The State of the Flash Flash Revolution Address

[QreepyBORIS]

As a website, we have a problem.

Spammers have control over the chat, postwhores are unrelentingly attacking the forums, and there is no sign of either of these aspects improving. The site is rotting from the inside out.

I have been at this site for quite a long time (probably longer than you, the reader have), and I have seen its ups, its downs, and everything in between. I have seen every single change to the site that has happened in the past ~20 months. And this regression is the biggest and worst so far.

I love this site, and I do not want it to deteriorate such as it is doing now. I do not want to leave this site, but the scene is slowly getting uglier as time wears on. I am certain that I am not the only one who shares this opinion.

I do not want to link this unfortunate decline to any particular event. I do not believe that I could do that honestly, as it would probably be a coincidence. It is just a general decline in the quality of the community. Yes, all the people that we may hate on the site are still members of the community, just as the rest of us are, too. And we have to live with them, their bad habits, and everything about them.

Why, though?

There has been a lack of large-scale action by the staff to stop and prevent spamming in the chat and forums. Though I hate to slander the moderators and administration, they are not doing this part of their job (for the moderators, that is ALL their job entails). Yes, they lock threads sometimes, yes they delete posts (see: emccky), but that is just the surface of the problem. We need to remove the problem at its roots, which is not going to be an easy task.

First, the rules need to be enforced with a much, much stricter hand. The site is altogether too lenient when it comes to postwhoring, site spamming, useless questions, and general disregard for the rules. The administrators who are NOT Synthlight should also be able to hand out bans at their discretion. I realize that this is a difficult thing to simply let a staff member do, and power abuse can result if no care is taken (see: Arch0wl). But that is the only way our community will be clean from bad posters and chat-hackers.

I understand that Synthlight has no affinity for banning people (though I also understand that ~300 people are IP banned per month), as the number of people that play FFR would therefore decrease. It is my opinion, though, that the number of people banned would have little to no effect on the enormous amount of people who would still play the game, and direct their friends and family to play as well. So the point that some people need to be removed from the site stands. The gains far outweigh the consequences.
Now, that idea might bother some. I am certain that there are people who would view that as elitist. Eliminating members who break the rules of the forums, chat, or game is not elitist. Tell me, why is it that every developed country has a highly organized police force? It is so the people who detract from society are put to justice. It is that simple; the mods simply need to act stricter.

How many warnings does a member of FFR get before they are banned? I would put it somewhere around five. That seems awfully lenient to me; do you think that someone's posting habits would suddenly improve if you needed to give them that many warnings in the first place? I would venture a guess: no. The warning system needs to be a little less kind to people who break the rules.

Not to mention, how many people out of the people who break the rules even get warnings? Seems to me like only a few have ever. That needs to be improved upon, as well.
I concede, though, the amount of people that frequent this site would make that a rather unwieldy chore for the current mod team. The moderator team ought to be expanded. I can name, right now, several people (though Synth might be dubious about the idea of them being moderators or administrators) who would be right for the job. Kilga could. Moogy could (I am not kidding). Toph (most of you don't know him, though) could. Etcetera.

These things need to improve, and I think things are looking up for the possibility of their improvement. We would just have to act on all of the things, and in all likelihood even more, that I mentioned above. It could be an extremely time-consuming or difficult task, but the necessity for improvement is there, and we must act on it.

I would love to hear any suggestions that you, all of the other users, have on this issue. I feel it is paramount to the quality of FFR's community.

[emccky]

I agree.. I've stopped postwhoring though XD so what's that, about half of the postwhoring of FFR gone away? that's a good thing.

[CypherToorima]

Well...I will do my part.

Not post-whore as much (and keep it all in the garbage bin).

Also, keep the flaming to...well...no flaming.

