For the record, Kajin bought Forgehub from RMN. That's why it's removed at the bottom of the page. At least that's what kajin told me when the upgrade happened and he was actually around. I was kinda angry when the staff changes were made and I was told I wasn't picked because "I don't play well with others" but now looking at the situation, I'm kinda glad. It's hard to fix a sinking ship when no one is motivated to fix it. What bothers me the most is the lack of communication between our staff and Kajin (and shock but he's basically irrelevant at this point). I know it isn't the staff fault, but as Vincent pointed out, it's very hard to set up new creative avenues to draw in members when our hands our tied with no tech support. Sad days indeed.
I don't really want to involve myself too much into this discussion, as it is really none of my business. I stated numerous times that I could be completely wrong, and that this was my opinion based on my own experiences. I assure you that I am not delusional, I am just trying to help by giving an opinion. I am not sure why you would even say that after reading that I stated those 2 things again and again. good luck to you guys.
THIS RED FLASHING LIGHT DENOTES THE PRESENCE OF EXTREME IRONY. Caution is recommended when dealing with irony levels approaching critical. Failure to wear recommended protective gear may result in physical harm or even death.
It is extremely odd to issue so many disclaimers that it's "just your take" and point out how little experience you have here, then make a bold declarative statement like this. One which, by the way, I don't even completely disagree. But I feel you need to pick whether you're giving some "perspective" here or trying to teach a lesson. You're treading dangerous waters here. It's important to understand that the entire staff of this forum has turned over multiple times. That the very admins, the top level staff, have turned over multiple times. The people running the place have been nearly as fluid as the site population. So when you slag off "all the staff" based on an encounter with a one-time group of individuals that you're not even naming, you're coming off like one of those people on Yelp who give a restaurant one star because their waiter that day was rude. Yeah, the guy shouldn't have been rude - but that's not the whole story. As stated previously, we made a conscious effort to change staff attitudes around here, through the people that were brought in recently (but unfortunately many of whom are now jumping ship), and adjustments to the actual policies of the site. There are announcements around here to that effect, which I'd be happy to dig up. There is also evidence all over the place of changes in overall staff attitude. However, root access is something we can't get. It's been asked for... and then it's been begged for... and still we don't have it. So past a certain point, it's unproductive to pin that in particular on current staff, or recent ex-staff, or any staff whatsoever. Blame should belong with one or two people only - the people that HAVE that access and refused to share it before they walked off into the night. And since that lack of access played a major role in discouraging, and ultimately driving off, so many recent staffers, you can kind of see how this has compounded problems that we were trying instead to fix. It's been deeply frustrating.
Lesson learned. Well played Schnitzel, well played indeed. The stars aligned, and all was clear. Irony: The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. @Nutduser Right, which is why i stated that it was not my intention to funnel my opinions on the entire Staff, because I simply do not know them or even who they are. I am telling you, that the people that I encountered, were absolute assholes. On a level that would incline me to post in this thread to a site that I never visit. Understand? Your site is failing, because your Staff is not doing their job. This is the basics of the OP is it not? And I do not think it is odd at all. Why would it be? If I told you what I have experienced with this place, and openly stated that it was based on just a few encounters, why would my opinion be deluded? If what I am saying is based off of actual events, then my words should be credited. Either way, I really just want to back out of this conversation as calmly as I came in. Clearly I do not have a good enough grasp on this place to be stating my opinion.
This place is starting to remind me of one of those restaurants that Gordon Ramsey visits in his "Kitchen Nightmares" series.
Good thing you stated your opinion first before the justification of "I don't actually know all that much"
This very much this. But let's not be too hard on anyone. Yes, the staff may be lacking, but compared to 50K+ members this is not surprising. I do not come from the glory days of the halo communities i come from the dead times that we are in. I am a part of almost every halo community i have ever known.I have joined, i have whatched from some sidleines. This community surprised me in its numbers and its personalities. You all are wonderful people but let's keep in mind it is not the good people we remember it is inevitably the bad. The boardline spammers, trollers, flammers, and etc. THC also is going down and has shut down their site temporarily due to negative personalities. These voices are much louder than the ones we like to hear. Unfortunately they are all too common everywhere and a powerful and sincere leadership must be emphasised on all staff, anywhere, period. The reason i could see both sides is that you have a large staff, but perhaps not enough, or perhaps not as active, powerfull, or isolated from negatives as much as should be. This isnt to say i am right, but i do agree with Undr Zid.
