Ninfora Site Development - What's important to you?

[CHAINMAILLEKID]

 

1 minute ago, nornir said:

Using reddit as an example doesn't inspire confidence

 

It's a notorious echo chamber and full of shitty mods

Reddit wasn't being used an an example, it was used as a sample source.


 

[Penance Fracture]

Dem name drops, tho.

 

In all seriousness, @chickadee pretty much nails it. A distinction should be made between users who are not liked, and those who are vitriolic. I cannot name anybody who falls in the latter category. Some people here get a little uppity from time to time, but that's about as far as it goes for right now.

 

If this community becomes a cesspit like I was talking about, then by all means: Bring down the banhammer of doom. But it's not necessary right now.

[Doc Brown]

7 minutes ago, chickadee said:

like i don't want anyone to get the idea that i'm saying to toughen up or to stop being hurt by hurtful things because i have firsthand experience of being treated badly by people before but putting rules in place did not save me and its not going to save anyone else because rules are not going to change anyone's behavior here and that is fact. we are who we are and the only thing that could possibly come of it, in my opinion, is that instead of getting kinder people, which is what you all seem to want, you're just getting rid of people instead, which is NOT the same thing and actually part of the problem. 

 

our moderation system has already proven to be useful and you're asking to fix something that isn't broken.

 

So have I and it's a bitch. So reporting said behavior works for the most part. But sometimes said person or people continue with the behavior. So sometimes the ignore option can come in handy so the other person who was being harassed can cool off for a bit. 

 

Actually it's not really that. It's just avoiding people who've proven to be assholes. Why put up with them when you can just ignore them? Why give them attention? Ignoring the posts in general can help. But for some, I don't see the harm of having the general ignore button there for those situations. It doesn't hurt anyone. There will always be those kinds of people who'll never be 'kind' or even 'half way decent', so no matter what rules are in place, they won't change. So having that option there in my opinion, isn't a bad thing.

 

And as for fixing the moderation system, no one's asking for that. Just for some basic rules. Not a gigantic rule book.

[Doc Brown]

1 minute ago, Schmengland said:

Dem name drops, tho.

 

In all seriousness, @chickadee pretty much nails it. A distinction should be made between users who are not liked, and those who are vitriolic. I cannot name anybody who falls in the latter category. Some people here get a little uppity from time to time, but that's about as far as it goes for right now.

 

If this community becomes a cesspit like I was talking about, then by all means: Bring down the banhammer of doom. But it's not necessary right now.

 

I agree with you on that part. The latter is what I was mainly going on about for the most part in regards to the ignore button. Those that behave like that are generally auto ignore on my end. Not worth the hassle.

 

Word. Right now things are going pretty well.

[CHAINMAILLEKID]

13 minutes ago, chickadee said:

and while that source is nice and all, its already been proven false in OUR community by what's happened in the past.

I don't think it has though.

Your complaint I think doesn't exactly match what the study is looking at.
Its basically looking ONLY at whether rules are stated, or unstated.
Doesn't look at all into how they are enforced, or what's the best way to enforce.
You seem to be complaining about radical enforcement, and problems with that.

Its just saying that posting rules is good.
It affects behavior, and promotes activity.
 

 

Quote

so lets say we ban 4 members, probably the most controversial of them all, and considered by some to be 'unlikeable' - deo, yuki, yellow, and strawberrykeiki, you all have to go. what do you think is going to happen from that?

 

We're not talking about banning member, we're talking about having a rule book.

And I don't think we need to have rules that say "You have to treat everybody nice... OR ELSE!"


 

Quote

People who are 'unlikable and unpleasant' is completely subjective. if we're going to start putting rules on that, we're already EXACTLY right back where we started, and THAT should be a problem to you.

I'm not saying we put rules on that. I don't think we need to even identify it or even think about it
All you need to think about is the sort of place you want to forum to be, and have that as a goal, instead of "Oh, whatever the community wants."