[jazzmosis]

Wasn't this just complained about a month ago? Really all the forums and chat needs are more moderators (obviously, they have to be responsible enough to not abuse their powers.) With the site ballooning so much, and a team of 20 or so mods for 10K+ active posters (or near it), what do you expect? They're not omnipotent, and they don't excusively sit around FFR waiting for something to happen. They don't get paid, they're just doing it because the admin thought they could based on their past record. And since alot of posters are not mature enough to handle the responsibility of modding, the staff numbers would be very limited.

You take what you can get, but as Synth said last time.. it's really about who's got more fight in them?

I mean, it'd be easy to add mods and that would solve most of the short term problems but the question lies is who is responsible enough to handle it?

[flypie743]

I completely agree QB. I think that the moderators need to be much stricter. I am sorry mods, but one topic in the staff forum full of warnings is just sitting there not doing anything. You guys need to crack down on that list of people (alphabatized thx to chardish lollerkittens).

I also agree that we need more mods. With the number of n00bs that come in and make topics (ddrmaster in the Dance Dance Revolution forum) come in and don't follow the rules and don't read the stickys, etc.

You may think that I don't know enough since I have a 2004 join date, but I have really been involved with FFR since Dec. 2003 when Soccr joined and started working on R2.

This community needs to shape up and quit the postwhoring. I am sorry but a0.com is a perfect example of this. Sometimes posting liek this n bein funne is OK. But other times it isn't. a0's community is awesome. They don't take everything seriously and it is just a great place. Arch knows when to crack down and when not to.

I am glad you made this adress Qreepy, very appropriate.

[QreepyBORIS]

I already, said something alot like that, Jazz. More mods ARE needed, though. The current Admins need the power to ban users who detract from the community. Since very few users fight the bans, it is NOT about who has more fight lef.t And since there would be more than just one or two people doing the banning, well, we would have a whole lot more fight than we do now.

Although the short term problems are only short term, they still need to be solved, They are problems, after all.

On Arch's site, for example, postwhoring is much less otlerated than it is here. That alone made his forums very, very clean. Not only that, he enforced it, along with his mod team. Though his site is smaller, a larger scale thing like that could work here, as well.

Point being, we need to bloody try something!

[Kilgamayan]

This forums needs more discipline. Sadly, the only staff member who feels that way is Spook and he doesn't do much in the way of moderating them.

The chat either needs to be fixed really soon or axed entirely until it can be improved.

[emccky]

your one of the main problems of this site, flypie. You act as if you don't do anything wrong. I know I am also a problem of this forum, but now I am changing my ways of posting. Also, having 239428932 stickies at the top of forums and saying YOU NEED TO READ THE STICKIES BEFORE POSTING isn't really fair, kids shouldn't need to read 20 or so pages of crap before they can post.

[flypie743]

I don't think the FFR Chat can be helped. The state of that chat is horrible. There are not even words to descirbe it's horribleness. It needs to be IRC based. Yes, I know, there are no mics or webcams but do that on MSN if you really feel the need. The Chat makes this site look very unprofessional. There are so many things that would need to be done to the chat to make it better: Mods being able to temp-ban people until a site admin can take it from there, NO FRICKIN EMOTICONS, Not being able to change the size of your color, etc.

[QreepyBORIS]

Emc, although I cannot deny your views, I would rather keep this thread mostly flame-free.

This is another problem we have. :P


Please, flypie, do not respond to that post....


And regarding the Garbage Bin, I do not know why it is there. It ENCOURAGES postwhoring and the like. People disregard that they are in, say, Chit Chat, and post a bunch of shit in it while they think it is really okay.


Also, note how no more than like 200 people have read LD's rule threads. That, obviously, is not very good, eh?

[emccky]

I agree. The chat is a horrible place to go to. It brings down the image of FFR as a whole.. It needs to be destroyed.

[flypie743]

Originally Posted by emccky

your one of the main problems of this site, flypie. You act as if you don't do anything wrong. I know I am also a problem of this forum, but now I am changing my ways of posting. Also, having 239428932 stickies at the top of forums and saying YOU NEED TO READ THE STICKIES BEFORE POSTING isn't really fair, kids shouldn't need to read 20 or so pages of crap before they can post.

