Things that probably need to be said.

[ZemZem]

Tbh I'm not naming anyone but sometimes it seems like Touhou fans are treated as acceptable targets or something

And being me I get the idea that it's somehow my fault that I accidentally created some weird Touhou fan stereotype.

Even though I got into Touhou through SF.

I'll hide in my corner now bye

Exactly my point lol

And yes, but no offense, but you're probably the most obnoxious when it comes to Touhou. That makes the rest of us look bad. :v

[Zak Something]

TBPH the Touhou people have given me more of a hassle than anyone else lately. >.>

And yes, but no offense, but you're probably the most obnoxious when it comes to Touhou. That makes the rest of us look bad. :v

I'm worse though :< Edited March 23, 2016 by Zak Something

[Refa]

Tbh I'm not naming anyone but sometimes it seems like Touhou fans are treated as acceptable targets or something

Well yeah, why not? Most of their bodies are impervious to shots fired anyways.

[peener weener]

Also please do name the people you're talking about (including staff memebers) instead of taking vague passive aggressive shots

[Magical Glace]

Exactly my point lol

And yes, but no offense, but you're probably the most obnoxious when it comes to Touhou. That makes the rest of us look bad. :v

I mainly do so in a silly/joking manner and all, but it does worry me.

Also please do name the people you're talking about (including staff memebers) instead of taking vague passive aggressive shots

They should know who they are.

[Ansem]

name them tho

[Elieson]

They should know who they are.

Why do people assume that everybody knows exactly every single person who has a problem with them, and what those problems are?

People use this on me weekly and it never makes sense because maybe once in the past year have they been right.

You know what you said

You know what you did

They know who they are

You're the fool if you think using the argument of "They know who they are" is going to solve any problems.

[peener weener]

They should know who they are.

Why?

This is very vague as well

[solrocknroll]

Why do people assume that everybody knows exactly every single person who has a problem with them, and what those problems are?

People use this on me weekly and it never makes sense because maybe once in the past year have they been right.

You know what you said

You know what you did

They know who they are

You're the fool if you think using the argument of "They know who they are" is going to solve any problems.

agreed lol

being passive aggressive solves nothing

[Freohr Datia]

Also please do name the people you're talking about (including staff memebers) instead of taking vague passive aggressive shots

b-but eclipse said that problems with the staff should be brought up with an admin in pm, not in public

but yes I also agree that not naming names doesn't solve anything, this was something I used to do as well :c But vagueness really doesn't help anybody, it addresses basically nothing

[Relick]

Glac is right, I know who I am.

I've been revealed, for the dirty touhou hater I am. Down with the loli-lovers! End this touhou terrorism! Ban the score autists!

[Ansem]

member since 18 april 2015

[Relick]

member since 18 april 2015

Oh hey, that's my DoB.

EDIT: posted at 4:20 woo I am a hardnut watch me blaaaze it

Edited March 23, 2016 by English Muffin

[Makaze]

Whatever you might say about this forum and its lax rules, the staff do come down on people when others get reported through the proper channels. I have had a hand in several bans because when I see something I think is purely harmful, I report it. When the staff hear the words "Please I think the users need your help here" said in earnest, they listen and see what's going on. They will tell you if they think it is bad or if not, why punishment would not improve the situation. I say this having been the subject of treatment most likely much harsher than that on you.

SF may have a lot of dicks, but the way the staff run things here is top notch. Their standards for things that are objectively wrong are clear and agreeable, and they act when they are brought up. They may be lax by some standards, but they do not allow hate to seep in. Confrontation, okay. Hate, no. They do not go looking for reasons to punish people; they do not have "warnings per month" quotas (please don't correct me on that). They rely on member participation to alert them when things are approaching that hate line. Most importantly, they do not look at the reports they receive as personal favors. They look at what's going on and gauge if enforcement will improve the community. If it won't improve the community, then they don't consider it strong enough to enforce. This minimalist approach ensures that the staff rarely if ever exercise power for the sake of power, making things even worse while doing so.

