Registration and the Development forum

I agree with Xeep's take, at least in regards to hiding away Thy Flesh Consumed. Seems to be that's something a lot of places have been doing these days, either due to people stalking across forums or due to being dumpster fires in general.
Couldn't care less if the project forums were private or not. Are people forced to do their WIPs on there or something? If they want their personal project public, they can put in the release area, no? And as for the DBPs, well, that problem is going to solve itself after a month anyway.

Straw man arguments are indeed lame.

lul this got pretty intense

As long as I'm posting I'm gonna post my opinion here too: a big part of choosing to register in a forum is seeing that people actually post there, and hiding the most active part of the forum is counterproductive in that sense, so I def think the mapping/DBP forums should be reopened to the public.
I understand that making the DBP forum open can spoil the 'what's this month's DBP gonna be' surprise for people outside the boards, and presume the rationale for closing it was something along those lines, but I don't think that's sufficient reason to close it off entirely.

As for closing off TFC, trying to protect lurkers from UNAUTHORISED OPINIONS is pretty gay.

Obviously I'm not seeing the forest for the trees here.

-complaining about transparency while using a secret private discord server.

-40oz just has a victim complex, while proceeding to rip him a new one.
I have seen the guy post something seemingly normal (IMHO) and then get insulted and attacked in a completely over-the-top manner. At the time I just thought "must be a personal history between them". Note that when this happens, one of the parties appears irrational and unhinged, and it's not 40oz.

-the most patient and tolerant forum mod I have ever seen(to the point I sometimes actually despair for the guy) is apparently a raving despotic dictator. Ok.

I keep being told there's a point here, and because there's so many different people involved, I can't get a clear and direct summary of the point actually is.



I've never let a PM go unanswered, and I engage with almost every thread posted on this forum, regardless of the quality of its content or lack thereof. I definitely feel that some of you must be getting a very impersonal version of me because you waste a lot of energy talking about me instead of to me. If you're wondering why you're being ignored, shouldn't that answer itself? Am I supposed to come find you, bust into your group like kool-aid man and correct all of you for guessing at what I'm thinking and what my goals and intentions are?

These responses, on an individual level, sound to me like they are written in a manner in which the user feels neglected, either by me or the quality of community of this forum. That yelling and arguing about this image of a person that they think I am yields an expectation that they should be getting a reaction out of me. I don't care enough about people's perception of me enough to acknowledge that. I've spent way too much of my life fighting against that endless current on doomworld. I'm not positively reinforcing that shit here.

I intend to treat everyone with the dignity that their individual personality deserves, and I do my best to be pretty loving and non-judgmental in that regard. I do this by saying I will respond to individual's questions, and saying I'm available in PMs to be spoken to directly if that's what the user is expecting. I believe this would reduce the amount of cold and impersonal feelings you're getting from me and this forum.

I say this because while I'm being told over and over that you're all being lumped together, the reality is it's not me who is doing that. You guys are actually doing much of that yourselves.



The only group I really choose to recognize is "Doomer Boards," and if you're here, you're a doomer. And if you're a doomer, you are loved. This group needed to be created on principle because the doomworld staff was banning and deleting posts by doomers for reasons unrelated to Doom. I haven't been banning people here, in fact, I've done whatever I can think of to encourage you guys to post more freely and openly here.

I participate in threads often, I make my own threads to emphasize a standard of what this forum can be used for, the music subforum, anime subforum, and off-topic forums are here for people to post personalized thoughts and opinions without being challenged by an authority figure for deviating too far into irrelevant controversial territory in the way many of us were at doomworld. I want non-members to see that, regardless of the negative perception some doomworld members get from seeing it. Because what they may perceive as a toxic cesspool of miscreints, we somehow pull together and make fucking awesome mappacks happen with the Doomer Boards Project, I want people to have to register to see how that happens.

The Doomer Boards Project is for Doomer Boards. It's in the name. You register to Doomer Boards and you're in. That's the only barrier you need to overcome. I don't feel like I should need to go great lengths to allow people to distance themselves further from the Doomer Boards group and still use the project for all the benefits this forum offers. If you're not a Doomer Boards member, you don't get to be a part of the process. That's it.

