A reminder, and a warning.

[kato13]

This forum does not need to exist. Life would go on without it.

This forum does not need to allow anyone to post. As an archive it still would be a useful resource and keeping it as such fulfills any promises I made about maintaining the said archive.

I have dealt with enough agonizing slow deaths in my life (both in the past and currently) and if I see this forum going down this path, I WILL PULL THE PLUG. Either literally or in the form of a post lockdown.

No one here wants to censor or ban. They want civility. They want people to respect one another. They want to keep things positive and constructive.

However it things start spiraling downward and the voices of rancor and antipathy start to drown out the reasonable and positive voices. the microphone can be shut off for everyone.


Some facts to consider

• I hold all the cards here.
• I don't like something I built, being used as a hammer against another's creative process (even if i disagree with many parts of their process).
• As this site no longer gives me joy a shutdown or lockdown would be painless for me.
• Legally this site needs moderation and if my selected moderators decide to bail I am not going to open myself to legal risk .
• Most of the loyalty I felt to the community has been poisoned by the actions of a few

So we sit on a precipice. Do those of you who are actively being harmful to this forum want to push me?

<edit added>
I fully support my mod team.

Failure to abide by forum guidelines will result in immediate action by the admin and/or mod team.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

People will get emotional over many, many things. It's part of being human.
There's been a lot of emotion and venting going on lately.

Does that mean people are actively trying to destroy other people's work or harm the forum? Personally, I doubt it.
There have certainly been arguments but typically people cool down afterwards and move on. But obviously it has really bugged some people because they tended to go from 0 to 100 and completely engage full on howler monkey mode.

But it appears that the biggest problem we've had at the moment is throwing around such labels as "this is junk", "the background is utter crap", "trying to destroy", "toxic" and so on, that has just made people even more emotional so that now the whole thing is an overwrought, over-reaction to anything that is perceived to hurt someone else's feelings.

What we should have done right from the beginning, is set up a "saloon" with very explicitly stated rules about it being a place where people can talk shit and vent but you leave it in the saloon and you don't get personal, you don't get racial, you don't get political. Apply a three strikes and your out policy (as in, you get one warning for first offence, a temporary ban for the second offence and a permanent ban for the third offence).
As much as we would all like the world to be puppy dogs and rainbows, we have to acknowledge that arguments do happen and we probably should have set up a space for that to happen to prevent them from spilling over into the main threads.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

People will get emotional over many, many things. It's part of being human.
There's been a lot of emotion and venting going on lately.

Does that mean people are actively trying to destroy other people's work or harm the forum? Personally, I doubt it.
There have certainly been arguments but typically people cool down afterwards and move on. But obviously it has really bugged some people because they tended to go from 0 to 100 and completely engage full on howler monkey mode.

But it appears that the biggest problem we've had at the moment is throwing around such labels as "this is junk", "the background is utter crap", "trying to destroy", "toxic" and so on, that has just made people even more emotional so that now the whole thing is an overwrought, over-reaction to anything that is perceived to hurt someone else's feelings.

What we should have done right from the beginning, is set up a "saloon" with very explicitly stated rules about it being a place where people can talk shit and vent but you leave it in the saloon and you don't get personal, you don't get racial, you don't get political. Apply a three strikes and your out policy (as in, you get one warning for first offence, a temporary ban for the second offence and a permanent ban for the third offence).
As much as we would all like the world to be puppy dogs and rainbows, we have to acknowledge that arguments do happen and we probably should have set up a space for that to happen to prevent them from spilling over into the main threads.

When I built this place none of what you described was needed. As it is no longer what was intended it may be time to end it. If you want that build it somewhere else.

Play nice, be constructive, be civil. Second statement of this.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by kato13

When I built this place none of what you described was needed. As it is no longer what was intended it may be time to end it. If you want that build it somewhere else.

Play nice, be constructive, be civil. Second statement of this.

I agree. Part of what I like about this forum is people pleasantly offering advice or opinions. There are a lot of folks here who know more than I do about things I am curious about, and sharing experience is enjoyable. I do not want to debate politics, religion, or other such issues. I come here because I love the game setting. Surely disagreements can be done in a polite way, and disengaging is a great solution when you don't really know the people except through a screen.

