Want to help the migration to the land of milk and honey?

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
45,426
73,489
Yeah, we're all burned by the incredible destruction of our recent home. Many of us spent the majority of our free time over the last week streamlining the transfer. I know I forgo'd a lot of sleep and personal obligations to pitch in and we were finally seeing the fruits of our efforts. Everything was going great, virtually every active member had changed over and we were seeing activity and quality that we hadn't seen in years on FoH. And it was all destroyed by the fear and selfish hiding of someone we've called a friend for 5+ years.

Additionally FoH has finally gained the temporary interest of its administrator. Requiem spent the hour or so it takes to update the forum that he's neglected for months and spent several hours expressing how little he cares about the community in no uncertain terms. I privately discussed the direction of the website and the community with him and earned no different a response. Those of us that know Req know that he's a very focused individual. You're either the current focus of his attention or you're a nothing to him. It reminds me of when I was asking the forum about decent hosting for my wife's website and he offered to host it. He refused all money, provided me everything I needed and personally helped me set it up. It worked for 6 months and then suddenly went down. He ignored every request for information that I sent him and to this day still hasn't told me what happened.

After the previous debacle I get that it can be hard to really commit to another site. Many of you don't really know Draegan. He's a good friend of mine, but more importantly instead of seeing this community as a hobby that he can put in the basement and tinker with when he's bored he sees this community as a major part of his career.

So here we are again. Day 2 of rebuilding a community. Draegan and I have built the foundation, but it's up to the community to do the rest. Everyone agrees that with the exception of a pair of dipshits (And don't think they're gone. I'm still getting PMs from trexxy even today) we want this community to stick together. Most of us are choosing this site, but there's still many valuable members of the community that aren't sure or don't even know what's going on. I've been overwhelmed by the many people who have contacted me privately asking how they can help the community and here's a few ideas:

1. Post threads/content. Yeah it seems obvious, but there's over a hundred threads that used to be active that need to be made. Someone has to make the step. Additionally someone has to start the conversation on those threads. I've enjoyed talking in IRC the last week, but why state your opinion on a topic to 2 people in a temporary setting when you can express it to 200 people in a permanent one?
2. Change your signature on FoH to
[ url=www.rerolled.org][ img]http://www.guildwars2junkies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/gN13F.jpg[/img][/url]

to help get the word out about the site and your involvement.
3. PM people on FoH that are actively posting to let them know that community has moved over.
4. To maintain continuity, post a link on an old (and likely dead) thread on FoH to the new one on RR.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
3
Tuco is the man. And that sig makes me look gangsta. In any case, he's right. That signature will automatically populate to every post you've ever made. If you don't have time to actively recruit people in the old FOH threads, then change your sig is incredibly easy. It takes 5 seconds and it does a lot. If more people do it, then the better the community is here.
 

Mist

Eeyore Enthusiast
<Gold Donor>
30,410
22,195
I don't see why we'd leave FOH if the site is put back in functional order. Losing all that history doesn't seem like a good prospect.
 

Sterling

El Presidente
12,958
7,855
I don't see why we'd leave FOH if the site is put back in functional order. Losing all that history doesn't seem like a good prospect.
Largely has to do with the apathy displayed by Req. Took like 6 weeks or something to fix the malware shit. And he enjoys what the swamp donkey and Tyen have been doing as a form of entertainment.
 

TrollfaceDeux

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
<Bronze Donator>
19,577
3,743
yeah but req who i know little doesn't give a shit about FoH and the site will probably die if nothing happens.
 

Slaythe

<Bronze Donator>
3,389
141
I don't see why we'd leave FOH if the site is put back in functional order. Losing all that history doesn't seem like a good prospect.
Well this is selfish of me but FOH got blocked at work as a result of the Malware. Considering I do most of my browsing between 9 and 5 (thx corporate america) if the community stuck around there I'd be screwed. I don't think I'm the only one in this situation either.

Probably a pretty small minority but whatever.
 

Haast

Lord Nagafen Raider
3,281
1,636
I don't see why we'd leave FOH if the site is put back in functional order. Losing all that history doesn't seem like a good prospect.
The community is the history. Req made his feelings about the community very clear: "fuck all of you " and "helping T&T fuck with you makes me happy" sums it up. Req deserves a lot of credit for keeping the forums running for a decade+. But as others said, I'll take my chances with a site admin that values the community rather than one who openly despises it.

