Skullheart's changes.

[Ryin]

Skullheart is undergoing big changes and, though there are a few people who voiced their approval of the changes, many dislike it.
The moderation has not been transparent about what is happening and has not responded to the points presented against the current changes in the thread announcing them.
Since said thread was locked and thus we don't have an appropriate place to discuss these changes anymore, I decided to make this thread to avoid discussion about this change cluttering other threads and to ask the site higher ups to address the issues presented by the community.

Please keep the drama and name calling to a minimum.


I went through the closed thread looking for posts with opinions about the current events and issues that haven't been addressed by the mods. If you feel like a post should be here or if you don't want your post here, please contact me.

Also, I had to quote all of this manually, so I'm sorry for any typos in the usernames.
The only posts I edited were the two I made.

Spoiler: Enormous list of quotes.

There IS a problem with people that ONLY post on off topic threads and don't even do anything related to the game at all.

Why? Because it makes the forum look more active than it is? Or because we get 500 members despite only having 200 true members? Are either of those an actual issue?
I really don't see any reason for this being a problem. Every forum ever has people like this (especially if you do X for an extended period of time but then drop it - eg I used to play TCGs and was active on a TCG forum and grew to like some people there, and then I dropped TCGs but I still liked the people, so I stuck in the OT of that forum and kept talking there. Did I ruin a forum by accident??).

There IS a problem if the Off Topic people enter the gameplay section and start spamming there, but this hasn't happened so far (and I haven't gotten any signs that it would happen anytime soon), so I'm not really sure why you have a problem with someone sticking to a place on the forums you don't have to look at?

I'm interested in what these changes are going to be, but I doubt they'll fix anything. The community consist to too large a part of fuckwads for a forum overhaul to accomplish very much, I'm afraid.

moderators and administrators stood by and let SH become a forum about "Skullgirls culture", not Skullgirls.
Can someone explain this to me? I'm legitimately confused about this.

more importantly it scared off people who wished to learn and participate in the Skullgirls community.​

If it scared off people because the forums were about "Skullgirls culture" then what exactly were they wishing to learn and participate in? The community focusing less on "Skullgirls culture" and more on the game itself might invite more people, but it will also, in my opinion, drive people off eventually.
It's like removing an entire country's culture for tourism because the tourists, who wish to learn and participate with the country, are scared of the culture. They won't be scared off but they'll eventually grow bored because there is no culture, or it's too focused on this or that.

Sorry if whatever I say has been unneeded, it's just that I'm really confused by all this.
I was fine with the way things were because there was good discussions on threads largely untouched by derailing, and any sort of derailment was enjoyable in its own right.

Alienating dedicated regulars who were interested in more than raw gameplay discussion, to accommodate potential new people who were somehow scared by non-gameplay discussion taking place in appropriate non-gameplay subforums.

I'm glad the moderator staff is content with this direction. At least someone is.

Myself personally, I treated this forum mostly the way I did the Srk forums: A place to read strategy discussion (because I didn't feel I had much to contribute myself), and also discuss other games off topic at the same time. I feel like this works really well because it gives you a lot of excuses for coming back to the forum again and again, which leads you down the rabbit hole to checking back up on popular strategy/gameplay topics when you might not have otherwise.

Personally, this strikes me as one of those really awful, self destructive anti-common sense moves like developers region locking their own import only niche games, trying to get lets plays removed that give their games publicity/free advertising, etc. For those I could at least blame bureaucracy, but here it really has no excuse. This is a bad move.

To be fair, I understand where the moderator staff are coming from here. With this games art style, some people already are bound to assume its a "weeaboo game" for "neckbeards" who are only in it for their "waifus". They want to keep the games image clean and make sure it's taken serious as a fighting game.

And indeed, letting that kind of anime hipster nerd garbage discussion run rampant has been the source of disgrace for many forums, but this isn't the answer. Off topic forums are a huge part of almost every forum.

Srk has a thriving off topic forum. Shmups.com has a thriving off topic forum. Starcraft 2 forums/Battle.Net has a thriving off topic forum IIRC. People are naturally going to want to discuss off topic stuff the more they become familiar with forum regulars. It's natural, and I've never seen a large or succesful forum that doesn't have at least something akin to an "off topic" or "other games" or "other" forum. Most of the time these forums are a massive part of activity. You know what the only kinds of forums I can think of that don't have thriving off topic forums are? Dead forums.

You need to walk a balance between over-moderating/regulating discussion, and letting stupid shit run wild. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it and it's really the only way to do things right. Right now it feels like the forum is taking the LAW path. You know what happens when you take the law path? You end up committing genocide against Tokyo with a particle accelerator. Please don't commit genocide against Tokyo with a particle accelerator.

The most prominent complaints I heard boiled down to Skullheart so readily encouraging TONS of discussion not even tangentially related to Skullgirls because the moderators and administrators stood by and let SH become a forum about "Skullgirls culture", not Skullgirls.

How does there being an off-topic forum relate at all to the normal SG discussion? Or in any way hamper ones ability to find SG discussion? I never visited off-topic stuff much; the only way I saw off-topic stuff at all previously was from the "Recent Threads" tab and seeing what was there. But if it caused a problem for people to see unrelated threads pop up there, can't you just have threads in the off-topic forum not show up there? (maybe harder than it sounds but there's probably a way)

If people really were just solely complaining about there being an existence of off-topic chat...they probably don't understand online communities. Or people in general. There's only so much you can do for some people.

To add on to the "other big sites have off-topic forums", Sega's (admittedly, shitty) official forum even has one as well, and you could probably find one for any big gaming forum. It's just the nature of things to have one.

SG has one of the strangest communities ever; no one can deny that. I mean we have people dedicated to the lore of the game rather than playing it. I know this puts off people, and more people are irritated that the people that do play don't improve or enter tournaments. But casual players and people who just want to hang around with other people who like what Skullgirls is, either as a fighting game or some kind of cool franchise that would make a neat TV show or whatever, are still part of the community. I would like to imagine even the tournament players like to hang around the off topic threads. Everyone wants Skullgirls to become popular, and yeah we want more people to play the game and it would be cool to have more of a competitive scene, but forcing the focus to be solely Skullgirls isn't going to make anyone want to play the game any more than before.

