I hate to descend into post analysis, but this essentially implies that JordanN did something that would normally merit a ban.

Quote

Devilesk appears to be slightly less of a dick than he was.

I agree. But that doesn't change the fact he was allowed back time after time in the past. It's the precedent that was set, not the situation now that matters.

SEN doesn't look that big.

Well with the right connections and the desire who can't come back?

Precedent has been reset. We are not static creatures, bound to what has already been done. The fact that somehing was done once is not a sufficent reason to do it again. Stop living in the past.

Well reading through this I have a few questions and suggestions.
Questions-
1.What the heck happened to the clan forums or the past few days at that.
2.When are we getting that maplantis skin ?

Suggestions-
1.Ban everyone that was banned on maplantis
2.Maybe instead of all these off topic things we can just have a no brain,left brain,and right brain like when maplantis first started.
3.For the map dldb and mod dldb put a map/mod name search?

It's not that I oppose elitism, it's just that I don't like how some people act like total dick heads. Some if not most of people in Maplantis were dick heads. I chose to go absent until someone tried to remake SEN but changed it to a pretty gay name so I quit that too.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 13 2008, 3:06 am by Mini Moose 2707.

I liked the Maplantean community more then the SEN community now, really. There were no conflicts. Except Praetor, but he's changed now. I supported the merge to unify the mappers/modders in preparation for SCII. Just saying, I disagree with them being dickheads .

I resent that.

Twitch, this is SEN, not Maplantis. The admins are working on coding, no need to tell them to do that, and the rest is something that didn't help in the least.

See news.

I liked that layout too, it was really clever. I dunno if there range of topics is too large, though.

Done already. Wow, I code fast.

Wow indeed you do now what about my other questions and suggestions ?

One victory at a time Twitch.

Was that actually done now, or was it there before? If now... I'm speechless.

I edit my posts.

If everyone wanting everything wasn't bad enough, they all want it NOW too.

Done before. I was just being sarcastic.

You do an awesome job considering the amount of responsibility you have.

Off-topic:

I'm 15 tomorrow

I think Maplantis's core values are what set it apart from SEN. At Maplantis, everything was heavily encouraged to be open source (everything was open source at one point iirc) and this made it a very friendly environment for newcomers to learn. The open source environment also encouraged people to help each other instead of keeping your ideas/triggering to yourself. I would also support a more bureaucratic member system, like the Regular and Elite member groups on the original SEN. A lot of the problem is not your fault, there has just been a lot less innovation and maps being made nowadays. Starcraft has been pushed to the limit (heh, SEN title ) and nearly everything has been done/tried. On the old SEN, there would be an entire page or two of maps in production and the people would have to bump their topics in order to compete for the first page spot or a new and unique discovery every few weeks. There's just a lot less of that in today's SEN. The decline in mapping clans (the dissolution of (U), Mp, etc) has certainly contributed to the problem as well. To me, SEN has been more of a social club than a site for making maps and the site has veered off its main path.

Also, nice Bioshock quote Syphon.

All that could be done in SC hasn't been done yet.

I think a major problem is that in v5, everyone started worrying about elitism a ton, and IMO, you really need to have some elites in order to keep the community going. It provided a slight incentive to posting, but then that encouraged spamming. The biggest difference I see is the moderation. In v4, I remember always rereading my posts and making sure that I said something that contributed to the topic, if I wanted to say something off-topic, I would make sure I had something on-topic first.

This was all because of the great moderation we have in v4, it was strict, but it kept the spamming down, and really encouraged productive posting. Of course, that was back before another problem arose: SC 2. StarCraft 2 has really been weighing down on everyone, I almost wish they had announced it much later than they did, so we could all continue our happy activity, not knowing what was just around the corner, but they didn't, and now many members don't want to start on big projects, because SC2 is coming out in a year or two. It really reduces production and I'm not sure there is much you can do about it..

Basically, I think the only thing you can really do to help the community is crack down on moderation, and perhaps get more of the essential features finished, you're doing great guys, we're lucky you devote your time to making such a great website, thanks

Oh so you admit that you aren't doing that now? Shit, everyone should always be rereading their posts and making sure they are contributing something intelligent in addition to having proper grammar. Hell half the time I type out a post and press the back button because I realize that it's either pointless or unnecessary. You should be reprimanded.

