Boy, I sure missed that debate


Not to overshadow the rest of your argument, some of which is good.

My chief gripe at the moment is about the tendency for the admins (Moose, in particular) to overreact when they feel things have slipped out of control. I agree that the law needs to be laid down, but it often seems that the wrong people end up paying for it. Gmods, such as myself and Syphon, were given their positions because our judgment was sufficiently trusted. But in the case of Jordan, for instance, Syphon made a remark against the person who was basically the site's punching bag. Moose himself allowed Jordan to overstay his welcome. But then, Heranic questioned the morality of Syphon's handling in that topic (which was right of Heranic to do), I think the proper thing to do would have been to PM Syphon about his conduct and tell him not to do it again, or make a post in the staff forum saying that we all need to tighten things up a bit. Firing a loyal member who was ultimately out for the betterment of the site was a bad call, in my opinion. You set the example for our treatment of Jordan by "keeping him around for amusement." But suddenly, it's not funny anymore, and the last person to take a pot shot at the site's mule gets fired for it without warning.

I remember when Golden-Fist (where's he been lately?) made some extensive rants about the site's conduct. GF came out of nowhere, caused trouble, got punished, raised a stink about it (and I agree that some of his arguments were valid) and the response was to fire almost everyone that had shown loyalty to the site because of a trouble maker's chest pounding - and then give said chest-pounder a mod position. You make the strangest choices for your man-crushes. The whole GF episode could've been handled without punishing so many people that had taken time out of their lives to help a site they cared about. And now where is GF? I highly doubt he's spending his days with the satisfaction of feeling like he helped a community. The loudest voice in the room isn't always the right one.

You guys are giving us a great resource for free. I'm not forgetting that. But as part of the community, I feel compelled to speak my mind once in awhile. I just think you should remind yourself who your allies are and not sabotage your own efforts for a stable, productive community if that's what you're really after.

JordanN was just the spark that ignited the keg that was Syphon's firing.

Well, I don't know everything. ;p

If there were other things going on that I missed, then that would explain my incorrect assessment. (if it is incorrect)

The updates also created a community/admin bond. Whenever Yoshi had something happen that affected his coding time, we could relate as we understood that real life issues got in the way of things like this. And because instead of the all powerful god, we were given a friend who was in the same view we were, community improvement, i think that it made us feel like we were on the same level. I really never liked the elitism arguements about Maplantis because the only elitism it had was of reputation, you only had what other members gave you, and that helped rather than hurt.


Again, something else that I liked about Maplantis. I think if minerals were disabled by default here, instead of the option to disable them, the majority would keep them turned off.


SEN's moderation and treatment of its moderators has been, in my opinion, unacceptable.


I also like this. Moose, i love my /b/ as much as anyone, but i think for pinned topics and offical things, theres a certain tone that is appropriate. And im the last person to usually say anything like that. God i feel like a school teacher. v.v


This block here is a perfect example of why after the majority was begging for latova, we were so sad to be handed v5. No offense IP but i believe the saying 'If it isnt broke, dont fix it.' applied here.


And in the midst of this i would have hoped for the modding leaders to say no, to rally around and say if this is what we have to work with then lets just try. But that didnt happen, because nobody does care anymore. Syphon is going to be one of many and that sickens me to the core. People who have been here since i got here and ive looked up to as good members and wanted to be more like, are leaving, and it isnt easy to deal with when you want to stay.

And im no saint, i havent been modding very much at all, my main computer with all my modding tools and recources has been down since about the same time maplantis was put down.


We wanted Latova, and i wish we had gotten it.

Thank you for your post Laser, you outlined a lot of things that i just havent had the time or ability to put into words.

The difference between Maplantis and SEN is overrated. If you need a specific community to be able to make maps, then you aren't a real mapmaker. Mapmaking should thrive regardless of what site the community happens to be at. The forums here are functional. People are able to post their maps and ask for help. There really isn't a need for anything else. The difference between Maplantis and SEN is the mindset and that was mainly due to the fact that most of the intelligent members moved to a smaller community while SEN was the older more established community which inherently was filled with a greater number of immature individuals. Changing the forums will not address the root of the problem which is the individuals that make up the community itself. Changing the forum to look like Maplantis would only make it superficially look like Maplantis. To make it truly feel and think like Maplantis one would have to remove all of the individuals who were not a part of the Maplantis community. However, this is not the only solution to fixing the problem of mindset. Maplantis' community achieved the desired mindset easily, because once it established what it wanted people would either come to it if they agreed with it or not go to it if they disagreed with it. At SEN addressing the problem would be different, because you already have an established group of people already visiting the site and trying to introduce a radical new mindset would inevitably conflict with some group within the community. This is evident when my mom got scared and she said you're moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air and when one brings up the idea of Open Source. SEN is a diverse group and there's a wide range of view points collected in this one community so I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said fresh and had a dice in the mirror if anything I could say that this cab was rare but I thought now forget it, yo home to bel-air. Maplantis on the other hand was less diverse, it was a place where individuals with a common mindset gathered together. Therefore the approach one should take at SEN would not be to try to force a new policy over all of the members, but rather accept the diversity within the community and practice some level of tolerance. Finally I pulled up to a house about seven or eight and I yelled to the cabby yo, home smell you later looked at my kingdom I was finally there to settle my throne as the prince of bel-air. Therefore as Nixon said, the vocal minority shouldn't be allowed to decide what should be done for the community as a whole. In this case there's a vocal minority who want SEN to be more like Maplantis, but don't forget that when Maplantis existed there was an equal, if not greater, amount of people who were also at SEN.