This means Off-Topic is gone and it's not coming back. It has been replaced with Other Fighting Games, and that is the extent of the non Skullgirls talk that will be allowed on the forum going forward. All non-FG threads have been locked and archived. They won't be deleted, but they will no longer be open for discussion.

Full disclosure, this is a terrible idea.

I'm one of those casual SG players who doesn't really put in a lot of my spare time to practice or play the game. It's a great game but I have other competitive games I choose to focus my efforts on and Skullgirls is a nice side game for me to play with friends. I've only shown up to two online tournaments and can't really go to any physical tournaments. But in the year since I've joined the Skullhearts community I've been more at home here than I have in any other forum I've signed up for.

Other forums, I only go to one or two threads which is usually the only reason why I started posting there in the first place. Skullhearts, not the same. I originally started posting in the dlc character sub-forums in the wake of the IGG campaign and since then I've been in various gameplay and off-topic threads. Since I usually just read a lot of the more technical gameplay threads and don't have the knowledge to post much in the way of useful advice for other players, losing the off-topic forums basically gives me no reason to post here much anymore, which is a shame.
A fighting games only forum screams "no fun allowed" to me which seems to be a common sentiment in the posts above but you'd have to poll every single member to get anything near a consensus.

And trust me, I've seen firsthand some of the problems that happened in the off-topic thread. The fiasco that eventually became the GamerGate thread is still fresh in my mind. What the forum doesn't need is a focus on only one thing. Me being able to come here and have discussions about Beowulf's moves, speculate how Scythana's body-grab mechanic would work, getting some very interesting information on the various histories of monster girls and how it relates to a manga series myself and other read, and finding a place to talk about my love of Kamen Rider Kuuga that isn't 4chan all made this place a great chill spot.

When I read that the powers at be decided to "trim down" the forum. I pretty much knew that something like this would happen. I would strongly ask the moderation of Skullhearts to reconsider removing the off-topic forums. It was a lot more important than you may have given it credit for.

Alright, look. I don't post much in the Skullgirls gameplay sections because I know there are plenty of better players that know more combos and better ideas for things to fix than I do. I mostly just lurk there to learn stuff. I imagine a bunch of other people do too! So before I say anything else let me say that I come here for Skullgirls first and foremost, regardless of where my post history might be.

THAT SAID, I still like to participate in discussions for a bunch of other things that other people within this community also like, and getting rid of the OT section hurt that a lot. You can't use the "well why don't you go to a different forum" argument because I'm looking for where the fandoms overlap, something that likely wouldn't happen if I went to a different site, and if it did, it's probably in the off-topic section that board has. The Skullgirls community is one of the nicest fighting game communities out there, and that's where a lot of the draw in Skullheart and the IRC comes from. Take away the ability for the members of the community to talk about other things that they just might happen to be a fan of, and the only thing you do is hurt that reputation.

In other words, don't use the Chicken at Mexican Restaurant analogy, it's more like if IHOP decided to take away all other breakfast foods from the menu because they aren't pancakes.

I've sat here a long time to try and articulate my thoughts on this.
On the one hand, I'm mostly a lurker; I'm about as likely to read obsessively about the links that come from Parasoul j.mp with Peacock assist as I am to read about peoples favourite ice cream flavour or whatever the hell went on in OT, so I really shouldn't be upset by this.
On the other hand, though, this whole thing just strikes me as a very extreme answer to what I consider a bit of a non-issue. I really don't get the justification that has been given. Who really looks at the front page, sees Kamen Rider and Guilty Gear, and thinks 'Oh shit, these people don't even play Skullgirls, I've been had', and then leaves? If it's an issue of people seeing junk in their feeds, then 1) completely locking OT seems a bit much, and (More importantly) 2) Forums -> Gameplay General -> Whatever the hell their interested in is three clicks. Three. Little known fact, just learned it myself, three is not a very high number. It's not difficult to just move yourself away from the 'horribly cluttered' front page.
Ultimately, I do not think that this choice is anywhere near a step in the right direction for this forum to grow, and maybe just a little bit of an elitist stance to take for the forums going forward. Take it from someone who knows, isolating the players who can't talk tech is not a good idea.

I'm going to echo a lot of other people in this thread and say that I think that this reshuffling as it is now is an incredibly bad idea. Now, I get that you want to trim some of the fat here at Skullheart, but this appears to be more like removing all the fat in the human body because fat makes you fat. That kind of procedure will kill you slowly and painfully, and I won't be surprised if it will do the same to Skullheart.

Also, in regards to the "talking about Skullgirls culture, not Skullgirls" deal, we skullpeople may be linked by our common interest in Skullgirls, but we are still different people with our own interests. Some (maybe a lot) of us are more interested in the lore, the characters, or the opinions and tastes of the other fans we share this forum with than the actual gameplay of Skullgirls. By axing the OT stuff, completely refusing to give an alternative other than Other Fighting Games (which will not work for this because some people here don't care about fighting games that aren't Skullgirls), and killing discussion of non-gameplay topics elsewhere, you're basically kicking skullfans in the balls and proclaiming skullplayers as the master race. This is a dangerous precedent to set for the game's official forum, as it may drive away the people who don't care about the gameplay as much as they do about the lore or the fandom itself. I'm fine with Dustloop having that setup because they are explicitly not the official ASW fighting game forum and they're generally much more serious about their fightan gaems. However, Skullgirls and its fandom aren't always serious, so why should its official forum be any different?

As for speculation and its effects, why not just make a separate board for such things? In that case, at least, you would be able to keep it from spilling into threads where it would irk Mok Zed and the other Lab Zero people who appear at Skullheart.

