Welcome to General Deception

[godix]

The last time I read a rant as disjointed as this, it ended with a congresswoman and a dozen others shot...

[NME]

Only in America.

Or Canada
Or Germany
Or France
Or Japan
Or Formosa
Or The Philippines

[kenisama]

I don't remember being forced to pay for anything on this site, or am I missing something? and I totally didn't donate for the simple reason of having a forum... cuz that would be idiotic. I started donating so I could feel like I was giving back to those that are providing this website FOR FREE. Nowhere does it state that you must donate to be a member (or is that the point I'm missing?).

Maybe one day when you own/operate your on website, you can make the rules

In response to your response to Basha:

The "Donator" Forum is now the "General Discussion" forum (for all intents and purposes, it's a fucking "off-topic" forum) and it's open to the general public for the foreseeable future. That seems to stab a pretty big hole in your argument; hence, this thread has been allowed to carry on with your constant cut downs to anyone who disagrees with your viewpoint... but whatever, I'm probably just retarted

[EvaFan]

Jebus, I haven't noticed someone this actively paranoid in a long time. I suppose you are one of those ppl that has such warped views of everything resulting in nothing but conspiracy theories.

ITS THE a-m-v.org NEW WORLD ORDER.

[wurpess]

Ok, maybe I'm missing something. So, I wasn't around for the old OT, or the getting rid of it, so I can't comment on that. But then a new OT was formed, but it was a donator feature. Then they turned it from donator feature to free for all members, but kept the old topics and posts in, so the 'General Discussion' forum would have direction and the non-donators coming into the party could be part of the discussions too. But you can still make new threads. Mods hid the older posts in 3 of the threads for security purposes. This site is still about AMVs. You can still talk about AMVs, make whatever AMVs you want, put them all in the site's catalog, use the site's hosting for most of them, and the resources and guides are still available. And have access to the entire forum, including General Discussion, which is all intact minus a few posts in 3 threads. All without paying a dime. Can you please explain how this is crippling creativity?

The thing I've noticed is people seem to look at the .org as the only site out there, or think that all of their AMVing should revolve around the .org. The .org's original purpose is to catalog every AMV ever made. Not necessarily to host them, not as a all-around fan made video site, not as a chat-room. Everything else the .org does other than catalog them and provide guides and resources is extra. The .org does AMVs. You want to freely and extensively socialize, go somewhere that specializes in that. Also, just because the .org doesn't allow you to upload certain videos, that doesn't mean you can't make them. You can make whatever the hell you want. You just may not be able to use the .org's hosting for it and may need to get more creative about getting it seen. And if the vid is 'so awsm!', and you 'worked so hard on it!', it should be worth the extra effort. Idk, my 2 cents. Like I said, I might be missing something here.

[guy07]

tl;dr
Has anyone seen the key for my back door? I can't seem to find it ...

[kenisama]

Ok, maybe I'm missing something. So, I wasn't around for the old OT, or the getting rid of it, so I can't comment on that. But then a new OT was formed, but it was a donator feature. Then they turned it from donator feature to free for all members, but kept the old topics and posts in, so the 'General Discussion' forum would have direction and the non-donators coming into the party could be part of the discussions too. But you can still make new threads. Mods hid the older posts in 3 of the threads for security purposes. This site is still about AMVs. You can still talk about AMVs, make whatever AMVs you want, put them all in the site's catalog, use the site's hosting for most of them, and the resources and guides are still available. And have access to the entire forum, including General Discussion, which is all intact minus a few posts in 3 threads. All without paying a dime. Can you please explain how this is crippling creativity?

The thing I've noticed is people seem to look at the .org as the only site out there, or think that all of their AMVing should revolve around the .org. The .org's original purpose is to catalog every AMV ever made. Not necessarily to host them, not as a all-around fan made video site, not as a chat-room. Everything else the .org does other than catalog them and provide guides and resources is extra. The .org does AMVs. You want to freely and extensively socialize, go somewhere that specializes in that. Also, just because the .org doesn't allow you to upload certain videos, that doesn't mean you can't make them. You can make whatever the hell you want. You just may not be able to use the .org's hosting for it and may need to get more creative about getting it seen. And if the vid is 'so awsm!', and you 'worked so hard on it!', it should be worth the extra effort. Idk, my 2 cents. Like I said, I might be missing something here.

I wish I had a like button... DAMN IT! MY CREATIVE PROCESS HAS BEEN INHIBITED!!!

[NME]

There is a whole world out there that you are not aware of, one that you have complacently sipped away with the help of the bottle.

If you can look at the American government and stomach the imperialist empire expansion bullshit they dress up in wars for "democracy" or "peace" you are nothing but an easily led fool who is taken in by advertising and your own flawed perception. So was I, but there is no reason to wilfully exist in ignorance when it damages the life of you and everyone you care about by shackling you to a dying empire built on half truths.

The oddest thing about all this to me is that if Phade had just offered hosting for free he would have no reason to install puppets. It would have been a huge hit to his pocket book, but he obviously cares about this community enough to keep it alive. He's had a kid too, so dude is not hard up for cash. He's likely living a pretty comfortable middle class existence with his wife and lacks the time to devote to this site. Phade was never really a huge part of the ecosystem here anyway. If the videos were hosted free and there was no policy to charge for them there would be no possibility of legal action past cease and desist letters to remove the "copyright infringing material" or whatever the corporate scumfuck lawyers that work for the RIAA and MPAA term zeros and ones representing the newest Green Day single as.

But Phade started "donations". I guess there's a loophole here somewhere where if it's a "donation" it's not the same as "selling" a service (though it is obvious that those who pay for this site get increased functionality that helps them distribute their work and use the site more fully). With this donation model it is entirely possible that he could draw profit off this site. This complicates the legal matter entirely more than I am prepared or capable to outline in this post. But suffice to say, if he draws profit they likely have more of a case against him than if he doesn't.

Now the entire community is dying because it's been mismanaged into the ground. Everyone makes mistakes, but this site has not gotten better in my estimation since the restrictive policy came in. It lost quite a bit of its spirit, because ideas were constantly being shared by editors and non-editors alike. Without a place to unwind you lose the non-editors to other forums. If Phade were an artist he may understand this issue better, but he clearly isn't if he thinks this climate produces people who can express themselves fully when 90% of the community is caught up in playing schoolyard clique games and is unable to speak out because they're too afraid to make waves and get jumped on. FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

I only have as much information as I've been given. Unfortunately it's always been the policy of this site to run at an opaque level of transparency and with rules influenced by fear and uncertainty. So, odds of those in power holding themselves accountable for the mismanagement of the community or moronic policy decisions (censoring the word Youtube comes to mind) are slim to none. These policies hurt the site and unless they relax everywhere people will not stick around and the site will fade. It's as simple as that.

This is an artistic community. Running it like a library IS NOT APPROPRIATE.

[dreamawake]

I love how quick people are to paint you as a troll when you're bringing up valid arguments and reasoning with facts to back up your statements.

Welcome to the ORG, where critical thinking is punishable by death. Don't worry though, fall in with the masses and you'll be fine.

[Otohiko]

This is an artistic community. Running it like a library IS NOT APPROPRIATE.

This is a catalogue of anime music videos. There's an awesome community grown around it, granted, but I don't think you can make this argument. It's run like a library because it is and was always intended as a library.

Personally, I'll admit that I have marginal interest in the library thing and my own responsibility here on the .org is the community. But at the same time you and anyone else have to acknowledge that the .org cannot and does not have a reason to exist if it is not a repository of AMVs and knowledge surrounding them. Otherwise it would be no more than a glorified studio, precisely the kind of clique that you seem to argue against by the way. Changes are coming to update the operation of the video database, and a lot of other changes to the site are on hold. In fact I was frankly surprised that General Discussion was opened when it was - because even for all my lobbying in its favour, I fully expected community changes to follow, not precede a code rewrite for the site as a whole.

There are many other sites run as studio sites. It seems that your demands for a community are better in line with what they offer.

Bottom line: the .org is a discussion board of an AMV database, not an AMV database of a discussion board. I don't see this changing, but that doesn't mean no community-friendly progress can be made.

valid arguments and reasoning with facts to back up your statements.

I wish.