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

[Dark_Angel13]

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.

 

It's really difficult as a new user to do this with people, especially people you don't know. For some it's even too difficult to just say hello to another person, clearly joining a forum isn't the best thing to do if you're like that but as a whole I'd say most of us are either shy, not outgoing at all or we keep to ourselves because of past experiences.

[† Mute point]

I'd offer to sign the newsletter in a video, but I think the majority of those who saw it would be all "Da fuq is this?" and then go watch Keyboard cat looped 10 hours instead... Also I am a little camera shy and couldn't possibly keep a straight face that long.

 

I don't know how to fix the community, but I think it needs a bit more than duct tape.

[AxelVIII]

I know I am late in making this post, and no, I do not know how far the current conversation has gone since this thread began, so I will just go off post #1.

 

Ahem.

About issue #1, I believe that, even though Koby will be busy, that our Mods will take care of everything, and I for one believe that everything will be good so long as there is someone watching.

 

Issue #2, When I joined, I got a "Welcome to the forum", as you would, but that was it.  But a problem I see with new members is the percentage of new users whom as been said, who actually use the forums after their 15th post.

 

But I have also seen that the forums have slowed down since I joined, maybe if we got something that would catch the eye of the user, and maybe make them more active. I visit everyday, a few times a day, and almost nothing changes. Another problem: Sorry, I have no ideas.

[† Emotional Outlet]

I'm definitely not going anywhere, haha.

The concern is what will happen if we don't have control of the forum. If the forum goes down or the bill is overdue, the rest of the staff can't do very much about it. I mean, there's some magic they can do, I've spoken with Java about it, but it won't be the same.

 

It's okay to have no ideas, it's good enough to have input so we have different perspectives on the problem. I know I can only speak for myself, so I appreciate the input. o3o

 

But yes, building content is a concern, I agree we need to have something that gives people a reason to stick around.

[† L4ugh]

My 2 Cents, For What It’s Worth

 

First I just want to say that the opinions that follow are just that, OPINIONS. I’m not trying to say it’s the only way or even best way to save the forum. I’m not even saying it will save the forum. I’m not God so I can’t guarantee anything. I don’t think I have all the answers, I usually don’t even think I have good answers, let alone the right ones. I’m just offering my own personal opinion based on what I have observed. 

 

I see a few problems with this forum.  First is a lack of quality members, people who post often and are always polite when they do it. I personally think the biggest reason for this is simply do to the fact that most people come here solely for downloading anime. They don’t care about the community and at times resent even being required to participate in order to download. These people should probably be pushed off the forum. Remove all anime downloads from the forum, and instead post them to EDK. It might also be a good idea for Koby to separate donation between the different aspects of the Kametsu universe, if this isn't already being done. Forum members who are only here for the forum, shouldn’t have to cover the bot tab for all the leeching ani-tards. Each part of the Kametsu verse should stand on its own merits. The ani-tards should be punished when they don’t supply enough funds for a given month. The bots should go offline until at least two months payment (or more) has been met. The same should go for the forum, and any other servers linked to it.

 

I also would like to bring back up the idea of starting some kind of online gaming tournament through the forum. Create some clans in different games that are popular with forum members. Maybe even try to acquire a private WoW server. From what I've read in different post about the “good ol’ days” of Kametsu, it seemed to be at its best when it had more to do with games than anime. I personally think new members that come to play games with each other will be far more loyal than the leechers we get now. It shouldn't be on one person to supply the funds to start the servers either. Donations should start first, and when enough has been acquired then purchase a server.

 

The second problem is the staff, Koby seems to get stuck with people who abuse their powers or ignore their responsibilities. Seriously, this forum has more dicks than a dildo shop. Being ignored is the last thing on the minds of new members. There seems to be a lot of rule skirting that takes place. People shouldn’t be allowed to ride the line of acceptable. People should be allowed to question the ideas of other people, but not their intelligence. They also shouldn’t be allowed to attack other people’s loyalties or any other aspect of their personality. 

 

I will also freely admit to being one of the above mentioned dicks. I started off trying to defend other people “I” thought were being railed against. Only to one day realize I had become that which I was trying to fight against. I don’t think I’m the only person that fells this way either. There are good people here that, at heart, are only trying to help. They don’t realize they’re doing more bad than good. 

 

The staff needs to step up in these moments and remind us to be polite. I’m not saying you have to start pissing people off by handing out bans either. Staff members should, however, speak up when they see something they feel skirts the rules. Send us a PM or something to let us know we’re coming off as a total dick. I’m not trying to pass off my faults on the staff either, but sometimes it’s hard to see how your post comes across to other people. What I might consider an honest opinion on a debate, someone else sees as a personal attack. Hell, there was a post like that in this very thread before it was deleted. People got offended by someone else's opinion and profanities were used. Someone (Ren?) stepped in and deleted the entire affair. This should probably be happening a lot more often.