Besides, in the modern world we live in, someone will always be offended by something about Skullgirls and its fandom (or anything else, really), regardless of what others may do to try and keep those people happy. If you care so much about offending people due to the culture that's sprung up around Skullgirls that you're willing to shut out a large portion of the fandom to prevent it, then you might as well call it quits and shut down Skullheart, because at this point in its lifetime, Skullgirls and its culture are inseparable.

I know I said I'm done, but this was cannibalized from the earlier post I didn't post. This is a reason I believe the OT sections are important for getting new players playing:

Spoiler

If I go to a forum and I'm not immediately invested, I usually can't find any reason to go back. Turning visitors into lurkers should be the goal, and it's hard to make someone want to lurk with limited lurking materials. I'm going to give you guys an example of a potential forum-goer.

Let's say "Tim" picks up Skullgirls, kicks it around for a week, but can't quite figure it out. He decides to look for a forum, and finds us. He looks around, doesn't have any questions he's willing to ask, but can't quite get a grasp on how to play just yet. While he's contemplating sticking around and making an account, he decides to look through all the subforums (maybe he'll see something he can more easily understand) and finds the Chess thread. He's a big Chess fan, and enjoys listening to Isa talk about chess. He makes an account to leave a comment, then gets distracted on Reddit.

The next day he remembers he left a comment, so goes back to check if there was a reply, and there was. Before he checks the reply, he sees in the recent threads section a witty title for someone's Training Diary. He decides to click on it. He gets to know Gllt's, the funny thread creator's, struggles to git gud. And while doing that, he notices that Isa also takes part in gameplay discussions. Tim is still not ready to partake in gameplay discussions, but now, little by little, he's getting more invested in lurking in gameplay threads. All thanks to the off-topic chess thread.

This is the type of Skullgirls player that we will never see again. If they end up on Skullheart, they're at one point interested in Skullgirls. Shutting off avenues that keep them coming back is not good.

I just read the entire thread ( because thats what a good community guy does to stay informed) and I'm rather disappointed by the elitism being shown here.

I do not see how having a thriving off topic community is a bad thing or how it upsets newbs trying to get into skullgirls.

Anyone who knows me (and thats most of the gameplay community) knows that 99.9% of my posts are gameplay related. I'm always giving my opinion on gameplay changes and posting new tech/strategies that i find.

I once had a problem with there not being enough gameplay discussion... I still do actually. I wish our tier thread or gameplay thread were more active. I wish there were more painwheel players of a good quality to talk to so we can share strategies (though the ones we do have already are stellar) but one thing ive never wished for was for the off topic/lore people/mofos that dont post in gameplay but do post in skullheart alot about other things... Go away.

Even though ive never been much of a lore or speculation guy, ive ALWAYS TAKEN PRIDE in how many people visit this forum and keep it active. Nothing makes my heart swell more than coming to the forums and seeing +200 or more people actively using skullheart. I really dont care if most of them are talking about Pokemon or whatever the hell else, as long as there are still some people talking about skullgirls gameplay and as long as the ot people stay out of the gameplay section (they have)... I'm fine.

The only people that actually post a lot in the gameplay sections that support this are mcpeanuts and fullbleed.

There are some other gameplay people that seem to support this fiasco, but they dont actually post much:

Dreymore, domo.

Whereas MANY people that post in gameplay have come out and said they dont approve of this change, and others have said they dont see the logic in the changes but are neutral in general.

Yes, all of us gameplay people would like more gameplay discussion. But do we actually think that killing one of the highest traffic highways into skullheart is a good way of doing this? All these ot people are giving us more marketing than we would have if they weren't here.

Are we trying to be d-loop?

That seems like a bad idea to me:

Dustloop is the least popular fighting game forum out there, its mostly dead in each characters subsection, and it has MORE THAN ONE GAME FORUM to attract people to it.

sg has ONE game forum to attract people to it... And yet we have a very good amount of site traffic for only being a forum about ONE game.


Why would we feel the need to stop this? I do not understand whatever "logic" is being applied to the thinking that of we cut off certain parts of the forum that others will automatically grow. My logic says that those people that are cutoff will just go elsewhere and never comeback... Like what happened on srk. Those guys that left never came back. And we had some pretty good players on there ready to go full stop on the game.

I strongly disagree with the removal of the Off-Topic section. I believe having an OT section is healthy for any forum because it allows people who share a common interest in whatever the forum is about to discuss other topics of interest with people they came to know on that forum and do not keep contact in another form, for whatever reason they have for that.

Since the best post we had explaining the reasons for this decision was Flotilla's, I'll talk about it.
In his post he states the biggest reasons for this decision were that Skulheart encouraged people to talk about things unrelated to Skullgirls and that the forums in their current state could scare off new players.

First of all. Why is Skullheart encouraging people to discuss things unrelated to Skullgirls? The OT section is not in a special place to attract posters. The best justification I saw for this was the fact that OT threads may clutter the Recent Threads section. And that came with the suggestion of simply making it so OT threads do not appear in that section.

Then comes the issue of Skullheart in its current state keeping new players away.
How is the OT section responsible for this? Practically every forum has an OT section. SRK for example has a Fighting Game Discussion for games that do not have their own forums, a General Discussion section to talk about anything and a Tech Talk section to talk about hardware/software. Smashboards has a General Gaming Discussion, a General Discussion, a Nintendo Discussion, an Arts and Entertainment section, a Debate section and a Forum Games section. Does having these keep people away from the games discussed in those forums? Does it make those forums any less respectable in the FGC?

Like @Zidiane said. Having off topic sections might even make people feel less intimidated by the game and more interested in taking it more seriously. (Zidiane's last quoted post goes here)

I'm particularly not very interested in posting the OT section. But I do enjoy reading some OT stuff from time to time when I come here looking for gameplay discussions and new things to try out. It was mostly because of the OT threads that I came to like the people who post here. And because of that I made an account. And also because of that I decided to make a training diary to see if that would help me take practicing more seriously. So far it's working.

Now if there are concerns about the quality of the discussion in the OT section, then it's important to make sure the forum's rules do not allow innapropriate content to be posted. And it's the Moderators' job to make sure those rules are followed. Removing the OT section is killing the patient to cure a flu.

