Regarding Our Community

[King Dumb]

Couldn't these controversies be equally as possible had everyone just stayed on Cutstuff?

The answer is no, controversies of this degree could not have spawned had Skype never been incorporated, a primary reason being is that there is far less exclusive potential on the forums (zero, even, unless a group were to communicate and interact solely via private message). Similar and of equal weight to this reason is that moderators and administrators have legitimate authority on the forums, whereas they do not in Skype.

All things considered, and correct me if I'm wrong, Skype isn't the problem. Those who misuse it are.

Even more precisely than this, the problem is the misuse and abuse of Skype and the Skype-centric aspect of the community.

Secondly, If you see a problem rising, take a step back and look for a resolution, rather than trying to point fingers at someone or something.

Resolutions to problems must always begin with identifying the source of the problem.

[Korby]

Just thought I'd bring up some points that have probably already been brought up.

The "Cool Kids Club" is not the Cutstuff chat. Nowhere is it stated to be that. It's just where a bunch of guys/friends/smashbro hang out.

As for not allowing new people in, Outragous is still in the chat, despite being inactive for quite some time.

[Clayton]

I'm going to use the dead remains of a ghost here when I bring up the topic of the late MegaLAD. He and his brothers received constant abuse from the Foxdie Party and as such it sparked multiple cases of controversy throughout the forums. They, and I at the time, never gave him a second chance. Human Destroyer's Party, on the other hand, accepted him and allowed his company. Nowadays, this man is known as TheClayman6. I've seen improvement out of him personality-wise and if he's reading this I hope he understands how sorry I really am for treating him and others like him the way I have.

I'm so glad that me changing had some kind of impact on people. The only reason I changed was basically to take this game seriously. I never would have thought it would have lead to such a hot topic.

By the way, I'm not in HD's party. Had nothing to do with him always or anyone in that "category".

I don't think my comments on this topic would really be taken seriously or have much impact mostly because I would be speaking on an entirely different dimension. Besides, you guys are already starting to realize your mistakes and I am very grateful for that.

[MusashiAA]

Topic is Regarding Our Community.

The community's active side is pretty small, yes. As we saw with the homies, promoting the game won't increase this permanently, and it is to be expected; I don't think much can be done about it. Despite this, we have a lot of people contributing to the game (many of the active people), so it's pretty alive. The game's active playerbase is also small, and promoting doesn't increase it permanently as well. Any means that help people have an easier access to the currently desorganized and not-easily accesible additional content WILL help keeping a somewhat-consistent and hopefully large playerbase that stays for the game, and perhaps try joining the community.

Social escalating? Cool kids? Skype elite chats? All cockypop. You're acting like children, for God's sake. Got a problem with the cool kids? Think they have power? They don't have any factual and legitimately given power over this place at all, and any other representation of power they may portray is but a product of the rest of you thinking they DO have power over the community's social aspect: they have authority, but not power. I don't mind them. I don't mind this "social escalating" corruption that is "enhanced" by Skype, because it's pathetic, and as such the way out of it is pathetic: DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO THEM. Ignore them, or more well-put: just stop caring about something as superflous as social escalation, and this will dimish their authority over it.

If these "issues" keep people away or from ever trying out or staying for the community, and this group of cool kids have some sort of social authority over anyone, then just strip them from this.

Everything that needed to be said has already been said, save for what it is (tried but failed to define it) and how to stop it. The rest is just argumentation about this being logical or not.

There is a small group of users that has been given a social authority on this community. There are moderators that are closely linked to these people. There are moderators that are closely linked to Ivory. This group of users do influence the social development of our community, and even gang up and unrightfully harm some people's gaming experience because of what they think of said person. They do use Skype as a means of communication. Skype DOES serve as a way to enhance communication between users.

Should this group of people exist?
No matter what we do, or who they are, this kind of group will always exist, as it is a common social phenomena.

Should this group of people have social authority over the development and growth of our community?
Authority, unlike power, is willingly given. Social authority like this was given to them by the community, and can be easily taken from them. If their authority is handicapping the growth of our community, they cannot keep this authority, as only they would be shaping the community to their liking. No need for banning or casting them out: just stop thinking they have any authority over the community.

