Serious talk with FrozenFire and Doram.

[nin10mode]

*cough* he means about site related things like updates, threads, faq, events, etc. *cough*

[Harmless]

Took me a second but I reread it, my b

I mean I still voice my opinions and stuff on the site, I've voiced opinions on site layouts, background changes, site changes in general, promotions, etc. Asking me to do more is still a little... eh.

[Oranjui]

The comment about staff being unconcerned and close-hearted is a little bit upsetting, because I'm confident that literally all of us staff have been trying as hard as we've been able to help people out, listen to what users have to say about both the site and its userbase, and just generally to be approachable and friendly people, and I'd like to know what you think we can do to amend that.

But otherwise, most of the time, there's not much reason to try to rush change, nor is there reason to be frustrated when it's not happening as quickly as you'd like. (The subforum overhaul is a small exception because it had been in the works for months, possibly even years, and nobody had bothered to do it yet, so a group of staff just decided to push for it to finally get done.) By all means, voice your opinions on things so that we're not just making decisions without any idea of what anyone wants, and help contribute to projects themselves like the FAQ if you want to see them get done. If you look a little harder, you're definitely not the only one doing that, but you're also very right in that it would help if more people could get involved in making the community a better place.

...

And one more note... Please stop acting so fixated on adding level mods/becoming one yourself. As far as I can tell, it's only become an increasingly unhealthy obsession for you. I don't really care if you want to deny that it is, or if you want to justify your position on the subject. Your passion is admirable and I really love your drive for wanting to get stuff done, but campaigning against current staff and trying to talk yourself into a staff position is NOT acceptable, and if the past few months have taught you anything, it's really not getting you anywhere good, either. It's always great to have goals, but this is not at all a good way to try to achieve them. If you're still intent on it, then the first thing you need to do is start to work on improving your attitude: recognize that the forums are not a competition, life happens to the best of us which can inhibit ability to get things done, and the staff are not out to get you. From there, like FF said, you might want to consider just working on building relationships with more mutual trust and respect and empathy and love. You're not a bad person at all. I don't want to be unconcerned and close-hearted, either. It hurts a little bit to know that I'm seen that way, because I sincerely try. And I make mistakes. And we all make mistakes. But, at least in my eyes, that doesn't make any of us bad people. I'm willing to try to change if you really feel that way, because I care. About fulfilling staff duties, sure, i guess, but it's more that I genuinely care about this site's community, even if I don't show it all the time, and I want to help. It's okay to just slow down, take a deep breath, and start fresh--and I'm willing to do that myself just as much as I (and I think maybe we) encourage you to try it. i retract my statement :)

[1018peter]

Thanks, FF, for taking the idea of PMing Shroom directly, and thanks, Shroom, for willing to sort things out directly at last.

[Doram]

Well, also, and I speak from someone who HASN'T been a Moderator forever, I had a ton of stuff I wanted to get done forever, and when I first got the job, I got a LOT of it all done in a short period of time, and now that I have done much of my list of things I wanted to do for the previous 9 of my years on this site, my list has dwindled to the hard stuff, and the practically impossible stuff, and it will now look like I am not doing much, even though I will be pushing almost as hard on that list as I was before. And once THAT is done, I will have to come up with new ideas, which don't always flow as easily as you might think. There's a point past which you hit your groove, where you are just doing the common day-to-day tasks, and just swimming in place, and it doesn't look like much, but you are simply waiting for the next opportunity. There's nothing wrong with that. It's the natural side of status quo. Life isn't huge and exciting ALL the time, because if it was, that excitement would become boring itself. There's gotta be a baseline where you can rest, and prepare for the future, so that when the time comes, you are well prepared to spring forward with all your might.

I know a lot of us love those moments where we are really busy with something, and it makes the other simmering parts of our life more fun, but the moments between aren't automatically stagnation, just because we aren't in the middle of a huge event. We all need to be ok with the normal just as much as we are ok with the exceptional. And, we have ample proof of when we push too hard on one of those exceptional times and fall short. Look at the RO. I totally failed at the Video Game Tournament. It was too much, and I just threw up my hands and dropped it. I failed the RO in that moment as much as SK had, for exactly the same reason. Sometimes you dream too big, and you fail, and it's ok. You tried, and you failed, and you got back up and tried again. I finished the thing out the best I could, and it took longer than it should, and it was a little wonky in parts, but I pushed through and got it done, in a way. Sure it wasn't as advertised, but it was still a LOT of fun, and we all learned a LOT of lessons for next time.

I love this place as much as you guys, and I understand the feeling of worry when things get quiet. My point with this post is to say that we have not given up on this place, through all this time, and as long as we do not give up, this place WILL never die. I won't let it, and I know a lot of you out there won't let it either. So, let's just concentrate on coming up with new ideas, and doing what we do best, and let the quiet times be quiet, and make new exciting times as we can.

[Karyete]

My point with this post is to say that we have not given up on this place, through all this time, and as long as we do not give up, this place WILL never die.

Forums die because one of two things happen:

a) Staff stop caring.
b) Members stop caring.

Doesn't seem to me like either of those things are going to happen. We've had a couple of new active members recently and the staff work hard on the site.

[NanTheDark]

Man I still regret not accepting Sk's offer of helping run the Runolympics. Maybe next time.

[Harmless]

To be fair the RO ran into difficulties mostly when people would stop checking it in general. You can't hold a contest with only half of the members are there (and I'm not saying I was the only victim of this, I noticed other teams had disappearing members and one of the new Runouw members on Team Red had to truck it by himself at one point). But I'm not saying that ruined the experience for me. Even if I got a little dramatic at that point, I still had fun overall.

About forums dying because people are not caring though, I think the only reason this applies to the LL forums here and there is because people are still waiting for the full release of LL. It could be just a hunch.

[Supershroom]

Well, to reply after long last. It was quite a casual thing for me and FF to talk about the temperate response of regular members to themes like the new FAQ, where often enough I've carried most of the responsibility of interacting with staff plans and decisions. I've also met the experience often enough of active and quiet phases alternating, yet the sudden stop of opened projects seemed a bit ... mysterious? Of course, I all agree on doing it one after each other, and your reactions here were positive overall, it was a good call on welding us even more together.