 

I think the regulars of us, that know we fit into the dick category, should start taking are quibbles to PM. We should try harder to spare the rest of the forum from our childishness. There are also too many of us that have a bad habit of mini-modding. If you take issue to something someone else says, PM the person, don’t blast them in the public areas of the forum. If your worried about further fighting, invite a staff member to referee the dispute. I'm sure all of this has been said before, probably by EO, but we need to start letting it sink in. We’re the ones that make this forum un-inviting. 

 

p.s. At this point I would like to apologize to any member that has ever felt un-invited due to my actions. I don’t intend to come off as a dick or attack anyone. I’m actually a rather nice fellow, but I call things as I personally see them. In my experience I find it best to just get it out so people know where you stand. I also really suck at English, so my ability to properly express my opinion is often hindered by my language fail. To those wondering, English is indeed my only language, and I do know how sad that is. I blame the Illinois education system! 

[lemmingllama]

A huge +1 to L4ugh, I can agree with basically everything that you have posted here. Although I do not forsee the anime downloads being exclusively moved away to EDK, it would still be quite nice to have the forums run solely on the content of people who actually care. This would solve the unfriendly atmosphere towards new members, since we would know that all who sign up are actually intending to join the forums. Of course, the downfall of this is that we would lose a huge amount of posts per day, and our new members would be basically reduced to zero. I personally came for the downloads and stayed for the community, and I believe that most other people did the same.

 

On the topic of gaming clans, I would love to get some co-op going. I personally only use PC, but if anyone is interested then we would create a Steam group and get some L4D2 or CS:S games going.

[J-Lord]

It is hard to keep members that only come here for downloads but we manage to do so. I for one am a member who came for the anime but I stayed because of the community which I feel is a great one and I still think that. I don't have many other forums to compare to this one but I feel like we do a lot to interact with others in terms of comps and forum games and other things such as the newsletters.

 

With payment for the site, I could see something working in terms of what L4ugh described but I guess that could also have a negative affect on the forum. And some of us even pitch in every now and again to assist in paying for the site. But we all hit issues in real life that can cause us not to donate (Such as me buying a house recently and having no money at all -.-) or even keep us away from the forum.

 

These are hard things to stop and we can't really do anything about it. The ideas of spreading the word of Kametsu to other sites such as youtube is not a bad idea, I am sure it will grab a few eyes. The way I see it though people are drawn to sites such as youtube with a desire to watch something, the same can be said about any site or forum, they go to these such sites with a desire/urge to see, talk or do something. Unfortunately I don't really know of any other ideas on how to spread the word that would get peoples interest.

 

There is a limit to what we can do to help the forum along, as we as people pretty much have a forum as a second life, it will always be second to bills that need to be paid (Limiting donations) and second to real life (Forum activity). This is just how I feel the situation works, I in no means am saying this in a negative way and I hope no one interprets it that way. I want to help this community but I have very little to offer.

 

Is it worth having a select bunch of people that help donate to the forum? I make donations in real life and can easily cancel them to make room for donations here, and if we have a group that do help donate to this forum it will bring the monthly costs for everyone down. If we were to do something like this I for one am willing to help so long as it isn't just me and a couple other doing it alone.

[ZeroPenguins]

On the topic of gaming clans, I would love to get some co-op going. I personally only use PC, but if anyone is interested then we would create a Steam group and get some L4D2 or CS:S games going.

 

About CS:S, I don't mind kicking your ass at it... Hahahaha

 

But I don't play CS:S much anymore, only CS:GO now days.

 

On another note, dead forum or not, this place is a lot more active than two other animes forums I visit. I think what's more important is keeping our current set of active users, there used to be a lot of old users that I post with. But seeing that most of them are gone, it's hard not to distance yourself from this place. To be fair, my life has been getting quite busy as well so I haven't been online much.

[† Emotional Outlet]

I don't like the attitude of "that's just how it is". "That's just how it is" is what resulted in more than a handful of people coming forward, whether in thread or in private, and saying they feel unwelcome in this forum. "That's just how it is" is what led to a forum where it's okay to post 15 times and never again. "That's just how it is" is why we have people who think the staff is ineffective and that it's okay to bend and break the rules.

 

We've been doing "that's just how it is" for a long time. I don't like where it's led us.