Skype existing or not is irrelevant, and if it helps mitigating this group of people's authority over the community or not will not matter if the rest of you lot stops thinking they have authority over it.

Should moderators stay closely linked to this group of people, and take their advices?
Yes, and just as much as they could take anyone else's advice. If I was the sole close friend of a moderator, and said moderator comes to me for advice, should he listen to my advice? He CAN, but it's up to him/her what and how he will act. If what this moderator does is exactly what I told him to do, it's his problem and not mine's. The problem arises when this moderator is easily coerced by me to do things repeatedly, or if he puts my advice very highly; this is bad because moderators should decide mostly ON THEIR OWN and act IN COOPERATION WITH OTHER MODERATORS only: they should trust their own gut and wit, and despite them being capable of hearing other people's opinions on a matter and take them in consideration, a moderator is expected to be capable of having their own opinion that takes the wellbeing of the community in mind. Applied to Llama's case, he can be a moderator, because he can act alongside other mods and does seem to care about the wellbeing of the community; he shouldn't be a moderator though, because he has admitted that he takes what this group of cool people say and think very highly, and because his past shows him as being like this very group of self-centered, short-sighted and prejudiced people KD and HD denounce.

Should moderators be chosen depending on how much Ivory trusts them? No, but if Mike is ok with this and he hasn't stopped him, and if a large part of the community sees Ivory as a good global moderator and no one has challenged his current position with enough and substantial proof that shows him as not being qualified to be a global mod, then he can and should in order to keep moderation consistant and coordinated between people that work better together.

[Tengu]

I am in a full agreement with this statement.


Might I recall a quote someone once told me. "Tengu. Don't join Skype. It is one of the prime reasons the community is falling apart." This statement is very true, and it's very tiring. Skype is not the same thing as the forums, yet what happens there constantly, (and I can't stress that enough) affects everyone's attitude toward each other. I mean, I watch some people practically get outcast by all of their fellow community members over something as ridiculous as:

"I don't like how your voice sounds during Skype calls." or "You like attention too much". These reasons are just absurd, and are no reason to judge someone and be discriminatory toward them.

If you ask me, no matter what happens on Skype, we should all learn to get along and appreciate each other in the end. Or we're going NOWHERE, AND I MEAN NOWHERE.

With regards to the whole Moderator thing, I think that warnings shouldn't be given as freely as they recently have been being given out. A prime example I can recall is Exi getting warned for telling someone that they shouldn't double post. Come on, really? (I also still don't think terribly highly of Llama being a mod, but that ship has sailed.)

I also thing that Moderators should be be voted in on a fair, non-biased and non-personal basis.


Yet again, I doubt many people will bother reading this whole post so who am I kidding.

[Ivory]

Exi isn't a global moderator and I don't look too kindly towards back seat moderators. So what do you do? You use the report button.

As for the other comments. Why do you think I'm a global moderator admin? Mike trusted me. I was around since the GvH days, so he knew who I was. He trusted me because I was one of the more level headed active members. He gave me the job because he felt I was suited for it.

Now in terms of voting people in, who did the public vote for? Brotoad. Was Brotoad a good global moderator? Not really. No offense to him, but he barely did anything. He just kinda sat around with a green name.

So likewise, what did Korby and I discuss for months? Who do we feel would be a best fit to assist in day-to-day moderation. And after I was promoted to Admin, I realized Cutstuff should really have a bigger moderator team than just 1 active person. So I had to come to a decision, and we decided to give Llama and Sora a chance. Cutstuff isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship. Not an evil type of dictatorship, but ultimately, what Mike says goes. We choose to listen to what you, the people think and suggest, but we don't have to.

[MusashiAA]

Cutstuff isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship. Not an evil type of dictatorship, but ultimately, what Mike says goes. We choose to listen to what you, the people think and suggest, but we don't have to.

(click to show/hide)

Take that.

Yeah.

Feel it.

