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We're all in a leaking ship, and it's about time we fixed it.


Pinkie Pie

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Let me first say that I'm not pointing fingers, or starting this to cause dramatics.   I know that we're all too good at doing that, but I beg for civility with this topic.  That being said, there are some serious discussions the board as a whole needs to have that I'm not sure many are willing to start. 


  • Firstly, what's going to happen to the forum when Koby's baby is born?  

I can't be the only one thinking about this. I just know that I can't be. But nothing happening lately points to what's going to happen in the inevitable future with this place, and that's worrisome.

  • What can we as regular members do to make the forum seem more welcoming to newbies?

When was the last time you spoke to a new member? How many new members have stuck around after their 15 posts have been done and actually attempted to integrate themselves into the forum? These are things we need to think about. As it is now, the forum seems cold, with little sense of community. I've been on forums bigger than this that have a much closer knit feel. There's no excuse, none at all, for this forum to not have the same feeling. I just don't understand why people are okay with being on a forum where people don't talk to each other.

I know these aren't all the things that concern the board that should be spoken about, but those are the things that bother /me/ the most. No one else seems willing to rock the boat, but we all can make Kametsu a better place to be. I can only speak for myself, but Kametsu is my internet home and I want to do everything I can do to make it a memorable place for myself /and/ others.

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So someone finally spoke up about this, I didnt simply because it'll likely get on someones nerves cause that's what some people around here are like. I agree with what you're saying and I too want answers on the first matter. For the second I'd have to say ohhh NEVER! No one spoke to me when I was a newbie either, I had to post my ass of before someone started to, so basically had to prove I was worthy of staying around instead of being ignored like I think most of us do to the 15 posting newbies who keep saying this place is great but never return for anything but downloads.... if at all.


 


The forum has never seemed close to me, I mean yeah some people know one another well enough it seems but there's no sense of a community here, we all have our little circles we run in and people we hate on here it seems. No ones really willing to give another a chance, wether they're a newbie or been here for years.


 


Edit: This is my observation and I was being honest, so if you plan to be an asshat about anything I've said then my words are most likely directed AT YOU!


Edited by Dark_Angel13
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Augh ikr? When I was new, no one even greeted me. I pretty much stapled myself to the chatbox and even then it took months, actual /months/ before I could even consider anyone a friend here, and even now, I can't say that I have many friends here even after coming for a little over two years. I don't see why it even has to be like that, tbh. Sure it's a big forum and people will fall through the cracks, but no one saying /anything/ to anyone new? That should rub everyone the wrong way.

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Amen to this. To your first point, honestly we have no way of knowing since Koby hasn't been on lately. I personally doubt that Koby will immediately shut down the forums the instant that he has a child. Even in that case, it is possible that someone else could take ownership of Kametsu (and the bills involved). Still, nothing we can really do about this until we find out whats happening.


 


As to your second point, the only thing that we can really do is be more active. I typically will scan all new posts since my last login, and I will read all that aren't in the downloads sections or the "lets spam 1-5 words so we can get our 15 post" threads. We do have some people that have stuck around, and personally I would be ok if only 1 in 30 people who join actually decide to contribute past their 15 posts. If we want more people to come in and stay, we just need more activity. Activity begets activity, which makes a healthy forum.


 


Just as an aside, the place that really got me into the forums was the Forum Games. Post a +1 and a little comment, and in 10 minutes or less you would get a reply. Me and Dan Den got to know each other well since we rampaged through the Good vs Evil thread against those goodies, and people like Job, Dae, and Hawk helped so we could chat and reach each 1000 landmark. If people keep on posting, and actually say something interesting per post, then it will help resurrect the forum.


 


Sure it's a big forum and people will fall through the cracks, but no one saying /anything/ to anyone new?

 


Its discouraging when you do post in the Seed Hallway and never get a response, then you never see the person again. I did post there for awhile, but eventually gave up in disgust since I was basically posting the same thing each time and never getting a response back.