 

[Spring]

yeah but like my point is we are an old community of people that have been here for a decade in some cases

 

putting up a singular rule or two is literally, actually, really really not going to change how anyone acts and the point is at THAT point the useless rules that we have are going to cause people to call for them to be 'enforced', which is what leads to people leaving either through being banned or being suspended or something else that doesn't actually solve a problem so much as removing it

 

i seriously doubt enacting a rule right now would affect our community activity at all, either 

 

like maybe for a new community that would make sense but as many people have already mentioned, we are not

 

the point is still that you are trying to fix a problem that is nonexistent 

[CHAINMAILLEKID]

 

14 minutes ago, chickadee said:

yeah but like my point is we are an old community of people that have been here for a decade in some cases

 

putting up a singular rule or two is literally, actually, really really not going to change how anyone acts and the point is at THAT point the useless rules that we have are going to cause people to call for them to be 'enforced', which is what leads to people leaving either through being banned or being suspended or something else that doesn't actually solve a problem so much as removing it

 

i seriously doubt enacting a rule right now would affect our community activity at all, either 

 

like maybe for a new community that would make sense but as many people have already mentioned, we are not

 

the point is still that you are trying to fix a problem that is nonexistent 

Not all rules are about about how people act though.
I didn't even have that in mind at all when I wrote my original post.

And not all moderation revolves around rules.
A lot of that is done by manipulating the system or the environment.

Like, we could try to use upvoting and downvoting as part of a system to help moderate if we wanted to.
The post got 10 downvotes? Automatically hidden.

Not promoting the idea, just giving an example.

How the forum is made has an integral part in the way users post.

I'd like to see new users personally, and that is where I think we'll benefit the most form initiative and direction. Don't really think we need much of that if this place is just going to be a harbor for old users. If thats what you want, then my proposals aren't for you.

Edited November 2, 2016 by CHAINMAILLEKID

[Mocha]

Oh hey, people are talking about me.

 

I realize I have a lot of baggage with some of you. I was the big meanie bitch that picked on you on the Wii board, sometimes with the help of Punchy or Ima. But I come here for discussion (as well as to laugh at some of you, I'll readily admit). I've generally operated under one rule here: If you want to be treated like an adult in a discussion, then act like one. If you fail to act like one, then I will treat you like a child. I don't think it's too much to ask for on a discussion forum that is largely populated by 20 year olds and up. 

 

New users. That's pretty much a lost cause, for reasons I've already stated. Why would they come here? This is an off-shoot of an off-shoot for a forum that is long since dead. There might have once been a time for Nsider 2, but there are now much larger, much better gaming forums to choose from, if you even decide to hang out on a forum. Ninfora isn't going to "accomplish" much of anything outside of housing a refugee community for maybe another year.

 

I agree with Sarah that the current level of moderation has been more than sufficient for this community's needs. Things get heated, surely, but that's the way of things. Forcing people to be nice to one another (rather than just respectful) would just stifle discussion. The desire to be "professional" was always overrated anyway.

 

Specifically regarding downvotes: Downvotes only encourages dogpiling, which leads to further hurt feelings. Take the thing with Strawberrycake kid in the chat thread, for example. You would have had people dogpiling on him as well as me because some users decided to throw a hissy fit that we were having the discussion in their shitpost thread. What would this have accomplished? Further entrenching, further hurt feelings. He might have not chosen to do some reflecting after the fact, which is part of what we're here for.

 

I'm not even particularly fond of upvotes either.

 

[Mao]

My my my, all these old faces popping up trying to shape the direction of the forum. I like that, reminds me of 2007 when we were figuring out how to run a new site we weren't really expecting to have. Back then I was pretty stupid though and didn't really understand how a community works. I was one of those guys who was all for rules and basically making an NSider clone with mods and an admin staff to control the ruckus. (That worked out well you can tell) 

 

Personally, I'm kind of tired of people trying to create a Nintendo forum that closed almost a decade ago. All this talk of adding more boards and not wanting to have to see threads about shit you're not interested in. And gamers say they don't have an entitlement problem. You guys don't really understand what it is that makes a community. It's not boards, it's not rules, it's not encouraging everyone to sound the same by nudging people to post in a certain nice way that makes the random person who wanders in want to stay and become part of the hive. It's the individuals and the desire of people to make a community work. Nothing has ever been great from mutual agreement in everything, nor has civility in all things produced anything good. 

 

Now, you can go a write a board guidelines and pretend that anyone you're talking about will care about those things. I don't even think the staff thinks the people that's floating round in your head have stepped out of line. Believe it or not, the staff here have talked to those people and it's been dealt with. Just because you guys don't think anything is happening with the moderation of this place doesn't mean that's true. You're not privy to all the information. You should have a lot more trust in Kodiack than what you're giving him credit for. 