 

Yes, it's hard. It's hard to peel back the layers and see exactly what is going on in this forum. It's hard to devote a lot of time to something that isn't as important as bills and food on the table. A lot of things are hard. Finding a reason to get out of bed in the morning instead of sleeping away the rest of my miserable existence is hard for me. I don't think that just because it's hard means it's not worth doing. I don't think there's anyone here who doesn't realise the gravity of what we're talking about.

 

But, you know what? Having a safe place to socialise is important to some people. It's important to me. Having a safe place to go to unwind and put your feet on the coffee table is important to some people. It's important to me. Having a safe place to share ideas and build something together is important to some people. It's important to me.

This forum is important to people. It's very well important to me, so please don't minimise the importance of this forum. I have sacrificed sleep, fun, and tears for this forum because I care. I do the work I do because it's important to me.

 

It may not be a priority for everyone else, and it doesn't have to be. I'm not asking for people to give up everything else and become slaves to Kametsu. Just please don't act like this isn't important to other people. It is. It really is. The attitude that this forum isn't important may well be why this place doesn't have much of a community feeling--telling people they shouldn't care about this forum, that it shouldn't be or that it can't be as important as having a roof over your head, is harmful. It hurts me when people say that.

 

===

 

Again, I agree that the issue isn't necessarily with activity or that bringing in new people will be helpful.

 

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.

 

As far as the downloads...

 

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.

 

===

 

Shuffling the downloads from here may drive activity down, but the loss would be activity from people who already aren't very interested in being part of the community. This would give us some breathing room, allow threads to become places for discussion rather than places for people to dump their opinion and peace out.

 

Part of the reason I have a hard time partaking in conversations outside of the Balamb Cafe is because, like, I'll go into the Gaming or Entertainment sections and I'll see that one person has posted in fifteen topics in a row with one-liners. Then I never see this person again. I don't like trying to talk in an environment where I will be ignored, because it makes me feel like I'm just imposing my presence upon other people.

 

The downloads are very good at bringing in new users, but the downloads aren't necessarily very good at keeping people active. Once you have access to cake, why do more work for something you already have? It's not like we ever take away access from people who stop posting after 15. There are virtually few downfalls to making 15 quick posts and then never saying anything again--the downloads will always be there and it's nigh impossible to get in trouble after that.

 

===

 

That said, our new user member base doesn't have to be nil without the downloads. That's part of the reason why people are talking about things like a Youtube channel and getting together for gaming.

 

If we game together and have fun, then it's easy to tell a friend, "Hey, so, I get together with some friends on this forum on Steam to play Team Fortress 2, you down?" And they join in the gaming and they're like, "Wow, these people are really cool! I want to be friends with them!" So they go on the forum and then we have new people.

 

I mean, obviously that's a very simplified way of looking at it, but that's the basic idea. If we have something going for the forum, something that makes the regulars happy and makes them want to keep coming back, then new people will show up. They'll think, these people are hanging out together and having fun, they are doing things that I enjoy, I want in on that. What the downloads are doing now is showcasing an environment where it's okay to peace out after 15 posts, that no one will respond to you unless you're good with the in-crowd.

 

===

 

As far as rule skirting, I have started pushing for staff continuity, to have a Standard Operating Procedure, and to do away with the unwritten rules of how to run this place. I have stepped in a couple times, from things like removing rape jokes in the statuses to laying out the red text to get people to stop dogpiling on a certain user, but I always feel a sense of trepidation. Am I going to be admonished by the rest of the staff? Are people going to look at me like I'm on a power trip? Will people understand why this behaviour is problematic?

 

I think we've seen already that there people who don't respect the staff and react negatively when the law is laid down. I believe part of it may be that things have always been so lax that it feels disproportionate when people are called out. They'll remember that one time someone wasn't spoken to and cry foul when they are being told now they are acting out of line. They didn't get in trouble, why should I?

 

On the flipside, there is an issue of backseat moderating. Most of what I've seen is people just trying to be helpful, but there are times I've seen people actively try to tell people what to do and how to conduct themselves on the forum, which is problematic.

 

===

 

It's a very common tactic for trolls and bullies to tell their victims that things should be kept between them, that this is a private matter and no one else's business. They have plausible deniability this way. If the victim brings it to the public, people may not believe them or think they're just trying to rile up drama. After all, that's private business, why are you trying to drag everyone else into it?

 

I agree that disputes should be settled at the lowest possible level. I don't agree that it always has to be done privately. Sometimes you have to lure the predator out into the open or just step into their trap so people can actually see what they've been pulling and see their true colours.

 

Staff shouldn't be the sole determiner of what's problematic and what's not. Definitely, I agree we should step in when things are blatantly out of hand, but we can't make that decision for everyone. I've seen a lot of stuff I thought was problematic, but I'm not going to impose the way I view the world on everyone else.