Edited by lemmingllama
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I greet everyone on here, one of the few people who does that and I try to be welcoming because I got well a short welcoming then silence from people lol. I'm coming up on a year of being here and I've posted well over a lot of people who have been here much longer, the forum is alive, just needs a sense of community and I think some people need to actually WANT to come here, not just come here to see who bitched about who or who replied to their status being a fuckwit etc.


 


On the matter of friends here my profile shows me with probably 20 friends, maybe less maybe a little more but I'd have to say only a handful of them I feel close to, one of which is now my best friend actually so there are nice people here, although they seem quite rare


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I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments above.


 


I'm going to repost some stuff I've said in private. It probably looks weird out of context, but this has been on my mind since at least February, so I'm right there with you guys.


 


I don't know if people know this, but I put a lot of thought and consideration when it comes to this forum. This place is very near and dear to my heart, and it is frustrating when I feel unwelcome in the community, and it breaks my heart when I hear people say they don't feel welcome. It's one thing for me to feel like shit and feel terrible, but I hate knowing that other people feel that way and I'm too fucking powerless to do anything about it.


 


I was gonna wait to talk about this until the meeting, but it's getting to the point where I think we need to start addressing this now and come up with a game plan. Our community is literally at stake.



 


People have come to me expressing their discomfort on the forum, that they don't feel welcome or people don't care about them. I've been informed of people who have left because of this and notified by people who have expressed this desire themselves. We also have public admissions of these feelings on statuses and scattered throughout discussion threads.


 


And I personally have felt unwelcome at the forum, so it's especially problematic to me that others feel this way!


 


So, we have a few things to tackle.


  • Can we identify any probable sources of this unwelcome feeling?
  • If so, how can we deal with these sources?
  • Is there anything we can do to improve community feeling, to make this forum a safe place for people to participate?
[some stuff on the Farplane, not really important]

 


New Users


 


I don't have a read on new users and how they feel (they don't approach me as often as more established users do), but because we don't have a lot of ways to reach them to inform them of certain rules (PM is disabled for new users; I don't know if they acknowledge profile status messages), it might be frustrating for both staff and the new users when users generate material that needs to be moderated.


 


We need a way to reach out to them and make them feel welcome while making sure they understand forum protocol.


 


===


 


Regular Users


 


As far as more regular users, I think part of it might be lack of regular discussion. When you come in every day and you see no one has responded to your thread or post, it easily feels like people are ignoring you. I know people have expressed the sentiment they think the forum is only for serious discussion, that only debates and long winded posts are accepted. That is a mindset we should strive to change.


 


While not a chatroom, casual conversation and discussions have just as much place here as in depth analyses of entertainment media does. I've strummed up some activity by dredging up a few older threads that looked interesting and keeping conversation going, but I know I'm only one person and people are probably tired of seeing my avatar, haha.


 


===


 


User Interaction


 


I always try to be approachable and amiable with users, but I know sometimes I can be short and condescending, or appear that way when I don't intend to be. It's something I try to be cognizant of, even if I fail at it. I just want others to also be aware of how one come across to users and not to automatically treat them like they're idiots or assholes. They're just regular people and deserve to be treated with respect, regardless of how long they've been here. Except the bots and advertisers.


 


If you can think of any problematic users who may be contributing to this unwelcoming atmosphere, please let us know.


 


[...]


 


The users seeking downloads may have kept the forum afloat activity-wise before, and may continue to do so now, but because most of them appear not to be interested in the community itself, it is problematic and may be a factor in people not feeling welcome. It does seem to be a bit of a vicious cycle, because these users seeking the downloads may notice that others don't care about the community and decide not to care themselves, thus contributing to the lack of community feeling.


 


The problem doesn't lie only with new users not receiving a proper welcome or with leechers spamming the place, but with established members who feel this is a hostile/unwelcoming environment. People seem to have a good eye for which threads likely contain legit discussion and which ones are more likely to be ignored, so while not ideal, people do have an idea of how to navigate the forum. I suspect new users may not experience this hostility immediately, since the SeeD Hallway is pretty tame, all things considered, and they haven't been around long enough for bad feelings to build.


