Re: where has this community gone to
right, lets tare this apart right here.
Database: if not for Dark, that thing wouldn't be as big as it is right now. Yeah yeah... I contributed a few things, as did others. But who contributed the most?? That takes something specia; that takes passion, and I'm sorry to say I don't believe anyone else on this forum, myself included, has it.
Moderators: when we moderated the forum, by which I mean myself, Dark, Sebbi, Arqmeister and others, you told us we overstepped our boundaries. Remember this? Yeah, leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time I look at it, too. Why? Because I didn't like having to push that stupid ban button on JimmyDub. It makes me feel like a useless hypocrite because, while I don't use the pirate bay or any torrenting sites anymore and haven't for years, I once did. who am I to tell you that you shouldn't do something I once was a part of in some senses? Reasons be damned! I did it and I had no regret at the time! But when I signed up for this forum, I signed up to abide by the rules set by its moderators! When I became one, I was tasked with the responsibility of upholding them! Do you know what that means? No matter what I think of those rules, no matter how I feel about them, those rules are there for a reason and until they are changed for an even better reason, the fact is that they're there and should be followed, from the greatest of us to the least!
Now, I'm not a moderator; I like to think of myself as a voice in the wilderness. I try not to come into topics like this one because more often than not I'm disgusted by the way they turn out. You punch the mods around because they took a stance on a matter, then get them to agree with you to some extent, go away feeling all smug about yourselves until they do something else you think is absolutely overkill and childishly stupid, then you're at it again. No, it's not all of you, but there's this collective of sorts that is constantly shouting nay nay nay! We can't have this! We can't have that! Away with the rules because rules suck! The only thing that could suck worse than rules is that other places have rules too, and so we want a place where we can go where there is no rules and no one ruling with rules!
Let me ask you something, and answer it honestly; don't you believe it would have been easier to not have rules? Would it not be easier to just trust you all to display better judgment and then we don't have any of these issues? Would it not be so much simpler if instead of policing the forum in a manner everyone hates, we just didn't have to police the forum at all, because we know this forum is so well behaved? Wouldn't it be cool if if we could all just have discussions without having all of these irritating moderation warnings, cautions... I don't even know who started this cautioning nonsense! We never did it! You think these guys are bad? We were worse! We didn't give you cautions! We gave you harsh warnings! When you didn't heed them, we banned you! We didn't have a lenient system where you got a sort of probation or watch for doing something that we considered a bannable offense! You got a firm warning if it was your first, and a ban thereafter!
And you know what? The reason it worked, was because we didn't have all these silly little loopholes the new mods, the nice mods, the wonderful mods who are trying to please and appease you at every turn have for you now! We made it clear what we wanted and you either followed or fell to the banhammer! No discussion of cracks! No flaming or disrespect! No discrimination! IN short, be a decent person and you have nothing to worry about! Do something against the community or the site and its voluntary staff? You're out!
and it worked because we weren't policing the system like hawks, playing the role of helicopter parents at every turn. We just didn't want you discussing things on the forum that could get us all in trouble! You chose to disregard what we wanted. In some instances we gave you some leash to run around on, while in others we felt it was not acceptible. When you talked about cracking eloquence for NVDA we were sympathetic because we'd all been there to some degree or another and disagreed with some of the shadier practices companies were employing against blind people. When that wasn't enough and you wanted to distribute much more questionable content, we put our foot down because we knew it would reflect badly on us all as a community. Eloquence amy not be a mainstream subject; torrenting, however, actually is!
So what happened next? this subset of people comes along and says, "Hey, you're not being fair all the way across the board!" If you're going to ban us for the discussion of pirated assets, you need to ban us for cloned material within the community as well, because those are pirated assets! And while you're at it, eloquence is not abandonware, so stop all the discussion of it as it pertains to NVDA and free/illegal ways to get it! That is the discussion of cracking, just in case you needed to know!" We did know! That was us giving you a free pass and you didn't appreciate it! We didn't care for it, but we let it go!
Fastforward a bit, and all of a sudden, hey, notice that CP is getting mega popular? Well, guess what, it uses pirated material! All that mario and nintendo content! All that music! I wonder where all those sounds came from? Wel, that's ok, it's a free game anyway. right? Well, the problem is that if we're going to go by that logic, we may as well be able to discuss all pirated content on here because you know eventually someone's going to come along and say, "Hey, you're back to this again? Ok, here's an eloquence addon that works, and never mind because Nuance isn't working with us, and Codefactory is ripping us off! and by the way, check out this site that gives you tons of audiodescribed content because we can't get it by any other means and the big companies don't feel any sympathy for us and boohoo hoo!"
So, the real question is, can mods trust you to handle yourselves? Or do they have to keep pushing on you by putting up new defenses in an endless game of cat and mouse? What is it you seriously want? Where is it you're willing to go and how far do you have to go before you can actually stop and be happy about it? These issues are no longer personal; they affect the whole community! That's another big difference! Once upon a time a member got banned and they took it personally, maybe got mad at the mod, had a few words with them off site, nuff said. Know what Dgleks first got warned for by me? Flaming! It didn't go away! So he got banned! Guess what? He found me on AA! We had words! He reformed! He's now a mod! Bladestorm? Remember him? Went on an drunken tirade and called everyone from Aprone on down a useless waste as far as audiogame development went? Know who he contacted about his ban after he sobered up a bit? That's right; yours truly! None of this I'm going to get my friends to complain for me and not own up for any of my writing! Bottom line? when you screw up, you screw up! The end! NO ands buts or ifs! If you would simply accept that as being true and realize that mods aren't out to get you but simply here to uphold rules and regulations that help this site and its forum keep going cleanly? It's not like any of us would enjoy it, and believe me, it really would be a nicer experience if you would all just, grow up! I know you can behave! I know you can put your best fot forward! You choose not to! So this is the end result!
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