Posted 01 April 2010 - 10:55 PM
- In Defense of Lost Causes
-
- Posts: 3773
- Joined: 06-February 05
- Gender:Female
- Location:SD/LA/SF
- Project:Staying woke
- Wiki edits:36,091
Oh, ye of little faith.
I didn't realize taking away the oh-so-precious GSD for a day and making a fake ragepost would incite so much fucking rage in you all. In one way, that actually kind of makes me happy—it proves that, for both the more and ...less mature members here, you guys really do care about this community. But c'mon. Check the calendar. Check all the facts you know. Check yourself before you disrespect yourself. I even referenced anal bleeding, ffs. Some of you are old enough to pick up on that shit. :|
And despite the panicked e-mails and IMs I received, the rumor-monging floating around the Internets, the transformation of this forum to the Sonic Retro Brick Shitting Warehouse and being called a crazy bitch with Asperger's and worse today, I care about you all too. <3
So, let's break down what's going on and hopefully some of you can get your bowels a little firmer.
Sega Retro: Not a joke!
I know, I know. It's hard to believe, but uh, the site is here to stay and was in the works for quite some time. In fact, if not for our hacking and some issues we had launching our independent server, it would have probably been unveiled earlier. The need for enough space to undergo a project this ambitious was a major catalyst in getting us to get our own server and it's fully realistic that we may have to upgrade our hard drives in a year or so if this goes as we've projected.
HOWEVER THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT SONIC RETRO IS GOING ANYWHERE OK JESUS YOU GUYS
The basic idea is that Sega Retro will act as a partner to Sonic Retro, not the other way around. This is much in the same way that Sonic 2 Beta has in the past (and would be if we could sort out domain issues, but that's a whole other story.) How any of you could think that I would alienate 90 percent of this userbase is amazing to me. I've learned from those who made that mistake in the past.
In fact, this really is going to help out Sonic Retro in several ways that ensure our long-term growth and stability.
One of the biggest issues we've had with Retro's wiki over the years is that it simply wasn't set up to deal with the growth to 4,200 articles we had before today. Back in 2004, my policy was "lol just put it up," and so we got a lot of shit put up. I'm happy about that, but the issue comes when we have articles like Typing of the Dead and the Super NES and Segata Sanshiro and I have people telling me "I have no idea how to navigate this!"
We didn't either, really. By moving articles that are only tangentially related to Sonic at best to their own wiki, we not only give people the opportunity to seriously expand and write on these subjects, but Sonic Retro becomes much leaner and manageable. You'll soon see the effect of this, as this will allow for a major overhaul and restructure of articles to make the site more user-friendly and navigable. Moreover, because the two wikis are linked and interoperable, we haven't lost any information at all—just expanded our potential subject coverage by magnitudes. We haven't fully figured out a secure way to make logins and cookies share across two domains, but fixing this issue is definitely in the works.
This is expansion is a big deal, because Sega Retro will not have a separate forum or a divided community. They'll be coming here, as we plan to accommodate users from the larger Sega community on this board. Though nothing solid is planned yet in terms of forum restructuring—mostly because we don't know where demand is going to be, and if I do something like make a Sega Technical Discussion board there will be like three people left in the regular TD talking about Brawl textures and hacking PSP firmwares.
However, the Retro community will benefit from bringing in folks who hack on different series or have an extensive knowledge of Sega pinball games or have grown tired of Sonic but still want to stick around and do what they're interested in or maybe have been wanting to sign up for us but didn't think they had a place before now.
To those folks: you do.
I'm open to hearing what you all think in terms of any sort of forum re-arrangement, but I don't think we'll be enacting anything for a while at least.
OK that's all fine and good but why did you have to fuck up my Sonic Retro WHY SS WHY
Because of that very attitude. It forced you to step back and think for a day. Jesus Christ. Guys, let's get something straight here: Sonic 4 is not going away. The Member's Lounge isn't going away. Sonic 2 HD isn't going away. It's also clear that you guys, for better or worse, don't want to go away, either. So I think this is a good time to point out that all this rage and hate and stupidity going on over the past few months have got to stop if we all want to not be at each other's throats.