 

Now, I'm not exactly sure why people have the need to say there needs to be rules. The only reasoning I can think of someone wanting that is because they feel like they've been burned by someone and the lack of rules means they don't have any way of persuading staff to fight their fights for them. Which is, you know, a fair enough perspective. Some people just don't like confrontations or after people have gone after them quit playing by their rules. And that's frustrating, sure. But at the same time, siccing a mod after a user for not playing fair isn't exactly something I see this community wanting. When you do that, you have a repeat of NS2. That was attempted, and it didn't really work out. The forum became stale, and only about the same 15 people ever posted.

 

This place is not like NS2. Or how NS2 used to be. The fact that I'm posting here is a testament to that. There are vast improvements to how this site is run and it's refreshing to see that from an admin team I thought was incompetent for many many years. I was wrong, they're showing they can be a good staff. But what's being proposed here is that exact same crap that was on NS2 and how you're not seeing that is baffling. You're wanting to turn a site that has only the members in common with NS2 back into what made NS2 awful. You're trying to splinter the community by adding more and more boards. You're being unwilling to look at things that don't interest you, you're not even interested in seeing what your friends might have to say about it. Maybe because you don't really know anyone here and you only come here to discuss topics you like with random people. I don't know, but that sort of viewpoint doesn't grow a community.

 

I don't post in about 95% of the threads here, but I keep my tab open on the Feed page and I read almost every post that's made on this forum. None of the threads that are being posted bother me because I'm not interested in them. I don't mind spending a little extra time to find a thread that might be buried a little lower on the page. I'm fine with it because I know my friends were the ones who were enjoying themselves in the threads above the one I want to read. And I enjoy seeing what they have to say here.

 

I know I don't sound like it when I post because I normally only ever post when I feel like I can get something for it, but for the most part I like the people here. You're all pretty weird, and nerdy, and creepy,  and not very good at defending your points or taking responsibility and I probably would never go out of my way to meet any of you in person. But I like your quirks. I'd never stuck around for nine years if I didn't like the people. I don't like the idea of trying to corral those people. And I think creating more boards and posting up a board of guidelines is going to do more harm than good. Appearing nicer doesn't mean shit. Appearances aren't what make a good community. You're just asking for another slow death.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Mao

[Reilly]

Yeah, that study seems to apply more to larger communities with lots of anonymous members, while with the user base as we have it now, this site is more like a small group of friends, and I know if I walked up to my friends one day and told them, "Hey, we always have a lot of fun when we hang out, but I think we need to establish some guidelines to help make the most of our time, especially if we want to include more people in our fun, and I don't want to name names, but we all know how a certain someone is a dick all the time and we need rules to keep stuff like that in check," they'd shoot it down right away.

 

If our community grows to the point where there are a lot of new members and the lax nature we have now starts to be dangerous, we can revisit this, but the system we have now works for the community we have now.  We can talk about the vision and future of this site all we want, but rules about moderation need to represent the current state of the community, especially when the future of the site doesn't yet have a clear goal, or in the event that said vision/future/goal is never realized.

[Doc Brown]

10 minutes ago, Reilly said:

Yeah, that study seems to apply more to larger communities with lots of anonymous members, while with the user base as we have it now, this site is more like a small group of friends, and I know if I walked up to my friends one day and told them, "Hey, we always have a lot of fun when we hang out, but I think we need to establish some guidelines to help make the most of our time, especially if we want to include more people in our fun, and I don't want to name names, but we all know how a certain someone is a dick all the time and we need rules to keep stuff like that in check," they'd shoot it down right away.

 

If our community grows to the point where there are a lot of new members and the lax nature we have now starts to be dangerous, we can revisit this, but the system we have now works for the community we have now.  We can talk about the vision and future of this site all we want, but rules about moderation need to represent the current state of the community, especially when the future of the site doesn't yet have a clear goal, or in the event that said vision/future/goal is never realized.

 

You bring up a very good point. Right now it's going ok. But it doesn't hurt to revisit stuff in the future if it's ever needed.