Screenshots from the official Playstation, Nintendo, and Capcom forums (just the first three official companies I could think of). They all have OT sections.

Spoiler

If a larger percentage of users than you'd like happen to use the OT section, that doesn't mean you nuke it.




Pretty fucking up to date, actually. All of the subforums look active.

As a matter of fact, to add to what I said, Capcom's OT section has more posts (353k) than any other section after Monster Hunter (379k), Street Fighter (440k), and Resident Evil (449k). Playstation's OT section actually dwarfs any other subforum (12.5k pages in OT, closest competitor is PS General with 2.5k pages) and makes up 10% of all threads (couldn't find post statistics, just a thread count that I had to deduce by counting the threads on a page and the number of pages). Nintendo's General Discussion section alone (nevermind online gaming or other gaming) beats all current gen (Wii U and 3DS) discussion COMBINED (meaning, Wii U+Wii U eShop+Wii U Virtual Console+amiibo+3DS+3DS eShop+3DS Virtual Shop = ~452k posts < General Discussion = 485k posts).

Putting this in comparison to Skullgirls: OT all together has 56k (18k general, 30k gaming, 8k Anime), compared to 219k total posts, with OT having 0.5k total discussions compared to 3.4k total discussions. Meaning, roughly 25% of Skullheart discussions are in OT threads, which take up roughly 15% of threads. With all of Playstation's games that they release, their OT makes it to 10% of threads (just shy of Skullheart's statistic). Imagine if you could only discuss Uncharted there how high their percentages would be. With Playstation, just one thread on the first OT section page (of 12.5k pages of 30 threads a page (more threads than other sections had posts)), "The Random Thread", has 23k posts. I just eyeballed Nintendo, but I'm pretty sure all OT posts actually outnumber all other posts (edit: 783k OT > 747k elsewhere, so over 50% of posts are OT). Skullheart isn't really that bad.

The last thing I'll probably say is that the forums for Tekken, Soul Caliber, SRK, Ehubs, Mortal Kombat, and Smash, all have a General Discussion/Off-Topic subforum without their world burning down, with Dustloop (one of the least popular) being the exception. There's a reason we're all here instead of talking gameplay on Dustloop/SRK or talking lore on Tumblr/Reddit or going and having off-topic discussions on 4chan/any-other-site, and that reason is because this is our place, and that makes it more than just a forum for us to talk about Skullgirls.

This restructuring is supposed to focus discussion on Skullgirls, whether it be casual or competitive. It is not dividing casual Skullgirls and competitive Skullgirls, it's dividing non-Skullgirls from Skullgirls.

First of all, I would like to thank you and all of the mods for takings steps forward to make changes and clean this place up. While I don't agree with some of the choices that are being made, I understand that you guys are all doing your best to do what you think is best for the community. Hopefully everything will work out and we can all be happy together. That being said...

Taking away things such as OT will in fact divide casual Skullgirls from competitive Skullgirls players. It may seem like you're just taking away things that aren't related to SG, but you have to remember that these non-SG related threads are where many of the casual players socialize and spend their time. If you take away their ability to talk about their shared interests, then they won't have anywhere to go unless they already actively post in the SG related threads. Many of them will likely be frustrated and simply stop showing up, which I don't think is what we want to have happen.

The people that are most frustrated by these changes are those that have developed friendships with other members over the last year or so, as they will no longer have a place to comfortably talk to one another. Sure, they could go to other sites and join forums that are related to their interests, but that's not what this is about. They joined this forum because of SG, but many have stayed and continued to use this forum because of the culture and friendships that this environment has fostered.

I believe that there are better solutions than simply removing the troublesome areas. I know you guys have talked about this a lot and explored various solutions, but I think you guys have grossly underestimated the importance of the OT threads.

And what exactly do you expect of the quality of the OT section? An OT section is made so users can interact with each other and talk about subjects unrelated to the forum itself. People who come to a forum will not exclusively want to talk about what that forum is about. Yes, Skullgirls is the primary reason for people to sign up in this forum. But no, people will not only think about Skullgirls. For example, in a Beowulf discussion, people could start talking about the inspirations for his attacks and that discussion would become a small series of OT posts. If you have an OT section someone could say "Hey, those people like wrestling and I'd love to discuss wrestling with them." and make an OT topic about wrestling. Now if they don't have an OT section, they will have to abruptly cut that wrestling discussion, to go back to more important topics about Beowulf, and take that discussion to another site. The problem is: they wanted to discuss these things among Skullgirls players. If some of they went to a wrestling forum (and it's important to note not everyone who'd participate in this discussion in the OT section would go to said forum) to discuss wrestling and wonder about which moves Beowulf would get, they would not get what they want because most people in that forum don't even know Skullgirls.
And what is the problem with forum games? What do you have against people interacting with each other in a laid back manner other in this forum? Once again, the cool thing about having forum games in Skullheart is that it allows people with a common interest they love to play and interact with each other. Is it possible to take it somewhere else? Somewhat, yes. Would it work? Probably not. For a lot of these people, Skullheart is the only place in common they visit.
Are you guys only worried about the OT dwarfing other individual sections with its post count? It's only natural for the OT section to have more posts than the others. Take a look at the numbers @Zidiane posted some posts ago. Are those numbers making Sony/Capcom/Nintendo freak out and axe their OT section? No.
This has been asked multiple times in this thread but you never gave us a clear answer.
Who is requesting these changes? What kind of feedback have you been receiving? How is it possible for you to be helping the community when less than 5 members have voiced their opinion in favor of the change in 12 pages of discussion? How can you say you don't wish to divide the Skullgirls community when you are quite clearly doing that?

 

[Flotilla]

I've read all of the announcement thread, but I very much appreciate you taking the most convincing/well-thought-out arguments and putting them in one place for convenience.

While the moderators and a sizable number of SH members aren't seeing eye to eye right now, a lot of people are raising legitimate points about the new rules and restructuring that we intend to address. I'm reluctant to say how we'll address them because it isn't set in stone and I don't want to give information that may ultimately end up being false, but everyone's complaints aren't falling on deaf ears. It's appreciated, even!

