Changes In Forum Administration

[SanyaWaffles]

On the subject of forum infrastructure, I just realized a lot of forum goodies from the old software were also dropped. It seems the update to the new phpBB broke several quality of life stuff - banned users names being crossed out, custom titles, and forum post tags.

While not strictly related to administration stuff directly, I was wondering why this stuff broke? I'm hazarding a guess of broken extensions/plugins when the software upgraded.

[Caligari87]

That's pretty much the case, to my understanding. The old plugins no longer work with the new software because the API changed or something.

I'll put it on my list of things to look into. That said, it's not really my area of expertise yet.

[randi]

On the subject of forum infrastructure, I just realized a lot of forum goodies from the old software were also dropped. It seems the update to the new phpBB broke several quality of life stuff - banned users names being crossed out, custom titles, and forum post tags.

While not strictly related to administration stuff directly, I was wondering why this stuff broke? I'm hazarding a guess of broken extensions/plugins when the software upgraded.

All the really unique stuff was written by me, from scratch. Back then, phpBB didn't have an extension framework, so anybody who wanted to customize it (even with "official" mods) was basically making their own fork of phpBB. For smaller incremental updates, there was a pretty good chance that any specific mod would continue to work after upgrading. And if not, it probably wouldn't be too hard to get it working again. But for major upgrades, where a lot of the software changed essentially overnight, that was basically guaranteed to not be the case.

I experienced the same thing with the upgrade from phpBB 2.x to 3.x. All the board's mods had to be redone again. This board wasn't as customized back then, so it mostly meant all I had to do was wait for people to rewrite the mods I had used before and then just merge them in when they became available. After that, with all the experience I had gained from merging changes into phpBB, I got more ambitious and started doing customizations of my own to make this board more useful (or interesting) for me, and ZDoom specifically.

Unfortunately, it was necessary to upgrade from the previous version because the older version of PHP that the old software ran on was about to stop receiving security updates. On the other hand, the current version of phpBB is supposed to have an extension framework that makes it possible to write modifications that are far more decoupled from the core board code than the traditional mod code for older versions had been. I'm also pretty sure that all the data for those customizations survived the database upgrade here, so if those mods were rewritten again as proper phpBB extensions, they would theoretically continue to function with later major upgrades of phpBB with considerably less effort than a full rewrite would require.

[SanyaWaffles]

That's actually quite cool that you wrote your own plugins/extensions for phpBB with no formal framework. Kudos.

[randi]

an accurate presentation of how mod's workday here looks like

To speak on this, unless things have changed significantly since I was here, your day as a mod will consist mostly of you checking in at your leisure and seeing if there are any new posts that need approval or disputes than need to be moderated. Sometimes there are attacks of spammers that manage to break through the defenses. Those need to be blocked as soon as possible so you'll have less to clean up after they're gone. And sometimes there will be griefers that want to cause chaos, so you have to deal with them as best you can.

[Vyticoz]

I know it's probably a bit early to be suggesting changes to the forums but I wanna go ahead and take the opportunity to at least bring it up while a good portion of the community is active. Can we please look into reverting the absurd password requirements? Not even my online banking password has such strict requirements. Especially when you consider that the password auto suggestion feature used by Google and Firefox is usually between 12-15 characters. Also, along these lines, I'm not sure when this got added but having to fill out a Justification form to have a reason to join the forum seems pretty gate-keep-y to me. It just screams "Oh, you better have a good reason or you're not welcome here" and I think that's just bad optics.

[Boondorl]

This will be the only post I make regarding this subject, and probably the last post I make here as I no longer wish to be associated with this community.

What I have seen on display here from the staff of this website is, frankly, sickening and deeply disturbing. I thought better of every admin here given the past behavior I'd seen from most of you, but what I instead saw has completely shattered my trust of anyone and everyone involved within the Fun Police server who were, to put it bluntly, scheming to manipulate the community and reintroduce a pedophile back into it. The fact I see so many people patting themselves on the back over this response makes me feel like I'm going insane. Removing literally everyone involved in the scheming is the absolute bare minimum action that could be taken, and in fact, did not go anywhere near far enough. Anyone with power who defended this pedophile should be permanently removed from this community as they've shown they are completely untrustworthy individuals at a level that cannot be fixed. Individuals who were willing to put their own friendship above the safety of everyone.

