Hah! Great post!
I'm actually happy with the decision to change the culture. I had been around for 5+ years and in my short time I noticed a trend of growing negativity. I have zero doubt that this will be for the better.
I saw someone post a concern about people who disagree with others being banned. I have to imagine that as long as it is constructive and done in a way that is respectful no one has anything to worry about. I welcome opposite view points in a discussion but I don't welcome anyone being treated without respect.
You can link through to the old discussions, but they aren't a part of the new forums. They can't be seen unless someone explicitly links to them, which is unlikely to occur much. It also creates a clear and deliberate separation between the old forums and new forums. All of this combines to reduce the visibility of past inappropriate behavior.
Bans by themselves don't work, period. Disguised bans or bans with wait periods or a currency system might have an effect, but those are significant changes as well, and they focus on disincentives. You can't just ban a bunch of people and expect the tenor of a significant segment of a community to change.
True, sometimes you're going to be punished for the behaviors of others in the community when things get out of control. It sucks, but its part of being a member of a community. And honestly, you didn't lose that much. Post counts, the ability to reply to the threads that were active at the cutover, and ... what else? That's about it, and it's not much.
I have a question regarding the new rules...
If I criticize Aaron's writing or Bachalo's art... Will I get banned?
Of course I wouldn't insult them, because I don't even know them, but if I say their work is bad in my opinion, is that wrong or it's ok?
What happened may be unfortunate and depressing, but I don't think the moderators are the one who made the final decision here (though I could be wrong).
If you're really as unhappy as you sound in your various posts, there may be other forums that would suit your tastes better. Right now, I don't think being cranky will undo what has been done.
That's going to be a slippery slope for a while. I can easily imagine people saying "I don't like Alex Ross" when they clearly mean Mr. Ross' artwork, and not a dislike of the person himself. That verbiage happens all the time (I myself say I don't like Blake Shelton, when I'm actually referring to his music; he seems like a great guy on The Voice, I'm just not a big country music fan). I sincerely hope the mods will use context clues and common sense before unleashing the banhammer.
...Expecting the Spanish Inquisition.
It's up to the poster in question to clearly enunciate what they're saying rather than just hoping expecting the mod to figure out what's being alluded to. If I say I dislike someone that's what I mean and I wouldn't expect anyone to interpret what I was saying in any other manner.
Man, that was really confusing . . . unable to sign in, and then when I tried to have CBR resend me my password in case I screwed that up, I got a message saying they didn't recognize my email address?
(I even went and got the address off of email CBR sent me in the past!)
Anyway, since it feels like the Great Disaster struck here, and society has to be rebuilt from scratch, I thought it would be appropriate to have a new avatar . . . one of the original Atomic Knights.
This isn't just an internal move, Jonah wants to send a message, both to those outside of CBR as well as within, that on our forums this is the line and this kind of behavior will not escape our notice or thrive. He wants it to be a more inclusive and welcoming place, and he'd like to drop kick the nasty element outta here. If we'd just taken a machete to the old place he wouldn't have wanted people thinking "It's just the old place with a lot of machete cuts". The reboot sends the message that the past is the past, we're moving forward this way with a forum rebirth and a new set of rules and standards. If you're on board that's great, and if you can't handle it you're out. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
So anyone who thinks the reboot is an overreaction you're welcome to that opinion, but that's not how we see it. It's about more than a deplorable experience that's tainted the place, it's about a disease that's been widespread on the internet for far too long and trying to do something about it. Is this the cure? Who knows, only time will tell. But it's an uphill battle that's worth it if we can get to the top.
Plus, all my stuff is up there, so I kinda have to do it.
Conn Seanery
CBR Forums Administrator ~ Ron Swansonite ~ Brock Samson will show us the way
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ Know them. Follow them. Love them.
"Hnh. Could Bowie have been a mutant?" ~Dr. Doom (Hellfire Gala 2022)
Thanks for the clarification. Despite some unpleasantness I always saw CBR as one of the brighter discussion sites on the internet so I would personally would call it an overreaction. I just hope it doesn't impact the community too badly though it's inevitable it will have some sort of impact. I don't really agree with the reasoning or the methods behind the 'reboot' and the increased rate of bans that has been threatened might drive off more than the unwelcome element you speak of. To delete everything, rather having a big song and dance over changes to moderation seems somewhat bizarre. Not only that, the fact there was no warning makes it seem even worse. My 2 cent.