I'm totally fine with this thread existing BTW, so long as it doesn't derail or become overly hostile.

 

[chickenwithtie]

I personally think there isn't much else to discuss at the moment, we'd take a pause and maybe comment when mods finish what they planned.
But this thread is here, and I gotta ask: all these people that got Banned written on their titles, are they permanently banned from the forum? Or just a singular thread/section? Did this "harassement" really happen? Most of all, does Dekillsage being banned mean no KillsageMod2k15?

I'm sad.

 

[Flotilla]

I personally think there isn't much else to discuss at the moment, we'd take a pause and maybe comment when mods finish what they planned.
But this thread is here, and I gotta ask: all these people that got Banned written on their titles, are they permanently banned from the forum? Or just a singular thread/section? Did this "harassement" really happen? Most of all, does Dekillsage being banned mean no KillsageMod2k15?

I'm sad.

They're not permanently banned. And yes, they engaged in harassment/vandalism. Going into completely unrelated threads (Like the PC Beta Updates thread) spamming walls of "#FREEB0NK" won't be tolerated.

 

[Ryin]

I also think there is not much else to discuss. But any post about this issue is bound to spark some discussion. Like what happened in the Forum Problems and Feature Requests thread.
It's also nice to have an open thread to wait for a response. And having a place to discuss the events makes things less tense.

 

[chickenwithtie]

They're not permanently banned. And yes, they engaged in harassment/vandalism. Going into completely unrelated threads (Like the PC Beta Updates thread) spamming walls of "#FREEB0NK" won't be tolerated.

Ah, I see. I saw weird stuff around and was kinda confused. Thanks

 

[zarkingphoton]

If you're still looking for people to ban, get rid of all the furries. Then, you'd really be cleaning this place up.

 

[Muro]

 

[agent13]

I'm just finding this funny since trying to make this site serious is the equivalent of telling people on reddit not to be stupid. Good luck, i really mean that.

 

[Jimbob]

Ban everybody thats not serious.

 

[Witchfinder]

Ban everybody thats serious.

I think this would be more of a problem solver than your suggestion.

 

[Dagwood]

If you're still looking for people to ban, get rid of all the furries. Then, you'd really be cleaning this place up.

I'd rather have the furries than the mods

Ban the mods

 

[Peterthegameguy]

The only problem I'm having with the changes is that I can't post nor edit in my own thread that isn't locked in the Off Topic Gaming Sub-Forum.

 

[CaioLugon]

I think this would be more of a problem solver than your suggestion.

This is exactly why the changes are happening

 

[shoryusatsu999]

I'm just finding this funny since trying to make this site serious is the equivalent of telling people on reddit not to be stupid. Good luck, i really mean that.

Basic psychology, pretty much. Tell someone to do something, and they'll do it if they like you enough (or they have no say in the matter). Tell someone not to do something, and if neither of those qualifiers are there, you can count on the other person doing exactly what you want them not to do. Thus, the rebellions earlier.

 

[Zidiane]

@Ryin The only things I would change about the part I'm quoted in would be adding a few parts of other posts.

Spoiler: Requested change to my "Off Topic statistics" quote

The Official Skullgirls Forum should actually BE official and not just your backyard to talk about not-Skullgirls with a passing interest in Skullgirls.

Screenshots from the official Playstation, Nintendo, and Capcom forums (just the first three official companies I could think of). They all have OT sections.

Spoiler

If a larger percentage of users than you'd like happen to use the OT section, that doesn't mean you nuke it.

Kinda off-topic, but I was unaware Nintendo had an official forum. How recent is it?

Pretty fucking up to date, actually. All of the subforums look active.

As a matter of fact, to add to what I said, Capcom's OT section has more posts (353k) than any other section after Monster Hunter (379k), Street Fighter (440k), and Resident Evil (449k). Playstation's OT section actually dwarfs any other subforum (12.5k pages in OT, closest competitor is PS General with 2.5k pages) and makes up 10% of all threads (couldn't find post statistics, just a thread count that I had to deduce by counting the threads on a page and the number of pages). Nintendo's General Discussion section alone (nevermind online gaming or other gaming) beats all current gen (Wii U and 3DS) discussion COMBINED (meaning, Wii U+Wii U eShop+Wii U Virtual Console+amiibo+3DS+3DS eShop+3DS Virtual Shop = ~452k posts < General Discussion = 485k posts).

Putting this in comparison to Skullgirls: OT all together has 56k (18k general, 30k gaming, 8k Anime), compared to 219k total posts, with OT having 0.5k total discussions compared to 3.4k total discussions. Meaning, roughly 25% of Skullheart discussions are in OT threads, which take up roughly 15% of threads. With all of Playstation's games that they release, their OT makes it to 10% of threads (just shy of Skullheart's statistic). Imagine if you could only discuss Uncharted there how high their percentages would be. With Playstation, just one thread on the first OT section page (of 12.5k pages of 30 threads a page (more threads than other sections had posts)), "The Random Thread", has 23k posts. I just eyeballed Nintendo, but I'm pretty sure all OT posts actually outnumber all other posts (edit: 783k OT > 747k elsewhere, so over 50% of posts are OT). Skullheart isn't really that bad.

The last thing I'll probably say is that the forums for Tekken, Soul Caliber, SRK, Ehubs, Mortal Kombat, and Smash, all have a General Discussion/Off-Topic subforum without their world burning down, with Dustloop (one of the least popular) being the exception. There's a reason we're all here instead of talking gameplay on Dustloop/SRK or talking lore on Tumblr/Reddit or going and having off-topic discussions on 4chan/any-other-site, and that reason is because this is our place, and that makes it more than just a forum for us to talk about Skullgirls.

 

[ashxu]

I'd rather have the furries than the mods

Ban the mods

Jokes aside I don't think the management team is qualified to run a forum if they thought these changes was a good idea. I mean it.

 

[Jimbob]

Is there a estimated date for when everything is done and final?