So what do we have, like a week until Draeg has an identity crisis and fucks us big time? =)
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
3
Well this is selfish of me but FOH got blocked at work as a result of the Malware. Considering I do most of my browsing between 9 and 5 (thx corporate america) if the community stuck around there I'd be screwed. I don't think I'm the only one in this situation either.

Probably a pretty small minority but whatever.
This is my primary motivation. I can't see FOH at work unless I stare at my phone.
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
14,558
10,046
FoH had no future, without anyone with any actual plans for it. slow death, as it became less relevant over time, and more and more trolls.
 

Sparko

Silver Knight of the Realm
256
31
I guess some things never change, he's gone from selling loot from the guild bank on Ebay to telling a whole community to fuck off.
 

Lithose

Buzzfeed Editor
25,946
113,035
I don't see why we'd leave FOH if the site is put back in functional order. Losing all that history doesn't seem like a good prospect.
Because it's only a matter of time before another malware warning creeps up, or before Req creates another Trex Fashion House and gives her admin powers there because it amuses him intellectually and physically...Because she sucks his penis. His lack of any investment in the site, any care that a normal human being might develop after 11 years with the same people, is sociopathic and will only lead to problems down the road as issues come up that he deems not worthy of his attention. Now, I know Req is an Aspi, so his behavior isn't mean spirited, hell he probably views us as acting weird because we got emotional at all. However, the point still stands--he doesn't care, and for the site to run, it needs someone who does care.

The only thing Req said that was right yesterday is how hands off he was in terms of community moderation. And I suppose this is a comment for Tuco/Draegan. If Draeg is looking to monetize this site, then I hope those plans don't come through more moderation to make it ad friendly, or draw different revenue streams. Additional moderation will destroy, really, the fabric of what FoH is about and if that's the plan, I'd as soon as know now.

I guess we are all just a fickle bunch of whiners, but we essentially need slightly more hands on than Req in terms of fixing problems and making sure mods are "part" of the community rather than want-to-be-kings. But still hands off enough that said admins don't try to sculpt the community to "make it better". Self policing, with mods only stepping in for massive infractions, has always been FoH's way and really, as fucking annoying as Req was yesterday, he was right in that the community handling it's own problems was the key to how strong the community was. (What he was wrong about was not intervening when certain problems couldn't be handled by the community, like trex or malware.)
 

Decado

Golden Knight of the Realm
94
44
I don't see why we'd leave FOH if the site is put back in functional order. Losing all that history doesn't seem like a good prospect.
Largely has to do with the apathy displayed by Req. Took like 6 weeks or something to fix the malware shit. And he enjoys what the swamp donkey and Tyen have been doing as a form of entertainment.
I would echo Sterling. As a pervious FoH lurker who only decided to register when things moved I can't see why anyone would want to remain on a board with 2 members actively being fuckwits of the highest order, with the approval of Req, simply for shits n giggles. MN was more fun in a few days that FoH was in the time i lurked tbh.

Also whats the IRC channel/network?
 

brekk

Dancing Dino Superstar
<Bronze Donator>
2,191
1,746
My largest issue with FoH was the unwillingness to let anyone else help. I'm not saying buy the site and host it, but promote more mods to help clean shit up. I don't know about you, but a site that active shouldn't have had 2 mods (Tuco, and Rav) as the only ones doing anything actively to keep the place running, especially while two people undeserving of mod privileges (T&T) were yucking it up, adding sections we didn't want, changing names, internets, and god knows what else that we missed.

I want a place where the community can be run by the community, and not the bullshit "organic" way Req talked about, but by mods the community likes, representing what we all want to the best of our abilities. Admins who are involved and care, and not only do basic updates to prevent malware, but care enough to maybe enact changes we want. T&T and the Malware did not kill FoH, they were just the writing on the wall that the site was on coast, the person with the power didn't care. And the people that cared didn't have the power.
 

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
45,426
73,489
The only thing Req said that was right yesterday is how hands off he was in terms of community moderation.
tbh that was a red herring on his part. He was using it to escape blame for not getting rid of Tyen/Trex. His version of reality is that community is responsible for removing shitty posters. The reality is that there's several hundred banned users, many of whom are shitty posters just like Trexxy with the exception that they aren't protected by the administration. I've personally banned her many times.

