The Community As Of Now

*Announces a little too late incoming extremely long walls of text*
*Inserts Donald trump quote*
*Leaves*

 

While a lot of what you say is quite true to the community as it stands, I feel like you should hold a little more hope in the community. As time has gone on, specifically the last 6 months, I've seen a large change in the community. A change from the generally regarded 'Toxic' behaviour to a more helpful one. I'm not saying toxicity has been completely eradicated and that we're a community of santa's little helpers helping out anyone and everyone, but the community has certainly got better.

As you've said about likes, they are central to being recognised. However, if you look at the very basics of it, a 'Like', it shows that people like what you've done. Who is someone who is very liked? Popular. Popular people are recognised. However, I can see your point with where the likes are going. I do feel a lot of the witty remarks people have made take priority in liking over someone being helpful, and that the tables should turn here, but not completely. I think some of these witty remarks should stay, because in many cases they've got a chuckle out of me, however, I think the remarks should also provide help at the same time, if not more help to overcome the witty remark. We need humour in our lives, it's one of the things we enjoy, however I think we should balance humour and helpfulness. An example could be:

User posts bad build.

"Wow, I'd be surprised if this building could even stand on its own due to how badly built it is.

I'd advise switching out BuildPiece1 and BuildPiece4 for SuggestionA and SuggestionB, as they provide more BenefitX, and you might want to add SuggestionC in place of BuildPiece2 if you want more BenefitZ"

Moving onto "Tribes", I don't think they're actually a bad thing. I don't know if you were calling out my "Homestuck Ikimaru Cult", which has become sort of a sub-community on the forum for Homestucks, or not, however I still feel like these are a positive thing.

Before I created the cult, I certainly felt like one of the lone wolves you described. I saw other forumers having fun playing as groups on both Wynncraft or custom maps, large guilds hosting events within themselves as they were so large and generally people in groups I felt I had no chance of joining. I remember even watching IgbarVonSquid's 'Mod Squad' videos, where they fooled around and pranked people on the server, and I felt incredibly desperate to join them or a group like it as they were having fun and I wanted to be part of it. However, after creating the cult, I found myself in a growing community of people sharing the same interests as I. I've met new people and made new friends in it. I've even met people I haven't even seen around the forums too much, and newer members to the forum.

While I haven't seen leaders of these "tribes" bragging about how they own it or are in a high position, I can see where you're coming from and how this is a bad thing. However, I think tribes are a good thing if they keep their doors open to allow new members (those I have seen have been easy to join). Using my cult as an example, someone who is a fan of Homestuck may join the forum and feel a bit like a lone wolf, however, they can join the sub-community I've created and instantly be part of a "tribe" on the forums with people who share the same interest as them, making their introduction into forum life a lot easier as they have people to fall back on.

 

Before I begin with my small contribution to this thread, I will just that's a lot of text you guys have written and I almost read it all and I agree with it. These tribes things you mentioned @I'm the Ice Guy , I have noticed them but I couldn't really describe them, but you did it pretty well ^^

Whenever I see one of these kind of threads I usually go there as quick as possible (Or the "I lost my weapon!" ones) to reach there before the guys who mocks these OPs. I really never usually get there in time to write something meaningful before the shitposters come.

What I'm trying to say is that when I see the threads, I compliment the easter egg finders for finding this special easter egg, because they had no idea it was already found, and finding an easter egg is, in my humble opinion, a great achievement and you should always be proud even if it has been found before. I usually tell them this on the thread, but somehow, that guy who wrote "nicefind.avi" got 50 likes while mine got 5.

Now I might sound a bit egocentric for saying "Oh I am so kind giving them compliments blahblah" but honestly, that's what's right to do. It's the same thing with the weapons threads where someone has lost their weapon.

I am tired as fuck at the arrogant people who puts down a short & rude messages and also receive likes. Do you want to be famous on these forums? Be the person who does rude jokes and get likes for them!

Saltiness aside, I love this community nonetheless and I am glad to be a member of it.

 

I also want to say that I am kind of mad...

I've also seen people constantly bash other communities, acting like we are undesputably better than the rest...

However, we never show it. We sat, but we don't show... some of us do, but more don't.

We say Mineplexbis bad, we say Hypixel is bad... yet we are just as bad...

They all started off with nice communities as well... they basically did the exact same thing as we do now... and then they payed the price of being negative towards other servers... which is they got negative players.

Not only this, but also there is the fact that we have already started to see this change... if you look at the threads where people are saying things about how even if they help people in quests, they get bashed for doing so... that's one of the starting points...

I'm going to quote my school's vice principle whom used to be the head teacher of ny charter school:
"You're always on"
Meaning act like you're having the WHOLE MINECRAFT community watching you... we could set a better example... or we could crash and burn like mineplex and Hypixel's communities have done.

 

That's up to you, really.