 


I don't want to name names unless absolutely necessary for context--one user had joined in Spring 2012 and left not too long ago because they felt unwelcome in the community. This was not intimated to me directly, but through another user. Another user who joined about the same time in 2012 has stated they were considering leaving. And since it's already out there in the open, Dreamcastor has been here for a little over a year and she expressed these feelings earlier this month. Any other issues of hers notwithstanding, the forum should be a place where people feel safe and welcome.


 


In short, people who have been here for a while and have established themselves as part of the community are feeling like they actually haven't. This is troubling to me. And this is why I asked if anyone has any leads on what could be happening, if it is just a lack of activity/content or if there is something deeper happening.


 


I don't know how many others there are that feel this way or have left because of it since I don't talk to literally everyone, but considering we often see regular activity from some users and then never again, it worries me to think that it may not just be life/work/school taking precedence over an Internet forum, but because they don't feel like it's worth continuing to visit.


 


My concerns lie not with the frequency of activity, but with the atmosphere. Activity can contribute to it--people may look at an area that hasn't been posted in a lot and may feel no one will listen to them, and they can certainly feel left out if they've posted a thread and people are participating in every thread except theirs--but I think it goes deeper than how many posts are made daily on the forum.


 


The primary reason I posted this is because established users, people who have been here for a year or more, feel unwelcome. Since I don't exactly have a read on new users, I don't know if they are receiving a proper welcome or not or if they feel the atmosphere is hostile--all I know is sometimes they come back to their intro threads and thank us, haha. It's possible that because they're new, they just haven't had time to let bad feelings settle in and haven't interacted with everyone on the forum yet.


 


Haha, I can definitely see that. I don't know if people are content with the staff's presence in the community. I suppose we could just ask, lul. I know some users prefer a more behind the scenes staff, which is never going to happen because being up in people's grill is how I live (on the forum). #YOLO


 


I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that it isn't a single activating event that made them think, "I want to leave the forum". I've asked when informed of these desires and I got some nebulous responses, which to me says they've been feeling this way for a while. I don't think it's something as simple as reporting content or another user, because they do send in reports and inform us of infractions. It's a bit harder to send in a report that says, "Something about this place has been making me feel unwelcome and I don't like it".


 


As I've mentioned, I have felt this way before. My return to the community was uncomfortable and I did not feel like I was welcome. I always figured it was specific to me, because I've been a member here for a few years and have floated in and out during major changes in my life, so maybe people thought I would try to throw around my "status" as a show of force. I tried to find a place through the chatbox, but it didn't feel right. I felt like I had to speak carefully around everyone because I wasn't part of the clique. The forum itself was a bit difficult because I was trying to respond to people who were abandoning posts for the downloads. I've since made peace with that reality, but it was extraordinarily frustrating in the beginning to see discussions that just went, "I like anime ye ye", "anime 4eva", "cartoonz sux anime rox" for dozens of pages.


 


While I don't think we should coddle our users or play favourites, we should definitely show them respect and consideration. It'd fine if it was just me that has felt this way, but it's not. So though I have the knowledge that people have felt unwelcome and uncomfortable in the community, I don't have the full context of what they're feeling, either because they don't know how to explain it or because they don't want to. That's why I wanted to know if anyone has any leads, if they've noticed anything that might be a contributing factor.


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You're not wrong. Thinking about it, since I've joined I don't remember talking to a new-er member. Long term, anyway. I guess having a tight-knit community has it's downfalls as well.

Well, I don't know. It might be hard to join this forum, but that's a community. You have to be brave and talk to them for it to start. Like, if someone pops into a thread I stay in I'll talk, but there's nothing else we can do. (Unless we message them, which is a little creepy if they haven't even posted or anything.)

An idea is having more generic, 'get to know you threads'. For example. "WHERE ARE YOU FROM?!" - where people just do a single post to warm themselves into the community.

