Changes In Forum Administration

[Xtyfe]

I don't know what to say. I've been a member for 8 years and in all my time of being one I have never seen a disaster on this scale. I didn't even know about it until today, right when I'm in the middle of a low patch, and it's just... I turn my back for one second and all hell breaks loose!

I'll say it right here, and right now: it's obvious that what we wanted or deserved came much too late, so it's high time to move on. ZDoom has died.

Yes, the situation was bad. I understand what you're feeling, but isn't it a bit overdramatic to say that you're leaving and that ZDoom has died?

I know a few have said similar things now. Things have improved quite a bit now, why do this despite that?

[yum13241]

I'll say it right here, and right now: it's obvious that what we wanted or deserved came much too late, so it's high time to move on. ZDoom has died.

A little pessimism is beneficial, but being this judgemental/negative/"too bad, too late" is just bad.
Rachael hasn't been admin ever since that announcement thread got locked.

[wolfmanfp]

I didn't even know about it until today, [...] I turn my back for one second and all hell breaks loose!

I'll say it right here, and right now: it's obvious that what we wanted or deserved came much too late, so it's high time to move on. ZDoom has died.

What do you even mean? This all happened one and a half week ago. The community got what they wanted: the moderators reponsible for this disaster already stepped down.
ZDoom has died? The forum, the Discord server or the source port*? The forum is still running, nothing happened on Discord while this shitstorm was going down, and the source port will clearly not cease development because of this.

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And how is this relevant to anything?

I actually have something relevant to say. I wanted to comment on the original thread, but I was busy with other stuff.

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I am not an active member of this community, more like a lurker, but I figured I just throw my two cents in.
What happened last week was shocking and saddening to me. Shocking because of the modder who created one of my favorite mods (abort_m) would do such things. Saddening because of the flamewar here and that many talented creators of this community announced that they're leaving this community.
Rachael's resignation was expected after she said she's "too old to care", so I'm glad that she did. Banning Pillowblaster only added fuel to the fire, and it was the worst things they could possibly do (and his comment was not bigoted at all IMO).
As I said, many creators left this community recently, and sadly this is not new. Many left earlier (Terminus for example), and many on Doomworld who have GZDoom-based projects never were active here. Many are more active on Discord, Itch, YouTube and Twitter** where they can reach their audience, and I have doubts that they come back here, but I hope they will.
I welcome the changes, and trust Cali. I hope that the community will recover, and will be respected again.

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One more thing: a few months ago, GZDoom and the related projects' repositories were moved from Graf's personal account to the ZDoom organisation on GitHub. How come that Candice is still a member of the group while Graf himself, or dpJudas, or many other developers never were?

* By source port, I mean GZDoom, since the original ZDoom has been discontinued, as we know.
** Who knows how long?

[Caligari87]

One more thing: a few months ago, GZDoom and the related projects' repositories were moved from Graf's personal account to the ZDoom organisation on GitHub. How come that Candice is still a member of the group while Graf himself, or dpJudas, or many other developers never were?

Graf is in the group and has full admin control there, he's just set to private (as are about a dozen other people). Candice has done engine dev work as well so it makes sense she'd be there as a contributor.

[Graf Zahl]

We are all members if the organization. It's a Github thing, you explicitly have to set your membership to public to advertise it and only two people have done that until now.

[wolfmanfp]

I see, thanks for the clarification.

[Wiw]

ZDoom has died? The forum, the Discord server or the source port*? The forum is still running, nothing happened on Discord while this shitstorm was going down, and the source port will clearly not cease development because of this.

Even so, much of the community's gone. How are we supposed to rebuild it?

[Caligari87]

Can't force people to stick around if they no longer want to, can't force people to post even if they don't leave. IMO the best course of action is to fix what went wrong and improve moving forward, and hope that's enough to rebuild trust in the long run.

There's also the reality that forums like this are not where Things Happen™ anymore. It's all about media presence for content creators (youtube, instagram, twitter, etc) and real(er)-time interaction (discord, twitch, etc). A lot of creators also have moved their work to individualized places like personal websites. For some reason ModDB keeps pulling new users. Hell, even Github with their new "Discussions" feature is potentially a decent choice for a code-oriented creator to build a dedicated community.

And that's okay. We're part of the old guard of the internet; it makes sense that things would slow down here as times change. But as long as GZDoom is being actively developed and people are making mods for it, that's the important part. These forums are just one piece of that puzzle. The engine isn't in danger so far as I've seen.

[Graf Zahl]

It's all about media presence for content creators (youtube, instagram, twitter, etc) and real(er)-time interaction (discord, twitch, etc)

Unfortunately those places are so full of noise that the so-called 'media presence' may easily backfire if the message gets drowned in a sea of other messages.
On these old-fashioned forums I can keep up with what comes along, but with all this newfangled flashy stuff I tend to tune out.

Just some food for thought to those who think that this is the future.

[DELTAtheDboi005]

You're the admin of these forums now?

best of luck sir, it seems like a big responsibility *respectful salute*

[yum13241]

You're the admin of these forums now?

Has been for a while.

[Wivicer]

My goodness. I took a few months away from even browsing this forum for lack of time IRL. Wasn't expecting to come back to this. Everything that needs to be said has probably been said, but I want to contribute to the discusssion, even if only a little bit.

I was always mostly a lurker. I've posted a few maps and I contributed to D.U.M.P. 2 and 3, but other than that never did much - never really made anything worth posting. I spent all my time in the gameplay mod and tc subforums. I'm not even a member of the discord server so I've never been aware of any drama. I'd seen people saying stuff here and there about mod team members but I had no idea it went this deep.

When I first found out about the inciting incident/situation, I was, justifiably, appalled. I was afraid that I would have to, on principle, leave a community that I've come to love (despite never really being an active member of it).

That said, based on my reading of the statement thread, it seems to me this "changing of the guard" is the only way forward. I'm glad it seems like someone with a good head on their shoulders is taking over as site admin. Caligari87, I wish you luck. You have my support.

I guess I'll start browsing the forums again.

[Hellser]

I hope you enjoy your stay here.

[daemonspudguy]

Well, that happened. What a clusterfuck. No, reading all 13 pages of the previous thread wasn't much help in trying to untangle what the fuck just happened, probably because it involves 15 years of bad blood between different parts of the Doom community (including the mess that was the dissolution and discontinuation of Skulltag). Either way, I'm hoping the ZDoom Forums will continue under the new management and maybe won't bring back decades old controversy for at least another 3 months.

[DELTAtheDboi005]

Either way, I'm hoping the ZDoom Forums will continue under the new management and maybe won't bring back decades old controversy for at least another 3 months.

I hope so too