If they did scour every thread and censor all insults, if they went above and beyond and went by the letter of the law instead of the spirit, it would not do any good. No amount of enforcement of rules can make dicks into nice people. It makes them passive aggressive, maybe, but the resentment is still there. In the end the victims would still feel unwelcome, but they wouldn't even be allowed to talk about the atmosphere because that would approach public confrontation. I've seen this happen to some of my favourite sites. It got to a point where the older members started getting punished for hazing newer members, even jokingly, and things between the staff and members escalated. Before they knew it the tensions were halfway killing the site when all of the founding members disappeared.

You have to let social Darwinism play out at least a little bit to have a healthy community. Humanity is a confrontational species. You have to either find a way to change it with your own actions or learn to accept it. We can't rely on other people to slide everything under a rug because we don't like it. There is no moral reason, it's that it just plain doesn't work.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Makaze

[Esme]

no fighting

[Specta]

if you're having this terrible a time here, it might say you want a break. there's little reason to stay if it sits with you so poorly, you know?

otherwise, if you've been having particular issue with what the mods are doing, I hope you've been taking action and making a point to contact someone on the staff about it when you see things you think are a problem

is this true?

[Integrity]

Whatever you might say about this forum and its lax rules, the staff do come down on people when others get reported through the proper channels. I have had a hand in several bans because when I see something I think is purely harmful, I report it. When the staff hear the words "Please I think the users need your help here" said in earnest, they listen and see what's going on. They will tell you if they think it is bad or if not, why punishment would not improve the situation. I say this having been the subject of treatment most likely much harsher than that on you.

SF may have a lot of dicks, but the way the staff run things here is top notch. Their standards for things that are objectively wrong are clear and agreeable, and they act when they are brought up. They may be lax by some standards, but they do not allow hate to seep in. Confrontation, okay. Hate, no. They do not go looking for reasons to punish people; they do not have "warnings per month" quotas (please don't correct me on that). They rely on member participation to alert them when things are approaching that hate line. Most importantly, they do not look at the reports they receive as personal favors. They look at what's going on and gauge if enforcement will improve the community. If it won't improve the community, then they don't consider it strong enough to enforce. This minimalist approach ensures that the staff rarely if ever exercise power for the sake of power, making things even worse while doing so.

If they did scour every thread and censor all insults, if they went above and beyond and went by the letter of the law instead of the spirit, it would not do any good. No amount of enforcement of rules can make dicks into nice people. It makes them passive aggressive, maybe, but the resentment is still there. In the end the victims would still feel unwelcome, but they wouldn't even be allowed to talk about the atmosphere because that would approach public confrontation. I've seen this happen to some of my favourite sites. It got to a point where the older members started getting punished for hazing newer members, even jokingly, and things between the staff and members escalated. Before they knew it the tensions were halfway killing the site when all of the founding members disappeared.

You have to let social Darwinism play out at least a little bit to have a healthy community. Humanity is a confrontational species. You have to either find a way to change it with your own actions or learn to accept it. We can't rely on other people to move just slide everything we don't like it. There is no moral reason, it's that it just plain doesn't work.

says the guy who got banned from irc lmao owned

[Integrity]

(that was a way better post than it had any right to be, kudos)

[Tryhard]

can we make fun of makaze for effort posting in fftf?

[Integrity]

yes

[Specta]

i would say yes but i also thought it was a really worthwhile post :(

[Tangerine]

I have never had a greater displeasure in being part of an online community than I have with being involved in Serenes Forest. At least nowadays.

Now you might be thinking, "Oh shit, ZM's talking, this can't be good", but hear me out on this one. I believe I'm right. Now, the first component of my displeasure is the sheer amount of negativity and assholish attitudes that run rampant across the forum, notably in Far From the Forest. FFtF is the most active area of the forum (aside from the FE14 board, but that'll die out in activity once the Fates hype dies down soon enough), and well, here's where most of the more active members hang out. From what I've seen of topics that have been posted lately, and actually for quite a while now, people have been utmost dicks to each other. Downright cruel in things they have said. And what astounds me most is the fact that these people can get away with the shit they say. How can they get away with this? Isn't that kind of behavior what you DON'T want in a forum? Wouldn't that drive people away? Pretty damn sure it does.