./
Oops, Dark has posted. *reads*

I don't know, like. I do like this community, to be honest. We've got papa-koby. onee-chan E.O. (aka the pms dragon) forgive me, I still laugh when I remember that sig. Even you, and DC, Loki, Rune, lolrawr, and the whole works. Maybe it's because I'm a little introverted, and won't post affectionately(?) But I quite like the community, albeit small, it's fun.

Regarding the second section, again. I don't quite remember what happened with my-coming. I posted an intro, about wanting to marry Kametsu, I felt welcomed. Had a little convo with Sakura DC about making graphics. (I got back into it, thanks DC!) Later, I went MIA for a while, came back and BOOM. I still felt like a member. Each to their own, but initiative needs to be shown on both sides. I can't think of what else we can do, actively pursuing newbies can be off-putting for them. As I said before, all I can think of are more 'get to know you threads', haha.

I'm not saying this is an issue though, it's not like I'm disregarding anyones opinion. Just applying my own.

./
Oopsx2 Dark/Lemming posted. I'll get to reading it now. (damn, I need to learn how to post faster)

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Since we are discussing people feeling unwelcome who are active users, part of why I went on hiatus from August to January/February was that there just werent threads that I was actually interested in posting in, and I had already posted in every since thread that interested me. I was also busy with life, but at the same time it was also that it wasn't worth coming in and reading all the new posts, and only finding a single thing to reply to that wasnt a forum games thread.


 


Of course, I may have different problems than others due to how many posts I have. If we include my forum games and seed hallway posts, I probably have close to 10,000 posts.


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Ah feeling welcome here is definitely a hot button issue with this and I think that's why a lot of people left the forums and haven't come back or come back 6 months later to see if stuff has changed only to find it hasnt and they leave again. A few members who I know have left are CoffeeNik who was a good guy and he's told me in private that he just doesnt wanna be around anymore because of how the forum is.


 


Another is TheWelshPaddy or w.e his name was, he was back from somewhere for a bit, posted a bit, tried to get back into it all and I've never seen him post once since that, it's a shame that old members who have left don't feel welcome even when they return here. Yes it could just be life getting in the way but it does for us all so unless its really serious you make time for this place, our internet home


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I too gave up on the SeeD Hallway for a time because I wasn't receiving a lot of responses in kind, but went back because I don't like being seen as a distant or uncaring admin. That has never been my style.


 


I'm all for people chatting and hanging out more often on the forum. I like shooting the breeze with people and talking about peeing in the shower.


 


I genuinely like and care about most of the people here. There's just been such an air of negativity on this forum for so long it's been suffocating. I'm stupidly optimistic and thick-headed so I've been trying to power through it, but it's honestly very draining to come here and feel like people hate that I even exist on this forum.


 


I really think the forum could use a makeover. We have a lot of subfora that are rarely used and it just feels cluttered. Rearrange some stuff and give them some fresh descriptions and it might air out some of the stuffiness.


 


But most importantly we definitely need to figure out the root of this unwelcome feeling and why people don't think the forum is worth returning to. Obviously reaching out to those who have left already may not happen, but considering it's a feeling a lot of us have experienced...


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I mean, Kametsu isn't even a place I can link my own friends to anymore. Yes, I've brought a couple over, but they posted around out of friendly obligation, and then bailed. Hell, when I joined, it was because a friend of mine scouted this place out beforehand so both of us would have a new internet home, and he left almost two years ago because of dramatics with certain people and just not feeling welcome anymore. And I don't even think I could get them to come back because the experience was that negative. Maybe I was a glutton for rejection, maybe I just really needed a new place to be. But I powered through it and /actual years later/ I still feel unwelcome sometimes.

You guys want an example of why things will never change? Just look at the post above me. It's that kind of attitude that halts any and all progression. We have to find the passion again, not just lament its disappearance! Not just blame and point fingers!

I'm sorry but I don't see the point in being here if you don't have interest?

Edited by Pinkie Pie
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ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! i am locking this thread while the staff and I discuss whats going to happen! and i swear to god if this spills over into the other parts of the forum i will start handing out temp bans!