[Doc Brown]

21 minutes ago, Mao said:

My my my, all these old faces popping up trying to shape the direction of the forum. I like that, reminds me of 2007 when we were figuring out how to run a new site we weren't really expecting to have. Back then I was pretty stupid though and didn't really understand how a community works. I was one of those guys who was all for rules and basically making an NSider clone with mods and an admin staff to control the ruckus. (That worked out well you can tell) 

 

Personally, I'm kind of tired of people trying to create a Nintendo forum that closed almost a decade ago. All this talk of adding more boards and not wanting to have to see threads about shit you're not interested in. And gamers say they don't have an entitlement problem. You guys don't really understand what it is that makes a community. It's not boards, it's not rules, it's not encouraging everyone to sound the same by nudging people to post in a certain nice way that makes the random person who wanders in want to stay and become part of the hive. It's the individuals and the desire of people to make a community work. Nothing has ever been great from mutual agreement in everything, nor has civility in all things produced anything good. 

 

Now, you can go a write a board guidelines and pretend that anyone you're talking about will care about those things. I don't even think the staff thinks the people that's floating round in your head have stepped out of line. Believe it or not, the staff here have talked to those people and it's been dealt with. Just because you guys don't think anything is happening with the moderation of this place doesn't mean that's true. You're not privy to all the information. You should have a lot more trust in Kodiack than what you're giving him credit for. 

 

Now, I'm not exactly sure why people have the need to say there needs to be rules. The only reasoning I can think of someone wanting that is because they feel like they've been burned by someone and the lack of rules means they don't have any way of persuading staff to fight their fights for them. Which is, you know, a fair enough perspective. Some people just don't like confrontations or after people have gone after them quit playing by their rules. And that's frustrating, sure. But at the same time, siccing a mod after a user for not playing fair isn't exactly something I see this community wanting. When you do that, you have a repeat of NS2. That was attempted, and it didn't really work out. The forum became stale, and only about the same 15 people ever posted.

 

This place is not like NS2. Or how NS2 used to be. The fact that I'm posting here is a testament to that. There are vast improvements to how this site is run and it's refreshing to see that from an admin team I thought was incompetent for many many years. I was wrong, they're showing they can be a good staff. But what's being proposed here is that exact same crap that was on NS2 and how you're not seeing that is baffling. You're wanting to turn a site that has only the members in common with NS2 back into what made NS2 awful. You're trying to splinter the community by adding more and more boards. You're being unwilling to look at things that don't interest you, you're not even interested in seeing what your friends might have to say about it. Maybe because you don't really know anyone here and you only come here to discuss topics you like with random people. I don't know, but that sort of viewpoint doesn't grow a community.

 

I don't post in about 95% of the threads here, but I keep my tab open on the Feed page and I read almost every post that's made on this forum. None of the threads that are being posted bother me because I'm not interested in them. I don't mind spending a little extra time to find a thread that might be buried a little lower on the page. I'm fine with it because I know my friends were the ones who were enjoying themselves in the threads above the one I want to read. And I enjoy seeing what they have to say here.

 

I know I don't sound like it when I post because I normally only ever post when I feel like I can get something for it, but for the most part I like the people here. You're all pretty weird, and nerdy, and creepy,  and not very good at defending your points or taking responsibility and I probably would never go out of my way to meet any of you in person. But I like your quirks. I'd never stuck around for nine years if I didn't like the people. I don't like the idea of trying to corral those people. And I think creating more boards and posting up a board of guidelines is going to do more harm than good. Appearing nicer doesn't mean shit. Appearances aren't what make a good community and trying to control people. You're just asking for another slow death.

 

I've realized a few things since 07' as well. People are going to be people. Heck I'm a far more laid back person than I was at that point and am able to see when people are trying to stir shit for the sake of it and who isn't (at least up to a point), it's thanks to you guys in part. You've helped to make me grow and change. And I trust Kodiack and others staff wise. As for any rules, right now they're not really needed. But who knows if maybe down the line things might change? Meaning more folks on here. Not in regards to most of you. You all have come a long way from where we were at back then.

 

Sure we have our disagreements, but for the most part, it's come to a point of just agreeing to disagree. I think that's just probably the sanest thing to do for more heated arguments at times. 

 

Nsider clone? Really? Hell a lot of us have moved on since then. Sure I'll miss a lot from NS2, but this is a fresh start. Honestly, I think a lot of us aren't here trying to do that. So to say that anyone who wants some rules is trying to do that, isn't really all that fair to say.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Lance's Dragonite

[CHAINMAILLEKID]

30 minutes ago, Yuki said:

 

New users. That's pretty much a lost cause, for reasons I've already stated. Why would they come here? This is an off-shoot of an off-shoot for a forum that is long since dead. There might have once been a time for Nsider 2, but there are now much larger, much better gaming forums to choose from, if you even decide to hang out on a forum. Ninfora isn't going to "accomplish" much of anything outside of housing a refugee community for maybe another year.