The ZDoom staff's issues with nepotism had been known for ages, with Rachael literally admitting she gave freebies to those considered prominent community members, and many of those members fully aware they were getting kickbacks from it. To act like this was a deer-in-headlights moment is foolish. When I first heard Rachael was defending Marisa back in March, I was willing to nearly cleave my tongue off I was biting it so hard, but I did so under the guise that the admins would be responsible and do the right thing (after all, even back in March Marisa had already been banned). What I saw in Marty's video was horrifying. People bringing up cancel culture, people infantilizing Marisa, and people victim blaming trying to claim she was "tricked" into having a relationship with a minor (what the actual fuck???). To call these takes reactionary is an understatement. Even in this very thread people continue to believe the narrative you've created that a grown adult in their mid-20s was tricked into having a relationship with a child. I am beyond disgusted by what I'm reading.

The "probationary period" where the staff were waiting to hear her side was, frankly, an excuse to look for a reason not to ban her. You already had her side. She admitted she had sexual relations with children. She admitted that at the age of 20 she dated a 16-year-old (this was a correction she made in that very Reddit thread from the 18 and 14 relationship she took back). She admitted that, as a 26-year-old, she shared sexual pictures with someone who was 17. You continued to infantilize her and claim she must not know what she was saying, and yet were willing to blindly accept any excuse she was going to give to "fix it". This was an excuse to bring her back and sweep these allegations under the rug, not to hear her out. Literally the only reason she was given this benefit of the doubt was due to her status. Were this some random nobody, absolutely none of you would've "waited to hear the other side" that was already so plainly laid out in public for all to read.

I see many praising Cali for his response so far and glad he's head admin now, but I can't fathom why. Literally front and center in Marty's video was Cali giving the 4-step plan to reintroduce this pedophile into the community while fully aware of what he was doing. "my b" is not a valid response. If you're in a situation where someone openly admits to being a pedophile and you can't figure out what the correct course of action should be, you are not fit to moderate anything, period. I do not give a shit how close you were to this person. When someone admits they have sexual relationships with children, you take that shit seriously and immediately take action, not twiddle your thumbs for a month while pondering ways you can manipulate the community into accepting the pedophile back in, all while framing your banning of her as "for her own safety."

I'm sure this post will be quite contentious, whining about how I'm being unfair because "we all make mistakes" (fucking lol). I don't give a shit. The amount of self-congratulating I see here makes me feel absolutely nothing has changed, and gives me zero hope. Surely the community can't be this fucking delusional to the severity of almost the entire staff trying to create a coverup for a self-admitted pedophile. Rachael has been nothing more than a scapegoat for people to vent their past frustrations with her aggressiveness in any interaction she had with the community. This goes far beyond Rachael. The people who are only here to work on the ZDoom engine, to create maps and levels, to hang out with others and talk about one of their hobbies, deserved better than this. I was hoping that smarter heads would prevail and that the admins wouldn't be stupid enough to try and sweep this under the rug. I guess I was the idiot for ever believing that. It's a shame that it took Marty posting receipts for the admins to finally make an announcement. We can sit here and talk about the totally 100% real announcement the admins were definitely about to make, but we all know that's a lie. There was never going to be an announcement. The top dog was one of the pedophile's biggest defenders. Everyone had already convinced themselves Marisa was actually the victim, you just needed more time for people to forget about it.

Well, I hope it was worth it.

[june gloom]

2.) I feel the Hall of Unpleasantness is a net negative. I understand wanting to show behavior as an example of 'we don't do this here', but I feel it has the opposite effect. I also get having a stand against bigotry and bad actors - but it comes across as unprofessional - and I feel some people consider it an honor to be featured there. That behavior should not be encouraged, and I feel the Hall of Unpleasantness has martyred bad actors, rather than discourage them.

I'd rather something like that not be made in the public eye. But if it must remain, posts issuing warnings/closing the topics should be clear, concise, and only say what's necessary to condemn the actions.

In short - Hall of Unpleasantness needs reformed, or needs to be privated.

When Doomworld got rid of Post Hell I remember feeling a bit of sadness about it, but as time passed and I went through some personal growth I realized that Post Hell was a hallmark of a much less mature community. I firmly believe that if you want to make a place nicer, you get rid of the jerks, and leaving their dumb shit up for everyone to mock is not getting rid of the jerks. More to the point, archiving and chronicling peoples' personal failings and social errors is, to me, a sign of immaturity and a lack of professionalism. Post Hell is long gone; Hall of Unpleasantness needs to go the same way.

(That being said, I realize there's an edge case here regarding PillowBlaster's post, if only because the disappearance of it from the thread removed some critical context that I didn't have until I found it in HoU.)

[Caligari87]

I'm on the fence about removing / hiding HOU. On the one hand, it does feel a bit counterproductive to showcase bad behavior and such. On the other, it provides a useful amount of transparency to mod actions; when something needs to be split off to clear a mess from a thread, but hiding/deleting it would seem underhanded and raise accusations of censorship. I'll have to give that some more thought. Maybe there's some kind of middle-ground option I haven't considered. (though it should be noted actual legit spam and such does get either deleted or shuffled to a hidden subforum, depending on circumstances)

Regarding Boondorl's post, I've seen the report and elected to let it stand. I know it's not possible to please everyone, so dissenting opinions about how this all went down are to be expected. I'm just gonna try and do the right thing from here on out and hope that's enough for the majority.

[staredcraft]

I'm on the fence about removing / hiding HOU. On the one hand, it does feel a bit counterproductive to showcase bad behavior and such. On the other, it provides a useful amount of transparency to mod actions; when something needs to be split off to clear a mess from a thread, but hiding/deleting it would seem underhanded and raise accusations of censorship. I'll have to give that some more thought. Maybe there's some kind of middle-ground option I haven't considered. (though it should be noted actual legit spam and such does get either deleted or shuffled to a hidden subforum, depending on circumstances)

Regarding Boondorl's post, I've seen the report and elected to let it stand. I know it's not possible to please everyone, so dissenting opinions about how this all went down are to be expected. I'm just gonna try and do the right thing from here on out and hope that's enough for the majority.

Personally I say you're doing the right thing. It's clear emotions are still running high (Seeing a lot on twitter reacting and just sticking to what was and not is w/ the recent updates). I read that post and I rolled my eyes. He's reading too much into things and just wants a scorch earth...but with NO plans on how to rebuild things afterwards. Not like he was volunteering, and I don't know of anyone else who was. Everything done so far has been to a majority of peoples satisfaction, and that's all you can ask for. That and hope this is the proper bandage to the bleeding that's been going on for a while (even I a lurker saw it but sad nothing until now)

I wish you luck Cali...if I had any mod experience I'd throw my hat in but I'd rather not do it THIS soon

[SanyaWaffles]

I understand Cali's concerns about transparency involving the HOU, something I hadn't considered.

An idea: If it does remain, it needs to be procedure to not... feed the trolls so to speak. Just a swift explanation of what they did wrong, a warning/ban. To be direct - It did seem to be the style to turn every single troll or incident into a scene, so to speak.

It doesn't promote the idea of growth as a person to destroy any goodwill by preaching a sermon, which felt like standard procedure.

Speaking from experience as well - even if the thread wasn't Hall'd, but just locked. I felt there was no room or chance for growth in that instance (and being accused of what I was accused of hurt, given my upbringing).

I know many people post shit in bad faith, but people do change, and a bit more streamlined handling of things would help that along.

EDIT: I do apologize for being direct, it's hard to balance "not mincing words" in a situation like this.

[shaodoomkahn]

idk if i should move to other site or stay here in this forum until things become right.

[staredcraft]

idk if i should move to other site or stay here in this forum until things become right.

Personally I say it's up to you, but I'd say, using my best to make an analogy, don't sell your house here yet, but keep it on the market just in case

[Boondorl]

I'm just gonna try and do the right thing from here on out and hope that's enough for the majority.

The right thing to do would be to admit you're not fit to moderate a community like this and find a replacement who wasn't involved in the event that sparked this thread. If you cannot decide whether pedophiles should or shouldn't exist in this community while actively plotting to reintroduce one, I have no other words to say. No amount of apologizing and "I promise I'll do better next time" will fix this. You are just as guilty as everyone else involved in this scandal. The fact that your first action was to unban someone who was very clearly being transphobic because "well, they said they meant well" is ridiculous. You will never be able to create the safe space this community deserves when you go around openly admitting you have no idea what you're doing and listening to a bunch of internet randos who have zero connection to anything happening. Even this thread is filled with people claiming an adult got "baited" into a relationship with a child and whinging about how "people need thicker skin." I see absolutely nothing productive being done here.

[Caligari87]

Duly noted. I hope I can prove you wrong.