How does it feel now?

HOW DOES IT FEEEEEEL

Exactly why I'd rather have moderators to be chosen. Why? Because people will end up voting for a charismatic person, and not a competent person.

Yay we're discussing politics 8D

[Mr. X]

Suddenly, random person jumping out of the woodwork!

There's quite a few things I feel need addressed here that have made me annoyed enough that I feel I have to say something.  First of all, the mod issue.

Otherwise, you seem to have quite largely missed my entire point. Perhaps you should dispel the preconceptions you had when you read the thread, you should read the original post (or maybe the entire thread) again. I do not doubt Ivory's ability to administrate (and moderate) capably and objectively.

Or maybe you need to reread the first post, specifically the part where you call into question Ivory's ability to administrate and moderate.

Do you trust a newly-promoted admin who is surrounded – in an elite Skype chat where only the aforementioned select individuals and their closest friends are present – by the depraved, indifferent judgments these individuals pass on the community?

If you honesty didn't doubt Ivory's ability, why the heck would you even call it into question?  Not only that, but while bringing it into question, you drag in the people Ivory associates in a negative light.  Don't give me that "I merely wanted the community's opinion" spiel because it's a lie:  the way you phrase a question influences the answers in a huge way, and you purposely phrased your question to get negative answers.

...moderators should decide mostly ON THEIR OWN and act IN COOPERATION WITH OTHER MODERATORS only: they should trust their own gut and wit, and despite them being capable of hearing other people's opinions on a matter and take them in consideration, a moderator is expected to be capable of having their own opinion that takes the wellbeing of the community in mind.

I speak to Ivory on a daily basis, and I know from personal experience that this is exactly what is already happening.  Mods both talk among themselves and use personal judgement before handing out punishment.  Elsewhere, Ivory has mentioned that I'm one of the top 3 people xe talks to online, and sure I say what I feel from time to time:  but it's in a way that's no different than me using the report button.  I am never asked beforehand what I think, or what my call would be.  As for other mods, if they step out of line, they are dealt with - just not necessarily publicly.  I don't know the full details (which is proof that the friend influence isn't as strong as everyone seems to think in itself), but from my understanding, this has happened with the IP incident.  They aren't perfect, but nobody is.

Now, Ivory has ninja'd me before I was able to post this, but yeah:  as for voting in moderators, this isn't a democracy.  Forums never are.  Basically, whatever the people running this site (Mike, Ivory) are ultimately in charge.  They'll listen to opinions, but it's not the call of the community.  The only one that has ever been the community's call is Brotoad.  And that worked out reeeeaaaaal well.


Now, onto Skype.  Is Skype basically a necessity to become accepted into the community?  Of course, but it's not surprising in the least.  If you move into a new school, you can't expect to just have friends fall into your lap.  Sure, you can talk to people in class from time to time, but if you want to actually make friends, you're going to have to make the conscious effort to get to know people, and having an instant, slightly more personal form of communication to do so makes sense.  It's also naturally harder for a new person to adjust.  We've all already formed groups of friends and know each other.  I know I have two groups I'm in and they're tightly knit.  We tried adding a brand new person into one of them, and it proved to be disasterous.  The point is, if I want to spend time with someone, I'm going to spend it with people I know I can count on.  When we do add people to one of the groups, it's only after they've stuck around and proven to be a good match for us.  It isn't elitism, it's just making friends.  This isn't to say adding new people to these groups is impossible:  it's just without the shared history the older people have, it's going to be harder.

As for the the bullying, I've got to agree with this:

Social escalating? Cool kids? Skype elite chats? All cockypop. You're acting like children, for God's sake. Got a problem with the cool kids? Think they have power? They don't have any factual and legitimately given power over this place at all, and any other representation of power they may portray is but a product of the rest of you thinking they DO have power over the community's social aspect: they have authority, but not power.

