You know ~.~ Ideally, we wouldn't need filters, have to have many banned users, have to put up so many rules and redundancies.
A lot of the crap around here is due to people's low tolerance for things. A lot of us are satisfied with the users we know, and the friends we've made so we're not giving new users a chance.
The moment someone new comes in and makes a mistake, sometimes blatantly obvious to us, we yell at them, pull the whole "THERE ARE RULES n00b" thing, and shun them off, or scare them away.
I applaud everyone's efforts in the newbie lounge who are welcoming the new members and showing them how not to get yelled at, however, for doing things, they shouldn't have to get yelled at.
I noticed a lot of the members, staff, and myself included are tired of having to say the same things over and over again. However, 'foruming' is a learning process. You're always learning, making mistakes, getting better. Only a few people truly turn bad, and those are the people who should be scared off.
I'm almost going to go as far to say that being new should be an excuse for making mistakes, because that's just what they are, mistakes. People make them. I've made mistakes. I've banned people on accident, posted in the wrong forum, wrong thread, made a copy of an already exisiting thread, banned everyone from chat. I've learned from them all, and I expect myself to make more mistakes, but I'm still learning.
I'm getting tired of hearing people just complain and complain, and be just totally lame to others, disrespecting their beliefs, not bothering to see things from other people's point of view, etc.
As for this whole swearing issue, I feel that swearing does emphasize ideas and points, but its never needed. If you were to be in court and try to 'emphasize' your points to the judge/jury, would they really take you seriously? Swearing may be 'cool' or common, but so are many other things, things that even get people killed.
We've lost the ideas of having general fun, common courtesy, a place for everyone. I'll admit that not everyone will find a place here. Some people just don't have the kind of personality to come here.
Anyway, I kind of lost my train of thought there, but there's another thing I'd like to address in this semi-rant. Normally, I'd go to the staff forums to post stuff like this, but not this time lol.
I'll admit that I've been anal retentive about rules and stuff, and I apologize if I insulted anybody's intelligence or whatever. I let my frustration get ahold of me, and that was no excuse, though I would like it when people reply to my topics to stay on-topic >>;
Anyway, to the rest of the staff; we have a responsibility to make sure EVERYONE here remains happy and/or satisfied, we don't have mod, mod+, SMod, or Admin powers to satisfy our own needs/wants, its for the users, to make sure that they come and go not having to worry about being called names, feel belittled, etc.
Some of you who read this will be like "lolz internetz" but look at yourselves. Some of you made friends, some really good friends, some have found love or other things. If all you have to say is "lolz internetz", then your friends shouldn't matter to you, you shouldn't care when they're insulted or such.
As for those of you who have issues with the staff, or inactive mods, well let me tell you this. The current staff is being dealt with, we have discussions about it, and we are also looking to new additions and reassignments almost constantly. You may soon see some of our staff lose their powers. As for inactive mods and such, there's no need to insult them or question how they got their positions. Sciz and Cayenne were the best Admin these forums have ever seen. Regularly active, friendly to all, making sure these forums stayed fun. Jasmine was another fun member of the staff. She always did things to get people to laugh or smile. Sure some of the things seemed stupid, but it was for the fun of things. They got lives now, and I'm happy for them. Its unfortunate for the forums that they had to go, but there's no need to question/rag on them for anything.
As for Joe's authority and decisions, yes he does make questionable choices, and he does do odd things, but after knowing him on these for a while and seeing how he reacts to things, I can understand his positions. A lot of you like to gang up on him and force your opinions onto him, that will NEVER work. Joe's a man of reasoning, and you get best results when talking one-on-one with him. A lot of the people here who used to make fun of or question Joe a lot got to know him, and understand him better.
If you notice, a lot of things happen around here when they aren't as big of a deal. Joe probably would be twenty times more willing to add ***** avatars if he weren't so pressed on them. He'd upgrade the forums regularly on his own when he has the time. He does most of his decisions in the interests of the forums as a whole, and not as a stubborn dictator as some of you put it.
I do disagree with a lot of what Joe does, but I take the time to talk to him about it and reason with him to get things done. Some of this includes the Competetive RMT forum. I had a two hour long talk with him about it to try to get it done. Nobody's rants or complaints did anything.
Now, I admit that I feel like a major 'brown noser' here doing stuff like Scans for the site and publicly agreeing to some of Joe's decisions, and doing other things for the site, which I asked not to get credit for, but I do it for the convenience of the users. I make avatars not for recognition, but to give people more choices. Hence why I made that thread. I also try to do things for the best interest of the forums and its members, however, I feel I went away from that a bit in my irritation and frustration.
ANYWAY, back on-topic as for this censor thing, I feel that until the members of this forum can prove that they can treat each other with respect and at least a little bit of tolerance, we need to keep this to a minimum. Ideally we wouldn't need it, and people would be able to control it. Ideally we wouldn't have people going around saying "lol n00b" all the time, but people can't show a little self-control and respect for other users. So yeah, evade the filter, risk being banned.
With all that said, I'm going to do something fun D:
