State of the Forum: November 2019
TL;DR Version: RIP? Also loosening moderation.
Hey all.
As you know I've been trying to revitalize the forums over the past few months. I think most things have gone well, except for some issue with the rules and moderation (I'll loop back to this).
Unfortunately, the team behind the scenes have suffered some major budget cuts. Most of our team members won't be here in a month, if they're not already gone as we speak. I'm not even sure how long I will be here, but at the moment, I'm effectively a one-man army.
This means that the forum software upgrade is on hold, possibly forever. It means there's less staff to go around and build the community. And it also means the content on OnRPG and MMOHuts will be changing.
The forums will still be here. At least so long as the sites are. A small consolation for those of you who hang out here.
Because of these changes I made a change today so that only the first post of a new user requires moderator approval. Five's too much, and one should generally stop most spam.
Another change today reminds users who haven't been on in 90 days or more to visit the rules & announcements forum, and that's to address our other issue: moderation and rules.
The new rules I put in place a couple months ago were to ensure that we had a consistent ruleset in place and available for all to reference. Most of these rules weren't anything new; they were just hiding in the moderation forum and poorly communicated to people. Some were even unwritten policy that had been nonetheless enforced in past years. I was only intending to set a standard of decency.
Unfortunately, moderator interpretation of that policy was way too authoritarian. I believe in contextual, human moderation, but it's clear that NWOrpheus wanted to interpret rules in the strictest way. I apologize that I let him get by with this, and his harsh attitude toward others. I expected better, I communicated as such. Either way, he's no longer a moderator here. I'll be going through his actions as a moderator later tonight, and reversing what I feel was unfair.
Also while I'm at it: I've decided to allow links to ROMS/EMUS and links/discussion of private servers. The rule still stands in that if we are issued any legal notice to take down these links or references, we will have to do so. Otherwise, just don't actively encourage piracy, alright?
I'm sorry that things got tense here, and I'm hoping that this place can move forward to a more positive atmosphere. I don't know what will happen next, but the last thing we need is to be destroying each other.
dont overwork yourself too much
Originally Posted by Abhorsen
