Re: My forum, a work in progress
@Dark (and anyone else who shits on ideas like this):
Why would you want to create a forum? Lots of reasons -- its like asking why would you want to create a mailing list. Also, I feel like we never give any of these forums a chance to even grow and actually become something interesting. All I see when something like this is brought up is people shitting on the idea and generally saying that its a bad idea and that the author should've never done it. I get that we have this forum, I get that we have all these other forums, but there is [no] reason to complain about someone creating a new forum. Its like complaining about someone creating a new MOO, a new game, a new mailing list, a new Discord.... its literally a way of stomping out creativity. Its the same as asking, "I mean, we have all the games/mailing lists/discords/whatever, why do we need any more?" Perhaps instead of attempting to destroy creativity like this, you (and others who agree with you) should instead be offering ideas and suggestions on how it could actually be different? If all you do is criticize something for existing, its not going to go anywhere and soon won't exist, or will simply vanish but continue to exist for those who want to use it. And please please stop complaining about the URLs and how they're supposedly "hard to remember", OK? My password manager has more complex URLs than this one, and so does my web browsers history.
Second, moderators/administrators being a privilege? In a well-developed forum/network/etc, this can actually be the case. If you set it up right, if you deliberately raise the barrier for entry to be a mod/admin very high and you make people actually work hard for it, then yes, it can be a form of privilege. Is it a privilege that's going to be universally recognized? Na, but you could argue the same for pretty much everything else out there on the internet.
Third, your last point: this is primarily due to the fact that, when people do this kind of thing in their early teenage years because it sounds awesome, or when they do it in general, they pick people who really aren't cut out for any of the positions of moderator/administrator (or any other position of authority in your power structure). If you select the right people (which really isn't that hard if your good at examining character) you'll find very good people who know what they're doing and do their jobs well.
I don't mean for this post to come off as rude, but this is really, really starting to get irritating. And I think I've really illustrated in this post just how this argument of "why do we need X?" just falls apart trivially.
I agree with some of your posts content -- that moderation or administration is a thankless job and such -- but if people really feel they can take that flack, if people really do want to handle it or believe they're up for that job, why stop them? If they're not up for it they'll learn that pretty damn fast. If they're unique but not up for it they'll learn that pretty fast and adapt accordingly. If they're a terrible admin/mod/whatnot the community will ensure that they're gone in one way or another eventually, because whether admins or mods like to admit it or not, the community -- he user base -- is one of the most important things that you'll have. Without a community your entire idea is pointless.
-- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
