This forum is for suggestion on how to make this a better...

[guy_lover14]

Hey...maybe if yall put an off topic thing that we can talk about stuff off of anime stuff. I know another website that has an Off-Topic thing that almost everyone goes on it. It is just like here. It is called misoanimeclub.org. It's in the forums. But it is kewl. Yall should go there and look around. I am a member there by the name: inuyasha_chick14. Get in contact with me sometime.

[dokool]

Hey...maybe if yall put an off topic thing that we can talk about stuff off of anime stuff. I know another website that has an Off-Topic thing that almost everyone goes on it. It is just like here. It is called misoanimeclub.org. It's in the forums. But it is kewl. Yall should go there and look around. I am a member there by the name: inuyasha_chick14. Get in contact with me sometime.

There used to be an Off-Topic forum, it was closed due to massive abuse by the users.

-DOKool

[Kalium]

There used to be an Off-Topic forum, it was closed due to massive abuse by the users.

But not until after a massive flame war, the scars of which can still be seen in the form of the Recovering OT Junkies.

[Nestorath69]

We all have our own ways of getting out off-topic fix. For some, it's demonseal. For others, it's megatokyo, for still others, it's Starwind. It all depends on your tastes. Not everything has to revolve around the 'Org, but it comes pretty close.

[Cloud Clone]

We all have our own ways of getting out off-topic fix. For some, it's demonseal. For others, it's megatokyo, for still others, it's Starwind. It all depends on your tastes. Not everything has to revolve around the 'Org, but it comes pretty close.

You're right, I get my fix by posting something a little OT in most of my posts along with my real response to the topic...

Munkees are my favorite animals!!!!!

........

[Nestorath69]

I get my fix by posting something a little man-yogurt in most of my posts

*fixed!

All jokes aside, I've seen a large number of people clamoring for a bunch of different changes. Can we have a poll on which changes should be implemented? That way everyone has an opportunity to contribute.

[Bahamut God]

One thing that people can do already is point to forum rules on other boards. I have no objection to forum comparisons and will happily adopt any general practices that other boards use.

More specific things like edit buttons, types of thread and so on, I'd prefer recommended in their own thread so they can be given proper discussion. General practices, however, I'd like to be discussed here - particularly if you can show me examples of good forum practices on other boards you visit.

Obviously every forum is different as the people who visit them vary, but there are things to be learned, so any helpful suggestions are welcome.

Ok, here I go.



My best experience with a forum was a long running one called Anime Mega Store. (We actually never sold anything)

There was close to no moderation there, just a few people around to help out, and they never had to do much. In the whole history of the forum, I think we only banned one person, and that was for trying to hack the forum. (at least, the owner of the forum was 99% sure he was trying to, and a lot of other people thought he was creepy anyway. Highjack threads were not uncommon Often rather than flame, we would simply highjack. We had stricter rules than here about personal attacks, but we never had to close down any threads. The more I look around, it seems we might have been in some kind of internet bubble, because I have not found any forums run like this one. (I'm hoping that can change) Over a period of 4 years, we had only 2 epic flame battles, one of which I can't remember the reason for. At our height we had over 6000 members, and have well over 700,000(!) posts. I believe our most posting member had close to 24,000(!!!!!!) posts before a giant crash. I think I had 4000. That's small compared to the members here, but we had nothing to offer but the forum it self. We spent most of our time talking like a chat room. All in one big "History thread" where it was not unusual to have 50 people all talk to each other at once. The threads would actually brake after 1000 posts were placed in them, and so we would start a new history thread at that point.

I know this sounds way to chaotic, but it really was not. Most of the super creative stuff was kept with in the history thread. We had all kinds of fun traditions, like the first page of a history thread is filled with pictures. Near the end of one history thread, someone is bestowed the honer to start the next, and have to figure out something new and original to have as the first post. We could go though two History threads a night on really busy days/nights. You would write something in response, and hit refresh over and over to see who posted next and then respond again. There was someone there at all hours of the day and night to talk too. We even had official nobbe greeters who would bring fruit baskets as a welcoming.


WELCOME to Anime Mega Store. Here are the rules, hope to see you around. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me! And don't mind bulma, she's cranky today.

It's was great, I made some of my closest internet friends there. I have met many in person, even though we are scattered around the world. Many people are friends in person here, but we all have something very small (Amv's) to connect us. It tends to make you friends with someone just because you can't find anyone else with the same hobbies. The only thing that tied people together on that forum was anime, which even then was becoming more main stream.

I'm going somewhere with this.

We had one rule we don't have here. No cursing. As much as I like saying fuck, I think that a lot of hostilely could be removed if we could keep this out. I curse non-stop in person, but I use a tone where if you were not really paying attention, you would not even notice I was cursing. However, when you're writing, you can't really write with a tone, and thus even a causal fuck seems like a giant insult. I am not used to being told to "Shut the fuck up", on the internet, or in person. I don't take it well. Even if they add a silly face or something at the end, there is power there there that can cause someone to get really angry.

However, with out the crutch of profanity, that forum was able to become one of the funniest places I have seen on the web. Everyone wants to be funny, and by making people avoid profanity, they have to think of more cleaver ways of achieving their goals. Just typing OMG RATFAG11!!!111!!!!!(one)!!!1 really did not work on anyone, and it was just ignored.

Going back to the fact that it was chaotic. We have a forum to accomplish something here. We want to be able to discuss amvs and give/revive help on perfecting the art. So allowing people to be this creative and free this should not be the rule for every part of the forum. I think you should create a new "Member Bonding" forum (like general amv), where moderation is kept at a minimum except for profanity and porn (or violent porn).

I think this forum is missing that feeling of community. Sure we all have the same hobby, but we don't know each other at all, unless you have meet them at a convention. I find it hard to get to know people while coldly answering questions about amvs. Only having this kind of forums also fosters a "elite" vs. everyone else mentality, as we have no way to understand the person. It's hard to hate someone you know well. Most of us have meet people we don't like on the internet in person at conventions before. Did any of that internet anger crap mater once you got to know them? Ever meet someone you like from the internet in person? Often you just like them more. With a few exceptions, only good will grows. Just try it and see what happens.

It's just to much work for most people to flame others with out cursing. Eventually stupid threads are either ignored or highjacked into better threads.

Sadly the forum has died. However it took two major crashes. A lot of people were lost as it came back with different urls. It was never on search engines, we had no clue how people found us. (you can't find it, go ahead, try) Even the survivors of that have trouble keeping together as the forum goes down every few months now. The Core members all have each other's aim and e-mails, so we have been able to keep in touch. (it's down right now, or I would have given a link to the lifeless shell it is today) It's still around, but most of the magic, and the members are gone now.

This was not because of the way it was moderated though, but because people physically lost us during the two crashes. (They were down for well over a month)

To restate, I think we should ban profanity and have some kind of light creative penalty for offenses. Maybe just a warning the fist few times, then you have write an opinion before you come back, though that's hard to enforce. I know, you have to answer 5 hard trivia questions, where they have to go look it up.

Second idea is to create a "Member Bonding Area" You could have a introduce your self forum, and a shoot the breeze forum. This should be moderated lightly, but keep personal attacks out.

I understand that because our egos are often riding on our amvs, personal attacks are always going to be some kind of problem here, but I think we can do a lot to cut it down.

And if does not work, we can always remove it. But I think the new philosophy should be "try something, if it works, keep it, if not try something else."

DAMN this took a long time to write.

Thanks for reading.
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Sir Postsalot