 

[CaioLugon]

http://skullgirls.com/forums/index.php?threads/forum-rules-2-0.6456/

 

[joshb911]

So are people noticing that they are getting banned randomly from certain threads?

Cause I am lol (please fix it so I can comment on my black lagoon thread again...)

 

[Fumako]

So are people noticing that they are getting banned randomly from certain threads?

Cause I am lol (please fix it so I can comment on my black lagoon thread again...)

No, they just locked everything in the off-topic which, presumably, also contains your black lagoon thread.
No Non-skullgirls talk anymore, non-skullgirls fighting games are the only exception.
Here's what's been proposed as a solution to your woes:
"Go to an anime forum because this is the official forum and we want it to be super serious, which means skullgirls talk only"

 

[joshb911]

No, they just locked everything in the off-topic which, presumably, also contains your black lagoon thread.
No Non-skullgirls talk anymore, non-skullgirls fighting games are the only exception.
Here's what's been proposed as a solution to your woes:
"Go to an anime forum because this is the official forum and we want it to be super serious, which means skullgirls talk only"

Oh word thanks for the heads up

 

[Clawsome Bombs]

I just want to still be allowed to be silly
I realize that my silliness must be within SG bounds and that's alright

 

[alexpi]

When silliness gets banned, i'll stick to my dirty talk on the IRC.

 

[ashxu]

So can we get off topic back and a restructuring of the management team now?

SH is now a fucking ghost town and my Filia guide thread got locked for no reason.


A kingdom is nothing without it's people, I hope whoever is in charge of these insanely retarded changes realizes that.

 

[Fumako]

possibly a restructuring of the management team now?

I want new people as long as they're willing to announce any radical new changes ALONG with a time-period for discussion rather than "Ok guys, this might be sudden but, THE OFF-TOPIC IS GOOOONE!! You guys can say ANY legitimate concerns and possible negative-effects of this change, but we're still going to do it. I mean, we're official and being official means no off-topic. *hides Capcom, Nintendo, whathaveyou forums*"

I just want people who actually makes sense :(

 

[ClarenceMage]

This is literally the worst decision I have ever seen a forum moderation team ever make.

I've been around on shitty internet forums for a while, and you would think that SOME PEOPLE WOULD EVENTUALLY LEARN FROM HISTORY AND LEAVE SHIT THAT DON'T NEED FIXING ALONE instead letting the EXALTED POWER, RESPONSIBILITY AND DIVINE PRESTIGE OF FORUM ADMINISTRATORSHIP GET TO THEIR HEADS. Come on guys, it's 2014. TWENTY FOURTEEN. You do NOT need to be making amateur early-2000s forum administration mistakes.

Off-topic exists in literally every single fucking forum for a reason. Some people like to talk about their gameplay and story stuff. Some make friends and want to talk about other things. A community is built. The off-topic people and the gameplay-only people are seperate. Traffic is generated. More traffic = More people spill into the gameplay sections of the forum eventually probably. Yay.

I was having a lot of fun talking about a lot of gameplay changes and character-specific developments. Now after this decision has pissed off a lot of players INCLUDING PLAYERS WHO POST IN THE GAMEPLAY FORUMS off enough for them to post on Skullheart less, my opportunity to actually talk about Skullgirls has diminished thanks to this decision.

 

[IsaVulpes]

Here @Cellsai @Flotilla @worldjem, my rough list of concerns/questions regarding this.
I probably forgot some things, but it's long enough either way, so whatever:

#1: "We got a plethora of complaints by people -newbies and veterans alike- who don't want to visit SH due to its OffTopic-ness"

- a) Who are these people? Where are they now?
I have not noticed a sudden influx of new members in the gameplay section?! Shouldn't they be swarming in or something.

- b) Why have these people not brought their concerns up publicly?
This is a *community*. A forum. The literal purpose of this place is to open discussion threads to talk about SG; gameplay, the community, fanart, SG this, SG that.
What made these people think it would be a better course of action to hide their opinion from everyone, rather than bringing up (possibly valid?) arguments as to why this forum is bad and/or needs to change?
If they don't even engage in public discussion *on the most crucial issue this forum could see*, what exactly makes you think they would start threads and talk about anything else, EVER?

- c) Are you sure these people are *actually* not joining SH due to the OT? Many people, when they "just don't like it", rather than saying *that*, will come up with bullshit excuses.
Like, 'potential' SG players who go "I don't want to play this game because it doesn't have a movelist" > "Okay it has a movelist now, but the combos are too long" > "Okay the combos are shorter now, but I want a male character" > "Okay it has a male character now but it's 2 years old and everyone playing it is a veteran, I won't be able to become competitive at it anymore"
If someone is stopped from talking in the Gameplay section due to people *he doesn't have contact with* posting Naruto fanart in the Off Topic *which he doesn't have to enter*, then chances are he will also get 'stopped' by a million other things (Base Examples: "Too many people with uglyass avatars", "That IsaVulpes guy isn't friendly enough when someone talks bullshit", "There's a thread full of people masturbating to the 2d butt of a dead teenage girl").

#2: "We want to be a forum about Skullgirls, not about Skullgirls culture; people look at SH and don't see any gameplay talk ever"

- a) As has been mentioned multiple times already by other people, every forum has an OT and the OT is (amongst) the most post-intensive section, always. This isn't really an argument to begin with.
To give a base example, the one forum other than this one I'm decently active on atm is a fanforum of my football club. All subforums other than OT together have ~1.150.000 posts. The OT has 1.800.000 - and it was cleansed (as in, all posts older than a year(?) were deleted) some 6 months ago; prior to that, the number was.. higher.

- b) 'Skullgirls culture' sounds more like 'People talking about SG without playing it' than 'People talking about random things' to me. If you want to achieve this, do you really think you removed the correct subforum?
A "valid" complaint about the SG community is that it's full of creepers who are only in it for the tits / 90% of the community is just people revelling in fanart, headcanons, similar - and you addressed this by stopping people from wishing each other a merry christmas, while keeping threads such as "Squigly Appreciation" and "SkullDate" alive.
IF I can see anyone actually *getting repulsed to the point that they don't want to be associated with the SGC at all and refuse to open an SH account*, then surely due to people writing that Valentine got some mad tasty strawberry panties, rather than because of people discussing the newest One Piece episode.