I'm glad my thread helped you to speak out :)

And also I should have probably elaborated on what I meant by tribes. There are good 'groups' but what I mean by tribes are those that are more selective in who they talk to and sorta shun others away and only support each other. Things like the homestuck mini-community I have no problem with as I see its fairly easy to join in and participate in whatever's going on there.

 

We should all be like cats and be mean/funny and helpful.

 

That's why people missed the old forum's reaction kind of things, where instead of "like" there was "lol", "helpful", "love" (I think, or was that the same as helpful?) and one other which I can't remember (I think one of them was something like impressive or ingenious or inventive or whatever). @Pretzule would you know what the others were?

EDIT: Ok I found them on an archive of the old forums. They are: LOL, Awesome, Insightful, Artistic.

 

Blah blah blah, Flubby rant v2

 

Chill the fuck out my man.
One of these things is not getting deleted for good reasons.

 

It would be nice to bring those back, tbh. (I don't remember the forums having them, though .o.)

 

Ermmm.. Sorry to bring this up, but you were taking about negative posts getting all them likes, and this thread is negative, and got almost 40 likes
Jk nice thread

 

I just want to point out, you don't get likes and then get recognized, you get likes because you get recognized not the other way around.
when I first joined the forums my aim wasn't to get a lot of likes, that became a hobby, my aim was to get recognized and famous for my work which I am more than proud to say I have achieved that goal.
when I started gathering likes I found the best way to get them is by being funny and helpful and posting quality content. I see people joining and leaving because their aim was to get a lot of likes so they will get well known and could help the community, in reality that order should be reversed, you don't get well known by getting likes, you get likes by being helpful and known for something.
about getting likes, I am an exception so I guess I really shouldn't talk, I am (or at least was) active in almost all sections and helped others create numerous threads and projects which also helped me get well known in the community and outside of it.

the forums were tribal from the day I joined 2 years ago. in every social environment you are going to find smaller groups, those are people with common interests and goals which have grouped together to accomplish them (wherever the goal is to make a guild, a thread, an event or just derp around on the server). I get that its hard to start with no one backing you up, I myself have gone through it myself when I joined which is why I am contacting small artists on the forums and other content creators and offered them help, no one should be alone. if any of you remembers project Apex was under my supervision under the decision of the Valkyrie leadership, the main target of the project was to find content creators small and big and offer them help and collabs so we can revive the community and put out more art and quality threads.
I was a nobody on the forums for a long time until Kv picked me up and helped me get well known. we all need a helping hand from time to time so I propose that all of us act as that hand, find a new member of the community, welcome him to the forums, help him around on the server, talk with him and see if he has any ideas and if he does help him make a thread out of it and make it well known.
It is our responsibility as the current big forumers to make sure we leave something for the future forumers behind.

about the bragging, I do it a lot, but only because I feel like I earned the bragging rights for it, I got far and high to the position you think nothing can take me down, and you are quiet rigt, right now the only thing that can take me down is my own mistakes and real life events.
and as to the tribes again, I will and I am doing anything to help my friends on the forums feel more welcome and help their threads and projects flourish with everything I can. that's why we have friendships, that's also why I keep accepting new people to Imperial and my projects and try to connect two people with the same ideas so they could work together. personally when I came to the forums and saw those big forumers in the sb talking about stuff I had no idea about I was scared, when I made my first thread and the old forumers commented on it and rejected me I was shocked at their honesty, when I saw my first debate between a mod and another former I was impressed by the coldness of the mod. my first impression of the forums wasn't the best one but instead of scaring me off I took it as a challenge, seeing how difficult it is to thrive here only made me want to be more successful and throw it in everyone's faces. but by the time I got big all the old forumers went away, the moderation team changed almost completely and I became the big forum god that watched the newcomers and scares them off, so instead of that happening I joined Imperial, I collected other newcomers with me, we created projects and helped each other succed here.

I am against this, don't try to leave your tribe, stay with your tribe and seek other people, new people, so the tribe could grow bigger.

 

i agree



here have a like

 

OH GOD NO YUNO'S BUILDING AN ARMY!

 

This thread, i like it

 

This is the kind of sh*t the post was talking about.

 

I mean... that's kind of a bit aggressive... but yea, it kind of is what the thread was talking about.

 

I'm building friendships

 

Truest thing I've heard all day. At this point I've mostly given up. It's a shame at only the famous people are appointed for helping the community while others try their hardest but to no avail.

Take this for example:
A mod who owns a famous series on the forums hosts a small event and said mods thread gets dozens of likes, a good 30 attendees and a 15 page discussion. While someone else hosts an event that has 2x the content, gets 4 likes, 5 attendees and a 2 page discussion, most of which being a debate on how you're a wannabe.

 

The issue with the community is the fatalism you and many others expressed. DJ, you have nearly 4,000 likes. That's a lot. The fact of the matter is that everyone can help the community even if that number is zero.

As I said earlier, one can only fix the community with positivity. Look to a bright future, where you can say that you helped make it nicer. Look to a bright future where everyone can have civil and friendly discussions.