Ugh where to begin when everything I'd want to say has already been mentioned...

I've been at SEN for a very long time now. In that time, I've managed to hit that old yellow-named "Elite" status and became a short-lived staff member. I have to admit, one of the major attractions to this community was the seniority among the member base. In retrospect, it seems very naive and selfish, but I wanted to become a better map maker to fit into that hierarchical structure. I think that the current SEN's lack of a hierarchy or general "elitist" mentality has forged more of a fraternity rather than progressing the map making community. SEN has become an average hang-out spot.

Now I pretty much left map making entirely when SEN went down and Maplantis came about, so I know nothing of how it worked over there (other than the whole "piss me off and get banned" concept). But I was actually really glad to see SEN come back, and it again boosted my interest in SC. Unfortunately, most of the older members have since gone on to other endeavors, and we're left with a pile of fresh faces who didn't experience the old SEN and assume anything goes. I don't know exactly how SEN can get back to that original state, but I think it would help to go back to the tiered warnings (verbal warning, removal of posts/minerals, suspension, and eventually a ban).

Eh my head hurts, I may post more later.

Syphon's been on watch for crap like this for a while. He didn't get removed from the position for that one instance alone.

Yes. Yes you can. Fixed. I apologize for breaking it.

Another good point, still.

I think the best thing to do to get SEN back on track is to restore the focus on mapmaking & modding. Mapping contests are a good idea (I think the theme of this one is a bit...immature, seeing that most people here are probably not of legal drinking age, but whatever). The wiki needs fixing. Features that facilitate mapmaking and the sharing of information are the most important things to get right first.

A lot of the things I did at Maplantis worked great, but some of them would not work here.

A few people (including myself) really like Latova and would love to have it running here, however this is unlikely to happen. If you really like latova you can join latova.com and perhaps help me build a small community there and participate in its development (you don't have to know how to code to be able to test and give me feedback). It won't be map making related but you can still do all the off topic things. As for SEN, its IPs call and hes made it. Hes worked really hard on it so he's entitled to keep it instead of tossing it away.

As for the way the community runs, I'm trying to run it with IP and moose instead of taking over. I'm not exactly the senior admin here so I can't exactly change everything overnight. It's not fair. The whole point in us being at SEN is that I'm now taking a minor programming role (fixing bugs and prehaps a little feature here or there) while IP and moose handle the larger things. So if anyone is going to come on here asking for what you want to see out of the newest features of SEN, it ain't going to be me. Heck I don't even know if either of them are in this topic taking your suggestions seriously. I will however point them towards this topic.

Minerals are going to be interesting. I specifically want to have it so if someone has disabled minerals on their account, its as if they don't exist. No indicators, no games, no icons, no nothing.

You can have that as well.

This sucks. I could honestly say you were the smartest person here. I don't even know what kept you here so long. Your argument for or against something was always original and insightful. Unfortunately the returning counter argument was often lacking and repetitive. I could see you getting really frustrated when in the middle of a progressive debate, with say Rantent or Cheezus, Someone like Twitch hopes in and says "You gaiz, I think god is purpled." And then everyone jumps in to question the validity of this assigned color, including your 'opponent'.

The endless debates we've had here became unfair as soon as you picked a side because then it was like getting Shaq to stand under your rim and goal tend anything that the other side could muster. So I guess it could be seen as a good thing with you gone.

I wish we could pull another GF stunt here, but it probably won't happen. I was totally going to go on another rant on how Dapperdan should be NOT be moderating ANYTHING, but I noticed he finally lost what he never deserved, and that it would be like blaming Katrina on Mardi Gras.

Interesting conversation. I was away from the computer when it actually happened and I scrolled up afterwards.

I still moderate 4 of the off-topic forums. It just doesn't show at the top of the forum. Good to know that I was moderating and you didn't even notice though. And it wasn't because there was a clear lack in moderation in those forums going on either. I've just been doing my job well and you have nothing to complain about.

If no one notices moderation then they're doing a good job. That is, unless they're just letting everything run haywire.

I knew it was a little"immature," but immaturity sparks creativity.

So are you staying for the mapping contest? <--Didn't read every post in thread...

I would have to disagree.. the disciplinary aspect of moderation should be public so as to establish a precedent for stopping wrongdoing and making it clear what is okay and what isn't. That's half the problem since all the Staff were fired.