- c.I) Do you really think the problem of "there's a lack of Gameplay talk" is going to be solved by removing the OT?
The problem isn't "Tons of OT drowning out all the great discussion", the problem is that THERE ARE NO DISCUSSIONS. We got like 10 people total in the entire Gameplay section (including the Beta Discussion thread and Training Diaries subforum) who circlejerk and try to keep the forum somewhat alive.
'No more anime talk' will not suddenly cause Taluda to write more than one post every two months, Sonicfox to make sense, or Dekillsage to discuss matchups beyond "D E A D A S S F R E E". There IS a problem in lack of gameplay talk, but that's due to *the people who play the game not posting*, not due to some other people writing random stuff elsewhere.
That's just the way it is - in 99% of gaming forums, the top players don't really say anything (Alioune used to post on SRK until he got too pissed at whiny Cammy boards, and there are a few others who sometimes write things such as Veserius/Jozhear, but most either plain don't post at all or VERY rarely) - possibly because they are too busy playing the game rather than being a forum warrior, who knows. Some people just don't like forums, too. It's a thing.
The problem here (on SH, unlike SRK) is that the rest of the community is too small to really carry a gameplay section on its own, that people are too shit to talk about meaningful things (if you look in the gameplay section, pretty much 99% of it is the "Tier Thread" aka 'Copy some random list without reasoning from the poster above you, except put your main on the bottom' as well as the respective Combo Threads in the character subforums; you'll be very hardpressed to find eg any matchup talk - cus nobody knows any matchups), and that of the few people who talk about things, most are either unreadable or retarded or both.

If you want to improve the gameplay section, then bring some kinda 'incentive' for doing something like writing a guide, or directly contact some TopPlayers and ask them to post / what one should do for them to talk more (Taluda's posts are amazing! If he posts.), or ask someone to write a beginner->advanced primer so more people get to a reasonable level, or make it clearer that anyone is welcome to ask questions and join any and all discussions etc (you see in the previous rant thread that there are tons of people who at least pretend to be 'afraid' of joining in gameplay talk because they see themselves as too bad - this is what caused the "Training Diaries" subforum to be the #1 source of Gameplay talk, as there people actually ask questions and 'dare' talk), ..

- c.II) .. or I don't know, beat the fuckass shitass pisskids who take everyone's tech and advice but never give anything back into submission, until people are interested in sharing anything ever again? As it stands, I'm not.
When 90%+ of the community keep all their videos unlisted and share them with nothing but a close circle of friends, actively refuse to help other people cus they're scared they might lose in the future, refuse to tell you anything even when you're directly asking them, "save that shit for nationals" despite not entering tournaments, etc tbc, then *I* am uninterested in talking about anything as well. The circle of life, etc.
Fix this fuckass community full of human waste that cares more about self gratification in form of stroking their ego via netplay wins than it wants to help other people improve (which in turn would force them to get better, which in turn makes everyone stronger) and you are sure to get some decent discussion here. Won't happen, though.
But hey, we got "the nicest community in fighting games", heh. Just as long as you don't actually talk to anybody. But everyone smiles nicely, and nobody says "raped" during commentary! Yay.

#3 "It is not possible to just remove the Off Topic section from the 'Recent Threads' section (it would be a neat solution if it worked)"

If this (The 'Recent Threads' subsection being "full of non-gameplay talk") is really your only/largest issue..

- a) Do you not think that removing the most post-intensive subforum (and as such, say, 60%+ of members) is a bit overdone for such a minor -yes, that's what it is- problem?

- b) Did you not actually solve anything, because it will still be full with talk about GuiltyGear/Smash/OtherFGs, as well as Fanart/Squiglysex/etc

- c) I'll have to call bullshit. I don't know what kinda plugin (if any, maybe it's XenForo-Default) you use for the Recent Threads thing, but there's BOUND to be a way to exclude single subforums. And if there isn't, you could spend the 10 bucks to buy a plugin that offers said option.
Heck, if you don't want to pay money for it, you can put a "Donate!"-Button in the top row and 5 minutes later you'll have your 10 bucks (and be forced to send back another 200).

-----

Bottom Line: The removal of the OT looks to me like a completely overdone fix-attempt of a problem that never really was one.

If you want to remove the OT from the "Recent Threads" section, then do that by changing some option in your plug-in. Worst case, you'll have to buy a new plug-in to be able to do it. This worst case is still much, much better than just removing the entire OT.

If you want to cut down some spam: Forbid forum games, limit the shitpost-threads-count to 2 (one for SG-related blarg ie Sagespeak, one in OT so Denizen got a room to propose to Muro in), make rules harsher on how much fun is allowed where, act upon these rules (FUCKING HELL, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO STOP PEOPLE FROM RUNNING THROUGH THE SAME HORRIBLE JOKE IN THE BETA DISCUSSION THREAD FOR 3 PAGES STRAIGHT). Might have to get some new moderators to not be criminally understaffed in every subforum?

If you want to make the SG Community look less awful, remove questionable content which is clearly disliked by large parts of this forum, as well as pretty much every somewhat sane person elsewhere (such as the Skullgirls Dating Sim). Hint: My chess thread is/was not part of said questionable content.

All of these look pretty decent to me. Admittedly neither of these is gonna fix your 'core issue', but the OT removal doesn't either, and at least these 3 are logical + actually help with SOMETHING.
The Gameplay section is shit because there aren't enough people posting in there, and because the ones who do are shit (both as forum posters and as SG players); not due to Jimbonizenangelblaze talking about the social implications of a genderbent Ichigo appearing in the next Sonic game.