This isn't some phenomenon created exclusively for this site - anywhere you go, you're going to find mean people in this world.  I mean, look in any high school anywhere:  everybody has their cliques, and there's always a group of kids being jerks.  It's always going to happen, and you just have to ignore it.  It's only fun to them if you get mad because it's exactly what they want.  Of course, it's also going to be plentiful here because lest we forget a good majority of the members here are in high school and thus prone to do this.  People are always going to talk about each other behind their backs, and there's almost always going to be people being mean for the Hell of it.

Now, is Skype the ruination of the community like you all claim?  Ha.  There would be no community without it!  Do you honestly think we'd have stuck around playing a doom mod for over 2 years if we hadn't made friends on here and talk to them on a daily basis on Skype?  Not a chance.  Sure, the tight groups may have scared some newcomers away, but really, would you think the number of newcomers coming in would outnumber the number of us who left due to lack of updates?  We have what:  like 2 new members a month who come and go?  The game is old:  naturally, it's not going to be as popular as it was when it was released.  Almost every online game in history has tapered off in popularity, with very few exceptions for things like World of Warcraft and TF2, but both have way more content and frequent updates than such a small fan project like this could provide.

With Skype, many of us have made friends, but all good things have their problems, and the problems addressed here are just some of them.  To me, though, the good still outweighs the bad.

[MusashiAA]

Who's moderating the "official" MM8BDM Skype chat?

[Laggy Blazko]

I really don't see how telling someone to not double post is trying to moderate. I wouldn't have used the report button because I didn't even know there was a rule against that. (Or maybe that has something to do with the "keep it sane" rule which I never understood except for the direct examples given there)
Back on topic... Um... I don't know anything, I don't use Skype nor Steam. Sometimes I'm playing and then some people join the server and "throw" random insults and I don't know what's going on. Well, I haven't seen that for a while.
So... Yeah, I don't know about this "status" thing, I just run mindlessly and try to napalm-bomb whatever is in front of me in-game.


(Crap, I feel so self-centered for using the word "I" so much in a topic about the community)

[Red]

Who's moderating the "official" MM8BDM Skype chat?

There is no "Official" MM8BDM thing. OJ tried to make one and added a lot of people, but that easily went to hell.

[Orange juice :l]

Again, having friends is all well and good, and nobody expects you to give up your friends and private chats. The problem is how these private groups permeate all of Cutstuff. Instead of installing Skype and making an outstanding name for yourself to join a small close knit group (comparable to a clan in larger games like Mr X mentioned), there's a not entirely unfounded belief among those new players that they need to do so to join Cutstuff in even the broadest sense. The Skype chats are overpowering the forums. As for a more benevolent approach, I propose we attempt to make Cutstuff grow instead of make Skype shrink. Create new trailers and post them on popular sites, possibly even get semi-popular reviewers to cover MM8BDM [Now I realize Slyfox's homie invasion didn't quite work out- we were largely unprepared for a rush of new players, and as such, couldn't hold on to them; not to mention they were mainly here for their idol]. Hire new blog writers and maybe even appoint community guides to help players around Cutstuff or to install MM8BDM and other mods. If we can manage this, both players and chatters can be happy.

And yeah, MM8BDM does not work on Skype. We've tried.

[MusashiAA]

Hire new blog writers?

We have a blog?

We used to HIRE blog writers?

We had blog writers?

What in tarnation do you write in a blog about one game? And what would there be left to write about?

Skype is an IM client. That is, INSTANT messaging. No forum can beat THAT. Skype itself isn't BAD, it's just what we use as a chat.

Didn't we have an IRC chat? Who even started the Skype fad?

[Ivory]

There was also a mm8bdm xat chat.

[MusashiAA]

And this chat went down the toilet because of Skype taking its duty?

Skype is just a chat client for people who want to chat. It's not a disease. Private and apparently cool chats, and the people in there, can only "ruin" the community if everyone else lets them.

You guys are seriously taking this "cool kids club" thing too far. Childish, I tell you. Just ignore the people or, if you want to seriously get rid of them, denounce them in public so everyone knows the kind of crap they can be. Just like what HD started and know KD is doing.

These people have no power nor superior importance over this place, they matter and count as much as anyone else.

Now that the jig is up, please answer this: what should be done about it?