I know many of you are on the newer side of things, especially post-S4, and don't know the tradition of this board. It's been a hard-won peace that we've made here; we had to have two entire member cleanouts and nazimod to get where we were and...guys, I just don't want to do that again. I only put on the tough-as-nails persona because that seems to be the only thing some people respond to and it's wearing out not only me, but the rest of the staff.
You don't have to agree or accept everyone's opinions, but you do need to respect them and not be a dick. You need to remember that "yeah this sucks" is basically a spammy reply, or going "yeah I agree with this person" is pointless if you don't elaborate. You need to realize that saying "THIS HAS GREEN EYES SO I'm AUTOMATICALLY HATING THIS GAME" is not enough; there can be reasons to hate a modern aesthetic, but you better be prepared to back that up. So, when I say these things over and over in warnings in a topic and making major announcements and pulling people aside on a personal basis and saying things and nothing changes, you can understand why I might go a bit batty.
Now, I know a few of you have accused the staff of participating in these same behaviors. And you know what? You're right. See, when you can skip over all the underside ugliness as a member, it's different. All of the folks on staff here at one level or another have to tackle the stupidity, rudeness and arrogance of unruly people with no reward and often criticism for doing so. We have to deal with technical breakdowns, unexpected glitches and time-crunch emergencies and often you as a member won't notice it because we're working on it that fast. Every single one of us have commitments and real-life frustrations just like the rest of you. Despite what a couple of wingnuts will tell you, no one here's getting paid or even a pat on the back most of the time. So I hope you can understand that sometimes, yes, we lash out in frustration or annoyance. Is it right? No. However, we are all human and all I can say is that I, at least, try to keep it to a minimum.
This new development stands as a new watershed moment for this community, and I hope that you all are as willing to invest in this new endeavor as we have been. Making a stronger community benefits everyone.
So, tl;dr:
Sega Retro is real. We'll continue to support it. Sonic Retro is going nowhere. We'll continue to support it. Stop acting like dickfaces to each other.
Love, SS.
I didn't realize taking away the oh-so-precious GSD for a day and making a fake ragepost would incite so much fucking rage in you all. In one way, that actually kind of makes me happy—it proves that, for both the more and ...less mature members here, you guys really do care about this community. But c'mon. Check the calendar. Check all the facts you know. Check yourself before you disrespect yourself. I even referenced anal bleeding, ffs. Some of you are old enough to pick up on that shit. :|
And despite the panicked e-mails and IMs I received, the rumor-monging floating around the Internets, the transformation of this forum to the Sonic Retro Brick Shitting Warehouse and being called a crazy bitch with Asperger's and worse today, I care about you all too. <3
So, let's break down what's going on and hopefully some of you can get your bowels a little firmer.
Sega Retro: Not a joke!
I know, I know. It's hard to believe, but uh, the site is here to stay and was in the works for quite some time. In fact, if not for our hacking and some issues we had launching our independent server, it would have probably been unveiled earlier. The need for enough space to undergo a project this ambitious was a major catalyst in getting us to get our own server and it's fully realistic that we may have to upgrade our hard drives in a year or so if this goes as we've projected.
HOWEVER THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT SONIC RETRO IS GOING ANYWHERE OK JESUS YOU GUYS
The basic idea is that Sega Retro will act as a partner to Sonic Retro, not the other way around. This is much in the same way that Sonic 2 Beta has in the past (and would be if we could sort out domain issues, but that's a whole other story.) How any of you could think that I would alienate 90 percent of this userbase is amazing to me. I've learned from those who made that mistake in the past.
In fact, this really is going to help out Sonic Retro in several ways that ensure our long-term growth and stability.One of the biggest issues we've had with Retro's wiki over the years is that it simply wasn't set up to deal with the growth to 4,200 articles we had before today. Back in 2004, my policy was "lol just put it up," and so we got a lot of shit put up. I'm happy about that, but the issue comes when we have articles like Typing of the Dead and the Super NES and Segata Sanshiro and I have people telling me "I have no idea how to navigate this!"