[kato13]

An additional reminder. Wholesale copying and re-posting of this website to another website would be a violation of the DMCA and would result in legal action. Individuals are of course free to re-post their own content anywhere as they are the original copyright holder but as a whole the full contents of this site are mine.

Remember when I said I hold "ALL the CARDS".


(Because of this I am removing the Archive portion of the site as it was my own attempt to save posts from another site.) The first real permanent causality.


You can't just be civil? You can't just be respectful? Your crusade is so important and your egos are so large you cant just follow rules and listen to the instructions of the admin team?

[kato13]

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.

[Raellus]

Dear Forum Juhlin members and visitors,

Here at Forum Juhlin, we pride ourselves in providing a venue where fans of all version of Twilight 2000 can share their passion for all things T2k. Personally, I'm a v1 timeline, v2.2 rules guy. But that's me, and I don't begrudge anyone their own individual version preferences.

Recently, there's been some acrimony in the threads dedicated to discussion of Free League's (henceforth referred to as FL) 4th edition (henceforth referred to as v4).

The admin/mod team here at Forum Juhlin does not have any personal stakes in this debate, other than wanting to preserve and expand the legacy of this fine forum. We are not employees or affiliates of Free League (or any other game company, for that matter). We receive no outside support or funding of any kind. This is a labor of love. There is no conflict of interest.

We do not promote any particular version/edition of T2k here (or elsewhere). We're not advocating that forum members like or buy any particular edition of T2k, new or old. We simply ask that public criticism of v4, or any other version for that matter, is constructive and delivered in a civil manner, as per long-standing forum guidelines. That is all. Here is why.

With new products come new fans- fans that have never heard of Twilight 2000 before; fans that might become curious about the franchise's long and storied history. Regardless of its own merits, or lack thereof if you prefer, v4 can be a gateway that leads new fans to discover v1-2.2 and/or T2013, via this forum. We see this as a win-win. This is not a zero sum game.

We do not want incessant antipathy directed at v4 to scare these potential new "old" Twilight 2000 fans away. Creating an environment of pervasive negativity surrounding topics that might interest certain members of the fan community is essentially gatekeeping. It sends the message that "This is a version X forum! If you like version Y, you are not welcome here."

Venting can be healthy, in moderation. But it can also be counterproductive. In my opinion, it became the latter some time ago. Below is a brief, but representative, example from a very active T2k Discord server. In this exchange, the posters, who are also members of this forum, are discussing ongoing efforts to stir up trouble here.

NAME REDACTED — Today at 8:44 AM
At this point I just want the T2K old guard to keep slamming them for basically just jacking the name
NAME REDACTED — Today at 8:59 AM
Which we are doing, best as we can.

---

("them" being Free League, and "the name" being Twilight 2000)

This approach is in no way constructive and, IMHO, goes beyond healthy venting. Other venues for "venting" exit elsewhere online (for example, said Discord group). FL is not monitoring this forum. "Slamming them" here is highly unlikely to influence FL to change its product. It's a pointless exercise in negativity for negativity's sake. It's only true objective is to stir up trouble. Ergo, the behavior outlined above is what, in internet parlance, constitutes, "shitposting". This is also a violation of our forum guidelines.

Anyone and everyone is welcome to participate fully on this forum, as long as they abide by its guidelines. The OG Twilight fan-base is too small to split asunder in unproductive, internecine "Version Wars" (or it's little brother, "Canon Wars"). We do not want to alienate fans of any version of Twilight 2000. Members, if some fans want to discuss a version that you don't like, leave them in peace to do so and, instead of trying to talk them out of liking what they like, find or start a different thread where you can discussion the version(s) you do like. Bottom line is, all fans are welcome here, new and old. We want the community to grow and thrive. There's no reason respective fans of all versions can't coexist peacefully on this forum.

That all said, this is a moderated forum. We expect all members to consistently follow the forum guidelines. We have guidelines for a reason- to maintain a venue for civil, constructive discussion. Violations of forum guidelines will not be tolerated.

Thank you for your support of this forum.

Respectfully,

The Admin/Mod Team

-