
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 5:41 am |
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Hm, okay.
Starting next week I'll make an online matchmaking forum, as well as start doing a weekly SB game club on the front page (or bi-weekly depending on game length, etc). I'll talk to John Mc about doing that, if not I wouldn't mind doing it unless someone else really wants the job. These will be trial runs to see how they work out.
Also, guardian, fwiw I think you've improved a lot as a poster.
Not enough to change your custom title, though. Unless you wouldn't mind "won't shut up about narrative" instead. :)
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 5:24 am |
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| another god wrote: |
| I thought we were getting a multiplayer meetup forum? |
this is still happening.
can anyone think of a snappy name for said forum?
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 6:40 pm |
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| Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh wrote: |
| Mister Toups wrote: |
| can anyone think of a snappy name for said forum? |
SBF: Match of the Millennium? |
winrar
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 12:17 am |
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| Vehicular Manslaughter wrote: |
| Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaame Cluuuuuuuuuuuuub. |
Where the hell is John Mc.
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