 

I think that might be the problem with the others--they see problematic behaviour and that nothing is being done about it, so they get the idea that maybe the staff doesn't care about what other people feel. It might help if reports were made not just for spam, but when you feel a user is being problematic. We do look at the reports and discuss them, and I've made one or two pleas for people to make full use of the report system for any and all forum business, whether it's for closing a thread or saying, "Hey, this person is attacking me".

 

We won't action every report, but just bringing it to our attention is enough. If we see a lot of people sending in reports saying, "hey, this isn't cool", then it's problematic. If we see one person is being reported a lot for different stuff, then they are problematic.

[Minkseru]

I remember one of my friends saying it seemed silly he HAD to post in the SeeD hallway, but still that being aside I am looking at a couple of things being sadly true, I recall being in the chat rooms, and it seeming like there is nothing anyone actually want to speak on :/.  I think out of eight times being in the chat rooms if I was not asking directly for assistance there was nothing being talked about :/.

[† Mute point]

I always try to poke and prod the chatroom to life when I log in there. But the majority of those there, much like the majority here, are just there for downloads, and couldn't care less about any discussion. That, I think is a problem, but not one easily solved.. Unless you had one room for chatters and one for leechers, but that becomes problematic too... "Why should I have 2 chats open?" would be the most common issue with that.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with taking the downloads off of here, and placing them on the bots. It might cause some problems for a small portion of the community, primarily those who still either don't know how to, or for some other reason can't use the IRC channel. But we have people who can help with those issues.

 

We definitely need the unwritten rules to be written down so those of us who don't know what those unwritten rules are can enforce them. Either through warnings, or other methods.

 

And yes, everyone needs to look for things that are problems, and click the report button! No one is promising that we will act upon all reports, but I know for certain that I at least, read every one I see. Usually EO has beaten me to acting upon them because she's got better super powers, but I read them!

 

I want this place to continue working as intended. It's been my internet home for quite awhile now, and gives me easy human interaction where I'm not the weirdo typing out responses while everyone else talks too loud around me! You have no idea how wonderful that is.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Mute point

[ZeroPenguins]

^That's an insult to the people who just hang out and idle on that IRC channel.

 

The people who leech off IRC usually just come and leave.

[Pinkie Pie]

Well what do you expect us to say if someone go in there and it's noting but people coming and going for a hour with no kind of interaction at all?

[ZeroPenguins]

Nah, don't misunderstand. There are plently of people who idle on IRC 24/7 like me, so yeah.

[DuLake]

I feel like I probably shouldn't get involved since I'm new/old/flaky, but I really do miss the chat on the front page. There was almost always someone on there and I feel like I made friends there. I pop up the IRC a few times a day now but nobody seems active and I end up exiting quick. I mean, I get that there were reasons to switch, I just miss the constant banter.

[Koby]

As

It might also be a good idea for Koby to separate donation between the different aspects of the Kametsu universe, if this isn't already being done. Forum members who are only here for the forum, shouldn’t have to cover the bot tab for all the leeching ani-tards. Each part of the Kametsu verse should stand on its own merits. The ani-tards should be punished when they don’t supply enough funds for a given month. The bots should go offline until at least two months payment (or more) has been met. The same should go for the forum, and any other servers linked to it.

The problem with this is it's the "ani-tards" as you put it that have mainly been supporting the servers for the past several months. The forum has now been on one of the bot servers for almost a year now since the old server for the site kept failing and led to the crashes that happened last year over and over again. Hence, it'd be hard to pay for them separately when they're actually joined together. I can't pay the forum bill without paying the bill two of our current xdcc bots run on. 90% of all donations actually come from EDK and ALWAYS have. Very few donations (and mostly only from the regulars) tend to come from the forum side of things. We've came close several months to not reaching the required goal, but when I've announced this problem, visitors always have managed to pull through last minute and hit the goal.

As for the suggestion of moving all downloads to the bots. We simply don't have the hard drive space to do so. Only a fraction of whats available on the forum can be found on the bots. It's easy to upload things to file hosts when it costs nothing to store the files there, but it takes cash to fund drives for your own servers to host the files. I've got only 2TB of drives between the two servers I run bots on, and both of them are about at their limit. So we could really use another server, but instead I remove some of the less downloaded shows to make room for newer shows instead of adding additional costs to the site. I want to keep costs to a minimum as much as I can.