The next issue I have relates to those members who can get away with being pricks to others. And that is mod bias. I've seen the posting histories of these certain members, and all they do is lurk around FFtF and make jabs at other members they deem worth laughing at. And what do some of the mods do? They don't do anything about them. Fuck, they might even join in and laugh at the member who made a complete and utter idiot out of himself. Again, is that truly a good way to present a forum? The fuck it is.

Like I said, the forum wasn't like this before. And personally, I don't want to see all this negativity anymore. And I know many others don't either.

I agree, buddy. It's kinda messed up how things are. The mod bias and their behavior sometimes really makes it hard to even wanna use the forums... I personally have barely even, if at all, logged on this past year.

There is no such thing as "mod bias" on these forums. The only bias I see is confirmation bias, with a mix of misinformation spread by bad members. I can almost guarantee your problems aren't with the staff, but with people who like to make our staff the subject of discussion. Regardless.

Bad Behaviour:

We get like 3000 posts per day on average across 40+ different forum sections. If you do not report the instances of rule breaking (or even mod abuse, if you're actually seeing that), how are any of us supposed to respond to it? We're not going to catch everything ourselves, use of the report system is necessary. It doesn't matter how many staff members a forum has; when you're dealing with that number of posts on a daily basis, it's not possible to catch every offensive post by browsing. Flat out, if you don't use the report system, your complaints about inaction will never be taken seriously. "I see all of this stuff not being dealt with! I also see the report button under every post, but I don't press it!". I greatly appreciate the members that use the report system, because they're the members who care enough to alert us when they feel intervention is necessary. That's how our newest mod, Ghast, even made himself known to me: by reporting a lot of bad content in the sections he now moderates.

Of course, reporting a post doesn't mean we're going to do something about it. We don't warn someone simply because they were reported, we observe the situation and determine whether or not moderator intervention is even necessary. We're not here to break up every argument or mudslinging contest that starts, we're here to intervene if it goes too far or becomes disruptive. The community manages itself, the forum staff is a fail-safe, and that's the moderation style I firmly believe in (well, more complicated than that obviously, but I'm not going to get into a 5 hour long discussion about the intricacies of forum moderation...yawned saying that). The rest is janitorial work - ensuring that the technical rules of the forum are met for ease of browsing (large sig images, spam in our discussion forums).

Mods:

I assure you that I look into EVERY instance of mod abuse reported to me, and reprimand + reverse their actions if I find the complaint to be fair (ask Integrity). Unfortunately, this is never the story that gets told, because it's much more dramatic to tell tales about the time you got warned unfairly than the time you got warned unfairly and we worked with you to correct it. That part of the story always seems to get left out. My advice: take any complaints along these lines with a grain of salt. If someone has been warned and they feel it was unfair, but have not contacted anyone who can actually do something about it, then their complaints are not worth taking seriously and they most likely have an agenda or are lying about the circumstances surrounding their warn.

Users who want to be unhappy with something we've done will say anything to get listeners on their side.

Crash:

Come on, were you even -here- when that was happening? I'm getting really tired of this subject popping up lol.

ANYONE who was actually here at the time knows how much flak I got from the community because I was being lenient with him. I spent hours in PM with him trying to get his problems sorted out because I knew he didn't want to get banned and I was sympathetic - that's far above and beyond the duty of a moderator (which I was at the time, that's how long ago and how irrelevant this example is). The mistake that was made with Crash wasn't that we were too strict, it was believing that his problems could be solved by anything other than time and introspection. I took 100% responsibility for anyone he hurt or offended past his initial anti-trans blow up because I was the reason he didn't get banned sooner; I sent the trans members I knew of who were involved personal apologies a long time ago - for not handling the situation properly (hint: because I was too lenient). And yes, once it was clear that I wasn't going to immediately ban him, members did try to egg him on to make him do something worse; they did not get off "scot-free", but they were obviously not going to receive punishment equal to the guy spouting hate speech.

For anyone reading this, with no offense intended to the OP, this is absolutely the perfect example of why you should not believe anyone who has a story to tell you about subjects like this. The story gets warped and twisted based on each individual's agenda or memory of the event. A situation where, at the time, it was widely agreed upon that we were too lenient, is now being retold as a situation where we were too strict and unfairly banned someone. No source of information regarding our staff is reliable unless they are actually a member of the staff.

