An Explanation for the last 24 hours. (Long)
A history
First problems
My Leaving
Unacceptable (if you skip everything else read this)
A history.
This site used to be the best example of hobbyists coming together, and trying help one another enjoy something they had in common. I am sure it is rose colored glasses of nostalgia, but I literally remember ZERO issues of personal attacks, or anything thing that made me feel uncomfortable.
Perhaps at the time it was because we were mostly men in our late 20s and early 30s on an internet filled with literal children. For those not here at the time the core group of people were on a site called town hall until 1999 (I think) and then RPGhost until 2008.
If you have seen the age chart of our members
https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=353
you can see we were older than most forums. This simply made us better than most forums of the time. Civil, respectful, supportive and most of all able to ignore things we didn't like.
Ok back to 2008. RPGhost decides that forums are not worth the effort. Lots of people were doing similar even IMDB eventually got rid of their forums and it drove half their traffic. I happened to have all the tools to be able to copy it. I had the software, I had the skills to pull all existing data, I was a web developer with 14 years experience. It was perfect.
The existing group of people had built a great society in this small backwater forum and if I could save it, it was worth the effort.
I had zero concerns about administration beyond removing the occational spammer that afflicted every forum. Easy enough to manage.
First problems
The first real problems arose pretty early in my run. Late in 2008 a very solid group of researchers (DC working group) wanted to improve the history in the game and push that history forward. Their primary goal was to flesh out the war years in T2k by playing a massive war-game (GDW Third World War) to end up with the same result of existing units, but the specific ebb and flow or the war and the interaction of individual units could be tracked and used to flesh out unit histories that might have only been given a paragraph in the published works. I became close with them as I could build out the gaming tokens they needed, and my work with creating google maps with units would mesh nicely with what they were producing. I think the group would have been wildly successful if that was all they had done. Everyone wanted more details. But if you notice I also said they wanted to push the history forward as well.
This group was American. This group was filled with problem solvers. This group was patriotic and wanted to come up with a plan for the US to pull itself back together after the twilight war. For some reason I still don't fully understand (as they could just ignore it), this really did not sit well with some forum members. And thus the canon wars (which never really existed in our game) were brought to our doorstep. Two members (one of whom is still here and still causing problems see "Unacceptable" below) brought the first real shafts of darkness I remember. One member was in the DC Group. One member was the most vocal member of those who opposed them. Again I still don't understand opposing something creative you can just ignore, but I digress. It got nasty. It got personal. It led to bans. I got accused of giving personal favor. There may have been slight favor due to my friendships (in the form of leeway). But overall I remember the greatest accusation being that I allowed the DC member back earlier. This was due to the fact that I allowed the opposition a few days to PM people if they wanted to before I instituted the ban. The bans were the same length, but I have found the people who cause the most trouble on sites like ours is that they look for things outside of themselves as being the problem.
I am reflective and look inward for the cause of problems even when I have no reason to. Anecdotally my father was always late in picking me up (weekend dad). I still remember being 8 or so and he once again, he was 45 minutes late and I am waiting outside. And even thought it was the hundredth time i still am thinking "Did he tell me 11 o'clock". I have always looked inside myself to see what my part of the problem is before I blame others. I did not manage the canon wars perfectly. Honestly I was too lenient all around. I wanted everyone even those in opposition to what I wanted to be happy.
The forum started a process of losing people that it has never recovered from. The DC group disbanded. One member leaving immediately and the rest slowly going over time. Chico checks in once in a while, but the magic was fading and with time more and more people would leave.
My Leaving.
Over the next decade I was still pretty active on the forum. While we kept losing people it was slow and we got some new people. I built some tools. I honestly focused on Morrow Project in my own research. There were some times I was not very attentive but we had a pretty solid moderation team of active users when I wasn't. We had another round of negativity when T2k13 was in production and then released. I think there might have been a ban or two. Again I still don't get people not being able to simply ignore something they don't like.
Late in this decade I am discussing my Girlfriend was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer. I am going to be honest she HATED this forum. She knew I agonized over trying to keep it running smoothly and she saw it as nothing but wasted effort that could be undone in an instant by few people who acted like children. I left the forum completely as her illness progressed. I will unapologeticly say this forum did not deserve my effort during that time.
After she passed, I did not feel anything for this forum. Most of the people I had respected had gone. The loudest voices had personalities that just grated me. And she didn't want me here. I passed the torch onto someone I trusted and respected. Long term member who was willing to take the reins. I would still handle technical issues.
Unacceptable
Ok so a new canon approaches. Great. Lets open those doors to a fresh hell. Apparently feeling that their voices were being stifled regarding the new work, five members chose to band together to push out our Admin because he was not letting them get negative enough. You can see a post in my warning thread where they just want a place to be as negative as they want. That post shows an air or civility, when in a back room they were both planning how to push our admin out (with the added bonus of a veiled death threat) and to use my forum to "Slam" FL into changing their game. The other poster with a ban history was not directly involved in this cabal, but he had the same goals and is therefore being watched carefully. When the cabal was confronted, they again blamed outward and not inward. "You should have let us say what we want and this never would have happened" (paraphrasing) You know what, you should not let your selfishness push you to destroy something enjoyed by hundreds. But I know this personality type and my statements will fall on deaf ears, as these types of people NEVER look inward.
This is not what I signed up for when I chose to give people a voice supporting a hobby. Rae is still fighting to keep this place alive. I could not care less, but I will back his plays. He is passionate about keeping it alive so I think the run will keep going.
I expect the problem people will once again claim that everything else is at fault, but they brought this negativity. They are the ones who insist it is needed. But I am assuming by most people who are still here, they are the ones not wanted.