As for L4ughs suggestion of acquiring a WoW server... the main problem would be popularity.. Wouldn't be fun to join and play when there would be less than 40 people at any given time on it. Some of the biggest blizzlike servers for WotLK run with only 150-500 members on at any given time despite having 100,000+ accounts. Games like that aren't very fun soloing, as a lot of it is based around interaction with the community. Hence why when we had a WoW group, instead of making my own server we invited people to an existing server. It was Spermik but it merged earlier in the year with TrueWoW to get more of the WotLK fans gathered together since it seems to be dying away. Cataclysm isn't as good as WotLK in many peoples opinion though, and a lot of people here tend to play retail with Mists of Pandoria and don't really want to join private servers for that reason. I for one don't have time for mmo's anymore either.

I think it'd be a good idea to do some videos on Youtube, perhaps of the newsletter, etc... But I don't know who'd be willing to do that. Heck even random videos of the community playing games such as WoW or w/e would be nice just to show what the community has been up to together and such. Broadcast AMV competition winning videos, Seasonal Anime Previews, Reviews of shit, etc...

As for what'll happen when I'm not around? I've been gone before. In the past I've disappeared for as long as nearly a half a year. EO probably remembers this. A lot of stuff happened while I was gone, in the past the forum couldn't be ran when I was gone due to incapable staff and the fact that I'm so awesome that everyone didn't want to visit unless I was there. Joking of course, but it was a fact that back then people didn't stick around unless I was there. Good thing is that isn't the case anymore. In fact I bet a lot of the members probably even hate me. I know I've been told on numerous accounts that people feel scared of me, feel I'm unapproachable, or feel they're not worthy of contacting me... That sounds pretty much like nonsense, but for some reason people feel that way, even though I've tried to be nice and fair to everyone.

Would like to see the newsletter being posted on the home page. Would be nice to get some anime news writers for it too so it can start being updated again and actually useful rather than sitting there taking up space without reason.

I want to clean up the forums, alter descriptions, remove sub-forums without use, etc.. But lack of time always prevents me.

[Renzourin]

well me EMO and ip discussed stuff like that about doing such things but we dont have the permissions to alter the forum like that wed love to take a crack at it at rearranging the forum changing descriptions and stuff but again i couldnt even hide the farplane cuz it was upsetting people to see their posts there

[jobonline20]

maybe limit the number of days members (new/old) can go without posting, after the limited days their profile will become like a crusader-0 level (with previous post count existing), No permissons (to download or change sigs etc.,) until they get to the set amount of posts.

 

Excuse my bad use of english. i couldn't get to translate the idea well into english.

[Koby]

maybe limit the number of days members (new/old) can go without posting, after the limited days their profile will become like a crusader-0 level (with previous post count existing), No permissons (to download or change sigs etc.,) until they get to the set amount of posts.

 

Excuse my bad use of english. i couldn't get to translate the idea well into english.

maybe limit the number of days members (new/old) can go without posting, after the limited days their profile will become like a crusader-0 level (with previous post count existing), No permissons (to download or change sigs etc.,) until they get to the set amount of posts.

 

Excuse my bad use of english. i couldn't get to translate the idea well into english.

I wouldn't mind making it so people had to post x-amount of times in an x-amount of time, if it was possible. I don't think such a feature or mod existed however and I don't know if anyone around here is experienced enough with IP.Board to code such a thing. I wouldn't go so far as to remove their permissions, but limiting their access to the downloads would be ideal.

However that really wouldn't solve any issues persay. Sure it'd make leechers post more, but in the end it'll be the same result of one-liners that don't contribute to the topic at hand.

[J-Lord]

 I know I've been told on numerous accounts that people feel scared of me, feel I'm unapproachable, or feel they're not worthy of contacting me... That sounds pretty much like nonsense, but for some reason people feel that way, even though I've tried to be nice and fair to everyone.

 

I have to admit myself I do get a little uneasy around some of the staff such as yourself but this is not because I am scared of your or think your someone who is unapproachable. I think it is the power thing, that and I really haven't talked or been around some of the other members that much that I don't know what they are really like. I don't know why I am still a bit uneasy even though I have been apart of the forum for about 2 years now or a year and a half.

 

 

maybe limit the number of days members (new/old) can go without posting, after the limited days their profile will become like a crusader-0 level (with previous post count existing), No permissons (to download or change sigs etc.,) until they get to the set amount of posts.

 

Excuse my bad use of english. i couldn't get to translate the idea well into english.

 

I'm not sure that would be a good way to encourage people to post more, say you loose internet for a couple weeks like I and some other have before, or other matters require you to have no contact with a computer for weeks, you would loose your crusader + status not because you were inactive but because it was something you couldn't control. Still I guess it is not like it is really hard to get the status back, but if it is something that requires an admin or mod to give to an account then wouldn't this create more work for them that isn't really necessary?