Gwazi Magnum

Welcome Back to the Guild

Gwazi picked up his sword that he had just dropped on the ground, and he said while picking it up "If that monsters going around attacking more innocents, my conscious wouldn't let me ignore it. I'll help in any way I can". He looked at Muse quickly then and added on "Just... keep me as a guy though. I rather like the way I am currently".

Making the Guild more active

In theory I do agree that's a good idea, and it honestly does have potential to work.

But then there's also part of me that's afraid it will have the reverse effect.
Mainly because what I've noticed in both OT and Spam is people will pick those who they like the best and then began interacting with them off-site a ton (Steam, Skype etc.).
Which is great at first, people communicate more, know each other better etc. But it seems to have a side effect that eventually they find that they're are perfectly fine talking through said program, and don't even need the Guild anymore.

That or they decide that they dislike either a few members, or a general community on the Guild opposed to said friends. So they in a sense migrate off simply to not deal with the 'unwanted' people.

Now, obviously we can't do anything such as say "Not allowed to talk with Guild friends off site", nor should we do that.
Like I said earlier, it is infact a sound idea and it could work. But we would want to make sure it's not done in a way to encourage small groups/cliches to pop up and eventually cause separation/division as a result.

Plus, generally for such chats to work we need a generally active site/community to begin with.
I mean, if the site itself has a lacking community who is going to think the skype group is any better?
I will note though we do have an IRC currently, that does kind of function for the purpose you describe.
But those generally have the issue of still being Guild Moderated, even if not the forums directly so it has far less of the "Let's get to know each other off site" feeling.

+Speaking personally, last time I was in IRC one of their Mods (They were in and out too quick to even grab a name) banned me over a small joke simply because (Their words) 'They were too busy with Gay Porn to be interrupted by IRC stuff'.

Now, personal thoughts on that aside (I'd rather not turn this thread into a "X Mod is a prick!" sort of thread) it does still address the issue of it's not exactly an off-site conversation place if there are people sitting around who could ban you, may it be for personal reasons, or Guild regulation reasons. So yea, we do somewhat have your idea already. But it could be better.

So basically:

-Need an active site first, to encourage people to use off site chats
-Said off site chats need to help encourage community and involvement, not cliches and divisions
-They would need to be unconnected to Guild Moderation, or it defeats the purpose by simply becoming a Guild extension.

In the original topic I had already proposed trying to get the Admins to get around to making the contest topic that was promised.
We had several groups of people (One of which mind you, I think is gone. Seeing the complete lack of activity it's members have shown this past month) who were planning/working on said contests to help boost activity.
But needed their own section for it, because simply squeezing it into others has normally caused it to be unnoticed, cause people don't think to look for it, and therefore it misses the eyes of most the community.

Making the Guild more active

An idea started at a post here.

I'm bringing it here mainly because a Mod seemed to think replying to the majority of the OP as off topic.

So I brought it here so it could be discussed without being called off topic (pun not intended). So, assuming this stays open what do people think of the plan? Agree? Disagree? Ideas and thoughts?

Kirra's Weekly Discussion: NPCs

After this reply I'll move this to a new topic to discuss here, since apparently replying the majority of the OP is "off topic" and is to be replied to with passive aggressive sarcasm.

BlessedWrath said
My intent was not to censor any critique, hence why I have not tried to do so with you. It was to squash the second type of negativity which you pointed out. I believe that was also OP's point. A critique is the non-confrontational mention of a flaw or a presentation of a logical counter-argument, which you have provided. I don't see much hostility in that critique, thus I do not term it as the kind of negativity mentioned earlier.I respectfully submit that you may have misinterpreted the intent of the pledge to report inappropriate behavior.

It's fairly likely that I mis-intrepreted it.
But I wanted to make sure my point was clear in case I did read it right. Because if I did, then such a movement would do more harm than good.

Control VS Freedom

Yog Sothoth said
I say human beings are meant to have hierarchies every culture in history has, hell even animals. I don't believe in idealistic thinking because normally it leads to disappointment, depression and anger. Me personally I believe in monarchy and I think democracy is overrated and chaotic, humans are too stubborn to all work together. I say bring back the old ways.

The main difference between Monarchy and Democracy is that a person is put in charge due to blood, not personal merit.
The position is leader becomes a title of inheritance, something that a few lucky children 'deserve' no matter how rotten they are.
Rather than a title/responsibly that one must earn.

I will agree that Democracy is far from perfect, it has many flaws, and gives too much voice to people who either don't care or don't know crap about the world in comparison to those who do know or care about the world. But it is definitely a better system that systematically raising the most ultimately spoiled/entitled brat of a child you could ever imagine and then letting them lead.

Did anyone else get punish for laughing when they were younger?

Rarely, but it happened.
But never due to flogging (mainly because flogging was never a part of my childhood).

More Explanation based/Neutral response

It's a matter of culture, the individuals thickness of skin, and time appropriateness.

Culture basically meaning what does society see as being funny and not funny? What is ok to laugh at, and what is not ok?
A comedian making a joke about a funny encounter on the way to work? Fine.
People sitting around making rape jokes? Usually not, but you do get people who enjoy dark humor.

Thickness of skin basically being, how much can people tolerate before getting annoyed/angry or offended at the joke?
The more thick ones skin is, the more dark, brutal or personal jokes they are fine with before not liking it.
The more thin ones skin is, the less dark, brutal or personal jokes they are fine with before not liking it. (Note: If someone constantly likes to fall back on the phrase "This/That offends me" you count as someone with thin skin). So normally if someone is punishing you for you laughing, it generally means you've crossed that line of there's. And if this happens often that probably means the person you're dealing with has very thin skin, or you are making very dark jokes and/or laughing at very inappropriate moments.