1. The server detected the absence of IP and blew up.
2. I donno. Nobidies really working on that now as far as I know.

1. No, they get a fair chance here under my/moose/ip's rule. Report objectionable content when you see it, and the same fate awaits them as did on maplantis.
2. I talked to IP when we started about the forum layout and what you see on SEN was our compromise. We did our best to try to have the best of both worlds.

Devilisk, you shouldn't even be talking. I'd hate to see what that other half looks like...

Only because it would destroy your self-esteem.

Overall, in the coding scene, I think the biggest thing isn't neccessarily lots of new things coming, but the idea that the admin was dedicated, and that our features were on the way. Whenever we talked to Yoshi, he would give us updates, and he would listen to our feedback to make the site better. Often, under his rule, entire policies would be redrafted. In simpler terms, the website followed the demands of the people, not the other way around.

What I seem to notice is that things on SEN don't seem to be done that way. When IP does his coding, he seems to try to come up with some system in his head, that he thinks will work well. Unfortunately, it usually doesn't work well for the people using the system. What I'd like to see happening is the admins talking to the members, making posts, asking for ideas on how to do things, etc. This includes policies. On Maplantis the idea of minerals was discussed, and abandonned because people didn't want it. Here, it was discussed, people didn't want it, and IP made it anyways. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Also, it's not simply a matter of banning people who are stupid and or idiots. It's a matter of having a general attitude towards those people. Wheras on Maplantis, if someone acted stupid, members would talk to him about it, ask him to correct his spelling, etc. Also, it was generally considered unacceptable to make off-topic posts. Again, if there was a member-to-member dispute, it would either be kept in PMs, or an admin would come in and clear up the topic for the poor OP.

Also, look at the general seriousness of the site. When newbies arrive, they see a bunch of idiots goofing off, admins doing things "for teh lulz", off-topic posts, and they learn from it, and act the same. Maplantis taught new users to be mature, and hard workers. Age doesn't matter, as long as one is capable of acting mature.

Also, you get a general idea of what this site is about just by looking at how easy it is to access features. Functions that are related to Starcraft editing get 1/5th of the main menu bar. That's for a site dedicated to starcraft editing!? Maplantis' main menu bar 4/6 of the functions were directly Starcraft-editing related. The forum has equally as much weight on Maplantis as the Wiki or Maps, wheras on SEN someone looking for a map has far more work to do.

Simplicity is another big thing. I liked Maplantis' design (not it's skin, its layout), because it's very simple, very sleek, and very professional. Someone looking for maps has a very easy one-click link, followed by a very simple, easy-to-use menu, where he can select maps based on genre, search maps, submit maps, all in a very simple menu. With SEN, one has to click several links to get to a "Database" which is really just all in one, thus removing extreme amounts of organization or simplicity. You're then presented with a complicated, messy, system for sorting maps. I've tried to use it several times, but it's just almost impossible to use easily.

Here's another big jump. Imagine SEN, and imagine Maplantis. Now take the forum away. Maplantis is still a very useful and active site, because it has its features weighted in priority correctly. SEN, on the other hand, would become a barren wasteland, an empty site. People would simply stop using it, and it would quickly die.

A pattern that people may be noticing is that the fanbase is getting older. Back in the olden days SEN had a younger population, but unfortunately many of the senior members have started to move on. The modding community is feeling this especially. Many modders just don't see the reason to continue with this. When SEN died, there was an uproar in modding, because people wanted to keep modding going, revive the community. Overall there was a lot of hype, and a lot of mods were released in this time period. However, on SEN, there's been no hype. Many modders are sad to see Maplantis: a development-friendly community, go, and frankly, there's no hype about modding. Nobody cares anymore.

ADDENDUM: Something I liked about Maplantis was that it used Latova. The thing with Latova is that first off, it's designed for simplicity of designing modules, which would really help development. Second off, it's open-source. Now, this advantage hasn't really seen it's superiority yet, but the point is that any member can, without any risk or dedication of time, download Latova, and start working on his own Maplantis module. If he doesn't work on it a lot, then whatever. If he gets it done, then he could talk to Yoshi about it, whom I'm sure would implement it after looking over it. Third, Yoshi's working on it. The thing with having a site based off his forum software is that any work he does on the site contributes to Latova (testing, mainly), and any work he does on Latova contributes to the site (added features, new searches, etc.), this allows him to 'hit two birds with one stone'.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 13 2008, 5:14 am by Laser Dude.