 


alright now this is how its going to go i am not handing out any punishments yet but koby will be looking at it and he will decide what will happen


 


but again i swear to fucking god if this fighting starts up again i will hand out IMMEDIATE bans no questions asked this is a constructive thread not a cluster of fighting and flaming!

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A Kametsu Youtube channel would be cool. We could have people upload LPs and whatever to it. I don't really travel in Youtube circles too much because the community is a little...  but maybe we could disable comments on Youtube? We'd still have the forum so people can talk about it, not to mention we can better vet discussions that way.


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Ya! Haha. Really, I was more hinting at just some exposure to other sites. Like, take the Kametsu Informer, for example. That's a pretty damn cool Mag if you ask me. I'd love to read that IRL, especially the Shingeki review. Who ever wrote that was a genius! Excuse my witty humor. (I'm secretly chucking to myself)

So, even if we just read, word for word, what was in that, but as a video, that would be pretty cool. (For example, the gundam review, someone speaking and then epic gundam fights in the background. can flip to the characters when they're brought up. If the music is mentioned, show an exert. THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!) ./edit: I didn't even need any of those commas. Nice work Breathless. or should I say, Nice, Work, Breathless.

As for the comments, Youtube is Youtube. Disabling the comments is all G. Or, we could get a girl to read it out, and then have a video of cats afterwards. Instant. Internet. Stardom.

Excuse my writing, by the way. I'm a tad tired, I write terribly when I'm tired.

Edited by Breathless
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Would people go for that? I'll read the entire newsletter, but only if you autotune my voice, haha.


 


But yes, I agree that getting some outside exposure would be good. Networking is key!


 


Ultimately my priorities lie more with doing what we can to keep people here and happy, in line with the original sentiment of the thread about how we aren't really giving people a reason to stay, but I'll definitely support any projects/attempts to branch out. o3o I know we talked about getting more involved with Twitter--that's not really my bag, but people use it, so.


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I like to watch 'top 10 anime' videos all the time. Things like Dan's seasonal anime previews are right up my alley. (in terms of what I like to watch). I'll occasionally watch review videos, but they're easier to read than watch. Though, I don't see why people wouldn't go for it. But then again, this is why I don't have a youtube account.

Ultimately my priorities lie more with doing what we can to keep people here and happy, in like with the original sentiment of the thread

Also, that's True~. It is about making them stay! I guess I got sidetracked with the whole 'new members', lulz. Oops, Sorry. So rather than getting them, how to make them stay.
 

New Users

 

I don't have a read on new users and how they feel (they don't approach me as often as more established users do), but because we don't have a lot of ways to reach them to inform them of certain rules (PM is disabled for new users; I don't know if they acknowledge profile status messages), it might be frustrating for both staff and the new users when users generate material that needs to be moderated.

 

We need a way to reach out to them and make them feel welcome while making sure they understand forum protocol.

"We need a way to reach out to them and make them feel welcome whilst making sure they understand forum protocol".

The only thing that comes to mind are 'easy-mode' subforums. Similar to the "my two cents" subforum. Where it's one-sentenced-posts. To get them 'warmed up'. Also, people like avatars. Maybe lowering (or removing) the avatar from the 15post count thing would keep them happier. Have some individualism?

These are pretty shallow suggestions. This is hard!

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It is hard! That's why I've been sitting on the discussion for so long with staff, haha.


 


It's really nebulous stuff that's kind of hard to pin down exactly, why people feel unwelcome here. Like stapling jelly to a tree. I think getting people posting more often can help, but that might be just slapping a bandage on it if we don't identify what's contributing to that atmosphere. Part of the problem is that people don't want to post, so telling them to post when they don't want to is craziness, haha.


 


But it helps when people step forward with their stories and their feelings, I am reading everything everyone says. o3o We'll narrow it down yet.


 


The avatar thing is all tied into a single profile option, IIRC, so we can't enable just avatars without enabling signatures and opening those to passive advertising.


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