Time appropriateness is basically the timing. Ever heard the phrase "We'll look back at this later and laugh?".
Normally if something (although funny) happens, the receiving person at the moment may be frantic, stressed, worked up enough etc. by the situation to not find it funny.
But later on, once removed from said situation they may be able to look back as an outsider and laugh at it, since they're no longer having to handle it.

In a (sort of) similliar line of thinking, ever heard of when people look back on something and go "I wish I had done X?", but they hadn't back then because they were too afraid/worried etc?
That are able to look at back and wish they did different, because they are now looking back at it as an outsider. They are no longer feeling the pressures that originally persuaded them not to do X.

Personal Opinion

Now, nothing I said in the early hider was me talking through my teeth.
I just simply stood back and explained the workings observationally.

But personally? Although I find what I listed early to be true, I do agree that it is a pretty moronic/idiotic way for people to behave.
Laughter is a rich, positive feeling that allows people to feel people. It is something to value and enjoy, not censor and punish.

And the vast majority of the time I find people punishing jokes, or being 'Offended' by a joke or laugh. It's people with a stick so far up their ass that they'd rather be negative, and hurt people around them than allow them to enjoy themselves. And a case of people with such poor self-management skills that they expect others to treat them as a special wallflower, rather than simply growing some balls and learning to ignore the jokes and humor they don't like.

In other words, getting offended by jokes and expecting people to stop only shows yourself as being negative and very immature.

Kirra's Weekly Discussion: NPCs

@Get the Guild Active Again stuff.

I do applaud the effort here, but there are three things I feel the need to point out.

1) A lot of the drop in activity has been cause people got busy IRL, and/or because of the lack of people.

To clarify, ever since we went from Old Guild to New Guild we lost the majority of our people. A lot of people we knew and were friends with were no longer around.
This caused people to normally be surrounded by fewer friends, which naturally leads to people leaving. So some effort should be also be put on trying to get people to get along and like each other, not simply poke your head in, speaking your own mind and then poof without engaging with others.

-Note: It also doesn't help when some people (they know who they are) do the complete opposite, by addressing/treating some of the most active members in their forum section/community as trouble makers/conflict starts simply due to a personal vendetta. Hostility like that also needs to be addressed, because stuff like that is often what draws people away from communities, not to them.

2) You kind of shot yourself in the foot when you said "but any negativity brought to this thread about it will (not maybe) be reported to the Mods".

Mainly because that wording is broad enough that it could be used to claim that any kind of critique (even in constructive criticism) is going to be reported. It essentially becomes "Hey guys, let's work together to make this community better. But don't you dare try to offer your own ideas/opinions, or you will be reported". And that's an even worse community killer than the Hostility element I addressed above, making people afraid of being banned/reported simply by trying to help/suggest their own ideas.

Now, someone coming in and simply going "This is stupid! Your idea is stupid! Your stupid! Come at me bitch!"?
Yeah, that definitely ain't Fonz cool and should be dealt with if the goal is to make a community that everyone wants to take part in.
(Personal Note: I do personally tend to prefer communities where individuals are allowed to say things exactly how they see it. No censoring or limitations. But I recognize that only works for certain kinds of people. And it's not the approach to take if you're trying to appeal to a board/wide demographic).

+By trying to reduce decision on this (the very topic/discussion meant to try to keep the guild alive) to PM's basically outright destroys community involvement.
You might have caused a boost in 1x1 PM's to you maybe, but if people see this idea and find themselves agreeing but then see they can't do it about organizing/improving that very thing you're suggesting?
Then it basically becomes redundant.

Now, I understand why people might be wary about sharing ideas, constructive criticism etc.
Because the majority of times lately when OT has done it, it has sadly reduced itself to a flame war.
And majority of the times it happened in spam it basically became "Who can we blame as the trouble maker?".
It's not something the Guild community is at the moment good at dealing with. But if you ever want anything to work (especially sitewide) you need multiple people working on it, offering advice, insights, experiences etc.
If you shy away from it simply because people won't agree 100% of the time, or because it's a bit more complex than "Hey guys! Let's do X", you're essentially shying away to what a big part of a community even is.

3) You may want to push for the Mods to make separate topics of contests again.

There have been several contests attempted to be created the past several months such as WOTM (Writer of the Month) to try to give people stuff to do, and help address the very issues you're trying to address. However, they didn't last long because when buried into other topics like OT or Roleplay Discussion most people don't find/notice them. So they would need their own section for said contests to work. This was something that Mahz had apparently promised to make several times, but never has.

So if your goal is to get the community active again, you might want to make one of your orders of business to be getting on the Mods and Admins case to get around to making those. So people can start the contests they want, and use those to help the community launch.

I had a dream

Eh, it's a minor inconvenience at best.

Welcome Back to the Guild

Kaga said :/

Spoiler Wimey Herpy Derpy

derp... :/

Welcome Back to the Guild

Kaga said
Spoiler tags! Books is behind!! Anywho,

Wibbly Wobbly Spoiler Hidey

I know :P
I just figured I should offer an alternative just in case.
It will be interesting if Doctor Who tries to take on the topic of pregnancy.

Unless if Old Doctor already did somewhere that is.