If you want to improve the Gameplay part of the forums, you'll have to work a bit harder than removing a section which has literally nothing (neither users nor posts) to do with Gameplay (I mentioned some things above~).
If I was nice, I'd label your apparent thought-process of "If we just remove the Anime talk from SH, Taluda is going to majestically tip his fedora, followed by typing page upon page of in-depth game analysis" somewhat naive. But I'm not, so I'll say "Verdammte Axt, was für ein irrsinniger Ackergaul hat euch denn bitte zugeritten, um einen derart tiefen Hirnriss zu produzieren?"

G'Day.

-----

E: Here is a very basic example of "what is wrong" with the gameplay section:
http://skullgirls.com/forums/index....-the-kingdom-matchup-thread.2136/#post-118975
- I post a decently long 'matchup analysis' of Para v Squigly from my viewpoint.
- It should be a "controversial" opinion, as everyone in stuff like the Tier List thread writes (or wrote, at the time of me posting it) that Para v Squigly is a free win for Soul and Squigly's 2nd worst matchup after Peacock and random similar crap
- I ask the simple question: Where am I going wrong? What am I missing?

I get a whole of 3 answers,; one 1-liner by sage "TLDR? Para wins 6-4", Dime who pretty much just agrees with what I'm saying, and alexpi leaving an inconclusive comment of "Para's buttons are better" (rather than addressing what I said, eg that Squig jLK beats me Air-to-Air) and basically writing "Para has an advantage at the start of the round, so the only option that Squigly has is downback+assist, and that loses to throw" which is kind of an empty statement and would be wrong even if the empty premise was correct.

THIS is what makes me not want to post in the Gameplay section. THIS is what keeps people from even attempting to discuss anything. THIS is what makes people say "SH is garbage, just forget about going there if you want to get better".

Whether there's an Off Topic forum or not is completely irrelevant here. You forbidding people from talking about what kind of special attacks Annie could have is not going to cause DDB to teach me about the intricacies of the Para v Squigly matchup instead - He'll just visit the forum less, the end.

 

[mcpeanuts]

Hope someone backs up that Vulpes post before the mods delete it and ban his account

 

[Luweewu]

Skulluminati already has it covered

 

[Kai]

In the late 1960’s, Yellowstone National Park was facing a serious problem: they had been letting the bears eat the garbage from the park dumps, and it had become something of a spectacle, with visitors able to look at dozens of bears feasting on garbage at any given moment. Problem was, they’d been doing it for so long that most of the bears had no clue how to actually survive as bears. Adding to that, it was becoming unsafe to eat anything outdoors, as bears knew to be on the lookout for human leftovers… and they didn’t always wait for the humans to finish. People were coming to see majestic, wild bears, but all they got were fat, lazy, and ornery bears that would kill you for your granola bar.

So, the Park Services made the tough choice to start trucking all their garbage out of the park, no longer dumping it in the park. Fines were instated, banning any outside food in the entire park. No more family BBQ, no more dumps, no more leavings for the bears. Having become so used to their non-bear lifestyle, the bears had great difficulty adjusting, and many died. Years later, the bears eventually relearned how to be bears, and they stopped approaching humans entirely. The problem having been solved, the restrictions on outside food were lifted, and families could once again enjoy a picnic at Yellowstone.

The visitors got their food privileges back, and even though the environment for bear-scavenging had partially resumed, the population of bears who ate garbage had moved on to other things (namely, wild food), so the problem never occurred again.

What does this story have to do with anything? Hell if I know. I’m certainly not speaking officially, and I’m certainly not telling anyone to have patience in the realistic hope that their future might resemble their past, provided the requisite diligence is shown. I'm certainly not implying that there are any park rangers debating the merits of reinstating picnic privileges at some point.

Spoiler: long story short

If you want things changed, voice your opinion, and in a way that precludes any repercussion. That means being civil. #freebonk will not free bonk, etc etc.

 

[chickenwithtie]

So we bears now? I'll be Winnie the Pooh.
This place is on fire

 

[Detective Q]

Wusste gar nicht dass Vulpes so gut Deutsch kann. Oder Google Translate ist doch zu was zu gebrauchen. Zum ordentlichen fluchen reicht's zumindest ;)

@Yellowstone Park: The problem now is that unlike bears who had to think of something fast or starve, people who where affected by the changes just migrated away where they still found trash to eat with their fellow bear-brothers and -sisters. And they don't have any real reason to come back if the Skullheart does address their opinions and opens up OT again.

 

[Kai]

So we bears now? I'll be Winnie the Pooh.
This place is on fire

@Yellowstone Park: The problem now is that unlike bears who had to think of something fast or starve, people who where affected by the changes just migrated away where they still found trash to eat with their fellow bear-brothers and -sisters. And they don't have any real reason to come back if the Skullheart does address their opinions and opens up OT again.

IF THIS HAD BEEN A METAPHOR

OT-only posters would be garbage bears

and I don't think anyone cares if they come back

some park rangers just want the regular visitors to be able to picnic again

 

[ElementFree]

you calling us garbage?
sick burn

 

[chickenwithtie]

But being fat and jolly is all I ever wanted

 

[mcpeanuts]

IF THIS HAD BEEN A METAPHOR

OT-only posters would be garbage bears

and I don't think anyone cares if they come back

some park rangers just want the regular visitors to be able to picnic again

I don't feel like people posting in OT affects my ability to post in the gameplay subforums at all.

 

[Kai]

I don't feel like people posting in OT affects my ability to post in the gameplay subforums at all.

Then your opinion reflects that of many others.

 

[chickenwithtie]

So you don't care if a large part of users go away? You DO want this forum to be for skullplayers only? The ten of them, that is.

 

[Kai]

So you don't care if a large part of users go away? You DO want this forum to be for skullplayers only? The ten of them, that is.

What I want is not important. This forum isn't only for me. I don't care about Ramen Rider, Persona, or who the best girl is. Some people do, though, and their discussions don't hinder mine. I've seen some cool art, some interesting aborted fan-projects, and things I would have never seen otherwise in OT, so I found it valuable.

It's pretty easy for me to look at people who only post in OT and wonder why they're even here, though. If those people never came back, I doubt this forum would be any worse off for it.