As for your larger concern, not much will change wrt moderation policies. For now our goal is to copy FoH as much as possible, and when we look into making it sustainable we definitely won't remove the heart of the community by turning it into some sterile environment.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
3
Because it's only a matter of time before another malware warning creeps up, or before Req creates another Trex Fashion House and gives her admin powers there because it amuses him intellectually and physically...Because she sucks his penis. His lack of any investment in the site, any care that a normal human being might develop after 11 years with the same people, is sociopathic and will only lead to problems down the road as issues come up that he deems not worthy of his attention. Now, I know Req is an Aspi, so his behavior isn't mean spirited, hell he probably views us as acting weird because we got emotional at all. However, the point still stands--he doesn't care, and for the site to run, it needs someone who does care.

The only thing Req said that was right yesterday is how hands off he was in terms of community moderation. And I suppose this is a comment for Tuco/Draegan. If Draeg is looking to monetize this site, then I hope those plans don't come through more moderation to make it ad friendly, or draw different revenue streams. Additional moderation will destroy, really, the fabric of what FoH is about and if that's the plan, I'd as soon as know now.

I guess we are all just a fickle bunch of whiners, but we essentially need slightly more hands on than Req in terms of fixing problems and making sure mods are "part" of the community rather than want-to-be-kings. But still hands off enough that said admins don't try to sculpt the community to "make it better". Self policing, with mods only stepping in for massive infractions, has always been FoH's way and really, as fucking annoying as Req was yesterday, he was right in that the community handling it's own problems was the key to how strong the community was. (What he was wrong about was not intervening when certain problems couldn't be handled by the community, like trex or malware.)
The only monetizing plans I have right now is to make sure there is money to pay for server bandwith. There are a lot of different ways to go about getting support. Memberships, ads, donation drives, blah blah blah; none of which are planned right now by the way. But just to be very clear, I'm not looking to change the culture of this community. I've been part of this community forever, I'm not going to try to change anything. I don't want to change anything. I'm going to attempt to keep the community alive and vibrant for years to come.

This whole project was not a way to capture views and then stick ads everywhere. That wouldn't make a lot of cash anyway.
 

Lithose

Buzzfeed Editor
25,946
113,035
tbh that was a red herring on his part. He was using it to escape blame for not getting rid of Tyen/Trex. His version of reality is that community is responsible for removing shitty posters. The reality is that there's several hundred banned users, many of whom are shitty posters just like Trexxy with the exception that they aren't protected by the administration. I've personally banned her many times.

As for your larger concern, not much will change wrt moderation policies. For now our goal is to copy FoH as much as possible, and when we look into making it sustainable we definitely won't remove the heart of the community by turning it into some sterile environment.
There is a massive difference between a bunch of equal powered mods running the show, and an admin actively wading in on the day to day. By having a bunch of, in general, equal powered mods, there was always an appeal to go through. And since each mod had their own unique take and experiences, they represented a diverse subsection of the board. Having to essentially piss off every mod (Or break a big no, no rule like child porn) to get a ban that won't be overturned or appealed, is a pretty good indication that the board has reached a consensus that you're a shitty poster and you need to go.

Having that consensus though, is an important distinguishing feature between a bunch of mods running things and an Admin weighing in on the day to day. When Req nuked someone, they were gone. Like take Gryeyes for example...I HATED Gry, but his banning just for trolling in Req's little astro thread, was bullshit--considering we had to deal with him forYEARS. But because Req got a bug up his ass and wanted to talk to the plebs for a few days, Gry's normal behavior all of the sudden became ban worthy. Trex is another example of an Admin weighing in when he should stay out, as you said, the rest of the mods condemned her and their consensus on her being a horrible, vacuous, whore should have been able to make a ban stick--but the admin protected her, why? Because he could.

That's what I am leery about. Because while Req may have done that a few times (Trex being the worst and it actually destroyed the community even), it was often a random thing and only if you peed in his cheerios, which he gave warnings to avoid. If an admin though is driven by revenue concerns, or some philosophical "community building" mentality, then this kind of behavior can become ubiquitous very quickly and that would be terrible.

For what it's worth though, I believe you and Draeg. I just hope you guys keep what I said in mind and listen to your mods to get another viewpoint when you're angry. For all his faults, Req not using his power and letting the lower tier of the community (Mods) handle the day to day, was a strength.
 

Fuse

Silver Knight of the Realm
500
29
Unless of course this forum somehow generates it's own swamp donkey, in that case the admin needs to drop the Hammer of God posthaste.