You're making excuses.
You can always quote each point, and respond to it, you don't have to lump it into one big point, but if you can't do it, I can do it for you :



These are all the main point, the issue is the hiding of the DBP dev forum, nobody is saying that having to register to participate is a bad idea.
Nevermind all the personal feelings that the majority of the board has with you, you should focus on the main shared point, because nobody wants you to respond to their insults.
PMs wouldn't make a difference, you'd probably just say "Too many people have sent me PMs, I still don't see the point."



So you're saying that lurkers should only be able to see the "toxic" side of this site, before they can see the good, do you realize that this is the worst way to get people to register here? Yeah, sure ppl will see the DBP title on our mappacks and come visit the site, but all they'll see is the "toxic" side, why would anybody think, seeing the "toxic" side, that the development threads are any better? When they can't even see them to know for sure.

I wanted to offer a semi-outsider perspective on this. While I've been a part of the site basically since the very beginning when Kontra started it, and I am a mapper, I've never participated in a DBP(I'm too slow, time constraints, etc.) So as someone who sees the DBPs more as a consumer rather than a creator, I thought I'd give a dispassionate opinion on this topic.

My understanding is that two of the boards on this site, Mapping Workshop and Doomer Boards Project, are hidden from view to all except those who register on the site. "Registration" meaning that you create a username and password and give one of your email addresses for confirmation. There appear to be two main sides to this argument(apologies if I missed something):

1. One side sees the DBP as "lure" for potential new members. They argue that lurkers see the finished product of each DBP(which by the way are really good, keep it up!), and it perhaps spurs them to register and become Doomer Boards members, thus increasing our numbers and bringing in more talent. Proponents of this current configuration argue that registration isn't particularly taxing to a lurker, so access to these hidden boards is merely a few clicks away. They also site prior success with this tactic as proof of it's merit.

2. The other side sees this as an unnecessary blockade that has little to no actual effect on new member registrations. They argue that this configuration keeps potential new members from seeing the very best Doomer Boards has to offer, while showing off the very worst part of Doomer Boards(Thy Flesh Consumed board, etc.). They claim that some new mappers may not be aware of the extent to which the DBPs are being developed in the hidden boards. And they note that it also forces current members to take an extra step and log back in if they have logged off in order to see updates to the hidden boards, which is annoying. Finally they contend that any new members gains under this system rely too much on active recruitment, when simply opening the entire site to lurkers would solve that problem and cause the site itself to act as the "lure".

Having read through and thought about both sides, I can see some strong points in each, but in the end my personal opinion is that un-hiding the currently hidden boards would probably be a superior configuration. I think the "Registration Wall" model worked to some degree in the 90's and early-mid 2000's, but nowadays I think that the majority of users won't be seduced by this tactic. I love the idea of putting the DBP threads front and center, because that's the biggest value-add that this site offers to the Doom community right now. You guys are doing some impressive stuff literally every month, not just mappers but project organizers, testers, asset contributors, etc. I think it's a shame to hide even part of that great work. And while I personally enjoy Thy Flesh Consumed and it's "toxic" charm(who knew, right?), I do think it's not the best look for drawing new blood, especially if that's a big part of what a lurker can see as he casually browses the site.

So yeah, TL;DR: I think opening the boards would be a win for us in the long run.

That's fair, but it also speaks to a larger issue.  Due to the origins of this site came and the way it has evolved, there hasn't really been a big push to establish concrete rules about how to address admins/mods.  So some people may not be aware that their tone violates rules.  Some here may view this as a place with more relaxed standards, and may be under the impression that they can speak in this manner and not be taken too seriously.  To be clear, I don't have any issue with encouraging members to be more cordial or at least avoid insulting 40oz, because as you said that's ultimately a bad way to get a point across and it's also not fair to 40oz.  But as much as it might seem like stating the obvious, why don't we put forward those ground rules on etiquette before we move in the direction of punishments/temp bans?

Think I said something, re: Rules, in the mod forum in the past. /me searches....