Sorry, I'm picking nits, a little bit. For the most part it was clear that you were just speaking from your own point of view - it's just that a few sentences or sentiments sounded like they were blaming everyone who now is, or ever was, a staff member as "part of the problem," and as someone who for the last six months was on staff and busting my ass to try to keep things afloat, that rubs me the wrong way. However... I appreciate another perspective always, and actually agree with most of what you said. There was never any excuse for staff members here acting like assholes to people inside or outside our community. Those people were few in number (in my experience - which is thorough) but they were pervasive, and left to run unchecked for months or even years. It gave this place a bad name to some. It reflected poorly on a site that had a lot of positive aspects to it. And it's a key reason why there was so much recent staff turnover - around the time I came in, I mean; basically last fall/winter - and why the new staff made a conscious choice to be nicer and more involved in the community, as well as trying to push some outreach to other communities for forge and Halo. Basically, we saw the problem, and tried to move in a better direction. But we had problems of our own. And one big, key problem we couldn't seem to work around. If you want it in a nutshell, this forum needed an upgrade and a facelift around the time Halo 4 came out, if not earlier, and it didn't get it. It has since received that but the bugs left in its wake have not been fixed, and won't be until the one guy with root access appears again... if he ever does. Our other root admin has vanished, seemingly with permanence. Our recently-promoted admin (non-root) has given up in a cloud of despair about the state of the site and the state of Halo. And so ultimately, a lot of good, well-meaning effort is going down the tubes because we have no direction and no power, and people are unwilling to just put their heads down and keep on keepin' on anymore. It's been too long. It's too much work for too little reward. And we were too close to doing something really good with this place, only to find out we couldn't finish the job.
I've read through the post you quoted twice now and I don't understand what you mean by this. I can't see him telling anyone not to hate, or what warrants telling him to chill. Could you explain that a little? For my part, I agree with the basic stance you seem to hold in your other post. It seems like you're preaching perspective, both in terms of the wider Halo community and how negative vs. positive incidents and impressions affect perceptions. That's not an excuse in and of itself, as we still have to face up to the personal elements within the staff which have played a part in getting us where we are today. But it simply leads one to question what else might be going on to cause more abrupt shifts in opinion and action such as this, to factor in more tangible factors such as the direct difficulties faced by the staff as a whole right now.
I don't understand the "we need better admins" point, This forums are generally been a good place with decent threads and discussion(if you compare threads here vs threads on Bungie site or 343i site now or other sites there is hardly any useless spammy threads like "i just went 30-0 last game what do you guys think?" or "DMR is op that is all" threads) there isn't many super trolls or griefers posting porn everywhere and things like that, The site is pretty well kept imo its not perfect but its far from bad. I believe if we had a perfect admin system at the moment this very second, nothing significant would change, Until Halo 5 comes out and either has good forge and revitalizes the forum or it has a bad forge and get bit more activity because of a new Halo then slowly back to ghost town again. Complaining about admins is like complaining about how dirty all the jews clothes got during the holocaust, Yea that's true but that's hardly the issue you could clean all there clothes (and fix the admin system right now) and the issue would still be here.
We at Forgehub take pride in sarcasm, sometimes regardless of whether it can be conveyed effectively over text. Thank you for your perspective though, undr zid. I see what you're getting at, and it makes sense. I've been around since '08, and before. I was one of the first to even see the site, I believe. I've seen lots of things as a regular member here. The main problem I've seen over the years is in those unique, entitled individuals (which this site often attracts) who want to do whatever they want with little thought of repercussions or, especially, diplomacy. These people's mentality usually entailed, "I make the tough decisions that nobody else wants to make, therefore I can be as self-assertive and rash as I want." There's an art in handling people effectively, and there have been a lot of members and, more importantly, staff here who could and would blatantly disregarded how to do this. They could bash, lock, infract, or even ban often times wherever they wanted and walk away from it untouched. But like people are saying, we're changed, or at least we've tried to. I think we often forget about a sense of community. But it's bound to happen online, I think. Can't really maintain good long-term relationships over the internet. Just need those admins to come back and actually play their role. Plus, ya know, Halo 4's forge is pretty old by now..
In his first paragraph he talks about having an opinion and then having a bold statement. That is what i am getting at. They can be one in the same. The rest of the quote i didnt have a problem with. Just too lazy to edit out. To the rest of your statement, the staff are a bit outnumbered, and do not appear to take as much initiative as they should.
If the admin being chosen don't even have prior experience with coding than yes, we have a problem and reason to complain.
But I don't think that's what he was saying. There's a difference between having an opinion which you accept is based on limited information, and actually making assertions as to the facts of the situation based on limited information. There's a difference between opinion and assertion, as the former is inherently subjective whilst the latter is either true or false. A fair perspective.
Yes you do, But I was under the impression this was thread about why this forum is low in activity and I don't think the recent or current administration has had much effect on that one way or the other, And if we did get a perfect administration right now not much will change in regards to population and activity. But if the thread was to discuss the state of the administration regardless of forum population/activity then I misinterpreted and dont have much to say on admin issue(never been mod admin don't have any inside info, I don't think i'm informed enough to have a viable opinion on things) But I don't think there is a huge immediate death con 5 urgent issue with it, Administration seems fine to me working its not perfect but there isn't any rush or outstanding horrible issues that need to be fixed immediately.