We didn't either, really. By moving articles that are only tangentially related to Sonic at best to their own wiki, we not only give people the opportunity to seriously expand and write on these subjects, but Sonic Retro becomes much leaner and manageable. You'll soon see the effect of this, as this will allow for a major overhaul and restructure of articles to make the site more user-friendly and navigable. Moreover, because the two wikis are linked and interoperable, we haven't lost any information at all—just expanded our potential subject coverage by magnitudes. We haven't fully figured out a secure way to make logins and cookies share across two domains, but fixing this issue is definitely in the works.
This is expansion is a big deal, because Sega Retro will not have a separate forum or a divided community. They'll be coming here, as we plan to accommodate users from the larger Sega community on this board. Though nothing solid is planned yet in terms of forum restructuring—mostly because we don't know where demand is going to be, and if I do something like make a Sega Technical Discussion board there will be like three people left in the regular TD talking about Brawl textures and hacking PSP firmwares.
However, the Retro community will benefit from bringing in folks who hack on different series or have an extensive knowledge of Sega pinball games or have grown tired of Sonic but still want to stick around and do what they're interested in or maybe have been wanting to sign up for us but didn't think they had a place before now.To those folks: you do.
I'm open to hearing what you all think in terms of any sort of forum re-arrangement, but I don't think we'll be enacting anything for a while at least.
OK that's all fine and good but why did you have to fuck up my Sonic Retro WHY SS WHY
Because of that very attitude. It forced you to step back and think for a day. Jesus Christ. Guys, let's get something straight here: Sonic 4 is not going away. The Member's Lounge isn't going away. Sonic 2 HD isn't going away. It's also clear that you guys, for better or worse, don't want to go away, either. So I think this is a good time to point out that all this rage and hate and stupidity going on over the past few months have got to stop if we all want to not be at each other's throats.
I know many of you are on the newer side of things, especially post-S4, and don't know the tradition of this board. It's been a hard-won peace that we've made here; we had to have two entire member cleanouts and nazimod to get where we were and...guys, I just don't want to do that again. I only put on the tough-as-nails persona because that seems to be the only thing some people respond to and it's wearing out not only me, but the rest of the staff.
You don't have to agree or accept everyone's opinions, but you do need to respect them and not be a dick. You need to remember that "yeah this sucks" is basically a spammy reply, or going "yeah I agree with this person" is pointless if you don't elaborate. You need to realize that saying "THIS HAS GREEN EYES SO I'm AUTOMATICALLY HATING THIS GAME" is not enough; there can be reasons to hate a modern aesthetic, but you better be prepared to back that up. So, when I say these things over and over in warnings in a topic and making major announcements and pulling people aside on a personal basis and saying things and nothing changes, you can understand why I might go a bit batty.
Now, I know a few of you have accused the staff of participating in these same behaviors. And you know what? You're right. See, when you can skip over all the underside ugliness as a member, it's different. All of the folks on staff here at one level or another have to tackle the stupidity, rudeness and arrogance of unruly people with no reward and often criticism for doing so. We have to deal with technical breakdowns, unexpected glitches and time-crunch emergencies and often you as a member won't notice it because we're working on it that fast. Every single one of us have commitments and real-life frustrations just like the rest of you. Despite what a couple of wingnuts will tell you, no one here's getting paid or even a pat on the back most of the time. So I hope you can understand that sometimes, yes, we lash out in frustration or annoyance. Is it right? No. However, we are all human and all I can say is that I, at least, try to keep it to a minimum.
This new development stands as a new watershed moment for this community, and I hope that you all are as willing to invest in this new endeavor as we have been. Making a stronger community benefits everyone.
So, tl;dr:
Sega Retro is real. We'll continue to support it. Sonic Retro is going nowhere. We'll continue to support it. Stop acting like dickfaces to each other.
Love, SS.
