[illspirit]

Hey all, welcome back, I hope nobody got lost in that big scary outside place during the closure. I also hope that everybody has taken this time to calm down and realize that we're all on a gaming forum here. For the last few weeks (or even months to some degree), things have been way too serious and negative around here. And no, I'm not just aiming this comment at the members, as the staff has been affected by this over-seriousness as well. It would seem that somewhere along the line, many people here have just lost track of why we're all here to begin with; to have fun and talk about gaming or whatever else. Between member VS member and member VS staff bickering about everything from rules to who-did-what-to-whom-first, things have just gone crazy around here. Instead of having fun talking to each other and whatnot, we're having seemingly life or death struggles at every turn. And over what? An intraweb forum?! Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. In any case, when we closed, and left the message telling everyone to reflect on why they are here, it wasn't just some nonsensical excuse as to why we closed. No, we took this downtime to examine things ourselves and to make a few basic changes...

First change, as you may or may not have noticed yet, is a new set of rules (which can be found here). Well, not really new, in a sense, as it's pretty much a trimmed down version of the previous rules. Instead of a huge complex set of rules limiting any and everything that could be done, we've gotten it down to a simple list of the things which are specifically not allowed. Along with this are a few guidelines regarding general issues. Gone is the virtual law book detailing things like how many words you can post where. In it's place is a hopefully more laid back return to the rules of the old days.

Along with the new rules comes the other change, which if you haven't seen yet, warning stars are a thing of the past. Yep. That's right. We won't be chasing people around with a bag full of evil stars to stick on them. I can't speak for everyone on the staff (though, I suppose I do, being that I'm posting this and all), but I do feel that the whole negative karma thing is just that; negative. Not only did their existence add a degree of negativity to the place with the argument about who should/shouldn't have gotten starred, but the often complex system of removing them brings a level of bureaucracy to the forum which makes it feel like real life when it should be fun. Then of course there's the stigma that comes with people having them, which in many cases causes people to be continually 'punished' (be it the star alone or other's reaction/perception to them) for what in many cases were honest mistakes. While the original point of the warnings were to be just that, warnings, they've evolved into a beast of their own. In the end they've just caused more problems than they've solved. So, yea, this is me admitting I was wrong about them, as they were my idea.

So does this mean the forums will be total anarchy? Well, yes and no. Obviously, we won't be starring people for the more 'trivial' things like double posting, flaming, posting a smiley as a reply, and such, being that there are no stars. As long as you keep things like this within reason, and don't annoy the piss out of everyone, so be it. We're all here to have fun, not hang out at something as restrictive as school or work, no? Naturally this doesn't mean we can all run around spamming the place up to our heart's content, as there's swarms of other people here to consider too. As long as you're not hurting anything or otherwise generally annoying everybody, then it's cool.

Yea, there'll still be a few locked topics here and there if things get stupid, but that's par for the course on the intraweb. And there might still be a few notes from a moderator asking you chill out if you step close to that fine line between fun and trouble. And, unfortunately, should anyone decide to be a total asshat- ignoring locks, staff warnings, and STFU's from other members (as sometimes happens on the intrawebnet)- the somewhat new enforcement method will be temp-bans.

But before you shout "WTF, I thought you just said your were relaxing?!", these aren't going to be used for everyday things like the stars were. In theory, temp-bans will only be issued in the event someone persists on doing something after being asked to stop by a mod and generates complaints from other members. On occasion there may even be need to do so as a first response, but the less of them the better, for all involved. The main idea behind using temp-bans isn't so much as a punishment like the stars were, but rather a way to both allow the offender to cool down for whatever reason (say they had a bad day and take it out by flaming someone), and to keep the place running smoothly for everyone else. In some ways, this will result in a bit more self-policing by the forums at large, in so far as the group as a whole deciding what is and isn't annoying, offensive, or otherwise bad.

Anyhow, this is getting rather long now, so I'll shut up now. But before I go, I'd like to apologize to everyone for the closing. The way things were running for those last few days, we really saw no other choice than to close down and give people time to reflect on things. As you can see, we've done a handful of things to try and improve the 'quality of life' here on the forums, and to further the concept of a fun and easy going atmospehere. So if it's not too much to ask, can we all just try to get along a little better, and not take things so damn serious here? This place used to be quite fun, and in many respects it still is. If we all work together on this, perhaps we can return to the good ol' days, or even better....

[shifty_41]

Out of desperation I found myself clicking the derelict GTAForums link in my bookmarks.
I'm glad it's back, I can sense that this was succesful seeing as the attitude in irc went from

QUOTE

OMFG Burn down gtaforums

to

QUOTE

I miss gtaforums. *cries*

Yes, it's been quite a month (week? year? I've lost count!), but i'm glad we're back.

EDIT: Omg, no warning stars?

[colombian_parsero]

all i can say is, amen, i hope these forums return to how they were during 2002/2003


<-- yay star gone after like 6 months

[vacuumo]

Man, it's great to have the forums back. The re-vamped rules and no more negative karma are both good as well.

I couldn't last one week without GTAForums, anyway.


I just hope nothing as drastic as that has to be done again.

[Trows]

Nice too see some new rules.

Im quite surprised about the no more negative karma thing, so it will just be verbal warnings now?

[tehhunter]

I wonder if I'm still banned?

I guess if you read this, im not. ^_^

Good thing to remove the bad karma thing. All it served was to anger people with developmental anger problems, like Jigga or me.

[The Miker]

Finally. I was waiting for you all to come to your senses about the stars and such.

[Sauron]

I belive this is a time for humping.

Sauron humps

Tis' good to be back.

[Eviscero]

Welcome back indeed. Hope you like the new goodies we've whipped up for ya

[Jigga]

Good to have GTAForums.com back.

Thank you.

[Chronic.]

Ahh its good to be back

Cold frosty beers for all 18+ members

[Moto]

So you're keeping good stars? Yay

[SteakPhish]

This was the st00pidest thing on the planet. May we never speak of it again .

[SBizz6]

Nice to have the forums back. A short break was needed, but it's still great to have them back nontheless.
BTW, the new set of rules are great and will hopefully bring good to these forums again.

[Doody the Clown]

QUOTE (^ChRoNiC^ @ Jun 27 2004, 20:36)

Cold frosty beers for all 18+ members

Except Doody of course... he deserves alcohol.

[Storm.]

It's good to have the forums back online again and nice to see that things are going to be a little more relaxed now. I hope everyone went out and got some exercise.

[ACA]

Very well said illspirit. I think were all going to like the new laid-back feeling around here. Good work.

[Phatgordo13]

Its good to have the forums back. As much as i missed not having the forums....i think the right decision was made. I hope we dont have to do this again.

[cice]

yay, we're back.

And also no more pit.

looks like gtaforums could be on the up now.

[meth.]

Sweet you're back up. This new system sounds good. Glad to see some changes. Things should be more chill now.