Aja on 17/3/2021 at 18:31
Sometimes I miss the old days of the forum; it was very active, but a lot of folks especially in comm chat were pretty mean and did what they could to make sure that new members either assimilated to the house style or left. I of course felt insecure about the enormous wit of a lot of the regulars here and tried to prove myself by being more provocative than was necessary. There were lots of times where I'd get told off by Stitch or RBJ or whoever and then sulk about it for a few days. So yeah, there's a bit of rose-tint in the glasses, but it was certainly a very interesting and lively forum in those days. Now it's a lot more chill, and I like that, too.
That said, I'd be open to changing venues, as Kolya suggests, as long as it's not to Facebook.
Kolya on 17/3/2021 at 20:09
In the meantime I checked out Zulip with Nameless Voice and I don't think it's quite there. Then I went deeper and checked out (
https://zeronet.io/) zeronet.io which is completely distributed sites (and some comm services like mail) without any central server. It's bordering on a darknet and predictably attracts criminal types ("silkroad reloaded" is a site there).
I'm still on the lookout for a distributed forum/chat software. As far as central modern forums go, discourse seems to be one of the best.
The rediscovery of the mobile theme has reconciled me a tiny bit with vBulletin. Several others here expressed they didn't know about it. I think the mobile theme should be made more discoverable here. Possibly switch to it automatically when visiting from a phone.
faetal on 17/3/2021 at 20:28
Wow yeah the mobile theme is a world of difference. No more Blade Runner style scrolling and zooming for me!
june gloom on 19/3/2021 at 08:37
I admit I wasn't a great person back then. I'm not perfect now, but I consider the person I was to be a very different version of myself. I view my name change to be indicative of a break from that earlier person.
Part of the problem is that the forum culture was precisely the kind of thing that encouraged my worst impulses. It was actively making me a worse person, and leaving it for a while was the best thing I could have done. It took me a long time to stop engaging in what's called "digital self-harm" where I would go back and re-read old arguments and get angry all over again. I was doing that throughout my tenure here, and for a while after I left. I told myself that what I was feeling was smugness in my superiority to people like SubJeff. Turns out what I was actually feeling was like shit.
That being said I absolutely refuse to take sole responsibility for the direction this forum has taken, as there are a lot of negative voices here who formed a chorus I'm ashamed to have been a part of, that continued to post even after I left. And I'm going to have to disagree with Anarchic Fox -- the lack of moderation on this forum, in my opinion, plays a big part of why this forum is so quiet now.
As far as me arguing with SubJeff... honestly, SubJeff should have been gone ages ago, but it's somewhat on me as well for engaging with a man so aggressively arrogant and so blatantly working in bad faith. I guess since few others were willing to stand up to him I felt like it was up to me, because really, if you don't take a stand against the SubJeffs (or Tonys, or Evas) of the world... well, things like TTLG's current state is the result, isn't it?
Anyway, in spite of myself, I keep coming back. Part of it is that I hang out with Nameless Voice and crew in the TTLG Discord, which is a very different atmosphere (and perhaps a little more accepting of my humorless tankie rants) from here, yet there's indelible connections to the forum. (The mass reporting of Subjeff's tremendous insult to mopgoblin that finally got him suspended, then banned, was instigated on the Discord.) But I see little reason to engage with more than a few select threads -- Trump Dump, for example.
I suppose if one were to look back at my post history the past couple years they'd see mostly two things: me yelling at Subjeff, and me complaining about how this forum is run. Part of it I guess is trauma -- I wasn't happy back then and this place made me even less happy, and I'm trying to work through my feelings about this place because I have incredibly mixed emotions -- while also being appalled at how little things have changed since I stopped being a regular. There's a lot of value to TTLG, and I've made friends that I have nothing but lifelong respect for, even if we don't interact much (hi faetal!) but it's also long been a toxic place for me, and I imagine others as well.
Anarchic Fox on 19/3/2021 at 09:52
Quote Posted by june gloom
I suppose if one were to look back at my post history the past couple years they'd see mostly two things: me yelling at Subjeff, and me complaining about how this forum is run.
Yeah, I know you mainly from the arguments with SubJeff. If you're Dethtoll I figure the name change augurs becoming a different person, and I'll regard you as such.
I was gone for a decade, so I don't know what things were like in the interstitial period.
Edit: Oops, should have read more carefully. You didn't do anything to me personally back then, and I attacked you when you tried to return to TTLG, so I'll consider the karmic balance in your favor. :p
faetal on 19/3/2021 at 13:27
Quote Posted by june gloom
(hi faetal!)
Hola :D
I think the main reason the forum is becoming less active is just that the core deomgraphic is getting older, having kids, changing interests, etc.
If the rate of people joining is lower than the rate of people dropping off, then all you have to do is apply time to have the situation we have now. But I will agree that toxicity is likely to increase the rate of people leaving, plus scare off newer members.
That said, even a lot of familiarity & cameraderie can put people off a forum - if it seems like >80% of all content is from old timers who all know each other. I think the forum could use a welcome sub-forum where people introduce themselves and break the ice a bit, though that might have the side effect of highlighting how rare new members are (I'm not sure if that's the case, but if it is, then that won't help).
Nameless Voice on 19/3/2021 at 22:11
As for scaring off newer members, I was once specifically asked, out of the blue, how widespread the racism is in the Thief community, and if it (and, by extension, TTLG) should just be avoided altogether as a safe haven for bigotry.
That ought to ring some alarm bells for sure.
Kolya on 19/3/2021 at 22:24
Was there any special occasion for asking that?
Nameless Voice on 19/3/2021 at 23:45
IIRC, the person in question had encountered some people in another Thief community outside of TTLG, and was wondering if they were indicative of the Thief community as a whole.
Kolya on 20/3/2021 at 01:49
Well some of those taffers are just absolute weirdoes. They're not like us shockers who've never had any problem with mentally unstable fans. Like ever.
:erg: