Explanation regarding the e-drama: IK contest banning and donation money

[Omake]

If you haven't figured it out by now, this is Mut using a gimmick account.

So I hear that a fair amount of people aren't too happy with what I've done and said. You guys have been talking about a lot of things while not knowing the whole story and I've been reading them and I'm not too sure if I should laugh my ass off or apologize. Honestly, I do feel that I've been screwed over to a certain degree. But first off, let me just say that I do realize that this is just e-drama bullshit which many of you don't give two shits about. That's fine with me. I know this is just a small matter which I can just laugh off and ignore, but I'm stubborn and I do feel somewhat bad about spoiling the two series for some of you.

Anyway, the reason why this whole fiasco happened isn't because I'm mad about AssertnFailure breaking one of the rules of the IK thread. I did what I did because I found it to be complete bullshit that while one person can ignore rules and its consequences for breaking them, while the 17 other people haven't been able to say a word about it.

I have to you a little background story about this or you guys will start talking out of your asses again without knowing what really happened. Since the first IK thread a decent number of people, some pretty cool guys, have been banned. The total time of the banning for the 17 other people exceeds over 1 year; 14 months and 1 day. These people participated in the IK contest and were banned after they broke a rule or when they guessed a ban number. AssertnFailure broke one of the rules in the first IK contest and he was supposed to be banned for 1 week. But of course, seeing as how he was a mod, he felt that he should've been exempt from the bans. He and I went for a few days banning and unbanning AssertnFailure's account and I gave up since I didn't believe that AssertnFailure shouldn't have been able to do what he did; break the rules and get away with it. But that whole deal went over a month passed by and we had the second IK contest. Everything went fine and smooth as I expected. But AssertnFailure broke the rules once again and unbanned himself after I had banned him for 2 days. Then you know the rest.

Some people, including AssertnFailure, think he should be able to get away from breaking the rules (which Wilik had approved of) because he has to do his job as a moderator. Well, fuck you guys. That just means, he is allowed to get away with EVERY rule outside of the IK contest. Some of you will say that's stretching it, but I don't think so. We got to draw the line somewhere and it's completely unfair for others if not everyone has different limitations they can push when it comes to unbanning (much bigger deal than getting warned). When I posted all those spoilers I was merely using AssertnFailure's reasoning and logic of: "I didn't know the rules were there". Also, I never once thought I was going to escape getting banned for posting the spoilers. AssertnFailure, if you're going to be exempt from breaking the same rule twice, do everyone a favor and unban all the people who were banned. You're just being completely unfair.

Now, moving on to the next thing. I've many times brought up the lack of attention the admin staff pays to its forum. Some things have improved since the last time I and others have bitched about this. One thing still hasn't changed though. Krbadass. Honestly, this guy is a terrible admin. I'm not even saying this because he banned me. I've always thought this ever since I became a mod over a year ago. Do people know what his job is? Does anyone know what his job as an admin? He's suppose to be the mediator between the regular users and the forum staff. What a great job he's done, yeah? I actually applied for that spot in when I was a mod because I believed that such job should've been given to someone who is actually active, frequently visits the boards, and knows the forum community very well. But I got declined because Ciber is a fucking tool. Anyway, I had confronted Krbadass about AssertnFailure's actions and demanded to know why one is above the rules Wilik approved of. This was the kind response I was given: "I don't care, don't bug me". How about a round of applause for our great admin?

Okay, for the donations. It was never my intent to steal the money from you folks. I still haven't, and as a matter of fact, I'm still receiving donations. I still plan on meeting up with some of the GW people, including AssertnFailure (but I will be forced to kick the shit out of him once I see him). I currently have received ~$135 from donations and that's excluding the money people said they would donate. I'm still accepting donations and I would love to see all of us meet up. I am not going to run with the money, you stupid faggots. Whoever thought that are total idiots.

Anyway, this is my last post in GotWoot. I have made some great friends here and I still talk to the people that matter. I have been planning on posting a "banme" thread for a while now. I've tried my hardest to improve the forums with the little powers I've been given, but it seems that the task is impossible when certain people always intervene. I'm not bitter about what's happened. By banning me, you guys aren't taking anything away from me. In fact, I'm taking myself away from GotWoot and its community. So long, fuckers.









Convo from gtalk
Sean: i'ma start writing now
ythealien: will you finish tonight
Sean: YES
will you
ythealien: yes
Sean: then it's a
race
ythealien: lol
and we all know I hate those!
Sean: hahaha

[Y]

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." - Thomas Brackett Reed

I think the time's about right for this.

When you're participating in a forum with low standards for discussion, there are two options you can pursue. One, you can attempt to change them directly or indirectly, and two, you can leave.

I think it's almost undeniable that Gotwoot has low standards for discussion. Let's be honest here - anime fans are a low-quality group of contributors to base a forum around. The demographic is skewed to young people more concerned with being inactive participants - i.e. sitting on their asses and watching television. Their age makes it more likely that they're at a low reading/writing level, and it really shows in the dozens and dozens of content-free posts in episode discussion threads. The vast majority of posts in those threads are vapid one-line shitposts expressing basic like or dislike with a smiley attached, that serve no purpose at all - if you aren't giving a detaild impression of something, why would we care whether you like or dislike it, since you're just some faceless internet nobody defined only by your writing? It'd be a fucking miracle if most of those posters could even capitalize their one-line posts, much less put more thought into them.

If these kind of posts were frowned upon, it'd be one thing. If a high standard of posting was trying to be enforced, it'd be one thing. But God knows that's impossible in this situation. For one, the sheer volume of worthless or detrimental posts is impossible for the mod staff to keep up with. Each of the main anime forums accumulates several hundred no-content posts on a day of release, not counting the ones that actually have some content but have horrible spelling, grammar or other flaws. Then you get the Anime Downloads forum, where I wrote a sticky that answers literally 95%+ of all threads posted in the forum since I wrote it - which of course didn't do anything to stop the endless flood of morons. Jesus, how many people have posted to ask where to download Naruto? Moving onto other forums, note that the BT support forum has six posts asking the same question on the first page. Anime Support has almost nothing but questions answered in kAi's sticky. General Discussion is dominated by no-content posts like the 3 word game. The amount of shitty posts is absolutely impossible to stem.

"Why fools are endowed by nature with voices so much louder than sensible people possess is a mystery." - Hertzler

Furthermore, it isn't as though there is an isolated bastion of good posters railing against this constant stream of bullshit. If anyone responded directly to the tons of shitty posts in the anime forums they'd get warned for flaming. As a mod, if I started removing every no-content or worthless post from any given forum I'd get removed due to complaints from users who want nothing but standards lowered to their level. Admin intervention is nonexistent since Wilik has turned his attention to better projects and krb contributes to the problem by removing any possibility of a thread on subjects relevant to reality like politics, religion or philosophy (though philosophy threads aren't directly banned, any one of them would be dragged down instantly into a flamewar between immature morons with positions they cribbed from their parents and emo punk music). Not that I can blame the guy - God knows that no discussion on those subjects could succeed on Gotwoot.

So, from the beginning, I knew the odds were against me - debate threads are almost impossible, the poster base is the root of the problem, etc. For a time I tried to set up a decent example. Yes, I am a pretty negative poster, because there is a lot to be negative about at these forums. I don't post no content posts (my one emoticon replies, of which there are several, encompass all that I feel needs said on a subject when I use them). If you can't directly stop the flow of awful shitposts, maybe you can beat them with a better quality example to work up to (modesty is never something I've had too much of).

That, as is readily obvious, is a fucking pipe dream. Most of the halfway decent posters either migrated to IRC or left. The new blood coming into the forums mostly consists of 1 post members repeating questions already asked in the support forums. This, combined with my growing disinterest in keeping up with shitty ongoing Japanese cartoons, has led to this post. It's a shitty community full of people who don't care whether they're contributing anything worth reading, and it's going downhill. The spiral downwards that kills all Internet discussions has been going on for a while here - the original members disappear, are banned or give up on the forums, the staff vanishes due to disinterest, the new blood produces little of value.

I'm absolutely sure that most of the responses to this post will be "Fuck, Y, if you don't like it so much why don't you leave!" Hell, even though I'm about to answer that question, you'll still post it - I don't expect that everyone who responds will bother reading. The answer is that this is my last post here at Gotwoot for the forseeable future. If I stayed here I'd just start banning the shit out of people who shit posted in my threads. Ironically, getting the mods was probably the final straw and not Mut's banning, because I'll eventually just start abusing them for the hell of it - simply because it isn't worth it to try and prop up the community.

The bans I placed on a few of our more worthless members will get undone almost immediately, I'm sure. And really, it doesn't matter, because they've won in the end, haven't they?

The first post in this thread will be Mut, using my backup account, to post his last account of things, and then krb can do whatever the fuck he wants with both my accounts. Note: I don't necessarily agree with any of the statements Mut posts using my backup, I'm just letting him air out his dirty laundry.

Well, that's that. If you have any comments you can find out where to contact me easily enough.

See you on the other side.

[Turkish-S]

Y if you really want those debates why don't you (or someone else who has the power to do this ) make a forum where only a handfull of chosen people can post then you can have your so called threads about reality like politics, religion or philosophy.

And my 3 word story OWNZZZ...

As for you 2 are leaving i couldn't care less really i only come here to post some random shit and download anime because i'm too lazy to search for them myself...

[Uchiha Barles]

Huh...this is unfortunate. It's unfortunate when familiar faces that were welcome and have been around for awhile dissappear because of "e-drama" or what they percieve to be a decline in the community of people frequenting a forum. Personally, much of the things mentioned in Y's post doesn't bother me. I have this amazing ability to select the users who's posts I read, and a pretty good ability to scan rapidly through bullshit. Again, its unfortunate you guys feel this way, but your positions are clean and justified, from what I'm reading here anyway. So, I guess there's nothing left to say but Goodbye. Take it easy guys.

[2:25]

But both of you spent so much time on this forum...isn't there an attachment of some sort? Isn't it...a waste?

And though you two aren't exactly the nicest guys around, it was users like you who made Gotwoot interesting. Trust me, both of you will be miss.

I do sorta regret not knowing you well enough, Mut.
Take care dudes. Hopefully, you'll both change your minds one day.

[Wilik]

Im not even sure where to start with this, I have come to enjoy talking to both of you on a daily basis, yes I do belittle you or talk shit to you, but hell if you notice you guys usually get the most of my attention be it on IRC or even on the forums. While I can safely say I havent been the best admin recently, on the flip side I can say I have tried my best to make things work out for Mut be it good or bad, usually I try to evaluate and correct the issue. As for me moving on, yes that is true, I have become slightly tired of being the only active admin, its up to me to make sure everything is working smoothly and its a rather tough job. A job I didnt sign on to do alone, I originally had help, help which has vanished.

In the end im torn between the people who have been here since the start and the majority of the users who have managed to figure out how to signup and post 1 post. Part of me wants to cater to the old timers while another part of me wants to make sure the 'majority' gets what they want/need. In the end it is a losing battle, the number of new users who just break the rules and dont bother to figure out how to use simple functions such as search and 'next' on the forums far out number those who know the rules and know what search even means.

I guess in a way this is my form of an appology to all those members who do follow the rules while other users just walk all over them with no regard to what we have attempted to establish here. In the end I suppose it doesn't even matter, people will do what they do best, and no matter how hard we work to stop the shit posting it'll never end. I do hope you guys keep in touch and I hope to see you around on my other projects, you'd be a welcomed addition to anything I work on.

The ever so distant admin, Wilik...

[Assertn]

What a bunch of pathetic whiners. I admit the forums have severely dimnished from what it used to be too, but I still come back. Why? Because I've gotten to know the people that frequent these forums. I stick around for them, not for the forum itself. If you never saw these bonds past the multiple nested folders and subfolders of php code and database ascii then that's your own loss. Who cares if a new member shows up every week to ask a dumb question? Who cares if some people don't use proper punctuation in their posts? If you were hanging out with a group of friends, and some snotty nosed kid walks up to you and asks in a poor dialect where the bathroom is, do you just say "Fuck this shit" and lock yourselves in your rooms? If George Bush starts a war in a country and you don't approve, do you just move out of the country? Who cares about the politics....who cares about the wandering passerbys. You two can just sit in your little elitist treehouse and talk goon shop if you insist.

Mut: What interest do you have in being part of a GW gathering if you dont even want to associate yourself with gotwoot? If a friend betrayed me for whatever reason, then I sure wouldnt ask them to come hang out at a party in MY apartment this upcoming May. And don't compare betrayal to me unbanning myself either. Your farfetched attempts at justification are anything but just.

Y: Nothing else to say about you, you're just a lackey-without-a-cause

As for the proposal for removing the IK bans.....fair enough. I always knew that banning random members for months is a terrible idea for a dying forum anyway.

[Lefty]

I have to say I'm goiong to miss you guys. Your what made the forums interesting. Granted alot of shit came raining down from you guys, it was all in good fun. Turkish, shut up. Be some what respectful to people. You post some really pointless suff most of the time and get alot of the old crochty guiys like Mut and Y all rilled up in the first place. If you had joined in they're or my time you would have been eaten alive and banned. Willik You do the best you can do with what you got.

[Terracosmo]

I agree with almost all the points Mut and Y brought forth, most prominently the one about Krbadass, who is a moron plain and simple. I think that Wilik does a good job when he's active, and I can sympathize with him saying that it's hard/annoying to be the only admin. Then let me just ask you boss, why the hell did you choose a douche like Kr to be your backup? I'd gladly adminstrate this place because I love it to death. Seriously. Sure, there are stupid newbloods and whatnot (points Mut & Y both brought forth better than I can ever do), but the core members and the Gotwoot air is still around, at least that's how I feel. I'd be very sad if GW disappeared. 70% of my online time is propably spent here and I have lots of great mates and fun morons that hate me (and I hate them even more back). Mut & Y are two foundations to what makes GW enjoyable for me. I never got along well with Y (probably cuz we almost never talked) but his posts have always been amusing. Mut is a one-of-a-kind bitch.

Both of you will be missed.

[Zhan]

Respect. You have your reasons and I'm not gonna say anything except I'm gonna miss you guys. You guys were two of the few people who made me come to browse these forums as much as I did, I even learnt a lot from you both. Cheers dudes.

[DB_Hunter]

You know its come to a point now that when I see a thread, any thread, I wonder is there any point in posting a reply. Back when I joined and up to about a year from that point the forums were really good, as was IRC. Since then the forum has steadily deteriorated in the quality of its content and the conversations between people. Even spam threads, such as the 3 word thread that I take part in, used to be of a higher level. Nowadays it honestly seems as though you just have kids of about 12 or 13 sitting there who have just hit puberty writing out a list of anything thats gonna get them horny. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that kids shouldn't come to these forums, it is an anime forum afterall which loads of kids would be attracted to and would like to take part in.

Perhaps there should be a forum where only members capable of mature posts should take part in. Who will decide who is a mature poster and who is not, I confess I havn't thought of that. But I do miss the old days when posting was fun and not just an attempt at trying to remain part of a declined community. It's unfortunate that some of the old users have lost interest and left.

As for Mut and Y, well what can I say. Mut my first memories of intereacting with you where not pleasant. I thought then you were an arsehole and I would still pretty much agree with that conclusion today. You were a major part of the board and did keep the forums going, but a lot of times you did take the piss and picked on others. It seemed to have lessened of late, I don't know maybe because I was paying less attention to the forums.

Y, I don't think I have spoken to you. From what I read of your posts I thought you flamed some people unecessarily. Your point about religion, politics and philosophy is spot on... banning discussion on topics like these are a sure fire way to kill most useful discussion that is relevant to the world we live in. However, there have been people in threads like those before who are too damn emotional to take a point and resort to lame nationalistic arguments that have been drummed into their heads since the started school.

Perhaps there should be a forum for approved users only, at the risk of creating a two tier/ ass kissing forum. I don't know, there so much going on in the world today maybe somebody will spend the time to figure out how to kick start these forums again.

[Terracosmo]

We could have a bootcamp for all new posters and if they can't pass the trials they get kicked off [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

Seriously though, it's all fine with kids and whatnot as long as the forums doesn't reach this level. I do miss the old forums though. They were so fucking hot. And if I recall correctly, they were also free. So why did we ever change :S

[basey44]

hey i know i havent been here from the start, and i wish i joined earlier, but you two are a core of this forum and it wont be the same without you. but i dont understand wats happened here at admin level, and why more people couldnt be assigned as mods like it was before. yea theres a lot of shit posting and im finding myself not posting as much here as i did at the start simply because of lack of intersting threads, but a fair bit of the core (from what i have come to understand as the core for the past year) is still here. with you guys gone i think the dynamic of this forum will change, and not really for the better

[Jadugar]

There was only one thing that attracted me to this forum, Y and Mut's posts.
Although I havent been here long enough but I feell like I know them. You two will be missed.

[NM]

All I can say is that the forums are going to be really different now that you two have decided to leave. The both of you are part of what made GotWoot a great place to be. And I will say that back when I was a noob here, I learned my way around the forums from your posts such as in Anime Downloads, BT Support, Naruto, etc. Hell, if it weren't for you guys, I probably would've been one of those shit posters that don't use the search function or do my own searching for anime. I dunno if you guys consider me one of those cool people you met and such but I do feel that both of you were really cool, even if you guys did make fun of me and stuff in Irc but I know that it was all in good fun.

Wilik, you need to give yourself a break, you do enough as it is for GotWoot. I remember you telling me how you have to keep the server and such up just so AnimeOne can get their torrents on here. And you have that warning system to manage, among other administrator things. And also, I should apologize to you as well. I still owe you a bunch of banners for one of your projects but I've been so busy since my college work keeps piling. But I promise I'll get those to you asap.

Mut and Y, take it easy you guys. If you both still plan on that GW meetup with Assertn, Eurasian, Jaredster, and anyone else, I hope you all have a blast.

[KitKat]

It seems that Y and Mut have made up their minds, and there is no going back. I'll miss them for sure, a lot of us will. Some of you are probably glad they're gone. Regardless, the question that remains is this: How do we as a community respond? Or rather, how should you as an individual respond?

With the whole admin and mod issues aside, we as a community must take some responsibility here. The quality of the forums and the posts depends on no one else but you. Every time you post you make a decision to either contribute to a discussion or make a content-less comment. Take some time to do a search of your posts over the last few months and evaluate what kind of a contribution you have been making. Every person is a part of the community, and each one of us determines what the community will be by what we post. And as I have said before, the quality of discussion also determines the quality of people who sign up and become new members. So ultimately, each of us needs to decide, what do we want this forum to be? Do we want it to end up looking like the Naruto forum on anarchy day? Or do we want it to be a place where we can come for fun and interesting discussion? Whatever you decide, it will show in your posts.

Once you have decided this, only then can we address things like administration and forum infrastructure. In my mind, these issues pale in comparison to the first. And for all the criticism there has been on the administration front, I'd like to point out that complich8 is at the forums daily, patiently answering even the silliest support questions with very clear and comprehensive answers. He also gave name changes to many people on request and is always available when there are questions. Wilik is also usually available on irc. If you guys want them to care about the forum more, then make them care by making the forum a better place to be.

[Kagemane_no_Jutsu]

Looks like this is the end, huh guys?

Well I can honestly say that I stopped being a regular member some time ago. Shortly after Naruto had gotten liscenced I realised that the forum had gone to shit. I used to enjoy it so much here, the naruto manga forum was the best and you would almost never find a non-intelligent post in there. Now it feels like everythings been taken over. So much that I completely stopped going into any forum except the Anime Fanart section. I do feel as though a great thing has gotten ruined, slowly deterriarating over time. But nothing good lasts forever. Mut and Y are nothing but good guys who did nothing but try to make this forum a better place. You dont see Krb making all these fun interesting threads do you? Seriously though if your attitude towards this forum is "I cant be bothered" then just do us all a favor and leave. Let the people who know the community take over and watch it flourish. Noobs wouldnt be neglected, they could just learn from example as NM and I both did. I hope you guys still come back to IRC, the online friendship isnt worth destroying.

Mut you have my AIM if you ever start up a new forum or some project I'd be more then willing to join. Peace guys.

[Winged Dancer]

Two good posters and they leave... well fuck. Really, Y's post were the smartest thing ever posted around, and Mut's were, at the very very least, funny.

I can't say much given that, even if I'm an "oldie", I'm not that much around, and I haven't been following the e-drama so closely, but I can at least relate to the reasons they expose, and I also agree that there was some degree of unfairness in there.

Again, it's a shame to see you guys leave, but what can one do? Best of luck! As Kagemane just said, if you ever start some forums or a new project, drop by and tell us about it, we'll be there or at least visit and make fun.

[Krbadass]

Well guys.. I've talked with mut and it seems we've come to somewhat of an understanding. I obviously haven't been the greatest admin lately. My only excuse is that ive been very preoccupied lately. I was fired and broke up with my g/f on the same day. So ive been job searching and scrounging for money just to pay my bills.. Life sucks so i haven't had much time for gotwoot and if i've brought any negativity to gotwoot i appologize. I think i will have a little more time now so if ANYONE has any suggestions for me just shoot them my way. I appologize to Mut and Terra for not being understanding enough.

-KRB

[Kagemane_no_Jutsu]

Originally posted by: Krbadass
Well guys.. I've talked with mut and it seems we've come to somewhat of an understanding. I obviously haven't been the greatest admin lately. My only excuse is that ive been very preoccupied lately. I was fired and broke up with my g/f on the same day. So ive been job searching and scrounging for money just to pay my bills.. Life sucks so i haven't had much time for gotwoot and if i've brought any negativity to gotwoot i appologize. I think i will have a little more time now so if ANYONE has any suggestions for me just shoot them my way. I appologize to Mut and Terra for not being understanding enough.

-KRB

That was a ballsy post krb, but I hope we can get mut and Y back. The community cant be the same without them. I'm always willing to help out with gw if you need some work to get done.