Everyone is part of the problem. When did I say I did nothing wrong?

Yes, the member should have to read the stickies. How annoying is it when people post 100 times how multiplayer is down when there is a sticky at the top of the forum. It is also in the rules and it should be done.

There are maybe 5 stickies tops in each forum, and rougly 2 announcements. It isn't that much to ask to read over them before you post.

EDIT: Sorry Qreepy, I just saw this:

Please, flypie, do not respond to that post....

I tried to keep what I said as flame-free as possible.

[QreepyBORIS]

It reduces FFR's Image, sure, but also keep in mind how many people it entices.

I think the programming in it just needs to be improved. I do not care how difficult it is to do that, there need to be blocking functions, chatbans, etcetera. And disable the emoticons. They are hella fucking annoying.

[flypie743]

Also, note how no more than like 200 people have read LD's rule threads. That, obviously, is not very good, eh?

It's even more sad when you look at how many people have looked at "Post Your Picture Thread" -_-

[BluE_MeaniE]

Well, to me, it just seems like this is what happens when a site or forum gets this big.

There are just so many people, and you can only do so much to stop postwhoring and whatnot.
Sure, adding mods would be great, but I really only see it doing so much.
You'd then just have a forum of strict rules which would be orderly. That'd be good, I guess. That's what you all want.

But what I really think is necessary for a good forum is quality members, not just order.

But hey, that's just what I think, and I'm not a very big member of the community, anyways.

EDIT:
Dah! Like twelve posts while I was typing this. Darn.

[Kilgamayan]

Originally Posted by BluE_MeaniE

But what I really think is necessary for a good forum is quality members, not just order.

Order cracks down on the stupidasses and generates a forum of quality members.

[aleco]

Yup. I have noticed how bad this place is getting. I remember a long time ago when stuff was better. I think we should make a whole new system of rules and stuff. And we should get rid of the chat, it does like nothing at all. I think we should have some system like where you have to agree to a whole thing of supreme laws before you join. Then when nobody reads it it will be their own fault. We should have like a system where there are different levels of users. By being a good user you can get more priviliges and stuff. With the forum being flooded by noobs (how come there is almost never any intelligent ones), we do need more to keep the quality up.

[jazzmosis]

I disagree with disposing of the chat.. sure, there's alot of idiots roaming, but it's a good place to talk to a bunch of people without getting swarmed on MSN/AIM/ICQ/whatever.. and the cam is a big reason alot of people go.. that's not incredibly common on alot of sites that offer chats..

It's a problem, but if you don't like it, don't go. FFR doesn't have some huge high-class standard to live up to.. it's a PG-13 site.

[QreepyBORIS]

Originally Posted by jazzmosis

...it's a PG-13 site.

And most of the users have ages accordingly.

'Course, there is neither anything wrong with that, nor anything we could do if it were.

[hydrojakep]

Here's what i have to say.

First of all:
The chat

Wasnt jasonkey making a new one for the site?

Now to the bigger problem. These forums are out of hand. I remember when i joined, i was one of the more "annoying" people of this site. If i just joined today, and made all the same posts, i wouldnt be. Instead of warnings, there should be temp bans. I personally think that temp bans are the best way to go for the problem.

Offense 1: warning
Offense 2: Temp ban
Offense 3: Longer Temp ban
etc until IP ban.
Also, spamming should not get past temp ban level. Mods should contact the people outside of ffr (email, aim, msn) and give them a warning there.

Now, mods.

I can think of a list of people that would make good mods.
There are probobly more, but maybe synth, and the other admins should let the public decide. Not on popularity, but on responsibility on how they post.
FFR, or other sites.

And about the stickies.

Make ONE big topic of the stickies summerized for the site.

EX:

Rules
Dont double post
Dont post shock sites
etc

Something quick, as a general outline.

That's what i think.