There are people in any community with ridiculous and unreasonable aversion to anyone who has a significant amount of authority in said community, don't believe anything you didn't hear from a real source. And no, the angry guy who got warned is not a real source.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Tangerine

[Tangerine]

Whatever you might say about this forum and its lax rules, the staff do come down on people when others get reported through the proper channels. I have had a hand in several bans because when I see something I think is purely harmful, I report it. When the staff hear the words "Please I think the users need your help here" said in earnest, they listen and see what's going on. They will tell you if they think it is bad or if not, why punishment would not improve the situation. I say this having been the subject of treatment most likely much harsher than that on you.

SF may have a lot of dicks, but the way the staff run things here is top notch. Their standards for things that are objectively wrong are clear and agreeable, and they act when they are brought up. They may be lax by some standards, but they do not allow hate to seep in. Confrontation, okay. Hate, no. They do not go looking for reasons to punish people; they do not have "warnings per month" quotas (please don't correct me on that). They rely on member participation to alert them when things are approaching that hate line. Most importantly, they do not look at the reports they receive as personal favors. They look at what's going on and gauge if enforcement will improve the community. If it won't improve the community, then they don't consider it strong enough to enforce. This minimalist approach ensures that the staff rarely if ever exercise power for the sake of power, making things even worse while doing so.

If they did scour every thread and censor all insults, if they went above and beyond and went by the letter of the law instead of the spirit, it would not do any good. No amount of enforcement of rules can make dicks into nice people. It makes them passive aggressive, maybe, but the resentment is still there. In the end the victims would still feel unwelcome, but they wouldn't even be allowed to talk about the atmosphere because that would approach public confrontation. I've seen this happen to some of my favourite sites. It got to a point where the older members started getting punished for hazing newer members, even jokingly, and things between the staff and members escalated. Before they knew it the tensions were halfway killing the site when all of the founding members disappeared.

You have to let social Darwinism play out at least a little bit to have a healthy community. Humanity is a confrontational species. You have to either find a way to change it with your own actions or learn to accept it. We can't rely on other people to move just slide everything we don't like it. There is no moral reason, it's that it just plain doesn't work.

I didn't even need to make a post, gj.

[Freohr Datia]

Whatever you might say about this forum and its lax rules, the staff do come down on people when others get reported through the proper channels. I have had a hand in several bans because when I see something I think is purely harmful, I report it. When the staff hear the words "Please I think the users need your help here" said in earnest, they listen and see what's going on. They will tell you if they think it is bad or if not, why punishment would not improve the situation. I say this having been the subject of treatment most likely much harsher than that on you.

SF may have a lot of dicks, but the way the staff run things here is top notch. Their standards for things that are objectively wrong are clear and agreeable, and they act when they are brought up. They may be lax by some standards, but they do not allow hate to seep in. Confrontation, okay. Hate, no. They do not go looking for reasons to punish people; they do not have "warnings per month" quotas (please don't correct me on that). They rely on member participation to alert them when things are approaching that hate line. Most importantly, they do not look at the reports they receive as personal favors. They look at what's going on and gauge if enforcement will improve the community. If it won't improve the community, then they don't consider it strong enough to enforce. This minimalist approach ensures that the staff rarely if ever exercise power for the sake of power, making things even worse while doing so.

If they did scour every thread and censor all insults, if they went above and beyond and went by the letter of the law instead of the spirit, it would not do any good. No amount of enforcement of rules can make dicks into nice people. It makes them passive aggressive, maybe, but the resentment is still there. In the end the victims would still feel unwelcome, but they wouldn't even be allowed to talk about the atmosphere because that would approach public confrontation. I've seen this happen to some of my favourite sites. It got to a point where the older members started getting punished for hazing newer members, even jokingly, and things between the staff and members escalated. Before they knew it the tensions were halfway killing the site when all of the founding members disappeared.

You have to let social Darwinism play out at least a little bit to have a healthy community. Humanity is a confrontational species. You have to either find a way to change it with your own actions or learn to accept it. We can't rely on other people to move just slide everything we don't like it. There is no moral reason, it's that it just plain doesn't work.

[Tryhard]

i would say yes but i also thought it was a really worthwhile post :(

it was