You sure are hopeless.

We shouldn't try to expand to new users because its a lost cause, But apparently this place is only going to last as is maybe another year anyway.

It really doesn't matter what is proposed, you'll just shoot it down as futile.

[Mocha]

Yep.

 

I'm a negative nancy.

[Penance Fracture]

6 minutes ago, CHAINMAILLEKID said:

You sure are hopeless.

We shouldn't try to expand to new users because its a lost cause, But apparently this place is only going to last as is maybe another year anyway.

It really doesn't matter what is proposed, you'll just shoot it down as futile.

 

5 minutes ago, Yuki said:

Yep.

 

I'm a negative nancy.

I'll meet you guys halfway and say that I don't think attracting new users is a hopeless endeavour, but also that having rules at this juncture will help in that aspiration (nor help it, I don't think).

[CHAINMAILLEKID]

26 minutes ago, Lance's Dragonite said:

 

 

Nsider clone? Really? Hell a lot of us have moved on since then. Sure I'll miss a lot from NS2, but this is a fresh start. Honestly, I think a lot of us aren't here trying to do that. So to say that anyone who wants some rules is trying to do that, isn't really all that fair to say.

Honestly, its a strawman.

Examples from Nsider are going to come up in discussions like this. But that doesn't mean wanting to turn this place into an Nsider clone. 
I pull suggestions from all my experiences, and thats going to include Nsider sometimes. 

Edited November 2, 2016 by CHAINMAILLEKID

[CHAINMAILLEKID]

17 minutes ago, Schmengland said:

 

I'll meet you guys halfway and say that I don't think attracting new users is a hopeless endeavour, but also that having rules at this juncture will help in that aspiration (nor help it, I don't think).

I think... Rules need to be in place before any noteworthy number of new users start arriving.

Rules make people comfortable. They're kinda like instructions on how to fit in.


Also, is there a way to edit in a quote into a reply without having to go and do a copypasta?
I'd like to be able to have a username in my quotes without double posting.

Edited November 2, 2016 by CHAINMAILLEKID

[Mao]

so rules are a blankie? Do you approach any social situation as needing rules before you feel comfortable? Why should we have a community that mandates someone has to act a certain way to fit in? 

 

You're interacting with people, you should feel naturally comfortable. The presence of a board of guidelines doesn't make people comfortable. It's people acting like people that make things comfortable.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Mao

[CHAINMAILLEKID]

Just now, Mao said:

so rules are a blankie? Do you approach any social situation as needing rules before you feel comfortable? 

 

You're interacting with people, you should feel naturally comfortable. The presence of a board of guidelines doesn't make people comfortable. It's people acting like people that make things comfortable.

For new users, going into a new community,  and assuming they haven't been lurking for a month.

Uh, yeah.

Rules are empowering.

 

Also, if we did start getting new users. You really would start wanting rules pretty quick I think.
Kids today DO NOT know how to forum.

Even really basic things.

So like kids coming from reddit, every "Board" is its own community, its own rules. And if you have a question, or something cool to show off, you simply post it in every single releveant subreddit you can find.

Can't do that on a forum. Can't re-post the same thread in Power on, and Gaming, and Nintendo. They're not independent communities. Whaaat?!?

[Mao]

Just now, CHAINMAILLEKID said:

For new users, going into a new community,  and assuming they haven't been lurking for a month.

Uh, yeah.

Rules are empowering.

 

Also, if we did start getting new users. You really would start wanting rules pretty quick I think.
Kids today DO NOT know how to forum.

Even really basic things.

So like kids coming from reddit, every "Board" is its own community, its own rules. And if you have a question, or something cool to show off, you simply post it in every single releveant subreddit you can find.

Can't do that on a forum. Can't re-post the same thread in Power on, and Gaming, and Nintendo. They're not independent communities. Whaaat?!?

you're assuming a lot of people are really stupid and incapable of talking to new people without some form of security. I'm not sure you've actually ever talked to people online and have seen them as intelligent individual people.